See other formats

Full text of "Historical lights; six thousand quotations from standard histories and biographies .."

AT LOS ANGELES 




. 


n 






Gift of 
Redlands University 



'i^w kaiwiiniftlL 



HISTORICAL LIGHTS: 



SIX THOUSAI^D QITOTATIOKS 



FROM 



STANDARD HISTORIES AND BIOGRAPHIES, 



WITH TWENTY THOUSAND CROSS-REFERENCES, AND A 

GENERAL INDEX, ALSO AN INDEX OF 

PERSONAL NAMES. 



THESE EXTRACTS CONSIST CHIEFLY OF FACTS AND INCIDENTS. THEY ARE DESIGNED FOR 
THOSE WHO DESIRE READY ACCESS TO THE EVENTS, THE LESSONS AND THE PREC- 
EDENTS OF HISTORY, IN THE PREPARATION OF ADDRESSES, ESSAYS AND 
SERMONS, ALSO IN PLEADING AT THE BAR, IN DISCUSSING 
POLITICAL ISSUES, AND IN WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 



COMPILED BY 



Eev. CHARLES E. LITTLE, 
Author of "Biblical Lights and SideLights." 

" JShMtmine History, for it is Philosophy teaching by Experience." — Carltlk. 



Sfconb 6Mtion. 



FUNK & WAGNALLS: 

. NEW YORK: 1888. LONDON: 

18 and 20 Astor Place. 44 FLEET STREET 

All Bights ^^^erved. 

^ 2. • 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by 

FUNK & WAGNALLS, 

In the OfBce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



PRE FAC E 



^ 

\ 



Historical statements awaken in the average mind an interest which proves 
the existence of a hidden element in them, that does not pertain to a mere record of 
facts. The marvels of history, and its prosy facts as well, not only attest the oneness 
of human nature and the unity of human experience, but they also forecast a shadowy 
premonition of coming events. This thought has found its graceful expression in 
the words of a German writer, who says : "All history is an imprisoned epic — nay, 
an imprisoned psalm and prophecy." 

While historical statements address our curiosity for knowledge, they also 

stimulate the imagination to give realistic coloring to the picture presented to the 

mind. Hence it is that historical fields will ever prove chosen grounds for reference 

and illustration by those who address the public. • • n 

This volume is the outgrowth of certain lines of historical readings, ongmally 

-^ designed for the author's personal benefit, and to aid in the preparation of sermons 

^ and addresses. After nearly twenty-five years of reading and brief mdexmg of 

z interesting facts and incidents, a mass of quotations has accumulated, and under 

^ the natural law of selection this volume represents the " survival of the fittest." 

It is not presumed that the field of selection is exhausted, or that omissions have 
not been made of numerous interesting statements. Many lengthy selections have 
been excluded by the plan of the book, which permits only brief extracts. It is 
merely claimed that a large class of historical facts and fancies which have aided 
J, the compiler in his work are in this ready reference form offered by the publishers 
■ - to others who mav value liistorical allusions and quotations in addressing the public 
>5 -either by the pen or the voice. This collection is both religious and secular in its 
^^ character, and the quotations are especially fitting the needs of preachers, pleaders 
in court, political speakers, essayists in schools, and writers for the press. 
) It is also claimed that the topical arrangement of these quotations, and the 

5 extensive cross-reference index, and the index of personal names will greatly facilitate 
'\; their use by requiring onlv a brief search to find them, and making a previous rec- 
^X ollection of the passages" unnecessary. In this way they may supply ma large 
^ measure the lack of a ready memory to those who are unable to recall historical 
facts and incidents, or have forgotten the volume in which they may be found. 
They may be equally serviceable to those who have but little opportunity for 
^ historical readings. These quotations are taken from standard histories and biogra- 
^ phies, and chiefly relate to the earlv civilized races and the American and English 
peoples. Those taken from the Holy Scriptures have been published m a volume 
by themselves, entitled " Biblical Lights and Side Lights.*' ■ .. ^f 

It has been the aim of the compiler to present each quotation complete m itself, 
so that it may not be necessary to examine the authority quoted ; yet each mav be 
verified by the reader and the connections studied by following the reference which 
concludes each article. The articles quote the exact words of the various authors, 
except where otherwise expressed bv brackets. The title, catchword and compiler s 
addendum, in brackets, will usually so complete the meaning of the quotation 
that it will not be necessary to make further examination of the historical connec- 
tions. When more information is desired, it may frequently be found m the large 
cyclopgedias by those who have not at hand the authorities to which reference is 
made. 

A list of authorities quoted in this volume may be found on another page. 

Charles E. Little. 
East Orange, N. J., November 3, 1885. 









• < c e c cc 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



A0THOR8. Titles. 

ABBOTT, JOHN S. C History of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

ARNOLD, THOMAS Hannibal. 

BAKER, SAMUEL W In the Heart of Africa. 

BANCROFT, GEO History of the United States. 6vo1b. 

BLAINE, JAMES Q Twenty Years of Congress. Vol.1. 

BOSWELL, JAMES Life of Samuel Johnson, U.D. 

BUNSEN Ittartln Luther. 

CARLYLE, THOMAS Robert Burns. 

» " History of the French Revolution. 4 vole. 

•» ♦« Frederick the Great. 4 vols. 

»' " .Goethe. 

CREASY Fifteen Decisive Battles of the AVorld. 

CUSTIS, GEO. W. P • Recollections and Private ITIemolrs of 

i;('asIiin<;ton. 2 vols. 

DOWDEN, PROP Southey. 

FARRAR, CANON Early Days of Christianity. 

FORBES, ARCHIBALD Chinese Gordon. 

PROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY Caesar. ♦ 

" " " John Bunyan. 

GIBBON, EDWARD The Decline and Fall of the Roman 

Empire. 6 vols. 

GREEN, J. R Larger History of the English People. 

FOWLER, THOMAS Locke. 

HEADLEY, J. T Life and Travels of General Grant. 

HOOD, PAXTON Life of Cromwell. 

HUTTON, R. H Sir Walter Scott. 

IRVING, WASHINGTON liife of Christopher Columbus. 4 vols. 

" " Life of t.oldsmlth. 

KNIGHT, CHARLES The Popular History of England. 8 volfl. 

LAMARTINE, ALPHONSE DE Oliver Cromwell. 

" •' " mary Queen of Scots. 

•• " " Turkey. 

LESTER, EDWARDS C Life of Peter Cooper. 

" " " Iiife of Sam Houston. 

MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON History of England. 2 vols. 

" ^ " " Life of Frederick the Great* 

» ♦• " William Pitt. 

» " " Milton. 

MICHELET, JULES JoanofArc. 

MORLEY, JOHN Burke. 

MORRISON, J. C Gibbon. 

MULLER.MRS ..Life of George Miiller. 

MYERS, J "Wordsworih. 

NORTON, FRANK H Life of Alexander H. Stephems, 

PARTON, JAMES Brief Biographies. 



VI 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Brief Biographies include the following names: 

Adams, John. Crockett, David. Hudson. Henry. Peel, Sir Robert. 

Adams Mrs John. D'Albiiquerque, Alphonse. Irving, Washington. Peter the Great. 

Adams! Samuel. Davy, Sir Humphry. Jackson, Andrew. His Pizarro, Francesco. 

Alfonso I. of Portugal. Decatur, Death of C )m. ilarriage. Pocahontas. 

Aristotle. De Champlain, Samuel. Jefferson, Thomas. Poe, Edgar Allan. 

Arkwright, Richard. Dias, Bartholomew. Jefferson at Home, Thos. Quincy, Josiah. 

Arnold, Benedict. Douglas, Stephen A. Jerome, Chauncey. Rothschild, Maier. 

Audubon. Drake, Sir Francis. Jones, Paul. Ramford, Count. 

Aurelius, Marcus. Faraday, Michael. Knox, Henry. Silliman, Prof. 

Bismarck, Prince. Fitch, Poor John. La Fayette. Shakespeare, What is 

Bolivar. Frobisher, Sir Martin. Law, John. Known of. 

Bryant, Wm. Cnllen. Franklin, Benjamin. Lawrbnce, James. Sidney, Algernon. 

Byron, Early Life of Lord. Franklin, Sir John. Louis Philippe in the U. S. Sparks. Jared. 

Burr Aaron Fulton, Robert. Madison's Married Life, Sutter, John A. 

Cabot, Sebastian. Galileo. Prest. Virgil. The Poet. 

Cartier, Jacques. Garibaldi. Magalhaens, Fernando. Voltaire and Catharine of 

Catos The Two. Goodyear, Charles. Mathew, Father. Russia. 

Charles Xn. Gustavus IIL Milton, The Poet. Washington at Home. 

Colburn, Zerah. Hahnemann, Doctor. Morse, Professor. Washington, Inauguration 

Copernicus, Nicholas, Hamilton, Alexander. Morton, Dr. W. T. G. of. 

Confucius. Hargreaves, James. Mott, Dr. Valentine. Ward, Artemus. 

Cook, Captain. Harvard, John. Newton, Sir Isaac. Watt, James. 

Cooper, Fenimore. Howard, John. Palmerston, Lord. Webster, Daniel. 

Cooper, Peter. Horace, The Poet. Parry, Sir William. Whitney, Eli. 

Cortez, Hernando. Howe, Elias. Pascal, Blaise. Yale, Elihu. 

PATTISON, MARK Hilton. 

PLUT\RCH Plutarch's Lives. 

Including the lives of the following persons: 

^milius, Paulus. " Cato the Younger. Gracchus, Tiberius. Philopoemen. 

Agesilaus. Cicero. Gracchus, Caius. Pyrrhus. 

Agis. * Ciinon. Lycurgus. Phocion. 

Alcil)iade8. Clioraencs. Lyeander. Pompey. 

Alexander. Coriulanus, Caius Marcius. Lucullus. Romulus. 

Antony. Cra.<sis, Marcus. Marius, Cains. Sertorius. 

Aratus. Demosthenes. Marcellns. Solon. 

Aristides. Demetrius. Nicias. Sylla. 

Artaxerxes. Dion. Numa. Theseus. 

Brutus. Eumenes. Otho. Themistocles. 

Csesar, Julius. Fabius Maximus. Publicola. Timoleon. 

Camillus. Flaminius, Titus Quintius. Pericles. 

Cato the Censor. Galba. Pelopidas. 

RAYMOND, HENRY J liife and Public Services of Abraliam Lincoln. 

REIN, WILLIAM Life of IWartln Lutlier. 

RIDPATH, JOHN CLARK Popular History of tlie United States. 

ROLLIN, CHARLES Ancient History. 

SMILES, SAMUEL Brief Biographies. 

Biographies of the following persons: 

Arnold, Dr. Combe, Dr. Andrew. Hook, Theodore. Poe, Edgar Allan. 

Audubon, John James. Disraeli, Benjamin. Hunt, Leigh Stephenson, Robert 

Browning, Elizabeth B. Gladstone, Wm. Ewart. Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer. 

Carlyle, Thomas. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Miller, Hugh. 

SCHILLER, JOHANN C. F. VON History of tlie Thirty Years' "War. 

SHAIRP, PRINCIPAL Burns. 

SMITli, GODWIN Cowper. 

STEPHEN, LESLIE Pope. 

STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY Life of "Washington Irving. 

SYMONDS, J. A Shelley. 

TROLLOPE, ANTHONY Thackeray. 

TYNDALL, JOHN Count Rumford. 

TYTLER, ALEXANDER F ITuiversal History. 

WARD, A. W Chaucer. 



HISTORICAL LIGHTS. 



1. ABANDONMENT, Inhuman. Moslems. The 
rapine of the Carmathians [a fanatical Turkish 
sect] was sanctified by their aversion to the 
worship of Mecca ; they robbed a caravan of 
pilgrims, and twenty thousand devout Moslems 
were abandoned on the burning sands to a death 
of hunger and thirst. — Gibbox's Rome, ch. 53. 

2. ABANDONMENT, A mortifying. Bp. T. 
Hall. The infamous Timothy Hall, who had 
distinguislied himself among the clergy of Lon- 
don by reading the declaration [issued by James 
II. to supplant the Protestant faith], was re- 
warded with the bishopric of Oxford. . . . Hall 
came to his see ; but the canons of his cathedral 
refused to attend his installation ; the university 
refused to create him a doctor ; not a single one 
of the academic youth applied to him for holy or- 
ders ; no cap was touched to him ; and in his 
palace he found himself alone. — J^IacaxjIiAy's 
History of England, ch. 9. 

3. ABILITIES misapplied. Frederick II. and 
Voltaire. [France sent Voltaire to negotiate a 
difficult alliance. ] The negotiation was of an ex- 
traordinary description. Nothing can be conceiv- 
ed more whimsical than the conferences whicli 
took place between the first literary man and the 
first practical man of the age, whom a strange 
weakness had induced to exchange their parts. 
The great poet would talk of nothing but treaties 
and guaranties, and the great king of nothing 
but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion 
Voltaire put into his Majesty's hand a paper on 
the state of Europe, and received it back with 
verses scrawled on the margin. In secret they 
both laughed at each other. Voltaire did not 
spare the king's poems ; and the king has left 
on record his opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy. — 
^Iacaulay's Frederick the Great, p. 39. 

4. ABILITIES, Numerous. Roman Emp. Jus- 
tinian. The emperor professed himself a musi- 
cian and architect, a poet and philosopher, a 
lawj^er and theologian ; and if he failed in the 
enterprise of reconciling the Christian sects, the 
review of the Roman jurisprudence is a noble 
monument of his spirit and industry. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 43. 

5. ABILITIES overrated. Pompey. Unfortu- 
nately he had acquired a position by his nega- 
tive virtues which was above his natural level, 
and misled him into overrating his capabilities. 
So long as he stood by Caesar he had maintained 
his honor and his authority. He allowed men 



more cunning than himself to play upon his 
vanity, and Pompey fell — fell amid the ruins of 
a Constitution which had been undermined by 
the villainies of its representatives. His end 
was piteous, but scarcely tragic, for the cause 
to which he was sacrificed was too slightly re- 
moved from being ignominious. He was no 
Pha?bus Apollo sinking into the ocean, sur- 
rounded with glory. He was not even a brill- 
iant meteor. He was a weak, good man, whom 
accident had thrust into a place to which he 
was unequal ; and ignorant of himself, and 
unwilling to part with his imaginary great- 
ness, he was flung down with careless cruelty by 
the forces which were dividing the world. — 
Froude's Cesar, ch, 23. 

6. ABILITIES shown. In Youth. When Phi- 
lonicus, the Thessalian, oifered the horse named 
Bucephalus in sale to Philip, at the price of 
thirteen talents, the king, with the prince and 
many others, went into the field to see some 
trial made of him. The horse appeared ex- 
tremely vicious and unmanageable, and was so 
far from suffering himself to be mounted, that 
he would not bear to be spoken to, but turned 
fiercely upon all the grooms. Philip was dis- 
pleased, and bade them take him away. But 
Alexander, who had observed him well, said, 
"What a horse are they losing, for want of 
skill and spirit to manage him !" Philip at first 
took no notice of this -"but, upon the prince's 
often repeating the same expression, and show- 
ing great unea^ness, he said, " Young man, you 
find fault with your elders, as if you knew more 
than thev, or could manage the horse better." 
"And I certainly could," answered the prince. 
"If you shoukl not be able to ride him, what 
forfeiture will you submit to for your rash- 
ness ?" "I will pay the price of the horse." 
Upon this all the company laughed, but the 
king and prince agreeing as to the forfeiture, 
Alexander ran to the horse, and, laying hold on 
the bridle, turned him to the sun ; for he had 
observed, it seems, that the shadow which fell 
before the horse, and continually moved as he 
moved, greatly disturbed him. While his fierce- 
ness and fury lasted, he kept speaking to him 
softly and stroking him ; after which he gentlj' 
let fall his mantle, leaped lightly upon his back, 
and got his seat very safe. "Then, without pull- 
ing the reins too hard, or using either whip or 
spur, he set him a going. As soon as he per- 
ceived his uneasiness abated, and that he wanted 



2 



ABILITIES— ABSTINENCE. 



only to run, he put him in a full gallop, and 
pushed him on both with the voice and spur. 
Philip and all his court were in great distress 
for him at first, and a profound silence took 
place. But when the prince had turned him 
and brought him straight back, they all received 
him with loud acclamations, except his father, 
who wept for joy, and, kissing him, said, " Seek 
another kingdom, my son, that may be worthy 
of thy abilities ; for Macedonia is too small for 
thee.'' — Plutarch, 

7. ABILITIES, Useless. JoJin Dryden. Reign 
of James II. The help of Dryden was welcome 
to those Roman Catholic divines who were pain- 
fully sustaining a conflict against all that was 
most illustrious in the Established Church. . . . 
The first service which he was required to 
perform, in return for his jjension, was to de- 
fend his [Catholic] Church in prose against Stil- 
lingfleet. But the art of saying things well is 
useless to a man who has nothing to say ; and 
this was Dryden's case. He soon found him- 
self unequally paired with an antagonist whose 
whole life had been one long training for 
controversy. The veteran gladiator disarmed the 
novice, indicted a few contemptuous scratches, 
and turned awaj' to encounter more formidable 
combatants. — ]\Iacaulay's Eng., ch. 7. 

§. ABNEGATION of Self. Martin Luther. 
A. D. 1518. [He journeyed on foot to meet the pa- 
pal ambassador at Augsburg. ] ' ' jNIy thoughts, " 
said he afterward, " on the journey were these : 
Now I must die ; and often did I remark. What 
a reproach will I be to my parents !" When in 
the neighborhood of Augsburg Luther was over- 
come by bodily weariness. Faint-hearted friends 
had often warned him on the way not to enter 
Augsburg. But in reply to them he said, " In 
Augsburg, even in the midst of mine enemies, 
Jesus Christ also reigns. May Christ live, even 
if Martin should die." — Rein's Life op Lu- 
ther, ch. 5. 

9. ABSENCE condemned. King Oeorge IT. 
A.D. 1736. People of all ranks were indignant 
at the king's long stay in Germany [during all 
the summer and autumn]. On the gate of St. 
James' palace this notice was stuck up : " Lost or 
strayed out of this house a man who has left a wife 
and .six children on the parish. Whoever will 
give any tidings of him to the church-wardens 
of St. James' parish, so as he may be got again, 
shall receive four shillings ana sixpence re- 
ward. — N.B. This reward vdll not be increased, 
nobody judging him to deserve a crown." — 
Knight's Eng., ch. 6. 

10. ABSENCE, Reasonable. Trial of Charles 
II. The judges assembled in the vast Gothic 
hall of Westminster, the palace of the Commons. 
At the first calling over of the list of members 
designed to compose the tribunal [to try the 
king] , when the name of Fairfax was pronounced 
without response, a voice from the crowd of 
spectators cried out, " He has too much sense to 
be here." When the act of accusation against the 
king was read, in the name of the people of Eng- 
iand, the same voice again replied, "Not one 
tenth of them !" The officer commanding the 
guard ordered the soldiers to fire upon the gal- 
lery from whence these rebellious words proceed- 
ed, when it was discovered that they had been 



uttered by Lady Fairfax, the wife of the lord- 
general. — Lamartine's Cromwell, p. 42. 

11. ABSOLUTION in Advance. Elevation of 
Julius II. We understand from Burcard, that 
it was at this time an established custom for 
every new pope, immediately after his election, 
and as the first act of his apostolical function, to 
give a full absolution to all the cardinals of all 
the crimes they might thereafter commit of what- 
ever nature and degree. — Tytler's Hist. , vol. 
2, ch. 14. 

12. ABSOLUTION, Costly. Palo'ologus (Mi- 
chael), the usurper of Con.stantinople, was ex- 
communicated from the Greek Church because 
of cruelty. [See No. 1385.] The Christian who 
had been separated from God and the Church 
became an object of horror ; and in a turbulent 
and fanatical capital, that horror might arm the 
hand of an assassin or inflame a sedition of the 
people. Palaeologus felt his danger, confessed 
his guilt, and deprecated his judge ; the act was 
irretrievable ; the prize [a kingdom] was obtain- 
ed ; and the most rigorous penance which he 
solicited would have raised the sinner to the 
reputation of a saint. The unrelenting patriarch 
[Arsenius] refused to announce any means of 
atonement or any hopes of mercy ; and conde- 
scended only to pronounce, that for so great a 
crime, great indeed must be the satisfaction. 
" Do you require," said Michael, " that I should 
abdicate the empire ?" and at these words he of- 
fered or seemed to offer the sword of state. Ar- 
senius [the patriarch] eagerly grasped this pledge 
of sovereignty ; but when he perceived that the 
emperor was unwilling to purchase absolution at 
so dear a rate, he indignantly escaped to his 
cell, and left the royal sinner kneeling and 
weeping at the door. The danger and scandal 
of this excommunication subsisted above three 
years, till the popular clamor was assuaged by 
"time and repentance. . . . Arsenius . . . denied 
with his last breath the pardon which was im- 
plored. — Girbon's Rome, ch. 62. 

13. ABSOLUTION desired. Death of Charles 
II. A.D. 1685. [The French ainbassador] Baril- 
lon hastened to the bed-chamber [of Charles II.], 
took the duke [of York] aside, and delivered the 
message of the mistress [of Charles — the Duch- 
ess of Portsmouth, who entreated that a priest be 
called, as the king was a Catholic at heart]. The 
conscience of James [the Duke of York] smote 
him. . . . Several schemes were discussed and 
rejected. At last the duke commanded the 
crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed and 
stooped down, and whispered something which 
none of the spectators could hear, but which 
they supposed to be some question of State. 
Charles answered in an audible voice, "Yes, 
yes, with all my heart." None of the bystanders, 
except the French ambassador, guessed that the 
king was declaring his wish to be admitted into 
the bosom of the Church of Rome. "Shall I 
bring a priest ?" said the duke. " Do, brother," 
said the sick man. " For God's sake do, and 
lose no time. But no ; you will get into trouble." 
" If it costs me my life," said the duke, " I will 
fetch a priest. " [The priest was secretly brought 
and the king absolved.] — Macaulay's Hist, of 
Eng., ch. 4. 

14. ABSTINENCE, Certainty by. Dr. Samuel 
Johnson. A. d. 1778. Talking of drinking wine. 



ABSTINENCE— ABUSE. 



he said : " I did not leave off wine because I 
could not bear it. I have drunk three bottles 
of port without being the v^'orse for it. Univer- 
sity College has witnessed this." Boswell : 
" Why, then, sir, did you leave it off V" John- 
son : " Why, sir, because it is so much better for 
a man to be sure that he is never to be intoxicat- 
ed, never to lose the power over himself. I 
shall not begin to drink wine till I grow old and 
want it." Boswell: "I think, .sir, you once 
said to me that not to drink wine was a great 
deduction from life." JonNSON : " It is a dim- 
inution of pleasure, to be sure ; but I do not say 
a diminution of happiness. There is more hap- 
piness in being rational." — Boswell's Johnson, 
p. 366. 

15. ABSTINENCE, Limit of. Diverse. Fodere 
states that some workmen buried in a damp 
quarry were extricated alive after a period 
of fourteen days ; while after the wreck of the 
Medusa, the sufferers on the raft, exposed to a 
high temperature and constant exertion, at the 
end of three days, although they still had a 
small quantity of wine, Avere so famished that 
they commenced devouring the dead bodies of 
their companions. Dr. Willan has recorded a 
case in which, under the influence of religious 
delusion, a j'oung man lived sixty days, taking 
during that time nothing but a little water fla- 
vored with orange juice. Dr. M'Naughton, of 
Albany, gives a similar instance, during which a 
young man lived tifty-four days on water alone. 
— American Cyc, " Abstinence." 

16. ABSTINENCE, Prudential. Dr. Samuel 
Johnson. \.T>. 1776. Finding him still persevering 
in his abstinence from wine, I ventured to speak 
to him of it. Johnson : " Sir, I have no objec- 
tion to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in 
moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess 
in it, and therefore, after having been for some 
time without it, on account of itlness, I thought 
it better not to return to it. Every man is to 
judge for himself, according to the effects which 
he experiences. One of the Fathers tells us that 
he found fasting made him so peevish, that he 
did not practise it." — Boswell's Johnson, 
p. 275. 

17. ABSTINENCE, Twofold. Greek Emp. 
Androniciis. [Being deposed by his grandson] 
his calamities were embittered by the gradual 
extinction of sight ; his conflnement was ren- 
dered each day more rigorous ; and during the 
absence and sickness of his grandson, his inhu- 
man keepers, by threats of instant death, com- 
pelled him to exchange the purple for the mo- 
nastic habit and profession. The monk 'Antony 
[as he was now called] had renounced the pomp 
of the world ; yet he had occasion for a coarse 
fur in the ^infer season, and as wine Avas for- 
bidden by his confessor, and water by his phy- 
sician, the sherbet of Egypt was his common 
drink. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 63. 

18. ABSTINENCE, TJnconscious. The Poet 
Shelley. Mrs. Shelley used to send him some- 
thing to eat into the room where he habitually 
studied ; but the plate frequently remained un- 
touched for hours upon a bookshelf, and at the 
end of the day he might be heard asking, " Mary, 
have I dined ?" — Symonds's Shelley, ch. 4. 

19. ABSTEACTION, Art of. "Waistcoat But- 
ton. " He had long desired to get above a school- 



fellow in his class, who detied all his efforts, till 
Scott noticed that whenever a question was 
asked of his rival, the lad's fingers grasped a 
particular button on his waistcoat, while his 
mind went in search of the answer. Scott 
accordingly anticipated that if he could re- 
move this button, the boy would be thrown 
out, and .so it proved. The button was cut 
olT, and the next time the lad Avas questioned, 
liis fingers being unable to find the button, and 
his eyes going in perplexed search after his fin- 
gers, he stood confounded, and Scott mastered 
by strategy the place he could not gain by mere 
industry. " Often in after-life," said Scott, in 
narrating the manoeuvre to Rogers, "has the 
sight of iiim smote me as I passed by him ; and 
often have I resoh'ed to make him some repa- 
ration, but it ended in good resolutions. — Hut- 
ton's Life of Sir W. Scott, ch. 1. 

20. ABSTRACTION, Blunders by. Sir I. New- 
ton. Several anecdotes are i)reserA'ed of his ab- 
sence of mind. On one occasion, Avhen he was 
giA'ing a dinner to some friends, he left the table 
to get them a bottle of wine ; but on his way to 
the cellar he fell into reflection, forgot his errand 
and his company, Avent to his chamber, put on 
his surplice, and proceeded to the chapel. 
Sometimes he would go into the street half 
dressed, and, on discovering liis condition, run 
l)ack in great haste, much abashed. Often 
Avhile strolling in his garden he Avould sudden- 
ly stop, and then run rapidly to his room, and 
begin to write, "standing, on the first piece of 
paper that ]Mcscnted itself. Intending to dine 
in the public hall, he would go out in a broAvn 
study, take the wrong turn, Avalk awhile, and 
then return to his room, having totally forgotten 
the dinner . . . Having dismounted from his hor.se 
to lead him up a hill, the horse slipped his head 
out of the bridle ; but NcAVton, obliAious, ncA'er 
discovered it, till, on reaching a toll-gate at the 
top of the hill, he turned to remount, he per- 
ceived that the bridle which he held in his hand, 
had no horse attached to it. His secretary re- 
cords that his f orgetf ulness of his dinner Avas an 
excellent thing for his old housekeeper, who 
"sometimes found both dinner and supper 
scarcely tasted of, which the old woman has 
very pleasantly and mumpingly gone away 
with." On gefting out of bed In the morning, 
he has beenobserved to sit on his bedside for 
hours, without dressing himself, utterly ab- 
sorbed in thought. — Cyclopedia op Biogiia- 
PHY, p. 257. 

21. ABSTRACTION, Dangerous. ArcJiimedes. 
[When the Romans captured Syracuse] Archi- 
medes was in his study, engaged in some math- 
ematical researches ; and his mind, as Avell as 
his CA'e, was so intent upon his diagram, that he 
neither heard the tumultuous noise of the Ro- 
mans, nor perceived that the city was taken. A 
soldier suddenly entered his room, and ordered 
him to foUoAv liim to ]Marcellus ; and Archime 
des refusing to do it, until he had finished his 
])roblein, and brought his demonstration to 
bear, the soldier, in a passion, drew his sword 
and killed him. — Plutakch. 

22. ABTISE, Absence of. Satages. It is said 
of the Ainus saA'ages, Avho are inhabitants of 
the North Pacific, that they give striking proof 
of their amiability of disposition, in that they 



ABUSE— ACCIDENT. 



have no words of abuse in their language. — Am. 
Cyc, "Ainus." 

23. ABUSE, Personal. Miltan, by Snlmasius. 
If any one thinks that classical studies of 
themselves cultivate the taste and the senti- 
ments, let him look into Salmasius's Responsw. 
There he will see the tirst scholar of his age not 
thinking it unbecoming to taunt Milton with his 
blindness, in such language as this : "A puppy, 
once my pretty little man, now blear-ej-ed, or 
rather a blindling ; having never had any mental 
vision, he has now lost his bodily sight ; a silly 
coxcomb, fancying himself a beauty ; an unclean 
beast, with nothing more human about him than 
his guttering eyelids ; the fittest doom for him 
Avould be to hang him on the highest gallows, 
and set his head on the Tower of London." 
These are some of the inci\ilitics, not by any- 
means the most revolting, but such as I dare re- 
produce, of this literary warfare. — Pattison's 
Milton, eh. 9. 

24. ABUSE, Slanderous. Napoleon T. The 
English press teemed with . . . abuse. . . . He 
was a . . . demon in human form. He was a 
robber and a miser, plundering the treasuries of 
nations that he might hoard his countless mill- 
ions ; and he was also a profligate and a spend- 
thrift, s(iuaudering upon his lusts the wealth of 
empires. He was wallowing in licentiousness, 
his camp a harem of pollution, ridding himself, 
by poison, of his concubines ... at the same 
time he was fhymally aa imbecile — a monster 
whom God in His displeasure had deprived of 
the passions and powers of health}^ manhood. 
He was an idol whom the entranced people . . . 
worshipped. . . . He was also a sanguinary, 
heartless, merciless butcher. — Abbott's Xapo- 
LEON B., vol. 1, ch. 9. 

25. ABUSE, Success by. Politics. Some pretty 
rough jjoliticians used to find the way to Wash- 
ington from the Western States, fifty or sixty 
years ago. Matthew Lyon was one of these, 
a man of great note in his day. Josiah Quincy 
once asked him how he obtained an election to 
the House of Representatives so soon after his 
emigration to Kentucky. He answered, "By 
establishipg myself at a cross-roads, which 
everj^body in the district passed from time to 
time, and abusing the sitting member." — Cyclo- 
paedia OP Biography, p. 756. 

26. ACCESS, Humble. To Rom. Emp. Diocle- 
tian. The sumi^tuous robes of Diocletian and 
his successors were of silk and gold ; and it is 
remarked with indignation, that even their shoes 
were studded with the most precious gems. 
The access to their sacred person was every day 
rendered more difficult by the institution of new 
forms and ceremonies. . . . When a subject 
was at length admitted to the Imperial presence, 
he was obliged, whatever might be his rank, to 
fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, ac- 
cording to the Eastern fashion, the divinity of 
his lord and master. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 13. 

27. ACCIDENT, Destiny by. Breml. [Duchy 
of Bethlem Gabor.] An unexpected accident 
had given a singular turn to the dispute as to 
the succession of Juliers. This duchy was still 
ruled conjointly by the Electorate House of 
Brandenburg and the Palatine of Neuburg ; 
and a marriage between the Prince of Neuburg 
and a Princess of Brandenburg was to have in- 



separably united the interests of the two houses. 
But the whole scheme was upset by a box on 
the ear, which, in a drunken brawl, the Elector 
of Brandenburg unfortunately inflicted upon his 
intended son-in-law. From this moment the 
good understanding between the two houses was 
at an end. The Prince of Neuburg embraced 
popery. The hand of a princess of Bavaria re- 
warded his apostas}', and the strong support of 
Bavaria and Spain was the natural result of 
both. To secure to the Palatine the exclusive 
posse.ssion of Juliers, the Spanish troops from 
the Netherlands were marched into the Palati- 
nate. To rid himself of these guests, the Elector 
of Brandenburg called the Flemings to his assist- 
ance, whom he sought to propitiate by embracing 
the Calvinist religion. — Thirty Years' War, 
§92. 

2§. ACCIDENT, Distress by. Henry II. of 
France. [Henry's daughter Elizabeth was to be 
married to Philip, and his sister Margaret to the 
Duke of Savoy.] Magnificent rejoicings took 
place at Paris during the summer of 1.559 in 
celebration of these royal nuptials. Lists were 
erected in front of the palace of the Tournelles, 
and a splendid tournament was held, at which, 
on the 27th of June, the king himself, supported, 
by the Duke of Guise and two other princes, 
maintained the field against all antagonists. 
Henry, who was an admirable cavalier, tri- 
umphantly carried off the honors of the day ; 
but toward the close of it, having unfortunately 
chosen to run a course with ^lontgomerj', cap- 
tain of his Scottish guards, the lance of the stout 
knight shivered in the encounter, and the broken 
truncheon, entering the king's eye, penetrated 
to the brain. Henry languished eleven days in 
great suffering, and expired ... in the forty-first 
year of his age. — Students' Hist, of France, 
ch. 15, § 7. 

29. ACCIDENT, Revolution by. " t>icilian Ves- 
pers." As the citizens of Palermo flocked to 
ve.spcrs on one of the festivals of Easter week, 
March 30, 1282, a French soldier grossly insulted 
a young and beautiful Sicilian maiden in tlie 
presence of her betrothed husband ; the latter in- 
stantly drew his dagger and stabbed the offender 
to the heart. This was the signal for a violent 
explosion of popular fuiy ; cries of " Death to 
the French !" resounded on all sides ; upward of 
two hundred were cut down on the spot, and 
the massacre was continued in the streets of Pa- 
lermo through the whole night. From the cap- 
ital the insurrection spread to Messina, froni 
Messina to the other towns of the island ; every- 
where the French were ruthlessly butchered, 
without distinction of age, sex, or condition ; 
the total number of the slain is said to have ex- 
ceeded eight thousand. Such was the terrible 
catastrophe of the " Sicilian Vespers." — Stu- 
dents' Hist, op Fi!Ance, ch. 9, § 10. 

30. ACCIDENT, Saved by. Thomm Paine. 
During the Reign of Terror Thomas Paine was 
imprisoned, but was saved from the guillotine, 
apparently by an accident. The door of his 
room was marked for the executioner, but the 
sign was made on it while it was open ; and at 
night, when the terrible messenger usually ar- 
rived, the mark was on the inside, and, as he 
himself saj^s, " the destroying angel passed by."' 
Stevens's ^Ietiiodism, Book 7, ch. 1. 



I 



ACCIDENT— ACTIONS. 



31. ACCIDENT, Significant. Norman Duke 
William. [Battle of Hastinffs.] When he pre- 
pared to arm himself, he called first for his good 
hauberk, and a man brouirht it on his arm, and 
placed it before him ; but in putting his head in, 
to get it on, he unawares turned it the wrong 
■way, with the back part in front. He soon 
changed it ; but when he saw those who stood 
by were sorely alarmed, he said, " I have seen 
niany a man who, if such a thing had happened 
to hfm, would not have borne arms, or entered 
the field the same day ; but I never believed in 
omens, and I never will. I trust in God, for He 
does in all things His pleasure, and ordains what 
is to come to pass according to His will. I have 
never liked fortune-tellers, nor believed in di- 
viners ; but I commend myself to Our Lady. 
Let not this mischance give you trouble. The 
hauberk which was turned wrong, and then set 
right by me, signifies that a change will arise 
out of the matter which we are now stining. 
You shall see the name of the duke changed into 
king. Yea, a king shall I be, who hitherto have 
been but duke." [He was unharmed in battle.] 
— Decisive Battles, § 309. 

32. ACCIDENT utilized. Son of AU. A fa- 
miliar story is related of the benevolence of one 
of the sons of Ali. In serving at table, a slave 
had inadvertently dropped a dish of scalding 
broth on his master ; the heedless wretch fell 
prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and re- 
peated a verse of the Koran : " Paradise is for 
those who command their anger : " — " I am not 
angry:" — "and for those who pardon of- 
fences:" — "I pardon your offence:" — "and 
for those who return good for e\il : " — " I give 
you your liberty, and four hundred pieces of 
silver." — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 50. 

33. . Norman Invasion. When 

Duke William himself landed, as he stepped on 
the shore he slipped, and fell forward upon his 
two hands. Forthwith all raised a loud ciy of 
distress. " An evil sign," .said they, " is here." 
But he cried out lustily, "See, my lords, by 
the splendor of God, I have taken possession of 
England with both my hands. It is now mine, 
and what is mine is yours." — Decish^e Bat- 
tles, g 297. 

34. ACCOMPLISHMENTS, Worthy. Themis- 
tocles. [The prudent Athenian general] was 
laughed at, in company where free scope was 
given to raillerj% by persons w^ho passed as 
more accomplished in what was called gentle 
breeding ; he was obliged to answer them with 
some asperity : " ' Tis true I never learned how 
to tune a harp or play upon a lute, but I know 
how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to 
glory and greatness." — Plutarch. 

35. ACENOWLEDGMENT, Slender. Postage. 
The only acknowledgment of his twenty-five 
3'ears' services which John Adams carried with 
iiini in his unwelcome and mortifying retire- 
ment, was the privilege which had been granted 
to Washington on his withdrawal from the pres- 
idency, and after his death to his widow, and 
bestowed likewise upon all subsequent ex-pres- 
idents and their widows, of recei%'ing his letters 
free of postage for the remainder of his life. — 
Am. Cyc, " Jonx Adams." 

36. ACQUAINTANCE, Brief. Am. Indians. 
The English [colonists] received a friendly wel- 



come ... on the island of Roanoke. . . " The 
people were most gentle and loving and faithful, 
void of all guile and treason, and such as live 
after the manner of the Golden Age." [They 
afterward learned] the practice of invitin;^ men 
to a feast, that they might be murdered in the 
hour of confidence. — ^Bancroft's Hist, of 
U. S.,ch. 3. 

37. ACQUAINTANCE, Unwelcome. Samml 
Johruion. He gave us an entertaining account 
of Bet Flint, a woman of the town, who, with 
some eccentric talents and much effrontery, 
forced herself upon his acquaintance. "Bet 
(said he) wrote her own life in verse, which she 
brought to me, wishing that I would furnish 
her with a preface to it. (Laughing.) I used 
to say of her, that she was generally slut and 
drunkard — occasionally, whore and thief. She 
had, however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on 
which she played, and a boy that walked before 
her chair." — Boswell's Jokxsox, p. 46L 

3§. ACEOSTIC, Political. Reign of Charles II. 
It happened by a whimsical coincidence that, in 
1671, the cabinet consisted of five persons, the 
initial letters of whose names made up the word 
Cabal : Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ash- 
ley, and Lauderdale. — ]Macaulay's Hist, op 
Eng., ch. 2. 

39. ACTIVITY, Roman. Roman Navy. In 
the first Punic war the republic had exerted 
such incredible diligence, that within sixty days 
after the first .stroke of the axe had been given 
in the forest a fleet of one hundred and sixty 
galleys proudly rode at anchor in the sea. — 
Gibbon's Roim, ch. 3. 

40. ACTION, Decisive. Colonel Gordon. [Lord 
George Gordon was a contemptible demagogue, 
who brought a clamorous mob of sixty thousand 
persons to the House of Parliament ; he reported 
for their vengeance the names of the members 
who spoke against the petition in their behalf 
which he had presented, while they waited in 
palace yard with many threatening demonstra- 
tions. His crowd twice attempted to force the 
doors. Expostulation with the fanatic was in 
vain.] At last. Colonel Gordon, a near relative, 
went up to him and said : " My Lord George, do 
you intend to bring your rascally adherents into 
"the House of Commons ? If you do, the first 
man of them that enters— I will plunge my 
sword, not into him, but into your body." A 
party of horse-guards at length arrived, and the 
rabble went home. — Knight's Eng. , vol. 6, 
ch. 26. 

41. ACTIONS speak. Declaring War. [An- 
cus, one of the early kings of Rome.] created a 
college of sacred Heralds, called Fetiales, whose 
l)usiness it was to demand reparation for injm-ies 
in a regular and formal manner, and in case of 
refusal" to declare war by hurling a spear into 
the enemv's land. — Liddell"s Rome. 



42. 



" Cutting off . . . tallest Pop- 



pies." The only Latin town that defied Tar- 
quin's power was Gabii ; and Sextus, the 
king's younsjest son, promised to win this place 
also for his father. So he fled from Rome 
and presented himself at Gabii ; and there 
he made complaints of his father's tjTanny and 
prayed for protection. The Gabians believed 
hiui, and took him into their city, and they 



6 



ACTORS— ADMINISTRATION. 



trusted liim, so that in time he was made com- 
mander of their army. Now, his father suffered 
him to conquer in many small battles, and the 
Gabians trusted him more and more. Then 
he sent privately to his father, and asked what 
he should do to make the Gabians submit. 
Then King Tarquin gave no answer to the mes- 
senger, but, as he walked up and down his gar- 
den, he kept cutting off the heads of the tallest 
poppies with his staff. At last the messenger was 
tired, and went back to Sextus and told him 
what had passed. But Sextus understood what 
his father meant, and he began to accuse falsely 
all the chief men, and some of them he put to 
death and some he banished. So at la.st the city 
of Gabii was left defenceless, and Sextus deliv- 
ered it up to his father. — Liddell's Rome. 

43. ACTORS and Actresses. Origin of. This 
craft dates its existence back to some centuries 
before Christ. The earliest mention we find of 
it in history is in the time of Solon in Greece. 
It was then attached to the religious rites, and 
its appliances and influences used to clothe with 
greater solemnity and effect the sacred celebra- 
tions of the Greeks. So high a place had the pro- 
fession at this period, that actors were all trained 
and paid at the expense of the State. . . . From 
the time of the Caesars the stage degenerated rap- 
idly, from being disconnected from tho.se relig- 
ious rites from which it drew its chief distinction, 
and was finally lost altogether during the dark 
ages. — A.M. Cyc, "Actors." 

44. ACTORS dishonored. Roman Laic. The 
laws of Rome expressly prohibited the marriage 
of a senator with any female who had been dis- 
honored by a servile origin or theatrical profes- 
sion. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 4. 

45. ACTORS, Respect for. Dr. Samuel John- 
son. Sir Joshua Reynolds : " I do not perceive 
why the profession of a player should be despis- 
ed ; for the great and ultimate end of all the em- 
ploj'ments of mankind is to produce amusement. 
Garrick produces more amusement than any- 
body." BoswELL : "You say. Dr. Johnson, 
that Garrick exhibits himself for a shilling. In 
this respect he is only on a footing with a lawyer, 
who exhibits himself for his fee, and even 'will 
maintain anj' nonsense or absurdity, if the case re- 
quire it. Garrick refuses a play or a part which 
he does not like ; a lawyer never refuses." John- 
son : "Why, sir, what docs this prove? only 
that a lawyer is worse. Boswell is now like 
Jack in ' The Tale of a Tub,' who, when he is 
puzzled by an argument, hangs himself. He 
thinks I shall cut him down, but I'll let him 
hang" Gaughing vociferously). Sir Joshxta 
Reynolds : " Mr. Bo.swell thinks, that the pro- 
fession of a lawyer being unquestionably honor- 
able, if he can show the profession of a player to 
be more honorable, he proves his argument." — 
Boswell's Johnson, p. 211. 

46. ADDRESS, Spectacular. Anton >/. [At the 
funeral of C*sar, when] the body was brought 
into the /«/•«;», and Antony spoke the usual fu- 
neral eulogium, as he perceived the people affect- 
ed by his speech, he endeavored still more to 
work upon their passions, by unfolding the 
bloody garment of Cfesar, show'ing them in how 
many places it was pierced, and pointing out the 
number of his wounds. This threw everything 
into confusion. Some called aloud to kill the 



murderers ; others, as was formerly done in the 
case of that seditious demagogue Clodius, snatch- 
ed the benches and tables from the neighboring 
shops, and erected a pile for the body of Caesar, 
in the midst of consecrated places and surround- 
ing temples. As soon as the pile was in flames, 
the people, crowding from all parts, snatched the 
half-burned brands, and ran round the city to 
fire the houses of the conspirators ; but they were 
on their guard against such an assault, and pre- 
vented the effects. — Pi.rTARCn. 

47. ADDRESS, Successful. Edward IV. While 
Warwick was winning triumphs on liattleticld 
after battlefield the young king seemed to aban- 
don himself to a voluptuous indolence, to revels 
with the city wives of London, and to the caresses 
of mistresses like Jane Shore. Tall in stature 
and of singular beauty, his winning manners and 
gay carelessness of bearing secured Edward a 
popularity which had been denied to nobler 
kings. W'hen he asked a rich old lady for ten 
pounds toward a war with France, she answered, 
" For thy comely face thou shall have twenty." 
The king thanked and kissed her, and the old 
woman made her twenty forty. — Hist, of Eng. 
People, t; 497. 

48. ADDRESS, Theatrical. Samuel Johrimn. 
His unqualilied ridicule of rhetorical gesture or 
action is not, surely, a test of truth ; yet we cannot 
help admiring how well it is adapteii to produce 
the effect which he wished. " Neither the 
judges of our laws, nor the representatives of our 
people, would be much affected by labored ges- 
ticulations, or believe any man the more because 
he rolled his eyes, or pulled his cheeks, or sjiread 
abroad his arms, or stamped the ground, or 
thumped his l)reast ; or turned his eyes sometimes 
to the ceiling, and sometimes to the floor." — 
Boswell's JoirNsoN, p. 89. 

49. ADDRESS, Trickster's. E<hnund Burke. 
It was in tlie DecciiilKT (jf 1792 that Burke had 
enacted that famous bit of melodrama out of 
place, known as the Dagger Scene. The gov- 
ernment had brought in an Alien Bill, impo.sing 
certain pains and restrictions on foreigners com- 
ing to this country. . . . Burke began to storm as 
usual against murderous athei.sts. Then, with- 
out due preparation, he began to fumble in his 
bosom, suddenly drew out a dagger, and with 
an extravagant gesture threw it on the floor of 
the House, crying that this was what they had 
to expect from their alliance with France. " The 
stroke missed its mark, and there was a general 
inclination to titter, until Burke, collecting him- 
self for an effort, called upon them with a ve- 
hemence to which his listeners could not choose 
but respond, to k(>ep French principles from 
their heads and French daggers from their 
hearts ; to preserve all their blandishments in life, 
and all their consolations in death ; all the bless- 
ings of time, and all the hopes of eternity. — Mou- 
ley's Burke, ch. 9. 

50. ADMINISTRATION, Responsibility of. 
Iteifjn of Charles. II. To the royal office and 
royal person they [the commons] l()udly and sin- 
cerely profes.sed the strongest attachment. But 
to [Lord Chancellor] Clarendon they owed noal 
legiance, and they fell on him as furiously as tlicir 
predecessors had" fallen on Strafford. Tl>e min- 
ister's virtues and vices alike contributed to his 
ruin. He was the ostensible head of the admin 



ADMINISTRATION— ADORATION. 



istration, and Avas therefore held responsible 
even for those acts which he had strongly, but 
vainl)', opposed in council. — Macaulay's Hist. 
OF Eng., eh. 2. 

51. ADMINISTRATION, An unfortunate. J^res. 
Martin Van Ban it's. The administration of 
Van Buren has generally been reckoned as un- 
successful and inglorious. But he and his times 
were unfortunate rather than bad. He was the 
victim of all the evils which followed hard upon 
the relaxation of the Jacksonian methods of gov- 
ernment. He had neither the will nor the dis- 
position to rule as his predecessor [Andi-ew Jack- 
son] had done ; nor were the people and their 
representatives any longer in the humor to suffer 
that sort of government. The period was un- 
heroic ; it was the ebb-tide between the belliger- 
ent excitements of 1832 and the war with Mex- 
ico. The financial panic added opprobrium to 
the popular estimate of imbecility in the govern- 
ment. ' ' The administration of Van Buren," said 
a satirist, " is like a parenthesis ; it may be read 
in a low tone of voice, or altogether omitted, 
'idtlwut injuring the sense !" But the satire lacked 
one essential quality — truth. — Hist. U. S., Rid- 
PATH, ch. 55. 

52. ADMINISTRATION united. A. Lincoln. 
Judge Baldwin, of C'ahfornia . . . solicited a pass 
outside of our lines to see a brother in Virginia. 
[Being refused by the commanding general and 
Secretary of War] . . . finally he obtained an in- 
terview "with ]\Ir. Lincoln, and stated his case. 
" Have you applied to General Hallock ?" . . . 
"Yes, and met with a fiat refusal." . . . "Then 
you must see Stanton." . . . " I have, and with 
the same result." . . . "Well, then," said Mr. 
Lincoln, with a smile, " I can do nothing ; for 
you must know I have very little influence with 
this Administration." — Raymond's Lincoln, p. 
748. 

53. ADMIRATION changed. Martin Luther. 
As a reverent pilgrim he arrived at Rome, 
after a .six weeks' journey. Seeing the city from 
afar, he fell upon the earth and cried out, ' ' Hail ! 
thou .sacred Rome !" And yet he found many 
things different from what he had expected. His 
experience there made a la.sting impression upon 
him. ' ' I would not have taken one hundred 
thousand florins not to have seen Rome. Among 
other coarse talk, I heard one reading mass, and 
when he came to the words of consecration, he 
said, ' Thou art bread and shalt remain bread, 
thou art wine and shalt remain wine.' What 
was I to think of this ? And, moreover, I was 
disgusted at the manner in which they could 
' rattle off ' a mass as if it had been a piece of 
jugglery, for long before I reached the Gospel 
lesson my neighbor had finished his mass and 
cried out to me, ' Enough ! enough ! hurry up 
and come away,' etc. !"— Rein's Luther, ch. 4. 

54. ADMIRATION, Objectionable. Oliver Oold- 
smith. In the summer of 1762 he was one of 
the thousands who went to see the Cherokee 
chiefs, whom he mentions in one of his wTitings. 
The Indians made their appearance in grand 
costume, hideously painted and besmeared. In 
the course of the visit Goldsmith made one of 
the chiefs a present, who, in the ecstasy of his 
gratitude, gave him an embrace that left his 
face well bedaubed with oil and red ochre. — 
Irving's Goldsmith, ch. 13. 



55. ADMIRATION, Supreme. Colonel Cropper. 
This worthy veteran, like his general [Wash- 
ington], had but one toast, which he gave every 
day and to all companies; it was, "God bless 
General Washington." — Custis' Washington, 
vol. 1, ch. 2. 

56. ADMONITION disregarded. General St. 
Clair. A.D. 1791. General St. Clair, with an 
army of two thousand men, set out from Fort 
Washington to break the power of the Miami con- 
federacy. ... In what is now Mercer County, 
Ohio, . . . his camp was suddenly assailed by 
more than two thousand warriors, led by Little 
Turtle and several American renegades who 
had joined the Indians. After a terrible battle 
of three hours' duration, St. Clair was complete- 
ly defeated, with a loss of fully one half of his 
men. . . . The news of the disaster spread gloom 
throughout the land . . . the government was 
for awhile in consternation. For once the be- 
nignant spirit of Washington gave way to wrath. 
"Here," said he, " in a tempest of indignation, 
" here in this very room ... I said to him, ' Yoii 
have careful instructions from the Secretary of 
AVar, and I myself will add one word — beware 
OF A SURPRISE ! ' He went off with that my last 
warning ringing in his ears. Yet he has .suffered 
that army to'be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, 
tomahawked by a surprise — the very thing I 
guarded him against ! ' How can he answer to 
his country ? The blood of the slain is upon 
him — the curse of widows and orphans !" 
[After a period of silence he solemnly added :] 
" I looked at the despatches hastily, and did not 
note all the particulars. General St. Clair shall 
have justice. I will receive him without dis- 
pleasure— A^ sAa^Z havefull justice."— RiDVAiu's, 
Hist. opU. S., ch. 46. 

57. ADOPTION of Captives. American Lndians. 
Sometimes a captive was saved, to be adopted 
in place of a warrior who had fallen . . . the 
allegiance and, as it were, the identity of the 
captive . . . became changed. [His] . . . children 
and the wife . . . left at home are to be blotted 
from his memory ; he is to be the departed 
chieftain resuscitated ... to cherish those 
whom he cherished ; to hate those whom he hated 
. . . the foreigner thus adopted is esteemed to 
stand in the same relations of con.sanguinity. — 
Bancroft's U. S., vol. 3, ch. 22. 

58. ADOPTION by the State. Napoleon L 
[After the battle of Austerlitz.] He immediately 
adopted all the children of those [soldiers] who 
had fallen. They w^ere supported and educated 
at the expense of the State. They all, as the 
children of the emperor, were permitted to at- 
tach the name of Napoleon to their own. — Ab- 
bott's Napoleon B., vol. 1, ch. 31. 

59. ADORATION, Human. Greek Emperors. 
The most lofty titles, and the most humble post- 
ures, wiiich devotion has applied to the Supreme 
Being, have been prostituted by flattery and fear 
to creatures of the same nature with ourselves. 
The mode of adoration, of falling pro.strate on the 
ground, and kissing the feet of the emperor, 
was borrowed by Diocletian from Persian servi- 
tude ; but it was continued and aggravated till 
the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting 
only on Sundays, when it was waived, from a 
motive of religious pride, this humiliating rev- 
erence was exacted from all who entered the 



8 



ADULATIOX— ADULTERY. 



royal presence, from the princes invested with 
the diadem and purple, and from the ambassa- 
dors who represented their independent sover- 
eigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the 
kings of France and Italy, and the Latin emper- 
ors of ancient Rome. — Gibbon's Roie. ch. 63. 

60. ADUXATIOK, Official. Of Charles I. The 
pleasant words with which the Lord Keeper 
Finch opened the Parliament [of 1640] : " His 
MajestTS kingly resolutions are seated in the 
ark of his sacred breast, and it were a presump- 
tion of too high a nature for any Vzzah imcalled 
to touch it ; yet his Majesty is now pleased to 
lay by the shining beams of majesty, as Phoebus 
did to Phaeton, that the distance between sover- 
eignty and subjection should not bar you of that 
fQial freedom of access to his person and coun- 
sels." But the time had come when this style 
of language was no longer to be endured by the 
commonsr^HooD's Cromwell, ch. 16, p. 203. 

61. ADULATION rebuked. Of James I. 
[James I. , dining with Bishops N^eUe and An- 
drews, asked their opinion] whether he might 
not take his subjects' money without the f\iss of 
Parliament? Xeile replied, '"God forbid you 
should not, for you are the breath of our nos- 
trils." Andrews hesitated ; but the king insisted 
upon an answer ; he said : '" ^Tiy, then, I think 
your Majesty may lawfully take my brother 
Neile's money, for he offers it." — Kxights 
Eng., vol. 3, ch. 23, p. 364. 

62. ADULATION, EidicidoTis. Red Beard. 
When Henry VIII. met Francis I. on the Field 
of the Cloth of Gold in 1.520, a Venetian observ- 
er described the beard of Henry as "being 
somewhat red, has at present the appearance of 
being gold. " — Knight's Hist, of Eng., ch. 17. 

63. ADTJLTEEY excused. Mahomefs. In his 

adventures with Zeinib, the wife of Zeid, and 
with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous 
prophet forgot the interest of his reputation. 
At the house of Zeid, his freedman and adopted 
son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the beauty of 
Zeinib, and burst forth into an ejaculation of 
devotion and desire. The servile, or grateful, 
freedman understood the hint, and yielded with- 
out hesitation to the love of his' benefactor. 
But as the filial relation had excited some doubt 
and scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from 
heaven to ratify the deed, to annul the adoption, 
and gently to reprove the prophet for di.strusting 
the indulgence of his God. One of his wives, 
Hafna, surprised him on her own bed, in the 
embraces of his Egyptian captive ; she promised 
secrecy and forgiveness ; he swore that he would 
renounce the possession of Mary. Both parties 
forgot their engagements ; and Gabriel again 
descended with a chapter of the Koran, to ab- 
solve him from his oath, and to exhort him 
freely to enjoy his captives and concubines, 
without listening to the clamors of his wives. 
In a solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, 
alone with "Mary, to fulfil tlie commands of the 
angel. . . . Perhaps the incontinence of Ma- 
homet may be palliated by the tradition of his 
natural or preternatural gift : he imited the man- 
ly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam ; and 
the apostle might rival the thirteenth labor of 
the Grecian Hercules. — Gibbon's MAnoiiEX, 
p. 56. 



64. ADULTEBY, Punishment for. Roman Law. 
The edge of the Julian law was sharpened by 
the incessant diligence of the emperors. The 
licentious commerce of the sexes may be toler- 
ated as an impulse of nature, or forbidden as a 
source of disorder and corruption : but the 
fame, the fortunes, the family of the husband, 
are seriouslv injured by the adulter}" of the wife. 
The wisdom of Augustus, after curbing the 
freedom of revenge, applied to this domestic of- 
fence the animadversion of the laws : and the 
guiltv parties, after the pavment of heavy for- 
feitures and tines, were condemned to long or 
perpetual exile in two separate islands. — Gib- 

! bon's Rome. ch. 44. 

65. ADULTEBY, Shameless. FifUfnth Centu- 
ry. Princes set the example. Charles VII. re- 
ceived Agnes Sorel as a present from his wife's 
mother, the old Queen of Sicily : and mother, 
wife, and mistress, he takes them all with him 
as he marches along the Loire, the happiest un- 
derstanding subsisting between the three. The 
English, rnore serious, seek love in marriage 
onlv. Gloucester marries Jacqueline : among 
Jacqueline's ladie- " - lually 
lovely and witty. But 
in this respect, as in all others. France and Eng- 
land are far out.stripped by Flanders, by the 
Count of Flanders, by the great Duke of' Bur- 
gundy. Th> ' ' ■' . Low 
Countries is ■ - who 
brought into the •' 'y- 
five children. TL. ,.... „ ut 
going quite so far, seem at th' endeavor 
to approach her. A Count ot « n w^ has sixty- 
three bastani". .Tnhn of Bursrimdy. Hi.shop of 
Cambrai. "*y- 
six btistar - 'iff 
with him at the altar. Phiiippe-le-Bon baa 
only sixteen bastards, but ho had no fewer than 
twenty-seven wives, three lawful ones and twen- 
tv-fou'r mistresses. — Michelet's Jo.%^ of Arc 
p". 26. 

66. ADULTEEY. Vengeance for. John XII. 
John . . . XII. h;iil tli..:i«ldrf>- • ' ' ■•'^ an insur- 

Tx-oplf who d i his rival 

him lu the j>ontifical 
live to I n'-^'v his tri- 

davs alter his rei: rit he 



, i . -..ed by 
who detected 



rection of the 

Leo VIII., ar. 

chair. But .J 

umph ; three 

met the reward of Lis crin 

the hand of an indignant 1 

him in the arms of his wiic. — Iytleb's Hist., 

Book 6. ch. 4. p. 101. 

67. ADULTERY. Victim of. Pertdem a Lorn- 
hard (.'JuiiKpu'H. " • :.ond, the Queen of 
Italy, desin-<1 hi* e in a plot to assassi- 

nate her r but no more than a 

promise < - ; l>e drawn from the 

gallant Peredeus, and the mode of w-duction 
employed by Rosamond betravs her shameless 
insensibility both to honor ancJ love. She sup- 
plied the place of one of hor feni ' 'its 
who was Ijeloved by P<»redeus, ; d 
some excu.se for - and siltucr, liU hhe 
could inform her c .., n that he had enjoyed 
the Queen of the Lombanls, and that his own 
death, or the death of Alboin [her royal hus- 
band] must l)e the con.se^pif nre of such treason- 
able adulter}-. In this ivc he chose 
rather to be the accompi ■ the victim of 
Rosamond, whose undaunted .spirit was incapa- 



AI>VA]SrCE— ADTEXTTTREL 



9 



6*. ADViJCCI 



~ — - . AltilMBnowig-. 

" " , '- tbM ami 



.-:. 3)6 canied. 
le. On tlie mi 
-Tmj "was air;-. 
- foifflierial- 

—3D. B 






mSiemsm. 



aitt T_ 
Bit. tm ' 



TSi'y deed too foil of patiE 

ereiy positkm of theHexk&: - 

foDjT stcMrmed and thansdtr 

cipitatenxiL jNTeaity three 

unexe takipn^, witli f (Htjr-tture*^ 

tiDatT, fire tboosand iniiK>v 

menl^ enoo^ to siqqpIlT an &' 

lo^ amoonted to four hon . 

that of the enemy faS^ 

Anna escaped with his Ittie. 

prirate papexs and Ms smu^ ' 

Hist, of U. S-. ch. 57. 
€9. ASTAXCE, Here:: 

A-D. 17-15. Wilham of 

cohunn of fooiteen th 

thirtT or fmtj al»east; 

tread, regardle^ of -^---^ 

bj the cannonade 1 

down their nnks. t: ~ 

throogh the enem} ~ . 

than. But irhate- wa;^ tii- 

iiiwn of infiintry, "without .. _ . — -. 

gun. now ledoced probablv tio* ten thoussuiM: 

could not win a battle agalnsa sixity thoveand, 
meretr throng the sopremacy off friiyacal 
stzength and moial endurance. Slowly the com- 
pact Inass moTed back. stiU facing the enemy. 
It5 ranks were not t«oken. not a man fled. 
[L.^iss about six thousand.] — ^Kxight's Hist, of 
Eng. . ch. T. 

TO. JLDTA:5CT ::: rraaityfaram. Gem. SUbieF- 
r,w, ; f J/,; ■-■."; ^■■•.». [Beaan XoTcmber 

14. IS'54.] His army of rrtieiams miumhered 
sisTf thousand men. BeMevioiig: that Hood's 
anuT would be destroyed in 't'emmesaee, and 
knowing that no Owf edeiate force could with- 
stand hun in front, he cut his commonicatMws 
with the XnHlLh, abandoned his base of supplies, 
and struck out boldly fm: the siea-coa^^ more 
than two hundred and Ififty miles aw»y. As 
had been foreseen, the Oonfedexates could offiar 
no sucoKsful reststance. . . . On the 10th of De- 
cember he arriTed in the Tkinil^ of >SaTann&: 
... be had lost only five hundred and axiiy 
men. — Ridpath's Hist, of U. S., ch. fiS. 

Tl. ADYJLKCI :- -JSa. BaMe «f G^i^i^virf. 

I re... :.: r > .. _ _ aewd (Pettigrew, I think 

it wsk*^ ii.>>me up to Mm [Oo»nffede«ate Genear;-/. 
Lonsistrvtel] and report that '* he was unable io 
bring Ms men up again'' [to chaige the Feder- 
als]. Longstreet turned upon Mm and replie' 
with swne^ sarcasm : '" l>rjf wviJS ,• maver mm. 
tkem^ Oifmeral : JmM let tkem nemtaim wktve <£ f 
mn ; tke emmtjf* pwu^ *» a^nasioe, <amd mU tpar . 
fow tke trvvMeJ' [British officer s diaiy.. quoted 



g mniBfsaiiniiii ^ 

\.s att this tmnc 

1.5^ and subject 

' TitaMe 



cnrnoDns8&' 
into one . 
Tantas^e ' 



as 



c:. 



.."iigaSian and ac 



of Albemarte 'Smaz 

ring: espfloffit off Ue^".. 

~ Iffayy. These 

Trwnwndous ir-' 

"ter to desB' 



:a a 



ST, 



ItlO)ir|I>':- 



, . " "imsdff and 

- — . s Hisr. OF 

u. a, ch. e^ 

TJ, ADYKHTisSLE, itoriBg. Xiip<sSmm,L [Hav- 
ing!: escaped ffmnn Ms esdSe at Mba, his Mitttile 
armT amriTed near Cannes^.] In the conraeoff a, 
ffew'houis tliis esooart: off dx hundred mem, wjlth 
two CHT three small pieces off cannon, wtane saMy 
landed. . . . They wane ateamlt tto march sewen 
hundred miles, tlmou^ a kingdom conttainirag 
tbirty «»aWnitt« of InhaWtants, to capture the 
stromgest. capatal in Enrepe. ... An army off 
mearir two hundred thousand mem, under Bour- 
bom kaiias, were ^atnuied in imprefimaMe ffor- 
tr^as by the wav.— Abbotts Xjiupoi^wx R. 
ToL:S,ch.M. 

T5. KBHfEXTTSJ^ X-..5;;::- 
Mimiiiti. AdTienttainarsi-- 
mamy of them T'"' ' " ' 






toe- 






nw: 



to obtain th: 
. . Many. . . --^ _"■'■- 
iiipments were* ©blig^ 4© 

-'' '^- :roft"s Hicsr. of U. &._, f^. -- 

[WasMngtton s rettmum ffirewn a connif esr- 

''\ the French commander iSiL Pieamf. al 

-• mifar Lake ESwe. a.i». 1753l.] It was 

^ of winter. . . . With [Cliii^tofiher] 

^:'" as lid^sole comnaniQn, he Ml tibe 

.^ into tlue woo^ It ^vf^as one i£ 



10 



ADVENTURE— ADVERSITY. 



the most solitary marches ever made by man. 
There in the desolate wilderness, was the future 
President of the U. S. Clad in the robe of an 
Indian, with gun in hand, and knapsack strap- 
ped to his shoulders ; struggling through inter- 
minable snows ; sleeping with frozen clothes on 
a bed of pine-brush ; breaking through the 
treacherous ice of rapid streams ; guided by day 
by a pocket compass, and at night by the North 
Star, seen at intervals through the leafless trees ; 
fired at by a prowling savage from his covert 
not fifteen steps away ; thrown from a raft into 
the rushing Alleghany ; escaping to an island 
and lodging there until the river was frozen 
over ; plunging again into the forest ; reaching 
Gist's settlement and then the Potomac— the 
strong-limbed ambassador came back without a 
wound or scar to the capital of Virginia.— Rid- 
path's Hist. U. S., ch. 30. 

77. ADVENTITKE, Spirit of. Sir William Par- 
ry. In 1817, in a letter to an intimate friend, 
he happened to write a good deal about an ex- 
pedition, then much talked of, for exploring the 
river Congo, in Africa, and expressed a strong 
desire to make one of the party. When the let- 
ter was finished, but before it was put in the 
post-office, his eye fell upon a paragraph in the 
newspaper, stating that the government were 
about to send vessels in quest of a passage round 
the Northern coast of North America, which 
would shorten the voyage from England to 
India from sixteen thousand miles to about seven 
thousand. Parry reopened his letter, and, men- 
tioning the paragraph, concluded a short post- 
script with these words : " Hot or cold is all one 
to me — Africa or the Pole." His correspondent 
showed this letter to a friend, who was the man 
in England most devoted to the project in ques- 
tion^Mr. Barrow, secretary to the admiralty. 
Within a week from that time Lieutenant Parry 
was thrown into an ecstasy of astonishment and 
delight by receiving the appointment to com- 
mand one of the two ships preparing for the en- 
terprise. — Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 386. 

78. ADVENTURER, A born. Hernando Cor- 
tez. In the year 1502, at the small country town 
of Medellin, in Spain, there lived an idle, disso- 
lute youth of seventeen, who was the torment 
of his parents and the leader of all the mischief 
going in that neighborhood. . . . Having left 
the college of Salamanca without permi.ssion, 
[he] was passing his time in love intrigues and 
dissipation, regardless of the remonstrances of 
his father and mother. When, therefore, he 
declared his intention of joining an expedition 
about to sail for America, the good people of 
Medellin, especially those who had daughters, 
were not sorry to hear it. . . . No career attract- 
ed him, except one of adventure in the New 
World, which had been discovered ten years 
before. — Cyclopedia op Biog., p. 317. 

79. ADVENTURERS disappointed. Tlieodoric 
the Ostrogoth, [lie attempted the conquest of 
Italy.] As he advanced into Thrace [Theodo- 
ric] found an inhospitable solitude, and his 
Gothic followers, with a heavy train of horses, 
of mules, and of wagons, were betrayed by their 
guides among the rocks and precipices of Mount 
Sondis, where he was assaulted by the arms and 
invectives of [another] Theodoric, the son of 
Triarius. From a neighboring height his art- 



ful rival harangued the camp of the Walamirs, 
and branded their leader with the opprobrious 
names of child, of madman, of perjured traitor, 
the enemy of his blood and nation. " Are you 
ignorant," exclaimed the son of Triarius, " that 
it is the constant policy of the Romans to destroy 
the Goths by each other's swords ? Are you in- 
sensible that the victor in this unnatural contest 
■will be exposed, and justly exposed, to their im- 
placable revenge ? Where are those warriors, 
my kinsmen and thy own, whose widows now 
lament that their lives were sacrificed to thy rash 
ambition ? Where is the wealth which thy sol- 
diers possessed when they were first allured from 
their native homes to enfist under thy standard ? 
Each of them was then master of three or four 
horses ; they now follow thee on foot, like 
slaves, through the deserts of Thrace ; those men 
who were tempted by the hope of measuring 
gold with a bushel, those brave men who are as 
free and as noble as thyself." A language so 
well suited tc the temper of the Goths excited 
clamor and discontent ; and the son of Theode-. 
mir, apprehensive of being left alone, was com- 
pelled to embrace his brethren, and to imitate 
the example of Roman perfidy. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 39. 

80. ADVENTURES, Numerous. Capt. John 
Smith. The new president, though not thirty 
years of age, was a veteran in every kind of 
valuable human experience. Born an English- 
man ; trained as a soldier in the wars of Holland; 
a traveller in France, Italy, and Egypt ; again a 
soldier in Hungary ; captured by the Turks and 
sold as a slave ; sent from Constantinople to 
a prison in the Crimea ; killing a taskmaster 
who beat him, and then escaping through tlie 
woods of Russia to Western Europe ; going with 
an army of adventurers against ^lorocco ; finally 
returning to England and joining the London 
Company [afterward rescuing the colony in 
Virginia], .John Smith was altogetlier the most 
noted man in the early history of America. — 
RiDPATii's History' of U. S. , ch. 9. 

81. ADVERSITY, Benefits of. BunyaninBed- 
fordJail. Bunyan's confinement . . . was other- 
wse of inestimable value to him. It gave him 
leisure to read and reflect. Though he preached 
often, yet there must have been intervals, per- 
haps long intervals, of compulsory silence. The 
excitement of perpetual speech-making is fatal to 
the exercise of the higher qualities. The periods 
of calm enabled him to discover powers in 
himself of which he might otherwise have never 
known the existence. Of books he had but 
few ; for a time only the Bible and Fox's " ^lar- 
tjTs." But the Bible thoroughly known is a liter- 
ature of itself — the rarest and richest in all 
departments of thought or imagination which 
exists. — Froude's Bunyan, ch. (5. 

82. ADVERSITY deplored, Sudden. Charle.-i 
of Anjou. [He experienced a reversal of his 
good fortune by the revolt in Sicily.] In the first 
agony of grief and devotion, he Avas heard to 
exclaim, " O God ! if Thou hast decreed to 
humble me, grant me at leiist a gentle and 
gradual descent from the pinnacle of greatness !" 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 6'3. 

83. ADVERSITY, Eminence by. A. Lincoln. 
He had plenty of employment as a surveyor, and 
won a good reputation in this new line of busi- 



ADVERSITY. 



11 



ness ; but the financial crash of 1837 destroyed 
his business, and his instruments were finally 
sold under a sheriff's execution. This reverse 
again threw him back into political life, and, as 
the best preparation for it, he vigorously pursued 
his legal studies. [He had previously failed as 
a country store-keeper. His goods were bought 
on credit.] — Raymond's Lincoln, ch. 1, p. 26. 

§4. ADVERSITY, Instructed by. Frederick V. 
[Elector Palatine of the Bohemians.] Frederick 
was seated at table in Prague, while his army was 
thus cut to pieces. ... A messenger summoned 
him from table to show him from the Avails the 
whole frightful scene. He requested a cessa- 
tion of hostilities for twenty-four hours for de- 
liberation ; but eight was all the Duke of 
Bavaria would allow him. Frederick availed 
himself of these to fly by night from the capital, 
with his wife and the chief ofticers of his army. 
This flight was so hurried that the Prince of 
Anhalt left behind him his most private papers, 
and Frederick his crown. " I know now what 
I am," said this unfortunate prince to those who 
endeavored to comfort him ; " there are virtues 
which misfortune only can teach us, and it is in 
adversity alone that princes learn to know them- 
selves."— Thirty Ye.^ks' War, g 138. 

§5. ADVERSITY, Lessons of. Siege of Rome by 
the Goths. In the last months of the siege the 
people were exposed to the miseries of scarcity, 
unwholesome food, and contagious disorders. 
Belisarius saw and pitied their .sufferings; but he 
had foreseen, and he watched the decay of their 
loyalty, and the progress of their discontent. 
Adversity had awakened the Romans from the 
dreams of grandeur and freedom, and taught 
them the humiliating lesson, that it was of 
small moment to thcnr real happiness whether 
the name of their master was derived from the 
Gothic or the Latin language. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 41. 

86. ADVERSITY, Manhood through. Sir Hum- 
phry Dary. The death of his father, an in- 
telligent, "speculative man, who left his affairs 
in great disorder, consigned his mother to a 
milliner's shop, and changed him from a school- 
boy into an apothecary's apprentice. A shade 
of seriousness gathered over him. He had be- 
come a man. His private note-books of the first 
two years of his apprenticeship have been pre- 
served, and they show us, that when his day's 
work of compounding drugs was done, and in 
the morning before it begun, he was a hard 
student. He went through a complete course 
of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonom- 
etry, besides reading the metaphysical works 
of Locke, Hartley, Berkeley, Hume, Helvetius, 
Condorcet, and Reid. He also learned the 
French language. — Cyclopedia of Biog., 
p. 303. 

87. ADVERSITY, National. Eeign of Ed- 
leard III. Only fourteen years had gone by 
since the treaty of Bretigny raised England to a 
height of glory such as "it had never known be- 
fore. But the years had been years of a shame 
and suffering which stung the people to mad- 
ness. Never had England fallen so low. Her 
conquests were lost, her shores insulted, her com- 
merce swept from the seas. Within she was 
drained by the taxation and bloodshed of the 
war. Its popularity had wholly died away. 



When the commons where asked in 1354 whether 
they would assent to a treaty of perpetual peace 
if they might have it, " the said commons re- 
sponded all, and altogether, ' Yes, yes ! ' " The 
population was thinned by the ravages of pesti- 
lence, for till 1369, which .saw its la.s^ visitation, 
the black death returned again and again. — 
Hist, of Eng. People, § 856. 

88. ADVERSITY overruled. Eli Whitney. 
Eli Whitney was a j'oung Massachusetts Yan- 
kee, who had come to Georgia to teach, and, 
having been taken sick, had been invited by 
this hospitable lady to reside in her house till 
he .should recover. He was the son of a poor 
farmer, and had worked his way through college 
without assistance — as Yankee boys often do. 
From early boyhood he had exhibited wonder- 
ful skill in mechanics, and in college he used to 
repair the philosophical apparatus with remark- 
able nicety — to the great admiration of pro- 
fessors and students. "During his residence with 
Mrs. Greene he had made for her an ingenious 
tambour-frame, on a new principle, as well as 
many curious toys for her children. Hence her 
advice: "Apply to my young friend, Mr. 
Whitney ; he can make anything." [He there 
invented the cotton-gin machine.] — Cyclopedia 
OF Biog., p. 160. 

89. ADVERSITY precedes Success. Timour 
the Tartar. [In his twenty -fifth year he stood 
forth as the deliverer of his country.] The chiefs 
of the law and of the army had pledged their 
salvation to support him with their lives and 
fortunes ; but in the hour of danger they were 
silent and afraid ; and, after waiting seven days 
on the hills of Samarcand, he retreated to the 
desert with only sixty horsemen. The fugitives 
were overtaken by a thousand Getes, whom he 
repulsed with incredible slaughter, and his 
enemies were forced to exclaim, "Timour is a 
wonderful man : fortune and the Divine favor 
are with him." But in this bloody action his 
own followers were reduced to ten, a number 
which was soon diminished by the desertion of 
three Carizmians. He wandered in the desert 
with his wife, seven companions, and four 
horses ; and sixty-two days was he plunged in a 
loathsome dungeon, from whence he escaped by 
his own courage and the remorse of the oppress- 
or. [Greatness followed.]— Gibbon's Rome. 
ch. 65. 

90. ADVERSITY, Struggle with. "An old 
Struggler." When he [Sir Walter Scott] was in 
Ireland ... a poor woman who had offered to 
sell him gooseberries, but whose offer had not 
been accepted, remarked, on seeing his daughter 
give some pence to a beggar, that they might as 
well give her an alms, too, as she was "an old 
stru2:gler." Sir Walter was struck with the ex- 
pression, and said that it deserved to become 
classical, as a name for those who take up arms 
against a sea of troubles, instead of yielding to 
the waves. — Hutton's Scott, ch. 15. 

91. ADVERSITY a Tonic. Sir ^Y. Scott. [He 
lost a great property, was fearfully in debt, and 
his family distressed.] On the 22d he says: 
" I feel neither dishonored nor broken down by 
the bad, now truly bad, news I have received. 
I have walked my last in the domains I have 
planted— sat the last time in the halls I have 
built. But death would have taken them ! rom 



12 



ADVERSITY— ADVICE. 



me, if misfortune had spared them. Mv poor 
people whom I loved so well I There is just 
another die to turn up asrainst me in this nin of 
ill-luck, /. 6'. , if I should break my magic wand 
in the fall from this elephant, and lose my 
popularity with my fortune. Then Woodstock 
and B'ini'y" [his life of Xapoleon] " may both go 
to the paper-maker, and I may take to smoking 
cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee and 
intoxicate the brain another way." He adds 
that when he sets to work doggedly, he is ex- 
actly the same man he ever was, " neither low- 
spirited nor distrait' — nay, that adversity is to 
him "a tonic and bracer." [See Xos. 92 and 
94.] — HcTTOx's Scott, ch. 15. 

92. ADVEESITY, Unaffected by. Sir W. Scott. 
[He had become a bankrupt by lavish ex- 
penditures on his castle, etc.] The heaviest 
blow was, I think, the blow to his pride. Very- 
early he begins to note painfully the different 
way in which different friends greet him, to 
remark that some smile as if to say, "think 
nothing about it, my lad, it is quite out of our 
thoughts ; " that others adopt an affected grav- 
ity, " such as one sees and despises at a funeral," 
and the best-bred " ju.st shook hands and went 
on." He Avrites to Mr. Morritt with a proud 
indifference, clearly to some extent simulated : 
' ' My womenkind will be the greater suffer- 
ers, yet even they look cheerily ; and, for my- 
self, the blowing off of my hat on a stormy 
day has given me more uneasiness." To Lady 
Davy he writes truly enough : "I beg my 
humblest compliments to Sir Humphn,', and 
tell him. 111 Luck, that direful chemist, never 
put into his cnicible a more indissoluble piece 
of stuff than your affectionate cousin and sin- 
cere well-wisher, Walter Scott." [See Nos. 91 
and 94.] — Hutton's SroTT, ch. 15. 

93. ADVEESITY utilized. Lvther hidden in 
Wartburg Castle. Not long had he been on the 
hurg when he occupied himself with the tran.s- 
lation of the Scriptures, as well as with other 
writings. In a few weeks several works were 
ready for the press. A treatise "About Con- 
fession, and whether the Pope is entitled to 
command the same," he dedicated to his par- 
ticular friend and firm patron, Franci.sco von 
Sickingen. Besides commenting upon selected 
portions of Holy Scripture intended to instruct, 
comfort, and edify Christian people, Luther 
sent out many a heavy controversial article from 
the Wartburg. — Reen-'s Luther, ch. 10. 

94. ADVEBSITT, Victim of. Sir W. Scott. 
As Scott had always forestalled his in- 
come — spending the' purchase-money of his 
poems and novels before they were written — 
such a failure as this, at the' age of fifty -five, 
when all the freshness of his youth was gone 
out of him, when he saw his' son's prospects 
blighted as well as his own, and knew perfectly 
that James Ballantyne, una.ssisted bv him, 
could never hope to pay anv fraction of the 
debt worth mentioning, would have been para- 
lyzing, had he not been a man of iron nerve, 
and of a pride and courage hardlv ever equalled.' 
Domestic calamity, too, was not far off. For 
two years he had been watchintr the failure of 
his wife's health with increasing anxiety, and 
as calamities seldom come single, her illness 
took a most serious form at the very time when 



the blow fell, and she died within four months 
of the failure. Xay, Scott was himself unwell 
at the critical moment, and was taking seda- 
tives which discomposed his brain. [See Nos. 
91 and 92.] — Hctton's Scott, ch. 15. 

95. ADVERSITY in War. Spartans. The 
Spartans raised two considerable armies, and 
commenced hostilities by entering the territory 
of Phocis. They were defeated ; Lysander, 
one of their generals, being killed in battle, and 
Pausanias, the other, condemned to death for 
his misconduct. 3Iuch about the same time 
the Persian fleet unaer the command of Conon 
vanquished that of Sparta, near Cnidos, a city 
of Caria. This defeat deprived the Lacedaemo- 
nians of the command of the sea. Their allies 
took the opportunity of this turn of affairs to 
throw off their yoke, and Sparta, almost in a 
.single campaign, saw herself without allies, 
without power, and without resources. The 
reverse of fo-tune experienced by this republic 
was truly remarkable. Twenty years had not 
elapsed "since she was absolute mistress of 
Greece, and held the whole of her .states either 
as tributaries or allies, who found it their high- 
est intere.st to court her favor and protection. 
So changed was her present situation, that the 
most inconsiderable of the states of Pelopon- 
nesus spurned at her iuithority, and left her 
singly to oppose the united power of Persia and 
the leaiTue of Greece. — Untversal History, 
Tytler, ch. 2. Rook 2. 

96. ADVERTISEMENTS. Sanctimonioufl. Ridi- 
culed. Advertisements in magazines announc- 
ing an eligible residence in a neighb(jrhood 
where the gospel is preachetl in three places 
within half a mile ; and of a serious man-ser- 
vant wanted who can shave : such announce- 
ments as these were new and strange objects of 
ridicule in 18<)8. — Kxif;irr's Exg., vol. 8, ch. 7. 

97. ADVICE disdained. Braddock's Defeat. 
A select force of five hundred men was thrown 
forward to open the roads in the direction of 
Fort Du Quesne. . . . The army, marching in a 
slender column, was extended for fotir miles 
along the narrow and broken road. It was in 
vain that Washington pointed out the danger 
of ambuscades anil suggested the emploj-ment 
of scouting-parties. Braddock was self-willed, 
arrogant, and proud ; thoroughly skilled in the 
tactics of European warfare, he could not bear 
to be ad\ised by an inferior. The .sjjgacious 
Franklin had ad\i.sed him to move with cau- 
tion ; but he only replied that it was impossible 
for savages to make any impres,sion on his 
Majesty's regulars. Now. when Washington 
ventured to repeat the advice, Braddfxk fiew 
into a pa.s.sion, strode up and down in his tent, 
and said that it was high times when Col. 
Buckskin could teach a British general how to 
fight. [The army was surprised and nearly de- 
stroyed by the French and Indians. The 
general was severely wounded, and the troops 
thrown into a panic] " What .shall we do now, 
colonel ?" said he to AVashington. . . . "Retreat, 
-sir — retreat bv all means." — Ridpath's Hist. 
U. S., ch. 31." 

9§. ADVICE ignored. By King James IF. 
Clarendon [the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland] 
was soon informed, by a concise despatch from 
Sunderland, that it had been resolved to make 



ADVICE— AFFECTION. 



13 



without delay a complete change in both the 
civil and the militan' government of Ireland, 
and to bring a large number of Roman Catho- 
lics instantly into office. His Majesty, it was 
most ungraciously added, had taken counsel on 
these matters vrith persons more competent to 
advise him than his inexperienced lord lieuten- 
ant could possibly be. — Macaulay's Hist, of 
ExG., ch. 6. 

99. ADVICE, Ill-timed. A. Lincoln. [Some 
Western gentlemen were excited about the com- 
missions and omissions of the Administration.] 
" Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were 
worth was in gold, and j-ou had put it in the 
hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara 
River on a rope, would you shake the cable, or 
keep shouting to him — ' Blondin, stand up a 
Uttle straighter — Blondin, stoop a little more — 
go a little faster — lean a little more to the north 
— lean a little more to the south ' ? Xo, you 
would hold your breath, as well as your tongue. 
. . . The government are carrj-lng an immense 
weight. Untold treasures are in" their hands. 
They are doing the very best they can. Don't 
badger them. " — Raymond's Lescoln, p. 752. 

100. ADVICE, Legacy of. Bi/ Augustus to 
the Romnns. On the death of that emperor, his 
testament was publicly read in the senate. He 
bequeathed, as a valuable legacy to his success- 
ors, the advice of confining the empire within 
those limits which nature seemed to have placed 
as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries : on 
the west, the Atlantic Ocean : the Rhine and 
Danube on the north ; the Euphrates on the 
east ; and toward the south, the sandy deserts 
of Arabia and Africa. . . . Happily for the repose 
of mankind, the moderate system recommended 
by the wisdom of Augustus was adopted by 
the fears and vices of his immediate successors. 
— Gibbon's Rome. ch. 1. 

101. ADVOCATE, A personal. Xot by Proxy. 
[An old legionary asked Augustus to assist him 
in a cause which was aboiit to be tried. Au- 
gustus deputed one of his friends to speak for 
the veteran, who, however, repudiated the vica- 
rious patron:] "It was not by proxy that I 
fought for you at the battle of Actium." Au- 
gustus acknowledged the obligation, and pleaded 
the cause in person. 

■102. ^STHETICISM, Brutality of. Gladiators. 
The Lanistie, whose business it was to instruct 
these gladiators in their profession, taught them 
not only the use of their arms, but likewise the 
most graceful postures of falling and the finest 
attitudes of dving in. The food . 7 . prescribed to 
them was of such a nature as to enrich and 
thicken the blood, so that it might flow more 
leisurely through their wounds, "and thus the 
spectators might be the longer gratified with 
the sight of their agonies. . . . [Thty" took the fol- 
lowing oath:] "tVe swear that we will suffer 
ourselves to be bound, scourged, burned, or 
killed by the sword, or whate^-er Eumolpus or- ' 
dains, and thus, like freeborn gladiators, we re- < 
ligiously devote both our soul "and our body to 
our master." — Tytler's Hist., Book 4, ch.'4. 

103. .ESTHETICISM, Eealistic. Romans. [Ne- 
ro's reign.] The specific atrocity of such spec- ! 
tacles — unknown to the earlier ages which : 
they called barbarous — was due to" the cold- I 



blooded selfishness, the hideous realism of a re- 
fined, delicate, aesthetic age. To please these 
" lisping hawthorn-buds," these debauched and 
sanguinary dandies. Art, forsooth, must know 
nothing of morality ; must accept and rejoice 
in a " healthy animalism ;" must estimate Ufe 
by the number of its few wildest pulsations ; 
must reckon that life is worthless without the 
most thrilling experiences of horror or delight I 
Comedy must be actual shame, and tragedy 
genuiae bloodshed. "When the play of Af ranius 
I called ' ' The Conflagration " was put on the 
! stage, a house must be really burnt, and its fur- 
I niture really plundered. In the mime called 
1 "Laureolus," an actor must really be crucified 
and mangled by a bear, and really fling himself 
down and deluge the stage with blood" When 
the heroism of Slucius Scgevola was represented, 
a real criminal must thrust his hand without a 
groan into the flame, and stand motionless while 
it is being burnt. P*rometheus must be really 
chained to his rock, and Dirce in \evy fact be 
tossed and gored by the wild bull : and" Orpheus 
be torn to pieces by a real bear ; and Icarus 
must really fly, even though he fall and be 
dashed to death ; and Hercules must ascend the 
funeral pyre, and there be veritably burnt alive ; 
and slaves and criminals must play their parts 
heroically in gold and purple till the flames en- 
velop them. It was the ultimate romance of a 
degraded and brutalized society. — Fakrar's 
Early Days, p. 40. 

104. AFFECTION, Conjugal. Jdsephine. [The 
night following the execution of the deed of 
divorce, Josephine approached with hesitation 
the bed and the spouse from whence she had been 
ejected.] Forgetting everything in the fulness 
of her anguish, she threw herself upon the bed, 
clasped Napoleons neck in her arms, and ex- 
claiming, " 3Iy husband I my husband I" sobbed 
as though her heart were breaking. The impe- 
rial spirit of Napoleon was entirely vanquished. 
He also wept convulsively. He assured Jose- 
phine of his love — of his ardent, imdying love. 
[It was their last private interview.] — Abbotts 
Napoleon B., vol. 2, ch. 10. 



105. 



Andrew Jackson. The peo- 



ple of Nashville, proud of the success of theii- 
favorite, resolved to celebrate the event by 
a great banquet on the 22d of December, the 
anniversary of the day on which the general 
had first defeated the British below New 
Orleans. . . . Six days before the day appoint- 
ed for the celebration, Mrs. Jackson . . . sud- 
denly shrieked, placed her hands upon her 
heart, sunk upon a chair. . . . For the space of 
sixty hours she suffered extreme agony. . . . 
She' recovered the use of her tongue ... to 
implore . . . her exhausted husband to recruit 
his strength for the banquet. He would not 
leave her. but lay upon the sofa and slept a 
little. The evening of the 22d she appear- 
ed so much better "that the general consent- 
ed, after much persuasion, to sleep in the next 
room. When he had been gone five minutes . . . 
3Irs. Jackson gave a loud, inarticulate cry, 
which was immediately followed by the death- 
rattle in her throat. AH night long he sat in 
the room, occasionally looking into her face, 
and feeling if there was any pulsation in her 
heart. The next morning, when one of his 



14 



AFFECTION. 



friends arrived just before daylight, he was 
nearly speechless and utterly inconsolable, look- 
ing twenty years older. There was no banquet 
that day in Nashville. . . . Andrew Jackson 
was never the same man again. — Cyclopedia 
OF BiOG., p. 539. 

106. AFFECTION, Destitute of. Fulk the 
Black. He was without natural affection. In 
his youth he burned a wife at the stake, and 
legend told how he led her to her doom decked 
out in his gayest attire. In his old age he waged 
his bitterest war again.st his son, and exacted 
from him when vanquished a humiliation which 
men reserved for the deadliest of their foes. 
' ' You are conquered, you are conquered ! " 
shouted the old man in fierce exultation, as 
Geoffry, bridled and saddled like a beast of 
burden, crawled for pardon to his father's feet. 
In Fulk first appeared that low type of supersti- 
tion which startled even superstitious ages in 
the early Plantagenets. Robber as he was of 
church lands, and contemptuous of ecclesiasti- 
cal censures, the fear of the end of the world 
drove Fulk to the holy sepulchre. Barefoot 
and with the strokes of the scourge falling heav- 
ily on his shoulders, the count had himself 
dragged by a halter through the streets of Jeru- 
salem, and courted the doom of martj-rdom by 
his wild outcries of penitence. He rewarded the 
fidelity of Herbert of Le Mans, whose aid saved 
him from utter ruin, by entrapping him into 
captivity and robbing him of his lands. He se- 
cured the terrified friendship of the French king 
by despatching twelve assassins to cut down be- 
fore his eyes the minister who had troubled it. 
Familiar as the age was with treason and rapine 
and blood, it recoiled from the cool cynicism of 
his crimes, and believed tlie wrath of heaven to 
have been revealed against the union of the 
worst forms of evil in Fulk the Black. But 
neither the wrath of heaven nor the curses of 
men broke with a single mishap the fifty years 
of his success. — Hist, of Eng. People, § 123. 

107. AFFECTION, Display of. Conjugal. [Ca- 
to the Censor] expelled Manlius, a senator, 
whom the general opinion had marked out for 
Consul, because he had given his wife a kiss in 
the day-time, in the sight of his daughter. 
"For his own part," he said, "his wife never 
embraced him but when it thundered dread- 
fully," adding, by way of joke, "That he was 
happy when Jupiter pleased to thunder." — Plu- 
tarch. 

108. AFFECTION, Enduring. Sir Isaac Neic- 
ton. The beautiful daughter of a physician, 
who resided near his school, won his boyish 
affections, and he paid court to her by making 
dolls and doll-furniture for her. His affection 
was returned by the young lady, and nothing 
prevented their early marriage but Newton's 
poverty. . . . When at length he was in better 
circumstances, the object of his youthful love 
was married, and he himself was wedded to 
science. Never, however, did he return to the 
home of h'is fathers without visiting the lady ; 
and when both had reached fourscore he had 
the pleasure of relieving the necessities of her 
old age.— Parton's Sir I. Newton, p. 86. 

109. AFFECTION, Fickle. Countess of Car- 
lisle. The beautiful Countess of Carlisle, a kind 
of English Cleopatra, of whom Strafford in the 



season of his greatness had been the favored 
lover, used every effort with the Parliament to 
obtain the life of the man whose love had been, 
her pride. The fascinating countess failed to 
soften their hearts. As if it were the fate of 
Strafford to suffer at the same time the loss of 
both love and friendship, this versatile beauty, 
more attached to the power than the persons of 
her admirers, transferred her affections quickly 
from Strafford to Pym, and became the mis- 
tress of the murderer, who succeeded to the 
victim. — Lamartine's Croiiwell, p. 14. 

110. AFFECTION, FiUal. William Cowper. 
When Cowper was six years old his mother 
died ; and seldom has a child, even such a child, 
lost more, even in a mother. Fifty years after 
her death he still thinks of her, he says, with 
love and tenderness every day. Late in his life 
his cousin, ]\Irs. Anne Bodham, recalled herself 
to his remembrance hy sending him his mother's 
picture. "Every creature," he writes, "that 
has any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and 
you, the daughter of her brother, are but one 
remove distant from her ; I love you, therefore, 
and love you much, both for her sake and for 
your own." — Smith's Co\^ter, eh. 1. 

111. . Sir Walter Scott. His ex- 
ecutors, in lifting up liis desk, the evening 
after his burial, found "arranged in careful 
order a series of little objects, which had 
obviously been so placed there that his eye 
might rest on them every morning before he 
began his tasks. These Avere the old-fashioned 
boxes that had garnished his mother's toilet, 
when he, a sickly child, slept in her dre.ssing- 
room — the silver taper-stand, whicli the young 
advocate had bought for her with his first five- 
guinea fee ; a row of small packets inscribed 
with her hand, and containing the hair of those 
of her offspring that had died before her ; his 
father's snuff-box and etui-ca.se ; and more 
things of the sort." — Hutton's Life of Scott, 
ch. 1. 

112. . Caius Marcius Conolanus. 

Marcius pursued glory because the acquisition 
of it delighted his mother. For when she was 
witness to the applause he received, when she 
saw him crowned, when she embraced him with 
tears of joy, then it was that he reckoned him- 
self at the height of honor and felicity. Epam- 
inondas had the same sentiments, and declared 
it the chief happiness of his life, that his father 
and mother lived to see the generalship he ex- 
erted and the victory he won at Leuctra. — 
Plutarch. 



113. 



Sertoriiis the Roman General. 



This love of his country is said to have been in 
some measure owing to the attachment he had 
to his mother. His father died in his in- 
fancy, and he had his education wholh' from 
her ; consequently his affections centred iT 
her. His Spanish friends wanted to coosttf!*' 
him supreme governor ; but having infonSEL 
tion at that time of the death of his mother, ho 
gave himself up to the most alarming grief. 
For .seven whole days he neither gave the word, 
nor would be seen by any of his friends. — 
Plutarch. 

114. . Alexander the Great. [Olym- 

pias was his mother.] He made her many 
magnificent presents ; but he would not suffer 



AFFECTION. 



15 



her busy genius to exert itself in State affairs, 
or in the least to control the proceedings 
of government. She complained of this as 
a hardship, and he bore her ill-humor with 
great mildness. Antipater once wrote him a long 
letter full of heavy complaints against her ; and 
when he had read it, he said, " Antipater knows 
not that one tear of a mother can blot out a thou- 
sand such complaints." — Plutarch. 

115. . Napoleon I. [During the 

war between France and England an English 
prisoner escaped, and reaching the coast secretly 
prepared a fragile skiff of the bark and branches 
of trees. He was about to venture the Channel 
when he was arrested.] " Do you really in- 
tend," said Napoleon, "to brave the terrors of 
the ocean in so frail a skiff V" " If you will 
but grant me permission," said the young man, 
"I will embark immediately." "You must 
doubtless, then, have some mistress to revisit." 
..." I wish," replied the noble sailor, " to see 
my mother. She is aged, poor, and infirm." 
The heart of Napoleon was touched. "You 
shall see her," he energetically replied, "and 
present to her from me this purse of gold. She 
must be no common mother who can have 
trained up so affectionate and dutiful a son." 
. . . Sent in a cruiser with a flag of truce. — 
Abbott's Napoleon, vol. 1, ch. 26. 

116. AFFECTION of Friendship. A.Lincoln. 
A few daj's before the President's death Secre- 
tary Stanton tendered his resignation of the 
War Department . . . saying that he . . . had 
accepted the position to hold it only until the 
war should end, and that now he felt his work 
was done. Mr. Lincoln was greatly moved by 
the secretary's words, and tearing in pieces the 
paper that contained the resignation, and throw- 
ing his arms about the secretary, he said, "Stan- 
ton, you have been a good friend and a faithful 
public servant, and it is not for you to say when 
you will be no longer needed here." Several 
"friends of both parties were present, and there 
was not a dry eye that witnessed the scene. — 
Raymond's Lincoln, p. 757. 

117. AFFECTION, Impartial. Mr. Dustin. 
a.d. 1697. Seven days after her confinement 
Indian prowlers raised their shouts near the 
house of Hannah Dustin, of Haverhill [N. H.] ; 
her husband rode home from the field, but too 
late to provide for her rescue. He must fly, 
even if he would save one of his seven children, 
who had hurried before liim into the forest. 
But, from the cowering flock, how could a 
father make a choice '? [Which one take ? 
which leave to the Indians ?] With gun in 
hand he now repels the assault, now cheers on 
the innocent group of little ones, as they rustle 
through the dried leaves and bushes, till all 
reach a shelter. The Indians burned his home 
and dashed his infant against a tree. [His wife 
was taken into captivity.] — Bancroft's U. S., 
ch. 21. 

118. AFFECTION outraged, Maternal. Indian 
Wars. [The French and Indians made captives 
of women after burning the settlement of Salmon 
Falls in 1690.] The prisoners were laden by the 
victors with spoils from their own homes. . . . 
Mehetabel Godwin would linger apart in the 
snow to lull her infant to sleep, lest its cries 
should provoke the savages ; angry at the delay, 



her [Indian] master struck the child against a 
tree, and hung it among the branches. — Ban- 
croft's U. S., vol. 3, ch. 21. 

119. AFFECTION, Parental. Samuel Wesley. 
[The house of Rev. Samuel Wesley, the father 
of John Wesley, was fired at night by the rab- 
ble, and totally consumed.] The family barely 
escaped with their night garments upon them. 
Mrs. Wesley was in feeble health ; unable to 
climb with the rest through the windows, she 
was thrice beaten back from the front door by 
the flames. Committing herself to God, she at 
last waded through the tire to the street, scorch- 
ing her face and hands. It was found that one 
child was missing. The father attempted to 
pass up the stairs to rescue him, but the consum- 
ing steps could not bear his weight. He return- 
ed in despair, and, kneeling down upon the earth, 
resigned to God the soul of his child. Mean- 
while, the latter waking from his sleep, and 
finding his chamber and bed on fire, flew to the 
window, beneath which two peasants placed 
themselves, one on the shoulders of the other, 
and saved him at the moment when the roof fell 
in and crushed the chamber to the ground. 
" Come, neighbors, "said the father,as he received 
his son, "let us kneel down and give thanks 
to God ; He has given me all my eight children ; 
let the house go, I am rich enough." A few 
moments more and the founder of Methodism 
would have been lost to the world. — Stevens's 
Methodism, ch. 1, p. 59. 

120. . Lard Strafford's Trial. "My 

lords, I have troubled you longer than I 
should have done, were it not for the inter- 
est of these dear pledges a saint in heaven 
hath left me." [Here he stooped, letting fall 
some tears, and then resumed.] " What I for- 
feit myself is nothing ; but that my indiscretion 
should extend to my posterity woundeth me to 
the very soul. You will pardon my infirmity ; 
something I should have added, but am not able, 
therefore let it pass. And now, my lords, for 
myself I have been, by the blessing of Almighty 
God, taught the aflSictions of this present life 
are not to be compared to the eternal weight 
of glory which shall be revealed hereafter. 
And so, my lords ... I freely submit myself to 
your judgment ; and whether that judgment be 
for life or death—' Te Deum Laudamus !' " Sen- 
tence of death was the reply to this eloquence 
and virtue. — Lamartine's Cromwell, p. 12. 

121. AFFECTION, Strong. William, Prince of 
Orange. His affection was as impetuous as his 
wrath. Where he loved, he loved with the whole 
energy of his strong mind. When death separated 
him from what he loved, the few who witnessed 
his agonies trembled for his reason and his life. 
To a very .small circle of intimate friends, on 
whose fidelity and secrecy he could absolutely 
depend, he was a different man from the re- 
served and stoical William whom the multitude 
supposed to be destitute of human feelings. 
— Macaulay's Hist, of Eng., vol. 2, ch. 7. 

122. AFFECTION, Zeal of. John Howard. 
Howard was in the south of Europe when first his 
friends ventured to inform him of his son's con- 
dition. " I have a melancholy letter," he wrote, 
" relative to my unhappy young man. It is in- 
deed a bitter aflliction— a son, an only son !" 
[A dissipated young man.] He hurried home. 



16 



AFFECTIONS— AGE. 



The first five hundred miles he never stopped, 
day nor night, except to change horses. He 
reached liis house to find his son a raving mad- 
man, and to learn that his physicians had little 
hope of his restoration. One of the symptoms 
of his madness was a most violent antipathy to 
his father, which banished Howard from his 
home, until the increasing violence of the mal- 
ady compelled the removal of the patient to an 
asylum, where he died at the age of thirty-five. 
— Cyclopedi.v op Bigg. , p. 72. 

123. AFFECTIONS, Blighted. Emanuel Swe- 
denborg. The attachment [of Swedenborg for 
Polheim's daughter], however, was not mutual, 
and the lady would not allow herself to be be- 
trothed. Her father, who deeply loved Sweden- 



borg, caused a written 



agreement to 



be drawn 



up, promising his daughter at some futitre day. 
This document, Emerentia, from filial obedience, 
signed ; but, as ladies generally do, when forced 
to love in this way, took to sighs and sadness, 
which so affected her brother with sorrow, that 
he secretly purloined the agreement from Swe- 
denborg. The paper was soon missed, for Swe- 
denborg read it over frequently ; and in his grief 
at its loss besought Polheim to replace it by a new 
one. But as Swedenborg now discovered the 
pain which he gave to the object of his affections, 
he at once relinquished all claim to her hand, and 
left her father's house. It was his last, as it was 
his first,, endeavor after marriage. — White's 
Swedenborg, ch. 2. 

124. AGE, Depraved. Introducing Chn'sii- 
anity. The epoch which witnessed the early 
growth of Christianity was an epoch of which 
the horror and the degradation have rarely been 
equalled, and perhaps never exceeded, in the an- 
nals of mankind. . . . Abundant proofs of the ab- 
normal wickedness which accompanied the de- 
cadence of ancient civilization . . . are stamped 
upon its coinage, cut on its gems, painted upon 
its chamber-walls, sown broadcast over the 
pages of its poets, satirists, and historians. "Out 
of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wick- 
ed servant !" Is there any age which stands so 
instantly condemned by the bare mention of its 
rulers as that which recalls the successive names 
of Tiberius, Gains, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, 
and Vitellius, and which after a brief gleam of 
better examples under Vespasian and Titus, 
sank at last under the hideous tj-ranny of a Domi- 
tian ? Is there any age of which the evil charac- 
teristics force themselves so instantaneously up- 
on the mind as that of which we mainly learn the 
history and moral condition from the relics of 
Pompeii and Herculaneum, the satires of Per- 
sius and Juvenal, the epigrams of Martial, and 
the terrible records of Tacitus, Suetonius, and 
Dion Cassius ? And yet even beneath this lowest 
deep, there is a lower deep ; for not even on 
their dark pages are the depths of Satan so shame- 
lessly laid bare to human gaze as they are in the 
sordid fictions of Petronius and of Apuleius.— 
Farrar's Early Days, ch. 1. 

125. AGE of Greatness. National. It is this 
period, from the middle of the eighth to the mid- 
dle of the tenth century, which is to be account- 
ed the most flourishing age of Arabian magnifi- 
cence. While Haroun Alraschid made Bagdad 
the seat of a great and polished empire, and cul- 
tivated the arts and sciences with high success, 



the Moors of Cordova, under Abdalrahman and 
his successors, vied with their Asiatic brethren 
in the same honorable pursuits, and were, un- 
questionably, the most enlightened of the States 
of Europe "at this period. The empire of the 
Franks indeed, under Charlemagne, exhibited 
a beautiful picture of order, sprung from confu- 
sion and weakness, but terminating with the 
reign of this illustrious monarch, and leaving 
no time for the arts introduced by him to make 
any approach to perfection. The Moors of 
Spain, under a series of princes, who gave every 
encouragement to genius and industry, though 
fond at the same time of military glory, gained 
the reputation of superiority both in arts and 
arms to all the nations of the Wes*!. The iloor- 
ish structures in Spain, Avhich were reared dur- 
ing the eighth, ninth, and tenth centm-ies, many 
of which yet remain, convej^ an idea of opulence 
and grandeur which almost exceeds belief. The 
Mosque of Cordova, begun by Abdalrahman the 
First, and finished about the year 800, is .still al- 
most entire. — Tyti.er's Hist., Book 6, ch. 4. 

126. AGE, An improved. Edls old. The more 
carefully we examine the history of the past, the 
more reason shall we find to dissent from tlio.se 
who imagine that our age has been fruitful of 
new social evils. The truth is, that the evils are, 
with scarcely an exception, old. That which is 
new is the intelligence which discerns them, 
and the humanity which remedies them. — Ma- 
caulay's Eng., vol. 1, ch. 3. 

127. AGE, Men for the. OUnr Cromwell. 
Like the patron saint of England, St. George of 
Cappadocia — he of the dragon — Cromwell seems 
a strangely mythic character. In an age wlien 
real kings were dying or dead, and sham kings 
were flying from their own weakness beneatii the 
outspread shadowy wings of Right Divine — 
when, out of the .-^ea and scenery of confusion, 
beasts ro.se and reigned, like hydras, seven-head- 
ed, seven-horned — when every man sought to do 
what was right in his own eyes — when the prisons 
were full of victims, when the churches were full 
of munuueries, there rose a wraith, unexpected, 
unprecedented in the history of the nation, per- 
liaps of the world, and said, " Well, then, you 
must settle j-our account with me !" That (piaint, 
l)road-hatted majesty of our old folio histories 
was, without a doubt, the Pathfinder of his na- 
tion in that age. — Hood's Cromwell, ch. 1. 

12§. AGE, Memories in. Cato. When Cato was 
drawing near the close of his life, he declared to 
his friends that the greatest comfort of his old 
age, and that which gave him the highest satis- 
faction, was the pleasing remembrance of the 
many benefits and friendly offices he had done 
to others. To see them easy and happy by his 
means made him truly so. 

129. AGE, Objections to. Scipio. When he 
was yet a boy, we have seen him a Tribune of 
the Legions at the age of twenty, assisting to 
rally the broken remains of the army of Cannic, 
and barring the secession of the young nobles 
after that disastrous day. Three years after we 
find him offering himself a candidate for the 
Curule xEdileship ; and, when it was objected 
that he was yet too young for the office, 
promptly answering, ' ' If the people vote for 
me, that vdW make me old enough." — Liddell's 
Home, p. 352. 



AGE. 



17 



130. AGE criticised, OLD. Dr. Samuel John- 
son. He observed : " There is a wicked inclina- 
tion in most people to snppose an old man 
decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle- 
aged man, when leaving a companj*, does not 
recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing ; 
but if the same inattention is discovered in an 
old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, 
and say, ' His memorj^ is going.' " — Boswell's 
JoHXSON, Bond's Ed., p. 486. 

131. AGE, Excitement in OLD. Death of Pres. 
narrison. He was inaugurated President on- 
the4thof March, 1841 . . . DanielWebster . . . 
Secretary of State. Everything promised well for 
the new Whig administration ; but before Con- 
gress could convene, the venerable President, 
bending imder the weight of sixty-eight years, 
fell sick, and died just one month after his in- 
auguration. — Ridp.\th's Hist, op U. S., ch. 56. 

132. AGE Health in OLD. Dr.SamuelJohnson. 
One of the company mentioned his having seen 
a noble person driving in his carriage, and look- 
ing exceedingh' well, notwithstanding his great 
age. Johnson: "Ah, sir, that is nothing. 
Bacon observes that a stout, healthy old man is 
like a tower undermined." — Boswell's John- 
son, p. 517. 

133. AGE, Labor in OLD. Martin Luther. 
Luther had reached his sixty-third year. Fre- 
quent attacks of sickness had seriously weakened 
his bodily frame. Added to this was the anxi- 
ety that he felt on account of the cour.se of 
ecclesiastical affairs, so that at times a weariness 
of life overcame him. Thus he writes a few 
months before his death : " I, an aged, used-up, 
idle, tired, and unimpressive man, write to you. 
And though I had hoped that they would grant 
me, decrepit man that I am, a little rest, I am 
nevertheless overwhelmed with writing and 
speaking, acting and performing, as if I had 
never transacted, written, spoken, or done any- 
thing." — Rein's Luther, ch. 25. 

134. . Merschel. Sir William Her- 

schel was still pursuing his observations at 
the age of eighty. . . . He discovered the planet 
Uranus in 1781. It has been said of him, that 
" no one individual ever added so much to the 
facts on which our knowledge of the solar sys- 
tem is founded." — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 7, 
p. 129. 

135. AGE, Literature in OLD. JoJin Milton. 
The usual explanation of the frigidity of ' ' Para- 
dise Regained " is the suggestion which is nearest 
at hand — viz., that it is the effect of age. Like 
Ben Jonson's " New Inn," it betrays the feeble- 
ness of senility, and has one of the most certain 
marks of that stage of authorship, the attempt 
to imitate himself in those points in which he 
was once strong. — Pattison's Milton, ch. 13. 

136. AGE, Success in OLD. Ccesar. As a gen- 
eral, Caesar was probably no less inferior to 
Pompey than Sylla to Marius. Yet his suc- 
cesses in war, achieved by a man who, in his 
forty-ninth year, had hardly seen a camp, add 
to our conviction of his real genius. — Liddell's 
Rome, p. 702. 

137. AGE, Vigor in OLD. Weirrim: Masi- 
nissa. King of Numidia, when past ninety years 
of age, charged like a boy of nineteen at the head 



of his wild horsemen against the Carthaginians, 
and overcame them. — Liddell's Rome, p. 482. 

13S. . John Wesley. John Wesley 

was eighty-six years old before he became 
conscious of the infirmities of many years. 
He lived till he was eighty -eight j'cars of age. 
This unusual vigor he ascribed to the blessing 
of God, wrought chietiy by his constant exer- 
cise, his early rising, and his habit of daily 
preaching morning and evening. . . . Entering 
his eightieth year, he .«;ays ... he travels from 
four to live thousand miles every year ; has a 
perfect command of sleep, night or day, when- 
ever he needs it ; he is an early riser al a fixed 
hour. ... In his eighty-second j'ear he writes : 
"It is now eleven years since I felt any such 
thing as weariness." . . . His associates could 
not at this time perceive in him an}' signs of in- 
tellectual deca}', nor can the critic detect it in 
his writings. . . . He records beautiful impres- 
sions of nature and books more frequently ; he 
compares and criticises Ariosto and Tasso ; he 
indulges occasionally in dramatic reading and 
criticfsm. ... He is described as still fresh in 
color, -^vith a brilliant eye and vivacious spirits. 
. . . He was careful of his physical habits ; his 
natural constitution was feeble ; he said he never 
felt lowness of spirits for a quarter of an hour 
since he was born, and before his seventieth 
year he never lost a night's sleep. He preached 
forty-two thousand five hundred sermons.^ — 
Stevens' jVIethodism, Book 5, ch. 12. 



139. 



Cato the Censor. He re- 



tained his bodily strength to a very great age. 
When he was past eighty years he called one 
morning upon a man who had formerly been 
his .secretary, and asked him whether he had 
yet provide'd a husband for his daughter. "I 
have not," was the reply ; " nor shall I v\ithout 
consuhing my best friend." "Why, then," 
said Cato, " I have found out a very fit husband 
for her, if she can put up with an old man who, 
in other respects, is a very good match for her." 
"I leave the disposal of"^ her," said the father, 
"entirely to you. She is under your protec- 
tion, and depends wholly upon your bounty." 
" Then," said Cato, " I will be your son-in-law." 
The astonished parent gave his consent, and 
Cato announced his intention to his son, who 
was himself a married man. "Why, what 
have I done," said the son, " that I should have 
a mother-in-law put upon me ?" "I am only 
desirous," replied Cato, "of having more .such 
sons as you, and leaving more such citizens to- 
my country." By this wife, who was little 
more than a girl, he actually had a son, who 
himself became consul of Rome, and was the 
father of the other famous Cato, the enemy of 
Ca?sar. — Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 423. 

140. . I^rd Palmerston. When 

he was past seventy, he thought no more of 
a thirty-mile gallop of an afternoon than a 
New York merchant does of walking home 
from Broad Street to Union Square. Often, 
when Parliament was expected to sit late, he 
would dismiss his carriage, and, coming out of 
the house after midnight, would walk home 
alone, a distance of two miles, and "do" the 
distance in thirty minutes. There never was a 
brisker old gentleman. In the hunting season 
he usually went into the country, where he 



18 



AGE— AGRAKIANISM. 



would follow the hounds as vigorously and as 
long as the youngest buck of them all. — Cyclo- 
pedia OF BiOG., p. 500. 

141. AGE, Protected by. Aged Solon. Many of 
his friends . . . told him the tyrant would cer- 
tainly put him to death . . . and asked him what he 
trusted to, that he went such imprudent lengths ; 
he answered, ' ' To old age. " However, when Pi- 
sistratus had fully established himself, he made 
his court to Solon, and treated him with so 
much kindness and respect, that Solon became, 
as it were, his counsellor, and gave sanction to 
many of his proceedings. — Plutarch. 

142. AGE, A remarkable. Thirteenth Century. 
[Here we] seek the origin of our freedom, our 
prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the 
great English people was formed. . . . Then 
first appeared Avith distinctness that Constitution 
which has ever since, through all changes, pre- 
served its identity ; that Constitution of which 
all the other free constitutions in the world are 
copies, and which, in spite of some defects, de- 
serves to be regarded as the best under which 
any great society has ever yet existed during 
many ages. Then it was that the House of 
Commons, the archetype of all the representa- 
tive assemblies which now meet, either in the 
Old or in the New World, held its first sittings. 
Then it was that the common law rose to the 
dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not 
imworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. 
Then it was that the courage of those sailors 
who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports 
first made the flag of England terrible on the 
seas. Then it was that the most ancient col- 
leges which still exist at both the great national 
seats of learning were founded. Then was 
formed that language, less musical, indeed, than 
the languages of the South, but in force, in 
richness, in aptitude for all the highest pur- 
poses of the poet, the philosopher, and the 
orator, inferior to that of Greece alone. Then, 
too, appeared the first faint dawn of that noble 
literature, the most splendid and the most 
durable of the many glories of England. — Ma- 
caulay's Hist, op Eng., vol. 1, ch. 1. 



143. 



Rrformatwn. The age of 



Charles V. is the era of great events and im- 
portant revolutions in the history of Europe. 
It is the era of the Reformation in religion in 
Germany, in the northern kingdoms of Den- 
mark and Sweden, and in Britain. It is the 
era of the discovery of America ; and, lastly, it 
is the period of the highest splendor of the'fine 
arts in Italy and in the south of Europe. — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 20. 

144. AGE, Satisfactory. Intimidatfd. Cra- 
cow was taken, and the whole country gave way 
to the conqueror [Charles XII.] The perfidi- 
ous primate [Cardinal Bajouski], in an assembly 
of the States at Warsaw, now openly took part 
against the king [of Poland], his ma'ster, and in 
the year 1704 the throne of Poland was declared 
vacant. The victorious Charles signified to the 
States of the kingdom his desire tliat Stanislaus 
Leckzinski, a young nobleman of Posnania, 
should be elected king. The electors made 
some hesitation on account of his youth. "If 
I am not mistaken," said Charles, " he is as old 
tis I am" [twenty years]. It is almost needless 



to add that Leckzinski was elected King of 
Poland. — Tytler's Hist. , Book 6, ch. 35. 

145 AOED, Blessing of the. Joltn Hoirard. 
The Pope was one of the monarchs with whom 
he conversed on this great subject. He was re- 
ceived at the papal palace with unusual distinc- 
tion, and he was dispensed from the ceremony 
of kissing the toe of the pontiff. When he was 
about to retire, after a long conversation on the 
prisons of Italy, the Pope said to him, laying 
his hand upon his very Protestant head: "I 
know you Englishmen do not mind these things, 
but the blessing of an old man can do you no 
harm." — Cyclopedia op Bigg., p. 58. 

146. AGITATION, Perils of. Great Reforma- 
tion. "Luther's teachings." writes a contempo- 
rary, "have aroused so much strife, dissension, 
and disturbance among the people, that there is 
scarce a country or a city, a village or a family, 
that has not been divided and agitated even unto 
blo\Ais." — Rein's Litiier, ch. G. 

147. AGITATION, Perseverance in. Abolition- 
ists. The Abolitionists were a proscribed and 
persecuted cla.ss, denounced with unsparing se- 
verity by both of the great political parties, con- 
demned by many of the leading churches, libelled 
in the public press, and maltreated by furious 
mobs. In no jiart of the country did they con- 
stitute more than a handful of the population. 
. . . They were largely recruited from the So- 
ciety of Friends. . . . Caring nothing for preju- 
dice, meeting opprobrium with silence, shaming 
the authors of violence by meek non-resistance, 
reljing on moral agencies alone, appealing sim- 
ply to the reason and tlie conscience of men, 
they arrested the attention of the nation by ar- 
raigning it before the public opinion of the 
world, and proclaiming its responsibility to the 
judgment of God. — Blaine's Twenty Years 
OP Congress, \\. 2:?. 

14§. AGONY of the Cross. Christ. The agony 
of Christ upon the cross, dying a .slow death 
from rabid violence among the Jews, and bar- 
barous woiuids inflicted by Roman soldiers, to 
drain away the blood of life, and torture all the 
nerves of sense, and all the feelings of the soul 
within the body, is the highest illustration of 
the meaning of the word. — A>f. Cvc. " Agony." 

149. AGRAKIANISM, Difficulties of. Ilomnns. 
The people might certainly have prevailed in ob- 
taining the favorite mea.sure of an agrarian law. 
But the truth is, this measure was nothing more 
than a political engine, occasionally employed 
by the popular magistrates for exciting commo- 
tion.s, and weakening the jiower of the jiatricians. 
It was a measure attended necessarily with 
so much difficulty in the execution, that few 
even of the people themselves had a sincere de- 
sire of .seeing it accomplished. The extensive 
disorder it must have introduced in the territo- 
rial possessions of the citizens, by a new distribu- 
tion of all the lands acquired by conipiest to the 
republic since the time of Romulus — the affec- 
tion which even the poorest feel for a small patri- 
monial inheritance, the place of their nativity, 
and the repository of the bones of their forefa- 
thers — and that niost admirable and most salutary 
persuasion that it is an act of impiety to alter 
or remove ancient landmarks — all these were 
strong obstacles. — Tytler's Hist. , Book 3, ch.5. 



AGGRESSION— AGRICULTURE. 



19 



150. AGGRESSION, Required. liomans. [After 
the recapture of Capua by Appius Claudius and 
Fulvius Flaccus,] when the Consuls returned 
home, they were refused a triumph. No Ro- 
man general, it was said, deserved a triumph for 
merely recovering what once belonged to the 
Republic. — Ltddell's Rome, p. 334. 

151. AGRICULTURE, Ancient. Romans. In 
the early times of Rome the work of the farm 
was the only kind of manual labor deemed wor- 
thy of a free citizen. This feeling long survived, 
as may be seen from the praise bestowed on 
agriculture by Cicero, who.se enthusiasm was 
caught from one of his favorite heroes, old Cato 
the Censor. The taste for books of farming- 
continued. Varro tlie antiquarian, a i-rieud of 
Cicero, has left an excellent treatise on the sub- 
ject. A little later came the famous Georgics of 
Virgil, followed at no long interval by Pliny's 
notices, and then by the elaborate Dissertations 
of Columella, who refers to a great number of 
Roman writers on the same subject. It is man- 
ifest that the subject of agriculture possessed a 
strong and enduring charm for the Roman mind. 
But, from the times of the Ilannibalic AVar, 
agriculture lost ground in Italy. When Cato 
was asked what was the most profitable kind of 
farming, he said, " Good grazing." What next ? 
"Tolerable grazing." What next? "Bad graz- 
ing." What next? "Corn-growing." Later 
writers, with one accord, deplored the dimin- 
ished productiveness of land. — Liddell's Rome, 
p. 497. 

152. AGRICULTURE, Anti-monopoly in. Ro- 
mans. A high appreciation of agriculture ap- 
pears to iiave been a fundamental idea among 
tlie early Romans. A tract of land was allot- 
ted to every citizen by the State itself, and 
each one was carefully restricted to the quantity 
granted. It was said by the orator Cu- 
rius, that "he was not to be counted a good 
citizen, but rather a dangerous man to the 
State, who could not content himself with 
seven acres of land." The Roman acre being 
about one sixth less than ours, the law actually 
limited the possession to about six acres. As 
the nation became more powerful and extended 
its dominions by conquest, the citizen was al- 
lowed to hold fifty acres, and still later he could 
be the holder of five hundred. — Am. Cyc, 
"Agriculture." 

153. AGRICULTURE, Attractions of. Tlie Po- 
et Horace.. When cloyed with the pleasures of 
the imperial city, he had but to mount his mule 
and ride fifteen minutes, to reach his farm. 
His land, well covered with forest, and lying 
on both sides of a sparkling river, was tilled by 
five free families and eight slaves, and produced 
grain, wine, and olives. It abounded in pleasant, 
secluded scenes, fit for a poet's leisure ; and 
there, too, he delighted to receive his friends 
from Rome ; Mecsenas himself being glad to 
repose there from the toils of government. To 
this day, Horace's farm is continually visited by 
travellers residing in Rome, especially by Eng- 
lish and Americans. — Cyclopedia op Bigg., 
p. 376. 

154. AGRICULTURE, Burdens of. By Ar- 
taxerxes, Kinr/ of the Persians. Several of his 
sayings are preserved. One of them in partic- 
ular discovers a deep insight into the consti- 



tution of government. ' ' The authority of the 
prince," said Artaxerxes, "must be defend- 
ed by a military force ; that force can oul}' 
be maintained by faxes ; all taxes must, at 
last, fall upon agriculture ; and agriculture can 
never flourish except under the protection of 
justice and moderation." — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 8. 

155. AGRICULTURE burdened. Reign of Louis 
Xyi. The progress of agriculture was still bur- 
dened by the .servitudes of the soil. Each 
little farm was in bondage under a complicated 
.sj'stem of irredeemable dues, to roads and 
canals ; to the bakehou,se and the brewery of the 
lord of the manor ; to his winepress and his 
mill ; to his tolls at the river, the market, or the 
fair ; to ground rents and quit rents, and fines 
on alienation. The game laws let in the wild 
beasts and birds to fatten on the growth of the 
poor man's fields ; and after his harvests pro- 
vincial custom-houses blocked domestic com- 
merce ; the export of corn, and even its free 
circulation within the realm, was prohi])ited ; so 
that one province might waste from famine and 
another want a market. — Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 7, ch. 7. 

156. AGRICULTURE exalted. " Nearer Heav- 
en." The great employment of France was 
the tillage of land, than which no method of 
gain is more grateful in it.self or more worthy 
of freemen, or more happy in rendering service 
to the whole human race. No occupation is 
nearer heaven. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 5, ch. 2. 

157. AGRICULTURE honored. Cincinnatus, 
Dictator of Rome. A succes.sor was chosen to 
Valerius in the consulate, L. Quintius Cincinnat- 
us, a man of great resolution and intrepidity, 
who, though himself so indigent as to cultivate 
with his own hands his paternal fields, and to 
be called from the plough to put on the robe of 
the consul, had yet the high spirit of an ancient 
patrician, which was ill-disposed to brook the 
insolence of the popular magistrates or acquiesce 
in the daily increasing pretensions of the in- 
ferior order. — Tytler's Hist., Book 3, ch. 5. 

158. ' . Edmund Burke. [Edmund 

Burke] was an agricultural improver. Young 
saw him experimenting on carrots at his farm 
at Beaconsfield, and says, "Buckinghamshire 
will be much indebted to the attention this 
manly genius gives to husbandry." — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 7, ch. ]. 

159. AGRICULTURE, Pursuit of. Noblest Ro- 
mans. The picture of the Roman people dur- 
ing the first five centuries is so perfectly dis- 
tinct, so widely different from what we find it 
in the latter ages of the republic, that we might 
at first be induced to think that some very ex- 
traordinary causes must have co-operated to pro- 
duce so total an alteration. Yet the transition 
was easy and natural, and was in the Roman 
people the necessary and inevitable consequence 
of that rich and luxurious situation in which 
the virtuous and heroic temper of the earlier 
times had conduced to place the republic. A 
spirit of temperance, of frugality, and of indus- 
try must be the characteristics of every infant 
colony. The poverty of the first Romans, the 
narrow territory to which they were limited, 
made it necessary for every citizen to labor for 



20 



AGRIC ULTURE— ALLIANCE. 



his subsistence. In the first ages, the patricians, 
when in the country, forgot all the distinctions 
of rank, and toiled daily in the fields like the 
lowest plebeian. . . . Cincinnatus we have seen 
named dictator by the voice of his country, 
while at the plough. M. Curias, after expelling 
Pyrrhus from Italy, retired to the possession of 
a small farm, which he assiduously cultivated. 
The elder Cato was fond of this spot, and re- 
vered it on account of its former master. It 
was in emulation of the example of this ancient 
Roman that Cato betook himself to agriculture. 
Scipio Africanus also, after the conquest of 
Hannibal and the reduction of Carthage, re- 
tired to his paternal fields, and with his own 
hand reared and grafted his fruit trees. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist., BooIE 4, ch. 4. 

160. AGRICITLTTIRE, Religious. Persian Mo- 
rality. To cultivate an untilled field, to plant 
fruit trees, to destroy noxious animals, to bring 
water to a dry and barren land, were all actions 
beneficial to mankind, and therefore most agree- 
able to the divinity, who wills perpetually the 
highest happiness of his creatures. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 1, ch. 11. 

161. AGRICULTURE, Scientific. Reign of 
Clutrles II. Deeply impressed with these great 
truths, the professors of the new philosophy 
applied themselves to their task, and before a 
quarter of a centurv had expired they had given 
ample earnest of what has since been achieved. 
Already a reform of agriculture had been com- 
menced. New vegetables were cultivated. 
New implements of husbandry were employed. 
New manures were applied to the soil. Evelyn 
had, under the formal sanction of the Royal So- 
ciety, given instruction to his countrymen in 
planting. Temple, in his intervals of leisure, 
had tried many experiments in horticulture, and 
had proved that many delicate fruits, the natives 
of more favored climates, might, with the help 
of art, be grown on English ground. — Macax:- 
lay's Eno., vol. 1, ch. 3. 

162. AGRICULTURE, Superiority of. Romans. 
Many of the early laws of the Romans were the 
necessary result of their situation. Such, for 
example, was that law Avhich confined the prac- 
tice of all mechanic arts to the slaves ; for all 
the free citizens must either have been employed 
in warfare or in the culture of their fields. — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 3, ch. 1. 

163. AGRICULTURE, Unsuccessful. England 
in A.D. 1390. The average produce of wheat 
per acre was less than six bushels. — Knight's 
Hist, of Eng., vol. 1, ch. 30. 

164. AGRICULTURISTS crippled. By Thendo- 
rir. [The King of the Goths.] This. . . faith- 
ful servant [of the Eastern Empire] was suddenly 
converted into a formidable enemy, who spreatl 
the flames of war from Constantinople to the 
Adriatic ; many flourishing cities were- reduced 
to ashes, and the agriculture of Thrace was al- 
most extirpated by the wanton cruelty of the 
Goths, who deprived their captive peasants of 
the right hand that guided the plough.— Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 39, p. 6. 

165. ALARM, Needless. PerUnax, PrefeH of 
Rome. [Commodus, the Roman tyrant, had 
been assassinated. The conspirators sought 
noble Pertinax to fill the vacant throne.] He 



now remained almo.st alone of the friends and 
ministers of Marcus ; and when, at a late hour 
of the night, he was awakened with the news 
that the chamberlain and the prefect were at 
his door, he received them Avith intrepid resig- 
nation, and desired they would execute their 
master's orders. In.stead of death, they offered 
him the throne of the Roman world. During 
some moments he distrusted their intentions and 
assurances. Convinced at lengtli of the death 
of Commodus, he accepted the purple with a sin- 
cere reluctance. — Gibbon's Rome, vol. 1, ch. 4. 

166. ALARM, Religious. Martin Luther. Al- 
read}', in his eighteenth year, he surpassed all 
his fellow-students in knowledge of the Latin 
classics, and in power of composition and of elo- 
quence. His mind took more and more a deeply 
religious turn ; but it was not till he had been 
for two 3'ears studying at Eisenach that he dis- 
covered an entire Bible, having until then only 
known the ecclesiastical extracts from the sacred 
volume, and the history of Hannah and Samuel. 
He now determined to study Greek and Hebrew, 
the two original languages of the Bil)le. A 
dangerous illness brought him within the near 
prospect of death ; but he recovered, and prose- 
cuted his study of philosophy and law, and tried 
hard to gain inward peace by a pious life and 
the greatest strictness in all external observances. 
His natural cheerfulness di.sappcared ; and after 
experiencing the shock of the death of one of 
his friends by assassination in the summer of 
1505, and soon after that being startled by a 
thunderbolt striking the earth by his side, he 
determined to give up the world and retire into 
the convent of the Augustiuiaus at Erfurt. — 
Bcn.sen's Luther, p. 7. 

167. ALIENS, Expulsion of. Adams' Admin- 
istration. Much of the recent legislation of 
Congress had been unwise and impopular. The 
alien law, by which the President was authorized 
to send out of the country any foreigners who.se 
presence should be considered prejudicial to the 
United States, was .specially odious. . . . Parti- 
san excitement ran hi<rh. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 
47. 

16S. ALLEGORIST, The best. Jofin Biinyan. 
The "Pilgrim's Progress " was. in his own life- 
time, translated into several foreign languages. 
It was, however, scarcely known to the learned 
and polite, and had been, during near a century, 
the delight of pious cottagers and artisans before 
it was publicly commended by any man of high 
literary eminence. At length critics conde- 
scended to inquire where the secret of so wide 
and so durable popularity lay. They were com- 
pelled to own that the ignorant multitude had 
judged more correctly than the learned, and 
that the despised little book was really a master- 
piece. Bunyau is indeed as decidedly the first 
of allegorists, as Demosthenes is the first of 
orators, or Shakespeare the first of dramatists. 
Other allegorists have shown equal ingenuity, 
but no other allegorist has ever been able to 
touch the heart and to make abstractions ob- 
jects of terror, pity, and of love. — Macaulay's 
Hist, of ENf;., cir. 7. 

169. ALLIANCE. Degrading. Charles IT. with 
Loui.'i XIV. [Charles sought aid. that he might 
be independent of Parliament.] Louis promis- 
ed large aid. He from time to time doled out 



ALLIANCE— ALLY. 



21 



such aid as might serve to keep hope alive, and ] 
as he could without risk or inconvenience spare. 
In this way, at an expense very much less than 
that which he incurred in building and decorat- 
ing Versailles or Marli, he succeeded in making 
England, during nearly twenty years, almost as 
insignificant a membeV of the political sj-stem 
of Europe as the republic of San Marino. — Ma- 
caulay's Hist, op Eng., ch. 2. 

1 70. "alliance demanded. By France of 
U. S. [John Adams was President.] Adet, 
the French minister, made inflammatory appeals 
to the people, and urged the government to 
conclude a treaty with France against Great 
Britain. When the President and Congress 
stood firmly on the doctrine of neutrality, the 
French Directory grew insolent, and began to 
demand an alliance. ... On the 10th of March 
the Directory issued instructions to French rnen- 
of-war to assail the commerce of the United 
States. . . . American minister was ordered to 
leave the territory of France. [War followed.] 
— RiDPAxn's Hist. L'. S., ch. 47. 

171. ALLIANCE, A just. American Indians. 
Friendly relations . . . were established with 
the Wampanoags. Massasoit, the great sachem 
of the nation, was invited to visit the settlement, 
and came, attended by a few of his warriors. 
The pilgrims received them with as much 
parade and ceremony as the colony could pro- 
\ide ; Captain Standish ordered out his sol- 
diers . . . then and there was ratified the first 
treaty made in New England. The terms were 
few and simple. There should be peace and 
friendship ... no injury should be done by 
either party. All offenders should be given up 
to be punished. If the English engaged in war, 
Massasoit should help tliem ; if the Wampa- 
noags were attacked unjustly, the English 
should give aid. . . . Mark the word w/(;hs%; 
it contains the essence of Puritanism. — Rid- 
PATii's Hist, of U. S., ch. 13. 

172. ALLIANCE of Self-interest. "We give Ovr- 
selves . . . to the Eomans." Capua was the prin- 
cipal city of Campania, one of the finest and 
most fertile countries of Italy. Thi.s city, then, 
was extremely opulent and luxurious. The 
Samnites, a poor but warlike people, were al- 
lured by the riches of their neighbors, and in- 
vaded Campania. The inhabitants of Capua, 
after some feeble attempts to resist the invaders, 
implored aid from the Romans. The Senate 
answered, that their alliance with the Samnites 
prevented them from giving anything else than 
their compassion. ' ' If," then, " said the Capuaus, 
"you will not defend us, you will, at least, de- 
fend yourselves ; and from this moment we give 
ourselves, our cities, our fields, and our gods to 
the Romans, and become their subjects." The 
Senate accepted the donation, and ordered the 
Samnites immediately to quit their territories. 
The necessary consequence was a war. . . . 
The Samnites were glad to conclude a peace. — 
Tytler's Hist., ch. 7. 

173. ALLIES, Dangerous. Turkish Tribes. 
[Mahmud encouraged emigration of many 
tribes within his territory.] Mahmud the Gaz- 
nevide was admonished of his error by a chief 
of the race of Selijuk, who dwelt in the terri- 
torv of Bochara. The sultan had inquired what 
supply of men he could furnish for military 



service. "Ifj'ou send," replied Ismael, "one 
of these arrows into our camp, fifty thousand of 
your servants will mount on horseback." "And 
if that number," continued Mahmud, "should 
not be suflBcient ?" " Send this second arrow to 
the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thou- 
sand more." " But," said the Gaznevide, dissem- 
bling his anxiety, " if I should stand in need of 
the whole force of your kindred tribes ?" " Des- 
patch my bow," was the last reply of Ismael ; 
"and as it is circulated around, the summons 
will be obeyed by two hundred thousand horse." 
The apprehension of such formidable friendship 
induced Mahmud to transport the most obnox- 
ious tribes into the heart of Chorasan, where 
they would be separated from their brethren by 
the' river Oxus, and enclosed on all .sides by the 
walls of obedient cities. — Gibbon's Rome, vol. 6, 
ch. 63. 

174. . Lions. [Cassius made com- 
plaint against Caesar that] the lions which he 
had procured when he was nominated a^dile, 
and which he had sent to Megara, Cajsar had 
taken and converted to his own use, having 
found them there when that city was taken by 
Calanus. Those lions, it is said, were very 
fatal to the inhabitants ; for as soon as their 
city was taken, they opened their dens and un- 
chained them in the streets, that they might 
stop the irruption of the enemy ; but instead of 
that they fell upon the citizens, and tore them 
in such a manner that their very enemies were 
struck with horror. — Plutarch. 

175. ALLIES, Invisible. Mahomet's Angels. 
[The Koreish had one hundred horse and eight 
himdred foot.] " O God," he exclaimed, as 
the numbers of the Koreish descended from the 
hills, " O God, if these are destroyed, by whom 
wilt Thou be worshipped on the earth ? Courage, 
my children ; close your ranks ; discharge your 
arrows, and the day is your own." At these 
words he placed himself, with Abubeker, on a 
throne or pulpit, and instantly demanded the 
succor of Gabriel and three thousand angels. 
His eye was fixed on the field of battle ; the 
Mussulmans fainted and were pressed ; in that 
decisive moment the prophet started from his 
throne, mounted his horse, and cast a handful of 
sand into the air : "Let their faces be covered 
with confusion." Both armies heard the thunder 
of his voice ; their fancy beheld the angelic 
warriors ; the Koreish trembled and fled ; 
seventy of the bravest were slain ; and seventy 
captives adorned the first victory of the faithful. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 50. 

176. ALLIES rejected. Lnfaiiette—Kalb. Ju- 
ly, 1777. Kalb and Lafayette arriving at Phila- 
delphia . . . met a rude repulse. When it was 
told that Lafayette desired no more than leave 
to risk his life in the cause of liberty, without 
pension or allowance. Congress gave him the 
rank of major-general ; but at first the services of 
Kalb, the ablest European officer who had come 
over — master of English and familiar with the 
country— were rejected.— Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 9, ch. 23. 

177. ALLY, Volunteer. Agrarian Law. [Pro- 
posed for relief of the poor and for returned 
Roman soldiers. Large tracts belonging to the 
State were to be donated.] Pompey was the idol 
of every soldier in the State, and at Csesar's in- 



23 



AMBITIOX. 



vitation he addressed the assembly. He spoke 
for his veterans. He spoke for the poor citizens. 
He said that he approved the law to the last 
letter of it. " Will you then," asked Cajsar, 
" support the law if it be illegally opposed ?' 
"Since," replied Pompey, "you counsel, and 
you, mv fellow-citizens, ask aid of me, a poor 
individual without office and without author- 
ity, who nevertheless has done some service 
to the State, I say that I will bear the shield 
if others draw the sword." Applause rang out 
from a hundred thousand throats.— Froude's 
C^SAK, ch. 13. 

17§. AMBITION vs. Affection. Napoleon I. 
[Josephine knew that many were urgmg upon 
him the necessity of a divorce that he might 
have an heir, and thus secure the future of the 
State.] One day when Napoleon was busy 
in his cabinet Josephine entered softly by a 
side door, and seating herself affectionately 
upon his knee, and passing her hand gently 
through his hair, said to him, with a burst of 
tenderness, " I entreat you, my love, do not make 
yourself king. It is Lucien who urges you to 
it. Do not listen to him." Napoleon smiled 
upon her kindly, and said, " Why, my poor Jo- 
sephine, are you mad ?" ... She knew the in- 
tensity of her husband's love. She also knew 
the boundlessness of his ambition. — Abbott's 
NapoleoxL, vol. 1, ch. 24. 

179. AMBITION, Awakened. Sir I. Newton. 
It is a question with English teachers whether 
schoolboys ought or ought not to be permitted 
to settle their quarrels by a fair fight with fists. 
In the great schools of Eton, Westminster, 
Harrow, and others, fighting is tacitly allowed ; 
but in the smaller schools, especially those under 
the charge of dissenters, it is forbidden. . . . 
The greatness of Sir Isaac Newton dates from a 
fight which he had with one of his schoolfellows 
when he was thirteen years of age. At that 
time, according to his own confession, he was 
very idle at school, and stood last in the lowest 
class but one. One morning, as he was going 
to school, the boy who was first in the same 
class kicked him in the stomach with so much 
violence as to cause him severe pain during the 
day. When the school was dismissed, he chal- 
lenged the boy to fight him. The challenge 
being accepted, a ring was formed in the church- 
yard, the usual place of combat, and the fight 
begun. Newton, a weakly boy from his birth, 
was inferior to his antagonist in size and 
strength ; but, smarting under a sense of the in- 
dignity he had received, he fought with so much 
spirit and resolution as to compel his adversary 
to cry, Enough. The schoolmaster's son, who 
had been clapping one of them on the back and 
winking at the other, to urge on the contest, and 
who acted as a kind of umpire, informed the 
victor that it was necessary to crown his triumph 
by rubbing the other boy's nose against the 
wall. Little Newton seized him by the ears, 
thrust his face against the rough side of the 
church, and walked home exulting in his victory. 
The next morning, however, lie had again 
the mortification of seeing his enemy at" the 
head of the class, while he occupied his usual 
place at the foot. He began to reflect. Could 
he regard himself in the fight of a victor while 
his foe lorded it over him in the schoolroom ? 



The applauding shouts of his schoolfellows had 
been grateful to his ears, but his enemy enjoyed 
the approval of the teacher. The laurels of the 
playground seemed to fade in comparison with 
the'nobler triumphs of the mind. The result of 
his reflections was, that he determined to con- 
quer his adversary again by getting to the head 
of his class. —Cyclopedia OF Biog., p. 244. 

180. AMBITION, Cruelty of. Innc. Con- 
stantine, surnanied Copronymus, . . . dying left 
this prince [his son Leo], then nine years old, to 
the government of his mother Irene, who ruled 
the empire [of the East] rather as a sovereign 
than as a regent. She was an able woman, and 
foresaw the danger to the empire from the am- 
bition and power of Cliarlemagne. To avert any 
hostile purposes, till she should be in a condition 
to oppose them with effect, she brought about a 
negotiation for the marriage of her son with the 
daufichter of Charlemagne ; but it was far from 
her mtention that this'match should ever be ac- 
complished. Irene, on the contrary, was too 
fond of power herself to consent to anything 
that might deprive her of the reins of govern- 
ment. She kept the young Con.stantine in the 
most absolute dependence and submis.'^ion ; and 
when at last he endeavored to a.ssume that 
dignity which belonged to him, she, on pretence 
of trea-sonable designs, threw him into prison, 
deprived him of his'eyes, and put him to death. 
— TvTLEU's IIisT, Biiok (>, ch. ;i 

1§I. AMBITION in the Church. Schisms. 
Ambition is a weed of (pnck and early vegeta- 
tion in the vineyard of Christ. Under the first 
Christian print'es the chair of St. Peter was 
disputed by the votes, the venality, tlie violence, 
of a popular election ; the sjuictuaries of Rome 
were polluted with blood ; and from the third 
to the twelfth centurvthe church was distracted 
bv the mischief of frequent schisms.— Gibbon's 
RoMK, ch. (!!». 

I §2. AMBITION cursed. Gen. Fraser. a.d. 
1777. [Gen. Fra.ser, one of Gen. Burgoyne's 
major-generals, fell at the battle of Saratoga.] 
He questioned the surgeon eagerly as to his 
wound, and when he found that he must go 
from wife and children, that fame and pro- 
motion and life were gliding from before his 
eves, he cried out in his agony : " Damned am- 
bition!"— Bancroft's U. S., vol. 9, ch. 24. 

183. AMBITION, Delusive. Roman Emperor 
Moximus. The inii>ru(U-Mt Maximus . . . grati- 
fied his resentment and ambition ; he saw the 
bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet ; and 
he heard him.self saluted Emperor by the unan- 
imous voice of the Senate and people. But the 
day of his inauguration was the last day of his 
happiness. He was imjirisoned (such is the 
lively expression of Sidonius) in the palace ; 
and after passing a sleepless niglit, he sighed 
that he had attained the .summit of his wi.^^hes, 
and aspired only to descend from the dangerous 
elevation. Oppressed by tlie weigiit of the 
diadem, he communicated liis anxious thoughts 
to his friend and quaestor Fulgentius ; and when 
he looked back with unavailing regret on the 
secure pleasures of his former life, the emperor 
exclaimed, " O fortunate Damocles, thy reign 
began and ended with the s;ime dinner ;" a 
well-known allusion. . . . The reign of Maximus 
continued about three mouths. His hours, of 



AMBITION. 



23 



which he had lost the command, were disturbed 
by remorse, or guilt, or terror, and his throne 
"was shaken ])y the seditions of the soldiers, the 
people, and the confederate barbarians. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 30. 

184. AMBITION, Destructive. Assassination 
of Julius Casar. The principal thing that ex- 
cited the public hatred, and at last caused his 
death, was his passion for the title of king. It 
was the tirst thing that gave offence to the mul- 
titude, and it afforded his inveterate enemies a 
verj' plausible plea. — Plutarch. 

185. AMBITION, Determination of. Alexan- 
der Iluinilton. His mother, "w hile he was yet a 
child, had left him an orphan and poor. A 
fatlier's care he seems never to have known. . . . 
[When a clerk in his native West India.] . . . 
To a friend of his own years [he] confessed his 
ambition. "I would willingly risk my life," 
said he, " though not my character, to exalt my 
station. I mean to prepare the way for futuri- 
ty ; we have seen .such schemes successful when 
the projector is constant." — Banckoft's U. S., 
vol. 7, ch. 6. 

186. AMBITION differs. Alcramkr the Great 
and Parmenio. Darius had sent a second em- 
bassy to Alexander, while he was engaged in 
the siege of Tyre. The Persian now assumed a 
humbler tone. He offered ten thousand talents 
for the ransom of his mother and his queen, and 
he agreed to give Alexander his daughter Statira 
in marriage, with all the Asiatic provinces to 
the westward of the Euphrates for her portion. 
When these terms were made known to the 
Macedonian oflScers, Parmenio could not help 
remarking, that, were he Alexander, he would 
not hesitate a moment to accept of them. " And 
I," replied the king, "might think so too, if I 
were Parmenio." — Tvtler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 
4, p. 186. 

187. AMBITION, Diverse. Napoleon I. — Ptas- 
aat. [When Napoleon was crossing the Alps 
with his arm}', a young pea.sant was his 
guide, and unconscious of the rank of his com- 
panion. Napoleon] drew from his young and 
artless guide the secrets of his heart. The young 
peasant was sincere and virtuous. He loved a 
fair maid among the mountains. She loved him. 
It was his great desire to have her for his own. 
He was poor, and had neither house nor land to 
support a familj'. Napoleon struggling . . . 
against England and Austria ... to meet one 
hundred and twenty thousand foes . . . [re- 
membered his guide and gratified his ambition 
in the possession of a home.] — Abbott's Napo- 
leon B., vol. 1, ch. 19. 

188. AMBITION, Dream of. Count de Brog- 
lie. A.D. 1T7C. Wliile Washington was toiling 
under difficulties without [pecuniary] reward, 
a rival in Europe aspired to his place. The 
Count de Broglie, disclaiming the ambition 
of becoming the .sovereign of the United States, 
insinuated his willingness to be for a period of 
years its William of Orange, provided he could 
be assured of a large grant of money before 
embarkation, an ample revenue, the highest 
military rank, and the direction of foreign rela- 
tions during his command, and a princely annu- 
ity for life after his return. . . . The poverty of 
the new republic scattered the great man's short- 
lived dream. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 9, ch. 16. 



189. AMBITION, Envious. Themistocles the 
Athenian Statesman and General. Themisto- 
cles was so carried away with the love of glory, 
so immoderately desirous of distinguishing 
him.self by some great action, that, though 
he was very young when the battle of Mara- 
thon was fought, and when the generalship 
of Miltiades was everywhere extolled, yet even 
then he was observed to keep much alone, to be 
very pensive, to watch whole nights, and not to 
attend the usual entertainments. When he was 
a.sked the reason by his friends, avIio wondered 
at the change, he said, " The trophies of Miltiades 
would not suffer him to sleep. " — Plutarch. 

190. AMBITION, Failure of. Sir W. Scott. 
There is something of irony in such a result of 
the herculean labors of Scott to found and 
endow a new branch of the clan of Scott. When 
fifteen years after his death the estate was at 
length "freed from debt, all his own children 
ancl the eldest of his grandchildren were dead ; 
and now forty-six years have elai)sed, and there 
only remains one girl of his descendants to bor- 
row his name and live in the halls of which he 
was so proud. And yet this, and this only, was 
wanting to give something of the grandeur of 
tragedy to the end of Scott's great enterprise. 
He valued his works little compared Avith the 
house and lands which they were to be the 
means of gaining for his descendants ; yet every 
end for which he struggled so gallantly is all 
Ijut lost, while his works have gained more of 
added lustre from the losing battle which he 
fought so long, than they could ever have gain- 
ed from his success. — IIutton's Scott, ch. 17. 

191. AMBITION, Field of. Young Knight. 
He went forth, if we are to believe literally the 
chroniclers of those ages, with the determined 
purpose of provoking to combat some other 
knight of established renown ; and to effect this 
a pretence was never wanting. He had only to 
assert boldly that the lady whom it was his hap- 
piness to serve and obey excelled every other 
female in beauty and in virtue, as much as tlie 
moon surpas.sed the stars in splendor, and to in- 
sist upon every knight he met making the same 
acknowledgment. "The high esteem of the fe- 
male sex we have before remarked to have been 
characteristic of the Gothic manners. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 6, ch. 10. 

192. AMBITION, Inhuman. The Triummri. 
Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus held a 
conference in a .small island in the middle of the 
river Po. They agreed that, under the title of 
Triumviri, they should possess themselves of 
absolute authority ; and they made a partition 
on the spot of all'the provinces, and divided be- 
tween them the command of the legions. . . . 
The Eastern provinces were as yet possessed by 
Brutus and the other conspirators, against whom 
it was determined that Antony and Octavius 
should immediately march with a large arniy. 
Before entering, however, upon this expedition, 
it was resolved to clear the way by a proscrip- 
tion of all that were obnoxious to any one of 
the Triumviri ; a dreadful resolution, since the 
firmest friends of any one of the three had nec- 
essarily been the enemies of the others. What 
souls mu.st these men have possessed, who could 
advise or consent to so horrible a scheme ! Le- 
pidus agreed to sacrifice his brother PauL-o ; 



24 



AMBITION. 



Antony his uncle Lucius Csesar ; Octavius his 
guardian Torranius and his friend Cicero. — 
Tyti.ek's Uxn^ERSAL Hist. , Book 4, ch. 2. 

193. AMBITION, Insensibility of. Surgeons. 
A great surgeon is frequently tempted, by the 
mere love of his art, to perform an operation not 
strictly necessary. Dr. [Valentine] Mott held this 
practice in abhorrence. . . . A celebrated Paris 
surgeon asked him one day if he would like to see 
hinT perform his original operation. " Nothing 
would give me more pleasure," repUed Dr. Mott. 
The Frenchman mused a moment, and then 
said : " However, now I think of it, there is no 
patient in the hospital who has that malady. 
No matter, my dear friend, there is a poor devil 
in Ward No. — , who is of no use to himself or 
anybody else ; and if you'll come to-morrow, 
I'll operate beautifully on him." It need not be 
said that Dr. Mott declined to witness the perpe- 
tration of a crime so atrocious. — Ctclopedlv 
OF Bigg., p. 531. 

194. AMBITION, Literary. Milton. It was 
during his residence in Italy that his literary 
ambition was born. From an early period of 
his youth he had been accustomed to write Latin 
poems, some of which he carried to Italy and 
showed to his learned friends there. They were 
struck Avith wonder that a man from distant 
England should have attained such mastery of 
theLatin language, and they were not less as- 
tonished that a Briton should be so excellent a 
poet. It was their hearty praise, he says in one 
of his letters, that first suggested to him the idea 
of devoting his- life to literature. Then and 
there it was, he tells us, that he began to think 
that "by labor and intent study" he might, per- 
haps, produce something so written that posterity 
would not let it die. A great Christian poem 
was the object to which he aspired. He desired 
to do for England what Homer had done for 
Greece, Virgil for Rome, Dante for Italy, and 
Camoens for Portugal. It was in Italy, too, that 
he saw those religious dramas, representing the 
temptation of Adam and Eve and its conse- 
quences, which are supposed to have given him 
the idea of his "Paradise Lost." — Cyclopedia 
OP Bigg., p. 168. 

195. AMBITION, Lofty. Timonr or Tamer- 
lane. The conquest and monarchy of the world 
was the first object of the ambition of Timour. 
To live in the memory and esteem of future ages 
was the second msh of his magnanimous spirit. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 65. 

196. AMBITION, Maternal. Mother of_ Emp. 
Nero. On the accession of Claudius, Agrippina 
w^as restored to her rank and fortune, and once 
more undertook the management of her child. 
He was, as we see from his early busts, a child 
of exquisite beauty. His beauty made him 
an object of special pride to his mother. From 
this time forward it seems to have been her one 
desire to elevate the boy to the rank of Emperor. 
In vain did the astrologers warn her that his eleva- 
tion involved her murder. To such dark hints of 
the future she had but one reply — " Occidat chnn 
imperet f" " Let him slay me, so he do but reign 1" 
[He did slav her.] — Farrar's Early Days, 
ch. 2. 

197. AMBITION mortified. Poet SMley. "I 
despair of rivalling Lord Byron, as well I may, 



and there is no other with whom it is worth con- 
tending." To Oilier, in 1820, he wrote: "I 
doubt whether I shall write more. I could be 
content either with the hell or the paradise of 
poetry ; but the torments of its purgatory vex 
me, without exciting my powers sutficiently to 
put an end to the vexation." — Sytionds's 
Shelley, ch. 6. 

198. AMBITION, National. Continental Prov- 
ince. A period of more than a hundred years 
followed, during which the chief object of the 
EngUsh was to'establish, by force of arms, a 
great empire on the Continent. . . . The 
effect of the successes of Edward III. and of 
Henry V. was to make France, for a time, 
a province of England. The disdain with 
which, in the twelfth centuiy, the conquerors 
from the Continent had regarded the islanders, 
was now retorted by the islanders on the people 
of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to 
Northumberland valued himself as one of a race 
born for victory and dominion, and looked down 
with scorn on the nation before which his ances- 
tors had trembled. . . . In no long time our an- 
cestors altogether lost sight of the original ground 
of quarrel. They began to consider the crown 
of France as a mere appendage to the crown of 
England.— Macavlay's Hist, of Eng., ch. 1. 

199. AMBITION, Persistent. Charlemagne. 
In the course of a glorious reign of forty-five 
years, this prince, who, in more respects than as 
a conqueror, deserved the surname of Great, ex- 
tended the limits of his cmiiire beyond the 
Danube, subdued Dacia, Dalmalia. and Istria ; 
concjuered, and rendered tributary to his crown, 
all the barbarous nations as far as the Vistula or 
Weser ; <»nade himself master of the greatest 
part of Italv, and alarmed the fears of the em- 
pire of the "Saracens. The longest of his wars 
was that witii the Saxons. Il was thiriy years 
before he reduced to .subjection this ferocious 
and warlike people. The motive of this obsti- 
nate war, on tlie part of Charlemagne, against 
a people who possesse<l nothing alluring to the 
avarice of a conqueror, was ambition alone; 
unless we .shall sujjpose that the ardor for mak- 
ing pro.selytes had its weight with a prince, 
whose zeal for the propagation of Christianity 
was a remarkable feature in his character — a 
zeal, however, which carried him far beyond 
the boimds which humanjty ought to have as- 
signed to it. Charlemagne 'left the Saxons but 
the alternative of being "baptized or drowned in 
the Weser.— Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 3. 

200. AMBITION proclaimed. liobert Ouimird. 
After this inauguration [as duke] Robert styled 
himself, "By the grace of God and St. Peter, 
Duke of Apulia, Calabria, tmd hereafter of 
Sicily ;" and it was the labor of twenty years 
to deserve and realize these lofty appellations. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 56. 

201. AMBITION restrained. Theodoric the Os- 
trogoth. The life of Theodoric represents the 
rare and meritorious example of a barbarian, 
who sheathed his sword in the pride of victory 
and the v\gox of his age. A reign of three and 
thirty years was consecrated to the duties of 
civil government, and the hostilities in which 
he was sometimes involved were speedily ter- 
minated by the conduct of his lieutenants, the 
discipline of his troops, the arms of his allies, 



AMBITION— AMERICA . 



25 



Gibbon's 



iind even by the terror of his name. 
Rome, ch. 39. 

202. AMBITION, Sleepless. Mahomet II. 
[Fearing the bribes of his enemies, he sent for 
his prime vizier at midnight, who came with 
much alarm to learn :\Iahomefs anxietj^ to pos- 
sess Constantinople.] " Lala " (or preceptor), con- 
tinued the sultan, " do you see this pillow ? All 
the niffht, in my agitation, I have pulled on one 
side or the other ; I have risen from my bed, again 
liave I lain do-mi ; yet sleep has not visited these 
weary eyes. Beware of the gold and silver of 
the Romans . . . with the atd of God and the 
pravers of the prophet, we shall .speedily be- 
come masters of Constantinople."— Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 68. 

203. AMBITION, Spurred. General Schuyler. 
A.D. 1777. [Gen. Gates asked Congress to ap- 

" point himself to supersede Schuyler in command 
at Albany and Ticonderoga.] His uneasy and 
ambitious wife let her voice be heard : " If you 
i^ive up one iota, and condescend to be adjutant- 
general, I may forgive it, but never will forget 
It." [He was uiitit for either position, but 
jrained his point.] — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 9, 
ch. 19. 

204. AMBITION, Subordinated. Olker Crom- 
well. Macaulay . . . says: " The ambition 
of Oliver was of no \'\ilgar kind. He never 
seems to have coveted despotic power. He, at 
first, fought sincerely and manfully for the 
Parliament, and never deserted it till it had de- 
serted its duty. But even when thus placed l)y 
violence at the head of affairs, he did not as.sume 
unlimited power. He gave the country a con- 
stitution far more perfect than any which had, 
at that time, been known to the world. For 
himself, he demanded indeed the first place in 
the Commonwealth, bat with powers scarcely 
so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder or an 
American president. He gave to Parliament a 
voice in the appointment of ministers, and left 
it to the whole legislative authority, not even 
reserving to himsc'lf a veto on its enactments ; 
and he did not require that the chief magistracy 
should be hereditary in his family. Thus far, 
if the circumstances of the time and the oppor- 
tunities which he had for aggrandizing himself 
be fairly considered, he will not lo.se by com- 
parison with Washington and Bolivar. " — Hood's 
Cromwell, ch. 1. 

205. AMBITION, Unhappy. Tiraour the T^ar- 
tar. [The nuptials of his six grandsons were 
celebrated for two months.] The historian 
of Timour mav remark, that, after devoting 
fifty years to 'the attainment of empire, the 
only iiappy period of his life were the two 
months in which he ceased to exercise his 
]wwer. But he was soon awakened to the cares 
of government and war. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 65. 

206. AMBITION unsatisfied. Eoman Emper- 
or Seienis. The ascent to greatness, however 
steep and dangerous, may entertain an active 
.spirit Mith the consciousness and exercise of its 
own powers ; but the possession of a throne could 
never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an 
ambitious mind. This melancholy truth was 
felt and acknowledged by SeveriLS. Fortune 
and merit had, from'an humble station, elevated 
him to the first place among mankind. "He 



had been all things," as he said himself, " and 
all was of little value." Distracted with the 
care, not of acquiring, but of preserving an em- 
pire, oppressed with age and infirmities, careless 
of fame, and satiated with power, all his pros- 
pects of life were clo.sed. The desire of perpet- 
uating the greatness of his family was the only 
remaining wish of his ambition and paternal 
tenderness. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 6. 

207. AMBITION, Unscrupulous. SUphen A. 
Douglas. His faults were great and lamentable. 
Like so many other public men who spend 
their winters in Washington, he lived too freely 
and drank too much. If he was a skilful poli- 
tician, he was sometimes an unscrupulous one, 
and supported measures for party reasons which 
he ought to have opposed for humane and patri- 
otic ones. He said himself that President Polk 
committed the gigantic crime of "precipitating 
the country into ^he IMexican war to avoid the 
ruin of the Democratic party," and knowing 
this, he supported him in it. . His rapid and uni- 
form success as a politician inflamed his ambi- 
tion, and he made push after push for the Presi- 
dency, and finally permitted his party to be 
divided rather than postpone his hopes. He 
was in too much of a hurry to be President. -^ 
Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 201. 

208. AMBITION, War of. '' Seven Years' War." 
[Frederick the Great professed friendship and 
support to the young ruler of Austria.] Yet the 
King of Pru.ssia, the " Anti-Machiavel," had al- 
ready fully determined to commit the great 
crime of \aolating his plighted faith, of robbing 
the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of 
plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and 
desolating war, and all this for no end whatever 
except that he might extend his dominions and 
see his name in the gazettes. He determined to 
assemble a great army with speed and secrecy to 
invade Silesia before ]\Iaria Theresa should be 
apprised of his design, and to add that rich prov- 
ince to his kingdom. ... To quote his own 
words: "Ambition, interest, the desire of mak- 
ing people talk about me, carried the day, and I 
decided for war. " — Macaulay's Frederick 
THE Great, p. 28. 

209. AMERICA for Americans. ''Monroe 
Doctrine." The British and French ministers 
proposed to the American Government to enter 
into a Tripartite Treaty— so called— in which 
each of the contracting nations was to disclaim 
then and forever all intention of possessing 
Cuba. To this proposal ]\Ir. [Alex. H.] Everett 
replied in one of the most masteriy State papers 
on record. Great Britain and France were in- 
formed . . . that the Federal Government did 
not recoscnize in any European power the right 
to meddle with affairs purely American, and 
that, in accordance with the doctrine set forth 
by President Monroe, any such interference 
would be resented as an affront to the sover- 
eignty of the United States.— Ridpath's U. S., 
ch. 58. 

210. AMERICA, Future of. Lafayette. He 
received the order of the king [of France] to 
give up his expedition [in aid of the Americans] 
... he braved the order, and . . . embarked 
for America. ... To his young ^afe . . . 
he wrote on board the Victory, at _ sea ; 
" From love to me become a good American ; 



26 



AMERICA— AMUSEMENTS. 



the -welfare of America is closely bound up with 
the welfare of all mankind ; it is about to be- 
come the safe asylum of virtue, tolerance, 
equality, and peaceful liberty."— Bancroft's 
U. S., vol. 9, ch. 16. 

211. AMERICA, Mission of. John Adams. 
'•I always," said John Adams, "con.sider the 
settlement of America with reverence and won- 
der, as the opening of a grand scene and design 
in Providence for the illumination of the igno- 
rant and the emancipation of the, .slavish part 
of mankind all over the earth." — Bancroft's 
U. S., vol. 5, ch. 11. 

212. AMERICA, Prophecy of. Stor?nont to 
George III. [In a.d. 1775 he predicted if the 
colonies gained independence :] They might con- 
quer both your islands and ours ... in process 
of time advance to the southern continent of 
America, and either subdue their inhabitants, or 
carry them along with them, and in the end not 
leave a foot of that hemisphere in tlie possession 
of an European power . . . being remote they 
are not the less .sure. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 8, 
ch. 51. 

213. AMERICA, Transformation in. "Fountain 
of Youtlt." On the discovery of tlie new hemi- 
sphere, the tradition was widely spread through- 
out the old, that it conceals a fountain whose ever- 
flowing waters have power to reanimate age and 
restore its prime. The tradition was true ; but 
the youth to be renewed was the youth of soci- 
ety ; the life to bloom afresh Avas ilie life of the 
race. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 5, cii. 13. 

214. AMERICANS despised. Dr. Samud John- 
son.. He had recently published a ]>amplilet, en- 
titled " Ta.xation no Tyranny; an Answer to 
the Resolutions and Address of the American 
Congress." . . . As early as 1769 . . . lie had 
said of them, " Sir, they are a race of convicts, 
and ought to be thankful for anytliing we al- 
low them shortof hanging. " — Boswell's John- 
son, p. 237. 

215. AMERICANS hated. Dr. Sam iirl John- 
son. He said : " I am willing to love all man- 
kind, except ((n American ;" and his intlanima- 
ble corruption bursting into horrid tire, he 
"breathed out threatenings and slaughter," 
calling them, "Rascals, robbers, jnrates ;" and 
exclaiming, he'd "burn and destroy them." 
Miss Seward, looking to him with 'mihl but 
steady astonishment, .said : " Sir, this is an in- 
stance tiiat we are always most violent against 
those whom we have injured." He was irritated 
still more by this delicate and keen reproach. — 
Boswell's JoiiNsox, p. 3^0. 

21«. AMUSEMENT, Captivated by. fyiuis Phi- 
lippe [The Duke of Orleans travelled in the Uni- 
ted States incog.'] At a tavern the duke remonstra- 
ted with the landlady for not attending to their 
wants. She replied that there was a show in 
the village, the tirst .show ever .seen in that coun- 
try, and she was not going to stay at home her- 
self, nor re(iuire any one else to stay, to wait on 
anybody; not she, indeed! — Cyclopedia of 
BioG., p. .500. 

217. AMUSEMENT, Disappointed in. ^^onks. 
In England . . . the Gray Friars of Francis [ar- 
rived] in 1224. They had hardly landed at Dover 
before they made straight for'London and Ox- 
ford. In their ignorance of the road the tirst two 



gray brothers lost their way in the woods between 
Oxford and Baldon, and, fearful of night and of 
the floods, turned aside to a grange of the monks 
of Abingdon. Their ragged clothes and foreign 
gestures, as they prayed for hospitality, led the 
porter to take them for jongleurs, the jesters and 
jugglers of the da}', and the news of this break 
in the monotony of their lives brouglit prior, 
sacrist, and cellarer to the door to welcome them 
and witness their tricks. The disappointment 
was too much for the temper of the monks, anil 
the brothers were kicked roughly from the gate 
to find their night's lodgings under a tree. — 
Hist, of Exg. Peoi-le, ^ 2U8. 

21§. AMUSEMENTS, Brutal. Broadswords. 
During the first half of tlie eisrhteenth centurj', 
all ranks gathered to .see " a trial of skill lietween 
two masters of the noble science of defence." 
The fights of the ring have been lirutalizing 
enough ; but to behold two men cut at each 
other with broadswords, till one was di.sabled by 
.severe wounds on the forehead and the leg, was a 
brutality that was at its height in the Augustan 
age. — KNiiiiiT's En<;.. vol. 5. ch. 27. 

219. AMUSEMENTS of Combat. Roman The- 
atre. Poinpey dedicated a new theatre, and 
delighted the mob with games and races. Five 
hundred lions were consumed in five davs 
of combat. As a special novelty, eighteen ele- 
phants were made to fight with .soldiers ; and, 
as a yet more extraordinary phenomenon, the 
sanguinary Roman spectators showed signs of 
compunction at their sulTcrings. Tlie poor 
beasts were quiet and harmless. AVlieii 
wounded \vith the lances they turned away, 
threw up their trunks, and trotted round tlie 
circus, crying, as if in protest, against wanton 
cruelty. The story went that they were half 
human ; that they had been seduced on board 
the African transports by a promi.se tliat they 
should not be ill-u.sed, and they were suppo.sed 
to be appealing to the god.s. — Frocde's Cesar, 
ch. 15. 

220. AMUSEMENTS. Degraded by. Iioman.<<. 
The <lraiiia, even in Horace's days, had degen- 
erated into a vehicle for the exhibition of scen- 
ic splendor or ingenious machinery. Dignity, 
wit, pathos, were no longer expected on the 
stage, for the dramatist was eclipsed by the 
swordsman or the rope-dancer. The actors 
who absorbed the greatest part of popular favor 
were pantomimists, who.se insolent prosperity 
was generally in direct projiortion to tlie infamy 
of their character. And while the .shamcle.ssness 
of the theatre corrupted the imrity of all classes 
from the earliest age, theheartsof the multitude 
were made hard as the nether millstone with 
brutal insensibility, by the fury of the circus, 
the atrocities of the amphitheatre, and the cruel 
orgies of the games. Augustus, in the docu- 
ment annexed to his will, mentioned that he 
had exhibited eight thousand gladiators and 
three thousand five hundred and ten wild beasts. 
— Farrar's Eaulv Days, ch. 1. 

221. AMUSEMENTS, Delight in. Circu.<t. The 
most lively and splendid amusement of the idle 
multitude depended on the frequent exhibiticm 
or jniblic games and spectacles. The piety of 
Christian jirinces had suppressed the inhuman 
combats of gladiators ; but the Roman peoi>le 
still considered the circus as their home, their 



AMUSEMENTS— ANGEL. 



27 



temple, and the seat of the republic. The im- 
patient crowd rushed at the dawn of day to se- 
cure tlieir places, and there were many who 
passed a sleepless and anxious night in the ad- 
jacent porticos. From the morning to the 
evening, careless of the sun, or of the rain, the 
spectators, who sometimes amounted to the num- 
ber of four hundred thousand, remained in 
eager attention ; their eyes fixed on the horses 
and charioteers, their minds agitated with hope 
and fear, for the success of the colors which they 
espoused ; and the happiness of Rome appeared 
to hang on the event of a race. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 31. 

222. AMUSEMENTS interdicted. By Pun- 
tans. Public anuisements, from the masques 
which were exhibited at the mansions of the 
great down to the wrestling matches and grin- 
ning matches on village greens, were vigorously 
attacked. One ordinance directed that all the 
May-poles in England shoidd forthwith be hewn 
down. Another proscribed all theatrical di- 
versions. The play-houses were to be disman- 
tled, the spectators fined, the actors whipped at 
the cart's tail. Rope-dancing, puppet-shows, 
bowls, horseracing, were regarded with no 
friendly eye. But bear-baiting, then a favorite 
diversion of high and low, was the abomination 
which most stirred the wrath of the austere 
sectaries . . . not because it gave pain to the 
bear, but because it gave pleasure to the specta- 
tors. Indeed, he generally contrived to enjoy 
the double pleasure of tormenting both the spec- 
tators and the bear. — Macaulay's Hist, op 
Eng., ch. 11. 

223. AMUSEMENTS, Sanguinary. Roman Cir- 
cus. By the order of [the emperor] Probus, a 
great quantity of large trees, torn up by the 
roots, were transplanted into the midst of the 
circus. The spacious and shady forest was im- 
mediately filled with a thousand ostriclies, a 
thousand stags, a thousand fallow deer, and a 
thousand wild boars ; and all this variety of 
game was abandoned to the riotous impetuosity 
of the multitude. The tragedy of the succeed- 
ing day consisted in the massacre of a hundred 
lions, an equal number of lionesses, two hun- 
dred leopards, and three hundred bears. The 
collection prepared by the younger Gordian for 
his triumph, and which his successor exhibited 
in the secular games, was less remarkable by 
the number than by the singularity of the ani- 
mals. Twenty zebras dispkyed their elegant 
forms and variegated beauty to the eyes of the 
Roman people. Ten elks, and as many camel- 
opards, the loftiest and most harmless creat- 
ures that wander over the plains of Sar- 
matia and Ethiopia, were contrasted with 
thirty African hyenas and ten Indian tigers, the 
most implacable savages of the torrid zone. 
The unoffending strength with which Nature 
has endowed the greater quadrupeds was ad- 
mired in the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus of 
the Nile, and a majestic troop of thirty-two ele- 
phants . . . and properties of so many difi'erent 
species, transported from every part of the 
ancient world into the amphitheatre of Rome. 
But this accidental benefit, which science might 
derive from folly, is surely insufficient to jus- 
tify such a wanton abuse of the public riches. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 12. 



224. AMUSEMENTS, Sunday. Games. [In 
1593,] after the evening service, to shoot at the 
baths, to play at football, even to see an inter- 
lude, were not accounted unchristian occupa- 
tions. Round the old manor-house the lads 
and lasses of the village would have their Sun- 
day evening games of barley-break and hand- 
ball, while the squii'e, and even the parson, 
would look approvingly on. — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 3, ch. 16, ]). 251. 

225. ANCESTRY, Humble. Poet Horace. His 
father was a Roman slave, who, some years 
before Horace was born, obtained his free- 
dom. "Everybody has a fling at me," he 
says in one of his satires (the sixth of book 
first), "because I am a freedman's son." He 
owed his name to the fact that his father's 
master belonged to the Horatian tribe. — Cyclo- 
pedia OF Bigg., p. 373. 

226. ANCESTRY ineffective. Prince Ruj)ert. 
He was born at Prague, in 1619 ; his father had 
claimed to be, and had got himself and his fair 
young queen crowned, King and Queen of Bohe- 
mia, so that the prince was born with all the 
assumptions of royalty around him. But his 
genealogist says, "He l)egan to be illustrious 
many j-ears before his birth, and we must look 
back into historj^ above two thousand years, to 
discover the first rays of his glory. We may 
consider," continues the writer, "him very 
great, being descended from the two most illus- 
trious and ancient houses of Europe, that of 
England and Palatine of the Rhine. " And then 
the writer goes on to trace up his ancestry to 
Attila, Charlemagne, and so down through a 
succession of Ruperts, Louis, Fredericks. The 
facts after the birth of Rupert are an affecting 
satire upon all this. [He was headstrong and 
imprudent.] — Hood's Cromwell, ch. 9. 

227. ANCESTRY, Unlike. Orleans Princes. 
These Orleans princes became, in the course of 
four or five generations, immensely rich — the 
richest family in France, if not in Europe. One 
Duke of Orleans gave away in charity every 
year a quarter of a million francs ; two others 
were the scandal of Christendom for extrava- 
gance and del)auchery, and still their estates in- 
creased. It happened, curiously enough, that 
a virtuous Duke of Orleans usually had a very 
dissolute son, and a dissolute duke a virtuoiis 
son, so that what one squandered the next heir 
made up by economy. Philippe, brother of 
Louis XIV., was tolerably steady; his son, 
Philippe, Regent of France, w^as oneof the 
most shameless roues, gluttons, and wine-bib- 
bers that ever lived ; his son, Louis, was a down- 
right devotee and bigot ; his son, Louis Philipjxv 
was not what we should call a moral man, but 
he was very moral for the France of that day, 
exceedingly charitable, and a most liberal 
patron of art and literature ; his son, Louis 
Philippe Joseph, was that notorious debauchee 
and pretended democrat who figured in the 
first years of the French Revolution as "Egalite. " 
— Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 504. 

228. ANGEL, Delivering. Joan of Arc. 
When it was day, the Maid rode in solemn pro- 
cession through the city, clad in complete 
armor, and mounted on a white horse. Dunoio 
was by her side, and all the bravest knights of 
her army and of the garrison followed i:: her 



28 



ANGER— ANIMALS. 



train. The whole population thronged around 
her ; and men, women, and children strove to 
touch her garments, or her banner, or her 
charger. They poured forth blessings on her, 
whom they already considered their deliverer. 
In the words used by two of them afterward be- 
fore the tribunal which reversed the sentence, 
but could not restore the life of the virgin- 
martyr of France, "the people of Orleans, 
when they first saw her in their city, thought 
that it was an angel from heaven that had come 
down to save them. " Joan .spoke gently in reply 
to their acclamations and addresses. She told 
them to fear God, and trust in Him for safety 
from the fury of their enemies. — Decisfve 
Battles, § 381. 

229. ANGER, Symptom of. Kapoleon I. [At 
St. Helena Sir Hudson Lowe, the governor, was 
very offensive to him. After an interview Na- 
poleon said :] ' ' We had a violent scene. I 
have been thrown quite out of temper. . . . 
My anger must have been powerfully excited, 
for I felt a vibration in the calf of my left leg. 
This is always a sure sign with me, and I liave 
not felt it for a long time before." — Abbott's 
Napoleox B. , vol. 2, ch. 31. 

230. ANGUISH prolonged. Gnribaldi. Once 
in South America . . . being taken prisoner, 
he was cruelly beaten with a club, thenlumgby 
his hands to a beam for two hours, during 
which he suffered the anguish of a hundred 
deaths ; and when cut down, fell helpless to the 
'earth. — Cyc. of Bigg., p. 495. 

231. ANIMALS, Allegorical. John Dryden. 
He composed, with unwonted care and labor, 
his celebrated poem on the points in dispute 
between the churches of Rome and England. 
The Church of Rome he represented under the 
similitude of a milk-white hind, ever in peril of 
death, yet fated not to die. The beasts of the 
field were bent on her destruction. The quaking 
hare, indeed, observed a timorous neutrality ; 
but the Socinian fox, the Presbyterian wolf, the 
Independent bear, the Anabaptist boar, glared 
fiercely at the spotless creature. Yet she could 
venture to drink with them at the common water- 
ing-place under the protection of her friend, the 
kingly lion. The Church of England was typi- 
fied by the panther, spotted indeed, but beauti- 
ful— to(j beautiful for a l)east of prey. The hind 
and the panther, equally hated by the ferocious 
population of the forest, conferred apart on 
their common danger. They then proceeded to 
discuss the points on which they differed, and, 
while wagging their tails and lickiuir their jawsj 
hold a long dialogue touching the real presence, 
the authority of popes and councils, the penal 
laws, the Test Act, Oates's perjuries, Butler's 
unrequited services to the Cavalier partv, Still- 
mgfleet's pamphlets, and Burnet's broad shoul- 
ders and fortunate matrimonial speculations.— 
Macaulay's Eng., ch. 7. 

232. ANIMALS attracted. ^7/- Walter Scott. 
[A grand company of guests were mounted for 
an expedition. ] ' ' The order of march had been 
all settled, and the sociable was just getting 
under weigh, when the Lady Anne broke from 
the line, screaming with laughter, and ex- 
claimed,' Papa ! papa ! I know vou could never 
think of going without your petV Scott looked 
rouTid, and I rather think there was a blush as 



well as a smile upon his face, when he perceived 
a little black pig frisking about his pony, and 
evidently a self-elected addition to the part}^ of 
the day. He tried to look stern, and cracked 
his whip at the creature, but was in a moment 
obliged to join in the general cheers. Poor 



piggy 



was dragged into the background. 



This pig had taken, nobody could tell 
how, a most sentimental attachment to Scott, and 
was constantly urging its pretension to be ad- 
mitted a regular member of his tail, along with 
the greyhounds and terriers ; but, indeed, I re- 
member him suffering another summer under 
the same -sort of pertinacity on the part of an 
affectionate hen. I leave \\\c explanation for 
philosophers." — Hutton's Scott, ch. 8. 

233. ANIMALS condemned. Ptt. When Ccesar 
happened to see some strangers at Rome carry- 
ing young dogs and monkeys in their arms, and 
fondly caressing them, he asked, " Whether the 
women in their country never bore any chil- 
dren ?" thus reproving with a proper severity 
those who lavish upon brutes that natural ten- 
derness which is due only to mankind. — 
Plutakcu. 

234. ANIMALS honored. Geese. Geese were 
ever after had in honor at Rome, and a flock of 
them always kept at the expense of the public. 
A golden image of a goose was erected in mem- 
ory of them, and a goose every j'ear [was] carried 
in triumph upon a soft litter, finely adorned. — 
Laxohoijnes Notes. 

235. . Dead. In the battle with 

Porus, Bucephalus received several wounds, of 
which he died .some time after. . . . Alexander 
showed as much regret as if he had lost a faith- 
ful friend and companion. He esteemed him, 
indeed, as such, and built a city near the Hy- 
daspes, in the place where he was buried, which 
he called, after him, Bucephalia. He is also 
reported to have built a city an<l called it Peritas, 
in memory of a dog of that name, which he had 
brought up and was very fond of. — Plutarch. 

236. ANIMALS, Respect for. Buddhists. Ani- 
mal life is held sacred, and a Buddhi.st temple 
looks like a barnyard, a village jiound, and a 
church combined. Cows, parrots, monkeys, 
dogs, beggars, children, priests, sight-seers, dev- 
otees — all mingle and blend on a footing of 
friendliness, the animals fearing no harm, the 
men meaning none. A Buddhist priest will not 
kill an animal. . . . Before he sits on the grouna 
he will carefully brush it, lest he might "unwit- 
tingly crush an ant or a worm. — Gex. Grant's 
Travels, p. 353. 

237. . Superstition. [The folly of 

the crusaders was frequently illustrated.] Some 
counts and gentlemen, at the head of three 
thousand hor.se, attended t}ie motions of the 
multitude to partake in the spoil ; but their 
genuine leaders . . . Avere a goose and a goat, 
who were carried in the front, and to whom 
these worthy Christians ascribed an infusion of 
the divine spirit. — Gibbon's Rome, vol. 5, ch. 
58, p. 553. 

23§. ANIMALS, Service of. Shepherd's Dog. 
Without the sheplierd's dog the mountainous 
land in England would not be worth sixpence. 
[The dog brings the sheep from heights untrod- 
den by the foot of man]. — Knight's Eng., vol. 
7, ch. 2, p. 32. 



ANIMOSITY— ANXIETY. 



20 



239. ANIMOSITY, Fraternal. Caracalla and 
Geta. Their aversion, contirmed by years, and 
fomented by the arts of their interested favor- 
ites, brolie out in childish and gradually in more 
serious competitions ; and, at length, divided 
the theatre, the circus, and the court into two 
factions, actuated by the hopes and fears of their 
respective leaders. The prudent emperor [Sev- 
erus] endeavored, by every expedient of advice 
and authority, to allay this growing animosity. 
The unliapi)y discord of his sons clouded all his 
prospects, and threatened to overturn a throne 
raised with so much labor, cemented with so 
much blood, and guarded with every defence of 
arms and treasure. With an impartial hand he 
maintained between them an exact balance of 
favor, conferred on both the rank of xlugustus, 
with the revered name of Antoninus ; and for 
the first time the Roman world beheld three 
emperors. Yet even this equal conduct served 
only to inflame the contest, while the fierce 
Caracalla asserted the right of primogeniture, 
and the milder Geta courted the affections of 
the people and the soldiers. In the anguish ef 
a disappointed father, Severus foretold that the 
weaker of his sons would fall a sacrifice to the 
stronger ; who, in his turn, would be ruined by 
his own vices. [See more at No. 1096. It was 
a true prophecy. He was assassinated.] — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 6. 

240. ANIMOSITY of Ignorance. Eeign of 
Charlea II. It was very seklom that the coun- 
try gentleman caught glimpses of the great 
world, and what he saw of it tended rather to 
confuse than to enlighten his understanding. 
His opinions respecting religion, government, 
foreign countries, and former times, having been 
derived, not from study, from observation, or 
from conversation with enlightened companions, 
but from such traditions as were current in his 
own small circle, were the opinions of a child. 
He adhered to them, however, with the obsti- 
nacy which is generally found in ignorant men 
accustomed to be fed with flattery. His ani- 
mosities were numerous and bitter. He hated 
Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irish- 
men, papists and Presbyterians, Independents 
and Baptists, Quakers and Jews. Toward 
London and Londoners he felt an aversion which 
more than once produced important political 
effects. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 3. 

241. ANIMOSITY, Unreasonable. Anti-Cath- 
olic. [At the funeral of Godfrey, a Protestant 
magistrate in 1678, there was great excitement, 
as the Catholics were supposed to have murder- 
ed him to suppress further inquiry concerning 
the Popish plot against the life of the king.] The 
crowd was prodigious, and so heated that any- 
thing called Popish, were it called cat or dog, 
had probably gone to pieces in a moment. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 20, p. 334. 

242. ANNOUNCEMENT, Appalling. Richard 
III. But if he hated the queen's kindred 
Hastings was as loyal as the Woodvilles them- 
selves to the children of Edward IV. ; and the 
next step of the two dukes was to remove 
this obstacle. Little more than a month had 
passed after the overthrow of the Woodvilles 
when Richard suddenly entered the coun- 
cil-chamber and charged Hastings with sorcery 
and attempts upon his life. As he dashed his 



hand upon the table the room filled with sol- 
diery. "I will not dine," said the duke, turn- 
ing to the minister, " till they have brought me 
your head." Hastings- was hurried to execution 
in the courtyard of the Tower, his fellow-coim- 
sejlors thrown into prison, and the last check on 
Richard's ambition was removed. — Hist, of 
Eng. People, § 490. 

243. ANTIPATHY of Race. Ireland. Thouga 
not persecuted as a Roman Catholic, he was op- 
pressed as an Irishman. In his country, the 
same line of demarkation which separated re- 
ligions separated races ; and he was of the con- 
quered, the subjugated, the degraded race. On 
the same soil dwelt two populations, locally in- 
termixed, morally and politically sundered. 
The difference of religion was by no means the 
only difference, and was, perhaps, not even the 
chief difference which existed between them. 
They sprang from different stocks. They spoke 
different languages. They had different nation- 
al characters as strongly opposed as any two 
national characters in Europe. They were in 
widely different stages of civilization. There 
could, therefore, be little sympathy between 
them ; and centuries of calamities and wrongs 
had generated a strong antiiDathy. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 6. 

244. ANTIQUITY, Pride in. Athenians. This 
respectable people was not free from the com- 
mon vanity of nations, of attributing to itself a 
measure oi' antiquity far beyond all bounds of 
probability. The Athenians . . . seemed to 
claim for their own nation an anticjuity coeval 
with the formation of the earth ; which was just 
as allowable as the boast of the Arcadians, that 
they were . . . older than the moon. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 1, ch. 6. 

245. ANXIETY, Consuming. Marlborough. 
[Duke of Marlborough, after the glorious results 
of the campaign of 1704, was eager for its re- 
newal the next year ; but receiving a cold sup- 
port and obstinate counsels from his allies, he 
was unable to do anything, while the French had 
every opportunity to organize success. He 
wrote :] I have for these last ten days been so 
troubled by the many disappointments I have 
had, that I think if it were possible to vex me 
so for a fortnight longer, it would make an end 
of me. In short, I am weary of my life. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 20. 

246. ANXIETY, Parental. Robert Bums' s 
FatJwr. For the old man, his long struggle with 
scanty means, barren soil, and bad seasons, was 
now near its close. Consumption had set in. Early 
in 1734, when his last hour cb-ew on, the father 
said that there was one of his children of whose 
future he could not think without fear. Robert, 
who was in the room, came up to his bedside 
and asked, " O father, is it me you mean V 
The old man said it was. Robert turned to the 
window, with tears streaming down his cheeks, 
and his bosom swelling, from the restraint he 
put on himself, almost to bursting. The father 
had early perceived the genius that was in his 
boy, and even in Mount Oliphant days had said 
to his wife, " Whoever lives to see it, something 
extraordinary will come from that boy." He 
had lived to see and admire his son's earliest po- 
etic efforts. But he had also noted the stror. ,- 



30 



ANXIETY— APPARITION. 



passions, with the weak will, which might drive 
him oa the shoals of life.— Shairp's Burns, 
ch. 1. 

247. ANXIETY of Eesponsibility. Abraham 
Lincoln. [Hon. Schuyler Colfax.] " One morning 
I found him looking more than usually pale and 
worn, and inquired the reason. He replied, with 
the bad news he had received at a late hour the 
previous night, which had not yet been given to 
the press— he had not closed his eyes nor break- 
fasted ; and with an expression I shall never 
forget, he exclaimed, ' How willingly would I 
exciiange places to-day with the soldier who 
sleeps oil the ground in the Army of the Poto- 
mac !' "—Raymond's Lincoln, p. 727. 

218. APOLOGY, Degrading. Reign of James 
II. [He had illegally forced upon the fellows of 
Magdalene College a Roman Catholic Pres., for 
whom they refused to vote, but whom they de- 
cided to recognize as president de facto.'] While 
the fellows, bitterly annoyed by the public cen- 
sure, were regretting the modiiied submission 
which they had consented to make, they learned 
that this submission was by no means satisfac- 
tory to the king. It was not enough, he said, 
that they offered to obey the Bishop of Oxford 
[the candidate] as president in fact. They 
must distinctly admit the commission, and all 
that had been done under it, to be legal ; they 
must acknowledge that they had acted unduti- 
fully ; they must declare themselves penitent ; 
they must promise to behave better in future, 
must implore his Majesty's pardon, and lay 
themselves at his feet. Two fellows, of whoni 
the king had no complaint to make, Charnock 
and Smith, were excused from the obligation 
of making these degrading aj^ologies. Even 
James never committed a grosser error. The 
fellows, already angry with themselves for 
having conceded so much, and galled by the 
censure of the world, eagerly caught at the op- 
portunity which was now offered them of re- 
gaining the public esteem. With one voice 
they declared that they would never ask pardon 
for being in the right, or admit that the visita- 
tion of their college and the deprivation of their 
president had been legal. — Macaulay's Eng., 
ch. 8. 

249. APOLOGY, Humiliating. Innocent X. 
The French ambassador [for Louis XIV.] 
having been insulted by some of the Pope's 
Corsican guard. Innocent X. was compelled to 
offer an apology, to disband his guard, and to 
erect an obelisk at Rome with an inscription re- 
cording the offence and its punishment. — Stu- 
dents' France, ch. 21, § 93, p. 429. 

250. APOLOGY, Ironical. Ootlis. The va- 
cant fortifications of the river were instantly 
occupied by these barbarians ; their standards 
were planted on the walls of Sirmium and Bel- 
grade ; and the ironical tone of their apology 
aggravated this insult on the majesty of tlVe 
empire. " So extensive, O Caesar, arc your 
dominions, so numerous are your cities, that 
you are continually seeking for nations to 
whom, either in peace or war, you may relin- 
quish these useless possessions. The Gepida^ are 
your brave and faithful allies ; and if they have 
anticipated your gifts, they have shown a just 
confidence in your bounty." — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 62. 



251. APOSTASY, Open. Romanus. After Ca- 
led [the leader of the Mohammedans] had im- 
posed the terms of servitude and tribute, the 
apostate or convert avowed in the assembly of 
the people his meritorious treason : " I renounce 
your society," said Romanus, "both in this 
world and the world to come. And I deny Ilim 
that was crucified, and whosoever worships Him. 
And I choose God for my Lord, Islam for my 
faith, Mecca for my temple, the Moslems for my 
brethren, and Mahomet for my prophet ; who 
was sent to lead us into the right way, and to 
exalt the true religion in spite of those who join 
partners with God." — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 51. 

252. APOSTASY, Primitive. Persecution. In 
every persecution there were great numbers of 
unworthy Christians who publicly disowned or 
renounced the faith which they had profe.s.sed ; 
and who confirmed the sincerity of their adju- 
ration by the legal acts of l)urning incense or of 
offering'sacrifices. Some of these apostates had 
yielded on the first menace or exhortation of the 
magistrate, while the patience of others had 
been subdued bv the length and repetition of 
tortures. The affrighled coiintenances of some 
betraved their inward remorse, while others ad- 
vanced with confidence and alacrity to the 
altars of the gods. But the disguise w hich fear 
had imposed subsisted no longer than the 
jiiesent danger. As soon as the severity of the 
persecution" was abated, the doors of the 
ciiiu-ches were assailed by the returning multi- 
tude of lU'iiitents, who detested their idolatrous 
submission, and who solicited with eipial ar- 
dor, but with various success, their readmission 
into the society of Christians. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 16. 

253. APOSTATES forgiven. Print it ire f'hi/rch. 
The gates of reconciliation and of heaven were 
seldom shut against the returning penitent ; 
but a .severe and solemn form of discijiline was 
instituted, which, while it served to e.\i>iate his 
crime, might powerfully deter the sju'Clators 
from the imitation of" his example. Hum- 
bled by a public confcs.sion, emaciated by 
fasting, and clothed in sackcloth, the penitent 
lay prostrate at the door of the assembly, im- 
ploring with tears the i)ard()n of his offences, 
and soliciting the prayers of the faithful. If 
the fault was of a very heinous nature, whole 
years of penance were" esteemed an inadeciuate 
satisfaction to the divine justice ; and it was 
always ])y slow and painful gradations that the 
sinner, the heretic, or the apostate was read- 
mitted into the bosom of the church. — Gibbon's 
RoMi:, ch. 1"). 

254. APPARITION, False. '' Three Knights." 
[The Crusaders were l)esieged by the Turks 
in Antioch. By a ruse the "Holy Lance" 
had just been discovered.] The infiuence of 
his relic or trophy was felt by the servant* 
and perhaps by the enemies, of Christ; aiX 
its potent energv' was heightened by an acci- 
dent, a stratageni, or a, rumor, of a miraculous 
complexion. Three knights, in white garments 
and resplendent arms, either issued, or .seemed 
to issue, from the hills ; the voice of Adhemar, 
the Pope's legate, proclaimed them as the mar- 
tvrs St. George, St. Theodore, and St. Maurice : 
the tumult of'battle allowed no time for doubt 
or scrutiny ; and the welcome apparition daz 



APPARITION— APPEARANCES. 



31 



zled the eyes or the imaginatiou of a fanatic 
army. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 58. 

255. APPARITION, Fancied. Theseus. [The 
Athenians honored] Theseus as a demigod, in- 
duced to it as well by other reasons, as because, 
when they were fighting the Medes at Marathon, 
a considerable part of the army thought they 
saw the apparition of Theseus completely armed 
and bearing down before them upon the barba- 
rians. — Plutakcii's Lives. 

256. APPARITIONS, Belief in. Samuel Jolui- 
soii. Of apparitions, he observed: "A total 
disbelief of them is adverse to the opinion of 
the existence of the soul between death and 
the last day ; the question simply is, whether 
departed spirits ever have the power of making 
themselves perceptible to us ; a man who thinks 
he has seen an apparition can only be convinced 
himself ; his authority will not convince 
another ; and his conviction, if rational, must be 
founded on being told something which cannot 
be known but by supernatural means." He 
mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I 
had never heard before — being called— thnX is, 
hearing one's name pronounced by the voice of 
a known person at a great distance, far beyond 
the possibility of being reached by any sound 
uttered by human organs. ' ' An acquaintance, 
on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that 
Avalking home one evening to Kilmarnock, he 
heard himself called from a wood by the voice 
of a brother who had gone to America ; and the 
next packet brought accounts of that brother's 
death." Macbean asserted that this inexplicable 
calling was a thing very well known. Dr. 
Johnson said, that one di>y at Oxford, as he 
was turning the key of his chamber, he heard 
his mother distinctly call — Sam. She was then 
at Lichfield ; but nothing ensued. — Boswell's 
JonNSON, p. 459. 

257. APPEAL, The only. At Augsburg. The 
cardinal threatened with ban and interdict, 
and dismissed Luther, saying, " Go, and do 
not show your face again to me, unless it be 
to recant." Thus was Luther sent away by the 
cardinal, who is said to have added this remark : 
" I will not confer with this beast again, for it 
has deep eyes and wonderful speculations in its 
head." . . . The latter remained silent, even 
after Luther had written again in a humble 
spirit asking forgiveness for his exhibited vio- 
lence, promising to remain silent if his oppo- 
nents would do the same, and professing him- 
self as willing to recant, provided he were bet- 
ter instructed. But although he made all these 
concessions, he received no answer. And after 
he had drawn up another declaration, appealing 
from ' ' the badly informed Pope to the better- 
to-be-instructed Pope," he sent it to Cajetan, 
and nailed a copy of it to the door of the 
cathedral. He then left the city on the 20th of 
October. — Rein's Luther, ch. 5. 

25§. APPEARANCES, Deceptive. Deformity. 
[Philopoemen, called the last of the Greeks, was 
mistaken by] his hostess at Megara, owing to 
his easiness of behavior and the simplicity of 
his garb. She having word brought that the 
general of the Achaeans was coming to her house, 
was in great care and hurry to provide his 
supper, her husband happening to be out of the 
Avay. In the mean time Philopoemen came, and. 



as his habit was ordinary, she took him for one 
of his own servants, or for a harbinger, and de- 
sired him to assist her in the business of the 
kitchen. He presently threw off his cloak, and 
began to cleave some wood ; when the master of 
the house returning, and seeing him so employed, 
said, "What is the meaning of this, Philopoe- 
men ?" He replied in broad Doric, " I am pay- 
ing the fine of my deformity." — Plutarch. 

259. . Miser. A man of the name 

of Guyot lived and died in the town of Mar- 
seilles, in France. He amassed a large for- 
tune by laborious industry and severe habits 
of abstinence and privation. His neighbors 
considered him a miser, and thought that he was 
hoarding up money from mean and avaricious 
motives. The populace pursued him, whenever 
he appeared, with hootings and execrations, and 
the boys sometimes threw stones at him. He at 
length died, and in his will were found the fol- 
lowing words : " Having observed from my 
infancy that the poor of Marseilles are ill sup- 
plied with water, which can only be purchased 
at a great price, I have cheerfully laliored the 
whole of my life to procure for them this great 
blessing ; and I direct that the whole of my 
property shall be laid out in building an aque- 
duct for their use." 

260. APPEARANCES displeasing. Oliver Crom- 
well. His gait was clownish, his dress ill-made 
and slovenly, his manners coarse and abrupt, 
and face such as men look on with a vague feel- 
ing of admiration and dislike ! The features 
cut, as it were, out of a piece of gnarled and 
knotty oak ; the nose large and red ; the cheeks 
coarse, warted, wrinkled, and sallow ; the eye- 
brows huge and shaggy, but, glistening from be- 
neath them, eyes full of depth and meaning, and, 
when turned to the gaze, pierced through and 
through the gazer ; above these, again, a noble 
forehead, whence, on either side, an open flow of 
hair "round from his parted forelock manly 
hangs," clustering ; and over all, and pervading 
all, that undefinable aspect of greatness, alluded 
to by the poet Diyden when he spoke of the face 
of Cromwell as one that 

.... " did imprint an awe. 
And naturally all souls to his did bow, 
As wands of divination downward draw, 
And point to beds where sovereign gold doth 
grow. " 

— Hood's Cromwell, ch. 4. 

261. APPEARANCES, False. SenmielJolinson. 
Dr. Adams told me that Johnson, while he 
was at Pembroke College, ' ' was careless and 
loved by all about him ; was a gay and frolic- 
some fellow, and passed there the happiest part 
of his life." . . . The truth is, that he was then 
distressed by poverty and irritated by disease. 
When I mentioned to him this account, as given 
me by Dr. Adams, he said : "Ah, sir, I was 
mad and violent. It was bitterness which they 
mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and 
I thought to fight my way by my literature and 
my wit ; so I disregarded all power and all 
authority." — Boswell's Johnson, p. 14. 

262. APPEARANCES, Misjudged. Olii-er Crom- 
well. " It was in November, 1640," says a 
royalist spectator [Sir Philip Warwick], "that I 
. . . beheld on entering the house a person speak- 
ing. I knew him not ; he was dres.sed in the 



32 



APPEARANCES— APPLAUSE. 



most ordiuary manner, in a plain cloth suit 
which appeared to have been cut by some 
village tailor. His linen, too, was coarse and 
soiled. I recollect also observing a speck or two 
of blood upon his little band, which was not 
much larger than his collar. His hat was with- 
out a hatband ; his stature was of a good size ; 
his sword stuck close to his side ; his counte- 
nance swollen and reddish ; his voice sharp and 
untunable ; and his eloquence full of fervor, for 
the subject-matter would not bear much of 
reason, it being in behalf of a libeller in the 
hands of the executioner. I must avow that the 
attention bestowed by the assembly on the dis- 
course of this gentleman has much diminished 
my respect for the House of Commons." — 
Lamartine's Cromwell, p. 23. 

• 263. APPEARANCES, Suspicious. "Lean." 
Ctesar had some suspicion of Cassius, and he 
even said one day to his friends, " What think 
you of Cassius ? I do not like his pale looks." 
Another time, when Antony and Dolabella were 
accused of 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. — Plutarch. 

264. APPEARANCES, Unpromising. BisJiop 
George. [Philip Cox, one of the early Metho- 
dist itinerants, found a young man, named 
George, and brought him to Bishop Asbury,] 
and said, "I have brought you a boy, and if 
you have anything for him to do you may set 
him at work." Asbury looked at the youth for 
some time, and stroking the young man's hair 
said : " Why, he is a beardless boy, and can do 
nothing." The next day Asbury appointed him 
to a circuit [and the boy became an eminent 
Bishop in his denomination]. — Stevens' M. E. 
Church, vol. 2, p. 71. 

265. APPETITE, Fastidious. Antony. Philo- 
tas . . . being acquainted with one of Antony's 
cooks, he was invited to see the preparations for 
supper. When he came into the kitchen, beside 
an infinite variety of other provisions, he ob- 
served eight wild boars roasting whole, and ex- 
pressed his surprise at the number of the com- 
pany for whom this enormous provision must 
have been made. The cook laughed, and said 
that the company did not exceed twelve, but 
that, as every dish was to be roasted to a single 
turn, and as Antony was uncertain as to the time 
when he would sup, particularly if an extraor- 
dinary bottle or an extraordinary vein of con- 
versation was going round, it was necessary to 
have a succession of suppers. — Plutarch. 

266. APPETITE, Perils of. Cato the Censor. 
When the Romans were clamoring, at a time of 
scarcity, for a distribution of corn at the public 
expense, he began a speech in opposition to it 
thus : " It is hard, fellow-citizens, to address the 
stomach, because it has no ears. " Rebuking the 
Romans for their luxury, he said : " It is difficult 
to save a city from ruin where a fish brings a 
higher price than an ox. " Pointing to a man who 
had squandered an estate near the sea, he pretend- 
ed to admire him, saying : " What the sea could 
not swallow without great difficulty, this man 
has gulped down with perfect ease." — Cyclo- 
PEDLV OF Bigg., p. 421. 



267. APPETITE, Protest of. Erasmus said, 
' ' All the world is agreed among us in commend- 
ing his" [Luther's] ' ' moral character. He hath 
given us good advice on certain points ; and 
God grant that his success may be equal to the 
liberty which he hath taken. Luther hath com- 
mitted two unpardonable crimes : he hath 
touched the Pope upon the crown, and the monks 
upon the belly." — Rein's Luther, ch. 26. 

268. APPETITE, Ruled by. Epicure. Wlien 
an epicure desired to be admitted into Cato's. 
friendship, he said, " He could not live with a 
man whose palate had quicker sensations than 
his heart." — Plutarch. 

269. APPETITES, Indulgence of. Flemi^^h 
Gentry. Under these forms of chivalrj', awk- 
wardly imitated from romances, the history 
of Flanders at this period is nevertheless one 
fiery, joyous, brutal, bacchanalian revel. Under 
color of tournays, feats of arms, and feasts of the 
Round Table, there is one wild whirl of light and 
common gallantries, low intrigues, and intermin- 
able junketings. The true device of the epoch is 
that presumptuously taken by the sire de Ter- 
nantatthe lists of Arras : " Que jaie de vies d&tirs 
assouvissance, et jamais d'autre bien," "Let my 
desires be satisfied, I wish no other good. " — 
Michelet's Joan of Arc, p. 27. 

270. APPLAUSE, Ancient. Germans. It was 
the practice to signify In' a hollow murmur 
their dislike of such timid counsels. But when- 
ever a more popular orator proposed to vindicate 
the meanest citizen from either foreign or do- 
mestic injury, whenever he called upon his 
fellow-countrvTiien to assert the national honor, 
or to pursue some enterprise full of danger 
and glory, a loud clashing of shields and 
spears express the eager applause of the as- 
sembly. For the Germans always met in arms, 
and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an ir- 
regular nuiltitude, infiamed with faction and 
strong li(]uors, should use those arms to enforce, 
as well as to declare, their furious resolves. — 
Glbbon's Rome, ch. 9. 

271. APPLAUSE, Consequence of. SamuelJolin- 
son. " ' The applause of a single human being is 
of great con.sequence.' This he said to me with 
great earnestness of manner, very near the time 
of his decease, on occasion of having desired me 
to read a letter addressed to him from some per- 
son in the North of England ... as I thought 
being particular upon it might fatigue him, it 
being of great length, I only told him in general 
that it was highlj^ in his praise ; and then he 
expressed himself as above." — Boswell's John- 
son, p. 439. 

272. APPLAUSE, Indifference to. Xapoleon I. 
[Returning in a coach frt)m his successful wars 
with Italy and Austria.] Illuminations, proces- 
sions, bonfires, the ringing of bells, the explo- 
sions of artillerv, the huzzas of the people . . . 
accompanied him all the way. . . . He but slight- 
ly regarded the applause of the populace. " It 
must be delightful," said Bourrieime. "to be 
greeted with such demonstrations of enthusiastic 
admiration." " Bah !" Napoleon replied, " this 
same unthinking crowd, under a slight change 
of circumstances, would follow me just as eager- 
ly to the scaffold." — Abbott's Napoleon "B.. 
vol. 1, eh. 9. 



APPLICATION— ARCHITECTLKE. 



33 



273. APPLICATION neglected. Magnetic Nee- 
dle. The property of the magnetic needle, in 
turning constantly to the Northern Pole, was 
known in Europe as early as the thirteenth cen- 
tury ; but it was not till above a century after 
that any one attempted to apply it to the pur- 
poses of navigation. That most ancient nation, 
the Chinese, "are, indeed, said to have known 
the property of the magnet for a thousand years 
before us ; yet it is believed that till our seven- 
teenth century, when European example had 
reached them' they had never thought of using 
it in sailing. The" English, in the reign of Ed- 
ward III., "are said to have first employed the 
compass in their ships, but the world owed to the 
Portuguese the first great experiments of the 
value of this invention in the advancement of 
navigation. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 18. 

274. APPOINTMENT, Embarrassment by. 
Minister Adams. There was excitement in the 
great world of Loudon on the 1st of June, 1785 ; 
for on that day a minister representing the Uni- 
ted States was to be presented, for the first time, 
to a king of England. And who should that 
minister be but John Adams, the man who had 
taken the lead in urging on the revolted colonies 
to declare themselves an independent nation ! . . . 
In a few minutes the Secretary of State came to 
conduct him to the king. The royal closet was 
merely an ordinary parlor. The king was seated 
in an arm-chair at the end opposite the door — a 
portly gentleman, with a red face, white eye- 
brows, and white hair, wearing upon his breast 
the star indicative of his rank. Upon entering 
the room, Mr. Adams bowed low to the king ; 
then, advancing to the middle of the room, he 
bowed a second time ; and, upon reaching the 
immediate presence of the king, he made a third 
deep reverence. This was the prescribed custom 
of the Court at that day. The only persons present 
at the interview were the king, Mr. Adams, and 
the Secretary of State, all of "whom were visibly 
embarrassed. It was, indeed, a scene without a 
parallel in the whole history of diplomacy. Mr. 
Adams was the least moved of them all, though 
he afterward confessed that he was much agi- 
tated, and spoke with a voice that was sometimes 
tremulous. — Cyclopedia of Bigg., p. 181. 

275. APPOINTMENT, Humiliating. Cmar. 
For the moment they [the opposing Senators] 
appeared to have thought that with Bibulus's 
help they might defy Ca?sar and reduce his office 
to a nullity. Immediately on the elections of 
the consuls, it was usual to determine the prov- 
inces to which they were to be appointed when 
their consulate should expire. The regulation 
lay with the Senate, and, either in mere spleen 
or to prevent Ca;sar from liaving the command 
of an army, they allotted him the department of 
the " Woods and Forests." A very few weeks 
had to pass before they discovered that they had 
to do with a man who was not to be turned aside 
so slightingly. — Froude's Cesar, ch. 12. 

276. APPOINTMENT, Partisan. Polk's Ad- 
ministration . The Administration had ob\iously 
endeavored from the first to create a Democratic 
hero out of the [Mexican] war. Authorized to 
appoint a large number of officers in the in- 
creased military force raised directly by the 
United States, an imjust discrimination was 
made in favor of Democrats. . . . Not one 



Whig was included [among the ten major and 
brigadier generals. The heroes of the war were 
Generals Taylor and Scott, both of whom were 
Whigs]. — Blaine's Twenty Years op Con- 
gress, p. 75. 

277. APPRECIATION, Defective. Louis XVI. 
The Assembly sent a deputation to the king to 
request him to dismiss the troops ; this Louis de- 
clined, but offered, if the members felt alarmed, 
to transfer their sittings to Soissons, and to pro- 
ceed himself to Compiegne. When the Duke de 
Liancourt came to announce to him the fall of the 
Bastile, the king exclaimed, " This is a revolt !"' 
" Sire," replied the duke, " it in ?i. Revolution," — 
Students' France, ch. 26, § 2, p 531. 

278. APPRECIATION, Without. Coin. The 
various transactions of peace and war had intro- 
duced some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among 
the borderers of the Rhine and Danube ; but 
the more distant tribes were absolutely unac- 
quainted with the use of money, carried on 
their confined traffic by the exchange of com- 
modities, and prized their rude earthen vessels 
as of equal value with the silver vases, the pres- 
ents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors. 
To a mind capable of reflection, such leading 
facts convey more instruction than a tedious 
detail of subordinate circumstances. — Gibbon, 
vol. 1, p. 260. 

279. ARBITRATION rejected. Xapoleon I. 
[When the bitter and terrible war opened be- 
tween Fi-ance and England, a.d. 1803,] Alex- 
ander of Russia entered a remonstrance against 
again kindling the horrid flames of war through- 
out Europe, and offered his mediation. Napo- 
leon promptly replied: " I am read}- to refer the 
question to the arbitration of the Emperor 
Alexander, and will pledge myself by a bond to 
submit to the award, whatever it may be." 
England declined the pacific offer. — Abbott's 
Napoleon B., vol. 1, ch. 26. 

280. ARCHITECT, A great English. Christo- 
pher Wren. Wren was the first Englishman 
who for centuries could put in a claim that 
could not be gainsaid to the title of architect, 
as, later, HogsTrth was the first to prove that an 
Englishman might become a great painter. . . . 
[St. Paul's was"thirty-five years in construction, 
by Wren, who was paid £200 a year.] It occupies 
the very first rank of architectural works of 
modern times. [See more at No. 289.] — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 29, p. 451. 

281. ARCHITECTURE, Beauty in. Ionic. As 
the beautiful is more congenial to some tastes 
than the sublime, the lightness and elegance 
of the Ionic order will," perhaps, find more 
admirers than the chastened severity of the 
Doric. The latter has been compared to the 
robust and muscular proportions of a man, 
while the former has been likened to the finer, 
more slender, and delicate proportions of a wom- 
an. Yet the character of this order is likewise 
simplicit}', which is as essential a requisite to 
true beauty as it is to grandeur and sublimity. 
But the simplicity of beauty is not inconsistent 
with that degree of ornament which would dero- 
gate from tiie simplicity of the sublime. . . . 
Of this order were ... the temple of Apollo 
at Miletus, that of the Delphic oracle, and the 
superb temple of Diana at Ephesus, classed 



34 



ARCHITECTURE. 



among the wonders of tlie world. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 2, cli. 7. 

282. ARCHITECTURE, Composite. Novelty. 
The Composite order, likewise of Italian extrac- 
tion, was unknown in the age of the perfection 
of Greek architecture. Vitruvius makes no 
mention of it. It seems to have been the pro- 
duction of some conceited artist, who wanted to 
strike out something new in that way, or to 
evince his superiority to the ancient masters ^ 
but it serves only to show that the Greeks had 
exhausted all the principles of united grandeur 
and beauty in the three orders before mention- 
ed, and to prove that it is not possible to frame 
a new order unless l)y combining and slightly 
varying the old. — Tytler's Hist. , Book 2, eh. 7. 

283. ARCHITECTURE, Defective. Egi/ptian. 
It must be allowed that those monuments 
which remain to us of the works of art among 
the Egyptians, though venerable on account of 
their antiquity, and sometimes exhibiting a 
grand and sublime appearance from their im- 
mensity, are extremely defective in beauty and 
elegance. How intinitely inferior, in point of 
taste, are the pyramids, the obelisks, the sphinx 
and colossal .statues, the pillars of Luxor, to the 
simplest remains of the ancient temples in 
Greece ! In architecture, one of the most ob- 
vious inventions, and one of the greatest im- 
provements, liotli in point of utility and l)eauty, 
the construction of an arch, was quite unknown 
to the Egyptians. This defect gives an awk- 
ward and heavy appearance to their buildings, 
and must have occasioned a vast expense of 
labor, which might otherwise have been spared. 
— Tytler's Hist., Book 1, ch. 4. 

284. ARCHITECTURE, Excellence of. Greskf^. 
The Greeks are universally acknowledged as 
the parents of architecture, or at least of that 
peculiar style of which all after ages have con- 
fessed the superior excellence. ,The Grecian 
architecture consisted of three different manners, 
or what artists have termecl the three distinct or- 
ders : the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Do- 
ric was probably the first regular order among 
the Greeks. It has a masculine grandeur, and a 
superior air of strength to both the others. It 
is, therefore, the best adapted to works where 
magnitude and sublimity are the principal ob- 
.i3cts. Some of the most ancient temples of 
Greece were of this order, particularly that of 
Theseus at Athens, built . . . four hundred and 
eighty-one years before the Christian era. — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 3, ch. 7. 

285. ARCHITECTURE, Gilded. R(j7nan Cap- 
itol. The profusion of Catulus, the tir.st who 
gilt the [bronze] roof of the Capitol, was not 
universally approved ; but it was far exceeded 
by the emperor's, and the external gilding of the 
temple cost Domitian 13,000 talents (£3,400,000). 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 36. 

286. ARCHITECTURE improved. lioman. It 
is natural to suppose that the greatest number, 
as well as the most considerable of the Roman 
■edifices, were raised by the emperors, who pos- 
sessed so unbounded a command both of men 
and money. Augustus was accustomed to 
boast that he had found his capital of brick, and 
that he had left it of marble. — Gibbon's Rome 
ch. 2. 



287. ARCHITECTURE, Instruction by, Buins. 
Travellers to whom Livy and ISallust were 
unintelligible might gain from the Roman aque- 
ducts and temples some faint notion of 
Roman history. The dome of Agrippa, still 
glittering with bronze — the mausoleum of 
Adrian, not yet deprived of its columns and 
statues — the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet de- 
graded into a quarry, told to the Mercian and 
Northumbrian pilgrims some part of the story of 
that great civilized world which had passed 
away. The islanders returned, with awe deeply 
impressed on their half-opened minds, and told 
the wondering inhabitants of the hovels of 
London and York that, near the grave of Saint 
Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up 
buildings which would never be dissolved till 
the judgment day. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 1. 

288. ARCHITECTURE, Magnificent. TempU 
of Hercules. The magnificence of the temple 
of Hercules at Tyre is celebrated by Herod- 
otus, who saw it, and who was particularly 
struck with two columns, one of molten gold 
and the other of emerald, which in the night- 
time shone with great splendor. The latter was 
probably of colored glass. ... M. Coquet 
conjectures, with some plausibility, that the 
column was hollow% and was liglited by a lamp 
put within it. — Tyti>er's Hist., Book l,ch. 6. 

289. ARCHITECTURE, Opportunity in. Lon- 
d/>ri Fire. It is not very easy to explain why 
the nation which w\as so far before its neigh- 
bors in science should in art have been far 
behind them all ; yet such was the fact. It is 
true that in architecture — an art which is half a 
science ; an art in wiiich none but a geometrician 
can excel ; an art which has no standard of grace 
but what is directly or indirectly dependent on 
utility ; an art of wliich the creations derive a 
part, at least, of their majesty from mere bulk 
— our country could boast of one truly great 
man, Christopher Wren ; and the fire which laid 
London in ruins had given him an opportunity, 
unprecedenteil in modern history, of displaying 
his powers. The austere beauty of the Athe- 
nian portico, the gloomy sublimity of the Gothic 
arcade, he was, like almost all his contempora- 
ries, incajiable of emulating, and, perhaps, in- 
capable of appreciating ; but no man, born on 
our side of the Alps, has imitated with so much 
success the magnificence of the palace-like 
churches of Italy. Even the superb Louis has 
left to posterity no work which can bear a com- 
pari.son with St. Paul's. — Macaulay's Eng., 
ch. 3. 

290. ARCHITECTURE, Preservation of. Goth- 
ic. The Gothic kings, so injuriously accused 
of the ruin of antiquity, were anxious to pre- 
serve the monuments of the nation whom they 
had subdued. The royal edicts were framed 
to prevent the abu.ses, the neglect, or the dep- 
redations of the citizens themselves ; and a pro- 
fessed architect, the annual sum of two hun- 
dred pounds of gold, twenty-five thou.sand tiles, 
and the receipt of customs from the Lucrine 
port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of 
the walls and public edifices. — Gilbon's Romk. 
ch. 39. 

291. ARCHITECTURE, Prophecy in. Coliseum. 
Reduced to its naked majesty, the Flavian am 



ARCHITECTURE— ARDOR. 



35 



phitheatre was contemplated with awe and ad- 
miration by tlie pilgrims of the North ; and 
their rude enthusiasm broke forth in a sub- 
lime proverbial expression, which is recorded in 
the eighth century, in the fragments of the Ven- 
erable Bede : " As long as the Coliseum stands, 
Rome shall stand ; when the Cohseum falls, 
Rome will fall ; when Rome falls, the world 
Avill fall." — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 61. 

292. AECHITECTURE, Religion in. Diverse. 
Islamism sprang up from the soil, like all relig- 
ions newly accepted, with its peculiar architect- 
ure ; the modes of architecture are the daughters 
of religions. It would seem that every other idea 
but that of God is insufficient to move those 
masses of stone whereby men indite the name of 
their God upon the soil. The Indians, the 
Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Goths, 
the Byzantines, created all of them architectures 
according with the genius of their sacred creeds. 
Some of them, pantheism which adores the whole 
and prays in open air ; others, the secret doctrines 
which bury truths beneath the pyramids to 
hide them from the people ; others still, the fanci- 
ful theogonies that multiply gods by all the ex- 
travagances of the imagination, and create Olym- 
puses peopled with statues in their Parthenons ; 
a fourth creed selects caverns of rocks and 
subterraneous vaults in cities, to adore the arisen 
from the tomb ; a tif th, the cupola's simple form, 
flooded with daylight, to turn the idols pale and 
comment the word of the inspired of Allah. 
The traces of these different divine ideas, ef- 
faced by each other, often superimposed upon 
one another, is nowhere on earth to be better 
read than in the provinces of the Ottoman em- 
pire. From the pyramid of Egj'pt to the ruins 
of Ephesus or of Athens — from the ruins of the 
Parthenon along to the catacombs of Jerusalem — 
from the massive domes of Saint Sophia of Con- 
stantinople to the mosques of Broussa and of 
Adrianople, we read in their edifices the genius 
of the different religions that have disputed 
with each other the dominion of the earth. ^=- 
Lamartine's Turkey, p. 244. 

293. ARCHITECTURE, Roman. Tuscan. The 
Tuscan order is of Italian origin. . . . The Etrus- 
can architecture appears to be nearly allied to 
the Grecian, but to possess an inferior degree 
of elegance. The more ancient buildings of 
Rome were probably of this specie of architect- 
ure, though the proper Greek orders came 
afterwards to be in more general estimation. 
A respect, however, for antiquity prevented the 
Romans from ever entirely abandoning the Tus- 
can mode. The Trajan pillar is of this order of ar- 
chitecture. This magnificent column has braved 
the injuries of time, and is entire at the present 
day. Its excellence consists less in the form and 
proportions of the pillar than in the beau- 
tiful sculpture which decorates it. Of this fine 
sculpture, which represents the victories of 
Trajan over the Dacians, a very adequate idea 
may be formed from the engravings of the ' ' Col- 
umna Trajana " by Bartoli. — Tytler's Hist., 
Book 2, ch. 7. 

294. ARCHITECTURE, Simplicity in. Doric. 
One observation may here be made which is ap- 
plicable to all the works of taste. The charac- 
ter of sublimity is chaste and simple. In the 
arts dependent on design, if the artist aim at 



this character, he must disregard all trivial dec- 
orations, nor must the eye be distracted by a 
multiplicity of parts. In architecture there 
must be few divisions of the princijjal members 
of the building, and the i)art8 must be large 
and of ample relief ; there must l)e a modesty 
of decoration, contemning all minuteness of orna- 
ment, which distracts the eye, that ought to be 
filled with the general mass and with the propor- 
tions of the greater parts to each other. In this 
respect the Doric is confessedly superior to all 
the other orders of architecture, as it unites 
strength and majesty with a becoming simplic- 
ity, and the utmost symmetry of proportions. 
— Tytler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 7. 

295. ARCHITECTURE, Stupendous. Chinese 
Wall. Among the most remarka)>le of the works 
of architecture in China is the great wall Ijuilt to 
protect the empire against the inroads of the Tar- 
tars. It extends five liundred leagues, and is forty- 
five feet in height and eighteen in thickness — a 
most singular monument both of human industry 
and of human folly. The Tartars, against whom 
it was meant as a defence, found China equally 
accessible as before its formation. They were 
not at pains to attack and make a breach in this 
rampart, which, from the impossibility of de- 
fending such a stretch of fortification, must have 
been exceedingly easy ; they had only to travel 
a little to the eastward, to about forty degrees of 
latitude, where China was totally defenceless. — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 5, ch. 24. 

296. ARCHITECTURE, Sublime. OoMc. The 
effect producetl by the Gothic architecture is 
not to be accounted for on the same principle 
of conformity to the rules of symmetry or har- 
mony, in the proportions observed between the 
several parts ; but depends on a certain idea of 
vastness, gloominess, and solemnity, which we 
know to be powerful ingredients in the sublijue. 
. . . The Cathedral of Milan is one of the 
noblest structures in the world. ... Its column 
is of a magnitude that nobly fills the eye ; the 
sudden elevation of the arch has something bold 
and aspiring ; and while we contemplate the 
great and striking members of the building, the 
minuteness of ornament on its parts is but tran- 
siently remarked, or noticed only as a superficial 
decoration, which detracts nothing from the 
grand effect of the whole mass.— Tytler's 
Hist., Book 2, ch. 7. 

297. ARDOR, A Soldier's. Battle of Crecy. 
The English bowmen and men-at-arms held their 
ground stoutly, while the Welshmen stabbed' the 
French horses in the melee and brought knight 
after knight to the ground. Soon the French 
host was wavering in a fatal confusion. " Ton 
are my vassals, my friends," cried the blind 
John of Bohemia to the German nobles around 
him ; " I pray and beseech you to lead me so far 
into the fight that I may strike one good blow 
with this sword of mine'!" Linking their bridles 
together, the little company plunged into the 
thick of the combat to fall as their fellows were 
falling. The battle went steadily against the 
French. At last Philip himself hurried from 
the field, and the defeat became a rout. Twelve 
hundred knights and thirty thousand footmen — 
a number equal to the whole English force — lay 
dead upon the ground.— Hist, of Eng. People, 
§329. 



36 



ARGUMENT— ARMY. 



29§. AKGUMENT, Possible. Stealing. Sir, 
there is nothing for which you may not muster 
up more plausibie arguments tlian those which 
are urged against wealth and other external ad- 
vantages. Why, now, there is stealing ; why 
should it be thought a crime ? When we con- 
sider by what unjust methods property has been 
often acquired, and that what was unjustly got 
it must be unjust to keep, where is the harm in 
one man's taking the property of another from 
him ? Besides, sir, when we consider the bad 
use that many people make of their property, 
and how much better use the thief may make of 
it, it may be defended as a very allowable prac- 
tice. Yet, sir, the experience of mankind has 
discovered stealing to be so very bad a thing, 
that they make no scruple to hang a man for 
it. — ^Boswell's Johnson, p. 122. 

299. ARGUMENT, The reserve. Dr. Samuel 
Johmon. [Worsted in debate,] he had recourse 
to the device which Goldsmith imputed to him 
in the witty words of one of Gibber's comedies : 
"There is no arguing with Johnson ; for when 
liis pistol misses fire, he knocks j^ou down with 
the butt end of it." — Boswell's Johnson, 
p. 167. 

300. ARGUMENT, Useless. Reign of James 
II. [James commanded the clergy to read his 
proclamation, Avliich aimed at the overthrow of 
the Protestant faith.] The London clergy, then 
universally acknowledged to be the flower of 
their profession, held a meeting. Fifteen doc- 
tors of divinity were j^resent. . . . The general 
feeling of the assembly seemed to be that it was, 
on the whole, advisable to obey the order in 
council. The dispute began to wax warm, and 
might have produced fatal consequences, if it 
had not been brought to a close bj^ the firmness 
and wi.sdom of Doctor Edward Fowler, vicar of 
St. Giles's, Cripplegate, one of a small but re- 
markable class of divines who united that love 
of civil liberty which belonged to the school of 
Calvin with the theology of the school of Ar- 
minius. Standing up, "Fowler .spoke thus : "I 
must be plain. The question is so simple that 
argument can throw no new light on it, and can 
only beget heat. Let every man say Yes or No. 
But I cannot consent to be bound by the vote of 
the majority. I shall be sorry to cause a breach 
of unity. But this declaration I cannot in con- 
science read." Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock, 
and Stillingfleet declared that they were of the 
same mind. The majority yielded to the author- 
ity of a minority so respectable. A resolution 
by which all present pledged themselves to one 
another not to read the declaration was then 
drflwn up. Patrick was the first to set his hand 
to it ; Fowler was the second. The paper was 
sent round the city, and was speedily subscribed 
by eighty -five incumbents. — IVIacaulay's Eng., 
eh. 8. 

301. ARISTOCRACY in Battle. BomMn. The 
battle of Pharsalia . . . acquired a special 
place in history, because it was a battle fought 
by the Roman aristocracy in their own persons 
in defence of their own supremacy. Senators and 
the sons of senators, the heirs of the names and 
fortunes of the ancient Roman families, the 
leaders of society in Roman saloons, and the 
chiefs of the political party of the optimates in 
the Curia and Forum, were here present on the 



field ; representatives in person and in principle 
of the traditions of Sylla brought face to face 
with the representative of Marius. . . . Here were 
the haughty Patrician Guard, who had drawn 
their swords on him in the senate-house, young 
lords whose theory of life was to lounge through 
it in patrician insouciance. The other great 
actions were fought by the ignoble multitude 
whose deaths were of le.ss significance. The 
plains of Pharsalia were watered by the precious 
blood of the elect of the earth. The battle 
there marked an epoch like no other in the 
history of the world. . . . Pompey had forty- 
seven thousand Roman infantry, not includ- 
ing his allies, and seven thousand cavalry. 
Caesar had but twentj'-two thousand, and of 
horse only a thousand. [He won the victory.] 
— Froude's Cesar, cli. 22. 

302. ARISTOCRACY, Expense of. Roman. 
All these provincial generals were therefore 
dukes ; but no more than ten among them were 
dignified with the rank of counts or companions, 
a title of honor, or rather of favor, which had 
been recently invented in the court of Con- 
stautiue. A gold belt was the ensign which 
distinguished the office of the counts and dukes ; 
and besides their pay, they received a liberal 
allowance, sufficient to maintain one luuulred 
and ninet}' servants, and one hundred and fifty- 
eight horses. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 17. 

303. ARISTOCRACY, Reaction for. Puritnns. 
The Pvu'itau austerity ilrove to the king's faction 
all who made pleasure their business, who af- 
fected gallantry, splendor of dress, or taste in 
the lighter arts. AVith these went all who live 
1)V amusing the leisure of others, from the 
painter and comic poet down to the rope-dancer 
and the 3Ierry Andrew ; for these artists well 
knew that they might thrive under a superb and 
luxurious despotism, but must starve under the 
riffid rule of the precisians. — Macaulays Eng., 
ch. 1. 

301. ARISTOCRACY, Ruin of. Greeks. The 
narrow policy of preserving, without any for- 
eign mixture, the pure blood of the ancient citi- 
zens, had checked the fortune and hastened the 
ruin of Athens and Si)arta. The aspiring genius 
of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and 
deemed it more prudent, as well as honorable, 
to adopt virtue and merit for her own whereso- 
ever they were found, among. slaves or strangers, 
enemies or barbarians. During the most flour- 
ishing era of the Athenian commonwealth, the 
number of citizens graduall}' decreased from 
about thirty to twenty-one thousand. If, on 
the contrary, we study the growth of the Roman 
republic, we may discover that, notwithstanding 
the incessant demands of wars and colonies, the 
citizens, who, in the first census of Servius 
Tullius, amounted to no more than eighty-three 
thousand, were multiplied, before the com- 
mencement of the social war, to the nuMbci^of 
four hundred and sixty-three thou.sand men', 
able to bear arms in the service of their country. 
— Gibbon's Romk, ch. 2. 

305. ARMY, Dangerous. Standing. By a 
dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he 
[Augustus] was authorized to preserve his mili- 
tary command, supported by a numerous body 
of guards, even in time of peace, and in the 
heart of the capital, llis command, indeed. 



ARMY. 



was confined to those citizens who were engaged 
in the service by the military oath ; but such 
was the propensity of the Romans to servitude, 
that the oath was voluntarily taken by the mag- 
istrates, the senators, and the equestrian order, 
till the homage of flattery was insensibly con- 
verted into an annual and solemn protestation 
of fidelity. — Gihbox's Rome, ch. 3. 

306. ARMY disgusted. James V. The Eng- 
lish army, after an inroad upon Scotland, being 
obliged, 'from scarcity of provisions, to retire 
again beyond the borders, an obvious advan- 
tage was offered to the Scots, who, by pursuing 
them, might have cut them off in their retreat. 
James gave his orders for that purpose, but the 
disaffected barons sternly and obstinately refused 
to advance one step beyond the limits of the 
kingdom. Stung to the heart with this affront, 
James, in a transport of rage and indignation, 
instantly disbanded his army, and returned ab- 
ruptly to his capital. From that moment his 
temper and disposition underwent a total change. 
One measure more was wanting on the part of 
the nobility to complete their base revenge and 
to drive their sovereign to frenzy and despair. 
His ministers had again prevailed on some of 
the nobles to assemble their followers, and to 
attempt an inroad on the western border ; but 
the chief command was given to one of the 
king's favorites, who was to them particularly 
obnoxious. So great was their resentment, that 
a general mutiny instantly took place, and a 
resolution was formed unparalleled in history. 
The Scottish army, consisting of ten thousand 
men, surrendered themselves prisoners to a body 
of five hundred of the English without attempt- 
ing to strike a blow. On the news of this dis- 
graceful event the spirit of James totally sunk 
under the tumult of contending passions, and, 
overcome with melancholy and despair, he died 
of a broken heart in the thirty-third year of his 
age. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 15. 

307. ARMY, A Great. Napoleon's. The num- 
bers of the confederated army which, on the 
24th and 2oth of June, passed the Xiemen, the 
boundary of the Russian Empire, have been 
variously stated. The lowest estimate places 
them at half a million of men. A detailed re- 
turn, extant in the French war-office, gives the 
numbers as, 651,358 infantry, cavalry, artillery, 
and engineers ; 187,121 horses, and l3T2 pieces 
of ordnance. ... Of four hundred thou.sand 
Frenchmen who crossed the Niemen in May . . . 
not twenty thousand had returned to Vistula. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 30, p. 558. 

308. ARMY, A great. Mogul. Our Euro- 
pean battles, says a philosophic writer, are petty 
skirmishes, if compared to the numbers that 
have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. 
Seven hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars 
are said to have marched under the standard of 
Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that 
extend to the north of the Sihon or Jaxartes, 
they were encountered by four hundred thou- 
.sand soldiers of the sultan ; and in the first battle, 
which was suspended by the night, one hundred 
and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain. — 
GiBBOx's Rome, ch. 64. 

309. ARMY, A great. Tartars. [The reign 
of Timour the Tartar was but a] succes.sion of 
campaigns which made subject to him, with 



Kharism, Kaptschak, Georgia, Hindostan, Per- 
sia, Irak, Syria, and Asia Minor, two hundred 
additional millions of subjects. Instead of the 
forty thousand soldiers of Alexander, the army 
of "Timour had eight hundred thousand fighting 
men, and a million of shues who dried up the 
earth on their route. The magnificence of this 
nomade court equalled the multitude of the com- 
batants. Never did Europe see this number, 
this Asiatic parade, either in the migration of 
Attila, or those of the Arabs, or the campaigns 
of Moscow, where a modern conqueror led so 
many brave men to conflagration and the frosts. 
— Lamartine's Turkey, p. 308. 

310. ARMY, An industrious. Roman. "When 
[Emperor] Probus commanded in Egypt, he ex- 
ecuted many considerable works for the splendor 
and benefitof that rich country. The naviga- 
tion of the Nile, so important to Rome it.self , was 
improved ; and temples, buildings, porticos, 
and palaces were constructed by the hands of 
the soldiers, who acted by turns as architects, as 
engineers, and as husbandmen. It was reported of 
Hannibal, that, in order to preserve his troops 
from the dangerous temptations of idleness, he 
had obliged them to form large plantations of 
olive trees along the coast of Africa. From a 
similar principle, Probus exercised his legions in 
covering with rich vineyards the hills of Gaul 
and Pannonia. [He was afterward killed by re- 
volting soldiers.] — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 12. 

311. ARMY purified. Crmnicell's. The Earl 
of Essex, Lord Fairfax, Waller, Hampden, and 
Falkland, fought, yielded, or died, some for 
their prince, and others for their country and 
their faith ; Cromwell alone never sustained a de- 
feat. Elevated by the Parliament to the rank of 
general, he strengthened his own division by 
weeding and purifying it. He cared little for 
numbers, provided liis ranks were filled with fa- 
natics. By sanctifying thus the cause, end, and 
motives of the war, he raised his soldiers above 
common humanit}', and prepared them to per- 
form impossibilities. The historians of both 
sides agree in allowing that this religious enthu- 
siasm inspired by Cromwell in the minds of his 
troops transformed a body of factionaries into 
an army of saints. Victory invariably attended 
his encounters with the king's forces. — Lamar- 
tine's Cromwell, p. 31. 

312. ARMY, A sectarian. Janus II. [Tyr- 
connel, a Roman Catholic, was appointed com- 
mander of the troops in Ireland preparatory to 
the social and reltgious revolution.] The ranks 
were completely broken up and recomposed. 
Four or five hundred soldiers were turned out of 
a single regiment chiefly on the ground that they 
werebelow the proper stature ; yet the most un- 
practised eve at once perceived that they were 
taller and better-made men than their successors, 
whose wild and squalid appearance disgusted 
the beholders. Orders were given to the new 
oflScers that no man of the Protestant religion 
was to be suffered to enlist. The recruiting 
parties, instead of beating their drums for vol- 
unteers at fairs and markets, as had been the old 
practice, repaired to places to which the Roman 
Catholics were in the habit of making pilgrim- 
ages for purposes of devotion. In a few weeks 
the general had introduced more than two thou- 
sand natives into the ranks, and the people . . . af- 






38 



ARMY— ARROGANCE. 



firmed that by Christmas day not a man of Eng- 
lish race would be left in the whole army.— 
Macaulay's Eng. , ch. 6. 

313. ARMY, A small. Massachusetts. For a 
while the colonists were apprehensive of the Ind- 
ians. In February [1621] Miles Standish was 
sent out with his soldiers to gather information 
of the numbers and disposition of the natives. 
The army of New England consisted of six men 
besides the general. [The Indians had been dec- 
imated by pestilence.] — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 13. 

314. ARMY, Strong. Roman. The regular 
force of the empire had once amounted to six 
hundred and forty -five thousand men ; it was re- 
duced, in the time of Justinian, to one hundred 
and fifty thousand ; and this number, large as it 
may seen, was thinly scattered over the sea and 
land— in Spain and Italy, in Africa and EgjT)t, 
on the banks of the Danube, the coast of the 
Euxine, and the frontiers of Persia. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 42. 

315. ARMY subverted, The. James IL [Sum- 
moned to enforce submission to Roman Cath- 
olic innovations,] the king was resolved not 
to yield. He formed a camp on Hounslow 
Heath, and collected there, within a circumfer- 
ence of about two miles and a half, fourteen 
battalions of foot and thirty-two squadrons of 
horse, amounting to thirteen thousand fighting 
men. Twenty-six pieces of artillery, and many 
wains laden with arms and ammunition, were 
dragged from the Tower through the city to 
Hounslow. The Londoners saw this great force 
assembled in their neighborhood with a terror 
which familiarity soon diminished. A \isit to 
Hounslow became their favorite amu-sement on 
holidays. The camp presented the appearance 
of a vast fair. Mingled with the musketeers and 
dragoons, a multitude of fine gentlemen and 
ladies from Soho Square, sharpers and painted 
women from Whitefriars, invalids in sedans, 
monks in hoods and gowns, lackeys in rich liv- 
eries, peddlers, orange girls, mischievous appren- 
tices, and gaping clowns, were constantly pass- 
ing and repassing through the long lanes of 
tents. . . . The king, as was amply proved two 
years later, had greatly miscalculated [when he 
was a fugitive from England]. He had forgotten 
that vicinity operates in more ways than one. He 
had hoped that his army would overawe London; 
but the result of his policy was, that the feelings 
and opinions of London took complete possession 
of his army. — Macaulay's Exg., ch. 6. 

316. ARMY, Support of the. Charles IL 
The only army which the law recognized was 
the militia. That force had been remodelled by 
two acts of Parliament passed shortly after the 
Restoration. Every man who possessed five 
hundred pounds a year derived from land, or 
six thousand pounds of personal estate, was 
bound to provide, equip, and pay, at his own 
charge, one horseman. Every man who had fifty 
pounds a year derived from land, or six hundrecl 
pounds of personal estate, was charged, in like 
manner, with one pikeman or musketeer. 
Smaller proprietors were joined together in a 
kind of society, for which our language does not 
afford a special name, but which an Athenian 
would have called a Synteleia ; and each society 
was required to furnish, according to its means, 
a horse soldier or a foot soldier. The whole 



number . . . was popularly estimated at a hun- 
dred and thirty thousand men. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 3. 

317. ARMY, Test in the. James II. [The 
king resolved to oppress the Protestants in Ire- 
land and promote Roman Catholicism.] Many 
officers of the army were arbitrarily deprived of 
their commissions and of their bread. It was to 
no purpose that the lord-lieutenant pleaded the 
cause of some whom he knew to be good sol- 
diers and loyal subjects. Among them were old 
Cavaliers, who had fought bravely for monarchy, 
and who bore the marks of honorable wounds. 
Their places were supplied by men who had no 
recommendation but their religion. Of the new 
captains and lieutenants, it was said, some had 
been cowherds, some footmen, some noted ma- 
rauders ; some had been so used to wear brogues 
that they stumbled and shuflSed about strangely 
in their military jack-boots. Not a few of the 
officers who were discarded took refuge in the 
Dutch service, and enjoyed four years later the 
pleasure of driving their successors before them 
in ignominious rout through the waters of the 
Boyne. — M.vcaxtlay's Eng., ch. 6. 

31§. ARREST, Undeserved. John Bunyan. 
He was the first Nonconformist who had been 
marked for arrest. If he flinched after he had 
been singled out by name, the whole body of his 
congregation wou"ld be discouraged. Go to 
church he would not, or promise to go to 
church ; but he was willing to suffer whatever 
punishment the law might order. Thus, at the 
time and place which had been agreed on, he 
was in the room at Samsell, with his Bible in 
his hand, and was about to begin his address, 
when the constables entered and arrested him. 
He made no resistance. He desired only to be 
allowed to say a few words, which the constables 
permitted. — Fuocde's Bcnyan, ch. 5. 

319. ARROGANCE answered. Charles V. 
When France was invaded by Charles V.. he 
inquired of a prisoner, how many d/iys Paris 
might be distant from the frontier. "Perhaps 
twelve, but they will be days of battle ;" such 
was the gallant answer which checked the ar- 
rogance of that ambitious prince. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 80. 

320. ARROGANCE, Childish. Xenres. Tlie im- 
patience of Xerxes could not brook the delay 
that would have attended the transportation of 
this immense body of land forces in his fleet 
across the ^Egean, which is a ver}^ dangerous 
navigation, or^ven by the narrower sea of the 
Hellespont. He ordered a bridge of boats to be 
constructed between Sestos and Abydos, a dis- 
tance of seven furlongs (seven eighths of a mile). 
This structure was no sooner completed than it 
was demolished by a tempest. In revenge of 
this insult to his power, the directors of the work 
were beheaded, and the outrageous element itself 
was punished, by throwing into it a pair of iron 
fetters, and bestowing three hundred lashes upon 
the water. — Tytler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 1. 

321. ARROGANCE, Insulting. Attila. [The 
Roman Emperor Marcian refused the tribute de- 
manded.] He threatened to chastise the rash 
successor of Thcodosius ; but he hesitated wheth- 
er he should first direct his invincible arms 
against the Eastern or the Western empire. 



ARROGANCE— ART. 



39 



While mankind awaited his decision with awful 
suspense, he sent an equal defiance to the courts 
of Ravenna and Constantinople ; and his minis- 
ters saluted the two emperors with the same 
haughty declaration. " Attila, my lord, and 
thy lord, commands thee to provide a palace for 
his immediate reception." — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 35. 

322. ARROGANCE, Lofty. Attila. When At- 
tila first gave audience to the Roman ambas- 
sadors on the banks of the Danube, his tent was 
encompassed with a formidable guard. The 
monarch himself was seated in a wooden chair. 
His stern countenance, angry gestures, and im- 
patient tone astonished the firmness of Maximin. 
. . . The barbarian arrogantly declared, that he 
apprehended only the disgrace of contending 
with his fugitive slaves, since he despised 
their impotent efforts to defend the provinces 
which Theodosius had intrusted to their arms : 
" For what fortress" (added Attila), " what city, 
in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can 
hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is 
our plea.sru-e that it should be erased from the 
earth ?" — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 34. 

32.3. ARROGANCE, National. England. The 
conduct of Great Britain toward the United 
States became as arrogant as that of France was 
impudent. In November of 1793 George III. is- 
sued secret instructions to British privateers to 
seize all neutral ves.sels that might be found 
trading in the West Indies. The United States 
had no notification of this high-handed measure ; 
and American commerce to the value of many 
millions of dollars was swept from the sea, by 
a process differing in nothing from highway 
robbery. But for the temperate spirit of the 
government the country would have been at once 
plunged into war. [Redress was demanded, and 
a treaty signed.] — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 47. 

324. ARSON, Destruction by. Chosroes. Af- 
ter the reduction of Galilee and the region be- 
yond the Jordan, whose resistance appears to 
have delayed the fate of the capital, Jerusalem 
itself was taken by assault. The sepulchre of 
Christ and the statelj' churches of Helena and 
Constantine were consumed, or at least dam- 
aged, by the flames ; the devout offerings of 
three hundred years were rifled in one sacrile- 
gious day ; the Patriarch Zachariah and the 
true cross were transported into Persia ; and the 
massacre of ninety thousand Christians is im- 
puted to the Jews and Arabs, who swelled the 
disorder of the Persian march. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 46. 

325. ART, Age of Fine. Greece. The arts 
broke out at once with prodigious lustre at 
Athens, imder the luxurious administration of 
Pericles. In architecture and sculpture, Phidias 
at that time distinguished himself by such supe- 
rior ability, that his works were regarded as won- 
ders by the ancients, as long as anj- knowledge or 
taste remained among them. His brother Panse- 
us . . . is himself distinguished as the artist who 
painted the famous picture in the Pcecile at Ath- 
ens, representing the battle of Marathon, which 
is described by Pausanias and Pliny as so perfect 
a picture, that it presented striking portraits of 
the leaders on both sides. It was from the de- 
signs of Phidias that many of the noblest build- 
ings of Athens were reared ; and from the exam- 



ple of these, a just and excellent taste in archi- 
tecture soon diffused itself over all Greece. 
Phidias had many disciples ; and after his time 
arose a .succession of eminent architects, sculpt- 
ors, and painters, who maintained those sister 
arts in high perfection for above a century, till 
after the death of Alexander the Great. This, 
therefore, may be termed the golden age of the 
arts in Greece ; while in tho.se departments tlie 
contemporary nations were yet in the rudest ig- 
norance. — Tytler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 7. 

326. ART, Conquest by. Cmar. By the vic- 
tory over the Nervii the Belgian confederacy 
was almost extinguished. The German Adua- 
tuci remained only to be brought to submission. 
They had been on their waj' to join their country- 
men ; they were too late for the battle, and re- 
turned and shut themselves up in Namur, the 
strongest position in the Low Countries. Caesar, 
after a short rest, pushed on and came under 
their walls. The Aduatuci were a race of giants, 
and were at first defiant. When they .saw the 
Romans' siege-towers in preparation, the}' could 
not believe that men so small could move such, 
vast machines. When the towers began to 
approach, they lost heart and sued for terms. — 
Fkoxide's Cesar, ch. 14. 

327. ART corrupted. Eoman. Art was partly 
coriiipted by the fondness for glare, expensive- 
ness, and .size, and partly sank into miserable 
triviality, or immoral prettinesses, such as tho.se 
which decorated the walls of Pompeii in the first 
century, and the Pare aux Cerf s in the eighteenth. 
Greek statues f)f the days of Phidias were ruth- 
lessly decapitated, that their heads might be re- 
placed by the scowling or imbecile features of a 
Gains or a Claudius. Nero, professing to be a 
connoisseur, thought that he improved the Alex- 
ander of Lysimachus by gilding it from head to 
foot. — Farrar's Early Days, p. 5. 

32§. ART, Deformity in. Chinese. The Chi- 
nese have long practised the art of painting ; 
yet, instead of a liberal art, it has ever been with 
them a mere mechanic drudgery. Their paint 
ings, with a splendor of coloring, and the most 
minute accuracy of pencilling, have neither 
grace, beaut}', nor justness of proportion. They 
have not the smallest notion of perspective. In- 
stead of a gracefulness of attitude, the taste of 
the Chinese painter delights itself with the 'ex- 
pression of distortion and deformity. Let ua 
here remark the contrast between these Asiatics 
and the Grecian artists. In the images of the 
gods, which it is to be presumed men would al- 
ways choose to picture according to their most 
exalted ideas of beauty and majesty, the Greeks 
have given a character and expression noble 
almost beyond imagination. The idols of the 
Chinese are deform'ed, hideous, and disgusting 
beyond measure. — Tytler's Hist. , Book 5, 
clL 24. 

329. ART, Destruction of. Nero. If Nero 
was indeed guilty, then the act of a wretched 
buffoon, mad with the diseased sensibility of a 
depraved nature, has robbed the world of works 
of art, and memorials, and records, priceless 
and irrecoverable. We can rather imagine than 
describe the anguish with which the Romans, 
bitterly conscious of their own degeneracy, con- 
templated the destruction of the relics of their 
national erlorv in the days when Rome was free. 



40 



ART. 



What could ever replace for them or their chil- 
dren such monuments as the Temple of Luna, 
built by Servius Tullias ; and the Am Maxima, 
which the,Arcadian Evander had reared to Her- 
cules ; and the Temple of Jupiter Stator, built 
in accordance with the vow of Romulas ; and 
the little humble palace of Numa ; and the shrine 
of Yesta with the Penates of the Roman people 
and the spoils of conquered kings ? What struc- 
tural magnificence could atone for the loss of 
memorials which the song of Virgil and of Hor- 
ace had rendered still more dear ? The city 
might rise more reguLir from its ashes, and with 
broader streets, but its artificial uniformitj'^ was 
a questionable boon. Old men declared that the 
new streets were far less healthy, in consequence 
of their more scorching glare, and they muttered 
among themselves that many an object of na- 
tional interest had been wantonlv siicrificed to 
gratify the womanish freak of a miserable actor. 
— Fakkar's Early Days, p. 31. 

330. . Puritans. The Parliament 

resolved that ^1 pictures in the royal collection 
which contained representations of Jesus or of 
the Virgin Mother should be burned. Sculp- 
ture fared as ill as painting. Nj-mphs and 
Graces, the work of Ionian chLseLs, were deliv- 
ered over to Puritan stonema-sons to be made 
decent. — Macax;l.\y's Exg., ch. 2. 

331. . liinn of Paganimn. We 

have seen how the rising city was adorned by 
the vanitj' and despotism of the Imperial foun- 
der ; in the ruins of paganism, .some gods and 
heroes were saved from the axe of s-upersti- 
tion ; and the forum and hippodrome were dig- 
nified with the relics of a better age. Several of 
these are described by Nicetas in a florid and 
affected style ; and from his descriptions I shall 
select some interesting particulars : 1. . . . vic- 
torioas charioteers. ... 2. The .sphinx, river- 
horse and crocodile. ... 3. The .she-wolf 
suckling Rf)mulus and Remus. ... 4. An ea- 
gle holding and tearing a serpent. ... 5. An 
ass and his flriver. ... 6. An equestrian sta- 
tue. . . . BeJierophon and Pega.sus. ... 7. A 
brass obelisk. ... 8. The Phrygian shep- 
herd presenting to Venus the prize of beauty, 
the apple of discord. ... 9. The stfitue of 
Helen. . . . 10. The manly form of Hercules. 
... 11. Statue of Juno. ... 12. Another 
colossus of Pallas or Minerva. — Gebbox's Ro.mk. 
ch. 61. 

332. AET destmctive to Life. Earthquake. 
In the disasters occu.sioned by earthquakes, the 
architect becomes the enemy of mankind. The 
hut of a savage or the tent of an Arab may be 
thrown down without injurj' to the inhabitlmt ; 
and the Penivians had rea-scm to deride the folly 
of their Spanish conqiierors, who with so much 
cost and l!i1)or erected their own sepulchres. 
The rich marbles of a patrician are dashed on his 
own head ; a whole people is buried under the 
ruins of public and private edifices, and the con- 
flagration is kindled and propagated by the in- 
numerable fires which are necessarj' for the sub- 
sistence and manufactures of a great city. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 43. 

333. ART, Educated in. Romans. Whatever 
were their [tlie Etruscan.s] attainments in the 
fine arts in tlujse remote ages, their suc-cessfjrs, 
l..e Romans, inherited none of thai knowledge 



from them ; for at the period of the conquest of 
Greece, the Romans had not a tincture of taste 
in those arts, till they eiught the infection from 
the precious spoils which the sole love of plun- 
der then imported into Ital}'. . . . Even when 
time had brought the arts to the highest perfec- 
tion they ever attained among the Romans, this 
people never cea-sed to acknowledge the high su- 
periority of the Greeks, of which we have this con- 
\incing proof, that when the Roman authors cele- 
brate any exquisite production of art , it is ever the 
work of a Phidias, Praxiteles, Lysippus, Glycon, 
Zeuxis, Apelles, Parrhasias, or, in fine, of some 
artist who adorned that splendid peri<x], and not 
of those who had worked at Rome, or who had 
lived nearer to their own times than the age of 
Alexander the Great. — Tytler'sHist., Book 2, 
ch. 7. 

334. ART, Low estimate of. F^nnud Jolamon. 
Johnson expresM-d his disjipprobation of orna- 
mental architecture, .such as magnificent columns 
supporting a portico, or expensive pilasters sup- 
porting merely their own capitals, " because it 
consumes labor disproportionate to its utilit}*." 
For the .siime reason he satirized statuarj'. 
"Painting," said he, "consumes labor not dis- 
proportionate to its effect ; but a fellow will 
hack half a year at a block of marble, to make 
.something in stone that hanlly resembles a man. 
The value of .stJituary is owing to its difficulty. 
You would not value the finest head cut upon a 
carrot." Here he seemed to me to be .strangely 
deficient in taste ; for, surely, statuary is a noble 
art of iniitiition. — Boswkli.'b Joiixsox, p. 276. 

335. ART, Frivolous. Palace of Conntantxno- 
ple. The long .series of the apartments was adapt- 
ed to the seasons, and decorated with marble 
and porphyry ; with painting, sculpture, and mo- 
saics ; with a profusion of gold, .silver, and 
precious stones. His [Tlieophilus] fanciful mag- 
nificence employed the skill and patience of such 
artists as the times could afford ; but the taste of 
Athens would liave despised tiieir frivolous and 
costly labors ; a golden tree, with its leaves and 
branches, which sheltered a multitude of birds 
warbling their artificial notes, and two lions of 
massy gold, and of natural size, who looked and 
roared like their brethren of the forest. — Gib- 
bon's Rome. ch. ~t?,. ji. ;i.">l. 

330. ART, Inspiration in. Italians. What 
treasures may we suppose yet remain in Greece 
and . . . Italy ! To the discovery of some of 
those remnants of ancient art has Ijeen attributed 
the revival of painting and sculpture, after their 
total extinction during the Middle Ages. This, 
at least, is certain: that, till Michael Angelo and 
Raphael, feeling the Ix'auties of the antique, 
l)egan to emulate their noble manner, and intro- 
duced into their works, the one a grandeur, and 
the other a beauty, unknown to the age in which 
they lived, the manner of their predeces-sors had 
Ijeen harsh, constrained, and utterly deficient in 
grace. — Tvti.kh's Hist., Book 2, ch. 7. 

337. ART, Origin of. ycrennity. We may 
presume, with some rea.son, that in the earljr 
ages the priests were among the first who culti- 
vated the .sciences. The useful arts are the im- 
mediate offspring of necessity ; and in the infancy 
of sfxiety every individual, according as he feels 
his wants, is put to the necessity of exerf;ising 
his talents in some rude contrivances to supply 



ART. 



41 



them. The skill to conslruct instruments for 
the capture or destruction of animals, or for of- 
fence and defence in war, is found among the 
most barbarous nations. The rude arts of form- 
ing a clothing for the body, and the c-onstructions 
of huts for shelter against the inclemencies of the 
air, form among such nations the occupation of 
cverj- individual of the tril^e or community, and 
<."venof both sexes. — Tttlers Hist., Book 1, 
ch. 3. 

53§. . Egyptmn-g. It is highly pro- 

Ijable, too, that from this people, as from a 
focus of illumination, most of the European na- 
tions have, by the natural progress of knowledge, 
received a great part of their instruction both in 
the arts and in the sciences. The Eg.\*ptians in- 
structed and enlightened the Greeks : the Greeks 
performed the same l>enelicial office to the Ro- 
mans, who, in their turn instructing the nations 
whom they conquered or colonized, have trans- 
mitted the rudiments of that knowledge which 
the industry and the genius of the modems are 
continually extending and advancing to perfec- 
tion, — Tttlers Hist.. Book 2, ch. 7. 

339. AET, Periods in. Affinity in. After the 
defeat of Xerxes the Greeks, sectire for some 
time from foreign iuvaders. and in full possession 
of their liberty, achieved ^\ith distinguished 
glorj'. may certainly be considered as at the siun- 
iiiit of their grandeur as a nation. They main- 
tained for a considerable time their power and 
indei>endence. and distinguished themselves dur- 
ing that period by an universality of genius 
unknown to other ages and nations. The line 
:irts bear a near affinity to each other ; and it has 
seldom been kno^Ti in any age which produced 
or encouraged artists in one department, that 
there were wanting others who displayed similar 
excellence in the rest. Of this, both ancient and 
modern history affords ample proof, in the ages 
of Pericles, of Leo X.. and of Louis XR'. — 
Tttlers Hist. . B'>>k 2. ch. 7. 

340. AET, Periods of. Roman. In the period 
of ancient history, we have seen that remarkable 
splendor to which the line arts arose in the age of 
Pericles. In modem times the age of Leo X. is 
an era equally distinguished. The art of jiaint- 
ing lay long buried in the west, under the ruins 
of the Ronian Empire. It declined in the latter 
ages, with the universal decay of taste and genius, 
and needed not an irruption of the Goths to lay 
it in the dust. The Ostrogoths, who suMued 
Italy, that people who were barbarians only in 
name, had they found it in splendor, would have 
industriously cherished and preserved it. as they 
did every monument of ancient grandeur or of 
beauty ; but painting and sculpture were never 
high among the ancient Romans ; and that the 
taste and genius for the imitative arts underwent 
a regular and natural decay, we have the strong- 
est proof in examining the series of the coins of 
the lower empire. — Tvtler"s Hist., Book 6, 
oh. -^e. 

341. ART, Pleasures of. Pnurnd. A very 
fashionable b:irout-t [Sir Michael Le Fleming] 
iu the briUiant world, who. on his attention 
lieing called to the fragrance of a May evening 
in the country, observed : * ' This may be very 
well : but. for my part. I prefer the smeU of a 
flambeau at the playhouse." — Bos^'Elx's Johs- 
soN, p. 127. 



342. ART protected. By Climate. It seems 
peculiar to the climate of Egypt, that time ap- 
pears scarcely to make any sensible impression 
on those monuments of human industry. The 
cause is plausibly assigned by De Maillet, in his 
"Description de I'Egypte." Rain and frost, 
says that author, which in other countries are 
the destroyers of all the works of art which are 
exposed to the air, are utterly unkno^vn in Egypt. 
The structures of that country, its pyramids and 
its obelisks, can sustain no injury unless from 
the sun and wind, which have scarce any sensi- 
ble effect in wasting or corroding their materials. 
— Tttlers Hist. 7 Book 1, ch.4. 

343. ART, Protected by. Syra^'use. Marcel- 
lus . . . Ix-siegt-d Syracuse. . . . The genius of 
a single man [Archimedes] was found sufficient 
to withstand for a great length of time the ut- 
most efforts of an enemy by sea and land. . . . 
The city was twenty -two miles in compass. . . . 
MarceDus caused eight galleys to be joined to- 
gether laterally by iron chains, and on their 
surfac-e, as a foimdation, an immense tower was 
erected, whose height overtopped the walls of 
the city. This huge machine, which MarceUus 
called his Sambuca. or Dulcimer, was slowly 
advancing, rowed by a great nunilier of men, 
when Archimedes discharged from one of his en- 
gines a stone of twelve hundred and fifty pounds 
weight, then a second, and immediately after- 
ward a third, with a direction so sure as to batter 
the galleys and the tower to pieces in a few min- 
utest An immense artiUery of darts, stones, burn- 
ing torches, and everj- material of annoyance, was 
incessantly launched ujKjn the besiegers from 
eveiy- quiuter of the walls ; while the machines 
from which they issued were altogether beyond 
their reach, and'even out of their sight. It was 
of no avail whether they made their attack from 
a distance or close to the walls. If within the 
shot of a bow, the engines of Archimedes assailed 
the galleys with stones of such weight as entirely 
to demolish them ; if they approached the walls, 
they were seized by cranes and grappling-irons, 
suspended in the air. and suddenly let f:ill with 
a force that sunk them. Taking advantage of a 
meridian sun. and concentniting the rays by a 
combination of polished metal, this wonderful 
engineer burnt the vessels of the enemy at a fur- 
long's distance, thus . . . making even the fire 
of heaven obedient to his commands. — Tttlers 
Hist.. Book 3. ch 9. 

344. ART. Revival of, Ita^ly. The fine arts 
are said to have been revived in Italy by artists 
from Greece : and it seems highly probable that 
in that coimtry. which had been eminently dis- 
tinffuished by "their splendor and perfection, the 
taste should "have been less entirely lost than in 
any other. The most common notion is, that, 
about the end of the thirteenth centun-. Cimabue, 
a Florentine, observing the works of two Grecian 
artists, who had been "sent for top;unt one of the 
churches at Florence. beg:m to attempt some- 
thing of the same kind, and soon conceived that 
it would not be difficult to surpass such rude 
perf ormtmces. His works were the admiration 
of his time ; he had his scholars and his imitat- 
ors ; amonsr these were Ghiotto. Gaddi, Tasi 
Cavallmi. and Stephano Florentino ; and the 
number of artists continued so to increase, that 
an academy for painting was instituted at Flor- 



42 



ART. 



ence in the year 1350. Still, however, the art 
was extremely low, and the artists, with great 
industry, seem to have had no spark of genius.— 
Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 23. 

345. . Fifteenth Century. The suc- 
cessors of Cimabue and of Ghiotto seem all to 
have painted in one manner. Their works are 
distinguished by a hard and rigid outline, sharp 
angles of the limbs, and stiff folds in the drapery ; 
a contour, in short, in which there is not the 
smallest grace or elegance. Such, with little 
variation or improvement, was the manner of 
painting for above two centuries. The best 
artists valued themselves on the most scrupulous 
and servile imitation of nature, without any 
capacity of distinguishing her beauties and de- 
formities. In painting a head, it was the highest 
pitch of excellence that all the wrinkles of the 
skin should be most distinctlj' marked, and that 
the spectator should be able to count every hair 
on the beard. Such was the state of painting 
till toward the end of the fifteenth century, 
when all at once, as if by some supernatural in- 
fluence, it attained at a single step to the summit 
of perfection. Nothing can more clearly demon- 
strate that the splendor to which the fine arts 
all at once attained, at the period of which we 
now speak, was owing entirely to natural genius, 
and not to accidental causes, than this circum- 
stance, that though many remains of the finest 
sculpture of the ancients existed, and were known 
in Italy for some centuries preceding this era, it 
was not till this time that they began to serve as 
models of imitation. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 22. 

346. ART, Schools of. Three. These three 
— the Florentine, the Roman, and the Venetian — 
are the chief of the Italian schools of painting. 
The Florentine is distinguished by grandeur and 
sublimity, and great excellence of design ; but a 
want of grace, of beauty of coloring, and skill 
in the chiaro-oscuro. The character of the Roman 
is equal excellence of design, a grandeur, tem- 
pered with moderation and simplicity, a high 
degree of grace and elegance, and a superior 
knowledge, though not an excellence in coloring. 
The characteristic of the Venetian is the perfec- 
tion of coloring and the utmost force of the 
chiaro-oscuro, with an inferiority in every other 
particular. — Tttlek's Hist., Book 6, ch. 22. 

347. ART, Superiority in. Musters. Michael 
Angelo was so smitten with the beauties of the 
antique, that he occupied himself in drawing 
numberless sketches of a mutilated trunk of a 
statue of Hercules, still to be seen at Rome, and 
from him called the Ihrso of Michael Angelo. 
Riiphael, whose works have entitled him to the 
same epithet which the Greeks bestowed on 
Apelles, The Divine — Raphael confes.sed the ex- 
cellence of the antique by borrowing from it 
many of his noblest airs and attitudes ; and his 
enemies (for merit will ever have its enemies) 
have asserted, that of those gems and basso-re- 
lievos which he had been at pains to collect and 
copy, he had destroyed not a few, in order that 
the beauties he had "thence borrowed might pass 
for his own. The practice of those artists, whose 
names are the first among the moderns, affords 
sufficient argument of the superiority of the an- 
cients. Their works remain the highest models 
of the art ; and we who, in the imttatiou of the 



human figure, have not nature, as they had, con- 
stantly before our eyes undisguised, and in her 
most graceful and sublimest aspects, can find no 
means so short and so sure to attain to excellence 
as bv imitating the antique. — Tytler's Hist., 
Book 2, ch. 7. 

34S. . Raphael. His invention and 

composition are admirable, his attitudes grand 
and sublime, his female figures in the highest 
degree beautiful. He understood the anatomy 
of the human figure as well as Michael Angelo, 
but he never offends by a harsh delineation of 
the muscles. His skill in the cliiaro-oscuro, or 
in the effect of light and shade, is beyond that 
of Michael Angelo, and his coloring very far 
superior to him. In the action of his figures 
there is nothing violent and constrained, but all 
is moderate, simple, and gracefully majestic. 
Many painters there are, excellent in different 
departments, and several that, in one single de- 
partment, may be found to exceed even Raphael ; 
but in that supreme excellence which consists in 
the union of all the various merits of the art, he 
stands unrivalled, and far removed from all 
competition. In representing female beauty, 
Raphael has gone beyond every other artist, and 
even beyond the antique itself. In his Madon- 
nas, in his St. Cecilia, and in his Galatea, imagi- 
nation cannot reach a finer conformation of 
features. In painting the Galatea, he says him- 
self, in one of his letters, that, unable to find 
among the most beautiful women that excellence 
which he aimed at, he made use of a certain 
divine form or idea, which presented itself to 
his imagination. In his portraits he seems to 
have confined himself to the perfect imitation of 
nature, without desire to raise or embellish, but 
without that minute and servile accurac}' which 
distinguishes the works in that style of some of 
the Flemish masters. The union of all these excel- 
lences, which has placed Raphael at the head of 
all the painters that ever the world produced, 
was attained by a youth who never reached the 
middle peiiod of life. Raphael died at the age 
of thirty-seven. What may we suppose he would 
have been had he lived to the age of Titian or 
Leonardo da Vinci ? — Tytler's "Hist., Book 3, 
ch. 7. 

349. ART, Treasures of. Xupoleon I. [The 
victorious] Xapoleon . . . demanded twenty of 
the choicest pictures of the duke [of Parma] to 
be sent to the ^luseum of Paris. To save one of 
these works of art — the celebrated picture of St. 
Jerome — the duke offered two hundred thousand 
dollars. Napoleon declined the money, stating 
to the army, " The sum which he offers will soon 
be spent ; but the po.ssession of such a master- 
piece at Paris will adorn that capital for ages, 
and give birth to similar exertions of genius." — 
Abbott's X.woleon B., vol. 1, ch. 5. 

350. ART, Value of. Cannon. This epoch 
was signalized by one of the mo.st important dis- 
coveries that has' ever been made — the invention 
of artillery. Some pieces of cannon, which, it 
is said, Edward had placed in the front of his 
army, contributed much to throw the enemy into 
confusion, and to give victory to the English. 
This invention, apparently a most destructive 
one, has certainly, upon the Avliole, proved bene- 
ficial to societ}'. Nations are more upon a 
level, as less depends upon frantic exertions of 



ARTISANS— ASCETICS. 



43 



courage ; and, consequently, from a considera- 
tion of an equality of strength, the peace of 
kingdoms is better preserved. The victory of 
Cressy [a.d. 1346] was followed by the siege 
and reduction of Calais. — Tytler'sHist., Book 
6, ch. 12. 

351. AETISANS, Capture of. Silk-iceavers. 
Two cities of Spain, Almeria and Lisbon, were 
famous for the manufacture ... of silk. It was 
first introduced into Sicily by the Normans ; and 
this emigration of trade distinguishes the victory 
of Roger from the uniform and fruitless hostili- 
ties of every age. After the sack of Corinth, 
Athens, and Thebes, his lieutenant embarked 
with a captive train of weavers and artificers of 
both sexes, a trophj' glorious to their master, 
and disgraceful to the Greek emperor. The 
King of Sicily was not insensible of the value of 
the present. — GIBBO^''s Rome, ch. 53. 

352. ARTISANS, Wages of. England. The 
remuneration of workmen employed in manu- 
factures has always been higher than that of the 
tillers of the soil. In the year 1680 a member 
of the House of Commons remarked that the 
high wages paid in this country made it impos- 
sible for our textures to maintain a competition 
with the produce of the Indian looms. An 
English mechanic, he said, instead of slaving 
like a native of Bengal for a piece of copper, ex- 
acted a shilling ji day. Other evidence is extant, 
which proves that a shilling a day was the pay 
to which the English manufacturer then thought 
himself entitled, but that he was often forced to 
work for less. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 3. 

353. ARTISANS, Ancient. War. A tradition 
has prevailed that the Roman fleet was reduced 
to ashes in the port of Syracuse, by the burning- 
glasses of Archimedes [see No. 342] ; and it is 
asserted that a similar expedient was employed 
by Proclus to destroy the Gothic vessels in the 
harbor of Constantinople, and to protect his 
benefactor Anastasius against the bold enterprise 
of Vitalian. A machine was fixed on the walls 
of the city, consisting of a hexagon mirror of 
polished brass, with many smaller and movable 
polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the 
meridian sun ; and a consuming flame was 
darted to the distance, perhaps, of two hundred 
feet. . . . Proclus applied sulphur to the destruc- 
tion of the Gothic fleet ; in a modern imagination, 
the name of sulphur is instantly connected with 
the suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion 
is propagated by the secret arts of his disciple 
Anthemius. — GIBBO^''s Rome, ch. 40. 

354. ARTS encouraged. Constantine. [Con- 
stantine the Great] discovered that in the de- 
cline of the arts the skill as well as numbers of 
his architects bore a very unequal proportion to 
the greatness of his designs [in the building of 
Constantinople]. The magistrates of the most 
distant provinces were therefore directed to in- 
stitute schools, to appoint professors, and, bj' the 
hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the 
study and practice of architecture a sufflcient 
number of ingenious youths who had received a 
liberal education. — Gibbon's Rome, vol. 2, 
ch. 17, p. 95. 

355. ARTS, Obsolete. By Inventions. The 
endowment in 1626 of a free-school at Great 
Marlow, to teach twenty-four girls to knit, spin, 



and make bone-lace, had become a provision, 
for the continuance of obsolete arts, and unprofit- 
able labor [early in the eighteenth century]. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 2, p. 20. 

356. ARTS, Subsidized. Martin Luther. [For 
religion.] In the year 1524 there appeared in 
Wittenberg the first German hj^mn-book, con- 
sisting of eight hymns, among them the one be- 
ginning, " Now, rejoice, ye Christian people." 
In the preface he remarks : "I am not of the 
opinion that all the arts should be suppressed by 
the gospel, and should perish, as several high 
ecclesiastics maintain ; but I would rather that 
all the arts, especially music, should be enlisted 
in the service of Him who has created them and 
bestowed them upon us." And he Avas forced 
to view with deep regret the arts and sciences 
endangered by these intemperate fanatics who, 
in their false zeal, would have destroyed all the 
external decoration of the churches. — Rein's 
Luther, ch. 13. 

357. ASCETICISM, Exercise of. Asiatics. The 
opinion and practice of the monasteries of 
Mount Athos will be best represented in the 
words of an abbot, who flourished in the elev- 
enth century. " When thou art alone in thy 
cell," says the ascetic teacher, "shut thy door, 
and seat thyself in a corner ; raise thy mind 
above all things vain and transitory ; recline thy 
beard and cliin on thy breast ; turn thy eyes and 
thy thoughts towards the middle of thy belly, the 
region of the navel ; and search the place of the 
heart, the seat of the soul. At first, all will be 
dark and comfortless ; but if j'ou persevere day 
and night, you will feel an ineffable joy ; and 
no sooner has the soul discovered the place of 
the heart than it is involved in a mystic and 
ethereal light." This light, the production of a 
distempered fancy, the creature of an empty 
stomach and an emptj' brain, was adored by the 
Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God 
Him.self. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 42. 

358. ASCETICISM, Escape from. JoJin Wesley. 
[John Wesley before liis conversion was anxious- 
ly seeking rest for his soul, and] proposed to 
himself a solitary life in the ' ' Yorkshire dales ;" . 
"it is the decided temper of his soul." His 
wise mother interpo.ses, admonishing him pro- 
phetically, "that God had better work for him 
to do. " He travels some miles to consult ' ' a 
serious man." "The Bible knows nothing of 
a solitary region," says this good man, and 
Wesley turns about his face toward that great 
career which was to make his history a part 
of the history of his country and of the world. — 
Stevens' M. E. Church, vol. 1, p. 32. 

359. ASCETICS, Early. Boman. Prosperity 
and peace introduced the distinction of the ful- 
gar and the Ascetic Christians. The loose and 
imperfect practise of religion satisfied the con- 
science of the multitude. The prince or magis- 
trate, the soldier or merchant, reconciled their 
fervent zeal and implicit faith with the exer- 
cise of their profession, the pursuit of their in- 
terest, and the indulgence of their passions ; ])ut 
the Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid 
precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the 
savage enthusiasm which represents man as a 
crimuial and God as a tyrant. They seriously 
renounced the business and the pleasures of the 
age ; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, ai: 1 of 



4i 



ASSASSINATION. 



marriage ; chastised tlieir body, mortified their 
iiffections, and embraced a life of misery, as the 
price of eternal happiness. In the reign of Con- 
stantine the Ascetics tied from a profane and de- 
^^enerate world to perpetual solitude or relig- 
ious society.— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 37. 

360. ASSASSINATION attempted. Louis Phi- 
lippe. In 1885 Louis Philippe and his three 
sons and a splendid suite of military officers were 
riding through the line of the National Guard, 
drawn up oil the Boulevard du Temple, when 
an explosion resembling a discharge of musket- 
ry took place from the window of a house over- 
looking the road. Fourteen persons were 
killed on the spot. A shower of bullets had 
been discharged by a machine consisting of 
twenty-five barrels, which, ammged side by 
side horizontally upon a frame, could be fired at 
once by a train of gunpowder. The king was 
nnhurt. [The Corsican Avho attempted this 
wholesale massacre was wounded by the burst- 
ing of one of the barrels, and arrested.] Another 
attempt was made on the life of Louis Philippe 
in 1836 by a man by the name of Alibaud, who 
fired into the king's carriage, the queen and his 
sister being with him. A third attempt was 
made in tiie same year by another desperado 
named Meunier. . . *. There is nothing more re- 
markable than the extraordinary escapes of Louis 
Philippe, as if he bore a charmed life. — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 8, ch. 21, p. 374. 

361. . Queen Victoria. [In 1840, 

the vearof her marriage, .she was riding up Con- 
stitution Hill in an open carriage, with Prince 
Albert, when a pi.stol was fired at them, and in 
about half a minute there was a discharge of a 
second pistol. Neither of the royal couple were 
injured.] The youth named Oxford, who had 
committed this atrocious crime, was a barman 
at a public house. — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 24. 

362. . Queen Victoria. On the 

SOth of May [1842] John Francis, a young man 
under twenty years of age, firetl a pistol at the 
queen as she was coining down Constitution 
Hill, in a barouche and four, accompanied by 
Prince Albert. Her Majesty, thinking of others 
rather than herself, desired that none of the 
ladies in waiting should accompany her in her 
ride, which she would not forego for ambiguous 
threats that had reached the ears of the police. 
Francis was found guilty of liigh treason, and 
received the usual capital .sentence, which was 
commuted into transportation for life. On the 
3d of July a deformed youth, named John "Will- 
iam Bean, presented a pistol at her Majesty, but 
being seized by a bystander, was prevented from 
firing it. [This was the third attempt within two 
years.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 27, p. 497. 

363. ASSASSINATION, Conspiracy for. Brit- 
ish Cabinet. [In 1820 twenty-four persons en- 
tered into a conspiracy to assas.sinate all the 
members of the British Cabinet while at a Cabi- 
net dinner. Hand grenades were to be thrown 
under the table, and any who escaped from 
them were to be despatched with the sword. 
The plot was betrayed, and five of its members 
arrested and executed.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, 
«h. 9, p. 161. 

364. ASSASSINATION, Deliverance by. Henry 

III. of ^'ranct. Tliis crufi and dissolute ty- 



rant continued to reign for fifteen years. His 
kingdom was at length delivered from him by 
the hand of a fanatic enthusiast. Jacques Clem- 
ent, a Jacobin monk, actuated by the belief 
that he was doing an act of consummate piety, 
insinuated himself into the palace, and stabbed 
the king with a knife in the belly. The a.ssassin 
was put to death on the spot by the king's 
guards, and Henry died in a few days of the 
wound.— Tytler's Hist., Book G, ch. 27. 

365. ASSASSINATION, Escape from. Abraliam 
Lincoln. [On the 22d of February he reached 
Harrisburir, on his way to Wa.shington, where 
he was to be inaugurated.] The next morning 
the whole country was surprised to learn that he 
had arrived in Wa.shington twelve hours sooner 
than he had originally intended ... a small 
gang of a.ssassius, under the leadership of an 
italmn who a.ssumed the name of Orsini, had 
arrauired to take his life during his pa.ssage 
throuirh Baltimore.— R.\ymond'8 Lincoln, ch. 
5, p. ios. 

366. ASSASSINATION, Fear of. Cromieell. 
Cromwell had himself thougiit for some years 
that he should perish by as.sii.ssination. He wore 
a cuirass under his clothes, and carried defen- 
sive arms within reach of his liand. He never 
.slept long in the same room in the palace, con- 
tinually changing his licdchamber, to mislead 
domestic trea.son and military i>lots. A despot, 
he suffered the punishment t)f tyranny. The 
un.seen weight of the hatred which he had accu- 
mulated weighed upon his imagination and dis- 
turbed his sleep. The least murmuring in the 
army appeared to him like the i)re.sige of a re- 
bellion against his power. Sometimes he pun- 
ished, sometimes he caressed those of his lieu- 
tenants whom he suspected would revolt. — Lam- 
aktine's Chomwki.i,. ]>. 67. 

367. ASSASSINATION, General. Irdnnd. The 
Irish Roman Catholics had judged the.se tur- 
bulent times a fit season for asserting the in- 
dependencv of their country, and shaking off 
the English yoke. From a detestable abu.se of 
the two best of motives, religion and liberty, 
they were incited to one of the most horrible at- 
tempts recorded in the annals of history. They 
consjiired to as,sassinate, in one day, all the 
Protestants in Ireland, and the design was hardly 
.surmi.sed in Englaml till above forty thou.sand 
had been put to the sword.— Tytler's Hist., 
Book 6. ch. 19. 

36«. ASSASSINATION, Justified. Philip of 
Greece. AVhile eng.aged in celebrating a mag- 
nificent festival on the marriage of his daughter 
Cleopatra with the King of Epirus, and walking 
in solemn procession to the temple, he was struck 
to the heart with a dagirer by Pausanias, a 
noble youth who had been brutally injured by 
Attalus, the brother-in-law of Philip, and to 
whom that prince had refused to do justice. 
Philip had in the latter period of his reign de- 
crailed himself bv some .strong acts of tyranny, 
the fruit of an uncontrolled indulgence of vi- 
cious appetites.— Tyti.ku's Hist.. Book 2, ch. 4. 

369. ASSASSINATION, Patriotic. Crmr. Bru- 
tus had been proclaimed Pnelor of the city, 
with the promise of the Consul.shii). But the 
discontented remnants of the Senatorial party 
assailed him with coustimt reproaches. The 



ASSASSIXATIOX— ASSASSINS. 



-j:0 



name of Brutus, dear to all Roman patriots, 
was made a rebuke to him. " His ancestor ex- 
pelled the Tarquins ; could he sit quietly under 
"a king's rule ?" At the foot of the statue of 
that ancestor, or on his own praetorian tribunal, 
notes were placed containing phrases such as 
these : ' ' Thou art not Brutus : would thou 
wert." "Brutus, thou sleepest." "Awake, Bru- 
tus." Gradually he was brought to think that 
it was his duty as a patriot to put an end to 
Caesar's rule, even by taking his life. — Lid- 
dell's Rome, p. 700. 

370. ASSASSINATION, Peril of. Cromwell. 
" Yet is their strength labor and sorj'oic ;" this, 
after all, must be said even of this great and 
most successful man. Our conception of him 
is such that we can well believe he longed to be 
at rest. It was an amazing work, that in which 
he was the actor ; but with what toil and endu- 
rance and sleepless energy had he to travail day 
and night ! The houorof knighthood and £500 
a year forever was offered by a proclamation, 
by Charles Stuart, from his vile and filthy 
court in Paris, to any one who would take the 
life of the Protector ; and there were many in 
England who longed to see the mighty monarch 
dethroned. In his palace chaml^ers lived his 
noble mother, nearly ninety, now trembling at 
every sound, lest it be some ill to her noble and 
royal son. — Hood's Cromwell, ch. 17. 

371. ASSASSINATION, Remarkable. Cmar. 
Antony, who was in attendance, was detained, 
as had been arranged, by Trebonius. Caesar en- 
tered, and took his seat. His presence awed 
men, in spite of themselves, and the conspira- 
tors had determined to act at once, lest they 
should lose courage to act at all. He was famil- 
iar and easy of access. They gathered round 
him. He knew them all. There was not one 
from whom he had not a right to expect some 
sort of gratitude, and the movement suggested 
no suspicion. One had a story to tell him ; an- 
other some favor to ask. TuHius Cimber, 
whom he had just made governor of Bithynia, 
then came close to him, with .some request which 
he was unwilling to grant. Cimber caught his 
gown, as if in entreaty, and dragged it from his 
shoulders. Cassius, who was standing behind, 
stabbed him in the throat. He started up with 
a cry, and caught Cassius's arm. Another pon- 
iard entered his breast, giving a mortal wound. 
He looked round, and seeing not one friendly 
face, but only a ring of daggers pointing at him, 
he drew his gown over his head, gathered the 
folds about him that he might fall decently, and 
sank down without uttering another word. — 
Froude's Cesar, ch. 26. 

372. ASSASSINS, Hatred of. Ccemr's. An- 
tony, as Consul, ro.'^e to pronounce the fu- 
neral oration. He ran through the chief acts 
of Caesar's life, recited his will, and then spoke 
of the death which had rewarded him. To 
make this more vividly present to the excit- 
able Italians, he displaj'ed a waxen image mark- 
ed with the three-and-twenty wounds, and pro- 
duced the very robe which he had worn all 
rent and blood-stained. Soul-stirring dirges 
added to the solemn horror of the scene. . . . 
That impression was instantaneous. The Sena- 
tor friends of the Liberators who had attend- 
8d the ceremony looked on in moody silence. 



Soon the menacing gestures of the crowd make 
them look to their safety. They fled ; and the 
multitude insisted on burning the body, as they 
had burnt the body of Clodius, in the sacred 
precincts of the Forum. Some of the veteran ; 
wlio attended the funeral set fire to the bier ; 
benches and firewood heaped round it soon made 
a sufiicient pile. From the blazing pyre the 
crowd rushed, eager for vengeance, to the 
houses of the conspirators. But all had fled 
betimes. One poor wretch fell a victim to the 
fury of the mob — Helvius Cinna, a poet who 
had devoted his art to the service of the Dic- 
tator. He was mistaken for L. Cornelius Cinna 
the Praetor, and torn to pieces before the mis- 
take could be explained. — Liddell's Rome, 
p. 707. 

373. ASSASSINS, Infamous. Booth's Conspir- 
acy. Three days after the evacuation of Rich- 
mond by Lee's army the President visited thai 
city, conferred with the authorities, and then re 
turned to Washington. On the evening of the 
14th of April he attended Ford's Theatre witli 
his wife and a party of friends. As the plaj 
drew near its close a disreputable actor, named 
John Wilkes Booth, stole unnoticed into the 
President's box, levelled a pistol at his head, and 
.shot him through the brain. Mr. Lincoln fell 
forward in his seat, was borne from the building, 
lingered in an unconscious state until the fol- 
lowing morning, and died. It was the greatest 
tragedy of modern times — the most wicked, atro- 
cious, and diabolical murder known in American 
history. ... At the same hour another murder- 
er, named Lewis Payne Powell, burst into the 
bed-chamber of Secretary Seward, sprang upon 
the couch of the sick man, stabbed him nigh 
unto death, and made his escape into the night. 
. . . On the 26th of April Booth was found . . . 
refasing to .surrender, he was shot. . . . Powell 
was caught, convicted, and hanged. His fellow- 
conspirators, David E. Herrold and George A. 
Atzerott, together with Mrs. Mary E. Surratt, at 
whose house the plot was formed, were also con- 
demned and executed. Michael O'Laughlin, Dr. 
Samuel A. Mudd, and Samuel Arnold were sen- 
tenced to imprisonment for life, and Edward 
Spangler for a term of six years. — Rldpath's 
U. S., ch. 66. 

374. ASSASSINS, ReUgious. Persia. The ex- 
tirpation of the Assassins or Ismaelians of Per- 
sia maj^ be considered as a service to mankind. 
Among the hills to the south of the_ Caspian 
these odious sectaries had reigned with impunity 
above a hundred and .sixty years. . . . With 
the fanaticism of the Koran, the Ismaelians had 
blended the Indian transmigration and the vis- 
ions of their own prophets ;and it was their first 
duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind 
obedience to the vicar of God. The daggers of 
his missionaries were felt both in the East and 
West ; the Christians and the :\Ioslems enumer- 
ate and persons multiply the illustrious victims 
that were sacrificed to the zeal, avarice, or re- 
sentment of tJie old man (as he was corruptly 
styled) of the mountain. But these daggers, his 
only arms, were broken by the sword of Hola- 
gou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of 
mankind, except the word assassin, which, in 
the most odious sense, has been adopted in the 
languages of Europe.— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 64. 



4G 



ASSEMBLIES— ASSUMPTION. 



375. ASSEMBLIES interdicted, Eeligious. 
England. [During the reign of Cliarles II. , in 
1664, Parliament enacted] "that if five or more 
persons besides tlie liousehold were present at 
any assembly, under color or pretence of any ex- 
ercise of religion, in other manner than is allow- 
ed by the Liturgy or practice of the Church of 
England, every person so present should be lia- 
ble to certain fines, imprisonment, or transporta- 
tion. [Some dared not pray in their families 
when several visitors were present, or even ask 
grace at the table.]— Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 
16, p. 267. 

376. ASSESSMENTS, PoUtical. Bom. Emp. 
Maxentius. The wealth of Rome supplied an in- 
exhaustible fund for his vain and prodigal expen- 
ses, and the ministers of his revenue were skilled 
in the arts of rapine. It was under his reign 
that the method of exacting a free gift from the 
senators was first invented ; and as the sum was 
insensibly increased, the pretences of levying it 
— a victor}^, a birth, a marriage, or an imperial 
consulship — were proportionably multiplied. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 14. 

377. ASSISTANCE, Energetic. Pompey. Bib- 
ulus opposed Caisar, and Cato prepared to sup- 
port Bibulus in the most strenuous manner ; 
when Cajsar placed Pompey by him upon the tri- 
bunal, and asked him, before the whole assem- 
bly, "Whether he approved his laws?" and 
upon his answering in the aflirmative, he put this 
further question : " Then, if any one shall with 
violence oppose these laws, will you come to the 
assistance of the people ?" Pompey answered, 
" I will certainly come ; and against those that 
threaten to take the sword, I will bring both 
sword and buckler." — Plutarch. 

378. ASSOCIATES, Dangerous. John How- 
ard's Son. The immediate cause of the ruin of 
young Howard was the servant who accompa- 
nied his father on his philanthropic journeys. 
This servant, by his assiduous attention to his 
master, had won his complete confidence, and he 
was the constant playmate of his son during his 
vacations. The two j^oung fellows were equalh' 
averse to Howard's precise and rigid ways, and 
combined their ingenuity in evading the rules 
of his house. The servant early initiated the 
lad into the low vices of London, and accom- 
panied him on many a midnight prowl. The 
youth took to vicious pleasures with fatal readi- 
ness, and he was ruined past remedy before his 
father suspected that he had gone astray. Dis- 
eases contracted in the lowest dens of infamy 
were treated with remedies so powerful as to im- 
pair his constitution and plant witliin him the 
seeds of insanity. His college career was one of 
wild riot and debauchery. [He died while 
young.] — Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 71. 

379. ASSOCIATES, Impure. Sir I. Mwton. 
His most intimate friend at the university was a 
foreign chemist of much note and skill. Newton 
enjoyed his conversation exceedingly, until one 
day the Italian told him a " loose story of a nun," 
which so much offended his sense of decency that 
he would never associate with him again. — Par- 
ton's Newton, p. 89. 

3§0. ASSOCIATES, Influence of. Peter the 
Great. An acquaintance with a young foreigner 
of t-ie name of Le Fort, l)y birtli a Swiss and a 



man of penetrating genius, infused those first 
ideas of improvement into the mind of the czar, 
and gave birth to a variety of designs for the cul- 
tivation and refinement of his people. The first 
objects of his attention were the army and the ma- 
rine. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 35. 

3§1. ASSOCIATION, Guild of. England, 1214r- 
1216. The merchant-guild was the outcome of a 
tendency to clo.ser association, which found sup- 
port in those principles of mutual aid and mutual 
restraint that lay at the base of our old institutions. 
Guilds or clubs for religious, charitable, or social 
purpo.se were common throughout the country, 
and especially common in boroughs, Avhere men 
clustered more thickly together. Each formed 
a sort of artificial family. An oath of mutual 
fidelity among its members was substituted for the 
tie of blood, while the guild-fea.st, held once a 
month in the common hall, replaced the gather- 
ing of the kinsfolk round their family hearth. 
But within this new family the aim of the guild 
was to establish a mutual responsibilitj^ as close 
as that of the old. " Let all share the same lot," 
ran its law ; " if any misdo, let all bear it." A 
member could look for aid from his guild-broth- 
ers in atoning for guilt incurred by mishap. 
He could call on thcni for assi.stance in case of vio- 
lence or wrong. If falsely accu.sed,they appear- 
ed in court as his compurgators ; if poor, they 
supported, and when dead, they biu'ied him. On 
the other hand, he was responsible to them, as 
they were to the State, for order and olx'dience to 
the laws. A wrong of brother against brother was 
also a wrong against the general body of the 
guild, and was punished by fine or in the last 
resort by an expulsion, which left the offender 
a "lawless" man and an outca.st. — Hist. Eng. 
People, ^ 169. 

382. ASSOCIATION, Beneficial. .Vmnis Au- 
reli'is. "The wisest of the pagans." He was 
not born heir to the imperial throne, but was the 
son of private persons of patrician rank, Avho 
were related to the Emperor Adrian. His father' 
dying when he was only a child, he was adopted 
by his grandfather, and this brought him into 
nearer intimacy with the emperor, who became 
warmly attached to him, greatly admiring his 
good-nature, his docility, and his artless candor. 
His early education ajipears to have been conduct- 
ed with equal care and wisdom. "To the gods," 
he .says, "I am indel)ted for having had good 
grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good 
teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and 
friends — nearly everything good." — Cyclope- 
dia OP BioG., p. 541. 

383. ASSOCIATIONS, Protective, Anglo-Sax- 
ons, ilany of the inferior rank of citizens en- 
tered into a.ssociations, and sub.scribed a bond, 
obliging themselves to be faithful to each other 
in ail cases of danger to any one of the confed- 
erates ; to protect his person, to revenge his 
wrongs, to pay the fines which he might incur 
through accident, and to contribute to his funer- 
al charges. This last practice, as well as the 
connection of client and patron, are strong proof 
of the impei'fection of laws, and of a weak ad- 
ministration. Only to remedy such evils would 
men have recurred to these connections and as- 
sociations. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 6. 

384. ASSUMPTION, Boastful. Disabul tJie 
Turk. If I condescend to march against tliose 



ASTROLOGY— AUDACITY. 



contemptible slaves [the Romans], they will 
tremble at the sound of our whips ; they will be 
trampled, like a nest of ants, under the feet of 
my innumerable cavalry. . . . From the rising to 
the setting sun, the earth is my inheritance. . . . 
The pride of the great khan survived his resent- 
ment ; and when he announced an important 
conquest to his friend the Emperor Maurice, he 
styled himself the master of the seven races, and 
the lord of the seven cUmates of the world. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 42. 

3§5. ASTEOLOGY, Regard for. Omens. The 
vices which degrade the moral character of 
the Romans are" mixed Avith a puerile super- 
stition that disgraces their understanding. They 
listen with confidence to the predictions of ha- 
ruspices, who pretend to read, in the entrails of 
victims, the .signs of future greatness and pros- 
perity ; and there are many who do not presume 
either to bathe, or to dine, or to appear in pub- 
lic, till they have diligently consulted, according 
to the rules of astrology, the situation of Mer- 
cury and the aspect of the moon. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 31. 

386. ASTRONOMY, Anticipations in. B.C. 640. 

Thales made some bold and fortunate conjec- 
tures in the science of a.stronomy. He conjec- 
tured the earth to be a sphere, and that it re- 
volved round the sun. He believed the fixed 
stars to be so many suns encircled with other 
planets like our earth ; he believed the moon's 
light to be a reflection of the sun's from a solid 
surface ; and if we may trust the testimony of 
ancient authors, he was able to calculate eclipses, 
and actually predicted that famous eclipse of 
the sun six hundred and one j'ears before the 
birth of Christ, which .separated the armies of 
the Medes and Lydians at the moment of an en- 
gagement. — Tytler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 9. 

3§'J'. ASYLUM of Refuge. Rome. As soon 
as the foundation of the citj^ was laid, they 
opened a place of refuge for fugitives, which 
they called the Temple of the A.sylsean god. 
Here they received all that came, and would neith- 
er deliver up the slave to his master, the debtor to 
his creditor, nor the murderer to the magistrate, 
declanng that they were directed by the oracle 
of Apollo to preserve the asylum from all viola- 
tion. Thus the city was soon peopled. — Plu- 
tarch. 

38§. ATHLETE, Remarkable. Thradan. The 
Emperor Severus . . . halted in Thrace to cele- 
brate, with military games, the birthday of his 
younger son, Geta. The country flocked in 
crowds to behold their sovereign, and a young 
barbarian of gigantic stature earnestly solicited, 
in his rude dialect, that he might be allowed to 
contend for the prize of wrestling. . . . He was 
matched with the stoutest followers of the camp, 
sixteen of whom he successively laid on the 
ground. His victory was rewarded by some 
trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist in the 
troops. ... As soon as he perceived that he had at- 
tracted the emperor's notice, he instantly ran up 
to his horse, and followed him on foot, without 
the least appearance of fatigue, in a long and 
rapid career. "Thracian," said Severus, with 
astonishment, "art thou dispo.sed to wrestle af- 
ter thy race?" "Most willingly, sir," rephed 
the unwearied youth ; and, almost in a breath. 



overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the 
army. A gold collar was the prize of his match- 
less vigor and acti\ity, and he was immediately 
appointed to serve in the horse-guards who 
alwaj's attended on the person of the sovereign. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 7. 

389. ATHLETE, Royal. Henry 11. of France. 
Henrj- II. ascended the throne in the twenty- 
ninth year of his age . . . his .sole accomplishment 
consisted in a remarkable expertness in bodily 
exerci-ses. — Students' France, ch. 15, § 1. 

390. ATTACK, Inconsiderate. Crusaders. God- 
frey of Bouillon erected his standard on the first 
swell of Mount Calvary ; to the left, as far as 
St. Stephen's gate, the line of attack was contin- 
ued by Tancred and the two Roberts ; and 
Count Raymond established his quarters from 
the citadel to the foot of Mount Sion, which was 
no longer included within the precincts of the 
city. On the fifth day the Crusaders made a 
general assault, in the fanatic hope of battering 
down the walls without engines, and of scaling 
them Avithout ladders. By the dint of brutal 
force they burst the first barrier; but they were 
driven back with shame and slaughter to the 
camp. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 58. 

391. ATTACK, Unexpected. From above. [At 
the battle of Hastings] the Xorman allies with 
their bows shot quickly upon the English ; but 
they covered themselves with their shields. . . . 
Then the Normans determined to shoot their 
arrows upward into the air, so that they might 
fall on their enemies' heads, and strike their 
faces. The archers adopted this scheme . . . and 
the arrows, in falling, struck their heads and 
faces, and put out the eyes of many ; and all 
feared to open their eyes, or leave their faces un- 
guarded. The arrows now flew thicker than rain. 
. . . Then it was that an arrow, that had thus shot 
upward, struck Harold above his right eye, and 
put it out. In his agony he drew the arrow and 
threw it awaj', breaking it with his hands ; and 
the pain to his head was so great that he leaned 
upon his shield. — Decisive Battles, § 330. 

392. AUDACITY, Brazen. Catiline. We are 
astonished when we reatl that animated oration 
of Cicero [denouncing the conspiracy of Cati- 
line], the first against Catiline ; and know that the 
traitor had the audacity to sit in the Senate-hou.se 
while it was delivered, and while every man of 
worth or regard for character deserted the bench 
on which he sat, and left him a spectacle to the 
whole assembly. — Tytler's Hist. , Book 4, 
ch. 1. 

393. AUDACITY, Deceived by. Napoleon I. 
a.d. 1796. [In the Italian campaign Napoleon 
suddenly found himself and one thousand sol- 
diers in the presence of a detached hoAx of four 
thousand Austrians. A blindfolded flag of truce 
demanded immediate surrender. Napoleon 
mounted his staff. The bandage was removed.] 
"What means this insult?" exclaimed Napo- 
leon, in tones of affected indignation. "Have 
you the insolence to bring a summons of sur- 
render to the French commander-in-chief, in tJie 
middle of his Army ! Say to those who sent you 
that in less than five mmutes they lay. down 
their arms, or every man shall be put to death." 
The bewildered ofiicer stammered out an apol- 
ogy. " Go !" said Napoleon, sternly. . . . The 



48 



AUDACITY— AUSTERITY. 



Austrians threw down their arms . . . missed 
makino- [Napoleon] prisoner.— Abbott's Napo- 
LEON i., vol. 1, ch. 6. 

394. AUDACITY of Desperation. Florida Ind- 
ians '[Jackson's administration proposed to 
remove them from their Florida homes to a res- 
ervation beyond the Mississippi.] Osceola, with a 
band of warriors, prowling around Fort King, 
on the Ocklawaha, surrounded a storehouse 
where General Thompson was dining with a 
company of friends. The savages poured in a 
murderous fire, and then rushed forward and 
scalped the dead before the garrison of the fort, 
only two hundred and fifty yards away, could 
brinir assistance. Thompson's body was pierced 
by iifteen balls, and four of his nine compan- 
ions were killed.— Ridpath's U. S., ch. 53. 

395. ATJGTJRY, Book of. Chinese. The oldest 
and most respectable in point of authority is the 
book or table of Yking. This Yking, which 
has been held as a mysterious receptacle of the 
most profound knowledge, and is on that account 
allowed in China to be consulted only by the 
sect of the learned, is now known to be nothing 
else than a superstitious and childish device for 
fortune-telliug or divination. It is a table on 
which there are sixty-four marks or lines, one 
half short, and the other half long, placed at reg- 
ular intervals. The person who consults the 
Yking for divining some future event takes a 
number of small pieces of rod, and, throwing 
them down at random, ob.serves carefully how 
their accidental position corresponds to the 
marks on the table, from which, according to 
certain established rules, he predicts either good 
or bad fortune. These rules, it is said, were 
laid down by the great Confucius, the chief of 
the Chinese philosophers — a circumstance which 
does not tend to increase his reputation. The 
Jesuit missionaries, who could not root out these 
prejudices, thought it their best policy to turn 
them to advantage ; and in endeavoring to 
propagate the doctrines of Christianity, they 
pretended that Confucius had actually predicted 
the coming of the Messiah by this table of the 
Yking. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 24. 

396. AUGURY, Building by. City of Rome. 
While [Romulus and Remus] were intent upon 
building, a dispute soon arose about the place. 
Romulus having built a square, which he called 
Rome, would have the city there ; but Remus 
marked out a more secure situation on Mount 
Aventine, which, from him, was called Remo- 
nium. . . . The dispute was referred to the deci- 
sion of augury ; and for this purpose they sat down 
in the open air, when Remus, as they tell us, 
saw six vultures, and Romulus twice as many. 
. . . Hence the Romans, in their divination by 
the flight of birds, chiefly regard the vulture ; 
though Herodotus of Pontus relates, that Her- 
cules used to rejoice when a vulture appeared 
to him when he was going upon any great action. 
This was, probably, because it is a creature the 
least mischievous of any, pernicious neither to 
corn, plants, nor cattle. It only feeds upon dead 
carcasses ; but neither kills nor preys upon any- 
thing that has life. As for birds, it does not 
touch them, even when dead, because they are 
of its own nature ; while eagles, owls, and hawks 
tear and kill their own kind. — Plutarch's 
Lives. 



397. AUSTERITY, Example of. Younger Cato. 
Cato saw that a great reformation was want- 
ing in the manners and customs of his coun- 
try, and for that reason he determined to go 
contrary to the corrupt fashions which then 
obtained. He observed that the richest and 
most lively purple was the thing most worn, 
and therefore he went in black. Nay, he often 
appeared in public after dinner barefooted and 
without his gown. Not that he affected to be 
talked of for that singularity ; but he did it by 
way of learning to be ashamed of nothing but 
what was really shameful, and not to regard 
what depended only on the estimation of the 
world. — Plutarch. 

398. AUSTERITY, Monkish. In Egypt. Every 
sensation that is offensive to man was thought 
acceptable to God ; and the angelic rule of Ta- 
benne condemned the salutary custom of bath- 
ing the limbs in water and of anointing them 
with oil. The austere monks slept on the ground, 
on a hard mat f)r a rough blanket ; and the 
same bundle of ])alm-leaves served them as a 
seat in the day and a pillow in the night. Their 
original cells were low, narrow huts, built of the 
slightest materials, [a.d. 370.]— Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 37, p. 531. 

399. AUSTERITY vs. Profligacy. Stuarts 
Restored. Manv, too, who had been disgusted 
by the austeritv and hypocrisy of the Pharisees 
of the Commonwealth, began to be still more 
disgu.sted bv the open profligacy of the court 
and of the Cavaliers, and were disposed to 
doubt whether the sullen preciseness of Praise 
God Bareljones might not be preferable to the 
outrageous profaneness and licentiousness of 
the Buckinghams and Sedleys. Even immoral 
men, who were not utterly destitute of sense and 
public spirit, complained* that the government 
treated the most serious matters as trifles, and 
made trifles its serious business. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 2. 

400. AUSTERITY, Religious. Rev. John New- 
ton. [William Cowper advised with him.] New- 
ton would not have sanctioned any poetry 
which had not a distinctly religious object, and 
he received an assurance "fnmi the poet that the 
lively passages were introduced only as honey on 
the rim of the medicinal cup, to commend its 
healing contents to the lips of a giddy world. 
The Rev. .John Newton mu.'^t have been exceed- 
indv austere if he thought that the quantity of 
ho'ney used was excessive.— Smith's Cowper. 
ch. 4. • 

401. . Priscillianists. [Reign of 

Theodosius the Great.] If the Priscilliani.sts 
violated the laws of nature, it was not by the 
licentiousness, but by the austerity, of their lives. 
They absolutely condemned the use of the mar- 
riage-bed ; and the peace of families was often 
disturbed by indiscreet separations. They en- 
joyed, or recommended, a total abstinence from 
all animal food ; and their continual prayers, 
fasts, and vigils inculcated a rule of strict and 
perfect devotion. The speculative tenets of 
the .sect concerning the person of Christ and 
the nature of the human soul were derived from 
the Gnostic and Manich:\>an .system. . . . The ob- 
scure disciples of PrisciUian suffered, languished, 
and gradually disappeared; his tenets were re- 



AUSTERITY— AUTHORITY. 



49 



jected by the clergy and people. — Gibbon's 
Rome, cli. 27. 

402. . Monks, a.d. 370. They 

"wrapped their heads in a cowl, to escape the 
sight of profane objects ; their legs and feet 
were naked, except in the extreme cold of 
winter ; and their slow and feeble steps were 
supported by a long staff. The aspect of a 
genuine anchoret was horrid and disgusting ; 
every sensation that is offensive to man was 
thought acceptable to God ; and the angelic rule 
of Tabenne condemned the salutary custom of 
bathing the limbs in water. . . . They slept on the 
ground, on a hard mat or a rough blanket. . . . 
Their original cells were low, narrow huts. . . . 
Pleasure and guilt were synonymous terms. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 37. 

403. AUTHOR, Humiliated. Frederick the 
Oreat. He had sent a lai'ge quantity of verses to 
Voltaire, and requested that they might be re- 
turned with remarks and correction. " See," ex- 
claimed Voltaire, ' ' what a quantity of his dirty 
linen the king has sent me to wash !" Talebearers 
were not wanting to carry the sarcasm to the 
royal ear, and Frederick was much incensed. — 
Macaulay's Frederick the Great, p. 6. 

404. AUTHOR, Rapid. Samuel Johnson. The 
rajDidity with which this work was composed 
is a wonderful circumstance. Johnson has 
been heard to say : "I wrote forty-eight of the 
printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a 
sitting ; but then I sat up all night." — Boswell's 
Johnson, p. 41. 

405. AUTHOR, The unnoticed. Samuel John- 
son. He said he expected to be attacked on ac- 
count of his " Lives of the Poets." "However," 
said he, " I would rather be attacked than unno- 
ticed. For the worst thing you can do to an au- 
thor is to be silent as to his works. An assault 
upon a town is a bad thing, but starving it is 
still worse ; an assault may be unsuccessful — you 
may have more men killed than you kill — but if 
you starve the town, you are sure of victory." — 
Boswell's Johnson, p. 407. 

406. AUTHORITY, Absolute. Military. Ex- 
jDerience has fully proved that in war every 
operation, from the greatest to the smallest, 
ought to be under the absolute direction of one 
mind, and that every subordinate agent, in his 
degree, ought to obey implicitly, strenuously, 
and with the show of cheerfulness, orders which 
he disapproves, or of which the reasons are kept 
secret from him. Representative assemblies, 
public discussions, and all the other checks by 
which, in civil affairs, rulers are restrained from 
abusing power, are out of place in a camp. 
Machiavel justly imputed many of the disasters 
of Venice and Florence to the jealousy which led 
those republics to interfere Avith every act of 
their generals. The Dutch practice of sending 
to an army deputies, without whose consent no 
great blow could be struck, was almost equally 
pernicious. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 5. 

407. . Early Bomans. The chil- 
dren imbibed from their infancy the highest 
veneration for their parents, who, from the ex- 
tent of the paternal power among the Romans, 
had an unlimited authority over their wives, 
their offspring, and their slaves. It is far from 
natural to the human mind that the possession of 
power and authority should form a tyrannical dis- 



position. "Where that authoritj-, indeed, has been 
usurped by violence, its possessor may, perhaps, 
be tempted to maintain it by tyranny ; but 
where it is either a right dictated by nature, or 
the easy effect of circumstances and situation, 
the very consciousness of authority is apt to in- 
spire a beneficence and humanity in the manner 
of exercising it. Thus we tind the ancient 
Romans, although absolute sovereigns in their 
families, with the jus vita' et necis, the riyht of 
life and death over their children and their 
slaves, were yet excellent husbands, kind and 
affectionate parents, humane and indulgent 
masters. Xor was it until luxury had corrupted 
the virtuous simplicity of the ancient manners, 
that this paternal authority, degenerating into 
tyrannical abuses, required to be abridged in its 
power and restrained in its exercise by the en- 
actment of laws. By an apparent contradiction, 
so long as the paternal authority was absolute, 
the slaves and children were happy ; when it 
became weakened and abridged, then it was 
that its terrors were, from the excessive corrup- 
tion of manners, most severely felt. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 4, ch. 13. 

408. . Turks. It is a part of the 

policy of the empire that a certain number of 
young men should be educated in the seraglio, out 
of whom the sultan chooses his principal officers. 
But what is a very extraordinary piece of policy, 
if we may believe Rycaut, it is necessary that 
these j-ouths should be of Christian parents. . . . 
He says that the Christian slaves, strangers in the 
empire, will necessarily have fewer connections 
or dependents on their interest, and be the better 
disposed to an absolute submission to the will of 
their master. One thing is certain, it is a funda- 
mental maxim of the Turkish polity, that the 
servants of the prince should be such as he can 
entirely command, and can at any time destroy 
without danger to himself. — Tytler's Hist., 
Book 5, ch. 13. 

409. AUTHORITY acknowledged. Franks in 
Gaul. The king had no more than a single 
suffrage, equally with the meanest soldier ; and 
it was only when actually in the field, or when 
it was necessary to enforce military discipline, 
that he ventured to exercise anything like author- 
ity. This is strongl}^ exemplified in a story which 
is recorded of Clovis I. After the battle of Sois- 
sons, a large vessel of silver was part of the 
booty ; Clovis, being informed that it had been 
carried off from the chiu-ch of Rheims, asked per- 
mission of the army to take il, that he might re- 
store it to the church. A soldier, standing by, 
struck the vessel with his battle-axe, and with 
great rudeness desired the king to rest satisfied 
with the share that should fall to his lot. Clovis 
durst not, at the time, resent this insolence, for 
all were then upon an equal footing ; but he 
knew the privilege which he had when military 
discipline was to be enforced, and took advantage 
of it ; for some time afterward observing the 
same soldier to be negligent in the care of his 
arms, he called him out of his rank, and charging 
him with his offence, cut him down with his 
battle-axe. There was not a murmur heard, for 
Clovis had not exceeded the limits of his author- 
ity.— Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 2. 

410. AUTHORITY assumed. Cromicell. [His 
dissolution of Parliament.] The President, wor- 



50 



AUTHORITY, 



thv of his office by his courage, commanded him 
[CTOiinvell] to be silent. Wontworth, one of the 
most illustrious and influential of the extreme 
party by his personal character, demanded that 
he should be called to order. " This language," 
said he, "is as extraordinary as criminal in the 
mouth of a [Cromwell] man' who yesterday pos- 
sessed our entire contidence, whom we have hon- 
ored with the highest functions of the republic ! of 
a man who — " Cromwell would not suffer him to 
conclude. "Go to ! go to !" exclaimed he in a 
voice of thunder ; " we have had enough of words 
like these. It is time to put an end to all this, and 
to .silence these babblers !" Then, advancing to 
the middle of the hall, and placing his hat on his 
head with a gesture of defiance, he stamped upon 
the floor, and cried aloud, " You are no longer a 
Parliament ! You shall not sit here a single hour 
longer ! Make room for better men than your- 
selves !" At these words Harrison, instructed 
by a glance from the general, disappeared, and 
returned in a moment after at the head of thirtj- 
soldiers, veterans of the long civil wars, who sur- 
rounded Cromwell with their naked weapons. 
These men, hired by the Parliament, hesitated 
not at the command of their leader to turn their 
arms against those who had placed them in their 
hands, and furnished another example, following 
the Rubicon of C*sar, to prove the incompatibil- 
ity of freedom with standing armies. " Misera- 
ble wretches !" resumed Cromwell, as if violence 
without insult was insufficient for his anger, 
" you call yourselves a Parliament ! You ! — no, 
you are nothing but a mass of tipplers and liber- 
tines ! Thou," he continued, pointing with his 
finger to the most notorious profligates in the as- 
sembly, as they passed him in their endeavors to 
escape from the hall, "thou art a drunkard! 
Thou art an adulterer ! And thou art a hireling, 
paid for thy speeches ! You are all scandalous 
sinners, who bring shame on the gospel ! And 
you fancied yourselves a fitting Parliament for 
God's people ! No, no, begone ! let me hear no 
more of you ! The Lord rejects you !" During 
these apostrophes the members, forced by the 
soldiers, were driven or dragged from the' haU. 
— Lamartine's Cromwell, p. 61. 

411. AUTHORITY, Dependence on. Unwm. 
[John Howard's only son became a dissolute 

man.] [See No. 378.] Howard was exceeding- 
ly particular with regard to the diet of the boy, 
and careful to inure him to hardship. This, too, 
was an excellent thing, but he did not carry it 
out wisely. He purposely forbore all explana- 
tion of his rules and denials. He never thought 
it right to say to the child, " My son, these pears 
will make you sick if you eat many of them, 
or eat them at improper times." He merely 
said, "Jack, never touch a pear unless I give 
it to you." If the boy yielded to the temptation 
afforded by a garden full of fruit, he would place 
him in a seat and command him not to stir or 
speak until he should give him permission. Such 
was his ascendency over the child, that once 
when he had given him such an order and had 
forgotten all about it, he found the child, four 
hours after, in the precise spot where he had 
placed him, fast asleep. — Cyclopedly of Bioa 
p. 69. 

412. AUTHORITY by Gentleneas. Joan of 
Arc. For this great force to act with efficiency. 



the one essential and indispensable requisite, 
unity of action, was wanting. Had skill and 
intelligence sufficed to impart it, the want would 
have been supplied by Dunois ; but there was 
something more required — authority, and more 
than royal authority, too, for the king's captains 
were little in the habit of obeying the king ; to 
subject these savage, untamable spirits, God'a 
authority was called for. Now, the God of this 
age was'the Virgin much more than Christ ; and 
it behooved that the Virgin .should descend upon 
earth, be a popular Virgin, young, beauteous, 
srentle, bold. ... It was at once a risible and a 
touching sight to see the sudden conversion of 
the old Arniagnac brigands. They did not reform 
by halves. ["General] La Hire dur.st no longer 
swear ; and the Pucclle [Joan] took compassion 
on the violence he did himself, and allowed him 
to swear ' ' by his baton. " The devils found them- 
selves all of a sudden turned into little saints. — 
Michelet's Joan of Arc, p. 13. 

413. AUTHORITY, Imprudence with. Charles 
I. The Commons found a considerable opposi- 
tion to the extreme violence of their measures 
from the House of Peers. . . . The Commons 
framed an impeachment of the whole bench of 
bishops, as endeavoring to subvert the constitu- 
tion of Parliament, anil they were all committed 
to custody. These measures had the effect for 
which, it is presumable, they were intended. 
The patience of Charles was entirely exhausted, 
and he was impelled to a violent exertion of au- 
thority. The attorney -general, by the king's 
command, impeached five members of the House 
of Commons, among whom were John Hamp- 
den, Pym, and Holies, the chiefs of the popular 
party. A sergeant being sent, without effect, to 
demand them of the Commons, the king, to the 
surprise of everj-body, went in person to the 
House to seize them. They had notice of his in- 
tention, and had withdi-awn. The Commons 
justly proclaimed this attempt a breach of priv- 
ilege. The streets re-echoed with the clamors of 
the populace, and a general insurrection w-as 
prognosticated. The king acknowledged his er- 
ror by a humiliating mes.sage to the Hou.se ; but 
the submission was as ineffectual as the violence 
had been imprudent. — Tytlek's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 29. 

414. AUTHORITY, Necessary. Military. [The 
Scots invited the return of Charles II., and 
were defeated by the army of Cromwell.] It 
certainly does appear that David Leslie, the com- 
mander of the Scots at Dunbar, found his hands 
tied by a committee ; and any kind of battle any- 
where may be lost, but . probably, no battle of any 
kind was ever gained by a committee. The 
Engli.sh army reached Dunbar. . . . the 1st of 
September, 1650. — Hood's Ckomwell, ch. 12. 

415. AUTHORITY, Personal. American Ind- 
ians. The Indian chief has no crown. . . . The 
bounds of his authority float with the current 
opinion of the tribe ; he is not so much obeyed 
as followed with the alacrity of free volition ; 
and therefore the extent of his power depends 
on his personal character. — Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 3, ch. 22. 

416. AUTHORITY, Popular. Charles I. [Dur- 
ing the agitation which resulted in the over- 
throw of the king and the establishment of the 



AUTHORITY— AUTOCRAT. 



51 



Commonwealth] the insolence of several mem- 
bers of the House of Commons, which burst 
forth in evident violation of his dignity and 
royal prerogative, left him no choice between 
the shameful abandonment of his title as king or 
an energetic vindication of his rights. He went 
down himself to the House, to cause the arrest of 
those members who were guilty of high treason, 
and called upon the president to point them out. 
" Sire," replied he, kneeling, " in the place that 
I occupy I have only eyes to see and a tongue to 
.speak according to the will of the house I serve. 
I therefore humbly crave your Majesty's pardon 
for venturing to disobey you." Charles, humil- 
iated, retired with his guards. — Lamartlne's 
Cromwell, p. 27. 

417. ATJTHOEITY, Supreme. Joan of Arc. 
The two authorities, the paternal and the celes- 
tial, enjoined her two opposite commands. The 
one ordered her to remain obscure, modest, and 
laboring ; the other to set out and save the king- 
dom. The angel bade her arm herself. Her 
father, rough and honest peasant as he was, swore 
that, rather than his daughter should go away 
with men-at-arms, he would drown her with his 
own hands. One or other, disobey she must. Be- 
yond a doubt this was the greatest battle she was 
called upon to fight ; those against the English 
were play in comparison. — Michelet's Joan of 
Arc, p. 6. 

418. AUTHORSHIP, Anxieties of. Samuel 
Johnson. My book [the dictionary] is now 
coming in luminis oras. What will be its fate I 
know not, nor think much, because thinking is 
to no purpose. It must stand the censure of the 
great vulgar and the small ; of those that under- 
stand it, and that understand it not. But in all 
this, I suffer not alone ; every writer has the 
same difficulties, and, perhaps, every WTiter talks 
of them more than he thinks. — Boswell's John- 
son, p. 75. 

419. AUTHORSHIP imputed. Posthumous 
Fh-agmeyits of Margaret XicJiolson. Hogg found 
him one day busily engaged in correcting proofs 
of some original poems. Shelley asked his 
friend what he thought of them, and Hogg an- 
swered that it might be possible by a little altera- 
tion to turn them into capital burlesques. This 
idea took the young poet's fancy ; and the 
friends between them soon effected a metamor- 
phosis in Shelley's serious verses, by w^hich they 
became unmistakably ridiculous. Having achiev- 
ed their purpose, they now bethought them of 
the proper means of publication. Upon whom 
should the poems, a medley of tyrannicide and 
revolutionary' raving, be fathered ? Peg Nich- 
olson, a mad washerwoman, had recently at- 
tempted George the Third's life with a carving- 
knife. No more fitting author could be found. 
They would give their pamphlet to the world as 
her work, edited by an admiring nephew. The 
printer appreciated the joke no less than the 
authors of it. He provided splendid paper and 
magnificent type ; and before long the book of 
nonsense was in the hands of Oxford readers. 
It sold for the high price of half a crown a 
copy ; and, what is hardly credible, the gowns- 
men received it as a genuine production. "It 
was indeed a kind of fashion to be seen reading 
it in public, as a mark of nice discernment, of 
a delicate and fastidious taste in poetry, and the 



best criterion of a choice spirit." — Stmonds' 
Shelley, ch. 2. 

420. AUTHORSHIP, Originality in. Thomas 
Jefferson. From the fulness of his own mind, 
without consulting one single book, Jefferson 

thirty-three years old] drafted the Declaration 
of American Independence] , submitted it sepa- 
rately to Franklin and to John Adams, accept- 
ed from each of them one or two verbal, unim- 
portant corrections ... on the twenty -eighth 
of June reported it to Congress.^^BANCROFx's 
U. S., vol. 8, cli. 70. 

421. AUTHORSHIP, Qualified. The Stamp 
Act. Who was the author of the American stamp 
tax ? At a later day Jenkinson [first Secretary 
of the Treasurj'] assured the House of Commons 
that, '■ if the Stamp Act was a good measure, the 
merit was not due to Gren\ille ; if it was a bad 
one, the ill policy did not belong to him ;" but 
he never confessed to the House where the 
blame or the merit could rest more justly. In 
his late old age he delighted to converse freely 
. . . save only on the one subject of the con- 
test with America. [George Grenville] brought 
this scheme into form. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 
5, ch. 8. 

422. AUTHORSHIP, Reward of. John Milton. 
The agreement, still preserved in the National 
Museum, between the author, "John Milton, 
gent, of the one parte, and Samuel Symons, 
printer, of the other parte," is among the curios- 
ities of our literary history. The curiosity con- 
sists not so much in the illustrious name append- 
ed (not in autograph) to the deed, as in the con- 
trast between the present fame of the book and 
the waste-paper price at which the copyright is 
being valued. The author received £5 down ; 
was to receive a second £5 when the first edition 
should be sold ; a third £5 when the second ; a 
fourth £5 when the third edition should be 
gone. Milton lived to receive the second £5, 
and no more — £10, in all, for " Paradise Lost." I 
cannot bring myself to join in the lamentations 
of the biographers over this bargain. Surely, it 
is better so ; better to know that the noblest 
monument of English letters had no money 
value, than to think of it as having been paid 
for at a pound the line. — Pattison's Milton, 
ch. 12. 

423. AUTOCRAT, Military. Pornpey. When 
Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded 
his soldiers and allies, dethroned princes, divided 
kingdoms, founded colonies, and distributed the 
treasures of Mithridates. On his return to 
Rome he obtained, by a single act of the Senate 
and people, the universal ratification of all his 
proceedings. Such was the power over the 
soldiers and over the enemies of Rome, which 
was either granted to or assumed by the gener- 
als of the republic. They were, at th.e same 
time, the governors, or rather monarchs, of the 
conquered provinces, united the civil with the 
militar}' character, administered justice as well 
as the finances, and exercised both the executive 
and legislative power of the State. — Gibbon's 
RojfE, ch. 3. 

424. AUTOCRAT, Royal. Henry VIII. From 
1515 to 1523 no Parliament was summoned. 
Henry [VIII.] and his great minister [Cardinal 
Wolsey] governed the kingdom at their sole 
will.— Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 17, p. 275. 



52 



AVARICE. 



425. AVARICE acquired. Samuel Johnson. 
It was obscrvL'd, tlmt avarice was inherent in 
some dispositions. Johnson: "No man was 
born a miser, because no man was born to pos- 
session. Every man is born cM/?/rf;/«— desirous 
of getting; but not a ran/s— desirous of keep- 
ing." BoswELL : " I have heard old Mr. Sher- 
idan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a 
complete miser is a happy man— a miser who 
gives himself wholly to the one passion of sav- 
ing." Johnson : " That is flying in the face of 
all the world, who have called an avaricious 
man a miser, because he is miserable. No, sir ; 
a man who both spends and saves money is the 
happiest man, because he has both enjoyments." 
— Boswell's Johnson, p. 390. 

426. AVARICE of the Clergy. Fifteenth Cen- 
tury, [a. d. 1450-1485. The Church had shut 
the mouths of the boldest complainants.] The 
abbeys might more and more appropriate the 
revenues that ought to be the reward of the 
parish-priest ; the bishop might neglect his sa- 
cred functions, to add to his revenues the fees 
of the great offices of State, and, like Cardinal 
Beaufort, procure laws to be made against com- 
mercial freedom, and then receive large sums for 
licenses to violate them. Great spiritual lords 
might band themselves with great temporal lords 
to withdraw the funds of hospitals from their 
proper uses, and leave the old, the lazar, the lu- 
natic, and the pregnant w^oman, for whose benefit 
those hospitals were endowed, to perish at their 
utmost need. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, eh. 8, 
p. 124. 

427. AVARICE, Contempt for. Rufinus. [This 
Roman prefect was assassinated.] His avarice, 
which seems to have prevailed in his corrupt 
mind over every other sentiment, attracted the 
wealth of the East, by the various arts of par- 
tial and general extortion, oppressive taxes, scan- 
dalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust confis- 
cations, forced or fictitious testaments, by wdiich 
the tyrant despoiled of their lawful inheritance 
the children of strangers or enemies ; and the 
public sale of justice, as well as of favor, 
which he instituted in the palace of Constan- 
tinople. . . . His mangled body was abandoned 
to the brutal fury of the populace of either 
sex, who hastened in crowds, from every quarter 
of the city, to trample on the remains of the 
haughty minister, at whose frown they had so 
lately trembled. His right hand was cut off 
and carried through the streets of Constantino- 
ple, in cruel mockery, to extort contributions for 
the avaricious tyrant, whose head was publicly 
exposed, borne aloft on the point of a long 
lance. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 29. 

42§. AVARICE, Corrupted by. Bomans. When 
the passion of avarice had, as at this time, per- 
vaded all the ranks of the State, it is not won- 
derful that the public measures should be in the 
greatest degree mean and disgraceful. The am- 
bition of conquest was now little else than the 
desire of rapine and plunder. If the allies of 
the State were opulent, the Romans considered 
their wealth as a sufficient reason for dissolving 
all treaties between them, and holding them as a 
lawful object of conquest. Thus the kingdoms 
of Numidia, of Pergamus, of Cappadocia, of 
Bithynia, separate sovereignties bound to the 
allegiance 'of the Romans "by the most solemn 



treaties, were invaded as if they had been ancient 
and natural enemies, and reduced to the condi- 
tion of conquered provinces. The Senate made 
a kind of traffic of thrones and governments, 
selling them openly to the highest bidder. 
[Plunder was the motive for war, and pretexts 
were invented.] The Romans engaging along 
with the Acarnanians against the people of 
^tolia, had no other excuse to allege for their 
interference in this quarrel, than that the Acar- 
nanians had performed a signal act of friendship 
to their ancestors about a thousand years before 
— which was, that they had joined the other 
Grecian States in sending troops to tJie siege of 
Troy .'— Tttler's Hist. , Book 4, ch. 6. 

429. AVARICE, Criminal. London. [In 1837 
the master-tailors were the most notorious for 
carelessness and avarice of all London em- 
ployers Some of them] would huddle sixty 
or eighty workmen close together, nearly knee 
to knee, in a room fifty feet by twenty feet 
broad, lighted from above, where the tempera- 
ture in summer was thirty degrees higher than 
the temperature outside. Young men from the 
country fainted when they w'ere first confined in 
such a life-destroying prison ; the maturer ones 
sustained themselves by gin till they perished 
of consumption, or typhus, or delirium tremens. 
. . . The overworked class of milliners and 
dressmakers employed in the larger Avorkshops 
of London, ill-ventilated, and rendered doubly 
injurious by the constant habit of night-work — 
this class of young women was being constantly 
renewed, more than one half dying of lung dis- 
eases before they had attained the average age of 
twentv-eight.— Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 22, 
p. 392'. 

430. AVARICE. Deception of. Henry VII. 
In October, 1491 [Henry VIII.], proclaimed his 
intention of punishing the French king. . . . 
Emplo3'ing the pretence of war for extorting 
money under the .system of "Benevolences" . . . 
he obtained a large grant from his faithful 
Lords and Commons, and procured .several laws 
to be passed which gave encouragement to the 
prosecution of a war, which had become a na- 
tional object. But having got the money, and 
encouraged many knights and nobles in raising 
men, he still delayed" any active measures of 
hostility, through the spring, summer, and au- 
tumn o"f 1492. "At length, in October, he landed 
at Calais with a well-appointed army. . . . 
But for three months previous to this costly 
parade the wily king had been negotiating a 
peace with Charles of France ; and it appears 
in the highest degree probable that the treaty 
was actually sign"ed when the English forces 
landed.— Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 13, p. 218. 

431. AVARICE, Demands of. Ilcnry VII. 
In March, 1496, he granted letters-patent to 
John Cabot and his two .sons, to sail at their own 
cost and charges, with five ships, for the discov- 
ery of new countries, upon condition that the 
king should have a fifth of the profits. [In 1497 
he gave £10] to him that found the new isle of 
Newfoundland. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 15, 
p. 236. 

432. AVARICE, Glory in. Cato the Censor. 
In his old age he hecanie exceedingly avaricious, 
and gained a large fortune by methods which 
were legal, but not very honorable. He eveiu 



AVARICE— AWKWARDNESS. 



53 



uttered this sentiment : " That man truly won- 
derful and godliite, and fit to be registered in the 
lists of glory, is he by whose account-books it 
shall appear, after his death, that he had more 
than doubled what he had received from his 
ancestors." — Cyclopedia of Biography, p.423. 

433. AVARICE, Official. John of Cappadocia. 
[When the Rom:m general Belisarius went from 
Constantinople to the re-conquest of Carthage 
from the Vandals,] the troops were safety disem- 
barked on the Messinian coast, to repose them- 
selves for awhile after the fatigues of the sea. In 
this place they experienced how avarice invested 
with authority may sport with the lives of 
thousands which are bravely ex])osed for the 
public service. According to military practice, 
the bread or biscuit of the Romans was twice 
prepared in the oven, and the diminution of one 
fourth was cheerfully allowed for the loss of 
weight. To gain this miserable profit, and to 
save the expense of wood, the prefect, John of 
Cappadocia, had given orders that the flour 
should be slightly baked by the same fire which 
warmed the baths of Constantinople ; and when 
the sacks were opened, a soft and mouldy paste 
was distributed to the army. Such unwholesome 
food, assisted by the heat of the climate and 
season, soon produced an epidemical disease, 
which swept away five hundred soldiers. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 41, p. 123. 

434. AVARICE punished. Crass?/ s. The 
Parthians having conquered the Roman general 
Crassus, who invaded their country, the Par- 
thian king is said to have poured into his mouth 
melted gold, saying, ' ' Now be satiated with what 
thou covetedst through life." 

435. AVARICE, Royal. Ilcmy VIIL [A 
sum of £li500 had been seen in the accounts of 
Cardinal Wolsey. The dying man had been 
pre.ssed to account for the monc}'. He said he 
had borrowed it to distribute among his ser- 
vants, and for his'burial, and had placed it in the 
hands of an honest man.] The chief business of 
this magnanimous king, with Cavendish, was to 
obtain the knowledge where this treasure was 
hidden; and Cavendish told him. "Well 
then," quoth the king, " let me alone, and keep 
this gear secret between yourself and me, and 
let no man be privy thereof." He had broken 
the great heart of his faithful servant ; but he 
thought only of the contents of the money-bags, to 
be appropriated to jewels for Lady Anne and to 
wagers with Domingo. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, 
ch. 20. 

436. . William the Conqueror. One 

great end he never lost sight of, whether ho 
worked by clemency or terror — the plunder of 
the land. "He had fallen into avarice, and 
greediness he loved withal." .' . . It is a fearful 
and a disgusting history. — Knic4Ht's Eng., 
vol. 1, ch. 14, p. 191. 

437. . George II. The unkingly 

passion of avarice was predominant in his most 
trivial disbursements. — Knight's Eng., vol. 6, 
ch. 4, p. 59. 

438. AVARICE, Ruled by. Bom.Emp. Commo- 
dus. Avarice was the reigning passion of his 
soul and the great principle of his adminis- 
tration. The rank of Consul, of Patrician, of 
Senator, was exposed to public sale ; and it 



would have been considered as disaffection if 
any one had refused to purchase these empty 
and disgraceful honors with the greatest part of 
liis fortune. In the lucrative provincial em- 
ployments the minister .shared with the govern- 
or the spoils of the people. The execution of 
the laws was venal and arbitrary. A wealthy 
criminal might obtain, not only the reversal of 
the sentence by which he was justly condemned, 
but might likewise inflict whatever punishment 
he pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and 
the judge. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 4. 

439. AVARICE, Shameful. Eeign of James II. 
The property both of the rebels [under the 
Duke of Monmouth] who had suffered death, 
and of those more unfortunate men who were 
withering under the tropical .sun [by banish- 
ment], was fought for and torn in pieces by a 
crowd of greedy informers. By law, a subject 
attainted of treason forfeits all his substance ; 
and this law was enforced after the Bloody 
Assizes with a rigor at once cruel and ludicrous. 
The broken-hearted widows and destitute or- 
phans of the laboring men whose corpses hung 
at the cross-roads were called upon by the 
agents of the Treasury to explain what had be- 
come of a basket, of a goose, of a flitch of bacon, 
of a keg of cider, of a sack of beans, of a truss 
of hay. — Macaclay's Eng., ch. 5. 

440. AVARICE, Supremacy of. Confederates. 
It is a subject of extraordinary remark, that 
the struggle for our independence should have 
been attended by the ignoble circumstances 
of a commercial speculation in the South un- 
paralleled in its heartlessness and selfish greed. 
War invariably excites avarice and speculation ; 
it is the active promoter of rapid fortunes and 
corrupt commercial practices. . . . [This,] the 
only serious blot which defaced our struggle 
for independence, was, at least to some extent, 
the creature of circumstances ; and that is lost 
... in the lustre of arms and virtues shed on 
the South in the most sublime trials of the war. 
— Pollard's Second Year op the War, 
ch. 9, p. 237. 

441. AWE, Eifect of. Persian King. Sa- 
por ... as he passed under the walls of Amida, 
resolved to tiy whether the majesty of his pres- 
ence would not awe the garrison into immediate 
submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random 
dart, which glanced against the royal tiara, con- 
vinced him of his error. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 19. 

442. AWE, Silence of. Battle of the Xile. 
[At the battle of the Nile the I'Orient, of one 
hundred and twenty guns, after burning an hour, 
blew up.] When the explosion came, there 
was an awful silence. For ten minutes not a 
gun was fired on either side. The instinct of 
self-preservation, as well as the sudden awe on 
this .sublime event, produced this pause in the 
battle. — Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 20. 

443. AWKWARDNESS and Agility. The Poet 
Shelley. Hogg gives some details ... of Shel- 
ley's personal appearance. . . . "There were 
many striking contrasts in the character and 
behavior of Shelley— of the clumsy with the 
graceful. He would stumble in stepping across 
the floor of a drawing-room ; he would trip 
himself up on a smooth-shaven grass-plot, and 



54 



BACHELORS— BANKERS. 



he would tumble in the most inconceivable 
manner in ascending the commodious, facile, 
and well-carpeted staircase of an elegant man- 
sion, so as to bruise his nose or his lips on 
the upper steps, or to tread upon his hands, 
and even occasionally to disturb the compo- 
sure of a well-bred footman ; on the contrary, 
he would often glide without collision through 
a crowded assembly, tread with unerring dex- 
terity a most intricate path, or securely and 
rapidly tread the most arduous and uncertain 
ways." — Symonds' Shelley, ch. 2. 

444. BACHELORS discarded. French Remlu- 
tion. A.D. 1794. The National Convention now 
prepared another constitution for the adoption 
of the people of France. . . . The legislative 
powers were committed to two bodies, as in the 
United States. The first, corresponding to the 
United States Senate, was to be called the 
Council of tJie Ancients. It was to consist of two 
hundred and fifty members, each of whom was 
to be at least forty years of age, and a married 
man or widower. An unmarried man was not 
considered worthy of a post of such responsibil- 
ity in the service of the State. — Abbott's Napo- 
leon B., vol. 1, ch. 3. 

445. BACHELORS forced to marry. Rome. 
[Camillus was called the second founder of 
Rome. He was for a time censor, an office of 
great dignity.] There is upon record a very 
laudable act of his, that took place during his 
office. As the wars had made many widows, 
he obliged such of the men as lived single, 
partly by persuasion, and partly by threatening 
them with tines, to marry those widows. — Plu- 
tarch. 

446. BACHELORS punished. Sparta. [Lycur- 
gus the lawgiver.] To encourage marriage, 
some marks of infamy were set upon those that 
continued bachelors. For they were not per- 
mitted to see the exercises of the naked virgins ; 
and the magistrates commanded them to march 
naked round the market-place in the winter, and 
to sing a song composed against themselves, 
which expressed how justly they were punished 
for their disobedience to the laws. They were 
also deprived of that honor and respect which 
the younger people paid to the old . . . [Note.] 
The time of marriage was fixed ; and if a man 
did not marry when he was of full age, he was 
liable to a prosecution, as were such also who 
married above or below themselves. Such as 
had three children had great immunities ; and 
those that had four were free from all taxes. 
Virgins were married without portions, because 
neither want should hinder a man, nor riches in- 
duce him, to marry contrary to his inclinations. 
— Plutarch's Lives. 

447. BALDNESS, Illustrated by. Emp. Cams. 
His ambassadors entered the camp about sunset, 
at the time when the troops were satisfying their 
hunger with a frugal repast. The Persians ex- 
pressed their desire of being introduced to the 
presence of the Roman emperor. They were at 
length conducted to a soldier, who was seated 
on the grass. A piece of stale bacon and a few 
hard peas composed his supper. A coarse wool- 
len garment of purple was the only circumstance 
that announced his dignity. The conference 
was conducted with the same disregard of 
courtly elegance. Carus, taking off a cap which I 



he wore to conceal his baldness, assured the am- 
bassadors that, unless their master acknowledged 
the superiority of Rome, he would speedily ren- 
der Persia as naked of trees as his own head 
was destitute of hair. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 13. 

44§. BANISHMENT, Inhuman. Arcadia. In 
a campaign of less than a month, and with a 
loss of only twenty men, the English had made 
themselves masters of the whole country east of 
the St. Croix. The war in Arcadia was at an 
end ; but what should be done with the people ? 
The French inhabitants still outnumbered the 
English, three to one. Governor Lawrence and 
Admiral Boscawen, in conference with the chief- 
justice of the province, settled upon the atro- 
cious measure of driving the people into banish- 
ment. The first movement was to demand an 
oath of allegiance, Avhich was so framed that the 
French, as honest Catholics, could not take it. 
. . . The next step on the part of the English 
was to accuse the French of treason, and to de- 
mand the surrender of all their firearms and 
boats. To this measure the broken-hearted peo- 
ple also submitted. They even offered to take the 
oath, but Lawrence declared that, having once 
refused, they must now take the consequences. 
The British vessels were made ready, and the 
work of forcible embarkation began. The 
country around the isthmus was covered with 
peaceful hamlets. These were now laid waste, 
and the people driven into the larger towns on 
the coast. Others were induced by artifice and 
treachery to put themselves in the power of the 
English. Wherever a sufficient number of the 
French could be gotten together they were driven 
on shipboard. They were allowed to take their 
wives and children and as much property as 
would not be inconvenient on the vessels. The 
estates of the province were confiscated, and 
what could not be appropriated was given to the 
flames. The wails of thousands of bleeding 
hearts were wafted to heaven with the smoke of 
burning homes. At the village of Grand Pre 
[Nova Scotia] four hundred and eighteen men 
were called together and shut up in a church. 
Then came the wives and children, the old men 
and the mothers, the sick and the infirm, to share 
the common fate. The whole company num- 
bered more than nineteen hundred souls. The 
poor creatures were driven down to the shore, 
forced into the boats at the point of the bayonet, 
and carried to the vessels in the bay. As the 
moaning fugitives cast a last look at their pleas- 
ant town, a column of black smoke floating 
seaward told the story of desolation. More 
than three thousand of the hapless Arcadians 
were carried away by the British squadron 
and scattered, helpless, half -starved, and dying, 
among the English colonies. The history of 
civilized nations furnishes no parallel to this 
wanton, wicked destruction of an inoffensive 
colony. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 32. 

449. BANKERS plunder. Jews. The share 
taken by the Jews in the business of banking 
was one strong cause why it continued so long to 
be in disesteem. To trade in money was consid- 
ered as little else than to cheat.and accordingly we 
find that many of the princes of Europe looked 
upon the fortimes amassed by the Jews as a sort 
of lawful plunder, and made no scruple to de- 
spoil them of their property whenever a public 



BANKERS— BATHS. 



55 



emergency required a speedy supply of money. 
Thus, in England, King John imprisoned the 
Jews, in order to force a discovery of their 
wealth ; and many of these unfortunate wretches, 
who would not reveal their treasures, were pun- 
ished with the loss of their eyes. But these griev- 
ances, wliich would seem apparently calculated 
to repress the spirit of commerce, contributed in 
this instance very materially to its advancement. 
To guard against these t\Tannical depredations 
made on their property, the Jews invented bills 
of exchange ; and commerce became by this 
means capable of eluding violence and of main- 
taining everywhere its ground ; for merchants 
could now convert their effects into paper, and 
thus easily transport them wherever the}* thought 
proper. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 17. 

450. BANKERS, Prejudiced against. Italian 
Merchants. [Called Lombards in various cities 
of Europe.] These Lombards not only acted as 
merchants for the importation and exchange of 
commodities, but as bankers or monej'-dealers ; 
though in this la.st branch of business thej' found 
a heavy restraint in the ideas of the times. The 
canon law, proceeding upon a strict interpreta- 
tion of those passages of Scripture which con- 
demn the taking of usury, was ad%'erse to the 
custom of demanding even the most moderate 
interest for the use of money ; and hence the 
banking trade of these Lombard merchants, who 
very naturally thought themselves entitled to a 
premium for the loan of their money, fell under 
the censure of the church, and began to be 
deemed unlawful. They were obliged, there- 
fore, to carry on their business as bankers to 
great disadvantage. Their bargains were neces- 
.sarily kept private, and consequently their exac- 
tions, being arbitrary, were often most exorbi- 
tant and fraudulent. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 17. 

451. BANKRUPTCY predicted. Great Britain. 
Lord Lytteliun, in 1739 ; Lord Bolingbroke, 
in 1745 ; Da\id Hume, in 1761 ; Adam Smith, 
in 1776 ; Dr. Price, in 1777 ; Lord Stair, in 
1783 ; each honestly believed that England was 
fast approaching the condition of inevitable bank- 
ruptcy. In 1784 Marshall Conway wrote : " The 
sums spent in losing America are a blow we shall 
never recover." — Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 1, 
p. 2. 

452. BANQUET, Extravagant. Court of Bus- 
sia. [Najjoleon's ambasstulor arrived from 
France.] Every day brought new fetes ... I 
"will mention one. ... At a supper given after a 
ball at the Embassy, a plate of five pears cost 
five hundred and fifty dollars. On another occa- 
sion cherries, which had been purchased at the 
price of eighty cents, were served as abundantly 
as though they had cost not more than twenty 
cents the pound. [Such Avas the competition in 
extravagance between the two courts. Xapoleon 
said when he heard of it :] " Such extravagances 
are only to be expected of madmen or fools.'" — 
Abbott's XapoleoxB., vol. 2. ch. 2. 

453. BAPTISM procrastinated. Converts. 
Among the proselytes of Christianity, there were 
many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a 
salutary rite, which could not be repeated ; to 
throw away an inestimable privilege, which 
could never be recovered. By the delay of their 
baptism, they could venture freely to indulge 



their passions in the enjoyments of this world, 
while they still retained in their own hands the 
means of a sure and ea.sy absolution. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 20. 

454. BAPTIST, Pioneer. Boger Williams. Ro- 
ger Williams belonged to that most radical 
body of dissenters called Anabaptists. By them 
the validity of infant baptism was denied. Wil- 
liams himself had been baptized in infancy, but 
his views in regard to the value of the ceremony 
had undergone a change during his ministry in 
Salem. Now that he had freed himself from all 
foreign authority both of Church and State, he 
conceived it to behis duty toreceive a second bap- 
tism. But who should perform the ceremony ? 
Ezekiel Holliman, a layman, was selected for the 
sacred duty. Williams meekly received the rite at 
the hands of his friend, and then in turn baptized 
him and ten other exiles of the colony. Such 
was the organization of the first Baptist church, 
in America. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 22. 

455. BARBARITY to Animals. Horses. [In 
the middle of the eighteenth century,] wonderful 
as it may appear, Ihe "barbarous custom" of 
ploughing, harrowing, drawing, and working 
vvith horses by the tail was not exploded at 
Castlebar and other places. — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 7, ch. 2, p. 32. 

456. BARBERS, Svu*gical. England. [In 1547 
the surgeons separated from the barber-sur- 
geons.] The barber-surgeons shaved, and drew 
teeth, and bled, and attempted cures. ... In 
1540 the two companies were united by statute. 
—Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 29, p. 498. 

457. BARGAIN, FooUsh. St. Thomas Indian. 
[Columbus' first voyage.] On one occasion an 
Indian gave half a handful of gold-dust in ex- 
change for one of these toys, and no sooner was 
he in possession of it than he bounded away to 
the woods, looking often behind him, fearing 
the Spaniards might repent of having parted so 
cheaply vvith such an inestimable jewel. — Irv- 
ing's CoLTJiTBrs, Book 4, ch. 9. 

45§. BASENESS, Matrimonial. Henry VIII. 
[Henry YIII. married Jane Seymour the next 
day after the otficial murder of Anne BolejTi. 
He looked upon matrimony as an indifferent of- 
ficial act which his duty required at the moment. 
This is the apologv of the political philosopher.] 
—Knight's England, vol. 2, ch. 23, p. 378. 

459. BATHS, Common. Boman. Following 
the Romans through the ordinary occupations of 
the day, it was customary for them to go from 
the ijorticos or the theatre to take the bath. 
Water, which in the more frugal days of the 
republic was used only for the necessary purposes 
of life, was not brought to Rome by aqueducts 
till the 441st year of the city. . . . It soon became 
one of the chief articles of luxury, to supply as 
well the public as the private baths, and many 
aqueducts were according!}' built and public res- 
ervoirs and fountains reared in eveiy quarter of 
the city. This luxury increased to such a degree 
that, imder Augustus, there Avere seven himdred 
basins, a hundred and five fountains, and a hun- 
dred and thirty public reservoirs, all adorned in 
the most .sumptuous manner, vdth columns, 
statues, and basso-relievos. To superintend these 
became an office of considerable dignity and 
emolument, and under the emperors was filled 



56 



BATHS— BATTLE. 



mostly by men of the first rank. — Tytler's 
Hist. , Book 4, ch. 4. 

460. BATHS, Magnificent. Roman. The stu- 
pendous aqueducts, so justly celebrated by the 
praises of Augustus himself, replenished the 
Therm(v, or baths, which had been constructed 
in every part of the city, with imperial magnifi- 
cence. The baths of Antoninus Caracalla, wiiich 
were open, at stated hours, for the indiscriminate 
service of the senators and the people, contained 
above sixteen hundred seats of marble, and more 
than three thousand were reckoned in the baths 
of Diocletian. The walls of the lofty apartments 
were covered with curious mosaics, that imitated 
the art of the pencil in the elegance of design 
and the variety of colors. The Egyptian granite 
was beautifully incrusted with the precious green 
marble of Numidia ; the perpetual stream of hot 
water was poured into the capacious basins, 
through so many wide mouths of bright and 
massy silver ; and the meanest Roman could 
purchase, with a small copper coin, the daily en- 
joyment of a scene of pomp and luxury which 
might excite the envy of the kings of Asia. 
From these stately palaces issued a swarm of 
dirty and ragged plebeians, without shoes and 
without a mantle, who loitered away whole days 
in the street or Forum to hear news and to hold 
disputes ; who dissipated, in extravagant gaming, 
the miserable pittance of their wives and chil- 
dren, and spent the hours of the night in obscure 
taverns and brothels, in the indulgence of gross 
and vulgar sensuality. — Gibbon's Eome, ch. 31, 
p. 263. 

461. BATTLE, Bloodless. In Armor. [In 1119 
the battle of Noyon, or Brenneville, was fought 
in France.] The battle was not a sanguinary 
one, and was remarkable for the comparative 
safety with which the horsemen in complete har- 
ness encountered each other. Ordericus says : 
' ' In the battle between the two kings, in which 
nearly nine hundred knights were engaged, I 
have ascertained that only three were slain. This 
arose from their being entirely covered with 
steel armor, and mutually sparing each other 
for the fear of God and out of regard for the 
fraternity of arms. — Knight's Eng., vol. 1, ch. 
17, p. 241. 

462. . Foi^t Sumter. [After a vig- 
orous bombardment for two days by the Confed- 
erates, the barracks took fire.] Major Anderson 
agreed to an unconditional surrender ... on 
leaving the fort he was permitted to salute his 
flag with fifty guns, the performance of which 
was attended with the melancholy occurrence of 
mortal injuries to four of his men by the burst- 
ing of two cannon. There was no other life lost 
in the whole affair. ... It was estimated two 
thousand shots had been fired in all . . . yet not 
a life had been lost nor a limb injured. — Pol- 
lakd's First Year of the AVar, ch. 2, p. 55. 

463. BATTLE, Bloody. B((ttle of Towton. 
When Margaret [of Anjou], who had now set 
her husband at liberty, pn^pared to enter London 
in triumph, she found the gates of the city shut 
against her. Young Edward, the eldest son of 
the late Duke of York, had begun to repair the 
losses of his party. London had declared in his 
favor, and proclaimed hira king by the title of 
Edward IV. Margaret of Anjou, whose great- 
i.jo of soul was superior to all of her mfsfort- 



unes, retreated to the north of England, where 
she found means to assemble an army of 60,000 
men. Warwick met her at the head of 40,000, 
at Towton, on the borders of Yorkshire. An 
engagement ensued — one of the bloodiest and 
most desperate that is recorded in the English 
history. Thirty-six thousand men were left dead 
upon the field ; Warwick gained a complete 
victory, by w^hich the young Edward was fixed 
upon the throne, and the vanquished Margaret, 
with her husband [Henry VI.] and infant son, 
took refuge in Flanders. — Tytler's Hist., Book 
6, ch. 14, p. 225. 

464. BATTLE, Cry in. Battle of Nasehy. If 
any field could have been won by passion alone, 
Rupert would have won not only Naseby, but 
many another field ; but we knoAv that, as pas- 
sion is one of the most frail elements of our na- 
ture, so Rupert was one of the most f i-ail of men. 
At the head of his Cavaliers, in white sash and 
plume, he indeed flamed in brilliant gallantry 
over the C'^ld, shouting, "Queen Mary ! Queen 
Mary !" while the more rough, unknightly sol- 
diers thundered, "God is with us ! God is with 
us!" . . . "God is with us !" struck like light over 
his soldiers' hearts, like lightning over his ene- 
mies. What was there in the poor cry, ' ' Queen 
]Mary !" (and such a JIary !) to kindle feelings 
like that 1 — Hood's Cromwell, ch. 10. 

465. BATTLE, Decisive. Battle of Chceroma. 
The Macedonian ainiy amounted to 30,000 foot 
and 2000 horse ; that of the Athenians and their 
allies was nearly equal in number. The left wing 
of the Macedonians was commanded by the 
young Alexander, and it was his fortune to be 
opposed by that body of the Thebans called 
the sacred band ; the courage of the combatants 
on both side was, therefore, inflamed by a high 
principle of honor. The attack of Alexander 
was impetuous beyond all description, but was 
sustained with the most determined bravery on 
the part of the Thebans ; and had the courage 
and conduct of their allies given them an ad- 
equate support, the fortune "of the day would 
probably liave been fatal to the Macedonians ; 
but, unaided by the timely co-operation of the 
main body of the Greeks, the sacred band were 
left alone to sustain this desperate assault, and 
they fought till the whole of these noble The- 
bans lay dead upon the field. The Athenians, 
however, on their part, had made a mo.st vig- 
orous attack on the centre of the Macedonian 
army, and broke and put to flight a great body 
of the enemy. Philip, at the head of his for- 
midable phalanx, was not engaged in the fight, 
but coolly withheld his attack till he saw the 
Greeks pursuing their success against the cen- 
tre with a tumultuous impetuosity. He then 
charged them in the rear with the whole strength 
and solidity of his phalanx opposed to their 
deranged and disorderly battalions. The asi)ect 
of affairs Avas now quite changed, and the Gre- 
cian army, after a desperate conflict, was broken 
and entirely put to flight. . . . This decisive en- 
gagement, which, in its immediate consequences, 
put an end to the liberties of Greece, was fought 
in the year 338 before Christ. — Tytler's Hist., 
Book 2, ch. 3. 

466. BATTLE, Disparity in. Battle of Arbela. 
Alexander . . . passing the Tigris and Euphrates 
without opposition, came up with the Persian 



BATTLE. 



57 



monarch [Darius] at the head of 700,000 men, 
near to the village of Arbela . . the Macedonian 
army did not exceed 40,000 men. It was toward 
the close of the day when they came in sight of 
the prodigious host of the Persians, which ex- 
tended over an immense plain to the utmost dis- 
tance that the eye could reach. Even some of 
Alexander's bravest otficers were appalled with 
this sight. . . . The attack was made at day- 
break with an ardor and impetuosity on the part 
of the Greeks which, in the tirst onset, threw the 
foremost ranks of the Persian army back in con- 
fusion upon the main body, and completely re- 
strained and rendered ineifectual its operations. 
Disorder, once begun, was propagated like an 
electrical shock through the whole mass, and 
the decisive victoiy was purchased [with a loss 
not exceeding 1200 Macedonians. The Persian 
loss was estimated at 300, 000] . — T ytler's Hist. , 
Book 3, ch. 4. 

467. BATTLE, A Famous. Marathon. The 
Spartans delayed to march, from an absurd su- 
perstition of beginning no enterprise till after 
the full moon. The Athenians, therefore, may 
be said to have stood alone to repel this torrent. 
The amount of their whole army was only 10,000 
men ; the army of the Persians [under Darius] 
consisted of 100,000 foot and 10,000 horse— a 
vast inequality. ]\Iiltiades drew up his little army 
at th'e foot of a hill, which covered both the 
flanks, and frustrated all attempts to surround 
him. They knew the alternative was \ictoiy or 
death, and "that all depended on a vigorous effort 
to be made in .one moment ; for a lengthened 
conflict was sure destruction. The Greeks, there- 
fore, laying aside all missile weapons, trusted 
everything to the sword. At the word of com- 
mand, instead of the usual discharge of javelins, 
they rushed at once upon the enemy with the 
most desperate impetuosity. The disorder of the 
Persians, from this furious and unexpected as- 
sault, was instantly perceived by Miltiades, and 
improved to their destruction by a charge made 
by both the wings of the Atlienian army, in 
which with great judgment he had placed the 
best of his troops. The army of the Persians 
was broken in a moment ; their immense nura- 
hers increased their confusion, and the whole 
were put to flight. A great carnage ensued. Six 
thousand three hundred were left dead on the 
field of Marathon. The Athenians, in this day 
of glory, lost only 190 men. The Spartans came 
the day after the battle to witness the triumph 
of their rival State. — Tytler's Hist., Book 2, 
ch. 1. 



46S. 



Ma n tine a. The Spartan 



troops had been suddenly called off from Man 
tinea to defend their city. Epaminondas now 
attempted, by a rapid march, to .surprise and 
seize Mantiuea ; but in the mean time its gar- 
rison had been re-enforced by an Athenian army, 
which met the Thebans in front, on their ap- 
proach to the town, while the Spartans, aware 
of their design, were follo\\ing clo.se upon their 
rear. An engagement now ensued, one of the 
most celebrated in the Grecian history. The 
army of the Thebans amounted to 30,000 foot 
and 3000 horse ; that of the Lacedaemonians and 
their allies to 20,000 foot and 2000 horse. The 
battle was fought with the most desperate cour- 
age on both sides. [The Thebans were victorious, 



but were undone by the death of Epaminondas, 
whom ancient hi.storians ranked] . . . among the 
greatest heroes and mo.st illustrious characters 
of antiquity. — Tytler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 3. 

469. BATTLE, A great. Ansttrlitz. [On De- 
cember 2d, 18U.5, between nearly 100,000 French 
under Bonaparte and quite as many Austrians 
and Russians under their emperors. It has been 
considered Bonaparte's most glorious victory. 
He took 40,000 prisoners, and the allies left from 
12,000 to 15,000 on the field.]— Knight's Exg., 
vol. 7, ch. 25, p. 450. 

4TO. . Battle of Cressy. [Edward 

III., King of England, claimed the vacant 
throne of France by'inlieritance in right of his 
mother, the sister of Charles the Fair.] Ed- 
ward, landing in France with the chief of the 
nobility of England, and his .son, called, from 
the color of his armor, the Black Prince, then a 
youth of fifteen years of age, ran a career of the 
most glorious exploits. The opulent city of 
Caen in Normandy was taken and plundered, and 
the English were extending their depredations 
almost to the gates of Paris, when Philip ap- 
peared in their'front with an army of 100,000 
men . . . the English archers began the engage- 
ment, which throwing that wing of the French 
to Avhom they were opposed into the utmost con- 
fusion, the Prince of Wales, taking advantage of 
their dismay, attacked them with irresistible im- 
petuo.sity. The king, who commanded a body 
of reserve, was determined to allow his intrepid 
son the honor of the day ; he kept aloof from the 
fight, which was maintained on both sides with 
the most desperate courage. [The French were 
defeated.] Thirty thousand were left dead on 
I the spot. Among these were John, King of Bo- 
! hernia ; Ralph, Duke of Lorraine, and a great 
' part of the nobility of France.— Tytler's Hist., 
Book 6, ch. 12. 

471. . Agincourt. On pretence of 

recovering the ancient patrimony of the crown 
of England, Henry [IV.] made a descent on 
Normandy with an army of 50,000 men. He took 
the tower of Harfleur, and carried devastation 
into the country. A contagious distemper ar- 
rested his progress and destroyed three fourths of 
his armv, and in this deplorable condition, with 
about 9000 effective troops, he was met by the 
Constable D'Albret, at the head of 60,000 men. 
In this situation a retreat was attempted by the 
English, but they were harassed by the enemy, 
and compelled to come to an engagement on the 
plain of Agincourt. On- that day the English 
arms obtained a signal triumph. The French 
were so confident of success, that they made a 
proposal to the English about surrendering, and 
began to treat for the ransom of their prisoners. 
Henry observed in their immense army the re- 
missness and relaxation which commonly attend 
a ereat superioritv of numbers. He led on his 
litUe band to meet them in order of battle. The 
French stood for a considerable space of tmie, 
and beheld this feeble foe with indignation and 
contempt. "Come on, my friends," said Henry ; 
" since they scorn to attack us, it is ours to show 
them the example. Come on, and the blessed 
Trinity be our protection." . . . The French 
were broken, dispersed, and entirely cut to 
pieces The number of the slain amounted to 
10,000, and 14,000 were taken prisoners. The loss 



58 



BATTLE. 



of the English in the victory of Agincourt is said 
not to have exceeded 40 men— a fact bordering 
upon the incredible.— Tttler's Hist., Book 6, 

ch. 13. 

472. . Blenheim, a.d. 1704. Fifty- 
six thousand Allies under the Duke of ^larlbor- 
ough and Prmce Eugene, and 60,000 French 
and Bavarians under Marshal Tallard, aided by 
his fellow-general Marsin. The Allies won the 
battle, taking 12,000 prisoners. They lost 11,000 
killed and wounded. Total loss of French and 
Bavarians, in killed, wounded, prisoners, and 
deserters, 40,000.— K^^GHT's Exg., vol. 5, ch. 
18, p. 285. 

473. . Jeiia. [On the 14th of Oc- 
tober, 1806, 250,000 men were engaged, with 700 
pieces of cannon. Bonaparte defeated the Prus- 
sians, 20,000 being killed or Avounded and above 
30.000 taken pri.soners. Their kins:, Frederick 
William III., fled from the field.]— Knight's 
Eng.,vo1. 7, ch. 27. 

474. . Leuthen. [Frederick II. of 

Prussia, with 30,000 men, attacked 80,000 Aus- 
trians.] The Austrians fought bravely, but 
the genius of the Prussian leader gave him a 
mighty victory, which Napoleon said was of 
itself sufficient to place Frederick in the rank 
of the greatest generals. [Fought at Leuthen, 
1757.J— Knight's Exg., vol. 6, ch. 15, p. 231. 

475. . Xatarino. [The British, 

French, and Rassian fleets met the Turkish and 
Egyptian fleets in the jwrt of Xavarino, and 
after four hours' battle one half of the 120 men- 
of-war and transports were sunk, burnt, or 
driven on shore.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 
12, p. 227. 

476. . Tfie NiU. [Battle of the 

Kile, fought on August 1, 1798. The number 
of the ships in the two fleets was nearly equal. 
The French lost the battle ; nine sail of "the line 
were taken and two burned. Only two French 
line-of-battle ships and two frigates escaped.] — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 20, p. 357. 

477. . R/mhach. [Frederick II. of 

Prussia, with 22,000 men, at Rossbach met 
40,000 French and 20,000 Germans.] Never 
was \ictory more complete. The French and 
the Imperial troops vied Avith each other in the 
swiftness of their flight. They left 7000 pri.s- 
oners, guns, colors, baggage— all that could 
manifest the extent of their humiliation. — 



Knight's Eng 
47§. 



230. 



vol. 6, ch. 15, p. 

-. Trafalgar. [Under Admiral 
Lord Nelson was a British fleet of twenty-seven 
ships-of-the-Hne and four frigates. The French 
and Spaniards had oi>posed to him thirty-three 
.ships-of-the-iine and .seven frigates, twenty of 
which struck their colors. Nelson was killed 
in the battle.]— Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 25. 

479. . At Ulm. On the 20th of 

October [1805] 3.),000 [Austrians], with 60 
pieces of cannon, marched out of the fortress 
and laid down their arms [to Bonaparte]. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 25. 



4§0. 

Spanish and 

under the Duke of ^ 

French. Wellington described the result in his 



Vktoria. [Fought bv 20,000 

70,000 British and Portuguese 

Wellington against the 



despatches.] I have taken from them 151 pieces 
of cannon, 415 wagons of ammunition, all their 



baggage, provisions, cattle, treasure, etc., and 
a considerable number of prisoners. — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 7, ch. 31, p. 562. 

4§1. . Wagram. [Between 300,000 

and 400,000 troops engaged on the 6th of July, 
1809. TAventy-four thousand Austrians and 
18,000 French "are said to haA'e been killed and 
Avounded.] — Knight's Eng., aoI. 7, ch. 29, 
p. 516. 

4§2. . Vi'aterloo. [Fought June 18, 

1815 ; about 150,000 men, nearly equally di- 
Aided, were in the tAvo armies. Wellington 
commanded the Allies and eave Napoleon his 
final defeat. The Allies lost 24,679. The French 
lost 18,500 killed or wounded, and 7800 prisoners. 
— Knight's Eng., aoI. 8, ch. 2, p. 37. 

4§3. BATTLE, Ineffective. MandNo.X^. The 
bombardment . . . commenced on the 15th of 
March [1862] . . . General Beauregard tele- 
graphed to the War Department at Richmond 
... on the 1st of April . . . that the bombard- 
ment had continued for fifteen days, in which 
time the enemy had thrown 300(5 shells, ex- 
pending about 100,000 pounds of powder, Avith 
the result on our side of one man killed and none 
seriou.sly wounded . . . that our batteries were 
intact.— Pollard's Fir.st Yeak of the Wak, 
ch. 12, p. 291. 

4§4. BATTLE, Preparation for. Battle of Hast- 
ings. The 13th of October was occupied in 
these negotiations, and at night the duke [Will- 
iam] announced to his men the next day Avould 
be the day of battle. That night is said to have 
been passed by the two armies in very different 
manners. The Saxon soldiers spent it in jovial- 
ity, singing their national songs and draining- 
huge horns of ale and wine around their camp- 
fires. The Normans, when they had looked to 
their arms and horses, confes.sed themseh'es to 
the priests, A\itli whom their camp was thronged, 
and received the sacrament ljy thousands at a 
time. On Saturday, the 14th of October, was 
fought the great battle. [The English were de- 
feated.] — Decisive Battles, ^ 306. 

485. BATTLE, Religion in. Siege of Damas- 
cus. At the principal gate, in the sight of both 
armies, a lofty crucifix was erected ; the bishop, 
Avith his clerg}-, accompanied the march, and 
laid the volume of the Ncav Testament before 
the image of Jesus ; and the contending parties 
were scandalized or edified by a prayer that the 
Son of God Avould defend His serA-ants and vin- 
dicate His truth. The battle raged Avith incessant 
furv. [The citv Avas taken.]— Gibbon's Rome, 
ch."51. 

4S6. BATTLE, Terrific. Mobile Bay. In the 
beginning of Augu.-t. l^<64, Admiral Farragut 
bore doAvn Avith a powerful squadron upon the 
defences of Mobile. The entrance to the harbor 
of this citA' was commanded on the left by Fort 
Gaines and on the right by Fort Morgan. The 
harbor was defended by a Confederate fleet and 
the monster iron-clad ram Tennessee. On the 
5th of August Farragut prepared for battle, and 
ran past tlie forts inlo the harbor. In order to 
direct the moAements of his ves-sels, the braA-e 
old admiral mounted to the maintop of his flag- 
ship, the Hartford, lashed him.self to the rigginu;, 
and from that high perch gave his commands 
during the battle. One of the L'nion ships 



BATTLE— BEGGAR. 



59 



struck a torpedo and went to the bottom. The 
rest attacked and dispersed the Confederate 
squadron ; but just as the bay seemed won. the 
terrible Tennessee came down at full speed to 
strike and sink the Hartford. The latter avoid- 
ed the blow ; and then followed one of the fierc- 
est attacks of the war. The iron-clads closed 
around their black antagonist, and battered her 
with their beaks and filteen-inch bolts of iron 
until she surrendered. Two days afterward 
Fort Gaines was taken, and on the 23d of the 
month Fort Morgan was obliged to capitulate. — 
RiDPATiis U. S., ch. 66. 

4S7. BATTLE, A useless. Xew Orleans. [The 
battle of Xew Orleans was fought after the treaty 
of peace had been signed at Ghent, the news 
of which arrived soon after.] — Kj\ight"s Eng- 
land, vol. 8, ch. 1. 

4§§. BATTLEFIELD, Fmitful. "Blood-fatten- 
ed." [The battlefield where :Marius destroyed 
the Teutones was enriched with the blood of 
the barbarians.] The Massilians walled in their 
vineyards with the bones they found in the 
field'; and ... the rain which fell the winter 
following, soaking in the moisture of the putre- 
fied bodies, the ground was so enriched by it, 
that it produced^ the next season a prodigious 
crop. Thus the opinion of Archilochus is con- 
firmed, that fields are fattened with bhx>d. — Plu- 
tarch's Marics. 

4§9. BATTLES, Decisive. Fifteen. [Mara- 
thon, S\Tacuse, Arbela, Metaurus, victory of 
Arminius over the Roman legions under Varus, 
Chalons, Tours, Hastings, Orleans, defeat^ of 
the Spanish Armada, Blenheim, Pultowa, Sar- 
atoga, Valma, Waterloo.]— See Creasy's Fif- 
TEEX Dec. Battles. 

490. BEAED, A significant. Walter Scott. 
About the middle of the sixteenth century lived 
Sir Walter's great-grandfather, Walter Scott, gen- 
erallv known in" Te^iotdale by the surname 
of Beardie, because he would never cut his beard 
after the banishment of the Stuarts, and who 
took arms in their cause and lost by his intrigues 
on their behalf almost all that he had, besides 
running the greatest risk of being hanged as a 
traitor. — Huttox's Life of Scott, ch. 1. 

491. BEAKDS, Characteristic. Lombards. In- 
stead of asserting the rights of a sovereign for 
the protection of his subjects, the emperor invit- 
ed a strange people to invade and possess the 
Roman provinces between the Danube and the 
Alps ; and the ambition of the GepidiE was 
checked bv the rising power and fame of the 
Lombards." This corrupt appellation had been 
diffused in the thirteenth century by the mer- 
chants and bankers, the Italian posterity of these 
savage warriors ; but the original name of Lango- 
bards is expressive only of" the peculiar length 
and fashion of their beards. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 42. 

492. BEAUTY, Common. Jeanne. The county 
of Flanders was . . . annexed to the crown of 
France. A few months later Philip [IV.] and 
his consort, attended by a brilliant court, made a 
sumptuous progress through the cliief cities of 
the conquered province. 'The Flemings . . . wel- 
comed their new sovereign with lively demon- 
strations of joy. . . .An entertainment given at 
Bruges was especially distinguished by the ra- 
diant beauty and rich attire of the female nobil- 



ity : "I thought I was the only queen here," 
exclaimed the envious Jeanne of Navarre ; "but 
I find myself surrounded on all sides by queens." 
— Students' France, ch. 9, § 1-4, p.'l81. 

493. BEAUTY, Personal. Maliouut. Accord- 
: ing to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet 

was distinguished by the beauty of his person, 
an outward gift which is seldom despised, except 
by those to whom it has been refused. Before 
he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the af- 
fections of a public or private audience. They 
applauded his commanding presence, his majes- 
tic aspect, his piercing ej^e, his gracious .smile, 
his flowing beard, his countenance that painted 
every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that 
enforced each expression of the tongue. — Gib- 
bon's Rome. cli. 50. 

494. BEAUTY, Promoted by. George Villiers. 
[The first introduction of George Villiers to 
James I. was purely from the beauty of his person. 
The history of England to the end of this reign 
is in great part the personal history of George 
Villiers, the adventurer.] First the "cup-bearer ; 
in a few weeks knighted ; without any other 
qualification he was a^ the same time made Gen- 
tleman of the Bedchamber and Knight of the 
Order of the Garter ; and in a short time he wa.s 
made a baron, a viscount, an earl, a marquis, and 
became Lord High- Admiral of England. Lord 
Warden of the Cinque ports, Master of the Horse, 
and entirely disposed of all the graces of the 
king, in confen-ing all the honors and all the 
offices of three kingdoms, without a rival. — 
Knights Eng. , vol. 3, ch. 23, p. 364. 

495. BEAUTY, Self-asserted. Sylla. Lucul- 
lus tells us when Sylla wa.< sent at the head of an 
army again.st the confederates, the earth opened 
on a"suddennear Lavema; and . . . avast quantity 
of fire and a flame. . . shot up to the heavens. 
The soothsayers being consulted upon it, made 
answer, ' ' That a person of courage and superior 
beauty should take the reins of government into 
his hands and suppress the tumults with which 
Rome was then agitated." Sylla says he was 
the man ; for his locks of goW were sufiicient 
proof of his beauty, and that he needed not hes- 
itate after so many great actions to avow him- 
self a man of courage. — Plutarch's Stlla. 

496. BEER, Antiquity of. Germans. Strong 
beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from 
wheat or barlev, and corrupted (as it is strongly 
expressed bv 'Tacitus) into a certain semblance of 
^viue, was sufiicient for the gross purposes of 
German debauchery-. But those who had tasted 
the rich wines of Italy, and afterward of Gaul, 
sighed for that more "delicious species of intoxi- 
cation.— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 9. 

49 7 . BEGGAR, An honorable. Martin L u titer. 
His relatives, one of wIkhii was sexton of the 
church of St. Nicholas, were probably not in the 
position to assist him for any great length of 
time. He was therefore obliged, as a chanty 
schoiar, to appeal to the conmion sympathy of 
all men, as he had already done in 3Iagdeburg. 
In later vears he himself says : "Do not despise 
the boys" that so from house to house askmg 
bread for the sake of God and singing the ' bread- 
chorus.' I also was one of those 'bread-colts, 
and bec-sred bread at the doors, especially in Eise- 
nach, that dearcity. "— Reins Luther, ch. 2. 



60 



BEGGAR— BEGINNING. 



49§. BEGGAK, A Uterary. Reign of Charles U. 
The recompense which the wits of that age could 
obtain from the public was so small, that they 
were under the necessitj^ of eking out their in- 
comes by levying contributions on the great. 
Every rich and good-natured lord was pestered 
by authors with a mendicancy so importunate, 
and a flatter}^ so abject, as may in our time seem 
incredible. The patron to whom a work was in- 
stribed was expected to reward the writer with a 
purse of gold. The fee paid for the dedication 
of a book was often much larger than the sum 
which any bookseller would give for the copy- 
right. Books were therefore often printed merely 
that they might be dedicated. This traffic in 
prai.se completed the degradation of the literary 
character. Adulation pushed to the verge, 
sometimes of nonsense, and sometimes of impie- 
ty, was not thought to disgrace a poet. Inde- 
pendence, veracity, self-respect, were things not 
expected by the world from him. In truth, he 
was in morals something between a pander and 
a beggar. — Macaulay's Exg., ch. 3. 

499. BEGGARS, Malicious. England. [In 
1.54.5 the wandering Ijeggars cut off the ears of 
people, burnt frames of timber prepared for the 
erection of a building, cut the heads of ponds 
and conduits ; burnt carts laden with charcoal ; 
set fire to heaps of felled wood ; barked apple 
and pear trees, and cut out the tongues of cattle.] 
—Knight's Exg., vol. 2, ch. 28, p. 471. 

500. BEGGAKS, Professional. Monks. In the 
first century of their institution, the infidel Zo- 
simus has maliciously observed, that, for the 
benefit of the poor, the Christian monks had re- 
duced a great part of mankind to a state of 
beggary. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 37. 

501 . BEGGAES punished. Whipped. [Those 
who solicited alms without licen.se Avere to be 
whipped and .set in the stocks.] But if any 
person being whole in body and able to labor 
was found begging, every .such idle person was 
to be whipped at the end of a cart, and enjoined 
to return to the place where he was born, or 
where he last dwelt for three years, and there put 
himself to labor as a true 'man oweth to do. 
He was to beg his way home ; but if he wan- 
dered from the prescribed way, or exceeded the 
prescribed times in his perilous journey, he was 
in every place to be taken and whipped. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 21, p. 342. 

502. . Slavei-y. [From 1384 to 

1531] vagabonds were put in the stocks. Then 
the whip was added to the stocks. In 1536 the 
whip was a mild punishment, to which mutila- 
tion and death were supplemented. But even 
the cart's tail, the butcher's knife, and the hang- 
nian's noose inspired no adequate dread. . . . fn 
1545 . . . it is provided that every man or woman, 
not being prevented from work bv old a^e, lame- 
ness, or disease, who shall be found loitering or 
wandering, and not seeking work during tliree 
days, or who shall leave work when eng-aged, 
inay be lawfully apprehended and be brought 
before two justices of the peace ; who, upon con- 
fession, or the proof of two witnesses, shall im- 
mediately cause the said loiterer to be marked 
with a hot iron in the breast, the mark of V, and 
adjudge the said person, living so idly, to be his 
slave. The presentor, as he is called, is to have 
-and iiold the slave for two years; and, only 



giving him bread and water and refuse food, to 
"cause the said slave to work, by beating, chain- 
ing, or otherwise." [If he runs awaj*, after con- 
viction, he shall be branded on the forehead or 
ball of the cheek with a hot iron, making an S ; 
he is then to be a .slave for life. If he runs away 
the second time, he is to suffer death as a felon. 
Infant beggars may be bound to the service of 
any person who will take them — the males till 
they are twenty-four and the females till they 
are twenty years old.] — Knight's Exg., vol. 2, 
ch. 28, p.'4"70. 

503. BEGGARS, Scheme for. Count Eumford. 
Bavaria was then infested with beggars, vaga- 
bonds, and thieves, native and foreign. These 
mendicant tramps were in the main stout, 
healthy, and able-bodied fellows, who found a 
life of thievish indolence pleasanter than a life 
of honest work. " These detestable vermin had 
recourse to the most diabolical arts and the 
most horrid crimes in the prosecution of their 
infamous trade." They robbed, they stole, maim- 
ed and exposed little children, so as to extract 
money from the tender-hearted. All this must 
be put an end to. Four regiments of cavalry 
were so cantoned that everj- village had its pa- 
trol. This dispo.sition of the cavalry was ante- 
cedent to seizing, as a beginning, all the beggars 
in the capital. [At ^lunicli he established a 
pauper workliouse, well ordered, clean, and gave 
instruction and encouragement. It paid expenses, 
and relieved the government and helped the 
poor.] — Tyxdall's Couxt Rumford. 

504. BEGINNING, Discouragement at the. 
Pilgrims. On Monday, the 11th of December — 
old style 1620 — the Pilgrim Fathers landed at the 
Rock of PljTuouth. It was now the dead of 
winter. There was an incessant storai of sleet 
and snow, and the houseless immigrants, already 
enfeebled by their sufferings, fell a-dying of 
hunger, cold, and exposure. After a few days 
spent in explorations about the coast, a site was 
.selected near the first landing, .some trees were 
felled, the snowdrifts were cleared away, and on 
the 9th of January the heroic toilers began to 
build Xew Plymouth. Every man took on him- 
self the work of making his own house ; but the 
ravages of disease grew dailj' worse, strong arms 
fell powerless, lung fevers and consumptions 
wasted everj' family. At one time only seven 
men were able to work on the sheds which were 
building for shelter from the storms ; and if an 
early spring had not brought relief, the colony 
must have perished to a man. — Ridpath's U. S. , 
ch. 7. 

505. BEGINNING, A pious. Reformation. Thu 
theses of Dr. Martin Luther were read all over 
German}-. Numerous strangers who attended 
the anniversary festival of consecration at Wit- 
tenberg, in order that they might adore the many 
relics and other sacred treasures of the church, 
carried the news A\ith them to their homes. Up 
to this time no one had been willing to bell the 
cat ! Great as was the di.scontent at the shame- 
less proceedings of the traders in indulgences, 
equally great was the fear of oppo.sing the Pope 
and the Church. But Luther .said : " Whoever 
will begin anything good, let him see to it that 
he begin and venture it in reliance upon the 
favor of God, and never upon human comfort or 
assistance ; let him not fear any man — no, not 



BEGINNING— BENEFACTORS. 



61 



the whole world ]" Everj-where Luther's theses 
found prepared ground. 'Everj^where they were 
spoken of, and with anxious concern was he re- 
garded who had ventured upon so bold a step ! 
Thus the name of the fearless Augustiniau monk 
passed rapidly from nation to nation, and many 
an inquiry was heard about the antecedents and 
the experiences of the man who had presumed 
to take issue with the Pope and his adherents. 
— Rein's Luther, ch. 1. 

506. BEGINNING, A small. American Revolu- 
tion. A Stamp Act to raise £60,000 produced 
a war that cost £100,000,000. . . . "Whatmighty 
contests rise from trivial things !" — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 6, ch. 16, p. 271. 

507. . Eomans. [A revolution from 

a blow.] Amid the ruins of Italy the famous Ma- 
rozia invited one of the usurpers to assume the 
character of her third husband ; and Hugh, King 
of Burgundy, was introduced by her faction 
into thc^moleof Hadrian or castle of St. Angelo, 
which commands the principal bridge and en- 
irance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, 
Alberic, was compelled to attend at the nuptial 
banquet ; but his reluctant and ungraceful ser^^ce 
was chastised with a blow by his new father. The 
blow was productive of a revolution. "Ro- 
mans," exclaimed the youth, "once you were 
the masters of the world, aud these Burgundians 
the most abject of your slaves. Thej^ now 
reign, these voracious and brutal savages, and 
m}" injury is the commencement of your servi- 
tude." The alarum bell rang to arms in every 
quarter of the city ; the Burgundians retreated 
with haste and shame ; Marozia Avas imprisoned 
by her victorious son, and his brother. Pope 
John XI., was reduced to the exercise of his 
spiritual functions. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 49. 

50S. . War. [The Duke of Guise 

left] his chateau of Joinville with a retinue of 
two hundred well-armed gentlemen ; the duke 
halted, on the 1st of March, 1563, at the little 
town of Vassy in Champagne, where, the day 
being Sunday, the Protestants were assembled 
for di\ane service. The duke's attendants, by 
his orders, interrupted and tried to stop the he- 
retical worship ; the sectaries resisted, and a 
fierce brawl ensued. The duke, followed by his 
officers, hurried to the spot, and was assailed by 
a shower of stones, one of which struck him on 
the cheek. His enraged soldiers now fired upon 
the unarmed multitude ; the carnage was fearful ; 
60 persons were slain outright, and upward of 
200 more grievously wounded. Such was the 
" massacre of Vassy," which, whether premedi- 
tated or accidental, was the first act of the civil 
and religious wars of France. — Students' 
France, ch. 16, § 5, p. 334. 

509. BELLS, Impressive. Kapoleon I. One 
day when this matter [of religion] was under 
earnest discussion in the council of State, Na- 
poleon said : ' ' Last evening I was walking alone 
in the woods, amid the solitude of nature. The 
tones of a distant church bell fell upon my ear. 
Involuntarily I felt deep emotions — so powerful 
is the influence of early habits and associations. 
I said to myself. If I feel thus, what must be the 
influence of such impressions upon the popular 
mind ? Let your philosophers answer that if 
they can. It is absolutely indispensable to have 
a religion for the people." , , , Says Bourri- 



enne, " I have been twenty times witness to the 
singular effect which the sound of a bell had on 
Napoleon." — Abbott's Napoleon B., vol. 1, 
ch. 23. 

510. BELLS substituted. Human Voice. [Ma- 
homet established] the usage which suVisists 
still, of calling the faithful to prayer by a signal 
which unites the people, at the same hours, in 
the same aspiration. It was first proposed him 
to employ the trumpet which used to call the 
Jews to the temple ; then the creaker that convok- 
ed the Christians before the invention of bells. 
He preferred, after long hesitations, the human 
voice, that liAing signal, that appeal from soul 
to soul, which gives to sounds the accent of in- 
telligence and piety. He instituted the muezzin, 
who are ser%itors of the mosque, selected for the 
amplitude and sonority of their voice, to mount 
the summit of the minarets and chant from on 
high upon city and upon country the hour of 
prayer. — Lamartine's Turkey, p. 104. 

511. BENEFACTOR, Praise of. Abraham Lin- 
coln. Their masters fled upon the approach of 
our soldiers, aud this gave the slaves a conception 
of a power greater than their masters exercised. 
This power'they called " Massa Linkum." Col- 
onel ]\IcKaye said ... on a certain day, when 
there was quite a large gathering of the people 
[in their praise house], considerable confusion 
was created by different persons attempting to 
tell who and what " Massa Linkum " was. . . . 
"Brederin," said he [their white-haired leader], 
"you don't know nosen' what you'se talkm' 
'bout. Now, you just listen to me. ]\Iassa Lin- 
kum, he ebeiywhar. He know eberyt'ing." 
Then solemnlv looking up, he added : " He walk 
de earf like de Lord!" . . . Mr. Lincoln was 
very much affected by this account. He did 
not'smile, as another might have done, but got up 
from his chair and walked in silence two or three 
times across the floor. As he resumed his seat, 
he said, very impressively : " It is a momentous 
thing to be the instrument, under Pro\idence, of 
the liberation of a race. "—Raymond's Lincoln, 
p. 734. 

512. BENEFACTORS opposed. James Har- 
■greaves. [The inventor of the cotton carding 

machine.] A man was about to be executed at 
Cork for stealing. On the appointed day the 
weavers, who were short of work, and attribut- 
ed the hard times to cotton, gathered about the 
gallows, and dressed both the criminal and the 
executioner in cotton cloth, to mark their con- 
tempt and abhorrence of it, and to make the 
wearing of it disgraceful. The criminal, sjTn- 
pathizing with the object, delivered the follow- 
ing address just before being turned off : " Give 
ear, O good people, to the words of a dy- 
ing sinner. I confess I have been guilty of 
what necessity compelled me to commit ; which 
starA-ing cond'ition I was in, I am well assured, 
was occasioned by the scarcity of money, that 
has proceeded from the great discouragement ox 
our woollen manufactures. Therefore, good 
Christians, consider that, if you go on to suppress 
your own soods by wearing such cottons as I am 
now clothed in. you will bring your country in- 
to misery which will consequently swarm with 
such unhappy malefactors as your present object 
is, and the blood of every miserable felon that 
will hang after this warning will lay at your 



62 



BENEVOLENCE. 



door." [Legislation followed unfriendly to cot- 
ton-weaving.]— Cyclopedia op Bigg., p. 704. 

513. BENEVOLENCE, Access by. jolm How- 
ard. After attempting in vain to gain access to 
other prisons in Paris, he was so fortunate as to 
discover an ancient royal decree, which directed 
jailers to admit to prisons under their charge all 
persons desirous of giving alms to prisoners, and 
to permit them to give their alms into the pris- 
oners' own hands. Armed with this decree, he 
obtained access to all the prisons of Paris, except 
the impenetrable Bastile.— Cyclopedia of Biog- 
KAPHY, p. 48. 

514. BENEVOLENCE, Beauty of. Abraham 
Lincoln. Hon. Thaddeus Stevens called with an 
elderly lady in great trouble, whose son had been 
in the' army, but for some offence had been court- 
martialed and sentenced either to death or im- 
prisonment. . . . After a full hearing, the Pres- 
ident . . . proceeded to execute the paper [grant- 
ing pardon]. The gratitude of the mother was 
too deep for expression, save by her tears, and 
not a word was said between her and Mr. Stevens 
until they were half way down the stairs . . . 
when she .suddenly broke forth in an excited 
manner with the words, ' ' I knew it was a copper- 
head lie !" " What do you refer to, madam ?" 
asked Mr. Stevens. "Why, they told me he 
was an ugly-looking man," she replied, with vehe- 
mence. ' ' He is the handsomest man I ever saw 
In my life !" — Raymond's Lincoln, p. 738. 

515. BENEVOLENCE, Blessing on. Oswald. 
[The Northumbrian king.] For after-times the 
memory of Oswald's greatness was lost in the 
memory of his piety. ' ' By reason of his con- 
stant habit of praying or giving thanks to the 
Lord, he was wont wherever he sat to hold his 
hands upturned on his knees." As he feasted 
with Bishop Aidan by his side, the thegn or no- 
ble of his war-band, whom he had sent to give 
alms to the poor at his gate, told him of a mul- 
titude that still waited fasting without. The 
king at once bade the untasted meat before him 
to be carried to the poor, and his silver dish be 
parted piecemeal among them. Aidan seized the 
royal hand and blessed it. ' ' May this hand, " he 
cried, "never grow old." — Hist, of Eng. Peo- 
ple, § 50. 

516. BENEVOLENCE a Business. John How- 
ard. From 1773 to 1776 Howard's chief employ- 
ment was to pursue his investigations into the 
conditions of the prisons of Great Britain. In 
the course of those three years he personally and 
most thoroughly inspected every prison in the 
three kingdoms that offered any peculiarity. He 
travelled ten thousand miles at his own expense, 
and delivered from prison a large number of 
poor debtors by paying their del)ts. Wherever he 
went he brought some alleviation to the lot of the 
prisoners by gifts of money, bread, meat, or tea, 
and by remonstrating with jailers, surgeons, 
chaplains, and magistrates. Several prisons un- 
derwent a complete renovation and reforma- 
tion solely in consequence of his conversations 
with county magistrates and circuit judges. — Cy- 
clopedia OF BiOG. , p. 45. 

517. BENEVOLENCE, Christian. Beiffn of 
James II. [The Duke of Monmouth was defeat- 
ed and his adherents imprisoned.] The jails of 
Somersetshire and Dorsetshire were filled with 



thoasands of captives. The chief friend and 
protector of these unhappy men in their extrem- 
ity was one who abhorred their religious and 
political opinions, one whose order they hated, 
and to whom they had done unprovoked wrong. 
Bishop Ken. That good prelate used all his in- 
fluence to soften the jailers, and retrenched from 
his own episcopal state that he might be able to 
make some addition to the coarse and scanty fare 
of those who had defaced his beloved cathedral. 
His conduct on this occasion was of a piece with 
his whole life. His intellect was indeed dark- 
ened by many superstitions and prejudices ; but 
his moral character, when impartially reviewed, 
sustains a comparison with any in ecclesiastical 
history, and seems to approach as near as human 
infirmity permits to the ideal perfection of Chris- 
tian virtue. — Macai'lay's Eng., ch. 5. 

51§. BENEVOLENCE, Conscientious. Jo7m Wes- 
ley. It is estimated that he gave away in the 
course of his life more than $150,000. [Princi- 
pally the income from his literary works. When 
the Commissioners of Excise wrote him,] " We 
cannot doubt that you have plate, for which 
you have hitherto neglected to make an entry," 
his laconic replj' was, " I have two silver tea- 
spoons at London, and two at Bristol ; this is all 
the plate which I have at present, and I shall 
not buy any more while so many around me 
want bread." — Stevens' Methodism, vol. 1, 
p. 267. 

519'. . Mary Fletcher. [The wid- 
ow of Rev. John Fletcher was as economical as 
she was benevolent. Her expenses never amount- 
ed to £5 a year. During the last year of her 
life a friend who made up her accounts reports,] 
that her whole expenditure, on her own apparel, 
amounted to 19s. M. Her "poor account" for 
the same j'ear amounted to nearly £182. — Ste- 
vens' Methodism, vol. 3, p. 228. 

520. . Lady Huntingdon. Lady 

Huntingdon . . . gave away, for religious pur- 
poses, more than $500,000. She sold all her 
jewels, and by the proceeds erected chapels for 
the poor. She relinquished her aristocratic 
equipage, her expensive residences and liveried 
servants, that her means of usefulness might be 
more ample. She purchased theatres, halls, 
and dilapidated chapels in London, Bristol, and 
Dublin, and fitted tliem up for public worship. 
New chapels were erected by her aid in many 
places in England, Wales, and Ireland. — Ste- 
vens' Methodism, vol. 1, p. 168. 

521. BENEVOLENCE, Disinterested. Samuel 
Johnson. A literary lady, of large fortune, was 
mentioned as one who did good to many, but b}" 
no means " by stealth ;" and instead of "blush- 
ing to find it fame, "acted evidently from vanity. 
Johnson : " I have seen no beings who do as 
much good from benevolence as she does from 
whatever motive. If there are such under the 
earth, or in the clouds, I wish they would come 
up, or come down. . . . No, sir ; to act from pure 
benevolence is not possible for finite beings. 
Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, in- 
terest, or some other motive." — Boswell's 
Johnson, p. 301. 

522. BENEVOLENCE displayed. CartJiaffin- 
ians. The Bishop of Carthage, from a society 
le.ss opulent than that of Rome, collected 100,000 
sesterces (above £850 sterling) on a sudden call 



BENEVOLENCE. 



G3 



of charity to redeem the brethren of Numidia, 
who had been carried away captives by the bar- 
barians of the desert. About a hundred years be- 
fore the reign of Decius, the Roman church 
had received, in a single donation, the sum of 
200,000 sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, 
who proposed to fix his residence in the capital. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 15. 

523. BENEVOLENCE, Enforced. By Fine. 
[James I. sought financial relief by a "Benevo- 
lence," as it was called — the solicitation of gifts.] 
Mr. Oliver St. John declined to contribute, and 
wrote a letter setting forth liis reasons for re- 
fusal. He was brought into the Star-Chamber, 
and lined in the sum of £5000. — Knight's Eng. , 
vol. 3, ch. 23, p. 363. 

524. BENEVOLENCE, Example of. Mahomet. 
He laid up no treasure ; he distributed the whole 
produce of the tithe, which he established upon 
general property and the spoils of war, between 
his soldiers and the poor. He had made, for his 
own part, a vow of poverty. He gave all that 
he received to the hands and hearts of the poor, 
to keep for him, as depositaries, charged to give 
all back in heaven. The appurtenances of his 
house, the porticos adjacent to the mosque, the 
courts of the edifice, were one vast hospital, 
where the poor, the widows, the orphans, the in- 
firm, could be seen waiting for nourishment or 
medicine. They were called the " guests of the 
bench," because they passed their life seated or 
Ijang on the benches of the prophet's house. 
Every night the prophet visited them, comforted 
them, clad them, fed them with his barley bread 
and dates. He brought daily a certain number 
of them into the house, to take their repast with 
him. He distributed the others, as guests of God, 
among the wealthiest of liis disciples. — Lamar- 
tine's Turkey, p. 152. 

525. BENEVOLENCE, Excessive. Serdng Girl. 
George Miiller then prayed for a house, for suit- 
able helpers to instruct and take care of the 
children, and that £1000 sterling might be 
given him. On the very next day, December 
6, 1835, the first donation was received — namely. 
Is. — from a poor missionary then visiting at his 
bouse. ... A few days afterward a poor 
young woman, who earned about As. weekly by 
her needlework, contributed £100, but her dona- 
tion was courteously declined. When sent for 
and spoken to on the subject, she stated that 
this money was part of a little property recently 
left her by her grandfather, who had died ; and 
that, feeling deeply interested in the contemplated 
Orphan Work, it was her desire to give this £100 
toward the Orphan Fund ; but Mr. Miiller still 
refused to accept the contribution. "You are 
weak and sickly," said he, " and may need this 
monej' for yourself. I fear you have acted hasti- 
ly, and may regret the step hereafter. " Her reply, 
however, was, " I have well weighed the matter ; 
the Lord Jesus freely shed His precious blood 
for me, a poor, lost sinner, and shall I not in re- 
turn show my love and gratitude to Him by 
giving Him this little sum '? Rather than this 
Orphan Work should not come to pass, I would 
give every penny I possess toward it." After 
reasoning further Avith her on the subject, and 
finding she was thoroughly decided, he at length 
reluctantly accepted the £100. — Life of George 
MiJLLER, p. 27. 



526. BENEVOLENCE by Faith. George Muller. 
[In his Orphan Work.] He began with one day- 
school, but on May 26, 1882, we had seventy-two, 
of which thirteen were in Spain, attended by near- 
ly one thousand Catholic children ; one was in 
Italy, five were in the Ea.st Indies, six in Demerara 
and Essequibo, and the others were scattered 
throughout England and Wales. He began with 
one Sunday-school ; on j\Iay 26, 1882, there were 
thirty-eight connected with the institution. One 
adult school only was founded at its commence- 
ment, but on May 26, 1882, there were six. 
There were then also in all the various schools 
nine thousand six hundred and seventy-one 
pupils, and from the formation of the institu- 
tion up to that time, eighty -eight thousand one 
hundred and nineteen children or grown-up 
persons have been taught in these one hundred 
and sixteen schools. All of them were estab- 
lished simply through the instrumentality of 
prayer and faith ; and though the annual ex- 
penditure connected with them has for many 
years been £9500, no one has ever been asked 
to contribute toward their support, and every 
shilling continues to be obtained in the same 
manner. — Life of George MiIller, p. 24. 

527. BENEVOLENCE, Forced. Altars of the 
(Jhurdies. [When the Duke of Guise captured 
Calais from the English, he made a proclamation, 
charging the inhabitants, in the name of the 
French king, that] all and every person that were 
inhabitants of the town of Calais, having about 
them any money, plate, or jewels to the value of 
one groat, to bring the same forthwith, to la}" 
down upon the high altars of the churches, upon 
pain of death ; bearing them in hand also tliat 
they should be searched. By reason of which 
proclamation there was made a great and sorrow- 
ful offertory.— Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 7. p. 
104. 

528. BENEVOLENCE, Frustrated. Jaims 11. 
The king was bitterly mortified by the large 
amount of the collection [for the persecuted 
Huguenots] which had been made in obedience 
to his own call. He knew, he said, what all 
this liberality meant. It was mere Whiggish 
spite to himself and his religion. He had al- 
ready resolved that the money should be of no 
use to those whom the donors wished to benefit. 
. . . The refugees were zealous for the Calvinistic 
discipline and worship. James therefore gave 
orders that none .should receive a crust of bread 
or a basket of coals who did not first take the 
sacrament according to the Anglican ritiial. It 
is strange that this inhospitable act should have 
been devi.sed by a prince who affected to con- 
sider the Test Act as an outrage on the rights of 
conscience ; for however unreasonable it may be 
to establish a sacramental test for the purpose of 
ascertaining whether men are fit for civil or 
military office, it is surely much more unrea.son- 
able to establish a sacramental test for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining whether in extreme distress 
they are fit objects of charity.— Mac aula y's 
Eng., ch. 6. 

529. BENEVOLENCE, Generous. Cimon. [An 
Athenian general and statesman.] Cimon. . .had 
acquired a great fortune, and what he had gained 
gloriously in the war from the enemy he laid out 
%\ith as much reputation upon his fellow-citizens. 
He ordered the fences of his fields and gardens to 



64 



BENEVOLENCE. 



be thrown down, that strangers, as well as his 
own countrymen, might freely partake of his 
fruit. He had a supper provided at his house 
every day, in which the dishes were plain, but 
sufficient for a multitude of guests. Every poor 
citizen repaired to it at pleasure, and had his diet 
without care or trouble ; by which means he was 
enabled to give proper attention to public affairs. 
Aristotle, indeed, says this supper was not pro- 
vided for all the citizens in general, but only for 
those of his own tribe, which was that of Lacia. 
When he walked out he used to have a retmue 
of young men, well clothed ; and if he happened 
to meet an aged citizen in a mean dress, he or- 
dered some one of them to change clothes with 
him. This was great and noble. But beside this, 
the same attendants carried with them a quantity 
of money ; and when they met in the market-place 
with any necessitous person of tolerable appear- 
ance, they took care to slip some pieces into his 
hand as privately as possible. — Plutarch. 

530. BENEVOLENCE, Genuine. Dr. Wilson. 
The benevolent Dr. Wilson once discovered a 
clergyman at Bath who, he was informed, was 
sick, poor, and had a numerous family. In the 
evening he gave a friend £50, requesting him 
to deliver it in the most delicate manner, and 
as from an unknown person. The friend said, 
" I will wait upon him early in the morning." 
"You will oblige me, sir, by calling directly. 
Think of what importance a good night's rest 
may be to that poor man." 

531. . Catlierine Wilkinson. In 1832, 

when the cholera tirst appeared in England, there 
was a poor woman named Catherine Wilkinson, 
who was so impressed with the necessity of 
cleanliness as a preventive to the di-sease, that 
she encouraged her neighbors to come to her 
comparatively better house, whicli comprised a 
kitchen, a parlor, three small bed-chambers, and 
a yard, for the purpose of washing and drying 
their clothes. The good that was manifest in- 
duced some benevolent persons to aid her in ex- 
tending her operations. The large amount of 
washing done in one week in a cellar, under the 
superintendence of this excellent woman, repre- 
sented the amount of disease and discomfort kept 
down by her energetic desire to do good with- 
out pecuniary reward. Such was the origin of 
public baths and wash-houses, which Catherine 
Wilkinson had the satisfaction of seeing matured 
in Liverpool in 1846, in a large establishment 
under the corporation, to the superintendence of 
which she and her hu.sband were appointed. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 23, p. 393. 

532. BENEVOLENCE, Incorporated for. Colony 
of Georgia. [.James Oglethorpe planned the col- 
ony as an a.sylum for the poor, for imprisoned 
debtors, and for persecuted Protestants. ] A char- 
ter . . . placed it, for twenty-one years, under the 
guardianship of a corporation, " in trust for the 
poor." The common seal of the corporation, 
having on one side a group of silk-worms at their 
toils, with the motto, Nonsibi, sedaliis—" Not for 
themselves, but for others"— expressed the disin- 
terested purpose of the patrons.— Bancroft's 
U. 8., vol. 3, ch. 24. 

533. BENEVOLENCE injurious. Constantino- 
ple. [Constautine the Great encouraged emigra- 
tion to Constantinople by his great liberality ] 
The frequent and regular distributions of wine 



and oil, of corn or bread, of money or provisions, 
had almost exempted the poorest citizen of Rome 
from the necessity of labor. The magnificence 
of the first Caesars was in some measure imitated 
by the founder of Constantinople ; but his liber- 
alitj^ however it might excite the applause of 
the people, has incurred the censure of posterity. 
The annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt 
was applied to feed a lazy and insolent people. 
— Gibbon's Roste, ch. 17. 

534. BENEVOLENCE insulted. Abraham 
Lincoln. [A cashiered officer was permitted to 
visit Mr. Lincoln twice to argue a defence. By 
his own showing he proved the justice of his 
punishment. He took much precious time at 
each interview. He forced his way the third 
time before the President, and went over the same 
argument. Mr. Lincoln made no reply.] Turn- 
ing very abruptly, he said: "Well, Mr. Presi- 
dent, I see that you are fully determined not to 
dome justice."' This was too aggravating for 
Mr. Linfoln. ^lanifesting, however, no more 
feeling than that indicated by a slight compres- 
sion of the lips, he very quietly arose, . . . and 
then suddenly seizing the defunct officer by the 
coat-collar, he marched him forcibly to the door, 
saying, as he ejected him, ..." Sir, I give you 
fair warning never to show yourself in this room 
again. I can bear censure, but not insult !" — 
Raymond's Lincoln, p. 743. 

535. BENEVOLENCE an Investment. Spin- 
ners. [Samuel Cromjiton endeavored to conceal 
his secret after inventing the "mule," which 
afterward revolutionized the manufacture of 
cotton. But his superior yarn awakened sus- 
picion, ^lanufacturers .sought admission to his 
hou.se ; they climbed iq) tolhe windows to look 
in. So great was his embarrassment, that he was 
obliged to destroy the machine or give it to the 
public] The manufacturers made a subscrip- 
tion " as a reward for his improvement in spin- 
ning." . . . The whole sum subscribed was 
£67, 6«. 6rf. The li.st is curiously interesting, as 
containing among the half-guinea .subscribers 
the names of many Bolton lirms now of great 
wealth and eminc'nce as mule-spinners, who.se 
colossal fortunes may be said to have been 
based upon this singular!}' small investment. — 
Knight's Ex(;., vol. 7, ch. 3. 

536. BENEVOLENCE, Joy of. AbraJiam Lin- 
coln. One night Schuyler Colfax left all other 
business to a.sk him to respite the son of a con- 
stituent who was sentenced to be shot . . . for 
desertion. He heard the story, though he was 
wearied out with incessant calls, . . . and then 
replied: "Some of our generals complain that 
I impair discipline and subordination in the army 
by my pardons and respites ; but it makes me 
rested after a hard day's work, if I can find 
some good excuse for saving a man's life, and I 
go to bed happy as I think how joyous tlie 
signing of my name will make him and his 
family and his friends." And with a happy 
smile beaming over that care-furrowed face, he 
signed the name that saved that life. — Ray- 
mond's Lincoln, p. 741. 

537. . MicJinel Faraday. 

When Faraday began to be famous in Eng- 
land as a chemist, he was frequentlj' applied 
to by men of business to analyze substances and 
perform other operations in what is called com- 



BENEVOLENCE. 



65 



mercial cliemistrj-. This kind of business in- 
creased to sucli an extent that an immense fort- 
une was within his reach, and he found tliat he 
must choose between getting money and investi- 
gating science. Having no children, and being 
blessed with a wife who sj^mpathized with his 
pursuits, it was not difficult for him to choose the 
nobler part. " This son of a blacksmith," says 
his friend Tyndall, " and apprenticed to a book- 
binder, had to decide between a fortune of 
£150,000 on the one side, and his undowered 
science on the other. He chose the latter, and 
died a poor man. But his was the glory of 
holding aloft among the nations the scientific 
name of England for a ])eriod of thirty years." 
And this glory he enjoyed ; but far dearer to 
him was the love which his success in extending 
the area of knowledge brought him. ' ' Tyndall ," 
said he once, taking his friend by the hand — the 
hand that had just written a review of Faraday's 
works — " Tyndall, the sweetest reward of my 
work is the sympathy and good-will which it has 
caused to flow in upon me from all quarters of the 
world." Of all the sons of men, those who ben- 
efit mankind most and get from mankind least 
(that is, considering the services they render), are 
genuine men of science. The salary attached to 
this professorship of chemistry, made forever 
illustrious by Faraday's ha^^ng held it, was £80 a 
year, the use of three rooms, with fuel and can- 
dles enough to warm and light them. — Cyclope- 
dia OF BiOG., p. 765. 

5J{§. BENEVOLENCE, Large. For EuguenoU. 
[James II. had announced that a collection would 
be taken in every church in the kingdom for the 
persecuted Huguenots. It was designed for 
political ends.] It had been expected that, ac- 
cording to the practice usual on such occasions, 
the people would be exhorted to liberality from 
the pulpits. But James was determined not to 
tolerate declamations against his religion and his 
aUy. The Archbishop of Canterbury Avas there- 
fore commanded to inform the clerg}^ that they 
must merely read the brief, and must not pre- 
sume to preach on the sufferings of the French 
Protestants. Nevertheless, the contributions 
were so large, that, after all deductions, the sum 
of £40,000 was paid into the chamber at London. 
Perhaps none of the munificent subscriptions of 
our own age has borne so great a proportion to 
the means of the nation. [James frustrated its 
application. See No. 527.]— Macavlay's Eng., 
eh. 6. 

539. BENEVOLENCE, Ministerial. Thomas 
Coke. [Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D., the first 
Bishop of the Methodist Church, won the title of 
the "Foreign Minister of Methodism." He 
crossed the Atlantic eighteen times, defraying 
liimself the expenses. He represented] in his 
own person, down to his death, the whole mis- 
sionary operations of Methodism, as their offi- 
cial and sole director, la\ishing upon them his 
affluent fortune, and giAing more money to re- 
ligion than any other Methodist, if not any other 
Protestant, of his times. Djing at la.st a veteran 
of nearly seventy years, a missionary him.self, 
on his waj- to the East, he was buried beneath 
the waters of the Indian Ocean. — Stevens' 
M. E. Cn.. vol. 2, p. 154. 

540. BENEVOLENCE misconstrued. Br. Bate- 
man. When Oates, after his scourging, was car- 



ried into Newgate insensible, and, as all thought, 
in the last agony, ... he had been bled, and 
his wounds had been dressed by Bateman. 
This was an offence not to be forgiven. Bate- 
man was arrested and indicted. The witnesses 
against him were men of infamous character — 
men, too, who were swearing away their own 
lives. None of them had yet got his pardon ; 
and it was a popular saying, that they fished 
f or.prey, like tame cormorants, with ropes round 
their necks. The prisoner, stupefied by illness, 
was unable to articulate or to understand what 
passed. His son and daughter stood by him at 
the bar. They read as well as they could some 
notes which he had set down, and examined his 
witnesses. It Avas to little purpose. He was 
convicted, hanged, and quartered. — Macaulay's 
ExG., ch. 5. 

541. BENEVOLENCE, Power of. John How- 
ard. No man, perhaps, has ever had such power 
over criminals as John Howard. There was a 
terrible rebellion in one of the London prisons, 
when two hundred ruflians, driven mad by cru- 
elty, were gathered in the prison-yard, threaten- 
ing death to any man Avho should approach them. 
Howard insisted on going in among them, and 
did so, in spite of the advice of the jailers and 
the entreaties of his friends. His very appear- 
ance disai-med them, and they listened to his 
quiet and reasonable remonstrances in respectful 
silence. He listened patiently in his turn to a re- 
cital of their grievances, after which he pointed 
out the folly of their attempting to resist the au- 
thorities, advised them at once to submit, and 
promised to make their complaints known. They 
took his advice at length, and went peacefully 
to their cells. — Cyclopedia op Biog., p. 57. 

542. BENEVOLENCE, Premature. Goldsmith's 
Father. We were told that universal benevo- 
lence was what first cemented society ; we were 
taught to consider all the wants of mankind as 
our own ; to regard the human face divine with 
affection and esteem ; he wound us up to be 
mere machines of pity, and rendered us incapa- 
ble of withstanding the slightest impulse made 
either by real or fictitious distress. In a word, 
Ave were perfectly instructed in the art of giving 
aAvay thousands before we Avere taught the nec- 
essary qualifications of getting a farthing. — Ir- 
a'ixg's Goldsaitth, ch. 2. 

543. BENEVOLENCE, Pure. Goldsniitli.. He 
was enira-red to breakfast with a college inmate 
one daA'^. but failed to make his appearance. His 
friend repaired to his room, knocked at the door, 
and was Ijidden to enter. To his .surprise he 
found Goldsmith in his bed, immersed to his 
chin in feathers. A serio-comic .story explained 
the circumstance. In the course of the preced- 
ing cA-ening's stroll he had met with a woman 
Avith five children who implored his charity. 
Her husband Avas in the hospital ; she Avas just 
from the countrv, a stranger, and destitute, 
without food or shelter for her helpless offspring. 
This was too much for the kind heart of Gold- 
.smith. He was almost as poor as herself, it is 
true, and had no money in his pocket ; but he 
In-ouffht her to the college gate, gave her the 
blankets from his bed to cover her little brood, 
and part of his clothes he gave for her to sell and 
purchase food ; and, finding himself cold during 
the night, had cut open his bed and buried him- 



66 



BENEVOLENCE. 



self among the feathers.— Irving's Goldsmith, 
ch. 2. 

544. BENEVOLENCE, Religious. Mnhom^t. 
The charity of the 3Iohainiuedans descends to the 
animal creation; and the Koran repeatedly in- 
culcates, not as a merit, but as a strict and indis- 
j>ensable duty, the relief of the indigent and un 
fortunate. 5lahomet, perhaps, is the only law- 
irivcr who has defined the precise measure of 
charity ; the standard may yary with the degree 
and nature of property, as it consists either in 
money, in corn or cattle, in fruits or merchan- 
dise ; but the ;Mussulman does not accomplish 
the law unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue ; 
and if his conscience accuses him of fraud or ex- 
tortion, the tenth, under the idea of restitution, 
is enlarged to -nffth. Benevolence is the foun- 
dation of justice, .since we are forbid to injure 
tho.se whom we are bound to assist. — GrBBOx's 
lyLvHOMET, p. 28. 

545. . Bishop Amdus. [Roman 

history mentions] the charity of a bishop, Aca- 
cius of Amida, whose name might have digni- 
fied the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in ob- 
livion. Boldly declaring that vases of gold and 
silver are useless to a God who neither eats nor 
drinks, the generous prelate sold the plate of the 
church of Amida ; employed the price in the re- 
demption of seven thousand Persian captives ; 
supplied their wants with affectionate liberality ; 
and dismissed them to their native country, to 
inform their king of the true spirit of the relig- 
ion which he persecuted. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 32. 

546. . Lady Huntingdon. One day 

at court the then Prince of Wales asked Lady 
Charlotte E , " Where is my Lady Hunting- 
don, that she is so seldom here?" The lady of 
fashion replied, with a sneer, " I suppose pray- 
ing with her beggars." The prince shook his 
head, and said : " Lady Charlotte, when I am dy- 
ing I think I shall be happy to seize the skirt of 
Lady Huntingdon's mantle, to carry me up with 
her to heaven." 

547. BENEVOLENCE, Royal. Emp. Trajan. 
He was liberal in his donations to the people, but 
they were not, like those of other emperors, the 
mean bribes of a despot ; they were the largesses 
of a beneficent prince, for the support of the 
v.Tetched and indigent. The children of the 
poor were educated at his expense, and it was 
computed that two millions of destitute persons 
were maintained from his private purse. These 
charges were supplied by a weli-ordered economy 
in his own fortune, and a regular administration 
of the public finances. He lived himself always 
with ancient simplicity, and he enriched the State 
by a careful attention to the minutest articles of 
public expenditure. Under this excellent mode 
of government everj'thing enjoyed its due con- 
.sideration.— Tytler's Hist., Book 5, ch. 1. 

54§. BENEVOLENCE, Self-sacrificing. John 
Hoirard. [Being sent for,] he was detennined 
to go. The rain was falling in torrents— a cold 
December rain— and the wind Avas blowing a 
gale. As he could not, without much delay, pro- 
cure a vehicle, he mounted an old dray hor.se and 
rode the twenty-four miles through the tempest. 
H» arrived to find his patient dying [of hospital 
fever]. He tried, however, some powerful medi- 



cines upon her, with a view to excite perspira- 
tion ; and, in order to ascertain whether they were 
producing the wished-f or effect, he lifted the bed- 
clothes and felt of her arm. As he did so, the 
effluvia from her body was so offensive that he 
could scarcely endure it. She died soon after, 
and he returned to Cherson. Three days later 
he was seized vdX\\ the same fever. The exhaus- 
tion of his long and painful ride, and the shock 
to his feelings at finding his patient in the agonies 
of death, had rendered his system liable to the 
contagion, which had struck him, as he believed, 
at the moment of his lifting the bedclothes. — 
Cyclopedia op Biography, p. 76. 

549. BENEVOLENCE, Systematic. John Wes- 
ley. When his own income was but £30 a year, 
he gave away £2 ; when it was £60, he still con- 
fined his expenses to £28, and gave away £32 ; 
when it reached £120, he kept himself to his old 
allowance, and gave away £92. The last inser- 
tion in his private journal, written with a trem- 
bling hand, reads thus : " For ui)ward of eighty- 
.six years I have kept my accounts exactly ; I will 
not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the 
continual conviction that I save all I can, and 
give all I can — that is, all I have." — Stevens' 
Methodism, vol. 1, p. 268. 

550. BENEVOLENCE a Test. " Ginng— liv- 
ing." A poor Christian woman liAing at some 
distance from Bristol, a cripple, who began by 
giving one penny per week out of her little Biirn- 
tngs to the work on Ashley Down, was so blessed 
and prospered by the Lord, that in time she was 
able to afford a weekly contribution of six shil- 
lings for the orphans. Upon one occasion her 
gift was wrapped up in a little piece of paper, in- 
side which these worils were wTitten : " Give ; 
give ; give ; be ever giving. If you are living, you 
will be giving. Those irho are not giving are not 
living." — Life of George Muller, p. 43. 

551. BENEVOLENCE, Treasure of. Epitaph. 
The epitaph of Edward, surnamed, from his 
misfortune, the blind, from his virtues, the good, 
earl, inculcates with much ingenuity a moral 
sentence, which maj', however, be abu.sed by 
thoughtless generosity. After a grateful com- 
memoration of the fifty-five years of union and 
happiness which he enjoyed with Mabel his wife, 
the good earl thus speaks from the tomb : 

" What we gave, we have ; 
What we spent, we had ; 
What we left, we lost." 

— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 61. 

552. BENEVOLENCE, Unwise. Legacy. [A la- 
dy writes:] "Mrs. Williams was blind before 
she was acquainted Avith Dr. John.son. She had 
many resources, though none very great. With 
the Miss Wilkinsons she generally passed a part 
of the year, and received from them presents, and 
from the first who died a legacy of clothes and 
money. The last of them, Mrs. 'jane, left her an 
annual rent ; but from the blundering manner of 
the will, I fear she never reaped the l)enefit of it. 
That lady left money to erect an hospital for an- 
cient maids ; but the number .she had allotted be- 
ing too great for the donation, the Doctor "[.John- 
son] said it would be better to expunge the won! 
maintain, and put in to starve .sucli a number of 
old maids. They asked him. What name should 
be given it ? He replied, ' Let it be called Jenny'g 
}Vhini ' — the name of a well-known tavera near 



BENEVOLENCE— BETROTHMENT. 



G7 



Chelsea, in former days 
SON, p. 128. 
553. . Creating Poverty 



Boswell's John- 



Thomas 



Firmin, a London citizen, was one of the lead- 
ine; advocates of the popular schemes of that day 
[1698], " for setting the poor to work " — that is, 
by providing the labor out of a common public 
stock, which could not be provided by commer- 
cial enterprise, and thus increasing production 
without reference to the demand of the consum- 
ers, or making more poor by underselling tlie 
jjroducers who were previously in the market. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 13, p. 20.5. 

554. BEQUESTS for Spiritual Benefits, Eccle- 
siastical, [a.d. 14.50-1485.] The wills of the pe- 
riod ailord unquestionable evidence of the con- 
stant presence of the spiritual adviser. . . . Mon- 
eys bequeathed to the high altar of the abbey or 
parish-church ; requiems'to be said, in rich vest- 
ments appropriated for the special purpose, with 
a yearly reward to the priests ; a newly painted 
image of " Our Lady," to be set up, with a taper 
ever burning ; the chimes in the steeple to be re- 
paired ; a priest to have a house to dwell in, and 
at every meal to repeat the name of the testator, 
that they that hear it may say, ' ' God have mercy 
on his soul," which greatly may relieve him. 
... It was this imdoubted confidence in the 
jirayers of the priesthood that made the church 
so rich and powerful. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, 
ch. 8, p. 126. 

555. BEREAVEMENT, Comfort in. Cromwell. 
During the periotls between the paroxysms of 
the fever, he occupied the time with listening to 
passages from the sacred volume, or by a re- 
signed or despairing reference to the death of 
his daughter. "Read to me," he said to his 
Avife in one of those intervals, "the Epistle of 
St. Paul to the Philippians." She read these 
words : " I know both how to be abased, and I 
know how to abound : everywhere and in all 
things I am instructed both to be full and to be 
hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I 
can do all things through Christ, which strength- 
enetli me." The reader paused. " That verse," 
said Cromwell, "once saved my life when the 
death of my eldest born, the infant Oliver, 
pierced my heart like the sharp blade of a pon- 
iard." — LAMAirnxE's Cromwei>t,, p. 77. 

556. BEREAVEMENT, Depression by. Southey. 
[His son Herbert died when nine years old.] 
From his early discipline in the stoical philoso- 
phy some help now was gained ; from his active 
and elastic mind the gain was more ; but these 
sv'ould have been insufticient to support him 
tvithout a heartfelt and ever-present faith that 
what he had lost was not lost forever. A great 
change had indeed come upon him. He set his 
house in order, and made arrangements as if his 
own death were at hand. He resolved not to be 
inihappy, but the joyousness of his disposition 
had received its death-wound ; he felt as if he 
had passed at once from boyhood to the decline 
of life. He tried dutifully to make head against 
his depression, but at times with poor success. 
— Dowden's Southey, ch. 6. 

557. BEREAVEMENT, Distress of. AbraJiam 
Lincoln. In the .spring of 1862 the President 
spent several days at Fortress Monroe, awaiting 
military operations on the Peninsula. . . . His 
favorite diversion was reading Shakespeare. . . . 



One day . . . opening to King John, he read from 
the third act the passage in which Con.stance be- 
wails her imprisoned boy. . . . Mr. Lincoln said : 
' ' Colonel, did you ever dVeam of a lost friend, and 
feel that you were holding sweet communion 
with that friend, and yet have a sad conscious- 
ness that it was not a reality ? Just so I dream 
of my boy Willie." Overcome with emotion, 
he dropped his head on the table and sobbed 
aloud. — Raymond's Lincoln, p. 756. 

558. BEREAVEMENT, Fictitious. Queen 
Anne. [AVlien Queen Anne lost her huslmnd, 
Mrs. Freeman wrote :] her love to the prince 
seemed, in the eyes of the world, to be prodig- 
iously great ; and great as was the passion of her 
grief, her stomach was greater, for that very 
day he died she ate three very large and hearty 
meals. [She spent much of her time in retire- 
ment in the room where he loved to sit, but it 
was afterward discovered that it was owing 
to the convenience which it gave to court in- 
triguers to reach her by the back stairs.] — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 22, p. 339. 

559. BEREAVEMENT, Forgetting. Cares. 
After dinner Dr. Johnson wrote a letter to Mrs. 
Thrale, on the death of her son. I said it would 
be very distressing to Thrale, but she would soon 
forget it, as she had so many things to think of. 
Johnson : " No, sir ; Thrale will forget it tir.st. 
She has many things that she may think of. He 
has many things that he vtust think of." This 
was a very just remark upon the different effects 
of those light pursuits which occupy a vacant 
and easy mind, and those serious engagements 
whichi arrest attention and keep us from brood- 
ing over grief. — Boswell's Johnson, p. 286. 

560. BEREAVEMENT, Memory of. Poet 
Wordsirorth. "Referring once," says his friend 
Mr. Aubrey de Vere, "to two j'oung children 
of his who had died ixhowt forty years previous- 
ly, he described the details of their illnesses with 
an exactness and an impetuosity of troubled ex- 
citement such as might have been expected if 
the bereavement had token place but a few weeks 
before. The lapse of time seemed to have left 
the sorroM^ submerged indeed, but still in all its 
first freshness. — Myek's Wokdsworth, ch. 8. 

561. BEREAVEMENT, Tears of. Baniel Web- 
ster. In due time a daughter was born to them, 
the little Grace Webster "who was so wonderfully 
precocious and agreeable. Unhappil}', she in- 
herited her mother's delicate constitution, and 
she died in childhood. Three times in his life, 
it is said, Daniel Webster Avept convulsively. 
One of these occasions was when he laid upon 
the bed this darling giri, who had died in his 
arms, and turned avvay from the sight of her 
lifeless body. — Cyclopedia op Biog., p. 465. 

562. BEREAVEMENT, Weakness in. Janies 
Watt. [His wife died when he Avas absent from 
home.] She had struggled Avith him through 
poverty ; had often cheered his fainting spirit 
Avhen borne down by doubt, perplexity, and dis- 
appointment ; and often afterward lie paused 
on the threshold of his house, unable to summon 
courage to enter the room where he was never 
more to meet "the comfort of his life."— Smiles' 
Brief Biographies, p. 38. 

563. BETROTHMENT, Early. First Pujhert 
Peel. William Yates' eldest child AA'as a girl, 



C8 



BIBLE. 



named Ellen, and she very soon became an es- 
pecial favorite with the young lodger. On re- 
turning from his hard day's work, he would 
take the little girl upon his knee, and say to her : 
" Nelly, thou bonny little dear, wilt be my wife ?'' 
to which the child would readily answer, " Yes," 
as any child would do. "Then I'll wait for 
thee, Nelly ; I'll wed thee, and none else." And 
Kobert Peel did wait. As the girl grew in 
beauty toward womanhood, his determination 
to wait for her was strengthened ; and after the 
lapse of ten years — years of close application 
to business and rapidly-increasing prosperity — 
Robert Peel married Ellen Yates when she had 
completed her seventeenth year. — Cyclopedia 
OF BioG., p. 716. 

564. BIBLE, Adaptation of the. Colonial Con- 
gress. A.D. 1774. [New Englanders present] 
believed that a rude soldiery were then . . . 
taking the lives of their friends. When the 
psalm for the [second] day was read, it seemed 
as if Heaven Itself was uttering its oracle. " O 
Lord, fight Thou against them tliat tight against 
me ! Let them that imagine mischief for me, be 
as dust before the wind. Lord, who is like unto 
Thee, who deliverest the poor from him that is too 
strong for him ? Lord, how long wilt Thou 
look on ? Awake, and stand up to judge my 
quarrel ; avenge Thou my cause, my God and 
my Lord. And as for my tongue, it shall be 
talking of Thy righteousness and of Thy praise all 
the day long." After this the [Episcopal minis- 
ter, Rev. Duche] vmexpectedly burst into an ex- 
tempore praj'er for America, for Congress, for 
Massachusetts, and especially for Boston, with 
the earnestness of the best divines of New Eng- 
land. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 7, ch. 11. 

565. BIBLE, Comfort from the. Burning of 
Deerfield, Mass. a.d. 1704. On the last night in 
February ... at the approach of morning the un- 
faithful sentinels retired . . . [the French and Ind- 
ians soon followed within the palisades] . The vil- 
lage was burnt . . . but few escaped : forty-seven 
were killed ; one hundred and twelve, including 
the minister and his familj-, were made captives. 
One hour after sunrise the party began its re- 
turn to Canada. But who would know the hor- 
rors of that winter march through the wilder- 
ness ? Two men starved to death. Did a young 
child weep from fatigue, or a feeble woman tot- 
ter from anguish under the burden of her own 
offspring, the tomahawk stilled complaint, or 
the helpless infant was cast out upon the snow. 
Eunice Williams, the wife of the minister, liad not 
forgotten her Bible ; and when they rested by the 
wayside, or at night made their couch of branches 
of evergreen strewn on the snow, the savages al- 
lowed her to read it. Having but recently re- 
covered from confinement, her strength failed 
. . . she commended her five captive children, 
under God, to their father's care ; and then one 
blow from a tomahawk ended her sorrows. — 
Bancroft's U. S., vol. 3, ch. 21. 

566. BIBLE, Diffusion of the. Tyndale. Tyn- 
dale passed from Oxford to Cambridge to feel the 
full impulse given Ijy the appearance there of 
the New Testament of Erasmus. From that 
moment one thought Avas at his heart. He " per- 
ceived by experience how that it was impassible 
to establish the lay people in any truth except the 
Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in 



their mother tongue." " If God spare my life," 
he said to a learned controversialist, "ere many 
years I will cause a boy that diiveth the plough 
shall know more of 'the Scripture than thou 
dost. " But he was a man of forty before hi.s 
dream Ijecame fact ... it was soon needful 
to quit England if his purpose was to hold. "I 
understood at tlie last not only that there was no 
room in my Lord of London's palace to translate 
the New Testament, but also that there was no 
place to do it in all England. — Hist, of Enc;. 
People, § 543. 

567. BIBLE, Discoveries in the. Martin Luther. 
Although he had been a jovial young fellow, he 
began his studies in the morning with a heart- 
felt prayer and by attending a church service. 
He also spent considerable of his time in the 
library of the university. Here, on one occasion, 
he found a Latin Bible, a book that he had never 
seen until his twentieth year. Greatly astonish- 
ed, he noticed that there were many more texts, 
epistles, and gospels than he had read in the 
pericopes of the church or heard explained in 
the pulpit. And as he turned over the pages of 
the Old Testament, his attention was arrested bj'^ 
the story of Samuel and Hannah, which he liur- 
riedlv read with great joj'. — Rein's Luther, 
p. 2a 

568. BIBLE displaced. Bg Gloves. [At the 
.solemn entry of Philip and Mary into London, 
in 1554, shortly after their marriage,] among 
other decorations of the public places, the con- 
duit in Grace Church Street was painted with 
devices of the nine worthies, and of Henry VIII. 
[the father of the queen] and Edward VI. 
Henry was represented with a Bible in his hand, 
on which was written Verbum Dei. The Bishop 
of Winchester, noting the book in Henry VIII's 
hand, shortly afterward called the painter before 
him, and with \ile words, calling him traitor, 
asked why, and wiio bade him describe King 
Henry with a book in his hand, as is aforesaid, 
threatening him therefore to go to the Fleet. 
The painter humbly apologized, and said he 
thought he had done well." "Nay," said tlm 
bishop, " it is against the queen's Catholic j)roceed- 
ings." And so he painted him shortly after, in- 
stead of the book of Verbum Dei, to have in his 
hands a new pair of gloves. — Knight's Eng. .vol. 
3, ch. 5, p. 75. 

569. BIBLE doubted. John Bunyan. [Be- 
fore his conversion] liiuiyan was hardlj^ dealt 
with. " Whole fioods of blasphemies," he .says, 
"against God, Christ, and the Scripture*;, Avere 
poured upon my spirit ; questions against the very 
being of God and of His only beloved Son, as, 
whether there was in truth a God or Christ or 
no, and whether the Holy Scriptures were net 
rather a fable and cunning .story than tlie lioh' 
and pure Word of God." " How can you tell," 
the tempter whispered, " but that the Turks have 
as good a Scripture to prove their Mahomet the 
Saviour, as we have to prove our .lesus is ? Could 
I think that so many tens of thousands, in so 
many coimtries and kingdoms, should be with- 
out the knowledge of the right way to heaven — 
if there were indeed a heaven — and that we Avho 
lie in a corner of the earth should alone be blessed 
therewith ? Every one doth think his own re- 
ligion the rightest — both Jews, floors, and Pa- 
gans ; and how if all our faith, and Christ, and 



BIBLE. 



G9 



Scripture should be but ' a think so ' too ?" — 
Froude's Bunyan, ch. 3. 

570. BIBLE, The first. Eliot's. About lialf 
a century after King James' translation of the 
Bible Massachusetts gave it, through Eliot, to her 
Indians — the first Bible printed in America. — 
Stevens' M. E. Cii., vol. 1, p. 21. 

571. BIBLE, The best Gift. Coronation. 
[When Queen Elizabeth made her coronation 
progress, a great display was made by the people.] 
When she espied a pageant at the Little Conduit 
... a rest was made, and a Bible in English, 
richly covered, was let down unto her, by a silk 
lace, from a child that represented Truth. With 
both her hands she received it ; then she kissed 
it, afterward applied it to her breast ; and lastly 
held it up, thanking the city especially for that 
gift, and promising to be a diligent reader thereof. 
— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 8, p. 111. 

572. BIBLE, Imperilled by the. Richard 
Hunne. [In 1515 Richard Hunne was brought be- 
fore the Bishop of London, charged with heresy. 
He] was territied into an admission of some of 
the crimes of which he was accused, one of which 
was that he had in his possession the epistles and 
gospels in English, and " Wy(;lilTe's damnable 
works." He was sent back to prison, and two 
days after was found hanging in his cell. A cor- 
oner's inquest charged the bishop's chancellor 
and other officers with murder, but it was main- 
tained by them that the heretic had committed 
suicide. The bishop and clergy had the incred- 
ible folly to begin a new process of heresy against 
the dead body, which was adjudged guilty, and, 
according to the sentence, burnt in Smithfield. 
—Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 17, p. 377. 

573. BIBLE, An incendiary. B^ign of James 
II. The clergy were strictly charged not to re- 
flect on the Roman Catholic religion in their 
discourses. The chancellor took on himself to 
send the macers of the Privy Council round to 
the few printers and booksellers who could then 
be found in Edinburgh, charging them not to 
publish any work without his license. It was 
well understood that this order was intended to 
prevent the circulation of Protestant treatises. 
One honest stationer told the messengers that he 
had in his shop a book which reflected, in very 
coarse terms, on popery, and begged to know 
whether he might sell i't. They asked to see it, 
and he showed them a copy of the Bible. — Ma- 
caulay's Eng., ch. 6. 

574. BIBLE indestructible. Persecution. The 
philosophers . . . had diligently studied the na- 
ture and genius of the Christian religion ; and as 
they were not ignorant that the speculative doc- 
trines of the faith were supposed to be contained 
in the writings of the prophets, of tlic evangelists, 
and of the apostles, they most probably suggested 
the order that the bishops and presbyters should 
deliver all their sacred books into the hands of 
the magistrates, who were commanded, under 
the severest penalties, to burn them in a public 
and solemn manner. By the same edict the prop- 
erty of the church was at once confiscated, and 
the several parts of which it might consist Avere 
either sold to the highest bidder, united to the 
Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and cor- 
porations, or granted to the solicitations of rapa- 
cious courtiei-s. . . . The Christians, though 



they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of their 
churches, resolved not to interrupt their religious 
assemblies nor to deliver their sacred books to 
the flames. — Girhon's Rome, ch. 16. 

575. BIBLE, Influence of the. Cromwell. A 
great man is ever the personification of the .spirit 
which breathes from time to time upon his age 
and country. The inspiration of Scripture pre- 
dominated, in 1600, over the three kingdoms. 
Cromwell, more imbued than any other with this 
sentiment, was neither a politician nor an ambi- 
tious couciueror, nor an Octavius, nor a Caisar. 
He was a Judge of the Old Testament ; a sectarian 
of the greater power in proportion as he was more 
superstitious, more strict and narrow in his doc- 
trines, and more fanatical. If his genius had 
surpassed his epoch he would have exerci-sed less 
influence over the existing generation. His na- 
ture was less elevated than the part assigned 
to him ; his religious bias constituted the half of 
his fortune. — Lamartine's Cromwell, p. 80. 

576. BIBLE, Monopoly in the. British Monop- 
oly. Where was there a house in the colonies 
that did not cherish, and did not possess, the 
Engli.sh Bible ? And yet to print that Bible in 
British America was prohibited as a piracy, and 
the Bible, except in the native savage districts, 
was never printed there till the land became 
free. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 5, ch. 13. 

577. BIBLE omitted. Coronation of James 
II. James had ordered Sancroft to abridge the 
ritual. The reason publicly assigned was that 
the day was too short for all that was to be 
done ; but whoever examines the changes which 
were made will see that the real object was to 
remove some things highly offensive to the relig- 
ious feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic. . . . 
The ceremony of presenting the sovereign with 
a richly-bound copy of the English Bible, and 
of exhorting him to prize above all earthly 
treasures a volume which he had been taught to 
regard as adulterated with false doctrine, was 
omitted. — Macaulay'sEng., ch. 4. 

57§. BIBLE, A people's. Wycliffe. With the 
tacit approval of the primate of a church which, 
from the time of Wycliffe, had held the transla- 
tion and reading of the Bible in the common 
tongue to be heresy and a crime punishable with 
fire, Erasmus boldly avowed his wish for a 
Bible open and intelligible to all. " I wish that 
even tlie weakest woman might read the gospels 
and the epistles of St. Paul. I wish that they 
were translated into all languages, so as to be 
read and understood not only by Scots and 
Irishmen, but even by Saracens and Turks. But 
the first step to their being read is to make them 
intelligible to the reader. I long for the day when 
the husbandman shall sing portions of them to 
him.self as he follows the plough ; when the 
weaver shall hum them to the tune of his shut- 
tle ; when the traveller shall while away with 
their stories the weariness of his journey." — 
Hist, of Eng. People, § 518. 

579. BIBLE, Prohibition of the. England. 
In 1543 an act was passed Avhich limited the 
reading of the Bible and the New Testament in 
the English tongue to noblemen and gentlemen, 
and forbade the reading of the .same to "the 
lower sort" — to artificers, prentices, journey- 
men, serving-men, husbandmen, and laborers. 



BIBLE— BIGOTRY. 



and to women, under pain of imprisonment. — 
Kxight's Eng., Yol. 2, ch. 27, p. 445. 

5§0. . Necessary. [Puerile objec- 
tions, in 1547.] There was a Cambridge friar, 
just before the suppression of the monasteries, 
who denounced the reading of the Bible by the 
vulgar; for the baker, he said, who found it 
written that a little leaven would corrupt the 
whole lump, would give us bad bread ; and the 
ploughman Avould be afraid to labor, when he 
learned that if he looked back from his plough 
he were unfit for the kingdom of heaven. — 
Knight's Exg., vol. 2, ch. 29, p. 493. 

581. BIBLE, Protected by the. John Knox. 
The young queen [Mary], feeling the necessity 
of seeming the good- will of such a man, suc- 
ceeded in attracting him to the palace. He ap- 
peared in his Calvinistic dress, a short cloak 
thrown over his shoulder, the Bible under 
his arm. "Satan," said he, "cannot prevail 
against a man whose left hand bears a light 
to illumine his right, when he searches the Holy 
Scriptures in the hours of night." — Lamar- 
tdje's Mary Stuart, ch. 7. 

5§2. BIBLE, Searching the " Bible Moths." 
There was wikl enthusiasm enough in some of 
the followers of Whitefield and Wesley, . . . 
but these earnest men left a mark. . . . The 
obscure yoimg students . . . were first called 
" Sacramentarians," then " Bible Moths," and 
finally " Methodists."— Knight's Eng., vol. 2, 
ch. 7. 

5§3. BIBLE, Three Senses in. Sipedenborg. 
The Word does not belong to men alone, but is 
the possession likewise of the angels of heaven, 
to whom it wears different forms, according to 
their love and intelligence. In general it may 
be said to have three senses or meanings : First, 
a celestial sense, apprehended by the celestial or 
highest angels ; secondly, a spiritual sense, ap- 
prehended by a lower range of angelic minds, 
the spiritual ; and thirdly, a natural sense, with 
which we are all familiar, written down to the 
comprehension of the lowest, most worldly, and 
sensual of men — the Jews. — White's Swedex- 
BORG, p. 80. 

584. BIBLE stimulates. Rev.- Samuel John- 
son. [Being a victim to the persecution of 
James II. against Protestants he was sentenced 
to be flogged for publishing a tract against the 
overthrow of Protestantism by the use of the 
army. He suffered with most courageous en- 
durance.] His biographer says : " He "observed 
afterward to one of his most intimate friends, 
that this text of Scripture, which came sudden- 
ly into his mind, ' He endured the cross, and 
despised the shame,' so much animated and .sup- 
ported him in his bitter journey that he could 
have sung a psalm while the "^executioner was 
doing his office, with as much composure and 
cheerfulness as ever he had done in the church ; 
though, at the same time, he had a quick sense of 
every stripe which was given him, with a whip 
of nine cords knotted, to the number of three 
hundred and seventeen."- Knight's Eng vol 
4. ch. 25, p. 411. ' ■ 

585. BIBLE and Superstition, The. Carolina 
Indians. The Indians revered the volume rath- 
er than its doctrines ; and, with a fond supersti- 
tion, they embraced the book, kissed it, and held 



it to their breasts and heads, as if it had been an 
amulet. ... As the colonists . . . had no 
women with them, there were some among the 
Indians who imagined the English were not 
born of woman, and therefore not mortal ; that 
they were men of an old generation ri.sen to im- 
mortality. — Bancroft's Hist, of U. S., vol. 1, 
ch. 3. 

586. BIBLE-READING forbidden. England. 
[In 1547, in the] "Act for the advancement of 
religion," there was a special clause against per- 
sons not duly appointed reading the Bible aloud 
in any church. The man who sought to know 
the truth might muse over the chained volume, 
but he was not to read any portion of it to the 
less instructed bystanders. Noblemen and gen- 
tlemen might read the Bible aloud to their fami- 
lies. Ladies might only read it privately, and so 
also might merchants. The qualified permission 
to read the Scriptures [was] . . . extended to all 
but artificers, .prentices, journeymen, and serv- 
ing-men. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 29, p. 492. 

587. BIGOTRY disqjaimed. Prayer. In the 
Continental Congress, Mr. Jaj', a member from 
New York, spoke against opening the proceed- 
ings with prayer, on the ground that as there 
Avere in that body Episcopalians, Quakers, Ana- 
baptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, 
they would hardly be able to join in the same 
act of worship. Thereupon Mr. Samuel Adams, 
a .strict Congregationalist, arose and said he was 
no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentle- 
man of piety and virtue who was, at the same 
time, a friend to his country. He then moved 
that Mr. Duche, an Episcopalian clergyman, read 
prayers to the Congress. The motion was car- 
ried, and the prayers were read. — Am. Cvc, 
"Sa.muel Ada.ms." 

588. BIGOTRY, Papal. Pirn V. [He had dis- 
tinguished himself as an inquisitor.] A more 
furious bigot never .sat on the papal throne ; and 
his bigotry was more terrible from the circinn- 
stance that it was conscientious. When he sent 
a force to the aid of the French Catholics, he told 
their leader " to take no Huguenot prisoner, but 
instantly to kill every one that fell into his hands. " 
When the savage Duke of Alva was butchering 
without remorse in the Netherlands, the Holy 
Father sent him a con.secrated hat and sword, 
in admiration of his Christian proceedings. — 
Knight's Exg., vol. 3, ch. 11, p. 167. 

589. BIGOTRY, Protestant. Mary Stuart. 
[The evening before her execution Marj"^ Stu- ' 
art, Queen of Scots, desired the presence of her 
priest and almoner ; but she Avas refused, and 
was informed that in the place of her confessor 
she might have the spiritual assistance of the 
Dean of Peterborouirh. She necessarilj'' de- 
clined.]— Knights Eng., vol. 8, ch. 13, p. 201. 

590. BIGOTRY, Puritanic. In Prayer. [When 
the body of Charles I. was deposited in the vault 
for burial, the governor of St. George's Castle] 
forbade the church-service to be performed, 
through his bigoted resolve that, the Common 
Prayer having been put down, he would not 
suffer it to be read in the garrison where he; 
commanded. — Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 8, 
p. 115. 

591 . BIGOTRY, Strange. Pilgrims. At a ses- 
sion of the gcuLT:;! court of the colony [of Mas- 



BIRTH— BISHOPS. 



71 



sachusctts] , held in 1631, a law was passed re- 
stricting the right of suffrage. It was enacted 
that none but members of the church should be 
permitted to vote at the colonial elections. The 
choice of governor, deputy-governor, and assist- 
ant councillors was thus placed in the hands of 
a small minority. Nearly three fourths of the 
people were excluded from exercising the rights 
of freemen. Taxes were levied for the support 
of the gospel ; oaths of obedience to the magis- 
trates were required ; attendance upon public 
worship was enforced by law ; none but church- 
members were eligible to officers of trust. It is 
strange that the very men that had so recently, 
through perils by sea and land, escaped with 
only their lives to find religious freedom in 
another continent, should have begun their ca- 
reer with intolerance and proscription. The 
only excuse that can be found for the gross in- 
consistency and injustice of such legislation is, 
that bigotry was the vice of the age rather than 
of the Puritans. — Ridpath's U. S!, ch. 13. 

592. BIRTH, Accident of. Bonaparte. [Born] 
on the 15th of August, 1769 . . . [at Ajaccio, 
Corsica, recently won to France by arms]. Had 
the young Napoleon seen the light two months 
earlier, he would have been by birth an Italian, 
not a Frenchman. — Abbott's Napoleon B., 
vol. 1, ch. 1. 

593. BIRTH concealed. AbraJiam. The Ish- 
maelite Arabs . . . call in their books their 
father Abraham El Khalil- Allah, or the friend of 
God. His father Azor, say they, was one of the 
great vassals of Nimrod, a sort of fabulous Ju- 
piter of the Babylonian Olympus. Nimrod, 
frightened by a prophecy which announced to 
him the birth of an infant superior to other men 
and to him.self , forbade all intercourse between 
the sexes in his dominions. Abraham was born 
through a breach of this order. His parents, 
to elude the anger of Nimrod, concealed his 
birth. They had him hid and nursed in a cav- 
ern outside the city. — Lamartine's Tukkey. 

594. BIRTH, Humble. Gabrini. In a quar- 
ter of the city [Rome] which was inhabited only 
by mechanics and Jews, the marriage of an inn- 
keeper and a washerwoman produced the future 
deliverer of Rome. From such parents Nicholas 
Rienzi Gabrini could inherit neither dignity nor 
fortune ; and the gift of a liberal education, 
which they painfully bestowed, was the cause 
of his glory and untimely end. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 73, p. 471. 

595. . Rom. Emp. Diocletian. . As 

the reign of Diocletian was more illustrious 
than that of any of his predecessors, so was his 
birth more abject and obscure. The strong 
claims of merit and of violence had frequently 
superseded the ideal prerogatives of nobility ; 
but a distinct line of separation was hitherto 
preserved between the free and the servile part 
of mankind. The parents of Diocletian had 
been slaves in the house of Anulinus, a Roman 
senator, nor w^as he himself disinguished by any 
other name than that which he derived from a 
small town in Dalmatia, from whence his moth- 
er deduced her origin. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 13. 

596. BIRTH, Superior to. Burns. Born in 
an age the most prosaic Britain had yet seen, 
and in a condition the most advantageous, where 
his mind, if it accomplished aught, must accom- 



plish it under the pressure of continual bodily 
toil — nay, of penury and desponding apprehen- 
sion of the worst evils — and with no furtherance 
but such knowledge as dwells in a poor man's 
hut, and the rhymes of a Ferguson or Ramsay 
for his standard of beauty, he sinks not under 
all these impediments. Through the fogs and 
darkness qi that obscure region, his eagle eye 
discerns the true relations of the world and liu- 
man life ; he grows into intellectual strength, and 
trains himself into intellectual expertness. Im- 
pelled by the irr,^pressible movement of his in- 
ward spirit, he struggles forward into the gen- 
eral view, and with haughty modesty lays down 
before us, as the fruit of his labor, a gift which 
Time has now pronounced 4niperishable. — Car- 
lyle's Burns, p. 15. 

597. BIRTH, A welcome. "The King of 
Rome." [Napoleon's second wife gave birth to 
a boy March 20, 1811.] If the child were a prin- 
cess, twenty-one guns were to be fired ; if a 
prince, one hundred. At six o'clock in the 
morning . . . all Paris was aroused by the deep 
booming of [cannon]. . . . Every window was 
thrown open. Every ear was on the alert. . . . 
Vast throngs stood motionless to count the 
tidings, which those explosions were thundering 
in their ears. . . . The twenty-first gun was fired. 
The interest was now intense beyond conception. 
For a moment the gunners delayed the next dis- 
charge, and Paris stood waiting in breathless 
suspense. The heavy loaded guns then, with 
redoubled voice, pealed forth the announcement. 
From the entire city one universal roar of ac- 
clamation rose, and blended with their thun- 
ders. . . . Who could then have imagined . . . 
that this child, the object of a nation's love and 
expectation, would linger through a few short 
years of neglect and sorrow, and then sink into 
a forgotten grave ? — Abbott's Napoleon B., 
vol. 2, ch. 11. 

59§. BISHOP corrupted. Theodomis. Iua.d. 
389 the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria 
was filled by Theodosius, the perpetual enemy 
of virtue — a bold, bad man, whose hands were 
alternately polluted with gold and blood. . . . 
When a sentence of destruction against the idols 
of Alexandria was pronounced, the Christians 
sent up a shout of joy. . . . Theophilus pro- 
ceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis, with- 
out any other difficulties than those which he 
found in the weight and solidity of the ma- 
terials ; but these obstacles proved so insuper- 
able, that he w\as obliged to leave the founda- 
tions, and to content himself with reducing the 
edifice itself to a heap of ruljbish, a part of 
which was soon afterward cleared away, to make 
room for a church erected in honor of the Chris- 
tian martyrs. The valuable library of Alexandria 
was pillagfc'd or destroyed ; and nearly twenty 
years afterward the appearance of the empty 
shelves excited the regret and indignation of 
every spectator, whose mind was not totally 
darkened bv religious prejudice. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 28. 

599. BISHOPS, Honored. Germans. The an- 
cient Germans had the highest veneration for 
their priests. It was, therefore, natural for the 
Franks, after their conversion, to preserve the 
same reverence for the ministers of their new re- 
ligion. We find that the bishops held the arst 



72 



BLESSING— BLOT. 



place in the national assemblies. They were em- 
ployed under Clotarius L to correct the Salic and 
Riparian laws, and they had a sort of superinten- 
dence over the judicial tribunals. In the absence 
of the king, it was competent to appeal to the 
bishops from the sentences of the dukes and 
counts.— Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 2. 

600. BLESSING, A diabolical. Martin, Luther. 
After this interview [with the fanatic Karlstadt] 
Luther continued on his journey ... to Orla- 
miinde, headquarters of Karlstadt. But he ac- 
complished nothing here ; he narrowly escaped 
bodily \iolence. He himself narrates this ex- 
perience : " When I reached Orlamiinde I .soon 
discovered what kind of seed Karlstadt had sown ; 
for I was greeted with such a blessing as this : 
' Depart in the name of a thousand devils, and 
may you break your neck before you leave the 
city ! ' " — Rein's Luther, ch. 14. 

601. BLESSING disdained. Reign of James II. 
[Seven bishops had been imprisoned because they 
refused to aid the king in the overthrow of the 
Protestant faith.] Loud acclamations were 
raised. The steeples of the churches sent forth 
joyous peals. The bishops found it difficult to 
escape from the importunate crowd of their well- 
wishers. Lloyd was detained in Palace Yard by 
admirers who .struggled to touch his hands and to 
kiss the skirt of his robe, till Clarendon, with 
some difficulty, rescued him and conveyed him 
home by a by-path. Cartwright, it is said, was 
so unvnse as to mingle with the crowd. Some 
person who saw his episcopal habit asked and re- 
ceived his blessing. A bystander cried out, 
" Do you know who blessed you ?" " Surely," 
said he who had just been honored by the bene- 
diction, " it was one of the seven." " No," said 
the other, " it is the popish Bishop of Che.ster." 
"Popish dog," cried the enraged Protestant, 
" take vour blessing back again." — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 8. 

602. BLESSING, A disguised. Avierican Revo- 
lution. During his retreat across New Jersey, 
Washington had sent repeated despatches to 
General Lee, in command of the detachment 
at North Castle, to join the main army as soon 
as possible. Lee was a proud, insubordinate man, 
and virtually disobeyed his orders. ^Marching 
leisurely into New Jersey, he reached Morris- 
town. Here he tarried, and took up his quarters 
at an inn at Baskingridge. On the 13th of 
December a squad of British cavalry dashed up 
to the tavern, seized Lee, and hurried him oil to 
New York. General Sullivan, who had recently 
been exchanged, now took command of Lee's 
divisi:)!!, ami hastened to join Washington — 
Ridpath's U. S., eh. 39. 

6i>:{. BLINDNESS, Disqualified by. Persia. 
The crown of Persia is hcreditarv, with the ex- 
clusion of females from the succession ; but the 
sons of a daughter are idlowed to inherit the sover- 
eignty. By the laws of Persia the blind are ex- 
cluded from the throne. Hence it is a customary 
policy of the reigning prince to put otU the eves 
of all those of the blood roval of whom he has 
any jealousy.— Tyti,rk's Hist., Book 6, ch. 23. 

604. BLINDNESS by Study. John Milton 
His eyesight, though quick, as he was a profi- 
cient with the rapier, had never been strong 
in-: constant headaches, his late study and 



(thinks Phillips) his perpetual tampering witli 
physic to preserve his sight, concurred to bring 
the calamity upon him. It hj.d been steadily 
coming on for a dozen years before, and about 
1650 the sight of the left eye was gone. He was 
warned by his doctor that if he persisted in using 
the remaining eye for book-work, he would lose 
that too. " The choice lay .before me," Milton 
writes in the " Second Defence," "between dere- 
liction of a supreme duty and loss of eyesight ; in 
such a case I could not listen to the physician, not 
if ^sculapius himself had spoken from his sanc- 
tuary ; I could not but obey that inward monitor, 
I know not what, that spake to me from heaven." 
— Milton, by M. Pattison, ch. 9. 

605. BLOCKADE by Chains. Mahomet II. He 
laid siege to Constantinople . . . while the indo- 
lent Greeks made a ver}' feeble preparation for 
defence, trusting to an immense barricade of 
•strong chains, which blocked up the entry to 
the port, and prevented all access to the enemy's 
.ships. The genius of Mahomet very soon over- 
came this obstacle. He laid a channel of smooth 
planks for the length of six miles, resembling 
the frames which are constructed for the launch- 
ing of .ships. In one night's time he drew eighty 
galleys out of the water upon these planks, and 
next morning, to the utter astonishment of the 
besieged, an entire tieet descended at once into 
the bosom of their harbor. . . . Constantine, the 
emperor, was killed in the assault, and Mahomet 
immediately converted his palace into a seraglio, 
and the splendid church of Santa Sophia into a 
Mohammedan mos(pie. Tlius t-nded the empire 
of the East, in the year 1453, eleven hundred and 
twenty-three years fmm the building of Con- 
stantinople bv Constantine the Great. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book "6, ch. 13. 

606. BLOCKADE of Death. /?// Cmnr. [Thirty 
thousand soldiers had fallen.] Munda was at 
once blockaded, the inclosing wall — savage evi- 
dence of the temper of the concpierons — being 
built of dead bodies pinned together with lances, 
and on the top of it a fringe of heads on swords' 
points with the f.-ices turned toward the town. — 
Froude's C.ksak, ch. 25. 

607. BLOT, Shameful. William Penn. [Young 
girls, by order of their schoolmistress, had pre- 
sented a standard to the rebel Duke of Mon- 
mouth.] The queen's maids of honor asked the 
royal permission to wring money out of the 
parents of the poor children, and the permission 
was granted. . . . The maids of honor would not 
endure delaj' ; they were determined to prosecute 
to outlawr}', unless a reasonable sum were forth- 
coming ; and by a reasonable sum was meant 
£7000. Warre excused himself from taking 
any part in a transaction .so scandalous. The 
maids of honor then requested AVilliam Penn 
to act for them, and Penn accepted the com- 
mission ; }-et it should seem that a little of the 
pertinacious .scrupulosity which he had often 
shown .about taking olT his hat would not have 
been altogetherout of place on this occasion. He 
probably silenced the remonstrances of his con- 
science by repeating to himself that none of the 
money which he extorted would go into his own 
pocket ; that if he refused to be the agent of the 
ladies, they would find agents less human(> ; that 
by comjilying he should increase his influence at 
the court, and that his infiuence at the court had 



BLOT— BOLDNESS. 



73 



already enabled him, and might still enable 
him, to render great services to his oppressed 
brethren. [More at No. 829.] — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 5. 

60S. BLOT of the Times. Cmar. The Gauls 
paid the expenses of their conquest in the prison- 
ers taken in battle, who were sold to the slave 
merchants ; and this is the real blot on Caesar's 
career. But the blot was not personally upon 
CiBsar, but upon the age in which he lived. 
The great Pomponius Atticus himself was a 
dealer in human chattels. That prisoners of 
-^ war should be sold as slaves was the law of the 
time, accepted alike by victors and vanquislied ; 
and the crowds of libertini who assisted at 
Caesar's funeral proved that he was not regarded 
as the enemy of these unfortunates, but as their 
special friend. — Froude's C-*;sar, ch. 18. 

609. BLUNDER by Inattention. Goldsmith. 
Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland 
had houses next to each other, of similar archi- 
tecture. Returning home one morning from an 
early walk. Goldsmith, in one of his frequent 
fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked 
up into the duke's dining-room, where he and 
the duchess were about to .sit down to breakfast. 
Goldsmith, still supposing him.self in the house 
of Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made 
them an easy salutation, being acquainted with 
them, and threw himself on a sofa in the loung- 
ing manner of a man perfectly at home. The 
duke and duchess soon perceived his mistake, 
and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, 
with the considerateness of well-bred people, to 
prevent any awkward embarrassment. — Irv- 
ing's Goldsmith, ch. 30. 

610. BOARD, Prayers exchanged for. Napoleon 
I. The French emigrant priests were quite a 
burden on the convents of Italy, where they 
had taken refuge [from Jacobin fury], and the 
Italian priests were quite ready, upon the arrival 
of the French army, to drive them away, on the 
pretext that by harboring the emigrants they 
should draw upon themselves the vengeance of 
the Republican army. Napoleon issued a decree 
commanding the convents to . . . furnish them 
everything necessary for their support and com- 
fort. In . . .a vein of latent humor, he en- 
joined that the French priests should make re- 
muneration for this hospitality in prayers and 
masses at the regular market-price. — Abbott's 
Napoleox B., vol. 1, ch. 7. 

611. BOASTING of Pride. Bajazet I. In the 
battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet [the Turk] defeated a 
confederate army of a hundred thousand Chris- 
tians, who had proudly boasted that if the 
sky should fall, they could uphold it on their 
lances. The far greater part were slain or driven 
into the Danube ; and Sigismond, escaping to 
Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, 
returned after a long circuit to his exhausted 
kingdom. In the pride of victory, Bajazet threat- 
ened that he would besiege Buda ; that he 
would subdue the adjacent coiuitries of Ger- 
many and Italy ; and that he would feed his 
horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. 
Peter at Rome. His progress was checked, not 
by the miracidous interposition of the apostle, 
not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by 
a long and painful tit of the gout. The disorders 
of the moral are sometimes corrected by those 



of the physical world ; and an acrimonious 
humor falling on a single fibre of one man may 
prevent or suspend the misery of nations. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. .51. 

612. BOASTING, Ridiculous. Inventor. Once, 
when checking my Ix lasting too frequently of 
myself in companj', he said to me : "Bo.swell, 
you often vaunt ,so much as to provoke ridicule. 
You put me in mind of a man who was standing 
in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, 
and thus accosted the person next him : ' Do you 
know, sir, who I am V ' ' No, sir,' said the other, 
'I have not that advantage.' 'Sir,' said he, ' I 
am the great Twalmley, who invented the New 
Floodgate Iron.'" [Note.] It was neither more 
nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing 
linen. — Boswei.l's .Johnson, p. 489. 

613. BOASTING, Senseless. New York. a.d. 
176.5. "I will cram the stamps down their 
throats with the end of my sword," cried the 
braggart James, major of artillery, as he busied 
himself with bringing into the fort more field- 
pieces, as well as powder, shot, and shells. " If 
they attempt to rise, I," he gave out, " will drive 
them all out of town for a pack of rascals, with 
four and twenty men." — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 
5, ch. 17. 

614. BOASTING, Vain. Persians. The Mir- 
ranes of Persia advanced, with 40,000 of her best 
troops, to raze the fortifications of Dara, and 
signified the day and the hour on which the 
citizens should prepare a bath for his refi-esh- 
ment, after the toils of victory. He encountered 
an adversary equal to himself, by the new title 
of General of the East ; his superior in the 
science of war, but much inferior in the number 
and quality of his troops, which amounted only 
to 25,000 Romans and strangers relaxed in their 
discipline, and humbled l)y recent disasters. 
On the level plain of Dara the standard of Persia 
fell ; the immortals fled, the infantry threw away 
their bucklers, and 8000 of the vanquished fell 
before the Roman swords [under Belisarius] on 
the field of battle. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 41. 

615. BODY, Crippled. Timour the Tartar. 
The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and 
West — his posterity is still invested with the im- 
perial title — and the admiration of his subjects, 
who revered him almost as a deity, may be jus- 
tified in some degree by the praise or confession 
of his bitterest enemies. Although he was lame 
of a hand and foot, his form and stature were 
not unworthy of his rank ; and his vigorous 
health, so essential to himself and to the world, 
was corroborated by temperance and exercise. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 65. 

616. BODY, Perfect. American. Indians. How 
rare is it to find tlie red-man squint-eyed, or 
with a diseased spine, halt or blind, or with any 
deficiency or excess in the organs ! . . . The 
most refined nation is most liable to produce 
varieties, and to de2:enerate. — Bancroft's Hist. 
U. S., vol. 3, ch. 22. 

617. BOLDNFSS, Verbal. Goldsmith. Gold- 
smith one day brought to the club a printed 
ode, which he, witirothers, had been hearing 
read by its author in a public room, at the rate 
of five 'shillings each for admission. One of the 
company ha\ing read it aloud. Dr. John,son 
said : "Bolder words and more timorous mean- 



74 



BOMBAST— BOOKS. 



ing, I think, never were brought together."— 
Boswell's Johnson, p. 433. 

618. BOMBAST rebuked. "Jupiter" Mene- 
crates, the physician, having succeeded in some 
desperate cases, got the surname of Jupiter. 
And he was so vrdn of the appellation, that he 
made use of it in a letter to the king. " Mene- 
crates Jupiter to King Agesilaus, health." His 
answer began thus : " King Agesilaus to Mene- 
crates, his "senses." — Plutarch. 

619. BOMBAST, Ridiculous. James I. [James 
told his disobedient Parliament :] My integrity is 
like the whiteness of my robe, my purity like the 
metal of gold in my crown, my firmness and 
clearness like the precious stones I wear, and 
my affections natural, like the redness of my 
heart.— KNiCiHT's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 23, p. 364. 

620. BONDS inflated. Louis XIV. The king 
•wished to give one more of his grand festivals at 
Ver-sailles, and ordered his Minister of Finance 
to provide the money — 4,000,000 francs. The 
treasury was empty, and the credit of the gov- 
ernment was gone. A royal bond of 100 francs 
was worth 35 francs. One day when the minis- 
ter was pacing his antechamber, considering how 
he should raise the sum required, he perceived, 
through an open door, two of his servants look- 
ing over the papers on his desk. An idea darted 
into his mind. He drew up the scheme of a 
grand lottery, which he pretended was designed 
to pay off a certain description of bonds. This 
scheme, half written out, he left upon his de.sk, 
and remained absent for a considerable time. His 
two lackeys were, as he suj^posed, employed by 
stock-jobbers to discover the intentions of the 
government with regard to the issue and redemp- 
tion of its bonds. They did their work, and at 
once the bonds began to rise in price, and went 
up in a few days from thirty-five to eighty-five. 
When they had reached the price last named, and 
were in active demand, the minister issued and 
slipped upon the market new bonds enough to 
furnish him with the needful 4,000,000 francs. 
The trick was soon discovered, and the bonds 
dropped to twenty-eight. — Cyclopedia op Bigg. 
p. 465. 

621. BOOK, A great Gift. Petrarch. [The 
first of Latin scholars in his day.] The mani- 
fold avocations of Petrarch, love and friendship, 
his various correspondence and frequent jour- 
neys, the Roman laurel, and his elaborate "com- 
positions in prose and verse, in Latin and Ital- 
ian, diverted him from a foreign idiom ; and as 
he advanced in life, tlie attainment of the Greek 
language was tlie object of his wishes rather than 
of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of 
age, a Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a 
master of both tongues, presented him with a 
copy of Homer ; and the answer of Petrarch is 
at once expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, 
and regret. After celebrating the generosity of 
the donor, and the value of a gift more precious 
in his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus 
proceeds: " Ycjur preserit of tlie genuine and 
original text of the divine poet, the fountain of 
all invention, is worthy of yourself and of me ; 
you have fulfilled your promise, and satisfied my 
desires. Yet your liberality is still imperfect; 
with Homer you .should have given me yourself 
—a guide who could lead me into the "fields of 
light, and disclose to my wondering eyes the 



specious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, 
alas ! Homer is dumb, or I am deaf ; nor is it in 
my power to enjoy the beauty wdiich I possess. 
I have seated him by the .side of Plato, the prince 
of poets near the prince of philosophers ; and I 
glory in the sight of my illustrious guests. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 66. 

622. BOOK, Undelivered. Samnel Johnson. He 
this year resumed his scheme of giving an edition 
of Shakespeare with notes. He issued proposals 
of considerable length, . . . but his indolence 
prevented him from pursuing it with that dili- 
gence which alone can collect those scattered 
facts, that genius, however acute, penetrating, 
and luminous, cannot discover by its OAvn force. 
. . . Yet nine years elapsed before it stiw the 
light. His throes in bringing it forth had been 
severe and remittent ; and atta.st we may almost 
conclude that the Ciesarean operation was per- 
formed by the knife of Churchill, whose upbraid- 
ing satire, I dare say, made Johnson's friends 
urge him to despatch. 

" He for subscribers baits his hook, 
And takes your cash ; but where's the book ? 
No matter where ; wise fear, you know, 
Forbids the robbing of a foe ; 
But what, to serve our private ends, 
Forbids the che<iting of our friends ?" 

— Boswell's Johnson, p. 85. 

623. BOOKS burned. By Hangman. [Dur- 
ing the reign of James II. and William III.] se- 
ditious, trea.sonable, and unlicensed books and 
pamphlets [were burned by the hangman at 
Charing Cross, by order of Parliament]. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 10, p. 158. 

624. BOOKS, Dearth of. England. An es- 
quire passed among his neighbors for a great 
scholar if Hudibras and Baker's Chronicle, Tarl- 
ton's Jests and the Seven Champions of Christen- 
dom lav in his hall window among the fishing- 
rods and fowling-pieces. No circuhiting library, 
no book society then existed even in the capital ; 
but in the capital those students who could not 
afford to purchase largely had a resource. The 
shops of the great booksellers, near Saint Paul's 
Churchyard, were crowded every day and all 
day long with readers, and a known customer 
was often permitted to carry a volume home. 
... As to the lady of the manor and her 
daughters, their literary stores generally con- 
sisted of a prayer-book and a receipt-book. . . . 
But during the latter part of the seventeenth 
centuiy, the culture of the female mind .seems 
to have been almost entirely neglected. If a 
damsel had the least smattering of literature, 
she was regarded as a prodigy. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 3. 

625. BOOKS, Divine. Zendatesta. To the first 
Zoroaster is attributed the composition of . the 
" Zendavesta," a collection of books which he 
pretended, like the Roman Xuma, to have re- 
ceived from heaven. These books he presented 
to his sovereign Gustashp, the King of Bactriana ; 
and confirmed their authority, and his own di- 
vine mission, hy performing, as is said, some 
very extraordinary miracles. Gustashp became 
a convert, and abjured, along with the greater 
part of his subjects, the worship of the stai-s, 
represented by several idols, which was then the 
prevalent religion of those countries, and v, ;i>* 



BOOKS— BOY. 



termed Sabaism. — Tttler's Hist., Book 1, 
ch. 11. 

626. BOOKS, Enchanted by. Washington Ir- 
ving. From his eleventh year he was passionate- 
ly fond of reading voyages and travels, a little 
library of which was witliin his reach ; and he 
used to secrete candles to enable him to read 
these transporting works in bed. The perusal of 
such books gave him a strong desire to go to sea, 
and at fourteen he had almost made up his mind 
to run away and be a sailor. But there was a 
difficulty in the way. He had a particular aver- 
sion to salt pork, which he endeavored to over- 
come by eating it at every opportunity. He also 
endeavored to accustom himself to a hard bed by 
sleeping on the floor of his room. Fortunately 
for the infant literature of his country, the pork 
grew more disgusting instead of less, and the hard 
floor became harder, until he gave up his pur- 
pose of trying a sailor's life. — Cyclopedia of 
Bigg., p. 719. 

627. BOOKS, Forbidden. Reign of Elizabeth. 
"Whereas divers books," ran a royal proclama- 
tion, "filled with heresy, sedition, and treason, 
have of late and be daily brought into the realm 
out of foreign countries and places beyond seas, 
and some also covertly printed within this realm 
and cast abroad in sundry parts thereof, where- 
by not only God is dishonored but also eocour- 
agement is given to disobey lawful princes and 
governors," any person possessing such books 
"shall be reported and taken for a rebel, and 
shall without delay be executed for that offence 
according to the order of martial law." — Hist. 
OF Eng. People, § 686. 

62§. BOOKS, Passion for. Dr. Harvey. [The 
famous Dr. Harvey was attending physician to 
Charles I. During the fight at Edgehill, at the 
commencement of the Revolution, he withdrew 
under a hedge, took a book out of his pocket 
and began to "read ; but he had not read long be- 
fore a bullet grazed the ground near him, and 
caused him to remove.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 4, 
ch. 1, p. 6. 

629. BOOKS, Publication of. Restricted. [In 
1662] the number of master printers in London 
was limited to twenty ; no books were allowed 
to be printed out of London, except at the two 
universities and at York ; and all unlicensed 
books were to be seized, and the publisher pun- 
ished with heavy penalties. — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 4, ch. 17. 

630. BOOKS rejected. By Publishers. Milton 
could with diflicult}' find a publisher for his 
" Paradise Lost ;" Crabbe's "Library" and other 
poems were refused by Dodsley, Beckett, and 
other London publishers, though ]Mr. Murray 
many years after purchased the copyright of 
them for £3000. Keats could only get a pub- 
lisher by the aid of his friends. ..." Robinson 
Crusoe " was refused by one publisher after an- 
other, and at last sold to an obscure bookseller 
for a trifle. . . . Bulwer's " Pelham" was at first 
rejected. . . . The " Vestiges of Creation " was 
repeatedly refused. Thackeray's ' ' Vanity Fair " 
was rejected by a magazine. "Mary Burton" 
and " Jane Eyre" went the round of the trade. 
Howard offered his "Book of the Seasons" to 
successive publishers. . . . " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 
could scarcely find a publisher in London. — 
Smiles' Brief Biographies, p. 506. 



631. BOOKS, Eeligious. Samuel Johnson. I 
fell into an inattention to religion, or an indiffer- 
ence about it, in my ninth year. The church at 
Lichfield, in which we had a seat, wanted repa- 
ration, so I was to go and find a seat in other 
churches ; and having bad eyes, and being awk- 
ward about tliis, I used to go and read in the 
fields on Sunday. This habit continued till my 
fourteenth year, and still I find a great reluc- 
tance to go to church. I then became a sort of 
lax talker against religion, for I did not much 
tliinkagamst. it ; and this lasted till I went to Ox- 
ford, where it would not be suffered. When at 
Oxford I took up Law's " Serious Call to a Holy 
Life," expecting to find it a dull book (as such 
books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. 
But I found Law quite an overmatch for me ; 
and this was the first occasion of my thinking in 
earnest of religion, after I became capable of 
rational inquiry. — Boswell's Johnson, p. 13. 

632. BOOKS, Scarcity of. Age of Charlemagne. 
The low state of literature may be figured from 
the extreme scarcity of books, the subjects on 
which they were written, and the very high es- 
timation wliicli was put upon them by those 
who possessed them. The gift of a trifling man- 
uscript to a monastery of the life of a saint was 
sufiicient to entitle the donor to the perpetual 
prayers of the brotherhood, and a mass to be cele 
brated forever for the salvation of his soul. A 
complete copy of the sacred Scriptures given to 
a cit}^ or State was esteemed a princely donation. 
The reputation of learning was then acquired at 
a very easy rate. Extracts from the different 
works of the Fathers literally transcribed, and 
often patched together without order or connec- 
tion, compose the valuable works of those lumi- 
naries and instructors of the age ; nothing was 
more common than those commentaries, called 
" Catenae," which were illustrations of some of 
the books of Scripture, by borrowing sentences 
successively from half a dozen of the Fathers, 
making each to illustrate a verse in his turn. — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 3. 

633. BOOTY, Division of. TrojanWar. The 
troops had no regular pay ; they served at their 
own charges alone. The levies were made by a 
general law obliging each family to furnish a 
soldier, under a certain penalty. The only rec- 
ompense for the service of individuals was their 
rated share of the booty, for none were al- 
lowed to plunder for themselves ; everything was 
brought into a common stock, and the division 
was made by the chiefs, who had a larger pro- 
portion for their share. — Tytler's Hist., Book 
1, ch. 8. 

634. BOY, An enchanted. David Crockett. [At 
Baltimore he saw a ship for the first time.] As 
he stood on the dock, gazing at the ship with open 
eyes and mouth, bewildered at the sight, one of 
the sailors accosted him and asked him if he 
would not like to go to Livei-pool. Forgetting 
his engagement with the wagoner, he joj-fully 
consented, and rushed off to the wagon to get 
his clothes, although ten minutes before he did 
not know that there was such a thing as a ship 
in the world. The wagoner positively refused 
to let him go. Watching his chance, however, 
he bundled up his clothes and started for the 
wharf ; but it so chanced that, in turning the cor- 
ner of a crowded street, he came full upo:: his 



7G 



BOY— BRAVERY. 



master, who collared him and brought him back. 
— Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 664. 

635. BOY, A precocious. Themistodes. [The- 
mistoclcs, the prudent general,] when a boy, 
was full of spirit and tire, quick of appre- 
hension, naturally inclined to bold attempts, and 
likely to make a great statesman. His hours of 
k-isure and vacation he spent, not, like other boys, 
in idleness and play ; but he was always invent- 
ing and composin* declamations, the svibjects of 
wiiich were either the impeachment or defence 
of some of his school-fellows ; so that his master 
would often say: "Boy, you will be nothmg 
common or indifferent; you will either be a 
blessing or a curse to the community."— Plu- 
tarch. ^ 

636. . The JVew England Courant. 

A.D. 1721. Benjamin [Franklin] ... a boy of 
fifteen who wrote pieces for its humble columns, 
worked in composing the types, as well as in 
printing off the sheets, and himself, as car- 
rier, distributed the papers to customers.— Ban- 
croft's U. S., vol. 3, ch. 23. 

637. BOY, A reformed. David Crockett. [He 
ran away from home, and after two years' ab- 
sence he returned on a winter eve. He had a 
joyful welcome.] He now set at work in earnest 
to assist his old father, to whom he had not given 
much help or comfort hitherto. By six months' 
liard work he paid one of his father's debts, 
which had caused the old man much anxiety. 
Then he worked six months more to cancel a 
note of $30 which his father had given, and 
y)rought it to his father as a present. Next he 
Avent to work for sundry other months, imtil he 
had provided himself with a supply of decent 
clothes. He was now nearly twenty years of age, 
and being much mortitied with his inability to 
read or write, he made a bargain with a Quaker 
schoolmaster, agreeing to work two daj's on the 
Quaker's farm for every three that he attended 
his school. He picked up knowledge rapidly, 
and after six months of this arrangement he 
could read, write, and cipher sufficiently well for 
the ordinary purposes of life on the frontier. — 
Cyclopedia of Biog. , p. 665. 

63S. BOY, Eunaway. Benjamin Franklin. 
a. d. 1723. Vexed with the arbitrary proceedings 
of the [Massachusetts] assembly [which required 
his brother's paper to be supervised] . . . indig- 
nant also at the tyranny of a brother who, as a 
passionate master, often beat his apprentice . . . 
but seventeen years old, sailed clandestinely for 
New York ; and, finding there no employment, 
crossed to Amboy ; went on foot to the Dela- 
ware ; for want of a wind rowed in a boat from 
Burlington to Philadelphia ; and bearing the 
marks of his labor at the oar, weary, hungry, 
having ... a single dollar . . . the runaway 
apprentice — greatest of the sons of New England 
of that generation . . . stepped on shore to seek 
food, occupation, shelter, and fortune. — Ban- 
croft's U. S., vol. 3, ch. 23. 

63 J>. BOY, A "scientific." Robert Stephenson. 
Occasionally Robert experimented . . . upon 
the cows in Wigham's enclosure, which he elec- 
trified by means of his electric kite, making them 
run about the field with their tails on "end.— 
Smiles' Brief Biographies, p. 57. 

640. BOYHOOD, Dull. Olirer Goldsmith. Ol- 
iver' * education began when he was about 



three years old— that is to say, he was gathered 
under the wings of one of those good old mother- 
ly dames, found in every village, who cluck 
together the whole callow brood of the neighbor- 
hood, to teach them their letters and keep them 
out of harm's way. . . . Apparently he did not 
much profit by it, for she confessed he was one 
of the dullest boys she had ever dealt with, in- 
somuch that she had sometimes doubted whether 
it was possible to make anything of him : a 
common case with imaginative children, who 
are apt to be beguiled from the dry abstractions 
of elementary study by the picturings of the 
fancy. — Irving's Goldsmith, p. 15. 

641. BOYHOOD, Humble. Piznrro. In for- 
mer times the farmers of Spain let their pigs 
roam in large droves in the forests, attended by 
a boy, who kept them from wandering too far, 
and drove them at night to an enclosure near 
home. Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, was one 
of these pig-tenders when Columbus discovered 
America in 1492. He was then seventeen years 
of age — a rude, tough, wilful lad, ignorant of 
everything except the manners and customs of 
the animals he drove. To his dying day he 
could not write his name or read a .sentence. . . . 
Here was a strange piece of timber to make a 
conqueror of — a swineherd, an illegitimate son, 
ignorant, living in a secluded region, and re- 
garded by his own father as the meanest of his 
servants. — Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 823. 

642. BOYHOOD, Ingenuity in. Sir Imae New- 
i/m. His favorite iihiythings were little saws, 
hammers, chisels, and "hatchets, with which he 
made many curious and ingenious machines. 
There was a windmill in course of erection near 
his home. He watched the workmen with the 
greatest interest, and constructed a small model 
of the mill, which, one of his friends said, was 
" as clean and curious a piece of workmanship 
as the original." He was dissatisfied, however, 
with his mill, because it would not work when 
there was no wind ; and therefore he added to 
it a contrivance by which it could be kept in 
motion by a mouse. He made a water-clock, 
the motive-power of which Avas the dropping of 
water on a wheel. ... He constructed also a 
four-wheeled carriage, propelled by the person 
sitting in it. To amuse his schoolfellows, he 
made verj' ingenious kites, to the tails of which 
he attached lanterns of crimpled paper, which, 
being lighted by a candle, and sent up in the 
evening, alarmed the rustics of the parish. Ob- 
serving the shadows of the sun, he marked the 
hours and half hours by driving in pegs on the 
.side of the house, and at length perfected the 
sun-dial which is still shown. — Parton's New- 
ton, p. 75. 

643. BRAVERY in Battle. Permans. [When 
the Romans besieged and captured Petra they 
were met by valiant men.] Of the Persian gar- 
rison, 700 perished in the siege, 2300 .survived to 
defend the breach. One thousand and .seventy 
were destroyed with fire and sword in the last 
assault ; and if 730 were made prisoners, only 18 
among them were found without the marks 
of honorable wounds. The remaining 500 es- 
caped into the citadel, which they maintained 
without any hopes of relief, rejecting the fairest 
terms of capitulation and service, till they were 
lost in the flames. They died in obedience to the 



BRAVERY. 



i i 



commands of their prince. 
ch. 42. 



Gibbon's Rome, 



644. 



20,000 against 400,000. 



[When the I'rench and Venetian crusaders had 
taken the suburbs of Constantinople, their zeal 
was fired for greater heroism.] By these daring 
achievements, a remnant of 20,000 Latins solicit- 
ed the license of besieging a capital which con- 
tained above 400,000 inhabitants, able, though 
not willing, to bear arms in defence of their coun- 
try. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 60. 

645. BRAVERY, Brilliant. PaulJones. [At 
"Whitehaven the harbor contained 300 vessels.] 
At daybreak, with two boats and thirty-one 
men, he landed on a wharf of the town, pro- 
vided with a lantern and two tar-barrels. He 
went alone to a fort defending the town, and, 
finding it deserted, climbed over the wall, and 
spiked every gun, ^vithout alarming the gar- 
rison, who were all asleep in the guard-house 
near bj\ Then he surrounded the guard-house, 
and took every man prisoner. Next, he sprang 
into the only other fort remaining, and spiked 
its guns. All this, which was the work of ten 
minutes, was accomplished without noise and 
without resistance. The ships being then at 
his mercy, he made a bonfire in the steerage of 
one of them, which blazed up through the 
hatchway, while Jones and his men stood by, 
pistol in hand, to keep off the people, whom the 
flames had alarmed, and who now came run- 
ning down to the shore in hundreds. To the 
forts ! was the cry. But the forts were harm- 
less. When the fire had made such headway 
that the destruction of the whole fleet seemed 
certain. Captain Jones gave the order to embark. 
He was the last to take his place in the boat. 
He moved off leisurely from the shore, and re- 
gained his ship without the loss of a man. The 
people, however, succeeded in confining the fire 
to two or three ships. But the whole coast was 
panic-stricken. Every able-bodied man joined 
the companies of patrolmen. It was many a 
month before the inhabitants of that shore went 
to sleep at night without a certain dread of Paul 
Jones. — Cyclopedia of Bigg., p. 335. 

646. BRAVERY in Death. ' Colonel Fi^ank Mc- 
CullougJi. [This Confederate guerrilla was cfipt- 
ured in Missouri by the Union armj'.] A court- 
martial was held, and he was sentenced to be 
shot. . . . He received the information of his fate 
with perfect composure, but protested against it. 
Leaning against the fence, he wrote a few lines 
to his wife. These, with his watch, he delivered 
to the officer to be given to her. Upon the way 
to his execution, he requested the privilege to 
give the command to fire, which was granted. 
All being ready, he said : " What I have done, 
I have done as a principle of right. Aim at the 
heart. Fire !" — Pollard's Second Year op 
THE War, ch. 6, p. 173. 

64T. BRAVERY, Example of. Xapoleon I. 
[In the terrible reverses which followed Napo- 
leon, he met the Allies at Arcis.] A, live shell 
having fallen in front of one of his'young bat- 
talions, which recoiled and wavered in expecta- 
tion of an explosion, Napoleon, to reassure them, 
spurred his charger toward the instrument of de- 
struction, made him smell the burning match, 
waited unshaken for the explosion, and was 
blown up. Rolling in the dust with his mutilated 



steed, and rising without a wound amid the plau- 
dits of his soldiers, he calmly called for another 
horse, and continued to brave the grape-shot, and 
to fly into the thickest of the battle. — Abbott's 
Napoleon B. , vol. 2, ch. 20. 

64§. BRAVERY, Exploit of. Bridge of Lodi. 
a.d. 1796. Lannes was the first to cross, and 
Napoleon the second. Lannes, in utter reck- 
le.s.sne.ss and desperation, spurred his maddened 
horse into the very midst of the Austrian ranks, 
and gra.sped a banner. At that moment his horse 
fell dead beneath him, and half a dozen swords 
glittered above his head. With herculean 
strength and agility, he extricated himself from 
the fallen steed, leaped upon the horse of an 
Au.strian officer behind the rider, plunged his 
sword through the body of the officer, and hurled 
hirh from his saddle ; taking his seat he fought 
his way back to his followers, having slain in 
the melee six of the Austrians with his own 
hand. . . . Napoleon promoted Lannes on the 
spot. — Abbott's Napoleon B., vol. 1, ch. 5. 

649. BRAVERY, Fearless. William II. In 
1099 William was hunting in the New Forest, 
when he received a message that Helie had de- 
feated the Normans and surprised the city of 
Mans. Without drawing bit he galloped to the 
coast, and jumped into a vessel lying at anchor. 
The da}" was stormy, and the sailors were unwill- 
ing to embark. ' ' Sail instantlj- !" cried the bold 
man ; "kings are never drowned." . . . He was 
soon at the head of his troops. — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 1, ch. 16, p. 230. 

650. . Colonel Moultrie, a.d. 1776. 

[The British, under Admiral Lord Howe, were 
preparing to bombard the battery on Sullivan's 
Island in Charleston harbor, afterward called 
Fort Moultrie. Ten guns against one.] Captain 
Lemprier [said to the commander :] " Well, col- 
onel, what do you think of it now ?" " We shall 
beat them," said Moultrie. " The men-of-war," 
rejoined the captain, "will knock your fort 
down in half an hour." " Then," .said Moultrie, 
' ' we will lie behind the ruins and prevent their 
men from landing." [He drove the British 
away with a loss of only eleven men.] — Ban- 
croft's U. S., vol. 8, ch. 66. 

651. BRAVERY, Heroic. Bohert Bevereux. 
[At the taking of Cadiz by the English in 1.596, 
for a time theresult seemed doubtful : but at the 
critical moment the Earl of Essex threw his own 
standard over the wall. To save the honor of 
the ensign, each soldier tried to be first in follow- 
ing it by leaping down from the wall, sword in 
hand. The town was taken by their valor.] — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 17, p. 266. 

652. . Bichard Grenville. [In 1593 

Vice- Admiral Richard Grenville, with great odds 
against him, fought the Indian fleet of Spain from 
three in the afternoon to daybreak the next 
morning. He] was three times wounded during 
the action, in which he again and again repulsed 
the enemy, who con.stantly assailed him with 
fresh vessels. At length the good ship lay upon 
the waters like a log. Her captain proposed to 
l)low her up rather than surrender ; but the ma- 
jority of the crew compelled him to jield him- 
.self a prisoner. He died in a few days, and his 
last words were : "Here die I, Richard Gren- 
ville, with a joj-ful and quiet mind; for that 



78 



BRAVERY— BRIBERY. 



I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to 
do, fighting for his country, queen religion, and 
honoi*"— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 17, p. 261. 

653. BRAVERY, Pre-eminence by. Joan of 
Arc Joan of Arc, " an enthusiast herself, she 
filled a dispirited soldiery and a despairing peo- 
ple with enthusiasm. The great secret of her 
success was the boldness of her attacks, when 
military science reposed upon its cautious strat- 
egy."— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 6, p. 87. 

654. BRA"VERY, Query of. Lacedmmonians. 
[It was remarked by] one of their ancient kings : 
" The LacediEmonians seldom inquired the num- 
ber of their enemies, but the place where they 
could be found."— Plutarch's Cleomenes. 

655. BRAVERY rewarded. Paradise. [Dur- 
ino- a fierce battle with the Khoreishites] Ma- 
homet was seized with a sudden fainting which 
deprived him of his senses. He soon recovered 
from the swoon with a face all radiant with hope. 
" I have seen the Spirit of God," said he, "with 
his war-horse behind him. He was preparing to 
combat on our side. Whoever shall have fought 
bravely to-day and died of wounds received in 
front will enjoy Paradise."— Lamartine's Tur- 
key, p. 108. 

656. BRAVERY, Youthful. Eeign of James 
II. One of the proscribed Covenanters, over- 
come by sickness, had found shelter in the 
house of a respectable widow, and had died 
there. The corpse was discovered by the laird 
of Westerhall, a petty tyrant. . . . This man 
pulled down the house of the poor woman, car- 
ried away her furniture, and, leaving her and 
her younger children to wander in the fields, 
dragged her son Andrew, who was still a lad, 
before Claverhouse, who hap]:)ened ^o be march- 
ing through that part of the country. Claver- 
house was that day strangely lenient. . . But Wes- 
terhall was eager to signalize his loyaltj^ and ex- 
torted a sullen consent. The guns were loaded, 
and the youth was told to pull his bonnet over 
his face. He refused, and stood confronting his 
murderers with the Bible in his hand. " I can 
look you in the face," he said ; " I have done 
nothing of which I need be ashamed. But how 
will you look in that day when you shall be 
judged by what is written in this book ?" He 
fell dead, and was buried in the moor. — Macau- 
lay's Eng. , ch. 4. 

657. BREAD, Puhlic Provision of. Bomans. 
[During the decline of the Roman Empire,] for 
the convenience of the lazy plebeians, the 
monthly distributions of corn were converted 
into a daily allowance of bread ; a great number 
of ovens were constnicted and maintained at the 
public expense ; and at the appointed hour each 
citizen, who was furnished with a ticket, as- 
cended the flight of steps, which had been as- 
signed to his peculiar quarter or division, and 
received, either as a gift or at a very low price, 
a loaf of bread of the weight of three pounds, 
for the use of his family. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 31. 

65§. BREAD Question, The. Precedence to. 
[During the French Revolution hundreds of 
market-women, attended by an armed mob of 
men, went to Versailles, to demand bread of the 
National Assembly, there being a great destitu- 
tion in Paris. They entered the hall.] There 



was a discussion upon the criminal laws. A fish- 
woman cried out, " Stop that babbler; that is 
not the question ; the question is about bread." 
—Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 9, p. 179. 

659. BREVITY, Famous. Julius Ccesar. In 
the account he gave Amintius, one of his friends . 
in Rome, of the rapidity and despatch with 
which he gained his victory, he made use only 
of three words, " I came, I saw, I conquered." 
Their having all the same form and termination 
in the Roman language adds grace to their con- 
ciseness. — Plutarch's C^sar. 

660. BRIBERY, Contemned. Sir Isaac Neio- 
ton. The duties of his oflice were performed by 
him [in the royal mint] with signal ability and pu- 
rity. He was offered on one occasion a bonus of 
£6000 for a contract for the coinage of the cop- 
per money. Sir Isaac refused the ofi'er on the 
ground that it was a bribe in disguise. The 
agent argued the matter with him without effect, 
and said, at length, that the offer came from " a 
great duchess." Tlie i)lulosopher roughly replied, 
"I desire you to tell the lady that if she was 
here herself, and had made me this offer, I would 
have desired her to go out of my house ; and so 
I desire you, or you shall be turned out." — Par- 
ton's Newton, j). 8."). 

661. BRIBERY in Court. For a Hearing. 
[The Magna Charta] jtut an end to that enor- 
mous corruption by which justice was sold, not 
by mere personal "bribery of corrupt mini-sters 
of the Crown, but by briliing the Crown through 
their hands. The rolls of tlie Exclunjuer present 
constant evidence of sums of money received by 
the king to procure a hearing in his courts. — 
Knight, vol. 1, ch. 24, p. 349. 

662. BRIBERY, Disguised. England. [Ve- 
nality was never carried farther. ]\Ir. Hallam 
says :] " The sale of seats in Parliament, like any 
other transferable property, is never mentioned 
in any book that I remember to have seen of an 
earlier date than 1760." Bribery in the approved 
form of selling a pair of jack-boots fcr 30 guin- 
eas, and a pair of wash-leather l)reeches for £50, 
was notorious enough to be lauglied at by Foote. 
Dr. Jolinson held that " if he were a gentleman 
of landed property, he Avould turn out all his ten- 
ants who did not' vote for tlie candidate whom 
he .supported." — Knight's Eng., vol. 6, ch. 16, 
p. 247. 

663. BRIBERY, Legislative. £'mQforaVoU. 
[In the Irish Parliament, in 1800, there was a 
great contest in bribery. Lord Castlereagh 
writes to the Duke of Portland :] We have un- 
doubted proofs, though not such as we can dis- 
close, that they are enabled to offer as high as 
£5000 for an individual vote, and I lament to 
state that there are individuals remaining 
among us that are likely to yield to this temp- 
tation"— Knight's Eng., vol .'7, ch. 21, p. 378. 

664. . Commons. [In 1643 Ed- 
mund Waller, once a famous poet and member 
of Parliament, was arrested as a conspirator 
in a i>lot to bring tiie king's troops into the 
capita! during the civil war. Aubrey says :] He 
had much ado to save his life ; and in order 
to do it sold his estate in Bedfordshire, worth 
£1300 per annum, to Dr. Wright, for £10,000 
(much under value), which was procured in 
twenty-four hovu's' time, or else lie had been 



BRIBERY 



79 



hanged. "With this money lie bribed the House, 
which was tlie first time a House of Commons 
was ever bribed. — Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 1. 

665. . Scotch Parliameni. [In 1712 

Lord Oxford said] the Scotch lords w^ere grown 
so extravagant in their demands, that it was 
high time to let them see they were not so 
much wanted as they imagined, for they were 
now come to expect a reward for every vote 
Ihcv gave. — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 24, 
p. 380: 

666. . Necessary. [In 1690] Sir 

John Trevor, being a Tory in principle, under- 
took to manage that party, provided he was fur- 
nished with such sums of money as might pur- 
chase some votes ; and by him began the practice 
of buying oflP men. The king [William III.] 
said he hated the practice as much as any man 
could do ; but he saw it was not possible, consid- 
ering the corruption of the age, to avoid it, un- 
less he would endanger the whole. — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 5, ch. 7, p. 102. 

667. . Duke of Newcastle. [The 

Duke of Newcastle, one of the chief advisers of 
George II. in 1747,] was the most adroit and ex- 
perienced trafficker for seats in the House of 
Commons. He bought boroughs with a profuse 
employment of his own wealth, tliat made his 
family power almost irresistible. He bought 
members with the secret-service mone}^ He 
cajoled ; he promised ; and if wheedling and ly- 
ing were in vain, he f reelj^ paid. This was New- 
castle's peculiar talent. He hugged the dirty 
work to his bosom as if it were the great glory 
of his life. He would share with no man the 
distinction of bribing for votes. — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 6, ch. 12, p. 178. 

668. .BRIBERY of the Needy. For Bmperor. 
[In 1519, Avlien the electors of Germany voted 
for an emperor in place of Maximilian, de- 
ceased, Henry VIII. of England, Francis I. 
of France, and Charles of Spain were all ambi- 
tious candidates for the vacant throne.] Each 
of these monarchs had Imbed the needy electoral 
princes to an enormous extent. Tlie skilful 
management of Charles secured his unanimous 
election. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 17, p. 231. 

669. BRIBERY, Occasion for. S7naU Pay. 
The comptroller of the mint [who was a priest] 
was usually a jobber of the rankest character. 
And all the civil-officers were underpaid in their 
salaries. They all looked to grants and leases 
for their reward ; and they all lived upon some- 
thing even better than expectancy, for they all 
were bribed. The secondary offices were openly 
l)ought. There was small pay, but large pecu- 
lation. It was in vain that Latimer cried out to 
the young King Edward, " Such as be meet to 
bear office, seek them out ; hire them ; give them 
competent and liberal fees, that they shall not 
need to take any bribes. "... The high places 
of the law were those in which the bribe was 
most regularly administered. When Bacon fell 
in the next half century, for receiving bribes, he 
followed the most approved precedents, accord- 
ing to which chancellors and chief-justices be- 
fore him maintained their state and ennobled 
their posterity. . . . The bribery of juries w^ns 
so common, that a man-killer with rich friends 
could escape for a crown properly administered 
to each quest-monger ; for so the vendor of a 



verdict was called, [a.d. 1547.] — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 2, ch. 28, p. 462. 

670. BRIBERY, Papal. Alexander VI. Ap- 
plication was made to the Pope for a divorce [of 
Charles XII. from Jeanne his wife] ; and Alex- 
ander, who was not a man to hesitate at any in- 
famy, provided he obtained his price, readily 
agreed to pronounce the desired sentence in re- 
turn for certain honors and rewards to be con- 
ferred upon his son Cicsar Borgia. — Students' 
France, ch. 13, § l,p. 283. 

671. BRIBERY, Perilous, Athenians. The sa- 
cred war hud now lasted about ten years ; and 
every campaign had given a fresh acquisition of 
power to the daring and the politic Macedonian. 
The Athenians, finding no advantage on their 
part, and heartily tired of hostilities, which gave 
too much interruption to their favoiite ease 
and luxurious enjoyments, sent ambassadors to 
Philip with instructions to negotiate a general 
peace. But he bribed the ambassadors, spun 
out the negotiations, and in the mean time pro- 
ceeded in the most vigorous prosecution of the 
war. This conduct might have opened the eyes 
of the Athenians, had not their corrupted ora- 
tors, the pensioners of Philip, labored assidu- 
ously to foster their blind security. . . . Philip 
poured down like a torrent and carried all be- 
fore him. . . . Philip became the arbiter of 
Greece. — Tytler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 3. 

672. BRIBERY, Reproach' of. Demosthenes. 
Harjjalus had the charge of Alexander's treas- 
ure in Babylon, and, flattering himself that he 
would never return from his Indian expedition, 
he gave into all manner of crimes and excesses. 
At last, when he found that Alexander was 
really returning, and that he took a severe ac- 
count of such people as himself, he thought prop- 
er to march off, with 5000 talents and 6000 men, 
into Attica. [Note.] ... As he applied to the 
people of Athens for shelter, and desired protec- 
tion . . . most of the orators had an eye upon the 
gold, and supported his application with all their 
interest. Demosthenes at first advised them to or- 
der Harpalus off immediately, and to be particu- 
larly careful not to involve the city in war again, 
without any just or necessary cause. Yet a few 
days after, when they were taking an account 
of the treasure, Harpalus, perceiving that De- 
mosthenes was much pleased with one of the 
king's cups, and stood admiring the workman- 
ship and fashion, desired him to take it in his 
hand, and feel the weight of the gold. Demos- 
thenes being .surprised at the weight, and asking 
Harpalus how much it might bring, he smiled, 
and said, "It will bring jou twenty talents." 
And as soon as it was niglit, he sent him the 
cup with that sum. For Harpalus knew well 
enough how to distinguish a man's passion for 
gold by his pleasure at the sight and the keen 
looks he cast upon it. Demosthenes could not re- 
sist the temptation ... he received the money . . . 
and went over to the interest of Harpalus. Next 
day he came into the assembly with a quantity 
of wool and bandages about his neck ; and when 
the people called upon him to get up and speak, 
he made signs that he had lost his voice. Upon 
which some that were by said, " it was no com- 
mon hoarseness that he got in the night ; it was 
a hoarseness occasioned by swallowing gold and 
silver." Afterward, wheai all the people were 



80 



BRIBERY— BUILDING. 



appraised of his taking the bribe, and he wanted 
to speak in his own defence, they would not 
suffer him, but raised a clamor, and expressed 
their indignation. At the same time somebody 
or other stood up and said sneeringly, "Will 
you not listen to the man with the cup ?"— Pltj- 

TAKCII. 

673. BRIBERY resented. Stephen A. Douglas. 
Ills career in Congress presents a strange mixt- 
ure of good and evil. I believe that he was 
an iucoiTuptil)le man, though no one ever had 
more or better chances to gain money unlaw- 
fully. Once when he was confined to his room 
by an abscess, he was waited upon by a million- 
aire, who offered to give him a deed for two 
and a half million acres of land, now worth 
$20,000,000, if he would merely give up a cer- 
tain document. " I jumped for my crutches," 
Douglas used to say in telling the story ; " he 
ran from the room, and I gave him a parting 
blow upon the head." — Cyclopedia of Bigg., 
p. 200. 

674. BRIBERY, Royal. Charles II. The long 
prorogation of the Parliament in November, 
1675, was a specific arrangement between 
Charles [II.] and Louis [XIV.], for which the 
unworthy King of England received 500,000 
crowns [from the King of France.] — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 4, ch. 20. 

675. BRIBERY, Seeming. Reign of Charles II. 
[Louis XIV. sent corruption money to England.] 
The most upright member of the country partj', 
William, Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bed- 
ford, did not scruple to concert with a foreign 
mission schemes for embarrassing his own sover- 
eign. This was the whole extent of Russell's 
offence. His principles and his fortune alike 
raised him above all temptations of a .sordid 
kind ; but there is too much reason to believe 
that some of his associates were less scrupulous. 
It would be unjust to impute to them the ex- 
treme wickedness of taking bribes to injure their 
country. On the contrary, thej^ meant to serve 
her ; but it is impossible to deny that they were 
mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign 
prince pay them for serving her. — Macaulay's 
Exg., ch. 2. 

676. BRIBES rejected. Samuel Adams. 
'• Why," asked one of the English Tories of the 
Tory governor of Massachusetts— " why hath 
not Mr. Adams been taken off from his opposi- 
tion by an office ? " To which the governor re- 
plied : " Such is the obstinacy and inflexible 
disposition of the man, that he never would be 
conciliated by any office whatever." This was 
indeed the truth. His daughter, who long sur- 
vived him, and with whom living persons have 
conversed, used to say that her father once 
refused a pension from the British Govern- 
ment of £2000 a year. Once, when a se- 
cret messenger from General Gage threatened 
him with a trial for treason if he persisted in 
his opposition to the government, and promised 
him honors and wealth if he would desist, 
Adams rose to his feet, and gave him this an- 
swer : " Sir, I trust I liave long since made mv 
peace with the King of kings. No personal 
consideration .shall induce me to abandon the 
righteous cause of my country. Tell Governor 
Gage it is the advice of Samuel Adams to him 



no longer to insult the feelings of an exasper- 
ated people." — Cyclopedia of Bigg., p. 236. 

677. BROTHERHOOD acknowledged. Ameri- 
can Indians. Tliey hold the bonds of brother- 
hood so dear, that a brother commonly pays the 
debt of a deceased brother, and assumes his re- 
venge and his perils. There are no beggars, 
among them, no fatherless children unprovided 
for. The families that dwell together, hunt to- 
gether, roam together, fight together, con.stitute 
a tribe. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 3, ch. 22. 

678. BROTHERS, Division between, Romulus 
and Remus. [In the founding of Rome the] two 
brothers first differed about the place where 
their new city was to be built, and referring the 
matter to their grandfather, he ad'vised them to 
have it decided by augury. In this augury 
Romulus imposed upon Remus ; and when the 
former prevailed that tlie city should be built 
upon Mount Palatine, the buildei-s, being divided 
into two companies, were no better than two 
factions. At last, Remus, in contempt, leaped 
over the work, and said, "Just .so will the 
enemy leap over it !" whereupon Celer gave him 
a deadly blow, and answered, " In this manner 
■will our citizens repulse the enemy." Some 
say that Romulus was so afHictcd at the death 
ofhis brother, that he would have laid violent 
hands upon himself if he had not been pre- 
vented. — Plutarch's Romulfs. 

679. BRUTALITY of Persecutors. Dr. Roir- 
land Taylor. [At the .stake] he would hare 
spoken to them, but the guard thrust a tip- 
staff into his mouth. As they were piling the 
fagots, a brutal man cast a fagot at him, which 
wounded him so that the blood ran down his 
face. "O friend," said he, "I have harm 
enough ; what need that ?" Let us draw a veil 
over his sufferings, and see only the poor wom 
an [his wife] who knelt at the stake to join in 
his prayers, and would not be driven away. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 6. 

6§0. BRUTES, Immortality of. Samuel John- 
son. An essay, written l)y Mr. Deane, a divine 
of the Church of England, maintaining the 
future life of brutes, by an explication of cer- 
tain parts of the Scriptures, was mentioned, and 
the doctrine insisted on bj' a gentleman who 
seemed fond of curious speculation. . . . When 
the poor speculatist, with a serious metaphysi- 
cal pensive face, addressed him, " But real- 
ly, .sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we 
don't know what to think of him." John.son, 
rolling with joy at the thought which beamed 
in his eye, turned quickly round, and replied, 
"True, sir; and when we see a very foolish 
fellow, we don't know what to think of Mm." — 
Bgswell's Johnson, p. 1.55. 

6§1. BUILDING, Colossal. Colo.^eum. The 
amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved 
the epithet of colossal, . . . was a building of an 
elliptic figure, five hundred and sixty-four feet 
in length^ and four hundred and sixty-.seven in 
breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising, 
with four successive orders of architecture, to the 
height of one hundred and forty feet. The out- 
side of the edifice was incrusted with marl)le, 
and decorated with statues. The slopes of I he 
vast concave which formed the inside were filled 
and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of 



BUILDING— BURIAL. 



81 



seats of marble likewise, covered with cushions, 
and capable of receiving with ease about four- 
score thousand spectators. Sixty-four Tomitories 
(for by that name the doors were very aptljr dis- 
tinguished) poured forth the immense multitude ; 
and the entrances, passages, and staircases were 
contrived with such exquisite skill, that each 
person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, 
or the plebeian order.arrived at his destined place 
without trouble or confusion. Nothing was 
omitted which, in any respect, could be subser- 
vient to the convenience and pleasure of the 
spectators. They were protected from the sun 
and rain by an ample canopy, occasionally 
drawn over their heads. The air was continu- 
ally refreshed by the playing of fountains, and 
profusely impregnated by the grateful scent 
of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice the 
arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, 
and successively assumed the most different 
forms. At one moment it seemed to rise out of 
the earth, like the garden of the Hesperides, 
and was afterward broken into the rocks and 
caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes 
conveyed an inexhaustible supply of water ; and 
what had just before appeared a level plain 
might be suddenly conveated into a wide lake 
covered with armed vessels and replenished with 
monsters of the deep. [Furniture of silver, and 
of gold, and of amber.] — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 
12. 

682. BUILDING opposed. Reign of James IT. 
[During the Duke of Slonmouth's rebellion in the 
West] the commons authorized the king to raise 
an extraordinary sum of £400,000 for his present 
necessities. . . . The scheme of taxing houses 
lately built in the capital was revived and strenu- 
ously supported by the country gentlemen. It 
was resolved, not only that such houses should 
be taxed, but that a bill should be brought in pro- 
hibiting the laying of any new foundations with- 
in the bills of mortality. The resolution, how- 
ever, was not carried into effect. Powerful men 
who had land in the suburbs, and who hoped to 
see new streets and squares rise on their estates, 
exerted all their influence against the project. — 
Macaulay's Eng., ch. 5. 

6§3. BUILDING, Ruiuedby. Marcus Crassus. 
Crassus observed how liable the city was to fires, 
and how frequently houses fell down ; which 
misfortunes were owing to the w^eight of the 
buildings, and their standing so close together. 
In consequence of this, he provided himself with 
slaves who were carpenters and masons, and 
went on collecting them until he had upward of 
five hundred. Then he made it his business to 
buy houses that were on fire, and others that 
joined upon them ; and he commonly had them 
at a low price, by reason of the fears and distress 
the owners were in about the event. Hence, in 
time, he became master of a great part of Rome. 
But though he had so many workmen, he built 
no more for himself than one house in which he 
lived. For he used to say, " That those who 
love building will soon ruin them.selves, and 
need no other enemies." — Pi,uTARcn's Crassus. 

6§4. BURIAL, Companions in. White Huns. 
Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizme, 
has since enjoyed a temporary splendor, was the 
residence of the king, who exercised a legal 
authority over an obedient people. . . . The only 



vestige of their ancient barbarism was the cus- 
tom which obliged all the companions, perhaps 
to the number of twenty, who had shared the lib- 
erality of a wealthy lord, to 1)e buried alive in 
the same grave. — Gibbox's Rome, ch. 26. 

685. BURIAL questioned. Cromwell's. They 
give him a magnificent funeral in the old Abbey, 
where they had buried Blake and the Protector's 
mother. But when Charles Stuart returned, the 
bodies were taken iip and l)uried at Tyburn, 
the head of C?romwell exposed over Westminster 
llall. The dastards and the fools ! But, after 
all, it is not certain that the body buried in the 
Abbey was his body. In a rare old volume we 
have — one hundred and sixty years old — it is con- 
fidently asserted, on the authority of the mirse 
of Cromwell, that he was privately ])uried by 
night in the Thames, in order to avert the in- 
dignities which It was foreseen would be 
wreaked on his body ; and this by his own direc- 
tion. Other rumors assign another spot to his 
burial. Ah well ! it matters little. We know 
where his work is, and how far that is buried. 
We see him standing there, ushering in a new 
race of English kings. — Hood's Cromwell, p. 
227. 

686. BURIAL, Respect by. Battlefield. Nicias 
happened to leave the bodies of two of his men, 
wdio wei'e missed in carrying off the dead. But 
as soon as he knew it, he stopped his course, and 
sent a herald to the enemj-, to ask leave to take 
away those bodies. This he did, though there 
was a law and custom subsisting by which 
those who desire a treaty for carrying olf the 
dead give up the victory, and are not at liberty 
to erect a trophy. And, indeed, those who are 
so far masters of the field, that the enemy can- 
not bury their dead without permission, appear 
to be conquerors, because no man would ask 
that as a favor which he could command. 
Nicias, however, chose rather to lose his laurels 
than to leave two of his countrymen unburied. 
— Plutarch. 

687. BURIAL, Secreted. Alaric. The fero- 
cious character of the barbarians [who invaded 
Italy] was displayed in the funeral of a hero 
whose valor and fortune they celebrated with 
mournful applause. By the labor of a captive 
multitude, they forcibly diverted the course of 
the Busentinus, a small river that washes the 
walls of Consentia. The royal sepluchre, adorn- 
ed with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, 
was constructed in the vacant bed ; the waters 
were then restored to their natural channel ; and 
the secret spot where the remains of Alaric had 
been deposited was forever concealed by the in- 
human massacre of the prisoners who had been 
employed to execute the work. — Gibbon's 
Rome., ch. 88. 

688. BURIAL, A Tyrant's. Attila. [He died 
suddenl}^, from tlie bursting of an artery.] His 
body was solemnl}' exposed in the midst of the 
plain, under a silken pavilion ; and the chosen 
squadrons of the Huns, wheeling round in meas- 
ured evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the 
memory of a hero, glorious in his life, invincible 
in his death, the father of his people, the scourge 
of his enemies, and the terror of the world.. Ac- 
cording to their national custom, the barbarians 
cut off a part of their hair, gashed their faces 
with unseemly wounds, and bewailed their v.i- 



82 



BUSINESS— CALMNESS. 



liant leader as he deserved, not with the tears 
of women, but with the blood of warriors. The 
remains of Attila were enclosed within three 
coftins— of gold, of silver, and of iron— and 
privately buried in the night ; the spoils of na- 
tions were thrown into his grave ; the captives 
who had opened the ground Avere inhumanly 
massacred ; and the same Huns, who liad in- 
dulged such excessive grief, feasted, with disso- 
lute and intemperate mirth, about the recent 
sepulchre of their king.— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 
35. 

6§9. BUSINESS detested. James Watt. He 
was timid and reserved ... he hated higgling, 
and declared that he would rather "face a 
loaded cannon than settle an account or make a 
bargain." — Smiles' Brief Biographies, p. 33. 

690. BUSINESS, Joys of. Chauncey Jerome. 
[The famous brass clockmaker was made al- 
most dizzy, early in his career,] by an order from 
South Carolina for twelve clocks. When he 
finished his clocks and was conveying them to 
the appointed place in a farmer's wagon, he was 
perfectly bewildered at the idea of having so im- 
mense a sum as $144 all at once, and all his own. 
He could not believe that such good fortune was 
in store for him. He thought something would 
be sure to happen to prevent his receiving the 
money. But no ; his customer was ready, and 
slowly counted out the sum in silver, and the 
clockmaker took it with trembling hands, and 
carried it home, dreading lest some robbers 
might have heard of his vast wealth, and were 
in ambush to rob and murder him. — Cyclo- 
pedia OP BioG., p. 213. 

691. BUSINESS, Nobility in. England. In an 
age of loose morality among the higher cla.sses, 
Burnet writes, in 1708 : " As for the men of trade 
and business, they are, generally speaking, the 
best body in the nation — generous, sober, chari- 
table." — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 3, p. 41. 

692. BUSINESS prevented. Boycotting. Bos- 
ton Patriots, a.d. 1769. The people of Bo.ston 
. . . were impatient that a son of [Tory Govern- 
or] Bernard, two sons of [Lieutenant-Governor] 
Hutchinson, and about five others would not ac- 
cede to the agreement [not to import tea while it 
was taxed]. At a great public meeting of mer- 
chants in Faneuil Hall, ... as the best means of 
coercion it was voted not to purchase anything 
of the recusants ; subscription papers to that ef- 
fect were carried round from house to house, and 
everybody complied.— Bancroft's U. S., vol. 6, 
ch. 42. 

693. CALAMITIES combined. Reign of Charles 
II. London suffered two great disasters, such 
as never, in so .short a time, befell one city. A 
]iestilence, surpassing in horror any that during 
three centuries had visited the island, swept 
away, in six months, more than a hundred thou- 
sand human beings ; and scarcely had the dead- 
cart ceased to go its rounds, when a fire, such as 
had not been known in Europe since the confla- 
gration of Rome under Nero, laid in ruins the 
Avhole city, from the Tower to the Temple, and 
from the river to the purlieus of Smithfield.— 
Macaulay's Eng., ch. 2. 

694. CALAMITIES desired. Pagans. After 
the fall of Serapis [by the attack of the Chris- 
tians, in which the dismembered image was drag- 



ged through the streets of Alexandria] some 
hopes Avere entertained by the pagans that the 
indignation of the gods would be expressed by 
the refusal of the Nile's annual inundation ; but 
the waters began to swell with most unusual ra- 
pidity. They now comforted themselves with the 
thought that the same indignation was to be ex- 
pressed by a deluge ; but were mortified to find 
at last that the inundation brought with it no 
other than its usual salutary and fertilizing ef- 
fects. — Tytler's Hist., Book 5, ch. 4. 

695. CALAMITIES, Effect of. National. Eng- 
land was now involved in a war both with France 
and Holland. After several desperate but inde- 
cisive engagements, England began to perceive 
that this Avar promised nothing but expense and 
bloodshed. A plague Avhich Avas then raging in 
London consumed above a hundred thousand of 
its inhabitants ; a most dreadfid fire, happening 
almost at the same time, had reduced almost the 
whole of the city to a.shes ; and amid so many 
calamities it Avas not Avonderful that the Avarlike 
ardor of tLc nation should be considerably abat- 
ed. A negotiation was carried on at Breda, and a 
peace was concluded between the belligerent 
poAvers in 1667. By the treaty of Breda, New 
York Avas .secured to the English, the Isle of 
Polerone, in the East Indies, to the Dutch, and 
Acadia, in North America, to the French. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 30. 

696. CALENDAR corrected. Julius Ca>.mr. 
One remarkable and durable reform Avas under- 
taken and carried through amid the jests of Cice- 
ro and the other Avits of the time — the revision 
of the Roman calendar. The distribvition of the 
j^ear had l)een governed hitherto by the motions 
of the moon. The tAvelve annual moons had 
fixed at tweh'e the number of the months, and 
the number of days recjuired to bring the lunar 
year into correspondence Avith the solar had been 
supplied by ii-regular intercalations, at the direc- 
tion of the Sacred College. But the Sacred Col- 
lege during the last distracted centur}^ had neg- 
lected their oflice. The lunar year Avas noAv sixty- 
five days in advance of the sun. The so-called 
A\-inter was really the autumn, the spring the 
Avinter. The summer solstice fell at the begin- 
ning of the legal September. — Froude's C^sar, 
ch.'^25. 



697. 



Roger Bneon. [The distin- 



guished Franciscan monk.] lie observed an er- 
ror in the calendar Avitli regard to the duration 
of the .solar year, Avhich had been increasing from 
the time that it Avas regulated by Julius Cir.sar. 
He proposed a plan for the correction of this er- 
ror to Pope Clement IV., and has treated of it 
at large in the fourth book of his " Opus Majus.'' 
Dr. Jebb, his editor and commentator, is of opin- 
ion that this Avas one of the noblest discoveries 
ever made bj' the human mind. In his optical 
works he has very plainly described the construc- 
tion and use of telescopic ghusses, an invention 
Avhich Galileo, four hundred years afterward, at- 
tributed to himself. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6. 
ch. 16. 

69§. CALMNESS, Christian. John Wesley. 
[When the mob A\ere pulling doAvn the house of 
his lay preacher, .John Nelson, in the town of 
Bristol, he and his companions approached it 
singing hymns, and the mob fled before them.] 
Some of his finest lyrics were composed during 



CALMNESS— CANON. 



83 



the tumults so frequently experienced. He 
often recited and sometimes sung them among 
the raging crowds. Four of them were written 
"to be sung in a tumult," and one was "a prayer 
for the first martyr." — Stevens' Methodism, 
vol. 1, p. 203. 

699. CALMNESS of Discipline. Napoleon I. 
[His enemies exploded a barrel of powder in the 
streets of Paris, hoping to destroy him. But his 
carriage had just passed it.] The carriage rock- 
ed as on the billows of the sea, and the windows 
were shattered to fragments. . . . "Ha!" said 
he, with perfect composure, " we are blown up. " 
One of his companions, greatly terrified, thrust 
his head through the demolished window and 
called loudly for the driver to stop. " No, no !" 
said Napoleon; "drive on." . . . More than 
tliirty of these conspiracies were detected by the 
police. — Abbott's Napoleon B., vol. 1, ch. 
21. 

700. CALMNESS, Exasperating. Socrates. The 
populace, whom their demagogues had strongly 
prejudiced against this great and good man, 
v^ere affected by his defence, and showed marks 
of a favorable disposition ; when Anytus and 
several othei's, men of high consideration in the 
republic, now openly stood forth and joined the 
parly of his accusers. The weak and inconstant 
rabble were drawn along by their influence, and 
a majority of thirty suffrages declared Socrates 
guilty. "The punishment was still undetermined, 
and he himself had the right of choosing it. ' ' It 
is my choice," said he, " that since my past life 
has been employed in the service of the public, 
that public should for the future be at the charge 
of my support." This tranquillity of mind, 
which could sport with the danger of his situa- 
tion, served only to exasperate his judges. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist., Book 2, ch. 2, p. 156. 

701. CALUMNY, Instigated. Mnximus Fa- 
bius. [When he was defending the Romans 
against the Carthaginian general.] Hannibal, 
to incense the Romans against him, when he 
came to his lands, ordered them to be spared, 
and set a guard upon them to prevent the com- 
mitting of the least injury there, while he was 
ravaging all the country around him, and laying 
it waste with fire. An account of these things 
being brought to Rome, heavy complaints were 
made thereupon. The tribunes alleged many 
articles of accusation against him, before the 
people. — Plutarch's Fabius. 

702. CALUMNY, Opposition by. Charles Wes- 
ley. Mobs destroyed the houses and injured 
the persons of early Methodists in Cork. . . . 
Twenty-eight depositions were presented to the 
grand jury at the assizes against these disgrace- 
ful proceedings, but they were all thrown out, 
and the jury made a " remarkable presentment," 
w^hich still stands on the city records, and which 
declares that " we find and present Charles Wes- 
ley to be a person of ill-fame, a vagabond, and a 
common disturber of his Majesty's peace, and 
we pray that he may be transported." — Ste- 
vens' Methodism, vol. 1, p. 282. 

703. CANDIDATE, A dead. Daniel Webster. 
It is stated as a fact that many persons in Geor- 
gia, and including Robert Toombs and Alexander 
H. Stephens, showed their respect for the great 
expounder of the Constitution by voting for him 



after he was dead. — Norton's Life of Ste- 
phens, p. 12. 

704. CANDIDATE, A dignified. Thomas Jef- 
ferson. As Mr. Jett'erson then held the office of 
vice-president, he presided daily over the Senate, 
and thus lived in the midst of the strife and in- 
trigue. Coming out of the Senate chamber one 
day, he was stopped by Gouverneur Morris, a 
leader of the Federalists, who began to converse 
with him on the alarming state of things around 
them. "The reasons," said Morris, " why the 
minority of the States are so opposed to your be- 
ing elected is this : they apprehend that, first, 
you will turn all Federalists out of office ; sec- 
ondly, put down the navy ; thirdly, wipe off the 
public debt. Now, you only need to declare, or 
authorize your friends to declare, that you will 
not take these steps, and instantly the event of 
the election will be fixed." Mr. Jefferson re- 
plied . . . that he should leave the world to judge 
of the course he meant to pursue by that which 
he had pursued hitherto, believing it to be his 
duty to be passive and silent during the present 
scene. "I shall certainly," continued Mr. Jef- 
ferson, "make no terms ; I shall never go into the 
office of President by capitulation, nor with my 
hands tied by any conditions which would hin- 
der me from pursuing the measures which I deem 
for the public good." — Cyclopedia op Bioo., 
p. 351. 

705. CANDOR, Christian. Discussion. [At the 
first Wesleyan Conference] it was asked, Should 
they be fearful of thorovighly debating every 
question which might arise '? ' ' What are we 
afraid of ? Of overturning our first principles ? 
If they are false, the sooner they are overturned 
the better. If they are true they will bear the 
strictest examination. Let us all pray for a will- 
ingness to receive light to know every doctrine, 
whether it be of God." — Stevens' Methodism, 
vol. 1, p. 212. 

706. CANNIBALISM, Christian. Crusaders. 
They consumed, with heedless prodigality, their 
stores of water and provision ; their numbers ex- 
hausted the inland country ; the sea was remote, 
the Greeks were unfriendly, and the Christians 
of every sect fled before the voracious and cruel 
rapine of their brethren. In the dire necessity 
of famine they sometimes roasted and devoured 
the flesh of their infant or adult captives. Among 
the Turks and Saracens the idolaters of Europe 
were rendered more odious by the name and rep- 
utation of cannibals ; the spies, who introduced 
themselves into the kitchen of Bohemond, were 
shown several human bodies turning on spits. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 58. 

707. CANON, A great. Urban the Founder. 
[Cast for Mahomet II. , in siege of Constantino- 
ple.] A foundry was established at Adriano- 
ple ; the metal was prepared ; and at the end of 
three months Urban produced a piece of brass 
ordnance of stupendous and almost incredible 
magnitude ; a measure of twelve palms is assign- 
ed to the bore ; and the stone bullet weighed 
above six hundred pounds. A vacant place 
before the new palace was chosen for the first 
experiment ; but to prevent the sudden and 
mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a 
proclamation w^as issued, that the cannon would 
be discharged the ensuing day. The explosion 
was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred fur- 



84 



CANT— CAPTIVITY. 



longs ; the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was 
driven above a mile ; and on the spot where it 
fell, it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground. 
For the conveyance of this destructive engine, a 
frame or carriage of thirty Avagons was linked 
together and drawn along by a team of sixty 
oxen ; two hundred men on both sides were sta- 
tioned to poise and support the rolling weight ; 
two hundred and tifty workmen marched 
before to smooth the way and repair the 
bridges ; and near two months were employed 
in a laborious journey of one hundred and tifty 
miles. . . . We may discern the iufancj' of the 
new science. Under a master who counted the 
moments, the great cannon could be loaded and 
fired no more than seven times in one day. The 
heated metal unfortunately burst ; several work- 
men were destroyed ; and the skill of an artist 
was admired who bethought himself of prevent- 
ing the danger and the accident by pouring oil, 
after each explosion, into the mouth of the can- 
non. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 68. 

708. CANT, Political. Samuel JoJimon. Bos- 
well : " Perhaps, sir, I should be the less happy 
for being in Parliament. I never would sell 
my vote, and I should be vexed if things went 
wrong." Johnson : " That's cant, sir. It would 
not vex you more in the house than in the gal- 
lery ; public affairs vex no man." . . . Boswell : 
"I declare, sir, upon my honor, I did imagine I 
was vexed, and took a pride in it ; but it teas, per- 
haps, cant ; for I own I neither eat less nor 
slept less." Johnson : " My dear friend, clear 
your mind of cant. You may talk as other peo- 
ple do ; you may say to a man, ' Sir, I am your 
most humble servant.' You are not his most 
humble servant. You may say, ' These are bad 
times ; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved 
to such times.' You don't mind the times. You 
tell a man, ' I am sorry you had such bad weather 
the last day of your journey, and were so much 
wet.' You don't care sixpence whether he is 
wet or dry. You may talk in this manner ; it 
is a mode of talking in society ; but don't think 
foolishly."— Boswell's Johnson, p. 498. 

709. CAPITAL, Conservative. Cicero. [CiBsar 
had been superseded by the appointment of 
Domitius Ahenobarbus, the most inveterate and 
envenomed of his enemies, by the Senate.] A 
day later, before the final vote had been taken 
he thought still that the Senate was willing to 
let Ctesar keep his province, if he would dissolve 
his army. The moneyed interests, the peasant 
landholders, were all on Caesar's side ; they 
cared not even if monarchy came, so that they 
might have peace.— Fkoude's C^sar, ch. 20. 

710. CAPITAL a Crime. Jews. [In 1290 King 

Edward I. ,] by an arbitrary exercise of powef 

destroyed the great money capitalists of the 

time. The Jews throughout England were all 

seized on one day, upon a charge of clippino- 

the coin _; and . . . of both sexes, there were 

hanged in London two hundred and ei"-hty 

and a very great multitude in other cities of 

-h-ngland. Some Christians were involved in 

the accusation ; and for most of them the kinc 

ol''"''o'^/''"''°™--^^^<^HT's Eng., vol. 1, ch. 
«o, p. dob. 

711. CAPITAL, Spiritual. Indulgences. The 
lollowing circumstances led to the traffic in in- 
dulgences. The Roman Catholic Church main- 



tained that the saints, during their life on earth, 
had accumulated a treasurj' of merit because of 
their good work ; that they had done more good 
than they were obliged to do. This surplus 
might be used for the benefit of sinful men who 
had accomplished less good than was needed for 
their salvation. The Pope claimed that he had 
received authority from God to draw from this 
reservoir of merit, and to apply it to those who 
had shown themselves worthy by their sorrow 
and repentance. But soon sorrow and repentance 
were dispensed with, and matters were .satisfac- 
torily arranged by the use of money. Thus arose 
the so-called traffic in indulgences, which proved 
to be a source of great revenue to the popes. 
This was the case under Leo X., who at this 
time occupied the papal chair. — Rein's Luther, 
ch. 1. 

712. CAPITALISTS, Extortionate. Jeics. The 
capitalist was the Jew ; but his mode of deal- 
ing suited only unthrifty abbots and plundering 
barons ; for when the borrower came into the 
gripe of the Israelite, bond was heaped upon 
bond, so that we have a record how a debt of 
£200 became, with accumulated interest, £880 in 
four years, [a.d. 1194.] — Knight's Enu., vol. 
1, ch. 22, p. 326. 

713. CAPITALISTS, Nation of. Jews. There 
used to be a conundrum current in Europe, 
which was something like this : " What is the 
difference between ancient and modern times ? 
Answer : In ancient times, all the Jews had one 
king ; in modern times, all the kings have one 
Jew." The Jew referred to in this conundrum 
was Meyer Anselm Rothschild, the founder of 
the great banking-house so famous throughout 
the world. — Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 564^ 

714. CAPTIVES, Inhumanity to. Mexican 
Emp. He was treated at first with humanity, 
and every persuasive made use of to prompt 
him to make a discovery of the place where it 
was supposed he had concealed his treasures ; 
but in vain. It was next tried what torture 
might produce, and by the command of one of 
the Spanish captains, the monarch, together 
with some of his chief officers, were stretched 
naked upon burning coals. Wliile Guatimozin 
bore the extremity of torment with more than 
human fortitude, one of his fellow-sufferers, o< 
weaker constitution, turned his e3'es upon hi* 
prince and uttered a cry of anguish : " Thint 
est thou," said Guatimozin, "that I am \&v\ 
upon a bed of roses V" Silenced by this reproof, 
the sufferer stifled his complaints, and expireiV 
in an act of obedience to his sovereign. To thi 
honor of Cortez, he was ignorant of this act of 
shocking inhumanity. — Tytler's Hist., Boos. 
6, ch. 21. 

715. CAPTIVITY, Chosen. Napoleon's Friends. 
[At St. Helena.] The household now consisted 
of the emperor, General Bertrand, wife, and 
three children ; Count Montholon, wife, and 
two children ; Count Las Casas and son ; General 
Gourgaud, and Dr. O'Meara. There were also 
four servants of the chamber, three grooms, and 
four servants of the table. These had all fol- 
lowed the emperor to his dreary prison from 
their love of his person. [Others wept because 
denied the opportunitv to follow him by the 
British Government. His friends were treated as 



CAPTURE— CASTE. 



85 



prisoners as well as himself.] — Abbott's Napo- 
I.EON B., vol. 2, ch. 31. 

716. CAPTURE, An important. City of Wash- 
ington. The British advanced ou Washington 
[in 1814]. . . . The President, the Cabinet officers, 
and the people betook themselves to flight, and 
[General] Ross marched unopposed into the city. 
He had been ordered by his superiors to use the 
torch, and the Avork of destruction was accord- 
ingly begun. All the public buildings except 
the Patent Office were burned. The beautiful 
but unfinished Capitol and the President's house 
were left a mass of blackened ruins. ]\Iany pri- 
vate edifices were also destroyed. [Note.] An ex- 
cuse for this outrageous barbarism was found in 
the previous conduct of the Americans, who . . . 
at Toronto . . . had behaved but little better. — 
Ridpath's Hist., ch. 51. 

717. CARELESSNESS, Censure of. Samuel 
Johnson. Though he used to censure careless- 
ness with great vehemence, he owned that he 
once, to avoid the troulile of locking up five 
guineas, hid them, he forgot where, so that he 
could not find them. — Boswell's Johnson, 
p. 435. 

71§. CARELESSNESS, Habitual. Goldsmith. 
[He went to Edinburgh to study medicine.] 
Having taken lodgings at haphazard, he left 
his trunk there, containing all his worldly ef- 
fects, and sallied forth to see the town. After 
sauntering about the streets until a late hour, he 
thought of returning home, when, to his confu- 
sion, he found he had not acquainted himself 
with the name either of his landlady or of the 
street in which she lived. Fortunately, in the 
height of his whimsical perplexity, he met the 
cawdy or porter who had carried his trunk, and 
who now served him as a guide. — Irving 's 
Goldsmith, p. 37. 

719. CASTE, Absence of. Irish Kings. [In 
1394 Sir Henry Cristall was sent by Richard II. 
to attend on the Irish kings, who submitted them- 
selves to him.] It was Richard's wish that in 
manners and apparel they should conform to 
the usages of England. It was his purpose to 
create them knights ; but they were wedded to 
their ancient customs. They would sit at the 
same table as their minstrels and servants, eating 
out of the same dish and drinking out of the 
same cup. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 2, p. 27. 

720. CASTE, Anglo-Saxon. Germany. The 
Saxons were divided, as all the other German 
nations, into three ranks of men — the noble, the 
free, and the slaves. The nobles were called 
thanes, and these Avere of two kinds — the king's 
thanes and the lesser thanes. The latter seem to 
have been dependent on the former, and to have 
received lands, for which they either paid rent 
or military .services. There were two laws of 
the Anglo-Saxons which breathe a spirit very 
different from what one would naturally expect 
from the character of the age, when the distinc- 
tion of superior and inferior is commonly very 
strongly marked. One of the laws of Athelstan 
■declared, that a merchant who had made three 
lon^ sea voyages on his own account was enti- 
tled to the quality of thane ; and another declared 
that a ccorle, or husbandman, who had been 
able to purchase five hides of laud, or five 
plough-gates, and who had a chapel, a kitchen, 



a hall, and a bell, was entitled to the same rank. 
The freemen of the lower rank, who were de- 
nominated ceorles, cultivated the farms of the 
thanes for which they paid rent, and they ap- 
pear to have been removable at the pleasure of 
the thane. The lowest and most numerous of 
the orders was that of the slaves or villains ; of 
these slaves there were two kinds — the household 
slaves, and those employed in the cultivation of 
the lands ; of the latter species are the serfs, 
which we find at this day in Poland, in Russia, 
and in others of the northern states. A master 
had not, among the Anglo-Saxons, an unlimited 
power over his slaves. He was fined for the 
murder of a slave, and if he mutilated one, the 
slave recovered his liberty. The laws of Edgar 
inform us that slavery was the lot of all prison- 
ers taken in war. — 'Tytler's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 6. 

7211. CASTE, Barbarian. Gauls. It should .seem 
that very many of those institutions, referred by 
an easj' solution to the feudal system, are derived 
from the Celtic barbarians. When Caesar sub- 
dued the Gauls, that great nation was already 
divided into three orders of men — the clergy, 
the nobility, and the common people. The first 
governed by superstition, the second by arms ; 
but the third and last was not of any weight or 
account in their public councils. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 13. 

722. CASTE of Birth. Italians. Till the pri\i- 
leges of Romans had been progressively extended 
to all the inhabitants of the empire, an important 
distinction was preserved between Italy and the 
provinces. The former was esteemed the centre 
of public unity and the firm basis of the con- 
stitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the 
residence, of the emperors and the Senate. The 
estates of the Italians were exempt from taxes, 
their persons from the arbitrary jurisdiction of 
governors. Their municipal corporations, formed 
after the perfect model of the capital, were in- 
trusted, under the immediate eye of the supreme 
power, with the execution of the laws. From 
the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, 
all the natives of Italj^ were born citizens of 
Rome. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 2. 

723. CASTE, English. Jealousy. The rise of 
the commonalty was alwaj's regarded with ex- 
treme jealousy by the born great. The servile 
literature before the days of the Revolution 
echoed this sentiment. — Knight's England, 
vol. 5, ch. 6, p. 49. 

724. CASTE, Hostility to. Louis Philippe. [In 
1795 he travelled incognito, with two other 
princes, in the United States.] At Winchester, in 
the Valley of the Shenandoah, a democratic inn- 
keeper turned them out of his house because (one 
of them being sick) they asked the privilege of 
eating hj themselves. "If you are too good," 
roared this despotic democrat, "to eat at the 
same table with my other guests, you are too good 
to eat in my house. Begone !" Despite the in- 
stant apology of the Duke of Orleans, the land- 
lord insisted on their going, and they were com- 
pelled to seek other quarters. — Cyclopedl\ of 
BiOG., p. r)09. 

72.5. CASTE in Judgment. Queen Elisabeth. 
[When Elizabeth was remonstrating in behalf 
of Marv Queen of Scots, she charged her am 



8G 



CASTE— CATHOLICS. 



bassadors to insist that subjects were not^ to be 
judges of a sovereign ;] it was contrary to Script- 
ure and unreasonable, that the foot should judge 
the head.— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 10, p. 151. 

726. CASTE, National. French. [William I. ,] 
the Conqueror, and his descendants to the fourth 
generation were not Englishmen ; most of them 
were born in France ; they spent the greater 
part of their time in France ; their ordinary 
speech w^as French ; almost every high office in 
their gift was tilled by a Frenchman ; every ac- 
quisition which they made on the Continent es- 
tranged them more and more from the popula- 
tion of our island. One of the ablest among 
them, indeed, attempted to win the hearts of 
his English subjects by espousing an English 
princess ; but by many of his barons this mar- 
riage was regarded as a marriage between a 
white planter and a quadroon girl would now 
be regarded in Virginia. In history he is known 
by the honorable surname of Beauclerc ; but in 
his own time his own countrj-men called him 
by a Saxon nickname, in contemptuous allusion 
to his Saxon connection. — Macaulay's Eng., 
ch. 1. 

727. — : . English. [Reign of James 

II.] No man of English blood then regarded 
the aboriginal Irish as his countrymen. They 
did not belong to our branch of the great hu- 
man family. They were distinguished from 
us by more than one moral and intellectual pecu- 
liarity, which the difference of situation and of 
education, great as that difference was, , did not 
seem altogether to explain. They had an aspect 
of their own, a mother tongue of their own. 
When they talked English their pronunciation 
was ludicrous ; their phraseology was grotesque, 
as is always the phraseology of those who think 
in one language and express their thoughts in 
another. They were therefore foreigners, and of 
all foreigners they were the most bated and 
despised — the most hated, for they had, during 
five centuries, always been our enemies ; the 
most despised, for they were our vanquished, 
enslaved, and despoiled enemies. The English- 
man compared with pride his own fields with 
the desolate bogs, whence the rapparees issued 
forth to rob and murder ; and his own dwelling 
with the hovels where the peasants and the 
hogs of Shannon wallowed in filth together. — 
Macaulay's Eng., ch. 9. 

728. CASTE in Parliment. Worsted Stockings. 
[In 1645 there were] certain mean sort of people 
in the House, whom, to distinguish them from 
the more honorable gentlemen, they called 
Worsted-stocking men.— Knight's Eng., vol 4 
ch. 4. 

729. CASTE, Prejudice of. Parliament. [At 
the second session of Parliament, under the pro- 
tectorate of Cromwell, only one of the peers who 
had accepted the writ of summons took his 
seat. The Earl of Warwick could not be per- 
suaded to sit with Colonel Hewson and Colonel 
Pride— the one had been a shoemaker, and the 
other a drayman.] — Knight's Eng., vol 4 
ch. 13. 

730. CASUISTRY, Difficult. Missionary to the 
Indians. [John] Eliot preached against polyg- 
amy. " Suppose a man, before he knew God," 
mquired a convert, " hath had two wives— the 
first childless, the second bearing him many sweet 



children, whom he exceedingly loves ; which of 
these is he to put away ?" — Bancroft's U. S., 
ch. 2, vol. 2. 

731. CATASTROPHE, An appalling. Earth- 
quake. November 1, 1755, the people of Lis- 
bon were alarmed by that awful rumbling 
beneath the earth which, as they w^ell knew, 
usually preceded an earthquake. Before they 
could escape from their houses the shock came, 
which overthrew the greater part of the city, 
and buried thousands of persons in its ruins. 
The sea retired, leaving the bottom of the har- 
bor bare, but immediately returned in a fearful 
wave fifty feet high, overwhelming everything 
in its course. The inhabitants who could get 
clear of the ruins rushed in thousands to a mag- 
nificent marble wharf, just completed, which 
seemed to offer a place of safety. This massive 
structure, densely covered with men, women, 
and children, suddenly sunk, bearing with it to 
unknown depths the entire multitude. Not a 
creature escaped ; not a human body rose again 
to the surface ; not a fragment of anything that 
was on the wharf was ever again seen by human 
eye ; and when, by and by, the water was 
sounded over the place where it had stood, the 
depth was found to be six hundred feet. Within 
the space of six minutes sixty thousand persons 
are supposed to have perished ; and those who 
survived were so encompassed about with hor- 
ror, that they might well have envied those 
whom the sea had submerged or the falling 
houses crushed. — Cyclopedia ofBiog., p. 30. 

732. CATHOLICS, Disfranchised. Manjland- 
crs. A.D. 1681. The prelates [in England] de- 
manded ... an establishment to be main- 
tained at the common expense of the province. 
Lord Baltimore resisted. The Roman Catholic 
was inflexible in his regard for freedom of Avor- 
.ship. The opposition to Lord Baltimore as a 
feudal sovereign easily united with Protestant 
bigotry . . . the English ministry soon issued 
an order, that officers of government in Maryland 
should be exclusively intru.sted to Protestants. 
Roman Catholics were disfranchised in the 
province which they had planted. — Bancroft's 
U. S., vol. 2, ch. 14. 

733. CATHOLICS, Justice to. English. [Dr. 
Arnold plead for it, saying :] It is the direct duty 
of everj' Englishman to support the claims of 
the Roman Catholics of Ireland, even at the 
hazard of injuring the Protestant establishment — 
because those claims cannot be rejected without 
great injustice — and it is a want of faith in God 
and an imholy zeal to think that he can le 
served by injustice, or to guard against contiii- 
trent evil by committing certain sin. — Knight s 
Eng., vol. 8, ch. 13. 

734. CATHOLICS, Prejudice against. Cath- 
olic Belief Bill. [In 1829 it was passed l)y Par- 
liament.] It would admit a Roman Catholic to 
Parliament upon taking an oath, in place of the 
old oath of supremacy, that he would support 
the existing institutions of the State, and not in- 
jure those of the Church. It would admit a 
Roman Catholic to all the greatest offices of gov- 
ernment, with the exception of Regent, Lord 
Chancellor of England, and Lord Chancellor and 
Viceroy of Ireland. All corporate offices and 
municipal privileges, all that pertained to the 
administration of justice, Avould be open to 



CATHOLICISM— CAVIL. 



87 



Roman Catholics. From all offices connected 
with the Church, with its universities and 
schools, and from Church patronage, they would 
be necessarily excluded. Commands in the 
army and navy had been open to them before 
this measure. Connected with the Bill of Re- 
lief there were securities and restrictions pro- 
posed. — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 18, p. 239. 

735. CATHOLICISM, Benefits of. England. 
It is difficult to say whether England owes more 
to the Roman Catholic religion or to the Refor- 
mation. For the amalgamation of races and 
for the abolition of villanage she is chiefly in- 
debted to the influence which the priesthood, in 
the middle ages, exercised over the laity. For 
political and intellectual freedom, and for all 
the blessings which political and intellectual 
freedom have brought in their train, she is 
chiefly indebted to the great rebellion of the 
laity against the priesthood. From the time 
when the barbarians overran the Western Em- 
pire to the time of the revival of letters, the 
influence of the Church of Rome had been 
generally favorable to science, to civilization, 
and to good government ; but during the last 
three centuries, to stunt the growth of the hu- 
man mind has been her chief object. Through- 
out Christendom, whatever advance has been 
made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and 
in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, 
and has everywhere been in inverse proportion 
to her power. The loveliest and most fertile 
provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been 
sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in 
intellectual torpor, while Protestant countries, 
once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have 
been turned by skill and industry into gardens, 
and can boast of a long list of heroes and states- 
men, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing 
what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, 
four hundred years ago, tliey actually were, shall 
now compare the country round Rome with the 
country round Edinburgh, will be able to form 
some judgment as to the tendency of papal dom- 
ination. The descent of Spain, once the tirst 
among monarchies, to the lowest depths of deg- 
radation ; the elevation of Holland, in spite of 
many natural disadvantages, to a position such 
as no commonw^ealth so small has ever reached, 
teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in Ger- 
many from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant 
principality, in Switzerland from a Roman 
Catholic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland from 
a Roman Catholic to a Protestant country, finds 
that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade 
of civilization. On the other .side of the Atfantic 
the .same law prevails. The Protestants of the 
United States have left far behind them the 
Roman Catholics of ]\Iexico, Peru, and Brazil. 
The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain 
inert, while the whole continent round them is 
in a ferment with Protestant activity and enter- 
prise. The French have dovibtless .shown an 
energy and an intelligence which, even when 
misdirected, have ju.stly entitled them to be 
called a great people. But this apparent excep- 
tion, when examined, will be found to confirm 
the rule ; for in no country that is called Roman 
Catholic has the Roman Catholic Church, dur- 
ing .several generations, possessed so little au- 
thority as in France. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 1. 



736. CATHOLICISM, Wisdom of. Broad Plans. 
In the latter half of the seventeenth century the 
French began to push their way westward and 
southward ; first along the shores of the great 
lakes, then to the head Avaters of the Wabash, 
the Illinois, the Wi-sconsin, and the St. Croix, 
then down these streams to the ^Iississii)pi, and 
then to the Gulf of Mexico. The purpose of the 
French, as manifested in the.se movements, was 
no less than to divide the American continent 
and to take the larger portion, to possess the 
land for France and Catholicism. For it was 
the work of the Jesuit missionaries. — Ridpatii's 
U. S., ch. 30. 

737. CAUSE and Eflfect. Samvel JoJinsoii. 
Of Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, John.son 
said to a friend : " Hurd, sir, is one of a set of 
men who account for everything .sy.stematically ; 
for instance, it has been a fashion to wear scJir- 
let breeches ; these men would tell j'ou, that ac- 
cording to causes and effects, no other wear 
could at that time have been chosen." He, how- 
ever, said of him at another time to the same 
gentleman : "Hurd, sir, is a man whose acquaint- 
ance is a valuable acquisition." — Boswell's 
Johnson, p. 488. 

738. CAUTION needful. Abraham Lincoln. 
" W^ell, you .see," said Mr. Lincoln [to a visitor 
who introduced the subject of emancipation], 
" we've got to be very cautious how we manage 
the negro question. If we're not, we shall be 
like the barber out in Illinois, who was shaving 
a fellow with a hatchet face and lantern jaws 
like mine. The barber stuck his finger in his 
customer's mouth to make his cheek stick out ; 
but while shaving away he cut through the fel- 
low's cheek and cut off his own finger ! If we 
are not very careful Ave shall do as the barber 
did." — Raymond's Lincoln, p. 752. 

739. CAVALRY, Formidable. Elephants. An 
ambassador from the Emperor Zeno accompanied 
the rash and unfortunate Perozes in his expedi- 
tion against the Nepthalities, or white Huns, 
who.se conquests had been stretched from the 
Caspian to the heart of India, whose throne was 
enriched with emeralds, and whose cavalry was 
supported by a line of two thousand elephants. 
The Persians w^ere twice circumvented in a situa- 
tion Avhich made valor useless and fiight impossi- 
ble ; and the double victory of the Huns was 
achieved by military stratagem. They dismiss- 
ed their royal captive after he had submitted to 
adore the majesty of a barbarian. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 40. 

740. CAVIL answered. Reign of James II. 
[Session of the former members of the House of 
Commons.] Sir Robert Sawyer declared that 
he could not conceive how^ it Avas possible for the 
prince to administer the gOA'ernment without 
.some distinguishing title, such as Regent or Pi-o- 
tector. Old ^laynard, who, as a lawjer, had no 
equal, and Avho Avas also a politician versed in 
the tactics of revolutions, Avasat no pains to con- 
ceal his disdain for so puerile an objection, taken 
at a moment when union and promptitude Avere 
of the highest importance. " We shall sit here 
very long," he .said, " if we sit till Sir Robert can 
conceive'how' such a thing is possible ;" and the 
assembly thought the answer as good as the cavil 
deserved. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 10. 



88 



CELEBRATED— CENSOR. 



741 CELEBEATED, Marriage. Grandsons of 
Timonr The marriage of six of the emperors 
grandsons was esteemed an act of religion as well 
as of paternal tenderness ; and the pomp of the 
ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. 
They were celebrated in the gardens of Cani- 
ffhul decorated with innumerable tents and pa- 
vilions, which displayed the luxuiy of a great 
citv and the spoils of a victorious camp. W hole 
forests were cut down to supply fuel for the 
kitchens ; the plain was spread with pyramids ot 
meat, and vases of every liquor, to which thou- 
sands of guests were courteously invited ; the 
orders of the state and the nations of the earth 
were marshalled at theroval banquet ; nor were 
the ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty 
Persian) excluded from the feast ; since even the 
casses the smallest of fish, find their place in the 
ocean. The public joy was testified by illumi- , 
nation and masquerades ; the trades of Samar- 
caud passed in re\iew ; and every trade was emu- 
lous to execute some ciuaint device, some marvel- 
lous paeeant, with the materials of their peculiar 
art. After the marriage contracts had been rati- 
fied by the cadhis, the bridegrooms and their 
brides retired to the nuptial chambers : nine 
times, accordins to the Asiatic fashion, they were 
dressed and undressed ; and at each change of 
apparel pearls and rubies were showered on 
their heads, and contemptuously abandoned to 
their attendants, A general indulgence was pro- 
claimed : everv law was relaxed, every pleasure 
was allowed ; "the people was free, the sovereign 
was idle. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 65. 

742. CELEBEATION, Municipal. Constanti- 
nople. As often as the birthday of the city re- 
turned, the statue of Constantine, framed by his 
order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his right 
hand a small image of the genius of the place, 
was erected on a triumphal car. The guards, 
carrying white tapers, and clothed in their rich- 
est apparel, accompanied the solemn procession 
as it moved through the Hippodrome. "When it 
was opposite to the throne of the reigning empe- 
ror, he rose from his seat, and with grateful rev- 
erence adored the memory of his predecessor. 
At the festival of the dedication, an edict, engrav- 
ed on a column of marble, bestowed the title of 
Second or Xew Rome on the city of Constan- 
tine. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 17. 

743. CELEBEATION, National. Centennial. 
As the Centennial of American Independence 
drew near, the people made ready to celebrate 
the great event with appropriate ceremonies, . . . 
but the development of the project was discour- 
aged for a while with considerable opposition 
and much lukewarmness. The whole scheme 
was a vision of enthusia.sm, a Quixotical dream, 
said the critics and objectors. 2so such an en- 
terprise could be carried through except under 
the patronage of the government, and the gov- 
ernment had no right to make appropriations 
merely to preserve an old reminiscence. We 
had had enough of the Fourth of July already. 
Besides — said the wits and caricaturists — the 
oth&r nations would present a ludicrous figure 
in helping us to celebrate an anniversary of a re- 
bellion that they had tried to crush a" hundred 
years ago. Victoria was expected— so .said they — 
to send over commissioners to heap contumely 
aii.l contempt on the grave of her grandfather ! 



No nation of Europe would consent to its own 
stultification by joining in the jubilees of Repub- 
licanism. Besides all this cavilling, it was fore- 
seen that Philadelphia would quite certainly be 
selected as the scene of the proposed display, and 
on that account a good deal of local jealousy was 
excited in the other principal cities of the Union. 
— Ridpath's U. S., ch. 58. 

744. CELIBACY of Clergy. Britain, tenth Cen- 
tury. The celibacy of the clergy was the lead- 
ing principle to be contended for in making the 
Church Romish instead of national. Although 
the strict canons of the Anglo-Church did not 
recognize a married priesthood, the law of celi- 
bacy had never been rigidly enforced, especially 
among the parochial clergy. Their marriages 
were discountenanced ; they were admonished 
or threatened. But the law' of nature was trium- 
phant over the decrees of councils ; and the Eng- 
lish priests were not forced into those immorali- 
ties which were the result of this ordinance in 
other coun+ries. 3Ir. Kemble says : " We have 
an almost unbroken chain of evidence to show 
that, in spite of the exhortations of the bishops 
and the legislation of the witans, those at la.st of 
the clerg}"who were not bound to a co-nobitical 
order did contract marriage, and openly avow 
the families which were its issue." — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 1, ch. 9. 

745. CEMETEEY, Saddest. London Tower. 
The head and body were placed in a coffin cov- 
ered with black velvet, and were laid privately 
mider the communion-table of St. Peter's Chapel 
in the Tower. Within four years the pavement 
of that chancel was again disturbed, and hard 
by the remains of ^lonmouth were laid the re- 
inains of Jeffreys. In truth, there is no sadder 
spot on the earth than that little cemetery. Death 
is there as.sociated, not, as in Westminster Abbey 
and Saint Paul's, with genius and virtue, with 
public veneration and Avith imperi.shable re- 
nown ; not, as in our humblest churches and 
churchyards, with everytliing that is most en- 
dearing in social and domestic charities, but 
with whatever is darkest inhuman nature and in 
human destiny, with the savage triumph of im- 
placable enernies, with the inconstancy, the in- 
gratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the 
miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. 
Thither have been carried, through successive 
ages, by the rude hands of jailers, without one 
mourner following, the bleeding relics of men 
who had been thecaptains of armies, the leaders 
of parties, the oracles of senates, and the orna- 
ments of courts. — Macaijlay's Esg., ch. 5. 

746. CENSOE, Official. Roman. [Words of 
the Emperor Decius.] As soon as the decree of 
the Senate was transmitted to the emperor, he 
assembled a great council in his camp, and be- 
fore the investiture of the censor-elect he ap- 
prised him of the difficulty and importance of 
his great office. "Happy Valerian," said the 
prince to his distinguished subject, " happy in 
the general approbation of the Senate and of the 
Roman republic ! Accept the censorship of man- 
kind, and judge of our manners. You will se- 
lect those who"deser%-e to continue members of 
the Senate ; you will restore the equestrian order 
to its ancient splendor ; you will improve the 
revenue, yet moderate the "public burdens. You 

. will distinguish into rc<rular classes the various 



CENSOR— CHALLENGE. 



89 



and infinite multitude of citizens, and accurate- 
ly view the military strength, the wealth, the 
virtue, and the resources of Rome. Your deci- 
sions shall obtain the force of laws. The army, 
.the palace, the ministers of justice, and the great 
■offlcers of the empire are all subject to your tri- 
bunal. None are exempted, excepting only the 
ordinary consuls, the prefect of the city, the 
king of the sacrifices, and (as long as she pre- 
serves her chastity in\iolate) the eldest of the 
vestal virgins. Even these few, who may not 
dread the severity, will anxiously solicit the es- 
teem of the Roman censor." — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 10. 



747. 



Roman. Livy remarks, they 



kept in ■ dependence both the Senate and ])eo 
• pie. They possessed a constitutional power 
of degrading such as had manifested any irreg- 
ularity of conduct, and depriving them of the 
rank and office which they held in the State. 
It was not an authority which extended to the 
punishment of those ordinary crimes and delicts 
which fall under the penal laws of a State. But 
there are offences which, in point of example, 
are worse than crimes, and more pernicious in 
their consequences. It is not the breach of ex- 
press laws that can ever be of general bad effect, 
or tend to the destruction of a government ; but 
it is that silent and unpunishable corruption of 
manners which, undermining private and pub- 
lic virtue, weakens and destroys those springs to 
which the best-ordered constitution owes its sup- 
port. The counteracting this latent principle of 
■decay was the most useful part of the office of 
the censors. If any citizen had imprudently 
contracted large debts ; if he had consumed his 
fortune in extravagance, or in living beyond his 
income ; if he had been negligent in the cultiva- 
tion of his lands — nay, if, being in good circum- 
stances and aljle to maintain a family, he had 
■declined, Avithout just cause, to marry — all these 
offences attracted the notice of the censors, who 
had various modes of inflicting a penalty. The 
most usual, and not the least impressive, was a 
public denunciation of the offender as an object 
of disapprobation — ignominia notabant. It did 
not amount to a mark of infamy, but punished 
solely by inflicting the shame of a public repri- 
mand. A penalty, however, of this kind is not 
fitted to operate on all dispositions, and, accord- 
ingly, the censors had it in their power to employ 
means more generally effectual. They could de- 
grade a senator from his dignity and strike his 
name out of the roll. They could deprive a 
knight of his rank by taking'from him the horse 
which was maintained for him at the public ex- 
pense, and was the essential mark of his station. 
A citizen might be punished by degrading him 
from his tribe to an inferior one, or doubling his 
proportion of the public taxes. — Tytler's Hist. , 
Book 3, ch. 6. 

748. CENSURE resented. Bionysius. Tne phi- 
losopher Plato had been invited to Syracuse by 
Dionysius the elder . . . Dionysius . . . being 
offended with the freedom which the philosopher 
used in censuring whatever he disapproved in the 
maxims and government of the tyrant, the latter 
ordered him to be sold as a slave in the public 
market. His disciples paid the price of five 
minse for their master, and sent him safe back to 
Greece. — Tytler's Hist., Book 3, ch. 8. 



749. CENSURE, Unmoved by. Pres. Jackson. 
[He vetoed the bill to recharter the Bank of the 
United States, and] ordered the accumulated 
funds, amounting to al)outten millions, to be dis- 
tributed among certain State banks. ... He 
had no warrant of law ... he was denounced 
. . . arbitrary, dangerous. In the Senate a pow- 
erful coalition, headed by Calhoun, Clay, and 
Webster, was formed against the President. . . 
A resolution censuring his conduct was . . . car- 
ried ; but a similar proposition failed in the House 
of Representatives. There was a general cry of 
indignation, and it seemed as if the President 
would be overwhelmed ; Init the President, ever 
as fearless as he was self-willed and stubborn, 
held on his course unmoved by the clamor. The 
resolution of censure stood upon the journal of 
the Senate for four years, and was then expung- 
ed. — RiDPATii's V. S., ch. 54. 

750. CEREMONY, Comedy of. Court. Port- 
land, the ambassador for William III., 1698, made 
his public entry into Paris on the 9th of March. 
He disputes with "the conductor of ambassa- 
dors" about matters of etiquette. " In my case," 
he says, " difficulties have been raised on every 
conceivable point ; and as I do not understand 
the ceremonial I am embarrassed by them, and 
can only meet them with obstinacy, which is here 
rather indispensable. " Comedy cannot imagine 
a richer scene than the burly Dutchman refusing 
to come from the top of his staircase to meet the 
representative of the Duchess of Burgundy, who 
refused to go more than half way up, " messen- 
gers passing backward and forward between us." 
— Knight's Eng. , vol. 5, ch. 13, p. 208. 

751. CEREMONY, Dislike for. Napoleon I. 
[He had been crowned emperor with gorgeous 
display and grand ceremony.] He hastened to 
his room, and exclaimed impatiently to an attend- 
ant as he entered, " Off ! off with these confound- 
ed trappings !" He threw the mantle into one 
corner of the room, the gorgeous.robe into anoth- 
er, and thus violentl}^ disencumbering himself , de- 
clared that hours of such mortal tediousness he 
had never passed before. — Abbott's Napoleon 
B., vol. 1, ch. 28. 

752. CEREMONY, Slaves of. Royalty. In the 
Byzantine palace the emjieror was the first slave 
of the ceremonies which he imposed, and the rig- 
id forms which regulated each word and gesture 
besieged him in the palace, and violated the lei- 
sure of his rural solitude. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 
53. 

753.. CHALLENGE, A dangerous. Inca.^ion of 
Pen/tsylra/iia. At Chambersburg . . . one female 
had seen fit to adorn her ample bosom with a 
huge Yankee flag, and she stood at the door of 
her house, her countenance expressing the great- 
est contempt for the barefooted Reljs ; ."several 
companies passed her without taking any notice ; 
but at length a Texan gravely remarked, " Take 
care, madam, for Hood's boys [from Texas, 
Alabama, and Arkansas] are great at storming 
breastworks when the Yankee color is on them." 
After this speech the patriotic lady beat a i^re- 
cipitate retreat. — PoLLAJtD's Second Year dp 
THE War, p. 337. 

754. CHALLENGE, Offered. Bevolutionary 
War. [In Florida British troopers] summoned 
the fort at Sunbury to surrender. But when 



90 



CHALLENGE— CHARACTER. 



Colonel Mackintosh answered, " Come and take 
it," they retreated.— Banxroft's U. S., vol. 10, 
ch. 13. 

755. CHALLENGE, Political. Lincoln— Doug- 
las. A.D. 1858. Both spoke in Springfield on 
the same day, but before different audiences . . . 
Mr. Lincoln addres.sed a letter to Mr. [S. A.] 
Doufflas, challeniring him to a series of debates 
during the campaign. The challenge was ac- 
cepted, and aiTangements were at once made for 
the meetings. Seven joint debates were held . . . 
[and they] raised the greatest excitement through- 
out the State.— Raymond's Lincoln, ch. 2, 
p. 42. 

756. CHALLENGE, Royal. Maria Tlierem. 
[Frederick II. declared war. Her father had 
recently died.] In the midst of distress and 
peril she had given birth to a son, afterward 
the Emperor Joseph II. Scarcely had she 
risen from her couch when she hastened to 
Pressburg. There, in the sight of an innu- 
merable multitude, she was crowned with the 
crown and robed with the robe of St. Stephen. 
No spectator could refrain his tears when the 
beautiful young mother, still weak from child- 
bearing, rode, after the fashion of her fathers, 
upthe ]\Iount of Defiance, unsheathed the ancient 
sword of state, shook it toward north and south, 
east and west, and, with a glow on her pale 
face, challenged the four corners of the world 
to dispute her rights and tho.se of her boy. — 
Macaulay's Fredekick the Great, p. 35. 

757. CHALLENGE, Unaccepted. Alexius Com- 
nenus. [Greek emperor — time of the cru.sades.] 
High on his throne, the emperor sat mute and 
immovable ; his Majesty was adored by the 
Latin princes, and they submitted to ki.ss either 
his feet or his knees— an indignity which their 
own writers r.re ashamed to c(jnfess and imable 
to deny. . . . But a French baron (he is supposed to 
be Robert of Paris) presumed to ascend the 
throne, and to place himself by the side of Alex- 
ius. The sage reproof of Baldwin provoked 
him to exclaim, in his barljarous idiom, " Who 
is this rustic that keeps his seat, while .so many 
valiant captains are standing round him?" The 
emperor maintained his silence, dissembled his in- 
dignation, and questioned his interpreter con- 
cerning the meaning of the words, which he 
partly suspected from the universal language of 
gesture and countenance. Before the departure 
of the ]Mlgrims he endeavored to learn the 
name and conditiim of the audacious baron. '* I 
am a Frenchman," replied Robert, " of the purest 
and most ancient noljility of my country. All that 
1 kncnv is, that there is a church in my neigh- 
borhood, the resort of those who are desirous" of 
approving tlieir valor in single combat. Till an 
enemy apjiears, they address their prayers to 
God and His saints. That church I have fre- 
quently visited. But never have I found an an- 
tagonist who dared to accept mv defiance." 
Alexius dismissed the challenirer with some pru- 
dent advice for his conduct in the Turkish war- 
fare.— GinnoNs Rome, ch. 58, p. 572. 

75§. CHANGE, A life. Txnjola. It was dur- 
ing the siege of Pampeluna by the French 
. . . that a young officer of Guipuzcoa, 
actively engaged in conducting the defence, re- 
ceived a severe wound which confined him for 
many weeks to his bed, an occurrence which 



proved the turning-point of his sulxsequent ex- 
traordinary career. This gallant soldier, soon to 
reappear upon the scene in a very different and 
far more influential character, was none other 
than Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Order of 
Jesus. — Students' France, ch. 14, ^ 5, p. 300 

759. CHANGE of Sides. "Bobbing John." 
John Erskine, Earl of Mar, who came to Edin- 
burgh as Secretary of State in 1706 [became 
distinguished in this manner :] his happy art of 
accommodating himself to circumstances pro- 
cured him the name of "Bobbing John." — 
Knight's Eng.. vol. 6, ch. 1. 

760. CHARACTER, Changeful. Boniface VIII. 
Boniface expired at Rome in a frenzy of rage 
and revenge. His memory is stained with the 
glaring vices of avarice and pride ; nor has the 
courage of a martyr promoted this ecclesiastical 
champion to the honors of a saint ; a mag- 
nanimous sinner (say the chronicles of the 
times), who entered like a fox, reigned like a 
lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded 
by IBenedict XL, the mildest of mankind. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 69. 

761. CHARACTER, Composite. Luther. 
[Heine's opinion of Luther :] " He created the 
German language. He was not only the 
greatest, but the mo.st German man of our 
history. In his character all the faults and all 
the virtues of the Germans are combined on 
the largest scale. Then he had qualities which 
are very seldom found united, which we are ac- 
customed to regard as irreconcilable antago- 
nisms. He was, at the same time, a dreamy 
mystic and a practical man of action. His 
thoughts had not only wings, but hands. He 
.spoke and he acted. He was not only the 
tongue, but the sword of liis time. When he 
had' plagued himself all day long with his doc- 
trinal distinctions, in the evening he took his 
flute and gazed at the stars, dissolved in melody 
and devotion. He could be as soft as a tender 
maiden. Sometimes he was wild as the storm 
that uproots the oak, and then again he was 
gentle as the zephyr that dallies with the violet." 
— Rein's Ltthek, J). 20."). 

76Si. CHARACTER, Contradictory. Jamen II. 
A libertine without love, a devotee without 
spirituality, an advocate of toleration without 
the sense of the natural right of conscience — in 
him the muscular force prevailed over the 
intellectual. He floated between the sensuality 
of indulgence and the sensuality of superstition, 
hazarding heaven for an ugly mistress, and, to 
the great delight of abbots and nuns, winning it 
back again by pricking his flesh with sharp 
points of iron, and eating no meat on Saturdays. 
Of the two brothers, the Duke of Bukingham 
said well, that Charles [II.] would not and 
James could not see. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 2, 
ch. 17. 

76:j. . Queen Elizabeth. To the 

world about her, the temper of ?21izabeth re- 
called in its strange contra.sts the mixed blood 
within her veins. She was at once the daughter 
of Henry [VIII. ] and of Anne Boleyn. From 
her father she inherited her frank and hearty 
address, her love of popularity and of free inter- 
course with the people, her dauntless courage, 
and her amazing .self-confidence. Her harsh, 
manlike voice, her impetuous will, her jjride 



CHARACTER. 



91 



her furious outbursts of anger, came to her with 
her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if 
they were schoolboj-s ; she met the insolence of 
Lord Essex with a box on the ear ; she broke 
now and then into the gravest deliberations to 
swear at her ministers like a fishwife. Strangely 
in contrast with these violent outlines of her 
father's temper stood the sensuous, self-indul- 
gent nature she drew from Anne Boleyn. — Hist. 
OF English People, t= 710. 

764. CHARACTER, Discipline of. CromwelVs 
Soldiers. Nor wouUl it be safe, in our time, to 
tolerate in any regiment religious meetings, at 
which a corporal versed in scripture should lead 
the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and ad- 
monish a backsliding major. But such was the 
intelligence, the gra\^tJ^ and the self-command 
of the warriors whom Cromwell hatl trained, 
that in their camp a political organization and a 
religious organization could exist without de- 
stroying military organization. The same men 
who, off duty, were noted as demagogues and 
field-preachers, were distinguished by steadiness, 
by the spirit of order, and by prompt obedience 
on watch, on drill, and on the field of battle. — 
Macaulay's ExG., ch. 1. 

yes. CHARACTER disclosed. Samuel John- 
son. BoswELL : " Mr. Burke has a constant 
stream of conversation." Johnson: "Yes, 
sir ; if a man were to go by chance at the same 
time with Burke under a shed, to shun a shower, 
he would say, ' This is an extraordinary man.' 
If Burke should go into a stable to see his horse 
dressed the ostler would .say, ' We have had an 
extraordinary man here. ' " Boswell : " Foote 
was a man who never failed in conversation. If 
he had gone into a .stable — " Johnson : " Sir, if 
he had gone into the stable, the ostler would 
have said. Here has been a comical fellow ; but 
he would not have respected him." — Boswell's 
Johnson, p. 517. 

766. CHARACTER, Elevation of. Ai-isUdes the 
Just. When the chief command of the war was 
given to Athens, a new system was established 
with regard to the contributions of the confeder- 
ate States, trusting no longer to contingent and 
occasional supplies or free gifts. The sub.sidies 
to be levied from each were to be exacted in pro- 
portion to its means, and the revenue of its ter- 
ritory ; and a common treasury was appointed 
to be kept in the Isle of Delos. " The high char- 
acter of Aristides was exemplified in the impor- 
tant and honorable trust with which he was in- 
vested by the common con.sent of the nation. It 
appears "that not only the custody of the nation- 
al supplies, but the power of fixing their propor- 
tions, was conferred on this illustrious man ; 
nor was there ever a complaint or murmur heard 
against the equity Avith which this high but in- 
vidious function was administered. The best 
testimony of his virtue was the strict frugality 
of his life and the honorable poverty in which 
he died. — Tytleu'sHist., Book 2, ch. 1, p. 138. 

767. CHARACTER estimated. CromireU's. It 
cannot be doubted that the estimate of his char- 
acter will always be formed, not merely from 
sympathy with a certain set of opinions, but 
even more from that strange, occult, and un- 
definable sentiment which, arising from pecu- 
liarity of temperament, becomes the creator of 
intellectual and even moral appreciation. Hence 



there are those to whom, whatever may be the 
amount of evidence for his puritj-, Cromwell 
can only be hateful ; while there are others, 
again, to whom, even if certain flaws or faults 
of character appear in him, he can only he ad- 
mirable. — Hood's Cromwell, ch. 1, p. 2. 

768. CHARACTER, Foundation for. Germans. 
Xow, "in two remarkal)k' traits the Germans 
differed from the Sarmatic as well as from the 
Slavic nations, and, indeed, from all those other 
races to whom the Greeks and Romans gave the 
designation of barbarians. I allude to their per- 
sonal freedom and regard for th.' rights of men ; 
secondly, to the respect paid by them to the 
female .sex, and the chastity for which the latter 
were celebrated among the people of the North. 
These were the foundations of that probity of 
character, self-respect, and purity of manners 
which may be traced among the Germans and 
Goths even during pagan times, and which, when 
their sentiments were enlightened l)y Christian- 
ity, brought out those splendid traits of charac- 
ter which distinguish the age of chivalry and 
romance." — Decisive Battles, ch. 6. 

769. CHARACTER, Greatness of. Luther. 
[Opinion of Thomas Carlyle.] " I will call this 
Luther a true great man, great in intellect, in 
courage, affection, and integrity, one of our 
most lovable and precious men. Great not as 
a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain, so 
simple, honest, .spontaneous, not setting up to 
be great at all ; there for quite another purpose 
than being great ! Ah, j-es, unsubduable granite, 
piercing far and wide into the heavens ; yet in 
the clefts of it fountains, green beautiful valleys 
with flowers ! A right spiritual Hero and 
Prophet ; once more a true son of Nature and 
Fact, for whom these centuries and many that 
are to come yet will be thankful to heaven." 
— Rein's Luther, ch. 26, p. 206. 

770. CHARACTER, Grotesque. Poet Shelley. 
To the world he presented the rare spectacle of 
a man passionate for truth and unreservedly obe- 
dient to the right as "he discerned it. The anom- 
aly which made his practical career a failure 
lay just here. The right he followed was too 
often the antithesis of ordinary morality ; in his 
desire to cast away the false and grasp the tru(?, 
he overshot the mark of prudence. The blend- 
ing in him of a pure and earnest purpose with 
moral and social theories that could not but 
have proved pernicious to mankind at large, pro- 
duced at times an almost grotesque mixture in 
his actions no less than in his verse. We can- 
not, therefore, wonder that society, while he 
lived, felt the necessity of asserting itself against 
him. — Symonds' Shelley, ch. 8. 

771. CHARACTER, Inherited. Americans. 
By the middle of the eightcLUith century the 
American colonies had, to a certain extent, as- 
sumed a national cliaracter ; but they Avere still 
strongly marked with the peculiarities which 
their'iincestors brought with them from Europe. 
In New England, especially in ^Massachusetts 
and Connecticut, the principles and practices of 
Puritanism still held universal sway. On the 
banks of the Hudson the language, manners, 
and customs of Holland were almost as preva- 
lent as thev had been a hundred years before. 
Bv the Delaware the Quakers were gatherel in 
such numbers as to control all legislation anl to 



92 



CHARACTER— CHARITY 



prevent serious innovations upon the simple 
methods of civil and social organization mtro- 
duced by Penn. On the northern bank of the 
Potomac, the j'outhful Frederick, the sixth Lord 
Baltimore, a frivolous and dissolute governor, 
ruled a people who still conformed to the order 
of thinii:s established a hundred and thirtj' years 
previouslv bv Sir George and Cecil Calvert. In 
Virsinia— mother of States and statesmen— the 
people had all their old peculiarities : a some- 
what haughty demeanor ; pride of ancestry ; 
fondness lor aristocratic sports ; hospitality ; 
love of freedom. The North Carolmians were, at 
this epoch, the same rugged and insubordinate 
race of hunters that thev had always been. In 
South Carolma . . . the people, mostly of 
French descent, were as hot-blooded and as 
jealous of theu- rights as their ancestors. — RiD- 
path's Hist. , ch. 36, p. 280. 

772. CHARACTER misinterpreted. Charles II. 
That the late king had been at heart a Roman 
Catholic had been, during some months, sus- 
pected and whispered, biit not formally an- 
nounced. The disclosure, indeed, could not be 
made without great scandal. Charles had, 
times without number, declared himself a Prot- 
estant, and had been in the habit of receiving 
the Eucharist from the bishops of the Established 
Church. Those Protestants who had stood by 
him in his difficuhies, and who still cherished 
an affectionate remembrance of him, must be 
filled with shame and indignation by learning 
that his whole life had been a lie ; that, while 
he profes.sed to belong to their communion, he 
had really regarded them as heretics ; and that 
the demagogues who had represented him as a 
concealed" papist had been the onlv people who 
had formed a correct judgment of his character. 
— ^Macaulay's Exg., ch. 6, p. 40. 

773. CHARACTER moulded by Theology. 
Cromwell. Cromwell was all that we include in 
the term Puritan. His whole public life was 
the result of that mental experience by which 
his faith was moulded. In him there was a pro- 
found reverence for the law of God. He had 
an instinctive apprehension of order. To dis- 
franchise, to rout, and put to flight the imbecili- 
ties of anarchists — .such was his work. A sworn 
.soldier of the Decalogue was he. Say that he 
read with keen vi\iduess into men's hearts and 
men's purposes ; well, he did so, as any man 
may do, by the light of high intelligent princi- 
ples within him. In man}' things, we do not 
doubt, he much misinterpreted the texts of the 
Divine Book. Perhaps he was too much a 
•' Hebrew of the Hebrews." Some do not see 
how a man can be faithfully a Christian man 
and also a soldier ; but if he will be a soldier, 
then we do not see how he can fulfil a soldier's 
dutv better than by looking into the Old Testa- 
ment. We see plainly that we shall not know 
Cromwell's character and deeds unless we ac- 
quaint ourselves with Cromwell's theologj'. — 
Hood's Cromwell, ch. 1, p. 22. 

77 1. CHARACTER, Natural. Fostered. The 
most important care of ^lammsea [the mother of 
Alexander] and her wise counsellors, was to 
form the character of the young emperor . . . 
the fortunate soil a.ssisted, and even prevented, 
the hand of cultivation. An excellent under- 
standing soon convinced Alexander of the ad- 



vantages of virtue, the pleasure of knowledge, 
and the necessity of labor. A natural mildness 
and moderation of temper preserved him from 
the assaults of passion and the allurements of 
vice. His unalterable regard for his mother . . . 
guarded his inexperienced youth from the 
poison of flattery.— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 6. 

775. CHARACTER above Office. E viper or. 
The great Theodosius, in his judicious advice to 
his son, . . . distinguishes the station of a Roman 
prince from that of a Parthian monarch. Virtue 
was necessary for the one ; birth might suffice 
for the other. — Milmax, in Gibbon's Rome. 

776. CHARACTER, Trifling. Greeks. The 
warmth of the climate disposed the natives of 
Antioch to the most intemperate enjoyiuent of 
tranquillity and opulence ; and the lively licen- 
tiousness of the Greeks was blended with the 
hereditary softness of the Syrians. ' Fashion was 
the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the 
splendor of dress and furniture was the only 
distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts 
of luxury were honored ; the serious and manly 
virtues were the subject of ridicule ; and the 
contempt for female modesty and reverent age 
announced the universal corruption of the cap- 
ital of the East. The love of spectacles was the 
taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians — the most 
skilful artists were procured from the adjacent 
cities ; a considerable .share of the revenue was 
devoted to the public amusements ; and the 
magnificence of the games of the theatre and 
circus was con.sidered as the happiness and as 
the glory of Antioch.— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 24. 

777. CHARITY for the Dead. Bollngbroke. 
The great Duke of ]\Iarlborough and the first 
Lord Bolingbroke were in opposite political in- 
terests, and were cousequently, on most occa- 
sions, ranged against each other. Some gentle- 
men, after the "duke's decease, were canvassing 
his character with much severity, and particu- 
larly charged him with being excessively ava- 
ricious. At length they appealed for the truth 
of their statements to Lord Bolingbroke, who 
was one of the company. This nobleman, with 
a generositv which did him real honor, an- 
swered : ' ' The Duke of ^Marlborough was so 
great a man that I quite forget his failings." 

778. CHARITY distrusted. Joseph II. Jo- 
seph II., walking one day on the Prater at 
Vienna, met a young woman who seemed in 
great distress. He inq'uired the cause, and found 
that she was the daughter of an officer who had 
been killed in the Imperial service, and that she 
and her mother had supported themselves by 
their industry, but were now unemployed. 
" Have you received no assistance from the 
government?" said the emperor. '•Xone,"wa.s 
the reply. "But why not apply to the em- 
peror ? he is ea.sy of access." " They say he 
is avaricious, and such a step would then be 
useless." The monarch inuuediately gave the 
young woman some ducats and a ring, telling 
her that he was in the emperor's service, and 
would serve her, if with her mother she would 
come to the palace on a certain day. The ap- 
pointment was kept, and the young woman rec- 
ognized her benefactor in the person of tlie em- 
peror, who bade her not to be alarmed, as he had 
settled a pension on her and her mother, adding, 



CHARITY— CHEERFULNESS. 



93 



" At another time, I hope you will not despair 
of a heart that is just." 

779. CHARITY, NobiUty of. Aristotle. Being 
blamed for giving alms to an unworthy person, 
he said, "I gave : but it was to mankind." — 
Cyclopedia of Bigg., p. 558. 

7S0. CHARITY, Wise. John Howard. In times 
of scarcity he exerted himself to find employ- 
ment for those [of his tenants] who needed it, 
getting situations among his friends for deserv- 
ing girls and young men, keeping many hands 
busy upon his own grounds and in wea\'ing 
linen for his family. It is said that he had 
linen enough in his house when he died to last 
fifty years longer. He was reluctant to give 
money in charity, except to persons who could 
not work. His way was to provide work, even 
if the work was not needed. This principle, 
however, did not prevent his giving presents on 
proper occasioi^ to deserving objects. All his 
servants were generously remembered by him at 
Christmas and on their birthdays : and when 
one of their daughters was married, he was 
fond of presenting the bride wth a good cow. — 
Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 38. 

7§l. CHARITY, Wonderful. Father Mathew 
said : A poor woman found in the streets a male 
infant, which she brought to me,, and asked im- 
ploringly what she was to do with it. Influ- 
enced, unhappily, by cold caution, I advised her 
to give it to the church-wardens. It was then 
evening. On the ensuing morning, early, I found 
this poor woman at my doors. She was a poor 
water-carrier. She cried bitterly, and said, "I 
have not slept one wink all night for parting 
with that child which God had put in my way^ 
and, if you will give me leave, I will take hiim. 
back again." I was filled with confusion at 
the pious tenderness of this poor creature, and I 
went with her to the parish nurse for the infant, 
which she brought to her home with joy, ex- 
claiming, in the very words of the prophet, 
" Poor child, though thy mother has forgotten 
thee, I ^vill not forget thee." Eight "years 
have elapsed since she brought to her humble 
home that exposed infant, and she is now blind 
from the constant exposure to wet and cold ; and 
ten times a daj- may be seen that poor wa- 
ter-carrier passing with her weary load, led by 
this little foundling boy. merciful Jesus, I 
would gladly sacrifice the wealth and power of 
this wide world, to secure to myself the glorious 
welcome that awaits this poor" blind water-car- 
rier on the great accounting day ! Oh. what, 
compared to charity like this^ the' ennined robe, 
the ivory sceptre, the golden throne, the jew- 
elled diadem \ — Cyclopedia of Biog., p. 113. i 

7§2. CHARM, Protecting. Kuma. [Xuma, one 
of the earliest kings of Rome.] having mixed 
the fountain of which they used to drmk with 
wine and honey, surprised and caught [the demi- 
gods, who] . . . acquainted him mth many se- 
crets of futurity and taught him a charm' for \ 
thunder and lightning, composed of onions, hair, 
and pilchards, which is used to this day. — Plu 
tarch's Numa. 



7§3. . Agnus Dei. The agyiusda, 

in the Roman Catholic Church, is a cake of wax, 
bearing the image of a lamb bearing a cross. 
Being blessed by the pope, they are" worn by 



many Catholics, and believed to drive away bad 
spirits and preserve their wearers from harm. — 
Am. Cyc, •• Agnus Dei." 

7§4. CHASTISEMENT of Children. Scourge. 
Severe corporal puui^hment was the accustomed 
instrument of good education in the fifteenth cen- 
tury. The scourge was recommended even by 
gentle mothers to be administered to their sons. 
— Kxight's EjsG., vol. 2, ch. 5. 

7§5. CHASTITY and Civilization. Opposed. Al- 
though the progress (if civilizatiou has undoubt- 
edly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of 
human nature, it seems to have been less favora- 
ble to the \"irtue of chastity, whose most danger- 
ous enemy is the softness of the mind. The^ re- 
finements of life corrupt while they polish the in- 
tercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of 
love becomes most dangerous when it is elevat- 
ed, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental 
passion. The elegance of dress, of motion, and 
of manners gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames, 
the .senses through the imagination. Luxurious 
entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious 
spectacles present at once temptation and op- 
portunity to female frailtv. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 9. 

7§6. CHASTITY. Invincible. Eoman General 
Belisarius. Belisarius was chaste and sober. In 
the license of a military life, none could boast 
that they had seen him intoxicated with wine ; 
the most beautiful captives of Gothic or Vandal 
race were offered to his embraces ; but he turned 
aside from their charms, and the husband of An- 
tonina was never suspected of violating the laws 
of conjugal fidelity. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 41. 

7§7. CHASTITY, Rare. Early Christians. It 
was with the utmost dilficulty that ancient Rome- 
could support the institution of six vestals ; but 
the primitive church was filled with a great num- 
ber of persons of either sex, who had devoted 
themselves to the profession of perpetual chas- 
tity. — Gibbon's Rome, vol. 1, ch. 15, p. 550. 

7§§. CHEERFULNESS, Simulated. Mary. The 
.ship in which the Princess of Orange had em- 
barked lay off 3Iargate, and on the following- 
morning anchored at Greenwich. She was re- 
ceived with man}- signs of joy and affection ; 
but her demeanor shocked the Tories, and was 
not thought faultless even by the Whigs. A 
young woman, placed, by a destiny as mourn- 
ful and a\\-ful as that which brooded over the 
fabled houses of Labdacus and Pelops, in such a 
situation that she could not. without violating 
her duty to her God, her husband, and her coun- 
try, refuse to take her seat on the throne from 
which her father [James II.] had just been 
hurled, should have been sad, or at least serious. 
Mary was not merely in high, but in extravagant 
spirits. She entered Whifehall, it was asserted, 
with a girlish delight at being mistress of so fine 
a house, ran about the rooms, peeped into the 
closets, and examined the quilt of the state bed, 
without seeming to remember by whom those 
stately apartments had last been occupied. [Bish- 
op] Burnet, who had, till then, thought her an 
angel in human form, could not, on this occa- 
sion, refrain from blaming her. He was the 
more astonished, because, when he took leave of 
her at the Hague, she had, though fidly con- 
vinced that she was in the path of duty, been 



94 



CHEEKIXG— CHILDHOOD. 



deeply dejected. To him, as to her spiritual 
guide, she afterward explained her conduct. 
William had written to inform her that some of 
those who had tried to separate her interests from 
his still continued their machinations; they 
gave it out that she thought herself wronged ; 
and if she wore a gloomy countenance, the re- 
port would be confirmed. He therefore entreated 
her to make her first appearance with an air of 
cheerfulness. Her heart, she said, was far in- 
deed from cheerful ; but she had done her best ; 
and, as she was afraid of not sustaining well a 
part which was uncongenial to her feelings, 
she had overacted it. Her deportment was the 
subject of reams of scurrility in prose and verse ; 
it lowered her in the opinion of some whose es- 
teem she valued ; nor did the world know, till 
she was beyond the reach of praise and censure, 
that the conduct which had brought on her the 
reproach of levity and insensibility was really a 
signal instance of that perfect disinterestedness 
and self-devotion of which man seems to be in- 
capable, but which is sometimes found in wom- 
an. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 10, p. 606. 

7§9. CHEERING effective. War of Rebellion. 
The Southern troops when charging, or to ex- 
press their delight, always yell in a manner pe- 
culiar to themselves. The Yankee cheer is much 
more like ours ; but the Confederate officers de- 
clare that the rebel yell has a peculiar merit, and 
always produces a salutary and useful efEect 
upon their adversaries. A corps is sometimes 
spoken of as a " good yelling regiment." [Brit- 
ish oflBcer's diary, quoted in] Pollard's Sec- 
ond Year of the War, p. 349. 

790. CHILD, Influence of a. Sovereign. In 
1425, with a view probably to diminish the in- 
fluence of the protector [the Duke of Glouces- 
ter], by exhibiting the child Henry [VI., then 
five years old] as a shadow of royalty, he was 
brought into the House of Lords and seated 
upon the throne upon his mother's knee. "It 
was a strange sight," says Speed, the chronicler, 
" and the first time it was ever seen in England, 
an infant sitting in his mother's lap, and before 
it could tell what English meant, to exercise 
the place of sovereign direction in open Parlia- 
ment." — Kxight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 5, p. 78. 

791. CHILD, A passionate. Blaise Pascal. 
When the boy was a year old he was observed 
to resent, in the most violent manner, any ca- 
resses which his parents exchanged. Either of 
them might kiss liim in welcome, but if they 
kissed one another, he cried, kicked, and made 
a terrible ado. He had also the peculiarity (not 
very rare among children) of making a great 
outcry whenever a basin of water was brought 
near him. " Every one," writes an inmate and 
relative of the family, "said the child was be- 
witched by an old woman who was in the habit 
of receiving alms from the house." [The "witch" 
applied her sorcery, and appeared to have killed 
the child, but it was restored.] — Cyclopedl\of 
BioG., p. 96. 

792. CHILD, Power of. Ruler. Thomistocles' 
son being master of his mother, and by her 
means, of him, he said, laughing, " This child is 
greater than any man in Greece ; for the Athe- 
nians command the Greeks, I command the 
Athenians, his mother commands me, and he 
commands his mother." — Plutarch. 



793. CHILD, Precocious. Samuel Johnson. 
When Dr. Sacheverell was at Lichfield, Johnson 
was not quite three years old. My grandfather 
Hammond observed him at the cathedral perch- 
ed upon his father's shoulders, listening and 
gaping at the much-celebrated preacher. Mr. 
Hammond asked Mr. Johnson how he could 
possibly think of bringing such an infant to 
church, and in the midst of so great a crowd. 
He answered, because it was impossible to keep 
him at home ; for, young as he was, he believed 
he had caught the public spirit and zeal for 
Sacheverell, and would have stayed forever in 
the church. — Boswell's Johnson, p. 5. 

794. CHILD, A ruined. Griff. Mrs. Susanna 
Wesley [the mother of John Wesley] had seen 
much affliction. Her husband had been in 
prison for debt, .she had suffered from poverty 
and sickness, some of her children had died, and 
others married unhappily. She wrote thus to 
her brother in bereavement : " O sir, happy, 
thrice happy are you ; happy is my sister that 
buried your'children in infancy ! Secure from 
temptation, secure from guilt, secure from want 
or shame or loss of friends, they are safe beyond 
the reach of pain or sense of misery. Being 
gone hence, nothing can touch them further. 
Believe me, sir, it is better to mourn ten chil- 
dren dead than one living, and I have buried 
many." 

795. CHILD, Value of a. Heathen. Abdallah- 
Beu-Abd-el-Mottalib, the father of Mahomet, 
when a j-outh narrowly escaped sacrifice at his 
falher'siiands, who, being childless, made a vow 
that he would sacrifice one of his children to 
the gods if they would grant him a family. The 
family came, and the lot being taken fell on Ab- 
dallah. The father was on the point of fulfil- 
ling his vow, when, by the advice of his friends, 
he stayed his hand and consulted a wise woman, 
who directed him to place ten camels, the price 
of blood among the Arabs, on one side, and his 
son on the other, and to cast lots between them ; 
and as often as the lots should be against the 
youth, he was to add ten more camels. The ex- 
periment was tried, and the lot was against Ab- 
dallah ten times ; the father sacrificed one hun- 
dred camels, and saved his son. — App. Cyc, 
" Abdallah." 

796. CHILDHOOD, Impressible. Ret. John Da- 
vis. [He was early trained in the doctrines of 
religion.] He attributed his conversion, in his 
nineteenth year, to the ineffaceable impres.sion 
of a le.sson of the Holy Scriptures, heard while 
sitting on his father's knee when he was a child. 
—Stevens' M. E. Church, vol. 4, p. 230. 

797. CHILDHOOD, Terrors of. William Cowper. 
Mv chief affliction consistetl in my being singled 
out from all the other boys by a lad of about 
fifteen years of age as a proper object upon 
whom he might let loose the cruelty of his tem- 
per. I choose to conceal a particular recital of 
the many acts of barbarity with which he made 
it his business continuallv to persecute me. It 
will be sufficient to say that his savage treatment 
of me impressed such a dread of his figure upon 
my mind, that I well remember being afraid to 
lift my eyes upon him higher than to his knees, 
and that I knew him bett'er by his shoe-buckles 
than by any other part of his dress. May the 



CHILDREN. 



95 



Lord pardon him, and may we meet in glory ! 
— Smith's Cowpek, cli. 1. 

798. CHILDREN abused. Paupers. [In the 
British collieries, 1837,] it was the custom of 
many of the hard task-masters to take two or 
three apprentices at a time, supporting them- 
selves and families out of the labor of tfiese un- 
fortunate orphans, wlio from the age of fourteen 
to twenty-one never received a penny for them- 
selves, by a servitude in which there was nothing 
to learn beyond a little dexterity readily ac- 
quired by short practice. [Some of them were 
whipped to death.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, 
ch. 23, p. 396. 

799. . Spinning. Children of 

very tender age, collected from the London 
workhouses and other abodes of the friendless, 
were transported to Manchester and the neigh- 
borhood as apprentices. They were often work- 
ed through the whole night ; had no regard paid 
to their cleanliness ; and received no instruction. 
[They were employed on the newly invented 
spinning machines.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 7, 
ch. 3, p. 52. 

§00. CHILDREN a Blessing. Mahomet. His 
enemies, who regarded the privation of a male 
child as a disfavor of Heaven, gave to Mahomet 
the ignominious epithet of a man without a con- 
tinuation of himself. — Lamartine's Turkey, 
p. 140. 

§01. CHILDREN, Delight in. Mahomet. Ma- 
homet's politeness to men of all conditions who 
approached him was gentle and respectful. 
"He never," says Aboulfeda, "withdrew his 
hand the first from the hand of those who were 
saluting him." He played . . . with the children 
of Ali, the husband of his daughter, Fatima, in 
default of any of his own. One of these little 
ones, of a tender age, named Hossein, having 
crept upon his back while he was prostrated in 
prayer, with his face against the earth, the proph- 
et remained in this attitude, to gratify the child, 
until its mother came to deliver him of the bur- 
den. — Lamartine's Turkey, p. 152. 

§02. CHILDREN, Discipline of. Severity. 
[a.d. 1547.] Severe discipline of children was 
the characteristic of an age in which men and 
boys, and even girls, were governed more by ter- 
jor than by love. Peter Carewe, when he ran 
away from school, was led home in chains like a 
dog, and was coupled to a hound in a filthy out- 
house. Lady Jane Grey described to Ascham 
how, in the presence of her parents, she was com- 
pelled to deport herself in every action of life ac- 
cording to the strictest rules ; " or else I am so 
sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea pres- 
ently, sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, 
and other ways which I will not name for the 
honor I bear them, so without measure disorder- 
ed that I think myself in hell." The poor lady, 
however, considered the .severity as a blessing, 
for it taught her to value the exceptional kindness 
of her schoolmaster, "who teacheth me so gen- 
tly, so pleasant]}', with .such fair allurements to 
learning, that I think all the time nothing while 
I am with him." — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 
29, p. 496. 

§03. CHILDREN frightened. Reign of James 
II. [The ladies of the queen's household, prompt- 
ed by avarice, plundered the "s-ictims of Jef- 



freys' court.] The prey on which they pounced 
mo.st eagerly was one which it might have been 
thought that even the most ungentle natures 
would have .spared. Already some of the girls 
who had presented a standard to i\Ionmouth [the 
rebel and pretended king] at Taunton had cru- 
elly expiated their ofEence. One of them had 
been thrown into a prison where an infectious 
malady was raging. She had .sickened and died 
there. Another had presented herself at tiie bar 
before Jeffreys to beg for mercy. " Take her, 
jailer," vociferated the judge, with one of those 
frowns which had often .struck terror into stout- 
er hearts than hers. She burst into tears, drew 
her hood over her face, followed the jailer out of 
court, fell ill of fright, and in a few hours was a 
corpse. Most of the young ladies, however, who 
had walked in the proces.sion were still alive. 
Some of them were under ten years of age. All 
had acted under the orders of their schoolmis- 
tress, without knowing that they were commit- 
ting a crime. The queen's maids of honor asked 
the royal permission to wring money out of the 
parents of the poor children, and the permission 
was granted. An order was sent down to Taun- 
ton that all these little girls .should be seized and 
imprisoned. [See more at No. 607.] — Macau- 
lay's Eng., ch. 5, p. 607. 

§04. CHILDREN, Labors of. Reign of Charles 
II. At Norwich, the chief .seat of the clothing 
trade, a little creature six years old was thought 
fit for labor. Several writers of that time, and 
among them some who were considered as emi- 
nently benevolent, mention, with exultation, the 
fact, that in that city boys and girls of a tender 
age created wealth exceeding what was necessa- 
ry for their own subsistence by £12,000 a year. 
— Macaulay's Eng., ch. 3, p. 390. 

§05. CHILDREN, Mistrained. John Milton's. 
He did not allow his daughters to learn any lan- 
guage, saying with a gibe that one tongue was 
enough for a woman. They were not sent to 
any school, but had some sort of teaching at 
home from a mistress. But in order to imke 
them useful in reading to him, their father was 
at the pains to train them to read aloud in five or 
six languages, of none of which they understood 
one word. When we think of the time and la- 
bor which must have been expended to teach 
them to do this, it must occur to us that a little 
more labor would have sulficed to teach them so 
much of one or two of the languages as would 
have made their reading a source of interest and 
improvement to themselves. This ^lilton refus- 
ed to do. The consequence was, as might have 
been expected, the occupation became so irk- 
some to them that they rebelled against it. In 
the case of one of them, Mary, . . . this restivc- 
ness passed into open revolt. She first resisted, 
then neglected, and finally came to hate, her 
father. When some one spoke . . . she said, 
that was no news to her of his wedding ; but 
if .she could hear of his death, that was some- 
thing. She combined with Anne, the eldest 
daughter, " to coun.sel his maid-.servant to cheat 
him in his marketings." They sold his books 
without his knowledge. " They made nothing 
of deserting him," he was often heard to com- 
plain. — Milton, by M. Pattison, ch. 12. 

§06. CHILDREN, Overgovernment of. John 
Howard. [He had an only sou. J lie was ex- 



96 



CHILDREN— CHIVALRY. 



ceedingly fond of his son, though he governed 
him, as some of his friends thought, a little too 
much in the patriarchal style, demanding from 
him the most prompt and exact obedience, and 
avoiding, on principle, to give him any expla- 
nation of the reasons of his requirements. He 
never struck the boy a blow in his life. The 
severest punishment he ever inflicted was com- 
pellino; him to sit still for a certain time without 
speaktug, and such Vas his ascendency over the 
child, that one of his neighbors said that if he 
should tell the boy to hold his hand in the fire, 
he would do it. He appears to have carried the 
patriarchal principle too far. The boy obeyed 
his father, but did not confide in him ; respected 
his father, but was not very fond of him ; was 
proud of his father, but did not feel at home in 
his company. [See more at No. 418.]— Cyc. of 
Bigg., p. 51. 

807. CHILDREN, Protection of. Roman. The 
same protection was due to every period of ex- 
istence ; and reason must applaud the humanity 
of Paulus for imputing the crime of murder to 
the father who strangles, or starves, or abandons 
his new-born infant, or exposes him in a public 
place to find the mercy which he himself had 
denied. But the exposition of children was the 
prevailing and stubborn vice of antiquity ; it was 
sometimes prescribed, often permitted, almost al- 
ways practised with impunity, by the nations 
who never entertained the Roman ideas of pater- 
nal powers. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 44. 

80§. CHILDEEN of the State. Spartan. Chil- 
dren at Sparta were not considered as belonging 
to the individual parents, but to the State. Af- 
ter the performance of the first maternal duties, 
the youth were educated at the charge of the 
public ; and every citizen had as much authori- 
ty over his neighbor's children as over his own. 
Slaves, in the same manner, were, at Sparta, a 
species of common property ; every man might 
make use of his neighbor's .slaves, and hunt, as 
Xenophon informs us, not only with his neigh- 
bor's servants, but with his dogs and horses. 
— Tytler's Hist., Book 1, ch. 9. 

809. CHILDREN to save the State. Washing- 
ton. [In the dark days of the war of the Rev- 
olution Washington was returning to his army 
after a brief absence.] The population of the 
town where he was to spend the night went 
out to meet him. A crowd of children, repeat- 
ing the acclamations of their elders, gathered 
around him, stopping his way, all wishing to 
touch him and calling him father. Pressing the 
hand of [Count] Dumas [one of his French al- 
lies], he said to him : "We may be beaten by the 
English in the field ; it is the lot of arms ; but 
see there the arm that they Avill never conquer." 
—Bancroft's U. S. , vol. 10, ch. 18. 

810. CHILDREN, Surrender of. To Vale ns. The 
liberality of the [Roman] emperor was accom- 
panied, however, with two harsh and rigorous 
conditions, which prudence might justify on the 
side of the Romans, but which distress alone 
could extort from the indignant Goths. Before 
they passed the Danube, they were required to 
deliver their arms ; and it was insisted that their 
children should be taken from them, and dis- 
persed through the provinces of Asia, where 
they might be civilized by the arts of education, 



and serve as hostages to secure the fidelity of 
their parents.— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 26. 

811. CHILDREN surviving. Samuel Johnson. 
BoswELL : " I believe, sir, a great many of the 
children born in Loudon die early." John- 
son : " Why, yes, sir." Boswell : " But those 
who do live are as stout and strong people as 
any ; Dr. Price says they must be naturally 
strong to get through." Johnson : " That i» 
system, sir. A great traveller ob.serves, that it 
is said there are no weak or deformed peo- 
ple among the Indians : but he with much sagac- 
ity assigns the rea.son of this, which is, that the 
hardship of their life as hunters and fishers 
does not allow weak or diseased children to grow 
up. Now, had I been an Indian I must have 
died early ; mj^ eyes would not have served me 
to get food. I indeed now could fish, give me 
English tackle ; but had I been an Indian I must 
have starved, or they would have knocked me 
on the head, when they saw I could do. nothing." 
— Boswelt/s Johnson, p. 495. 

812. CHILDREN are Treasures. Poor Man's. 
[When the rabble for the second time fired tlie 
rectorv of Rev. Samuel Wesley, it was with 
difiicuUy that the lives of the children were saved, 
his son John barely getting out of the house be- 
fore the roof fell, crushing the chamber where 
he had slept to the ground.] The father ex- 
claimed as he received his son, "Come, neigh- 
bors, let us kneel down ; let us give thanks unto 
God ; He has given me all my eight children ; 
let the house go, I am rich enough." — Stevens* 
Methodism, vol. 1, p. 60. 

813. CHILDREN, Unfortunate. Tartars. 
There still remained a more disgraceful article 
of tribute, which violated the sacred feelings of 
humanity and nature. The hardships of the 
sa%-age life, which destroy in their infancy the 
children who are born with a less healthy and 
robust constitution, introduced a remarkable dis- 
proportion between the numbers of the two .sex- 
es. .. . A select band of the fairest maidens 
of China were annuallv devoted to the rude em- 
braces of the Huns.— 6ibbon's Rome, ch. 26. 

814. CHIMERA, Pursuit of. Isaac Xetrton. 
Who would have thought to find Newton an al- 
chemist ? It is a fact, ^hat for several years this 
great man was intensely occupied in endeavoring* 
to discover a way of changing the ba.ser metals 
into gold. This is, perhaps, the reason why he 
added little to our knowledge of chemistry, 
though he seems to have labored at this science 
a longer time and with more pleasure than at 
any other. Being in pursuit of a chimera, he 
lo.s't his time. There were periods when his fur- 
nace fires were not allowed to go out for six 
weeks, he and his secretary sitting up alternate 
niehts to replenish them. — Cyclopedia of 
BioG., p. 256. 

81.5. CHIVALRY, Baseness of. Edicard I. 
[Edward I.] was challenged to a tournament by 
the Count of Chalons. . "T . Edward entered the 
lists with a thousand retainers, both horsemen 
and spearmen. In the melee many were killed ; 
and the English appear to have behaved with 
most despicable ferocity. Edward himself, when 
he had unhorsed the athletic count, his chal- 
lenger, stood over his suppliant enemy, and be- 
labored him with a brutality of which an Eng- 



CHIVALRY— CHRIST. 



97 



llsh costermonger would now be ashamed. Such 
was chivalry — that compound of cruelty and 
generosity, of physical daring and moral coward- 
ice, of sensitive honor and broken faith. — 
Knight's Eno., vol. 1, ch. 20, p. 282. 

816. CHIVALRY, Modern. Battle of Lexing- 
ton, Mo. [The Federals surrendered to the Con- 
federates after a protracted siege.] When Col- 
onel Mulligan surrendered his sword. General 
Price asked him for the scabbard. Mulligan 
replied that he had thrown it away. The general, 
upon receiving his sword, returned it to him, 
sajing he disliked to see a man of his valor 
without a sword. . . . While awaiting his ex- 
change Colonel ilulligan and his wife became 
the guests of General Price, the general surren- 
dering to them his carriage.— Pollard's First 
Year op the War, ch. 5, p. 148. 

§17. CHIVALRY, Order of. Knights of St. 
John. The military and religious order of the 
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem was the ex- 
piring sigh of chivalry after the crusades. A 
triple spirit at that time animated the European 
nobility — the spirit of faith, the spirit of war, 
the spirit of adventure. What is called a knight 
was born of these three spirits combined. A 
pious heart, a militant arm, a chimerical imag- 
ination—those three elements composed the per- 
fect Christian knight. Religion, war, glory, were 
his three souls. — Lamaktine's Turkey, p. 347. 

818. CHIVALRY, Patriotic. Capt. PaulJones. 
He landed near the castle of the Earl of Sel- 
kirk, intending to take the earl prisoner, and 
keep him as a hostage for the better treatment 
of American prisoners in England, whom the 
king affected to regard as felons, and who were 
confined in common jails. The earl was absent 
from home. The crew demanded liberty to 
plunder the castle, in retaliation for the ravages 
of British captains ou the coast of America. 
Captain Jones could not denj^ the justice of their 
demand ; yet, abhorring the principle of plun- 
dering private houses, and especial!}' one inhab- 
ited by a lady, he permitted the men to take 
the silver plate only, forbidding the slightest ap- 
proach to violence or disrespect. That silver 
plate he himself bought when the plunder was 
sold, and sent it back to the Countess of Selkirk, 
with a polite letter of explanation and apology. 
The haughty earl refused to receive it ; but 
Captain Jones, after a long correspondence, won 
his heart, and the silver was replaced in the 
plate closet of Selkirk Castle eleven years after it 
had been taken from it. — Cyclopedia op Biog. , 
p. 336. 

819. CHOICE of Both. Lysander. [Lysander 
having been sent an] ambassador to Dionysius, 
the tyrant offered him two vests, that he might 
take one of them for his daughter ; upon which 
he said his daughter knew better how to choose 
than he, and so took them both. — Plutarch's 
Lysander. 

820. CHOICE manifested. Pizarro. His fol- 
lowers ran down to the ship and demanded to 
be conveyed to Panama. Pizarro joined them, 
gathered them around him, and, drawing a line in 
the sand with his sword, addressed them thus : 
" Comrades, on that side," pointing to the south, 
" are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching 
storm, battle, and death. On this side," point- 



ing to the north, " are ease and safety. But on 
that side lies Peru, with its wealth. On this 
side is Panama and its poverty. Clioose, each 
man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For 
my part, I go to the south." Having said these 
words, he stepped to the southern side of the 
line, and there stood, eying the homesick crowd. 
Twelve soldiers, one priest, and one muleteer 
joined him. The rest went on board the ship 
and returned to Panama. — Cyclopedia op 
BiOG., p. 325. 

821. CHOICE, Necessary. Indej^en dents. 
Self-preservation, uniting with ambition and 
wild enthusiasm, urged them to uncomjjromis- 
ing hostility with Charles I. He or they must 
perish. " If my head or the king's must fall," 
argued Cromwell, "can I hesitate which to 
choose '?" By an act of violence the Indepen- 
dents seized on the king, and held him in their 
special custody. ' ' JSTow^" said the exulting Crom- 
well — " now that I have the king in my hands, 
I have the Parliament in my pocket." — Ban- 
cropt's U. S., vol. 2, ch. IL 

822. CHOICE, Painful. Death of Strafford. 
The Parhament was intlexible ; the queen wept ; 
England was in a ferment. Charles [I.], al- 
though ready to yield, still hesitated. The Queen 
Henrietta, of France, daughter of Henry IV. , a 
beautiful and accomplished princess, for whom 
until his death the king preserved the fidelity of 
a husband and the passion of a lover, presented 
herself before him in mourning, accompanied 
by her little children. She besought him on her 
knees to yield to the vengeance of the people, 
which he could not resist without turning upon 
the innocent pledges of their love that" death 
Avhich he was endeavoring vainly to avert from 
a condemned head. " Choose," said she, "be- 
tween your own life, mine, these dear children's, 
and the life of this minister so hateful to the 
nation." Charles, struck with horror at the idea 
of sacrificing his beloved -nife and infant chil- 
dren, the hopes of the monarch}^ replied that 
he cared not for his own life, for he would will- 
ingly give it to save his minister ; but to en- 
danger Henrietta and her children was beyond 
liis strength and desire. [He signed the death- 
warrant of his chief minister and faithful friend.] 
— Lamartine's Cromwell, p. 12. 

823. CHRIST caricatured. Martin, Luther. 
Bitterly did he complain that, from childhood 
on, he had been so trained that he paled and 
trembled at the mere mention of the name of 
Christ, whom he had been tausht to regard as 
a severe and angry judge. — Seix's Luther, 
p. 22. 

824. CHRIST, Defence of. King of the Franks. 
[After his conversion] the mind of Clovis was 
susceptible of transient fervor ; he was exasper- 
ated by the pathetic tale of the passion and 
death of Christ ; and, instead of weighing the 
salutary consequences of that mysterious sacri- 
fice, he exclaimed, yvixh indiscreet fury, "Had 
I been present at the head of my valiant Franks, 
I would have revenged His injuries." — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 37, p. 575. 

825. CHRIST, Honors for. Proof. [The mind 
of the Emperor Theodosius was confirmed in or- 
thodox doctrine.] He had lately bestowed on 
his eldest son, Arcadius, the name and honors of 



98 



CHRIST— CHRISTIAN. 



Aiigustus, and the two princes were seated on a 
stately throne to receive the homage of their sub- 
jects.' A bishop, Auiphilochiiis of Iconium, 
approached the throne, and after saluting, with 
due reverence, the person of his sovereign, he 
accosted the roval youth with the same familiar 
tenderness which he might have used toward a 
plebeian child. Provoked by this insolent he- 
havior, the monarch gave orders that the rustic 
priest should be instantly driven from his pres- 
ence. But while the guards were forcing him 
to the door, the dexterous polemic had time to 
execute his design, by exclaiming, with a loud 
voice, "Such is the' treatment, O emperor, 
•which the King of heaven has prepared for those 
impious men who affect to w^orship the Father, 
but refuse to acknowledge the equal majesty of 
His di\ine Son !" Theodosius immediately em- 
braced the Bishop of Iconium, and never forgot 
the important lesson which he had received 
from this dramatic parable.— Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 27. 

§26. CHRIST, Preaching. Erasmus. Erasmus 
desired to set Christ Himself in the place of the 
church, to recall men from the teaching of Chris- 
tian theologians to the teaching of the Found- 
er of Christianity. The whole value of the 
gospels to him lay in the vividness Avith which 
they brought home to their readers the personal 
impression of Christ Himself. " Were we to 
have seen Him with our own eyes, we should 
not have so intimate a knowledge as they give 
us of Christ, speaking, healing, dying, rising 
again, as it were in our very presence." All the 
superstitions of mediaeval worship faded away 
in the light of this personal worship of Christ. 
"If the" footprints of Christ are shown us in 
any place, we kneel down and adore them. Why 
do' we not rather venerate the living and breath- 
ing picture of Him in these books ? We deck 
statues of wood and stone with gold and gems 
for the love of Christ. Yet they only profess to 
represent to us the outer form of His body, while 
these books present us with a living picture of 
His holy mind." In the same way the actual 
teaching of Christ was made to supersede the 
mysterious dogmas of the older ecclesia.stical 
teaching. " As though Christ taught such sub- 
tleties," burst out Erasmus — " subtleties that can 
.scarcely be understood even by a few theologians 
— or as though the strength of the Christian relig- 
ion consisted in man's ignorance of it ! It ma}' 
be the safer course," he goes on, with character- 
istic irony, "to conceal the state mysteries of 
kings, but Christ desired His mysteries to be 
spread abroad as openly as w^as possible." In 
the diffusion, in the universal knowledge of the 
teaching of Christ, the foundation of a reformed 
Christianity had still, he urged, to be laid.— 
ExG. People, i; 518. 

§27. CHRIST substituted. Pope. In his ad- 
dresses to the people he maintained in plain 
speech : " Christ has laid down His authority 
over all Christendom, until the day of judg- 
ment, and has intrusted the pope wi'th plinarv 
power in His stead. The pope therefore ca'n 
forgive each and every sin, whether already 
committed or yet to be committed, and that 
without sorrow and repentance. The greatest 
guilt can be effaced by purchasing a papal certifi- 
cate of forgiveness. ' Ko crime, however horri- 



ble and inconceivable in reality, is excluded 
from this forgiveness. The indulgence cross of 
the pope is not inferior in sacredncss to the cross 
of Christ, and hence the former nuist be honor- 
ed as hiirhlv as the latter." — Rein"s Luther, 
p. 12. 

§2§. CHRIST, Theory of. MnJiomet's. For the 
author of Christianity the Mohammedans are 
taught by the prophet to entertain a high and 
mysterious reverence. "Verily, Christ Jesus, 
the Son of Marv, is the apostle of God, and His 
word, which He conveyed unto Mary, and a 
Spirit proceeding from Him ; honorable in this 
world and in the world to come ; and one of 
those who approach near to the presence of 
God." The wonders of the genuine and apocr}- 
phal gospels are profusely heaped on His head ; 
and the Latin church has not disdained to bor- 
row from the Koran the immaculate conception 
of His \irgin mother. Yet Jesus was a mere 
mortal ; and at the day of judgment His testi- 
mony will serve to condemn Iwth the Jews, who 
reject Hint as a prophet, and the Christians, who 
adore Him as the Son of God. The malice of His 
enemies aspersed His reputation and conspired 
against His life ; but their intention only was 
guilty ; a phantom or a criminal was substituted 
on the cross, and the innocent saint was trans- 
lated to the seventh heaven. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 50, p. 108. 

§29. CHRISTIAN \tj Bereavement, Ahraimm 
Lincoln. [See Xo. 830.] " I had lived," he con- 
tinued. " until my boy Willie died, without real- 
izing fully these things. That blow overwhelmed 
me. It showed me my weakness as I had never 
felt it before ; and if I can take what you have 
stated as a ted, I think I can safely say that I 
know something of that change of which you 
speak ; and I will further add, that it has been 
my intention for some time, at a suitable oppor- 
tunity, to make a public religious profession !" 
— Raymond's Lincoln, p. 732. 

§30. CHRISTIAN, Experience of a. Ahraham 
Lincoln. [A lady interested in the work of the 
Christian C'ommission had several interviews 
with the President. On one occasion he said to 

her:] "Mrs. , I have formed a very high 

opinion of your Chri.stian character ; and now, 
as we are alone, I have a mind to ask j'ou to give 
me, in brief, j'our ideaof what constitutes a true 
religious experience." The lady replied at some 
length, stating that, in her judgment, it consisted 
of a conviction of one's sinfulness and weakness 
and personal need of the Saviour for strength and 
support ; that views of mere doctrine might and 
would differ, but when one was really brought 
to feel his need of divine help and to seek the 
aid of the Holy Spirit for strength and guid- 
ance, it was .satisfactory evidence of his l)eing 
born again .... When she had concluded 3Ir. 
Lincoln was ver}- thoughtful for a few moments. 
He at length said, very earnestly : " If what you 
have told me is really a correct view of this great 
subject, I think I can say, with sincerity, that I 
hope I am a Cliristian."— Raymond's Lincoln. 

§31. CHRISTIAN, Spirit of the. Cnmirdl. 
[Cromwell's last prayer.] Lord, though I am a 
miserable and wretched creature, I am in cove- 
nant with Thee, through grace. And I may, I 
will, come to Thee, for thy people. Thou hast 
made me, though very unworthy, a mean iustm 



CHRISTIANITY. 



99 



ment to do them some good, and Thee service ; 
and many have set too^high a value upon me, 
though others wish and would be glad of my 
death. Lord, however Thou do dispose of me, 
continue and go on to do go(xl for them. Give 
them consistency of judgnient, one heart and 
mutual love ; go on to deliver them and the work 
of reformation ; and make the name of Christ glo- 
rious in the world. Teach those who look too 
much on thy instruments to depend more upon 
thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon 
the dust of a poor worm, for they are thy people 
too. And pardon the folly of this short prayer — 
even for Jesus Clirist's sake. And give us a good 
night, if it be thy pleasure. Amen. — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 4, ch. 13, p. 215. 

832. CHKISTIANITY, An absurd. Abyssinian. 
Its ruling characteristics are intolerance and for- 
mality. The number of regular fast-days is two 
hundred and sixty in each year, and a regular 
fast implies alistinence from drinking as well as 
eating. Besides these the Church decrees ex- 
traordinary fasts from time to time. Should an 
Abyssinian be known to neglect these fasts, his 
body would be refused .sepuUure. On the other 
hand, there are abundance of feasts in the Church 
holidays and saints' days, and travellers relate 
that the Abyssinian divines are at least as scru- 
pulous in the observance of these as the fasts. 
Nights are .spent in alternate prayer, dancing, 
and drinking, and the sacrament is administered 
before sunrise. It is reported that it has hap- 
pened that when the sun rose none of the di- 
vines present were in a condition to officiate ; 
but it was well understood that such accidents 
were the fruit of excessive religious fervor. — 
App. Cvc, " Abyssinian CiiuRcn." 

§33. CHRISTIANITY, Advancement of. Pri- 
mary Cause. Our curiosity is naturally prompted 
to inquire by what means the Christian faith 
obtained so remarkable a victory over the estab- 
lished religions of the earth. To this inquiry 
an obvious but satisfactory answer may be re- 
turned — that it w\is owing to the convincing 
evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the rul- 
ing providence of its great Author. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 15. 

§34. . Secondary Causes. What 

were the secondary causes of the rapid growth 
of the Christian church ? It will, perhaps, ap- 
pear, that it was most effectually favored and 
assisted by the five following causes : I. The 
inflexible, and, if we may use the expression, 
the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it 
is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified 
from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which, in- 
stead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from 
embracing the law of Moses. II. The doctrine 
of a future life, improved by every additional 
circumstance which could give weight and effi- 
cacy to that important truth. III. The miracu- 
lous powers ascribed to the primitive church. 
IV. The pure and austere morals of the Chris- 
tians. V. The union and discipline of the Chris- 
tian republic, which gradually formed an in- 
dependent and increasing state in the heart of 
the Roman Empire. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 15. 

§35. CHRISTIANITY, Civilization by. Cruelty. 
The first Christian emperor may claim the hon- 
or of the first edict which condemned the art 
and amusemcTit of shedding human blood ; but 



this benevolent law expressed the wishes of the 
prince, without reforming an inveterate abuse, 
which degraded a civilized nation below the 
condition of savage cannibals. Several hundred, 
perhaps several thousand, victims were annually 
slaughtered in the great cities of the empire, and 
the month of December, more peculiarly devoted 
to the combats of gladiators, still exhibited to 
the eyes of the Roman ])eople a grateful specta- 
cle of blood and cruelty. Amid the general 
joy of the victory of Pollentia, a Christian poet 
exhorted the emperor to extirpate, by his author- 
ity, the horrid custom which had so long re- 
sisted the voice of humanity and religion. The 
pathetic representations of Prudentius were less 
effectual than the generous boldness of Telema- 
chus, an Asiatic monk, whose death was more 
useful to mankind than his life. The Romans 
were provoked by the interruption of their 
pleasures ; and the rash monk, wlio had descend- 
ed into the arena to separate the gladiators, was 
overwhelmed under a shower of stones. But 
the madness of the people soon subsided ; they 
respected the memory of Telemachus, who had 
deserved the honors of martyrdom, and they 
submitted, without a murmur, to the laws of 
Honorius, which abolished forever the human 
sacrifices of the amphitheatre. — Gibbon's Rome, 
vol. 3, ch. 30. 

§36. . Barbarians. Before the age 

of Charlemagne the Christian nations of Eu- 
rope might exult in the exclusive possession of 
the temperate climates, of the fertile lands, 
which produced corn, wine, and oil ; while the 
savage idolaters and their helpless idols were 
confined to the extremities of the earth, the dark 
and frozen regions of the North. Christian- 
ity, which opened the gates of heaven to the 
barbarians, introduced an important change in 
their moral and political condition. They re- 
ceived, at the same time, the use of letters, so 
essential to a religion whose doctrines are con- 
tained in a sacred book ; and while they studied 
the divine truth, their minds were insensibly 
enlarged by the distant view of history, of nature, 
of the arts, and of society. — Gibbon's Rome, vol. 
3, ch. 37. 

§37. . Barbarians. The admission 

of the barbarians into the pale of civil and ec- 
clesiastical society delivered Europe from the 
depredations, by sea and land, of the Normans, 
the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned 
to spare their brethren and cultivate their pos- 
sessions. The establishment of hnv and order 
was promoted hy the influence of the clergy, and 
the rudiments of art and science were introduced 
into the savage countries of the globe. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 55. 

§3§. CHRISTIANITY commended. Worth. If 
we consider the purity of the Christian religion, 
the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the in- 
nocent as well as the austere lives of the greater 
number of those w-ho during the first ages em- 
braced the faith of the gospel, we should natu- 
rally suppose that so benevolent a doctrine 
would have been received with due reverence, 
even by the unbelieving world. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 16. 

§39. CHRISTIANITY compromised. Constan- 
tine. The awful mysteries of the Christian faith 
and worship were 'concealed from the eyes of 



'/->(,nir»/ir rKUlYi 



100 



;.• REDLANDS U 



. .-.-=-«» 



CHKISTIAXITY 



strangers, and even of catechumens, with an af- 
fected secrecy, which served to excite their won- 
der and curiosity. But the severe rules of dis- 
cipline which the prudence of the bishops had 
instituted were relaxed by the same prudence 
in favor of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was 
so important to allure, by every gentle conde- 
scension, into the pale of the Church ; and Con- 
stantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dis- 
pensation, to enjoy moH of the privileges before 
he had contracted any of the obligations of a 
Christian. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 20. 

§40. CHRISTIANITY discarded. France, a.d. 
1794. At this time it can hardly be said that 
there was any religion in France. Christianity 
had been almost universally discarded. The 
priests had been banished ; the churches demol- 
ished or converted into temples of science' or 
haunts of amusement. The immortality of the 
soul was denied, and upon the gateways of the 
graveyards was inscribed, "Death is an eternal 
sleep r — Abbott's Xapoleon B., vol. 1, ch. 3. 

841. CHRISTIANITY and Discovery. Colum- 
hus. As the conversion of the heathens was 
professed to be the grand object of tliese di.s- 
coveries, twelve zealous and able ecclesiastics 
were chosen for the purpose, to accompany the 
expedition. . . . By way, it was said, of offer- 
ing to Heaven the first-fruits of these pagan na- 
tions, the six Indians whom Columbus had 
brought to Barcelona were baptized with great 
state and ceremony, the king, the queen, and 
Prince Juan officiating as sponsors. Great hopes 
were entertained that, on their return to their 
native country, they would facilitate the intro- 
duction of Christianity among their countrpnen. 
— Irving's Colu^ibus, Book 5, ch. 8. 

842. CHRISTIANITY, Diversity in. National. 
In the profession of Christianity the variety of 
national characters may be clearly distinguished. 
The natives of SjTia and Egypt abandoned 
their lives to lazy and contempfative devotion ; 
Kome again aspired to the dominion of the 
world ; and the wit of the lively and loquacious 
Greeks w-as consumed in the disputes of meta- 
physical theology. The incomprehensible mys- 
teries of the Trinity and Incarnation, instead of 
commanding their silent submission, were agi- 
tated in vehement and subtle controversies, 
which enlarged their faith at the expense, per- 
haps, of their charity and reason. — Gibbon's 
Ro.ME, ch. 54. 

843. CHRISTIANITY indestructible. B>/ Per- 
tecution. The resentment, or the fears, of Dio- 
cletian transported him beyond the bounds of 
moderation, which he had hitherto preserved, 
And he declared, in a series of cruel edicts, his in- 
Jention of abolishing the Christian name. By 
(he first of these edicts the governors of the prov- 
inces w-ere directed to apprehend all persons of 
the ecclesiastical order ; and the prisons, destined 
for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with a 
oiultitude of bishops, presbvters, deacons, read- 
/!rs, and exorcists. By a second edict the mag- 
istrates were commanded to employ every meth- 
od of severity which might reclaim them from 
tneir odious superstition and obliije them to n-- 
turn to the established worship of gods. This 
rigorous order w^as extended, by a subsequent 
edict, to the whole body of Christians, who were 



exposed to a violent and general persecution. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 16. 

844. CHRISTIANITY misunderstood. Gibbon. 
Gibbon's account of the early Christians is vitia- 
ted by his narrow and distorted conception of the 
emotional side of man's nature. Ha\ing no 
spiritual aspirations himself, he could not appre- 
ciate or understand them in others. Those emo- 
tions which have for their object the unseen 
world and its centre, God, had no meaning for 
him ; and he was tempted to explain them away 
when he came across them, or to ascribe their ori- 
gin and effects to other instincts which were 
more intelligible to him. The wonderland which 
the mystic inhabits was closed to him ; he remain- 
ed outside of it, and reproduced in sarcastic trav- 
esty the reports he heard of its marvels. — Mor- 
rison's Gibbon, ch. 7. 

845. CHRISTIANITY, Muscular. Salem 
Witches. A.D. 1692. Edward Bishop, a farmer, 
cured the Indian servant of a fit by flogging him ; 
he declared, moreover, his belief that he could, in 
like manner, cure the whole company of the af- 
flicted ; and for his scepticism found himself and 
his wife in prison. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 3, 
ch. 19. 

846. CHRISTIANITY, Offence of. Amusements. 
The public games and festi\ als. On those occa- 
sions the inhabitants of the great cities of the 
empire were collected in the circus or the theatre, 
where every circumstance of the place, as well a.s 
of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their de- 
votion and to extinguish their humanity. While 
the numerous spectators, crowned with garlands, 
perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of 
■victims, and surrounded with the altars and stat- 
ues of their tutelar deities, resigned themselves to 
the enjoyment of pleasures which they consider- 
ed as an essential part of their religious worship, 
they recollected that the Christians alone abhor- 
red the gods of mankind, and by their absence 
and melanchoh' on these solemn festivals seem- 
ed to insult or to lament the public felicity. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 16. 

847. CHRISTIANITY, Qualified Faith in. Poet 
Shelley. Leigh Hunt gives a just notion of his 
relation to Christianity, pointing out that he drew 
a distinction between the Pauline presentation 
of the Christian creeds and the spirit of the gos- 
pels. " His want of faith in the letter, and his. 
exceeding faith in the spirit of Chri.stianity, 
formed a comment, the one on the other, very 
formidable to those who chose to forget what 
Scripture it.self observes on that point." We 
have only to read " Essays on Christianity, " in or- 
der to perceive what reverent admiration he felt 
for Jesus, and how profoundly he understood 
the true character of His teaching. — Symont)s' 
Shelley, .ch. 5. 

848. CHRISTIANITY, Success of. World-indc. 
[During the decay of the Roman Empire] a pure 
and humble religion gently insinuated itself into 
the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscu- 
rity, derived new %igor from opposition, and 
finally erected the triumphant banner of the cress 
on the ruins of the Capitol. Xor was the influ- 
ence of Christianity confined to the period or to 
the limits of the Roman Empire. After a revolu- 
tion of thirteen or fourteen centuries, th.at relig- 
ion is still professed by the nations of Europe, 



CHRISTIANS— CHURCH. 



101 



the most distinguished portion of human kind in 
arts and learning, as well as in arms. By the in- 
dustry and zeal of the Europeans it has been 
widely ditlused to the most distant shores of Asia 
and Africa ; and by the means of their colonies 
has been firmly established' from Canada to 
Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 15. 

§49. CHRISTIANS, Uncompromising. Idol- 
atry. Punishment was not the inevitable conse- 
quence of conviction, and the Christians, whose 
grnlt was the most clearly proved by the testi- 
mony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary 
confession, still retained in their own power the 
alternative of life or death. It was not so much 
the past offence as the actual resistance which 



excited the indignation of the 



magistrate. 



He 



was persuaded that he offered them an easy par- 
don, since, if they consented to cast a few grains 
of incense upon the altar, they were dismissed 
from the tribunal in safety and with applause. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 16. 

850. CHRISTMAS, Celebration of. Revelry in 
Finance and Italy. Among the revels of the 
Christmas season were the so-called feasts of 
fools and of asses, grotesque saturnalia, which 
were sometimes termed "December liberties," 
in which everything serious was burlesqued, in- 
feriors personified their superiors, great men be- 
coming frolicsome, and which illustrate the 
proneness of man to occasionally reverse the or- 
der of society and ridicule its decencies. — Ap- 
pleton's Am. Cyc, " Christmas." 

§51. CHRISTMAS changed. Puritans. Christ- 
mas had been from time immemorial the season 
of joy and domestic affection, the season w^hen 
families assembled, when children came home 
from school, when quarrels were made up, when 
carols were heard in every street, when every 
liouse was decorated with evergreens, and every 
table was loaded with good cheer. At that sea- 
son all hearts not utterly destitute of kindness 
were enlarged and softened. At that season the 
poor were admitted to partake largely of the 
overflowings of the wealth of the rich, whose 
bounty was peculiarly acceptable on account of 
the shortness of the daj's and of the severity' of 
the weather. At that season the interval be- 
tween landlord and tenant, master and servant, 
was less marked than through the rest of the 
year. Where there is much enjoyment there 
will be some excess ; yet, on the whole, the spirit 
in which the holiday was kept was not unworthy 
of a Christian festival. The Long Parliament 
gave orders, in 1644, that the 25th of Decem- 
ber should be strictly observed as a fast, and 
that all men should pass it in humblj^ bemoan- 
ing the great national sin which they and their 
fathers had so often committed on that day by 
romping undei- the mistletoe, eating boar's head, 
and drinking ale flavored with roasted apples. 
No public act of that time seems to have irri- 
tated the common people more. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 2. 

§52. CHURCH, Attendance at. ComjAiUory. 
[In 1581 Parliament passed an enactment by 
which those who said mass or attended mass, or 
did not attend church, were subject to hea\y 
penalties.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 12. 

§53. . Puritans. [In 1653 the 

Puritans punished non-attendants at church.] 



" Catherine Bartlett, widow, upon lier own con- 
fession, did absent herself from church the last 
Lord's day, contrary to the law, in the morning. 
Was ordered to pay 2s. 6^., and in default of 
paying was ordered to beset in the stocks." So 
says an old record. The law jirohiljited " sweet- 
hearts " from walking abroad in .sermon time. 
— Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 11. 

§54. CHURCH, Befriended. Mihs Standinh. 
The colony . . . assumed a military organiza- 
tion ; and Standish, a man of the greatest cour- 
age, the devoted friend of the church, which he 
never joined, was appointed to the chief com- 
mand. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 1, ch. 8. 

§55. CHURCH, Bloody. Iluriuennts in Florida. 
The Spanish were masters of the port. A scene 
of carnage ensued ; soldiers, women, children, 
the aged, the sick, were alike massacred. . . . 
After the carnage was completed mass was said, 
a cross was raised, and the site for a church select- 
ed, on ground still smoking with the l)lood of a 
peaceful colony. ... So easy can fansiticism 
connect acts of savage ferocity with the rites 
of a merciful religion. ... [In all 900 were 
killed.]— Bancroft's Hist, of U. S., vol. 1, 
ch. 2. 

§56. CHURCH, Caste in the. Aaron Burr. The 
clergyman then urged him again to repentance ; 
advised him to return, like the prodigal son, to 
attend church and devote his future life to good 
works. Colonel Burr interrupted his visitor, and 
said : " You don't seem to know how I am 
viewed by the religious public, or by those who 
resort to your churches. Where is there a man 
among all such whom I would be willing to 
meet, and who would welcome me into his pew ? 

Of your own congregation, would , or , 

or give me a seat ? These are our merchant 

princes — men who give tone to Wall Street, and 
fix the standard of mercantile morals in our city. 
Would they make Aaron Burr a welcome visitor 
to your church ? Rather, indeed, I may ask, 
would you yourself do so ? How would you feel 
walking up" the ai.sle with me, and opening your 
pew door for my entrance '?" Dr. ]\Iatthews re- 
plied that such 'an event would give him great 
pleasure. " Then," said Burr, "you would in- 
dulge your feelings of kindness at the expense 
of your usefulness as the minister of your con- 
gregation-" — Cyclopedia op Bigg., p. 119. 

§57. CHURCH conservative. James II. The 
Church of England was. in his view, a passive 
victim, which Tie might, without danger, outrage 
and torture at his pleasure ; nor did he ever see 
his error till the universities were preparing to 
coin their plate for the purpose of sujiplying the 
military chest of his enemies, and till a bi.shop, 
long renowned for loyalty, had thrown aside his 
cassock, girt on a sword, and taken the com- 
mand of a regiment of in.surgents. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 6. 

§5§. CHURCH corrupted. Prosperity. When a 
sect becomes powerful, wlu-n its favor is the road 
to riches and dignities, worldly and ambitious 
men crowd into "it, talk its language, conform 
strictly to its ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and 
frequently sjo beyond its honest members in all 
the outward indications of zeal. No discernment, 
no watchfulness on the part of ecclesiastical 
rulers, can prevent the intrusion of sach false 



102 



CHURCH. 



brethren. The tares and the wheat must grow 
together. Soon the world begins to find out that 
the godly are not better than other men, and 
argues, with some justice, that, if not better, they 
must be much worse. In no long time all those 
signs which were formerly regarded as charac- 
teristic of a saint are regarded as characteristic 
of a knave.— Macaulay's Eng., ch. 2. 

§59. CHUECH, A costly. -S'i!. SopUa. The 
dome of St. Sophia, illuminated by four-and- 
twenty windows, is formed with so small a 
curve, that the depth is equal only to one sixth 
of its diameter ; the measure of that diameter is 
one hundred and fifteen feet, and the lofly 
centre, where a crescent has supplanted the 
cross, rises to the perpendicular height of one 
hundred and eighty feet above the pavement. 
The circle which encompasses the dome lightly 
reposes on four strong arches, and their weight 
is firmly supported by four massy piles, whose 
strength is assisted, on the northern and southern 
sides, by four columns of Egyptian granite. . . . 
The solid piles which contained the cupola were 
composed of huge blocks of freestone, hewn 
into squares and triangles, fortified by circles of 
iron, and firmly cemenlied by the infusion of lead 
and quicklime ; but the weight of the cupola 
was diminished by the levity of its substance, 
which consists either of pumice-.stone that 
floats in the water or of bricks from the Isle of 
Rhodes, five times less ponderous than the ordi- 
nary stone. This triumph of Christ was adorned 
with the last spoils of paganism, but the greater 
part of these costly stones was extracted from 
the quarries of Asia Minor, the isles and conti- 
nents of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Gaul. Eight 
columns of porphyry, which Aurelian had 
placed in the temple of the sun, were offered by 
the piety of a Roman matron ; eight others of 
green marble were presented by the ambitious 
zeal of the magistrates of Ephesus ; both are ad- 
mirable by their size and beauty, but every order 
of architecture disclaims their fantastic capitals. 
A variety of ornaments and figures was curious- 
ly expressed in mosaic, and the images of 
Christ, of the Virgin, of .saints, and of angels, 
which have been defaced by Turkish fanaticism, 
were dangerously exposed to the superstition of 
the Greeks. According to the sanctity of each 
object, the precious metals were distributed in 
thin leaves or in solid mas.ses. The balustrade 
of the choir, the capitals of the pillars, the orna- 
ments of the doors and galleries were of gilt 
bronze ; the spectator was dazzled by the glitter- 
ing aspect of the cupola ; the sanctuary con- 
tained forty thousand pound weight of silver, 
and the holy vases and vestments of the altar 
were of the purest gold, enriched with ines- 
timable gems. Before the structure of the 
church had arisen two cubits above the ground 
£45,200 were already consumed ; and the whole 
expense amounted "to £320,000; each reader, 
according to the measure of his belief, may esti- 
mate their value either in gold or silver ; but the 
sum of £1,000,000 sterling is the result of the 
lowest computation. A magnificent temple is a 
laudable monument of national taste and relig- 
ion ; and the enthusiast who entered the dome 
of St. Sophia might be tempted to suppose that 
it was the residence, or even the workmanship, 
of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how 



insignificant is the labor, if it be compared with 
the formation of the vilest insect that crawls up- 
on the surface of the temple ! [See No. 863.]— 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 40. 

860. CHURCH desecration. Horses. [In 1649 
Cromwell used St. Paul's, in London, to stable 
his cavalry. An Italian passing the grand old 
Gothic cathedral, and seeing it full of horses, 
taunted Englishmen with the remark,] Now I 
perceive that in England men and beasts serve 
God alike.— Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 8, p. 
118. 

861. CHURCH, Destruction of the. James II. 
James did not even make any secret of his in- 
tenti(m to exert vigorously and systematically 
for the destruction of the Established Church 
all the powers which he possessed as her head. . . . 
He was authorized by law to repress spiritual 
abuses ; and the first spiritual abuse which he 
would repress should be the liberty which the 
Anglican clergy assumed of defending their own 
religion and of attacking the doctrines of Rome. 
— ilACAULAY's Eng., ch. 6. 

862. CHURCH, Devotion to the. Laymen. 
[When in 1768 Thomas Taylor wrote Wesley 
to send an able and experienced preacher to care 
for the handful of Methodists in New York, he 
said,] With respect to the money for the payment 
of the preacher's passage over, if they cannot 
procure it we will sell our coats and shirts to pro- 
cure it for them. — Stevens' M. E. Church, 
ch. 1, p. 82. 

863. CHURCH erection. Enthima,<itic. This 
minister [Alypius], to whom Julian communi- 
cated, without reserve, his most careless le\ities 
and his mo.st serious counsels, received an ex- 
traordinary commission to restore, in its pristine 
beauty, the temple of Jerusalem ; and the dili- 
gence of Alypius required and obtained the 
strenuous support of the Governor of Palestine. 
At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, 
from all the provinces of the empire, assembled 
on the holy mountain of their fathers ; and their 
insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the 
Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire 
of rebuilding the teinjile has in every age been 
the ruling ]iassion of tlie children of Lsrael. In 
this propitious moment the men forgot their 
avarice, and the women their delicacy ; spades 
and pickaxes of silver were provided by the 
vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was trans- 
ported in mantles of silk and purple. Every 
purse was opened in liberal contributions, every 
hand claimed a share in the pious labor, and 
the commands of a great monarch were executed 
by the enthusiasm of a whole people. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 23. 

864. . Rewarded. [Mahomet, ar- 
riving in Yathreb,] gave orders to build a 
mosque on the spot whei^ he had set foot upon 
the ground, with a hou.se for him and for his 
family. Pie worked at it with his own hands, 
assi-sted by the citizens of Yathreb. " Whoever 
works upon this edifice," said he to them, "builds 
for eternal life."- Lamautine'sTukkev, p. 103. 

865. . St. Sophia. The principal 

church, which was dedicated by the founder of 
Constantinople to St. Sophia, of the eternal wis- 
dom, had been twice destroyed by fire : after 
the exile of John Chrysostom, and" during the 



CHURCH. 



103 



Mka of the blue and green factions. No sooner 
did the tumult subside, than the Christian popu- 
lace deplored their sacrilegious rashness ; but 
they might have rejoiced in the calamity, had 
they foreseen the glory of the new temple, 
which at the end of "forty days was strenuously 
undertaken by the piety of Justinian. The ruins 
were cleared' away, a more spacious plan was 
described, and, as it required the consent of some 
proprietors of ground, they obtained the most 
exorbitant terms from the eager desires and 
timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthe- 
mius formed the design, and his genius directed 
the hands of ten thousand workmen, whose 
payment in pieces of fine silver was never de- 
layed beyond the evening. The emperor him- 
self, clad in a linen tunic, surveyed each day 
their rapid progress, and encouraged their dili- 
gence by his familiarity, his zeal, and his re- 
wards. [See No. 859.]— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 40. 

866. . Vanity in. The new Ca- 



thedral of St. Sophia was consecrated by the 
patriarch, five j'ears, eleven mouths, and ten 
days from the first foundation ; and in the midst 
of the solemn festival Justinian exclaimed, with 
devout vanity, " Glory be to God, who hath 
thought me worthy to accomplish so great a 
work ; I have vanquished thee, O Solomon !'' 
But the pride of the Roman Solomon, before 
twenty years had elapsed, was humbled by an 
earthquake, which overthrew the eastern part 
of the dome. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 40. 

§67. CHURCH, Episcopacy of the. Anglican. 
The founders of the Anglican Church had re- 
tained episcopacy as an ancient, a decent, and a 
convenient ecclesiastical polity, but had not de- 
clared that form of church government a di\ane 
institution. We have alrea'dy seen how low an 
estimate Cranmer had formed of the olfice of 
bishop. In the reign of Elizabeth, Jewel, 
Cooper, "Whitgift, aiid other eminent doctors 
defended prelacy as innocent, as useful, as what 
the State might lawfully establish, as what, when 
established by the State, was entitled to the re- 
spect of every citizen. But they never denied 
that a Christian community without a bishop 
might be a pure church. On the contrary, they 
regarded the Protestants of the Continent as of 
the same household of faith with themselves. — 
Macaulay's Eng., ch. 1. 

§68. CHURCH exaction. Dues. The payment 
of dues to the church was enjoined with a 
severity almost beyond belief. ... A day was ap- 
pointed for a man to pay his tithes ; and if they 
were not paid he was to forfeit nine tenths of 
his tithable propertv. [a.d. 958-975.]— Knight's 
Eng., vol. 1, ch. 10, p. 146. 

869. CHURCH, False Head of the. Jantc.^ II. 
What remained, however, after all this curtail- 
ment, might well have raised scruples in the 
mind of a man who sincerely believed the Church 
of England to be a heretical society, within the 
pale of which salvation was not to be found. 
The king made an oblation on the altar. He 
appeared to join in the petitions of the Litany 
which was chanted by the bishops. He received 
from those false prophets the xmction typical of 
a divine influence, and knelt with the semlilance 
of devotion while they called down upon him 
that Holy Spirit of which they were, in his esti- 



mation, the malignant and obdurate foes. — ISIa- 
caulay's Eng., ch. 4. 

8T0. CHURCH, Love of the. Torii'.^. [Reign 
of Charles II.] There was one institution, and 
one only, which they prized even more than 
hereditary monarchy, and that institution was 
the Church of England. Their love of the 
church was not, indeed, the effect of stud}' or 
meditation. Few among them could have given 
any reason, drawn from Scripture or ecclesias- 
tical history, for adhering to her doctrines, her 
ritual, and her polity ; nor were they, as a class, 
by any means strict observers of that code of 
morality which is common to all Christian sects. 
But the experience of many ages proves that 
men may be ready to fight to the death, and 
to persecute without pity, for a religion whose 
creed they do not understand, and whose pre- 
cepts they habitually disobey. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch.'3. 

§71. CHURCH, Meditations after. John Fitch. 
John Fitch had never seen nor heard of a steam- 
engine .' xVs he was limping home from church 
one day in April, 1785 (his rheumatism, caught 
among the Indians, giving him many a twinge), 
a neighbor drove rapidly by in a chaise drawu 
by a powerful hoi"se. He had frequently ob- 
served and reflected upon the tremendous power 
of steam, and now the thought flashed upon his 
mind. Could not the expansive power of steam 
be made to propel a carriage ? For a week the 
idea haunted him day and night. He then con- 
cluded that such a force could be applied more 
conveniently to a vessel than to a carriage ; and 
from that hour, to the end of his days, John 
Fitch thought of little else than how "to carry 
out his daring conception. — Cyclopedic op 
BiOG., p. 150. 

872. CHURCH, Neglect of. Reproof. [Rev. Wil- 
liam Grimshaw, an early English ^Methodist, of 
eccentric manner,] frequently would preach be- 
fore the doors of such as neglected the parish 
worship. ' ' If you -will not come to hear me at 
the church," he would say on these occasions, 
"you shall hear me at home; if you perish, 
you shall perish with the sound of the Gospel 
in your ears." — Stevens' Methodii^m, vol. 1, 
p. 259. 

§73. CHURCH, Non-attendance at. Fine. [In 
1559 an Act was passed which rendered] all per- 
sons who should absent themselves from church 
on Sundays and holidays liable to a fine of one 
shilling.— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 8,. p. 114. 

874. CHURCH purified. Persecution. The gen- 
eral fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation 
for sanctity while they are oppressed, and to lose 
it as soon as they become powerful ; and the rea- 
son is obvious. It is seldom that a man enrolls 
himself in a proscribed body from any but con- 
.scientious motives. Such a body, tlierefore. is 
composed, with scarcely an exception, of sincere 
persons. The most rigid discipline that can be 
enforced within a religious society is a very fee- 
ble instrument of purification when compared 
with a little sharp persecution without. — ^IA' 
c.\rLAY's Eng., ch. 2. 

875. CHURCH, Quarrel in the. Ber. Robert 
Xeirton. He was driven away at last by a quar- 
rel with his barbarous parishioners, the cause of 
Avhich did liim credit. A fire broke out at CI- 



104 



CHURCH. 



ney, and burnt a good many of Its straw-thatched 
cottages. Newton ascribed the extinction of the 
fire rather to prayer than water, but he took the 
lead in practical measures of relief, and tried to 
remove the earthly cause of such visitations by 
jjutting an end to bonfires and illuminations on 
the 5th of November. Threatened with the loss 
of their Guy Fawkes, the barbarians rose upon 
hin>, and he had a narrow escape from their vio- 
lence. — Smith's Cowper, ch. 3. 

§76. CHURCH, Rebuilding. Providence. [The 
inhabitants of Mecca] deliberated on the recon- 
struction of the Kaaba, or the temple, which 
was crumbling with age, and of which the pil- 
grims deplored the ruin. Piety impelled them, 
but reverence restrained them. A Roman vessel 
having suffered shipwreck, precisely at this 
juncture, upon the shoals of the Red Sea not 
far from Mecca, cast upon the coast some wood, 
iron, and a carpenter, who escaped the wreck. 
A divine augury was, of course, manifest in this 
celestial succor of materials, and an artisan to 
ply them. But at the moment of commencing 
to repair the tottering walls, there was no one 
who dared strike them the first blow. At last 
Walid, with less piety, or more hardihood than 
his compatriots, took up a crowbar, and cried 
in lifting it to give the wall a punch, " Do not 
be angry with us, O God of Abraham ! what we 
are doing we do through piety. " The wall tum- 
bled, and Walid was not stricken with death. 
Nevertheless, the Khoreishites resolved to let 
pass the night before proceeding, to be well as- 
sured that no divine vengeance would punish 
the material sacrilege of Walid. He emerged 
from his house next morning safe and somid. 
The Khoreishites, on his first appearance, took 
confidence and continued the demolition. — La- 
martine's Turkey, p. 65. 

§77. CHURCH or Self. Reign of Sames II. The 
new High Commission had, during the first 
months of its existence, merely inhibited clergy- 
men from exercising spiritual functions. The 
rights of property had remained untouched. 
But, early in the year 1687, it was determined to 
strike at freehold interests, and to impress on 
everv Anglican priest and prelate the conviction 
that, if he refused to lend his aid for the purpose 
of destroying the church of which he was a 
minister, he would in an hour be reduced to 
beggary. . . . War was therefore at once de- 
clared against the two most venerable corpora- 
tions of the realm— the universities of Oxford 
and Cambridge.— Macaulay'sEng., ch. 8. 

87§. CHURCH, Sin in the. Oeorge Muller. 
When he was fourteen his mother died ... he 
not only became idle and dissipated, but was fre- 
quently guilty of falsehood and dishonesty. In 
this state of heart, without faith, destitute of true 
repentance, and possessing no knowledge what- 
ever, either of his own lost condition as"a sinner 
nor of God's way of salvation through Christ 
he was confirmed ; and in the vear 1820 took 
the Lord's Supper for the first time at the Cathe- 
dral Church of Halberstadt.— Life of George 

MlJLLER, p. 1. 

§79. CHURCH and state. Divided. [In 1140] 
the trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded 
by Arnold of Brescia, whose promotion in the 
church was confined to the lowest rank, and who 
W(>re the monastic Jiabit rather as a garb of pov- 



erty than as a uniform of obedience. His adver- 
saries could not deny the wit and eloquence, 
which they severely felt ; they confess with re- 
luctance the specious purity of his morals ; and 
his errors were recommended to the public by a 
mixture of important and beneficial truths. . . . 
He presumed to quote the declaration of Christ, 
that His kingdom is not of this world ; he boldly 
maintained that the sword and the sceptre were 
intrusted to the ci%il magistrate ; that temporal 
honors and possessions were lawfully vested in 
secular persons ; that the al)bots, the bishops, 
and the pope himself, must renounce either their 
state or their salvation ; and that after the loss 
of their revenues, the voluntary tithes and obla- 
tions of the faithful would suffice, not indeed 
for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life in 
the exercise of spiritual labors. During a short 
time the preacher was revered as a patriot ; and 
the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia against her 
bishop was the finst -fruits of his dangerous les- 
sons. But the favor of the people is less perma- 
nent than tiie resentment of the priest ; and after 
the heresy of Arnold had been condemned 
by Innocent II. in the general council of the 
Lateran, the magistrates themselves were urged 
by prejudice and fear to execute the sen- 
tence of the church. Italy could no longer 
afford a refuge ; and the disciple of Abelard es- 
caped beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and 
ho.spitable refuge in Zurich, now the first of the 
Swiss cantons. [He accomplished a revolution, 
and] enjoyed, or deplored, the effects of his 
mission ; his reign continued above ten years, 
while two popes — Innocent II. and AJnasta- 
sius IV. — either tremltled in the Vatican, or 
wandered as exiles in the adjacent cities. . . . 
After his retreat froiu Rome Arnold had been 
protected by the viscounts of Campania, from 
whom he was extorted by the power of Caesar ; 
the prefect of the city pronounced his sentence ; 
the martyr of freedom was burnt alive in the 
presence of a careless and ungrateful people ; . 
and his ashes were cast into the Tiber, lest the 
heretics should collect and worship them. — 
Gibbon's Rome, cli. 69. 

§§0. CHURCH, State. ^«,9;?y;. The church, in 
so far as it was a civil establishment, was the 
creature of Parliament ; a statute enacted the ar- 
ticles of its creed, as well as its book of prayer ; 
it was not even intrusted with a co-ordinate pow- 
er to reform its own abuses ; any attempt to have 
done so wo\ild have been treated as a usurpa- 
tion ; amendment could proceed only from Par- 
liament. — B.vxcropt's U. S., vol. 5, ch. 3. 

§§I. CHURCH and State. Settlement of New 
flnren. By the infiucnce of Davenport [the pas- 
tor of the colonists] it was solemnly resolved, 
that the Scriptures are the perfect rale of the 
commonwealth ; the purity and peace of the or- 
dinance to themselves and their posterity were 
the great end of civil order ; and that church- 
members only should be free burgesses. . . . 
Annual elections were ordered, and God's word 
established as the only rule in public affairs. 
— Bancroft's U. S., vol. 1, ch. 9. 

§§2. . Conflicting. Becket's pro- 
motion to the archbishopric of Canterbury, 
which made him for life the second person 
in the kingdom, produced a total change in 
his conduct and demeanor. He resigned imme- 



CHURCH— CITIES. 



105 



diately the office of chancellor, and affected in 
his own person the most mortified appearance of 
rigorous sanctity. He soon manifested the mo- 
tive of this surprising change. A clergyman 
had debauched the daughter of a gentleman, and 
murdered the father to prevent the effects of his 
resentment. The king insisted that this atro- 
cious villain should be tried by the civil magis- 
trate ; Becket stood by for the privileges of the 
church, and refused to deliver him up. He ap- 
pealed to the see of Rome. This Avas the time 
for Henry to make his decisive attack against 
the immunities claimed by the church, when, to 
defend these, it must vindicate the foulest of 
crimes. He summoned a general council of the 
nobility and prelates at Clarendon, where the 
following regulations were enacted : That church- 
men when accused of crimes should be tried in 
the civil courts ; that the king should ultimately 
judge in ecclesiastical and spiritual appeals ; that 
the prelates should furnish the public supplies as 
barons ; that forfeited goods should not be pro- 
tected in churches. — Tttler's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 8. 

§§3. CHTTRCH, Suffering for the. BisJiop Mark. 
The Pagan magistrates, intlamed by zeal and 
revenge, abused the rigorous privilege of the 
Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of 
liis inadequate property, the person of the insol- 
vent debtor. Under the preceding reign Mark, 
Bishop of Arethusa, had labored in the con- 
version of his people with arms more effectual 
than those of persuasion. The magistrates re- 
quired the full value of a temple which had been 
destroyed by his intolerant zeal ; but as they 
were satisfied of his poverty, they desired only to 
bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of the 
slightest compen.sation. They apprehended the 
aged prelate, they inhumanly scourged him, 
they tore his beard ; and his naked i)ody, an- 
ointed with honey, was su.spended, in a net, be- 
tween heaven and earth, and exposed to the 
stings of insects and the rays of a Syrian sun. 
From this lofty station Mark still persisted to 
glory in his crime and to insult the impotent 
rage of his persecutors. He was at length res- 
cued from their hands, and dismissed to enjoy 
the honor of his divine triumph. The Arians 
celebrated the virtue of their pious confessor ; 
the Catholics ambitiously claimed his alliance ; 
and the Pagans, who might be susceptible of 
shame or remorse, were deterred from the repe- 
tition of such unavailing cruelty. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 23. 

§84. CHURCH support. Vohintary. Tithe, 
at first a free gift, became established as a right 
by law. . . . What we now call the voluntary 
principle entered very largely into the means of 
the Saxon clergy, in addition to their tithes and 
their glebe, [a. d. 958-975.]— Knight's Eng., 
vol. 1, ch. 10, p. 140. 

§85. CHURCHES blended. Roman Catholic 
and ProUntant. [Aftc r the accession of Elizabeth 
the Catholic service was modified and more ac- 
ceptable to Protestants.] A priest would cele- 
brate mass at his parsonage for the more rigid 
Catholics, and administer the new communion in 
church to the more rigid Protestants. Some- 
times both parties knelt together at the same al- 
tar-rails, the one to receive hosts consecrated by 
the priest at home after the old usage, the other 



wafers con.secrated in church after the new. 
— Hist, of Eng. People, ^ 702. 

886. CHURCHES without Instruction. Rdgn of 
Elizabeth. Only in the few jilaccs where the more 
zealous of the reformers had settled was there 
any religious instruction. " In many places," it 
was reported after ten years of the (pieen's rule, 
"the people cannot yet .say their command- 
ments, and in some not the articles of their be- 
lief." Xaturally enough, the bulk of Englishmen 
were found to be " utterly devoid of religion," 
and came to church "as to a May game." — 
Hist, of Eng. People, § 702. 

887. CIRCUMSTANCES, Difference in. AUx- 
ander. [When Alexander the Great was march- 
ing against the Persians, he] received a letter 
from Darius, in which the prince proposed, on 
condition of a pacification and future friendship, 
to pay him 10,000 talents in ransom of the pris- 
oners ; to cede to him all the countries on this 
side the Euphrates, and to give him his daugh- 
ter in marriage. Upon his communicating these 
proposals to his friends, Parmenio [one of his 
generals] said: " If I were Alexander, I would 
accept them." " So would I," said Alexander, 
" if I were Parmenio." The answer he gave 
Darius was, that if he would come to him, he 
should find the best of treatment ; if not, he must 
go and seek him. — Plutarch's Alexander. 

888. CITIES, Importance of. Ilenrn /., the 
Fowler. To this prince Germany owes the foun- 
dation of her cities ; for before this period, ex- 
cepting the castles on the mountains, the seats of 
the barbarous nobility who lived by plunder, and 
the convents, filled with an useless herd of eccle- 
siastics, the bulk of the people lived dispersed in 
lonely farms and villages. The towns built by 
Henry were surrounded with walls, and regular- 
ly fortified ; they were capable of containing a 
considerable number of inhabitants ; and, in or- 
der that thej' might be speedily peopled, it was 
enjoined by the sovereign that every ninth man 
should remove hiiuself , with his whole effects, 
from the country, and settle in the nearest town. 
— Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 4. 

889. CITIES, Poverty in. Borne. Juvenal la- 
ments, as it should seem from his own expe- 
rience, the hardships of the poorer citizens, to 
whoiu he addresses the salutary advice of emi- 
grating, without delay, from the smoke of Rome, 
since they might purchase, in the little towns of 
Italy, a cheerful, commodious dwelling, at the 
.same price which they annually paid for a dark 
and miserable lodging. House-rent was there- 
fore immoderately dear ; the rich acquired, at 
an enormous expense, the ground, which they 
covered with palaces and gardens ; but the body 
of the Roman people was crowded into a narrow 
space, and the different floors and apartments 
of the same house were divided, as it is still the 
custom of Paris and other cities, among several 
families of plebeians. — Gihbon's Rome, ch. 31. 

890. CITIES, Ungovernable. London. In 1580 
a proclamation was issued against the erection 
of new buildings in London. The number of 
beggars, it alleged, was increased ; there was 
greater danger of fire and the plague . . . the 
trouble of governing so great a multitude was 
become too great. ... By the increase of build- 
ings, it is said, "great infection of sickness, and 



\ 



106 



CITIZEN— CITY. 



dearth of victuals and fuel, hath grown and 
ensued, and many idle, vagrant, and wicked 
persons have harbored there."— Knight's Eng., 
vol. 3, ch. 17. 

891. CITIZEN, Duty of the. Patriotism. [Boe- 
thius, the Roman Senator, was made a consul.] 
Prosperous in his fame and fortunes, in his 
public honors and private alliances, in the culti- 
vation of science and the consciousness of virtue, 
Boethius might have been styled happy, if that 
precarious epithet could safely be applied before 
the last term of the life of man. A philosopher 
liberal in his wealth and parsimonious of his 
time might be insensible to the common allure- 
ments of ambition, the thirst of gold and em- 
ployment. And some credit may be due to the 
asseveration of Boethius, that he had reluctantly 
obeyed the divine Plato, who enjoins every vir- 
tuous citizen to rescue the State from the usur- 
pation of vice and ignorance. — Gibbon's Kome, 
ch. 39. 

892. CITIZENS, Naturalized. Roman. The 
republic gloried in her generous policy, and 
was frequently rewarded by the merit and ser- 
vices of her adopted sons. Had she always 
confined the distinction of Romans to the Ancient 
families within the walls of the city, that im- 
mortal name would have been deprived of some 
of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native 
of Mantua ; Horace was inclined to doubt 
whether he should call himself an Apulian or a 
Lucanian ; it was in Padua that an historian 
was found worthy to record the majestic series 
of Roman victories. The patriot family of the 
Catos emerged from Tusculum ; and the little 
town of Arpinum claimed the double honor of 
producing Marius and Cicero, the former of 
whom deserved, after Romulus and Camillus, 
to be styled the Third Founder of Rome ; and 
the latter, after saving his country from the de- 
signs of Catiline, enabled her to contend with 
Athens for the palm of eloquence. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 2. 

893. CITIZENSHIP, Honor of. Bolirar. [In 
1813 he succeeded in driving the Spaniards from 
the soil of Venezuela after a-terrible struggle 
with brutal enemies. He then resigned his com- 
mission after the example of Washington. The 
Spaniards renewed the war, and General Bolivar, 
amid great disasters, led his patriot army to the 
conflict.] The career of Bolivar, henceforth, 
was one of almost unbroken victory ; and, after 
four years of terrible warfare, the Spanish Gov- 
ernment was compelled to treat for peace, and 
to concede the independence of the United Re- 
publics. Again Bolivar resigned his commis- 
sion as general and dictator. In his address to 
Congress, he said : " I am the child of camps. 
Battles have borne me to the chief magistracy, 
and the fortune of war has sustained me in it ; 
but a power like that which has been confided 
to me is dangerous in a republican government. 
I prefer the title of Soldier to that of Liber- 
ator ; and, in descending from the Presidential 
chair, I aspire only to merit the title of good 
citizen." — Cyclopedia op BioG.,p. 490. 

894. CITIZENSHIP, Intelligent. Spartans. 
The youth of Sparta, from their attendance at 
the public tables, were from their infancy fa- 
miliarly acquainted with all the important busi- 
ness of the commonwealth. They knew thor- 



oughly its constitution, the powers of the 
several functionaries of the state, and the de- 
fined duties and riglits which belonged to the 
kings, the magistrates, and the citizens. Hence 
arose (more than perhaps from any other cause) 
that permanence of constitution which has been 
so justly the admiration both of ancient and 
modern politicians ; for where all orders of men 
know their precise rights and duties, and there 
are laws .sufficient to secure to them the one 
and protect them in the exercise of the other, 
there will rarely be a factious .struggle for 
power or pre-eminence ; as all inordinate ambi- 
tion will be most effectually repressed by a 
general .spirit of vigilance and caution, as well 
as the ditficulty and danger attendant on inno- 
vations. — Tytler's Hist., Book 1, ch. 9. 

895. CITY, Blessings of the. Three. [At the 
beginning of the si.xth century the] nobles of 
Rome were flattered by sonorous epithets and 
formal professions of respect, which had been 
more justly applied to the merit and authority 
of their ancestors. The peoi)le enjoyed, with- 
out fear or danger, the three blessings of a 
capital — order, plenty, and public amusements. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 39. 

896. CITY, Contaminating. Rome. After a 
month's residence in the cloister of " S. Maria 
del Popolo," on the "Piazza del Popolo," 
Luther set out on his return home. He had not 
tarried longer than was necessary ; for, said he, 
"Whoever goes to Rome for the first time is 
looking for a rogue ; whoever goes again will 
find him ; and whoever goes the third time will 
return with him." — Rein's Luther, ch. 4, 
p. 39. 

897. CITY, Establishment of a. Ancients. At 
the foundation of a city the i)riests and all em- 
ployed leaped over a fire ; then they made a cir- 
cular excavation, into which they threw the 
first-fruits of the season, and some handfuls of 
earth brought from the native city by the foun- 
ders. The entrails of victims were next consult- 
ed ; and if favorable, they proceeded to trace 
the limits of the town with a line of chalk. 
This track they then marked by a furrow, with 
a plough drawn l)y a white bull and heifer. . . . 
The ceremony was concluded by a great sacri- 
fice to the tiitelar gods of the city, who were 
solemnly invoked. — Tytleii's Hist., Book 3, 
ch. 1. 

898. CITY, Populous. Rom-e. If we adopt 
the same average, which, under similar circum- 
stances, has been found applicable to Paris, and 
indifferently allow about twenty -five persons for 
each house, of every degree, we may fairly es- 
timate the inhabitants of Rome at twelve hun- 
dred thousand — a number which cannot be 
thought excessive for the capital of a mighty 
empire, though it exceeds the populousness of 
the greatest critics Of modern Europe — Gibbon's 
Ro.ME, ch. 31. 

899. CITY, Sins of the. Abraham- Lincoln. 
[His anecdote of ]\lr. Campbell, once Secretary of 
State for Illinois.] A cadaverous-looking nian. 
with a Avhite neck-cloth, . . . informed that Mr. 
Campbell had the letting of the Hall of Repre- 
sentatives, he wished, if possible, to .secure it for a 
course of lectures. ..." What is to be the sub- 
je( t ?"..." The Second Coming of our Lord." 



CITY— CIVILIZATION. 



107 



" It is of no use," said Campbell ; "if you will 
take my advice, you will not waste your time 
in this city. It ismy private opinion, that if the 
Lord has been in Springfield onc^, He will never 
come the second time." — Raymond's Lincoln, 
p. 749. 

900. CITY, Vices of the. London. Every race 
of every nation a])ides there, and have there 
brought their vices. It is full of gamblers and 
panders, of braggadocios and flatterers, of buf- 
foons and fortune-tellers, of extortioners and 
magicians, [a.d. 1194.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 
1, ch. 22. 

901. CIVILIZATION, Dangers of. Bomans. 
"When we recollect the complete armor of the 
Roman soldiers, their discipline, exercises, evo- 
lutions, fortified camps, and military engines, it 
appears a just matter of surprise, how the naked 
and unassisted valor of the barbarians could 
dare to encounter, in the field, the strength of 
the legions and the various troops of the auxil- 
iaries, which seconded their operations. The 
contest was too unequal, till the introduction of 
luxury had enervated the vigor, and a spirit of 
disobedience and sedition had relaxed the dis- 
cipline of the Roman armies. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 9, p. 275. 

902. CIVILIZATION, Demands of. Sir Fran- 
cis Brake. It thus appears that tliis brave man 
spent his life in warring upon the Spaniards. 
What ought we to think of him ? Was he a 
buccaneer, or a patriot sailor waging legitimate 
warfare ? I answer the question thus : The 
worst man of whom history gives any accoimt, 
and the most formidable enemy modern ci\ili- 
zation has had to encounter, was Philip II., King 
of Spain. He was a moody, ignorant, cruel, 
sensual, cowardly hj'pocrite. So long as that 
atrocious tyrant wielded the resources of the 
Spanish monarchy — then the most powerful on 
earth — the fir.st interest of human nature was the 
reduction of his power. To do this was the great 
object and the almost ceaseless effort of Queen 
Elizabeth and the Protestant powers in alliance 
with her. In lending a hand to this work Fran- 
cis Drake was fighting on the side of ci\ili7.ation, 
and preparing the way for such an America as 
we see arovmd us now ; for, in limiting the 
power of Philip, he was rescuing the fairest por- 
tions of America from the blight of Spanish su- 
perstition, Spanish cruelty, and Spanish narrow- 
ness. That he fought his share of this fight in 
a wild, rough, buccaneering manner, was the 
fault of his age more than his own. — Cyclope- 
dia OF Bigg., p. 361. 

903. CIVILIZATION, Effete. GreeJcs. The sit- 
uation of the Greeks [who had been conquered 
oj the Romans] was very different from that 
of Xhe barbarians [conquered by them]. The 
former had been long since ci^ilized and cor- 
rupted. They had too much taste to relinquish 
their language, and too much vanity to adopt 
any foreign "institutions. Still preserving the 
prejudices after thej- had lost the virtues of their 
ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolish- 
ed manners of the Roman conquerors, while 
they were compelled to respect their superior 
wi.sdom and power. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 2, p. 
45. 

904. CIVILIZATION, Failure of. Ameriran In- 
dians. [In iyi7 the Indian nations of what was 



f ormerlj' known as the North-Western Territory 
ceded to the United Suites certain tracts of 
land, lying chiefly in Ohio, for money and cer- 
tain annuities.] A reservation of certain tracts, 
amounting in the aggregate to about three hun- 
dred thousand acres, was made by the red man 
■nith the approval of the Government. For it 
was believed that the Indians, living in small 
districts surrounded with American farms and 
villages, would abandon barljarism for the hab- 
its of civilized life. But the sequel proved 
that the men of the woods had no aptitude for 
such a change. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 52, p. 417. 

905. CIVILIZATION, Fleeing from. Samuel 
Houston. His elder brothers . . . compelled him 
to go into a merchant's store and stand behind 
the counter. This kind of life he had little rel- 
ish for, and he suddenly disappeared. A great 
search was made for him, but he was nowhere 
to be found for several weeks. At last intelli- 
gence reached the family that Sam had crossed 
the Tennessee River and gone to live among the 
Indians, where, from all accounts, he seemed to 
be getting on much more to his liking. Thej' 
found him, and began to question him on his 
motives for this novel proceeding. Sam was 
now, although so very young, nearly six feet 
high, and, standing straight as an Indian, coollj' 
replied that " he preferred measuring deer tracks 
to tape — that he liked the wild liberty of the red 
men better than the tyranny of his own brothers, 
and if he could not study Latin in the academy, 
he could, at least, read a translation from the 
Greek in the woods, and read it in peace. So 
they could go home as soon as they liked." — 
Lester's Houston, p. 16. 

906. CIVILIZATION, Growth of. Ancient. 
Advancement from barbarism to civilization is a 
very slow and gradual process, because every 
step in that process is the result of necessity after 
the experience of an error, or the strong feeling of 
a want. These experiences, frequently repeated, 
show at length the necessity of certain rules and 
customs to be followed by the general consent of 
all ; and these rules become in time po.sitive 
enactments or laws, enforced by certain penal- 
ties, which are various in their kind and in their 
degree, according to the state of society at the 
time of their formation. — Tytler'sHist., Book 
1, ch. 3. 

907. CIVILIZATION, Late. Russians. Till 
the middle of the fifteenth century the Russians 
were an unconnected multitude of wandering 
tribes, professing different religions, and most of 
them yet idolaters. A sovereign, or duke, of 
Russia paid a tribute to the Tartars of furs and 
cattle to restrain their depredations. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 6. ch. 35. p. 473. 

90§. CIVILIZATION misrepresented. To Amer- 
ican Indians. [Verazzano, the Italian, explored 
the American coast.] The savages were more 
humane than their guests. A young sailor, who 
had nearlv been droAvned, was revived by the 
courtesy of the natives ; the voyagers robl)ed a 
mother'of her child, and attempted to kidnap a 
young woman. . . . The natives of the more 
northern region were hostile and jealous . . . 
perhaps this coa.st had been visited for .slaves ; 
its inhabitants had become wise enough to dread 
the vices of Europeans.— Bancroft's Hist, of 
U. S., vol. l.ch. 1. 



108 



CIVILIZATIOX-CLAIRVOYANCE. 



909. CIVILIZATION, Origin of modern. Ro- 

mam— Germans. M. Guizot . . . says that 
amonij the elements of modern civilization, the 
spirit "of legality or regular association was de- 
rived fromlhe lioman'world, from the munici- 
palities and the Roman laws. From the Germans 
came the spirit of personal liberty.— Ejsight's 
Eng.. vol. 1. ch. 3, p. 46. 

9E0. CIVILIZATION, Progress of. Greeks. 
The aboriginal Greeks, under the various de- 
nominations of Pelasgi, Aones, Iliantes, Leleges, 
etc. , were a race of savages who dwelt in cav- 
erns, and are .said to have been so barbarous as 
to live without any subordination to a chief or 
leader, to have fed on human flesh, and to have 
been ignorant of the use of fire. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 1, ch. 6, p. 52. 

911. . Britons. The Britons proper 

from the interior showed few signs of progress. 
Thev did not break the ground for corn ; they 
had "no manufactures; they lived on meat and 
milk, and were dressed in leather. They dyed 
their skins blue that they might look more ter- 
rible. They wore their hair tong, and had long 
mustaches. In their habits they had not ri.sen 
out of the lowest order of savagery. They had 
wives in common, and Ijrothers and sisters, par- 
ents and children, lived together with promis- 
cuous unrestraint. — Fkoude's C^SAR, ch. 16. 

912. CIVILIZATION, Revival of. a.d. 1485- 
1.514. The world was passing through changes 
more momentous than any it had witnessed 
-since the victory of Christianity and the fall of 
the Roman Empire. Its phj'sical bounds were sud- 
denly enlarged. The discoveries of Copernicus 
revealed to man the secret of the universe. Por- 
tuguese mariners doubled the Cape of Good 
Hope and anchored their merchant fleets in the 
harbors of India. Columbus crossed the untrav- 
•ersed ocean to add a Xew "World to the Old. 
Sebastian Cabot, starting from the port of Bris- 
tol, threaded his way among the icebergs of 
Labrador. This sudden contact Avith new lands, 
new faiths, new races of men, quickened the 
slumbering intelligence of Europe into a strange 
curiosity. The first book of voyages that told 
of the western world, the travels of Amerigo 
Yespucci, were soon "in everybody's hands." 
The "Utopia" of More, in its wide range of 
speculation on every .subject of human thought 
and action, tells us how roiighly and utterly the 
narrowness and limitation of human life had 
been broken up. At the very hour when the in- 
tellectual energy of the middle ages had sunk 
into exhaustion the capture of Constantinople by 
the Turks and the flight of its Greek scholars to 
the shores of Italy opened anew the science and 
literature of an older world. The exiled Greek 
scholars were welcomed in Italy : and Florence, 
so long the home of freedom and of art, became 
the home of an intellectual revival. — Hist, of 
ExG. People, ^^ 503. 

913. CLAMOR, Dangerous. Popular. The Em- 
peror Valens, who, at length, had removed his 
court and army from Antioch, was received by 
the people of Constantinople as the author of the 
public calamity. Before he had reposed himself 
ten days in the capital, he was urged by the li- 
centious clamors of the Hippodrome to march 
against the barbarians, whom he had invited 
into his dominions ; and the citizens, who are 



always brave at a distance from any real danger, 
declared, with confidence, that, if they were sup- 
plied with arms, they alone would undertake to 
deliver the province from' the ravages of an in- 
sulting foe. The vain reproaches of an ignorant 
multitude hastened the downfall of the Roman 
Empire ; they provoked the desperate rashness of 
Valens, who" did not find, either in liis reputa- 
tion or in his mind, any motives to support with 
firmness the public contempt. He was soon per- 
suaded, by the successful achievements of his 
lieutenants, to despise the power of the Goths. 
. . . The event of the battle of Adrianople [was] 
. . . fatal to Valens and to the empire. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 26. 

914. CLAIRVOYANCE, Agitation by. Sxoeden- 
horg. Swedeuborg went to bed, and I went to 
sit in another room, with the master of the house, 
with whom I was conversing. We both heard 
a remarkable noise, and could not apprehend 
what it could be, and therefore drew near to a 
door, where there was a little window that looked 
into the chamber where Swedenborg lay. We 
.saw him with his arms raised toward heaven, 
and his body appeared to tremble. He spoke 
much for the "space of half an hour, but we could 
understand nothing of what he said, except that, 
when he let his ha'nds fall down, we heard him 
.say with a loud voice, " My God !" But we could 
no*t hear what he said more. He remained after- 
ward very C]uietly in his bed. I entered into 
his chamber with the master of the house, and 
asked him if he was ill. " No," said he ; " but I 
have had a long discourse with some of the heav- 
enly friends, and am at this time in a great per- 
.spiration. " And as his effects were embarked on 
board the vessel, he asked the master of the house 
to let him have a shirt ; he then went again to 
bed, and slept till morning. — White's Sweden- 
BORCi, p. 181. 

915. CLAIRVOYANCE, Information by. Swe- 
denhorg. 8ays [Imnianuel] Kant : ' ' When Swe- 
denborg arrived at Gottenburg from England, 
Mr. Wtlliam Cast el invited him to his house, to- 
gether with a party of fifteen persons. About 
six o'clock Swedenborg went out, and after a 
short interval returned to the company quite 
pale and alarmed. He stated that a dangerous 
fire had just broken out in Stockholm, at Sun- 
dermalm (distant three hundred miles from Got- 
tenburg), and that it was spreading very fast. 
He Ava.s^ restless, and went out often. He said that 
the house of one of his friends, whom he named, 
was already in ashes, and that his own was in 
danger. At eight o'clock, after he had been 
out again, he joyfully exclaimed, " Thank God ! 
the fire is extinguished the third door from my 
house." This news occasioned great commotion 
among the company. It was announced to the 
governor the same evenirvg. The next morning 
Swedenborg was sent for by the governor, who 
questioned him concerning "the disaster. ... On 
^Monday evening a messenger arrived at Gotten- 
burg, who was desiiiitched' during the time of the 
fire." In the letters brought by him the fire was de- 
scribed preciselv in the manner stated by Swe- 
denborg. On Tuesday morning a royal courier 
arrived" at the governor's with the melancholy 
intelligence of The fire, of the loss it had occa- 
sioned, and of the houses damaged and ruined, 
not in the least differing from t^iat which Swe- 



CLEANLINESS— CLERGY. 



109 



denborg had given the moment it had ceased ; 
the fire had been extinguished at eight o'clock. 
— White's Swedenborg, p. 137. 

916. CLEANLINESS, Physical. Koran. Clean- 
liness is the key of prayer ; the frequent lustra- 
tion of the hands, the face, and the body, which 
was practised of old by the Arabs, is solemnly 
enjoined by the Koran ; and a permission is for- 
mally granted to supply with sand the scarcity 
of water. — Gibbon's Kome, ch. 50. 

917. CLEANLINESS, Reaction against. Jajnes 
Waft's Son. [The second Mrs. Watt] was a 
thrifty Scotch housewife, and such was her pas- 
sion for cleanliness, that .she taught her pet dogs 
to wipe their feet on the door-mats. Her pro- 
pensity was carried to a pitch which often fretted 
her son by the restraints it imposed. [He said 
to a lady] . . . I love dirt. — Smiles' Brief Bi- 
ographies, p. 41. 

91 §. CLEMENCY, Appeal to. Of Malmnet. 
[After the conquest of Mecca] several of the most 
obnoxious victims were indebted for their lives 
to his clemency or contempt. The chiefs of the 
Koreish were prostrate at his feet. "What 
mercy can you expect from the man whom you 
have wronged ? " " We confide in the generosity 
of our kinsman." " And you shall notconfidein 
vain : begone ! you are safe, you are free." The 
people of Mecca deserved their pardon by the 
profession of Islam. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 50. 

919. CLEMENCY, Vile. Jarnes II. None of 
the traitors had less right to expect favor than 
Wade, Goodenough, and Ferguson. These three 
chiefs of the rebellion [in Scotland] had fled 
together from the field of Sedgemoor. . . . 
Wade and Goodenough were soon discovered 
and brought up to London. Deeply as they had 
been implicated in the Rye House Plot, conspic- 
uous as they had been among the chiefs of the 
Western insurrection, they were suffered to live, 
because they had it in their power to give infor- 
mation which enabled the king to slaughter and 
plunder [throTigh Jeffreys' court] some persons 
whom he hated, but to whom he had never been 
able to bring home any crime. — Macaulay's 
Eng. , ch. .J. 

920. CLERGY, Arrogance of. Politiml. Lotha- 
rius, now emperor, and Pepin, his brother's son, 
took up arms against the two other sons of 
Louis le Debonnaire — Louis of Bavaria and 
Charles the Bald. A battle ensued at Fontenay, 
in the territory of Auxerre, where, it is said, 
there perished 100,000 men. Lotharius and his 
nephew were vanquished. Charlemagne had 
compelled the nations whom he subdued to em- 
"brace Christianity ; Lotharius, to acquire popu- 
larity and strengthen his arms, declared an en- 
tire liberty of conscience throughout the empire, 
and many thousands reverted to their ancient 
idolatry. In punishment of this impiety, Lotha- 
rius was now solemnly deposed by a council of 
bishops, who took upon them to show their au- 
thoritj^ no less over the victorious than over the 
vanquished princes. They put this question to 
Charles the Bald and to Louis of BaA'aria — " Do 
you promise to govern better than Lotharius has 
done?" "We do," said the obsequious mon- 
archs. "Then," returned the bishops, "we, by 
divine authority, permit and ordain you to reigli 
in his stead " — a proceeding in wluch it is diffi- 



cult to say whether the arrogance of the clergv 
most excites our indignation, or the pusillanim- 
ity of the monarchs our contempt. — Tytlers 
Hist., Book 6, ch. 4. 

921. CLERGY, Deference to. Ferdinand 11. 
The voice of a monk was to Ferdinand II. the 
voice of God. " Nothing on earth," writes his 
own confessor, "was more sacred in his eyes 
than a priest. If it could happen, he used to 
say, that an angel and a Regular were to meet 
him at the same time and place, the Regular 
should receive his first, and the angel his sec- 
ond, obeisance." — Thirty Years' War, g 221. 

922. CLERGY degraded. Beign of James II. 

[The king commanded his illegal manifesto, 
which aimed at the overthrow of'the Protestant 
Church, to be publicl}' read by the clergj-.] In 
the city and liberties of London were about 
a hundred parish churches. In only four of 
these was the order in council obeyed. At St. 
Gregory's the declaration was read' by a divine 
of the name of Martin. As soon as he uttered 
the first words, the whole congregation ro.se 
and withdi-ew. At St. Matthew's, in Friday 
Street, a wretch named Timothy Hall, who had 
disgraced his gown bj- acting as broker for the 
Duchess of Portsmouth in the .sale of pardons, 
and who now had hopes of obtaining the vacant 
bishopric of Oxford, was in like manner left 
alone in his church. At Sergeant's Inn. in 
Chancery Lane, the clerk pretended that he had 
forgotten to bring a copy ; and the chief justice 
of the King's Bench, who had attended in order 
to see that the roj^al mandate was obeyed, was 
forced to content himself with this excuse. 
Samuel Weslej', the father of John and Charles 
Weslev, a curate in London, took for his text 
that day the noble answer of the three Jews to 
the Chaldean tryant, " Be it known imto thee, 
O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor 
worshiji the golden image which thou hast 
set up !"' Even in the chapel of St. James' 
Palace the officiating minister had the courage 
to disobey the order. The Westminster boys 
long remembered what took place that day in 
the Abbey. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, officiat- 
ed there as dean. As soon as he began to read 
the declaration, miu'murs and the noise of peo- 
ple crowding out of the choir drowned his voice. 
He trembled so violently that men saw the paper 
shake in his hand. Long before he had finished, 
the place was deserted by all but those whose 
situation made it necessary for them to remain. 
— Macaulay's ExG., ch. 8. 



923. 



Middle Ages. During these 



perpetual contests for ecclesiastical power and 
pre-eminence, the Christian religion itself was 
i debased both by the practice and the principles 
of its teachers. The sole object of the clergy 
was to accumulate wealth and temporal distinc- 
tions. While they indulged in every species of 
voluptuousness and debauchery, they were so 
deplorably ignorant, that it is confidently as- 
serted there were many bishops who could not 
repeat the Apostles' Creed, nor read the Sacred 
Scriptures. This, indeed, was a necessary con- 
sequence of the iniquitous distribution of ec- 
clesiastical preferments. These were either sold 
to the highest bidder, or were bestowed as 
bribes b)' the sovereigns and superior pontiffs, to 
attach the most artful and often the most worth- 



liO 



CLERGY. 



lesi to their interests. —Tytler's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 4. 

924. . Beigri of Charles II. In the 

mansions of men of liberal sentiments and culti- 
vated understandings, the chaplain was doubt- 
less treated with urbanity and kindness. His 
conversation, his literary assistance, his spiritual 
advice, were considered as an ample return for 
his food, his lodging, and his stipend. But this 
was not the general feeling of the country gen- 
tlemen. The coarse and ignorant squire, who 
thought that it belonged to his dignity to have 
grace said every day at his table by an ecclesias- 
tic in full canonicals, found means to reconcile 
dignity with economy. A young Levite — such 
was the phrase then in use — might be had for 
his board, a small garret, and £10 a year, and 
might not only perform his own professional 
functions, might not oul}' be the most patient of 
butts and of listeners, might not only be always 
ready in fine weather for bowls, and in rainy 
weather for shovel-board, but might also save the 
expense of a gardener or of a groom. Sometimes 
the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and 
sometimes he curried the coach-liorses. He cast 
up the farrier's bills. He walked ten miles with a 
message or a parcel. If he was permitted to dine 
with the family, he was expected to content him- 
self with the plainest fare, lie might fill him- 
self with the corned beef and the carrots ; but 
as soon as the tarts and cheese-cakes made their 
appearance, he quitted his seat, and stood aloof 
till he was summoned to return thanks for the 
repast, from a great part of Avhich he had been 
excluded. — M.\caulat's Eng. , ch. 3. 

925. CLERGY dissipated. English. [In the 
middle of the eighteenth century a] Prussian 
clergyman, walking into Oxford at midnight, 
was introduced by a courteous pedestrian to an 
alehouse. " How great," he says, " was my as- 
tonishment when, on being shown into a room, 
I saw several gentlemen in academic dress sit- 
ting round a large table, each with his pot of 
beer before him." He thought it extraordinary 
that at this unseasonable hour he should .sud- 
denly find himself in a company of Oxonian 
clergy. As the morning drew near, after a ca- 
rousal which stupefied the German, the gentle- 
man who introduced him suddenly exclaimed, ' ' I 
must read prayers this morning at All Souls." 
The clergy would spend the morning in scam- 
pering after the hounds, dedicate the evening to 
the bottle, and reel from inebrietv to the pulpit. 
—Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 6, p. 110. 

926. CLERGY, Economical. Samuel Johnson. 
Speaking of the late Duke of Northumberland 
living very magnificently when Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland, somebody remarked, it would be dif- 
ficult to find a suitable successor to him ; then, ex- 
claimed Johnson, "he is only fit to succeed him- 
self. " He advised me, if possible, to have a good 
orchard. He knew, he said, a clergyman of 
small income who brought up a family very rep- 
utably, which he chieflv fed with apple-dump- 
lings.— Boswell's Johnson, p. 178. 

927. CLERGY, Heroic. George Wa I k e r. 
[When the army of James II. marched against 
the Protestants in Londonderry, the commander 
of the forces. Colonel Lundy,' advised a surren- 
der, there being but a small" store of provisions 
and an inadaquate preparation for defence. 



George Walker, a minister, roused the courage 
of the people for defence. Two regiments sailed 
away to England, leaving the inhabitants to pro- 
tect themselves. The faith and zeal of the pious 
Walker inspired the fortitude of the defenders, 
and procured a complete deliverance for the be- 
sieged.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 6, p. 85. 

928. CLERGY, Immoral. England a.d. 1509. 
At the commencement of the reign of Henry 
VII., the long immunity of the clergy from 
any interference of the legislature with their 
course of life, however criminal, was in a slight 
degree interrupted by a statute, which recognizes 
the existence in the commonwealth of " priests, 
clerks, and religious men openly noised of incon- 
tinent living." . . . The statute . . . recites that 
" persons lettered " have been more bold to com- 
mit murder, robbery, and other mischievous 
deeds, because they have been continually ad- 
mitted to the benefit of the clergj^ upon trust of 
the privilege of the church. [All those were held 
to be clerks who could read.] — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 2, ch. 15. p. 2-13. 

929. CLERGY impoverished, The. Reign of 
Charles I. [During the reign of Charles I. , when 
the degradation of the clerg}' was ridiculed,] the 
curates that did the work were so scandalously 
paid, that in London they were to be found din- 
ing at " three-penny ordinary," and in the coun- 
try were glad to obtain from the church-warden 
" a barley bag-pudding " for their Simday din- 
ner. The country curate is descril)ed as be- 
ing "imder a great prebend, and a double bene- 
ficed rich man," Avitli a salary inferior to his cook 
or coachman. The London curates are represent- 
ed as living " upon citizens' trenchers, and were 
it not that they were pitiful and charitable to 
them, there was no po.ssibility of subsistence." 
— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 30, p. 486. 

930. CLERGY, Interference of. TT7/?-. [The 
Crusaders, after a struggle ( if two years, captured 
the city of Damietta. ] After it was taken it was 
lost by the folly of the pope's legate, who pre- 
tended that, in right of his master, he had a title 
to regulate the disposition of the army as well as 
the church. By his orders they were encamped 
between two branches of the Nile, at the very 
time when it l)egan its periodical inundation. 
The Sultan of Egypt assisted its operation by a 
little art, and, by means of canals and sluices, 
contrived entirely to deluge the Christians on one 
side, while he burnt their ships on the other. In 
this extremity they entreated an accommodation, 
and agreed to restore Damietta and return into 
Phoenicia, leaving their king, John de Brienne, 
as an hostage. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, vol. 9. 

931. CLERGY, Labor of the. Xeedof. [Burnet 
exhorted the clergy of his own time] to " labor 
more," instead of cherishing extravagant notions 
of the authority of the Church. If to an exem- 
plary course of life in their own per.sons " clergy- 
men would add a little more labor — not only 
performing public offices, . . . but . . . making 
their calling the business of their whole life, 
their own minds would be in better temper, and 
their people would show more esteem " and re- 
gard for them. — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 4, 
p. 59. 

932. CLERGY, Lost. " Damned." Qhrj^osiom 
declares his free opinion that the number of bish- 



CLERGY. 



Ill 



ops who might be saved bore a very small 'pro- 
portion to those who would be damned. — Note 
IN Gibbon's Rome, ch. 32. 

933. CLERGY, Marriage of. Reign of CJuuies 
II. With his cure he was expected to take a 
wife ; the wife had ordinarily been in the pa- 
tron's service ; and it was well if she was not 
suspected of standing too high in the patron's 
favor. . . . An Oxonian . . . complained bitterly, 
not only that the country attorney and the coun- 
try apothecary looked down with disdain on the 
country clergyman, but that one of the lessons 
most earnestly inculcated on every girl of hon- 
orable family was to give no encouragement to 
a lover in orders, and that if any lady forgot 
this precept, she was almost as much disgraced 
as by an illicit amour. Clarendon, who assur- 
edly bore no ill-will to the Church, mentions it 
as a sign of the confusion of ranks wliich the 
Great "Rebellion had produced, that some dam- 
sels of noble families had bestowed themselves 
on divines. A waiting woman was generally 
considered as the mos't suitaljle helpmeet for a 
parson. Queen Elizabeth, as head of the Church 
. . . issued special orders that no clergyman 
should presume to marry a servant-girl without 
the consent of her master or mistress. — Ma- 
caulay's Eno., ch. 3. 

934. CLERGY, Militant. Pope Julius II. 
Julius II. , the successor of Alexander VI. , was 
a pontiff of great political abilities, of a bold and 
ambitious character, and consummately skilled 
in the art of war. It was he who employed 
Michael Angelo to cast his statue in brass, and 
when the sculptor would have put a book in his 
hand, " Xo," said he, "give me a sword, I un- 
derstand that better than a breviary. " — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 6, ch. 14. 

935. . Prior John. About this 

time [May, 1514] Prior John, great captain of 
the French navy, with his galleys and foists, 
charged with great basilisks and other great ar- 
tilleiy, came on the border of Sussex, and came 
aland on the night at a poor village in Sussex 
Brighthelmstone ; and ere the watch could him 
descry he set fire on the town, and took such 
poor goods as he found. Then the watch tired 
the beacons, and people began to gather ; which 
seeing, Prior John sounded his trumpet to call 
his men aboard, and by that time it was day. 
Then six archers which kept the watch followed 
Prior John to the sea and shot so fast that they 
beat the galley men from the shore, and Prior 
John hiuiself waded to the foist. [The bold 
prior himself was shot with an arrow in the 
face ; and he offered an image of himself, with 
the identical arrow sticking in the waxen cheek, 
in gratitude to our Lady at Boulogne for saving 
his" life by miracle. — Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 
17, p. 2T4. 

936. CLERGY, Neglect of the. Social Evils. 
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, and 
long after, we see no struggle against great social 
evils on the part of the clergy. Every attempt 
at social reform was left to the Legislature, 
which was utterly indifferent to those manifes- 
tations of wretchedness and crime that ought 
to have been dealt with by the strong hand. — 
Knight's Eno. , vol. 5, ch. 4, p. 60. 

937. CLERGY, Patriotic. Siege of Pans. The 
Normans ai>plied the battering rams to the walls, 



and effected a breach, liut were bravely beat off 
by the besieged. The vt^nerable Bishop Gosse- 
lin, an honor to his character and profession, re- 
paired every day to the ramparts, inii up there 
the standard of the cross, and, after bestowing 
his benedictions on the people, gallantlj' stood 
at their head, armed with the battle-axe and cui- 
rass ; but the worthy prelate died of fatigue in 
the midst of the siege. [About a.d. 845.] — Tyt- 
ler's Hist. , Book 6, ch. 6. 

938. CLERGY, Political. English. [In 1710, 
during the tiercest party strife, the return of a 
Tory preponderance in Parliament was attribut- 
ed by Dr. Burnet to the efforts of the clergy.] 
Besides a course for some months, of inflaming 
sermons, they went about from hou.se to house, 
pressing their people to show, on this great oc- 
casion, their zeal for the Church, and now or 
never to save it. — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 
24, p. 364 

930. CLERGY, Poverty of. Reign of Charles 
II. In general, the divine who quitted his chap- 
lainship for a benefice and a wife found that 
he had only exchanged one class of vexations 
for another. Not one living in fifty enabled 
the incumbent to bring up a family comfort- 
ably. As children multiplied and grew, the 
household of the priest became more and more 
beggarly. Holes appeared more and more plain- 
ly in the thatch of his parsonage and in his sin- 
gle cassock. Often it was only by toiling on his 
glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading dung- 
carts, that he could obtain daily bread ; nor did 
his utmost exertions always prevent the bailiff's 
from taking his concordance and his inkstand 
in execution. It was a white day on which he 
was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, 
and regaled by the servants with cold meat and 
ale. His children were brought up like the 
children of the neighboring peasantry. His 
boys followed the plough, and his girls went out 
to service. Study he found impossible, for the 
advowson of his living would hardly have sold 
for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theolog- 
ical library ; and he might be considered as un- 
usually lucky if he had ten or twelve dog-eared 
volumes among the pots ajid pans on his shelves. 
Even a keen and strong intellect might be ex- 
pected to rust in so unfavorable a situation. — 
Macaulay's Eng., ch. 3. 

940. . Fifteenth Century. The 

highest payment for a parish priest was 9 marks 
— £6. The artificer, at fourpence a day, earned 
about as much as the parish priest, to suffice for 
his board, apparel, and other necessaries, [a.d. 
1450-1485.]— Knight's Eng., vol. 2,ch. 8, p. 125. 

941. CLERGY, Profligate. Eighteenth Century. 
The indecorum, if not the profligacy, of a large 
number of the English clergy, for a period of 
half a century, is exhibited by too many con- 
temporary witnesses to be considered as the ex- 
aggeration of novelists, satirical poets, travel- 
lers, and dissenters. Ridicule, pity, indignation, 
produced little or no change for more than a 
generation. . . . What shall we say to the testi- 
mony of Dr. Knox, head-master of Tunbridge 
school ? " The public have long remarked with 
indignation, that some of the most distinguished 
coxcombs, drunkards, debauchees, and game- 
sters who figure at the watering-places and all 
public places of resort arc young men of the 



112 



CLERGY -CLIMATE. 



sacerdotal order." What to the " shepherd" of 

Crabbe? , „ ^ . , 

" A jovial youth, who thinks Sunday task 
As much as God or man can fairly ask. ..." 
[Advertisements like the following were pub- 
lished :] " Wanted a curacy in a good sportmg 
country, where the duty is light and the neigh- 
borhood convivial." . . . [Rev. Dr. Warner, a 
popular preacher,] desires Lord Selwyn to send 
him " the magazine, with the delicate amours of 
the noble lord, which must be very diverting." 
He describes a dinner with two friends : " We 
have just parted in a tolerable state of insensi- 
bility to the ills of life." " I have been preach- 
ing this morning, and am going to dine— where ? 
— in the afternoon. We shall bolt the door and 
(but, hush ! softly ! let me whisper it, for it is 
a -siolent secret, and I shall be blown to the 
devil if I blab, as in this house we are Noah and 
his precise family)— play cards." — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 7, ch. 6, p. 109. 

942. CLERGY rejected. Ireland. Queen Ehz- 
abeth . . . established the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church [in Ireland]. The Anglican prel- 
ates and priests, divided from the Irish by the 
insuperable barrier of language, were quartered 
upon the land, shepherds without sheep, pastors 
without people ; strangers to the inhabitants, 
wanting not them but theirs. The churches 
went to ruin ; the benefices went to men who 
were held as foreigners and heretics, and who 
had no care for the Irish but to compel them to 
pay tithes. The inferior clergy were ... as im- 
moral as they were illiterate. — Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 5, ch. 4. 

943. CLEEGY, Secular. Bmmins. This di- 
vision of the Indian castes is characteristic of a 
very singular state of society. The four princi- 
pal castes, or tribes, are the bramins, the sol- 
diers, the husbandmen, and the mechanics. The 
bramins, as we have already observed, are the 
priests, who, like the Roman Catholic clergy, are 
some of them devoted to a life of regular disci- 
pline, as the different orders of monks ; and 
others, like the secular clergy, mix in the world, 
and enjoy all the freedom of social life. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist. , Book 6, ch. 23. 

944. CLERGY, Selfish. The Pope's. In 1343 
the commons petitioned for the redress of the 
grievance of papal appointments to vacant liv- 
ings in despite of the rights of patrons or the 
Crown ; and Edward formerly complained to the 
pope of his appointing ' ' foreigners, most of 
them suspicious persons, Avho do not reside on 
their benefices, who do not know the faces of the 
flocks intrusted to them, who do not understand 
their language, but, neglecting the cure of souls, 
seek as hirelings only their worldly hire." In yet 
sharper words the king rebuked the papal greed. 
" The successor of the apostles was set over the 
Lord's sheep to feed and not to shear them." 
The Parliament declared "that they neither 
could nor would tolerate such things any longer;" 
and the general irritation moved slowly toward 
those statutes of provisors and prsemunire which 
heralded the policy of Henry VIII. — Hist, of 
Eng. People, t^ 321. 

945. CLEEGY, Sleepy. Contagious. Bishop 
Burnet sajs . . . the main body of our clergy 
has always appeared dead and lifeless to me, and 
instead of animating one another, they seem 



rather to lay one asleep. — Knight's Eng.. vol. 
5, ch. 4, p. 59. 

946. CLEEGY, Taxation of. France. Boni- 
face VIII., elected pope in the year 1294, was 
one of the most assuming prelates that ever filled 
the pontifical chair; yet he found in Philip 
[IV.] the Fair of France a man determined to 
humble his pride and arrogance. Philip resolved 
to make the clergy of his kingdom bear their 
proportion in furnishing the public supplies as 
well as the other orders of the state. The pope 
resented this as an extreme indignity offered to 
the Church, and issued his pontifical bull com- 
manding all the bishops of France to repair im- 
mediately to Rome. Philip ordered the bull to 
be thrown into the fire, and strictly prohibited 
any of his bishops from stirring out of the king- 
dom. He repaired, however, himself to Rome, 
and threw the pope into prison ; but being soon 
after obliged to quit Italy, Boniface regained his 
liberty.— "Fytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 11. 

947. CLIMATE, Changes of. Italy. In the time 
of Homer the vine grew wild in the island of 
Sicily, and most probably in the adjacent conti- 
nent. . . . A thousand years afterward Italy could 
boast, that of the fourscore most generous and 
celebrated wines, more than two thirds were 
produced from her soil. The blessing was soou 
communicated to the Narbonnese province of 
Gaul ; but so intense was the cold to the north 
of the Cevennes, that, in the time of Strabe, 
it was thought impossible to ripen the grapes in 
those parts of Gaul. This difficulty, however, 
was gradually vanquished. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 2. 

948. CLIMATE changes. Europe. Some in- 
genious writers have .suspected that Europe was 
nmch colder formerly than it is at present ; 
and the most ancient descriptions of the climate 
of Germany tend exceedingly to confirm their 
theory. . . ." I shall select two remarkable circum- 
stances. ... 1. The great rivers which covered 
the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube, 
were frequently frozen over, and capable of 
supporting the most enormous weights. The 
barbarians, who often cho.se that severe season 
for their inroads, transported, without apprehen ■ 
sion or danger, their numerous armies, their cav- 
alry, and their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid 
bridge of ice. Modern ages have not presented 
an instance of a like phenomenon. 2. The rein- 
deer, that useful animal, from whom the savage 
of the North derives the best comforts of his 
dreary life, is of a constitution that supports, 
and even requires, the nio.st intense cold. He 
is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten 
degrees of the Pole ; he .seems to delight in the 
snoAVS of Lapland and Siberia ; but at present 
he cannot subsist, much less nuiltiply, in any 
country to the .south of the Baltic. In the time 
of Ctesar the reindeer, as well as the elk and the 
wild bull, was a native of the Hercynian forest, 
which then overshadowed a great part of Ger- 
many and Poland. The modern improvements 
sufficiently explain the causes of the diminution 
of the cold. These immense woods have been 
gradually cleared, which intercepted the rays of 
the sun. The morasses have been drained, and 
in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the 
air has become more temperate. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 9. 



CLIMATE— CLOTHING. 



113 



949. CLIMATE vs. Character. Samuel John- 
son. We had auother evening by ourselves at 
the Mitre. It happening to be a very rainy 
night, I made some commonplace observations 
on the relaxation of nerves and depression of 
spirits which such weather occasioned ; adding, 
however, that it was good for tlie vegetable crea- 
tion. Johnson, who denied that the temperature 
of the air had any influence on tlie hmuan frame, 
answered, with a smile of ridicule, " Why, yes, 
sir, it is good for vegetables, and for the animals 
who eat those vegetables, and for the animals 
who eat those animals." This observation of his 
aptly enough introduced a good supper. — Bos- 
well's Johnson, p. 117. 

950. CLIMATE, Character by. Northern. [Dur- 
ing the rise of the Roman Empire,] in all levies, 
a just preference was given to the climates of 
the North over those of the South.— Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 1. 

951. . Revolutions. A plain in 

the Chinese Tartary, only eighty leagues from 
the great wall, was found by the missionaries 
to be three thousand geometrical paces above 
the level of the sea. Montesquieu, who has 
used and abused the relations of travellers, de- 
duces the revolutions of Asia from this important 
circumstance, that heat and cold, weakness and 
strength, touch each other without any temper- 
ate zone. — Note in Gibbon's Rome, ch. 26. 

952. . Laplanders. The consan- 
guinity of the Hungarians and Laplanders would 
display the powerful energy of climate on the 
children of a common parent ; the lively contrast 
between the bold adventurers who arc intoxicat- 
ed with the wines of the Danube, and the wretch- 
ed fugitives who are immersed beneath the snows 
of the polar circle. Arms and freedom have been 
the ruling, though too often the unsuccessful, 
passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by 
nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and 
body. Extreme cold has diminished the stature 
and congealed the faculties of the Laplanders ; 
and the Arctic tribes, alone among the sons of 
men, are ignorant of war and unconscious of 
human blood ; a happy ignorance, if reason and 
virtue were the guardians of their peace ! — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 55. 

953. CLIMATE, Demoralized by. Vandals. [In 
Africa the Roman general] Belisarius appeared ; 
and he advanced without opposition as far as 
Grasse, a palace of the Vandal kings, at the dis- 
tance of fifty miles from Carthage. The weary 
Romans indulged themselves in the refreshment 
of shady groves, cool fountains, and delicious 
fruits ; and the preference which Procopius al- 
lows to these gardens over anj^ that he had seen, 
either in the East or West, may be ascribed 
either to the taste or the fatigue of the historian. 
In three generations prosperity and a warm cli- 
mate had dissolved the hardy virtue of the Van- 
dals, who insensibly became the most luxurious 

' of mankind. In their villas and gardens, which 
might deserve the Persian name of Paradise, 
they enjoj^ed a cool and elegant repose ; and, 
after the daily use of the bath, the barbarians 
were seated at a table profusely spread with 
the delicacies of the land and sea. Their silken 
robes, loosely flowing, after the fashion of the 
Medes, were embroidered with gold ; love and 
hunting were the labors of their life, and their 



vacant hours were amused by pantomimes, 
chariot-races, and the nuisic and dances of the 
theatre. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 4L 

954. CLIMATE, Fear of. The Portuguese. In 
their tirst voyage after the discovery of Madeira, 
they passed Cape Boyador, and in the space of a 
few years, advancing above four hundred leagues 
to the south, they had discovered the river Sene- 
gal, and all the coast between Cape Blanco and 
Cape Verd ; they were now near ten degrees 
within the torrid zone, and were .surprised to find 
the climate still temperate and agreeable ; yet, 
on passing the river Senegal, and observing the 
human species to assume a different form, the 
skin as black as ebony, the woolly hair, and that 
peculiarity of feature which distinguishes the 
Negroes, they naturally attributed this to the 
influence of heat, and began to dread the conse- 
quences of a nearer approach to the line. They 
returned to Portugal . . . the common voice of 
their countrymen dissuaded them from any fur- 
ther attempts. — Tttleii's Hist., Book 6, ch. 18. 

955. CLIMATE, Injurious. Samuel Johnson. 
It was a very wet day, and I again complained of 
the disagreeable effects of such weather. John- 
son : " Sir, this is all imagination, which phj'- 
sicians encourage ; for man lives in air, as a fl.sh 
lives in water ; so that if the atmosphere press 
heavy from above, there is an equal resistance 
from below. To be sure, bad weather is hard 
upon people who are obliged to be abroad ; and 
men cannot labor so well in the open air in 
bad weather as in good ; but, sir, a smith or a 
tailor, whose work is within doors, will surely 
do as much in rainy weather as in fair. Some 
very delicate frames, indeed, may be affected by 
wet weather ; but not common constitutions." — 
Boswells Johnson, p. 125. 

956. CLIMATE, Protection of. Ethiopians. 
His generals, in the early part of his [Augustus] 
reign, attempted the reduction of Ethiopia and 
Arabia Felix. They marched near a thousand 
miles to the south of the tropic ; but the heat of 
the climate soon repelled the invaders, and pro- 
tected the unwarlike natives of those sequestered 
regions. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 1. 

957. CLIMATE, Sickness from. Pilgrims. The 
spring of 1021 lirought a ray of hope to the dis- 
tressed Pilgrims of New Plymouth. Never was 
the returnuig sun more welcome. The fatal 
winter had swept off one half of the number. 
The son of the benevolent Carver was among the 
first victims of the terrible climate. The gov- 
ernor himself sickened and died, and the broken- 
hearted wife foiuid rest in the same grave with 
her husband. But now, with the approach of 
warm weather, the destroying pestilence was 
stayed, and the spirits of the sur\ivors revived 
with the season. Out of the snows of winter,^ 
the desolations of disease, and the terrors of 
death, the faith of the Puritan had come forth 
triumphant. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 13. 

958. CLOTHING, Angelic. Sicedenborg. Since 
angels are men, and live together in society like 
men on earth, therefore they have garments, 
houses, and other things similar to those which 
exist on earth, but of course infinitely more 
beautiful and perfect. The garments of the 
angels correspond to their intelligence. The 
garments of some glitter as with flame, and those 



114 



CLOTHING— COINCIDENCE. 



of others are resplendent as witli light ; others are 
of various colors, and some white and opaque. 
The angels of the inmost heaven are naked, 
because they are in innocence, and nakedness 
corresponds to innocence. It is because gar- 
ments represent states of wisdom that they are 
so much spoken of in the Word, in relation to 
the church and good men. — "White's Sweden- 

BORG, p. 109. 

959. CLOTHING, Costly. Persian Kings. The 
revenues of whole provinces, according to He- 
rodotus, were bestowed on the attire of their 
favorite concubines ; and the provinces them- 
selves took from that circumstance their popular 
appellations. Plato, in his Alcibiades, mentions 
a Greek ambassador who travelled a whole day 
through a country called the Queen's Girdle, 
and another in cro.ssing a province which went 
by the name of the Queen's Head-Dress. The 
regal throne was of pure gold, overshadowed 
by a palm tree and vine of the same metal, with 
clusters of fruit composed of precious stones. — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 1, ch. 9. 

960. CLOTHING exchanged. Roman Emperor 
Elagabalus. A long train of concubines, and a 
rapid succession of wives, among whom was a 
vestal virgin, ravished by force from her sacred 
asylum, were insufficient to satisfy the impotence 
of his passions. The master of the Roman world 
affected to copy the dress and manners of the 
female sex, preferred the distaff to the sceptre, 
and dishonored the principal dignities of the 
empire by distributing them among his numer- 
ous lovers, one of wiiom was publicly invested 
with the title and authority of the emperor's, or, 
as he more properly styled himself, of the em- 
press's husband. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 6. 

961. CLOTHING, Prohibited. Protection. The 
clamor was so great against India silks and 
printed cottons, that after the 29th of September, 
1701, the wearing all wrought silks, of the man- 
ufacture of Persia, China, or East India, and all 
calicoes, printed, dyed, or stained therein, was 
absolutely prohibited. If we may believe the 
advocates of prohibition, this statute had the ef- 
fect of repeopling Spitalfields, "that looked like 
a deserted place."— Knight's England, vol. 5 
ch. 3, p. 20. 

962. CLUBS, Ancient. Egypt. Antony and 
Cleopatra established a society called the " Inim- 
itable Livers," of which they were members ; 
they also instituted another, by no means inferior 
in splendor or luxury, called " The Companions 
in Death. " Their friends were admitted into this, 
and the time passed in mutual treats and diver- 
sions. — Plutarch's Antony. 

963. COERCION, Patriotic. Tories, a. d. 1774. 
Two thousand men marched in companies to 
the common in Worcester [Mass.], where they 
forced Timothy Paine to walk through their 
ranks with his hat off as far as the centre of 
their hollow square, and read a written resigna- 
tion of his seat at the [governor's] council-board 
— Bancrofts U. S., vol. 7, ch. 8. 

®6^- COIN cUpped. England. [In ,Julv, 1694, 
we read] many executed in London for clippin"- 
money, now done to that intolerable extent'' 
that there was hardly any money that was worth 
above half the nominal value.— Knight's Eng 
vol. 5, ch. 12, p. 182. 



965. COINCIDENCE, Alarming. Cromwell. The 
equinoctial gale, which hatl commenced on the 
preceding day, now swelled into a storm which 
swept over England with the effect of an earth- 
quake. The carriages which conveyed to Lon- 
don the friends of the protector, apprised of his 
ex-treme danger, were unable to stem the \'iolence 
of the wind, and took refuge in the inns on the 
road. The lofty houses of London undulated 
like vessels tossed upon the ocean. Roofs were 
carried off, trees that had stood for centuries in 
Hyde Park were torn up by the roots and pros- 
trated on the ground, like bundles of straw. 
Cromwell expired at two o'clock in the after- 
noon, in the midst of this convulsion of nature. 
He departed as he was born, in a tempest. Pop- 
ular superstition recognized a miracle in this 
coincidence, which seemed like the expiring ef- 
forts of the elements to tear from life and empire 
the single man who was capable of enduring the 
might of England's destiny, and whose decease 
created a void which none but himself could fill. 
— Lamartine's Cromwell, p. 77. 

966. COINCIDENCE, Comforting. Sereti Bish- 
ops. [They were imprisoned by James II. , be- 
cause they would not join him \n the overthrow 
of their cherished Protestant faith. ] On the even- 
ing of the Black Friday, as it was called, on 
which they were committed, they reached their 
prison just at the hour of divine service. They 
instantij' hastened to the chapel. It chanced 
that in the second lesson were these words : "In 
all things approving ourselves as the ministers 
of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in dis- 
tresses, in stripes, in imprisonments." All zeal- 
ous churchmen were delighted by this coinci- 
dence, and remembered how much comfort a 
similar coincidence had given Charles I. at the 
time of his death. — ^Macavlay's Eng., ch. 8. 

967. COINCIDENCE repeated. Theseus. The- 
seus, then, ai)peared to answer to Romulus in 
many particulars. Both were of uncertain par- 
entage, born out of wedlock, and both had the 
repute of being sprung from the gods. Both 
stood in the first rank of warriors, for both had 
great powers of mind, with great strength of 
body. One was the founder of Rome, and one 
peopled Athens, the most illustrious cities in the 
world. Both carried off women by violence. 
Both were involved in domestic miseries and 
exposed to family resentment, and both, toward 
the end of their lives, are said to have offended 
their respective citizens, if we may believe what 
seems to be delivered with the least mixture of 
poetical fiction. — Plutarch's Romulus. 

96S. COINCIDENCE, Strange. Adams— Jeffer- 
son. A few days before [John Adams'] . . . 
death, a gentleman called upon him and asked 
him to give a toast, which should be presented 
at the Fourth of July banquet as coming from 
him. The old man said: "I will give you, 
Independence forever !" " Will you not add 
something to it ?" asked his visitor. " Not a 
word," was the reply. The toast was presented 
at the banquet, where it was received with deaf- 
ening cheers ; and almost at that moment the 
soul of this great patriot passed away. Among 
the last words that could be gathered from his 
dying lips were these : ' ' Thomas Jefferson still 
survives !" But Thomas Jefferson did not sur- 
vive. On the same Fourth of July, a few hours 



COINCIDENCE— COMBAT. 



115 



before, Jefferson also departed this life. Few 
events have ever occurred in the United States 
more thrilling to the people than the death, on 
the same anniversary of the nation's birth, of 
these two aged, venerable, and venerated public 
servants. — Cyclopedia of Bigg., p. 178. 

969. . Hugh Miller. Day had not 

■wholly disappeared . . . when I saw at the 
open door, within less than a yard of my breast, 
a dissevered hand and arm stretched out toward 
me. The hand and arm were evidently those of 
a female ; they had a livid and sodden appear- 
ance ; and directly fronting me, where the body 
ought to have been, there was only blank trans- 
parent space. ... I ... ran shrieking to my 
mother. . . . My mother going to the door saw 
nothing. ... Its coincidence with the probable 
time of my father's death [he went down in a 
storm at sea] seems at least curious. — Smiles' 
Brief Biographies, p. 87. 

970. COLOR, Caste of. Green— Blue. The Ro- 
jian race, in its first institution, was a simple con- 
gest of two chariots, whose drivers were distin- 
guished by lehite and red liveries ; two addition- 
al colors, a light gresn and a cerulean blue, were 
afterward introduced ; and, as the races were 
repeated twent\'-tive times, one hundred chariots 
contributed in the same day to the pomp of the 
circus. The four factions soon acquired a legal 
establishment and a mysterious origin. [The 
struggle of the green and blue was supposed to 
represent the conflict of the earth and sea.] The 
sportive distinction of two colors produced two 
strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook 
the foundations of a feeble government. The 
popular dissensions, founded on the most serious 
interest or holy pretence, have scarcely equalled 
the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which in- 
vaded the peace of families, divided friends and 
brothers, and tempted the female sex, though 
seldom seen in the circus, to espouse the inclina- 
tions of their lovers, or to contradict the wishes 
of their husbands. Every law, either human or 
divine, was trampled under foot, and as long as 
the party was successful, its deluded followers 
appeared careless of private distress or public 
calamity. The license, without the freedom, of 
democracy was revived at Antioch and Con- 
stantinople, and the support of a faction became 
necessary to every candidate for civil or eccle- 
siastical honors. A secret attachment to the 
family or sect of Anastasius was imputed to the 
greens ; the blues were zealously devoted to the 
cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, and their 
grateful patron protected, above five years, the 
disorders of a faction whose seasonable tumults 
overawed the palace, the senate, and the capitals 
of the East. Insolent with royal favor, the blues 
affected to strike terror by a peculiar and bar- 
baric dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close 
sleeves and ample garments, a lofty step, and a 
sonorous voice. In the day they concealed their 
two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly 
assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, pre- 
pared for every act of violence and rapine. Their 
adversaries of the green faction, or even inoffen- 
sive citizens, were stripped and often murdered 
by these nocturnal robbers, and it became dan- 
gerous to wear any gold buttons or girdles or to 
appear at a late hour in the streets of a peaceful 
capital. A daring spirit, rising with impunity, 



proceeded to violate the safeguard of private 
houses ; and fire was employed to facilitate the 
attack, or to conceal the crimes of these factious 
rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their 
depredation ; to gratify eitlier avarice or revenge, 
they profusely spilled the blooil of the innocent ; 
churches and altars were polluted by atrocious 
murders ; and it was the boast of the assassins, 
that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal 
wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The 
dissolute youth of Constantinople adopted the 
blue livery of disorder ; the laws were silent, and 
the bonds of society were relaxed. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 40, p. 58. 

971. COLOR, Prejudice of. Portuguese. [The 
discoverers of tlie African coast were dissuaded 
from extending their discoveries.] It was even 
hinted, as a probable consequence, that the mar- 
iners, after passing a certain latitude, would be 
changed into blacks, and thus retain forever a 
disgraceful mark of their temerity. — Clarke's 
Progress of Maritime Discovery. 

972. COLOR-LINE in Commerce. Columbus. 
[He was about to start on his third voyage.] 
Jayme Ferrer, an eminent and learned lapidary, 
assured Columbus that, according to his experi- 
ence, the rarest objects of commerce, such as 
gold, precious stones, drugs, and spices, were 
chiefly to be found in the regions about the equi- 
noctial line, where the inhabitants were black, 
or darkly colored ; and that until the admiral 
should arrive among people of such complexions 
he did not think he would find those articles in 
great abundance. — Irving's Columbus, Book 
10, ch. 1. 

973. COLLEGE vs. Capital. Yale. It remains to 
be told how Connecticut came to be blessed with 
two capitals. As soon as the college was deter- 
mined upon in 1700, the question arose, and was 
discussed with the energy and heat with which 
such questions usually are. In what town shall 
it be situated ? The institution was begun at 
Saybrook, and was not finally established at New 
Haven until 1718, which was sixteen years after 
the first student entered. This removal, as the 
reader may imagine, was keenly resented, not 
only by Saybrook, but by other towns which had 
hoped to be chosen as the site of the college, 
particularly Hartford. To reconcile Hartford 
to the disappointment, the Legislature agreed to 
build a State House there, as they said, " to com- 
pensate for thecollegeat New Ilaven." They tried 
to appease Saybrook by voting £25 sterling for 
the use of its schools. But Saybrook was irrec- 
oncilable. When the sheriff, by order of the 
trustees, attempted to remove the library to New 
Haven, a riot ensued, in the course of which two 
hundred and fifty volumes were conveyed away 
to parts unknown, and never recovered. — Cyclo- 
pedia OF BiOG. , p. 593. 

974. COMBAT, Pleasvire in. Romans. The 
shows of the amphitheatre rose naturally out of 
that taste for martial exercises which we find in 
the first ages of every warlike people. About the 
490th year of Rome, Marcus and Decimus Brutus 
presented a combat of gladiators for the first time 
at Rome. About a century after that period the 
athletae were introduced for a public show ; and 
there were combats of slaves Avith bears and 
lions. Sylla, during his praetorship, exhibited a 
combat where 100 men fought with 100 lions ; 



116 



C0M3IAND— COMMERCE. 



and Julius CiEsar, during his fedileship, presented 
a show where there fought 300 couples of gladi- 
ators. — Tytler's Hist." Book 4, ch. 4. 

975. COMMAND divided. In vasion of Scotland. 
Some of the Scottish emigrants, heated with re- 
publican enthusiasm, and utterly destitute of the 
skill necessary to the conduct of great affairs, 
employed alltheir industry and ingenuity, not 
in collecting means for the attack which they 
were about to make on a formidable enemy, but 
in devising restraints on their leader's power and 
securities against his ambition. The self-com- 
placent stupidity with which they insisted on or- 
ganizing an army as if they had not been organiz- 
ing a commonwealth would be incredible if it had 
nol been frankly and even boastfully recorded 
by one of themselves. . . . Argyle was to hold 
the nominal command in Scotland ; but he was 
placed under the control of a committee which 
reserved to itself all the most important parts of 
the military administration. This committee 
was empowered to determine where the expedi- 
tion should land, to appoint oflScers, to superin- 
tend the le^yingof troops, to dole out provisions 
and ammunition. All that was left to the gen- 
eral was to direct the evolutions of the army in 
the tield ; and he was forced to promise that, 
even in the tield, except in the case of a surprise, 
he would do nothing without the assent of a 
council of war. [The enterprise was a total 
failure.] — Macaulay's Enct., ch. 5. 

976. COMMERCE, Benefits of. Rfflex. The 
most obvious is the general diffusion of industry'. 
Among a commercial people the faculties of 
both mind and body are of necessity almost con- 
stantly employed. Invention is ever on the 
stretch to discover new sources of gain. And 
the enterprising spirit of the more opulent fur- 
nishes constant occupation to the mechanic, 
the manufacturer, and the laborer. Insepar- 
ably connected ... is a spirit of frugality. 
Riches have their full value when purchased 
by the labor of either mind or body, and what 
cost dear will not be frivolouslj' expended. . . . 
"We observe the association of the same qualities 
among the Dutch and the Chinese. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 3, ch. 8. 

977. . Oomrnment. Another nec- 
essary consequence of the prevalence of com- 
merce is a regularity and strictness of the 
national poHce, a severity of the laws with re- 
spect to mutual contracts and obligations, and 
a consequent secm-ity in the transactions of in- 
dividuals with each other. . . . Science is like- 
wise greatly indebted to commerce. Thus as- 
tronomy, navigation, general mathematics, me- 
chanics, and, indeed, all sciences subservient to 
practical utility are advanced by it. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 3, ch. 8 

978. . Holland, a.d. 1581. Their 

commerce gathered into their harbors the fruits 
of the wide world. Producing almost no grain 
of any kind, Holland had the best supplied gran- 
ary of Europe ; without fields of flax it swarmed 
with weavers of linen ; destitute of flocks, it be- 
came the centre of all woollen manufactures ; 
and pro\inces that had not a forest built more 
ships than all Europe besides. — B.\xcroft's 
U. S., vol. 2, ch. 15. 

979. . English. A scheme was 

proposed to the States of Holland upon the 



death of the stadtholder, "William II., for a 
union and coalition between the two republics. 
It was not relished by the Dutch, who were 
better pleased to maintain their own indepen- 
dence ; and the Parliament of England, piqued 
at their refusal, immediately declared war 
against them. The Navigation Act was passed, 
which prohibited foreigners from importing into 
England in their ships any commodity which 
was not the growth or manufacture of their own 
country — an act which struck heavily against 
the Dutch, because their country produces few 
commodities ; and their commerce consists chief- 
ly in being the factors of other nations. This 
statute was in another way beneficial to the 
English, by obliging them to cvdtivate mari- 
time commerce, from which they have derived 
the greatest part of their national Avealth. In 
this war, which was most ably maintained on 
both sides — under Blake, the English admiral, 
and Van Tromp and de Ruyter, admirals of the 
Hollanders — the English, on the whole, had a 
clear superiority ; the Dutch were cut off entire- 
ly from the commerce of the Channel ; their 
fisheries were totally suspended, and above 1600 
of their ships fell into the hands of the English. 
—Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 30. 

9§0. COMMERCE, Burdened. American Col- 
onies. On the restoration of monarchy a severer 
policy was at once adopted. All vessels not 
bearing the English flag were forbidden to en- 
ter the harbors of New England. A law of ex- 
portation was enacted by which all articles pro- 
duced in the colonies and demanded in England 
.should be shipped to England only. Such arti- 
cles of production as the English merchants did 
not desire might be sold in any of the ports of 
Europe. The law of importation was equall}' 
odious ; such articles as were produced in Eng- 
land should not be manufactured in America, 
but should be bought from England only. Free- 
trade between the colonies was forbidden, and 
a dut}' of five per cent, levied for the benefit 
of the IJnglish king, was put on both exports 
and imports. Human ingenuity could hardly 
have invented a set of measures better calculated 
to produce an American Revolution. — Rid- 
path's U. S., ch. 14. 

981. COMMERCE, Enterprise of. Z>/*wrf?:^. Se- 
bastian Cabot, young, and tired with ambition to 
follow the career of Columbus, was probably the 
prime mover of the enterprise ; but the patent 
granted by the king conferred the requisite au- 
thority upon ' ' John Kabotto" and his .sons, Lew- 
is, Sebastian, and Sancius. The king took care 
not to risk any capital in the proposed voj'age ; 
for the patent authorized the adventurers "to 
sail to all parts, countries and seas of the East, of 
the "West, and of the Z^orth, under our banners 
and ensigns, with five ships, etc., upon their oicn 
proper costs and charges." The wealthy Bristol 
merchant, in all probability, furnished the cap- 
ital of the enterprise which gave to England all 
her rights in North America ; and that merchant 
was not an Emrlishman. — Cyclopedia of Bigg. , 
p. 330. 

982. COMMERCE, Importance of. a.d. 1685. 
In .some parts ot Kent and Sussex none but the 
strongest horses could in winter get through the 
bog. In which at every step they sjink deep. 
The markets were often Inaccessible during sev- 



COMMEKCE. 



iir 



-eral months. It is said tliat the fruits of the 
earth were sometimes suffered to rot in one 
place, while in another place distant only a few 
miles the supply fell far short of the demand. 
— Macaulay'sExg., cli. 3. 

983. COMMERCE neglected. Egypt. With re- 
gard to any intercourse with other nations by 
commerce,"the E.sryptlans had so little genius of 
that sort, that while the Red Sea was left open to 
all the maritime nations who chose to fre- 
quent it, they would not suffer any of those 
foreign vessels to enter an Eg^'ptian port. 
They had no ships of their o^^^l, for their coun- 
try produced no timber fit for the construction 
even of the small boats employed in navigating 
the Nile, which obliged them to use baked earth 
for that purpose, and sometimes reeds covered 
with varnish. They held the sea in detesta- 
tion, from a religious prejudice, and they avoid- 
ed all intercourse with mariners. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 1, ch. 4. 

9§4. COMMERCE, Patriotism of, American 
Be volution. [During the excitement aroused by 
the Stamp Act,] the importers of Xew York, 
Boston, and Philadelphia entered into a solemn 
•compact to purchase no more goods of Great 
Britain until the Stamp Act should be repealed. 
And the people applauded the action of the 
merchants, and cheerfully denied themselves all 
imported luxuries. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 37. 

985. COMMERCE, Pioneers of. Plmnicians. 
To the PhQ?nicians all auticiuity has joined in 
attributing the invention of navigation ; or, at 
least, it seems an agreed point that they were 
the earliest among the nations of antiquity who 
made voyages for the sake of commerce. The 
Canaanites (for it is by that name that the Pho?- 
nicians are known in Scripture) were a power- 
ful people in the days of Abraham. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 1, ch. 5, p. 49. 

986. COMMERCE, Piracy of. By Great Brit- 
■ain. a. D. 1755. France and England were still 
at peace ; and their commerce was mutually pro- 
tected by the sanction of treaties. Of a sudden 
hostile orders were issued to all British vessels of 
war to take all French vessels, private as well as 
public ; and without warning ships from the 
French colonies . . . were carried into English 
ports. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 4, ch. 9. 

987. COMMERCE and Politics. Controlling 
Government. The progress of European civiliza- 
tion had endowed commerce with legislative 
power. Its councils prevailed in England, 
where it dictated the national policy, prescribed 
-alliances, and menaced wars. In America the 
political influence of commerce spi-ung, not from 
progress, but from sympathy with the movement 
of Europe ; and it was less gloriously content 
with introducing new maxims of legislation and 
new systems of finance. — Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 3, ch. 23. 

988. COMMERCE, Precedence of. Sa rages. 
Water, ever a favorite highwaj-, is especially the 
highway of uncivilized man ; to those who have 
no axes the thick jungle is impervious ; emigra- 
tion by water suits savage life ; canoes are older 
than wagons, and ships than chariots ; a gulf, a 
strait, the sea intervening between islands, di- 
vide less than the matted forest. — Bancroft's 
U. S., vol. 3, ch. 23. 



989. commerce: prohibited. Spartans. 
Commerce was strictly prohibited -. and al- 
though the territory of Lacediemon contained a 
considerable extent of sea-coa.st, and afforded 
many excellent harbors, the Spartans allowed 
no foreigners to approach their shores, and bad 
not a single trading vessel of their own. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist., Bookl, ch. 9, p. 92. 

990. COMMERCE, Revenge of. 5ri7M. [After 
the Americans threw British tea into Boston 
harbor] Parliament made haste to find revenge. 
On the last day of ^larch, 1774, the Bo.ston Port 
Bill was passed. It was enacted that no kind 
of merchandise should any longer be landed or 
shipped at the wharves of Boston. The custom- 
house was removed to Salem, but the people of 
that town refused the benefits which were prof- 
fered by the hand of tyranny. The inhabitants 
of ^Iarl)lehead tendered the free use of their 
Avarehouses to the merchants of Boston. — Rid- 
path's U. S. , ch. 37. 

991. COMMERCE and Science. Discovery of 
America. .John Cabot, a Venetian merchant 
residing in Bristol . . . and his son Sebastian 
first approached the continent which no Euro- 
pean had dared to visit, or had known to exist. 
. . . Thus the discovery of our continent was an 
exploit of private mercantile adventure ; and 
the possession of the new-found land was a 
right vested by an exclusive patent in the family 
of a Bristol merchant. ... He gave England a 
continent, and no one knows his burial-place. — 
Bancroft's Hist. U. S., vol. 1, ch. 1. 

992. COMMERCE, Spirit of. Selfsli. One most 
natural effect of the commercial spirit is a selfish 
and interested turn of mind ; a habit of measur- 
ing everything by the standard of profit and loss, 
an"d a predominant idea that wealth is the main 
constituent both of public and private happiness. 
The contrast of character, in this respect, be- 
tween the Romans and Carthaginians, has been 
finely remarked by Poly bins. " In all things," 
says"that judicious writer, "which regard the ac- 
quisition of wealth, the manners and customs of 
the Romans are infinitely preferable to those of 
the Carthaginians. This latter people esteemed 
nothing tobe dishonorable that was connected 
with gain. Among them money is openly em- 
ployed to purchase the dignities and offices of 
the'State ; but all such proceedings are capital 
crimes at Rome." I am afraid that a contrast, 
so honorable to the Romans, could only have 
been made with justice in the early periods of 
the republic ; since we know that without an in- 
crease of commerce, to which might be attribut- 
ed the consequent increase of corniption and 
venality, those -vices had attained to as great a 
heiffht 'toward the end of the republic at Rome 
as ever they had done at Carthage. But wealth 
acquired by plunder, rapine and peculation is 
yet more corruptive of the manners of a peo- 
ple than riches acquired by merchandise. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist. , Book 3, ch. 8. 

993. . Umrarlike. Another effect 

of the prevalence of the commercial spirit is 
to depress the military character of a people, 
and to render them indisposed to warlike enter- 
prises. The advancement of trade cannot take 
place in anv high degree unless a nation is at 
peace with its nelsrhbofs, and enjoys domestic se- 
curity. The prospect of that precarious gain 



118 



COMMERCE— COMMUNISM. 



which arises from warfare -will not weigh against 
the certain advantages which commerce derives 
from a state of peace. The art of war will not, 
therefore, flourish as a profession among a com- 
mercial people, and the practice of it will gen- 
erally be intrusted to mercenary troops. Military 
rank will be in low esteem, because, when pur- 
chased, it ceases in a great degree to be honor- 
able. Thus the Carthaginians, though certain- 
ly not inferior by nature to the Romans in cour- 
age and military prowess, were become so from 
habit and education. The armies of the empire 
were not composed of its native subjects ; they 
were mercenaries, and, therefore, had no natu- 
ral affection for that soil which they were called 
to defend, or that people who were nothing more 
than their paymasters. Hence the signal inferi- 
ority of their armies to the Romans, unless when 
commanded by Carthaginian generals of high 
natural militarV genius.— Tytler's Hist., Book 
3, ch. 8. 

994. COMMERCE, Success by. Dutch. Amster- 
dam profited Ijy this decline of commerce on the 
Baltic, and upon the demolition of Antwerp be- 
came, as we have already said, the greatest com- 
mercial city of the north. Inhabiting a countrj^ 
gained almost entirely from the sea, and extreme- 
ly unfruitful, the Dutch, urged by necessity, by 
the means of trade alone, and domestic manufact- 
ures, attained to a very high degree of wealth 
and splendor. The country of Holland does not 
produce what is sufHcient to maintain the hun- 
dredth part of its inhabitants. The Dutch have 
no timber nor maritime stores, no coals, no metal, 
yet their commerce furnished them with every- 
thing. Their granaries were full of corn, even 
when the harvest failed in the most fertile coun- 
tries ; their naval stores were most abimdant, and 
the populousuess of this countrj', which, in real- 
ity, is but a bank of barren sand, exceeded pro- 
digiously that of the most fruitful and most cul- 
tivated of the, European kingdoms. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 6. ch. 18. 

995. COMMUNION with God. Croimcell. 
Here again is a letter to one of his daughters, 
when the writer was on board the John, on his 
expedition to Ireland : "My Dear Daughter : 
Your letter was very welcome to me. I like to 
see anything from your hand ; because, indeed, 
I stick not to say I do entirely love you. And, 
therefore, I hope a word of advice will not be un- 
welcome nor unacceptable to thee. I desire 
you both to make it, above all things, your busi- 
ness to seek the Lord ; to be frequently calling 
upon Him that He would manifest Himself to 
you in His Son ; and be listening what returns 
He makes to you, for He will be speaking in your 
ear and your heart if you attend thereunto." — 
Hood's Cromwell, p' 163. 

996. COMMUNION by Likeness. John Milton. 
The style of ' ' Paradise Lost " is then only the nat- 
ural expression of a soul thus exquisitely nour- 
ished upon the best thoughts and finest words of 
all ages. It is the language of one who lives in 
the companionship of the" great and the wise of 
past time. It is inevitable that when such a 
one speaks his tones, his accent, the melodies of 
his rhythm, the inner harmonies of his linked 
thoughts, the grace of his allusive touch, should 
escape the common ear. To follow Milton, one 
should at least have tasted the same training 



through which he put himself. Te quoque dig- 
num finge deo. The many cannot see it, and 
complain that the poet is too learned. They 
would have Milton talk like Bunyan or William 
Cobbett, whom they understand. — Milton, by 
M. Pattison, ch. 13. 

997. COMMUNION, Unity by. Fox—Crom- 
tcell. To the witness of the young Quaker against 
priestcraft and war, he replied : " It is very good ; 
it is truth ; if thou and I were but an hour of a day 
together, we should be nearer one to the other." 
— Bancroft's U. S., vol. 2, ch. 11. 

998. COMMUNISM, American. Colonists. The 
man who was chietiy instrumental in organizing 
the London Company was Bartholomew Gos- 
nold. ... By the terms of the charter, the affairs 
of the company were to be administered by a 
superior council residing in London and an in- 
ferior council residing in the colony [now em- 
braced in Virginia, Carolinas, and westward]. 
... In the first organization of the companies 
not a single principle of self-goverimient was ad- 
mitted. The most foolish clause in the patent 
was that which required the proposed colony or 
colonies to hold all property in common for five 
years. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 7. 

999. COMMUNISM, Equality by. Lycvrgus. 
A bold political enterprise of Lycurgus was a 
new division of the lands. For he found a pro- 
digious inecj[uality, the city overcharged with 
many indigent persons who had no land, and 
the wealth centred in the hands of a few. De- 
termined, therefore, to root out the evils of in.so- 
lence, envy, avarice, and luxury, and those dis- 
tempers of a state still more inveterate and fatal — 
I mean poverty and riches — he persuaded them 
to cancel all former divisions of land, and to make 
new ones, in such a manner that they might be 
perfectly equal in their possessions and way of 
living. A story goes of our legislator, that some 
time after returning from a journey through the 
fields just reaped, and seeing the shocks standing 
parallel and equal, he smiled and said to some 
that were by, " How like is Laconia to an estate 
newly divided among many brothers !" After 
this he attemped to divide also the movables, in 
order to take away all appearance of inequality ; 
but he soon perceived that they could not bear to 
have their goods directly taken from them, and 
therefore took another" method, counter-work- 
ing their avarice by a stratagem. — Plutarch's 
" Lycurgus." 

1000. . Spartans. Agis IV. had 

succeeded to one branch of the throne of Sparta 
a short time before Aratus was chosen praetor of 
the Achaian States. This prince, a better man 
than a wi.se politician, had cheri.shed the chimeri- 
cal project of restoring the ancient laws of Lycur- 
gus, as conceiving this the only means of rescu- 
ing his country from the disorders induced by 
the universal corruption of its manners. But 
there is a period when political infirmity has at- 
tained such a pitch that recovery is impo.ssible ; 
and Sparta had arrived at that period. The de- 
siffii of Agis, of course, embraced the radical re- 
fol-m of a new division of all the land of the re- 
public — a project sufficient to rouse the indigna- 
tion and secure the mortal enmity of the whole of 
the higher class of citizens, and of almost every 
man of weight and consideration in his country. 
The plan was tlierefore to be conducted with 



COMMUNISM— COMPLAINTS. 



119 



the greatest caution and secrecy till sufficiently 
ripened for execvition ; but Agis was betrayed 
by his own confidants. Leonidas, his colleague 
in the sovereignty, had imbibed a reli-sh for lux- 
ury from his Asiatic education at the court of 
Seleucus, and was thus easily persuaded to take 
the part of the richest citizens in opposing this 
violent revolution, which threatened to reduce all 
ranks of men to a level of equality. . . . After 
compelling Agis to take shelter in the Temple 
of Minerva, they seized the opportunity of his go- 
ing to the bath, and dragged him to tlie common 
prison, where a tribunal of the Ephori, summon- 
ed by his colleague Leonidas, sat ready to judge 
liim as a State criminal. He was asked, by whose 
evil counsel he had been prompted to disturb the 
laws and government of his country ? "I need- 
ed none to prompt me," said the king, "to act 
as I thought right. Mj' design was to restore your 
ancient laws, and to govern according to the plan 
of the excellent Lj'curgus ; and though I see my 
death is inevitable, I do not repent of my design. " 
The judges hereupon pronounced sentence of 
death, and the virtuous Agis was carried forth 
from their presence and immediately strangled. 
— Tytler's Hist.. Book 2, ch. 5. 

1001. COMMUNISM, Vicious. Reign of Kobad. 
The people were deluded and inflamed by the 
fanaticism of Mazdak, who a.sserted the com- 
munit}^ of women and the equality of mankind, 
while he appropriated the richest lands and mo.st 
beautiful females to the use of his sectaries. 
Mazdak [note] announced himself as a reformer 
of Zoroa.strianism, and carried the doctrine of 
the two principles to a much greater height. He 
preached the absolute indifference of human ac- 
tion, perfect equality of rank, community of 
property and of women, marriages between the 
nearest kindred ; he interdicted the use of animal 
food, proscribed the killing animals for food, en- 
forced a vegetable diet . . . and Mazdak was en- 
rolled with Thoth, Saturn, Zoroaster, Pythago- 
ras, Epicurus, John, and Christ, as the teachers of 
true Gnostic wisdom. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 42. 

1002. COMMUNISTS, Conspicuous. Levellers. 
[The Levellers] became conspicuous in Crom- 
well's army who declared, ' ' that all degrees of 
man should be levelled, and an equality should 
be established, both in titles and estates, 
throughout the kingdom." — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 4, ch. 6. 

1003. COMMUNISTS, Dangerous. The '' Lev- 
ellers " of 1649 were, in a small way, the precur- 
sors of the " Socialists" of 1849. [Thirty men, 
headed by one formerly in the arm}', who called 
himself a Prophet, appeared in Surrej', in a sandy 
district. They took possession of the ground, and 
began to dig and dibble beans in that planting 
time. They said they should .shortly be four 
thousand in number ; that they should pull down 
park-pales and lay all open. ~ The Prophet was 
taken before an officer of the government, when 
he declared that a vision had appeared to him 
and said :] " Arise, and dig and plough the earth, 
and receive the fruits thereof ;" thattheir intent 
was to restore the creation to its former condi- 
tion, but that thej^ meant to meddle with what 
was common and untilled ; but that the time 
was at hand when all men shall willingly come 
in and give up their lands and estates, and sub- 
mit to tliis couimunitv of goods. . . . Cromwell 



said to the Council of State, " You must make 
an end of this party, or it will make an end of 
3"ou." — Knight's Eng., vol. 4, chs. 6 and 7. 

1004. COMPARISONS, Invidious. Feast Day. 
Another officer, who thought he had done the 
State some service, setting himself up against 
Themlstocles, and venturing to compare his own 
exploits with his, he answered him with this 
fable : " There once happened a dispute between 
the feast day and the day after the feast. Says 
the duy after the feast, I am full of bustle and 
trouble, whereas, with you, folks enjoy, at their 
ea.se, everything ready provided. You Sixy right, 
says the feast day, but if I had not been before 
j-ou, you would not have been at all. So, Jiad it 
not been for me, then where would you have been 
novo ?" — Plutarch's " Themistocles." 

1005. COMPASSION, Discreditable. James IT. 
Though vindictive, he Avas not indiscriminately 
vindictive. Not a single instance can be men- 
tioned in which he showed a generous compas- 
.sion to tho.se who had opposed him honestly and 
on public grounds ; but he frequently spared and 
promoted those whom some vile motive had in- 
duced to injure him ; for that meanness which 
marked them out as fit implements of tyranny 
was so precious in his estimation, that he regard- 
ed it with some indulgence, even when it was ex- 
hibited at his own expense. — Macaulay's Eng. , 
ch. 4. 

1006. COMPASSION, Female. Tndian. Pontiac 
reserved for himself the most difficult task of all 
— the capture of Detroit. But in the hour of im- 
pending doom, woman's love interposed to save 
the garrison from butchery. An Indian girl of 
the Ojibway nation came to the fort with a pair of 
moccasins for Major Gladwyn, the commandant, 
and in parting with him manifested unusual 
agitation and distress. She was seen to linger at 
the street corner, and the sentinel summoned her 
to return . . . after much persuasion . . . she 
revealed the plot. [The Indian's treachery did 
not succeed.] — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 35. 

1007. COMPETITORS, Ignoble. Roman Em- 
peror Gratian. Among the various arts which 
had exercised the youth of Gratian, he had ap- 
plied himself, with singular inclination and suc- 
cess, to manage the horse, to draw the bow, and 
to dart the javelin ; and these qualifications, 
which might be useful to a soldier, were prosti- 
tuted to the viler purposes of hunting. Large 
parks were enclosed for the Imperial pleasures, 
and plentifully stocked with every species of wild 
beasts ; and Gratian neglected the duties, and 

i even the dignity, of his rank, to consume whole 
davs in the vain display of his dexterity and 
boldness in the chase. The pride and wish of 
the Roman emperor to excel in an art in which 
he might be surpassed by the meanest of his 
slaves reminded the numerous spectators of the 
examples of Nero and Commodus. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 27. 

100§. COMPLAINTS, Disregarded. Billeting 
Act of Pa rlia lilt lit. A. D. 1766. Samuel Adams 
. ■. . called across the continent to the patriot 
most like himself, Christopher Gadsden of South 
Carolina. " Tell me, sir," said he of the Billet- 
ing Act, "whether this is not taxing the colo- 
nies as effectually as the Stamp Act ? And if so, 
either we have complained vvithout reason, or we 



120 



COMPLIMENT— COMPROMISE. 



have still reason to complain." — Bancroft's 
U. S., vol. 6, ch. 27. 

lOOO. COMPLIMENT, False. Robert Burns. 
[Burns svmpatliized ^\i\l\ the French Republi- 
cans during the war between England and 
France.] The poet, when in his cups, had in 
the hearing of a certain captain proposed as a 
toast, "May our success in the present war be 
equal to the justice of our cause." The soldier 
called him to account — a duel seemed imminent, 
and Burns had next day to write an apologetic 
letter, in order to avoid the risk of ruin. — 
Shairp's Burns, ch. 7. 

1010. COMPLIMENT, Graceful. William of 
Orange. [After the illegal acts of James II. and 
his flight, William came to London.] The law- 
yers paid their homage, headed by Maynard, 
who, at ninety years of age, was as alert and 
clear-headed as when he stood up in Westminster 
Hall to accuse Strafford. "Mr. Sergeant," said 
the prince, "you must have survived all the law- 
yers of your standing." " Yes, sir," said the old 
iman, " and but for your highness I should have 
survived the laws too." — Macaulay's Eng., 
ch. 10. 

1011. COMPLIMENT misappropriated. Cato. 
Cato the philosopher, then a young man, but al- 
ready celebrated for his virtue and greatness of 
mind, went to see Antioch when Pompey was 
not there. According to custom, he travelled on 
foot, but his friends accompanied him on horse- 
back. When he approached the city he saw a 
great number of people before the gates, all in 
white, and on the way a troop of young men 
ranged on one side, and of boys on the other. 
This gave the philosopher pain, for he thought 
it a compliment intended him, which he did ndt 
want. However, he ordered his friends to alight 
and walk with him. As soon as thej^ were near 
enough to be spoken with, the master of the cer- 
emonies, with a crown on his head and a staif 
of office in his hand, came up and asked them 
Avhere they had left Demetrius, and when he 
might be expected. Cato's companions laughed , 
but Cato said only, "Alas ! poor city," and so 
passed on. — Plutarch. 

1012. COMPOSITION, Hasty. SamnelJohnson. 
He had, from the irritability of his constitution, 
at all times an impatience and hurry when he 
either read or wrote. A certain apprehension, 
arising from novelty, made him write his first 
exercise at college twice over ; but he never took 
that trouble with any other composition ; and 
his most excellent works were struck off at a 
heat, with rapid exertion. — Boswell's John- 
son, p. 14. 

1013. COMPOSITION, Labor of. Wordmcorth. 
[a.d. 1803.] I do not know from what cause 
it is, but during the last three years I have never 
had a pen in my hand for five minutes before 
my whole frame becomes a bundle of uneasiness ; 
a perspiration starts out all over me, and my 
chest is oppressed in a manner which I cannot 
describe." — Myer's Wordsworth, ch. 1. 

1014. COMPOSITION, Method in. John Mil- 
ton. Bed, with its warmth and recumbent post- 
ure, he_ found favorable to composition. At 
other times he would compose or prime his 
verses as he walked in the garden, and then, 
coming in, dictate. His verse was not at the com- 



mand of his will. Sometimes he would lay 
awake the whole night, trying but unable to 
make a single line. At other times lines flowed 
without premeditation, "with a certain impetus 
and sestro." His vein, he said, flowed only from 
the vernal to the~Jiutumnal equinox. Phillips 
here transposes the seasons, though he has pre- 
served the authentic fact of intermittent inspira- 
tion. It was the spring which restored to Mil- 
ton, as it has to other poets, the buoyancy nec- 
essary to composition. What he composed at 
night he dictated in the day, sitting obliquely 
in an elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the 
arm. He would dictate forty lines, as it were in 
a breath, and then reduce them to half the num- 
ber. — Milton, by M. Pattison, ch. 12. 

1015. COMPOSITION, Swift. Waverley Novels. 
" The last two volumes," says Scott, in a letter to 
Mr. Morritt, " were vrritten in three weeks." . . . 
If that is not extempore writing, it is difficult 
to say what extempore writing is. But in truth 
there is no evidence that any one of the novels 
was labored, or even so much as carefully com- 
posed. Scott's method of composition was al- 
ways the same ; and, when writing an imagina- 
tive work, the rate of progress seems to have 
been pretty even, depending much more on the 
ab.sence of disturbing engagements than on any 
mental irregularity. The morning was always 
his brightest time ; but morning or evening, in 
country or in town, well or ill, writing with his 
own pen or dictating to an amanuensis in the 
intervals of screaming-fits due to the torture of 
cramp in the stomach, Scott spun away at his 
imaginative web almost as evenly as a silkworm 
spins at its golden cocoon. Nor can I detect the 
slightest trace of any difference in quality be- 
tween the stories, such as can be reasonably 
ascribed to comparative care or haste. — Hut- 
ton's Scott, ch. 10. 

1016. COMPOSITION and Toil. BobertBurns. 
The farmhouse of Mossgiel . . . consisted of 
only two rooms, a but and a ben, as they were 
called in Scotland. Over these, reached by a 
trap stair, is a small garret, in which Robert and 
his brother used to steep. Thither, when he had 
returned from his day's work, the poet used to 
retire, and seat himself at a small deal-table, 
lighted by a narrow sky-light in the roof, to 
transcribe the verses which he had composed in 
the fields. His favorite time for composition 
was at the plough. — Shairp's Burns, ch. 1. 

1017. COMPROMISE, Failure of. Missouri. 
In January of 18o4 Senator Stephen A. Doug- 
las brought before the Senate ... a proposition 
to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebras- 
ka .. . pro\iding that the people of the two ter- 
ritories, in forming their constitutions, should de- 
cide for themselves yvhether the new States should 
be free or slave-holding. This was a virtual re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise, for both the 
new territories lay north of the parallel of thirty- 
six degrees and thirty minutes. Thus by a sin- 
gle stroke the old settlement of the Slavery ques- 
tion was to be undone. From January till May 
Mr. Douglas' report, known as the Kansas and 
Nebraska bill, was debated in Congress. All the 
bitter sectional antagonisms of the past were 
aroused in full force. [It was passed and signed 
in May by the President.]— Rldpath's U. S., 
ch. 60. 



COMPROMISE— CONCEIT. 



121 



1018. COMPROMISE, Qualifications for. Thom- 
as Cranmer. The man who took the chief part in 
settling the conditions of tlie alliance which pro- 
duced the Anglican Church was Thomas Cran- 
mer. He was the representative of both parties, 
Avhich, at that time, needed each other's assist- 
ance. He was at once a divine and a statesman. 
. . . His temper and his understanding emi- 
nently fitted him to act as a mediator. Saintly 
in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, 
zealous for nothing, bold in speculation, a cow- 
ard and a time-server in action, a placable enemy 
and a lukewarm friend, he was in every Avay 
qualified to arrange the terms of the coalition 
between the religious and worldly enemies of 
popery. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 1. 

1019. COMPROMISE rejected. Aristides the 
Just. Mardonius, notwithstanding his immense 
force, seemed to have greater hopes of Persian 
gold than Persian valor. He attempted to cor- 
rupt the Athenians by offering them the com- 
mand of all Greece, if they would desert the 
confederacy of the united States. Ari.stides was 
then archon ; he answered, that while the sun 
lield its course in the firmament the Persians had 
nothing to expect from the Athenians but mor- 
tal and eternal enmity. So much did he here 
speak the sense of his countrymen, that a single 
citizen having moved in the public assembly that 
the Persian deputies should be allowed to explain 
their proposals, was instantly stoned to death. — 
Tytlek's Hist., Book 2, ch. 1. 

1020. COMPROMISE, Settlement by. Slavery. 
[In 1820] Senator Thomas, of Illinois, made a 
motion [in Congress] that henceforth and forever 
slavery should be excluded from all that part of 
the Louisiana cession — Missouri excepted — lying 
north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and 
thirty minutes. Such was the celebrated Mis- 
souri Compromise, one of the most important 
acts of American legislation — a measure chiefly 
supported by the genius and carried through 
Congress by the persistent efforts of Henry Clay. 
. . . By this compromise the slavery agitation 
was allayed till 1849.— Ridpatii's U. S.,"ch. 52. 

1021. COMPROMISE on Slavery. Federal 
Government. The comjjromises on the Slavery 
question, inserted in the Constitution, were among 
the essential conditions upon which the Federal 
Government was organized. If the African slave 
trade had not been permitted to continue for 
twenty years — if it had not been conceded that 
three fifths of the slaves should be counted in 
the apportionment of representatives in Congress 
— if it had not been agreed that fugitives from 
their service should be returned to their owTiers, 
the Thirteen States would not have been able, in 
1787, " to form a more perfect union." — Blaine's 
Twenty Years in Congress, p. 1. 

1022. COMPROMISE, Temporizing. Omnibus 
Bill. Henry Clay appeared as peacemaker. . . . 
On the 9th of May he brought forward as a com- 
promise covering all the points in dispute [regard- 
ing slavery] the Omnibus Bill, of which the 
provisions were as follows : 1st, the admission of 
California as a free State ; 2d, the formation of 
new States, not exceeding four in number, out 
of the territory of Texas, said States to permit 
or exclude slavery as the people should deter- 
mine ; 3d, the organization of territorial govern- 
ments for New Mexico and Utah, without con- 



ditions on the question of slavery ; 4th, the es- 
tablishment of the present botuidary between 
Texas and New Mexico, and the payment to the 
former, for surrendering the latter, the sum of 
$10,000,000 from the national treasury ; 5th, 
the enactment of a more rigorous law for the 
recovery of fugitive slaves ; 6th, the abolition 
of the slave trade in the District of Colum- 
bia. . . . The passage of the Omnibus Bill brought 
political quiet, but the moral convictions of very 
few men were altered by its provisions. Public 
opinion remained as before : in the North, a 
general, indefinite, but growing ho.stility to sla- 
very ; in the South, a fixed and resolute purpose 
to defend and extend that institution. — Rid- 
path's U. S., ch. 59. 

1023. CONCEALMENT guarded. Mahomet. 
His death was resolved, and they agreed that a 
sword from each tribe should be buried in his 
heart, to divide the guilt of his blood, and baflle 
the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or 
a spy revealed their conspiracy, and fiight was 
the only resource of Mahomet. At the dead of 
night, accompanied by his friend Abubeker, he 
.silently escaped from his house ; the assassins 
watched at the door, but they were deceived by 
the figure of All, who reposed on the bed, and 
was covered Avith the green vestment of the 
apostle. . . . Three days ilahomet and his com- 
panions were concealed in the cave of Thor, at 
the distance of a league from Mecca ; and in 
the close of each evening they received from the 
son and daughter of Abubeker a secret supply 
of intelligence and food. The diligence of the 
Koreish explored every haunt in the neighbor- 
hood of the city ; they arrived at the entrance 
of the cavern, but the providential deceit of a 
spider's web and a pigeon's nest is supposed to 
convince them that the place was solitary and 
inviolate. " We are only two," said the trem- 
bling Abubeker. " There is a third," replied the 
prophet; "it is God Himself." — Gibbon's Ma- 
homet, p. 35. 

1024. CONCEALMENT, Unpleasant. Bo7u- 
mond. The great army of the crusaders was 
annihilated or dispersed ; the principality of 
Antioch was left without a head, by the sur- 
prise and captivity of Bohemond. ... In his 
distress Bohemond embraced a magnanimous 
resolution ... of arming the West against the 
Byzantine Empire. . . . His embarkation was 
clandestine ; and, if we may credit a tale of the 
Princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely 
secreted in a coffin. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 59. 

1025. CONCEIT, Changeless. Cicero. "What 
does Cscsar say of my poems '?" he wrote again. 
"He tells me in one of his letters that he has 
never read better Greek. At one place he writes 
Fa^vfiuTspa [somewhat careless]. This is his 
word. Tell me the truth, Was it the^ matter 
which did not please him, or the .style '?" " Do 
not be afraid," he added, with candid simplicity ; 
" I shall not think a hair the worse of myself." 
— Froude's C.ESAR»ch. 18. 

1026. CONCEIT, Foolish. XerxfS. [His bridge 
of boats across the straits of the Dardanelles being 
destroyed bv the sea,] he commanded two pairs 
of chains to be thrown into the sea as if to .shackle 
and confine it, and his men to give it three hun- 
dred strokes of a whip, and thus addressed it : 
" Thou troublesome and unhappy element, thus 



122 



CONCEIT— CONDUCT. 



does thy master chastise thee for having affront- 
ed him without reason." [He also took the man- 
agers' heads oft'.]— Rollin, vol. 1, ch. 6. 

1027. CONCEIT, Literary. Thomas Paine. 
Thomas Paine . . . asserted that if he had the 
power, he would destroy all the books in exist- 
ence, which only propagated error, and he would 
reconstruct a new system of ideas and princi- 
ples, with his own " Rights of Man" as its founda- 
tion. — Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 11. 

102S. CONCEIT, Silly. Xerxes. Having cut 
a canal through the mountain for his ships, he 
said: " Athos, thou proud and aspiring moun- 
tain, that liftest up thy head unto the heavens, 
I advise thee not to be so audacious as to put 
rocks and stones which cannot be cut in the way 
of my workmen. If thou givest them that op- 
position, I will cut thee entirely down and throw 
thee headlong into the sea." — Rollin, ch. 6, 
p. 250. 

1029. CONCESSION, Dangerous. To Tribunes. 
The consuls assembled the people, and attempted 
to justify the Senate ; but being constantly in- 
terrupted by the tribunes, they could not make 
themselves be heard. They urged, that the tri- 
bunes having only the liberty of opposing, ought 
to be silent till a resolution was formed. The 
tribunes, on the other hand, contended that they 
had the same privileges in an assembly of the 
people that the consuls had in a meeting of the 
Senate. The dispute was running high, when 
one of the consuls rashly said, that if the tribunes 
had convoked the assembly, they, instead of in- 
terrupting them, would not even have taken the 
trouble of coming there ; but that the consuls 
having called this assembly, they ought not to 
be interrupted. This imprudent speech was an 
acknowledgment of a power in the tribunes to 
convoke the public assemblies — a power which 
they themselves had never dreamt of. It may 
be believed that they were not remiss in laying 
hold of the conce.s.sion. They took the whole 
people to witness what had been said by the con- 
suls, and an assembly of the people was sum- 
moned by the tribunes to meet the next day. — 
Tytler's Hist. , Book 3, ch. 4. 

1030. CONCILIATION by Favors. Popular- 
ity. [When Ainie of Austria came to the regen- 
cy of France,] in her anxiety to conciliate all par- 
ties, she commenced by granting them almost 
whatever they demanded. The " Importans," 
charmed by "her condescension, imagined that 
they were henceforth to carry all before them ; 
and the witty De Retz declared that for two or 
three months the whole French language was 
comprised in five little w^ords— " the queen is so 
good !" These, however, were transient illu- 
sions.— Students' France, ch. 20, § 1. 

1031. CONCILIATION, Policy of. \jmar. He 
wLshed to hand over his conquests to his success- 
or not only subdued, but reconciled to subjec- 
tion. He invited the chiefs of all the tribes to 
come to him. He spoke to them of the future 
which lay open to them as members of a splen- 
did Imperial State. He gave them magnificent 
presents. He laid no impositions either on the 
leaders or their people, and they went to their 
homes personally devoted to their conqueror, 
contented with their condition, and resolved to 
maintain the peace which was now established— 



a unique experience in political history. The 
Norman conquests of England alone in the least 
resemble it. — Froude's C^sar, ch. 19. 

1032. CONCILIATION vs. Threatening. Cae- 
sar. [Caesar had crossed the Rubicon, and was 
marching toward Rome.] Pompey was now 
sensible of his weakness. Tlie voice of the pub- 
lic openly expressed an impatient desire for the 
arrival of Csesar, wdio, on his part, was rapidly 
advancing to the gates of Rome, when Pompey 
quitted the city, followed by the consuls and 
the greater part of the senators. Unable to col- 
lect a sufficient force in Italy, he passed over 
into Epirus . . . thence he trusted that he would 
be supplied both with troops and treasure. Be- 
fore sailing from Brundisium, he had declared 
that he would treat all those as enemies who did 
not follow him. Caesar, with more wisdom, de- 
clared that he would esteem all those his friends 
who did not arm against him. — Tytler's Hist., 
Book 4, ch. 2. 

1033. CONDENSATION, Literary. Cmsar. 
Caesar turned his arms against Pharnaces, the 
son of Mifhridates, who had seized the kingdom 
of Pontus, and meditated, after liis father's ex- 
ample, to strip the Romans of their Asiatic pos- 
sessions. This war he very speedily terminated, 
intimating its issue to his friends at Rome in 
three words, Veni, vidi, vici, ' ' I came, I saw, 
I concpiered." — Tytler's Hist., Book 4, ch. 3. 

1034. . Virgil. He bestowed the 

greatest labor in polishing his writings, his hab- 
it being to pour forth a vast quantity of verses 
in the morning, which he reduced to a small 
number by continual elaboration, after the man- 
ner — as he said — of a bear licking her cubs into 
shape. — LiDDELLS Rome, ch. 71, § 16. 

1035. CONDOLENCE unappreciated. In Pe- 
kin. [At a banquet given by the prince regent, 
he noticed General Grant's son.] He then asked if 
he was married and had children. Being told 
he had one, a daughter, he replied, "What a 
pity !" In China female children do not count 
in the sum of human happiness, and when the 
l)rince expressed his regret at the existence of 
the general's granddaughter, he was saj'ing the 
mo.st polite thing he knew. — General Grant's 
Travels, p. 411. 

11036. CONDUCT, Absurd, Samuel Johnson. 
A phjsician being mentioned who had lost his 
practice because his whimsically changing his 
religion had made people distrustful of him, 
I maintained that this was unreasonable, as re- 
ligion is unconnected with medical skill. John- 
son : " Sir, it is not unreasonable : for when 
people see a man absurd in what they under- 
stand, they may conclude the same of him in 
what they do not understand. If a phy.sician 
were to take to eating of horseflesh, nobody 
would employ him ; though one may eat horse- 
flesh, and be a very skilful physician. If a man 
were educated in an absurd religion, his contin- 
uing to confess it would not hiu't him, though 
his changing to it would." — Boswell's John- 
son, p. 2^84. 

1037. CONDUCT, Contradictory. SteeU. He 
had two wives, whom he loved dearly and 
treated badlj-. He hired grand houses, and 
bought fine horses for which he could never pay. 
He was often religious, but more often drunk. 



CONDUCT— CONFIDENCE. 



Ul 



As a man of letters, other men of letters who 
followed him, such as Thackeray, could not be 
very proud of him. But everybody loved him ; 
and he seems to have been the inventor of that 
filing literature which, with manj' changes in 
form and manner, has done so much for the 
amusement and editicatiou of readers ever since 
his time. — Trollope's Thackeray, ch. 7. 

103S. CONDUCT, Dissolute. A Sign. A sure 
sign of corruption is to be found in the dissolute 
manners which were discovered among the 
women. There were in Rome and many Italian 
towns secret societies, in which young men and 
women were dedicated to Bacchus ; and under 
the cloak of religious ceremony every kind of 
license and debauchery was practised. — Lid- 
dell's Rome, ch. 43, '^ 7. 

10^9. CONDUCT, Scandalous. In high Life. 
When one of the waiters at Arthur's Club was 
committed on a charge of felony [George Selwyn 
said, with as much truth as wit]. What a horrid 
idea he will give of us to the people in Newgate ! 
— Knight's Exg., vol. 7, ch. 6. 

1040. CONFESSIONAL, Secrets of the. Gini- 
powder Plot. Henry Garnet, one of the Jesuits 
■who where concerned in the Gunpowder Plot, 
obtained his knowledge of it at the confessional, 
and on trial maintained ' ' that he had acted upon 
a conscientious persuasion that he was boiind to 
disclose nothing that he had heard in sacrament- 
al confession." He was executed. — Knight's 
Eng., vol. 3, ch. 21. 

1041. CONFIDENCE, Compliment of. Cmar. 
[His troops were intimidated by exaggerated re- 
ports of the numl)er and fierceness of the Ger- 
mans.] Confident in himself, Cssar had the 
power, so indispensable for a soldier, of inspir- 
ing confidence in others as soon as they came to 
know what he was. He called his officers to- 
gether. He summoned the centurions, and re- 
buked them sharply for questioning his pur- 
poses. . . . Romans never mutinied, save 
through the rapacity or incompetence of their 
general. His life was a witness that he was not 
rapacious, and his victory over the Helvetii that 
as yet he had made no mistake. He should order 
the advance on the next evening, and it would 
then be seen whether sense of duty or cowardice 
was the stronger. If otliers declined, C«sar said 
that he should go forward alone with the legion 
which he knew would follow him, the lOth, 
which was already his favorite. The speech 
was received with enthusiasm. The lOtli 
thanked Caesar for his compliment to them. The 
rest, officers and men, declared their willingness 
to follow wherever he might lead them. — 
Froude's C^sar, ch. 14. 

1042. CONFIDENCE erroneous. Bonaparte's. 
[At the battle of Waterloo,] when Napoleon saw 
the English in position ... he exclaimed, "At 
last I have them ; nine chances to ten are in my 
favor !" — Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 2. 

1043. CONFIDENCE, Excess of. Major Andre. 
[The British spy approached Tarr^-town,] when 
Paulding got up and presented a firelock at his 
breast .... Full of the idea that he could meet 
none but the friends of the English, he answered, 
" Gentlemen, I hope you belong to our party ?" 
" Which party ?" asked Paulding. " The lower 
party," said Andre. Paulding answered that 



he did. Then said Andre : " I am a British officer 
out on particular business, and I hope you will 
not detain me a minute." Upon this Paulding 
ordered him to dismount. Seeing his mistake, 
Andre showed his pass from Arnold, .saying, ' ' By 
your detaining me you will detain the general's 
business." . . . [Papers and plans were found in 
his stockings.] " This is a spy," said Paulding. 
Andre offered 100 guinea.s — any sum of money 
if they would let him go. " No," cried Pauld- 
ing, "not for 10,000 guineas." . . . Congress 
voted . . . annuities. — Bancroft's U. S., vol. 
10, ch. 18. 

1044. CONFIDENCE, Perilous. Ilarald II. 
He might have gathered a nuich more numerous 
army than that of William ; but his recent vic- 
tory had made him over-confident, and he was 
irritated by the reports of the country being rav- 
aged by the invaders. As soon, therefore, as he 
had collected a small army in London, he 
marched off toward the coast, pressing forward 
as rapidly as his men could traverse Surrey and 
Su.ssex, in the hope of taking the Normans una- 
wares, as he had recently, by a similar forced 
march, succeeded in surprising the Norwegians. 
But he had now to deal with a foe equally brave 
with Harald Hardrada, and far more skilful and 
wary. — Dec. Battles, § 295. 

1045. CONFIDENCE, Power of. Bobber. Mar- 
garet, Queen of England, when a fugitive in Lor- 
raine, was phmdered of her gold and jewels in a 
wild forest by a band of robbers. She made her 
escape, leading her bo}', then about eleven years 
old. In the depths of the wood they were again 
encountered by a single robber. Margaret, with 
the decision of her character, threw herself upon 
the protection of the outlaw. " This is the sou 
of your king — to j^our care I commit him. I 
am your queen." The robber became her friend, 
and guarded her to a place of security. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 1, ch. 10. 

1046. CONFIDENCE, Premature. Abraham 
Lincoln. [To Governor ]Morgan of New York : 
" I do not agree with those who, after the emanci- 
pation proclamation,] say slavery is dead. We 
are like whalers who have been on a long chase ; 
we have at last got the harpoon into the monster, 
but we must now look how we steer, or, with 
one ' flop ' of his tail, he will yet send us all into 
eternity." — Ravmond's Lincoln, p, 752. 

1047. CONFIDENCE, Superstitious. 0th o. 
[When Otho the Great finally subdued the Hun- 
garians, his] camp was blessed with the relics of 
saints and martyrs ; and the Christian hero gird- 
ed on his side the sword of Constantine, grasped 
the invincible spear of Charlemagne, and waved 
the banner of St. 3Iaurice, tUe^ prefect of the 
Thebean legion. But his firmest confidence 
was placed in the holy lance, whose point was 
fashioned of the nails of the cross, and which 
his father had extorted from the King of Bur- 
gundy by the threats of war and the gift of a 
province. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 55. 

I04§. CONFIDENCE tested. Alexander. [Al- 
exander the Great was taken sick while in Cilicia 
in consequence of having bathed in the Cyd- 
nus, who.se waters were very cold.] His ph}'- 
sicians durst not give him any medicines, bc- 
cau.se they thought themselves not so certain 
of the cure as of the danger they must incur 



1-24 



CONFISCATION— CONFLAGRATION. 



in the application ; for they feared the Macedo- 
nians, if they did not succeed, would suspect 
them of some bad practice. Philip, the Acarna- 
nian, saw how desperate the king's case was, as 
well as the rest ; but, beside the confidence he 
had in hi.s friendship, he thought it the highest 
ingratitude, when his master was in so much 
danger, not to risk something with him, in ex- 
hausting all his art for his relief. He therefore 
attempted the cure, and found no difficulty in 
persuading the king to wait with patience until 
his medicine was prepared, or to take it when 
ready ; so desirous was he of a speedy recovery, 
in order to prosecute the war. In the mean time 
Parmenio sent him a letter from the camp, 
advising him to beware of Philip, whom, he 
said, Darius had prevailed upon, by presents 
of infinite value, and the promise of his daughter 
in marriage, to take him off by poison. As 
.soon as Alexander had read the letter, he put it 
under his pillow, without showing it to any of 
his friends. The time appointed being come, 
Philip, with the king's friends, entered the 
chamber, having the cup which contained the 
medicine in his hand. The king received it 
freely, without the least marks of suspicion, and 
at the same time put the letter in his hands. It 
was a striking situation, and more interesting 
than any scene in a tragedy — the one reading 
while the other was drinking. They looked up- 
on each other, but with a very different air. The 
king, with an open and unembarrassed counte- 
nance, expressed his regard for Philip and the 
confidence he had in his honor ; Philip's looks 
showed his indignation at the calumny. One, 
while he lifted up his eyes and hands to heaven, 
protesting his fidelity ; another, while he threw 
himself down by the bedside, entreating his mas- 
ter to be of good courage and trust to his care. 
The medicine, indeed, was so strong, and over- 
powered his spirits in such a manner, that at 
first he was speechless, and discovered scarce 
any sign of sense or life. But afterward he 
was soon relieved by this faithful physician, and 
recovered so well that he was able to show him- 
self to the Macedonians, whose distress did not 
abate until he came personally before them. — 
Plutarch's "Alexander." 

1049. CONFISCATION, Avaricious. Maxi- 
min. [The Emperor was a tyrant. His avarice 
was] stimulated by the insatiate desires of the 
soldiers, at length attacked the public property. 
Every city of the empire was possessed of an 
independent revenue, destined to purchase corn 
for the multitude, and to supply the expenses of 
the games and entertainments. By a .single act 
of authority the whole mass of wealth was at 
once confiscated for the use of the Imperial 
treasury. The temples were stripped of their 
most valuable offerings of gold and silver, and 
the statues of gods, heroes, and emperors were 
melted down and coined into money. These 
impious orders could not be executed without 
tumults and massacres, as in many places the 
people chose rather to die in the defence of their 
altars than to behold, in the midst of peace, their 
cities expo.sed to the rapine and cruelty of war. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 7. 

1050. CONFISCATION, Religious. Alfonse 
(T Albuquerque. [Having .subdued for his king 
two of the great peninsulas of Southern Asia, 



and meditating the diverting of the river Nile 
from its course so as to leave Egypt a desert,] 
he died in the odor of sanctity, committing his 
soul to God and his son to the king. The last 
days of his life were spent in hearing read his 
favorite passages of the New Testament, during 
which he held in his hands and clasped to his 
heart a small crucifix. His last words showed, 
not merely that his conscience acquitted him for 
what he had done against the people of India, 
but that he regarded him.self as an eminent sol- 
dier of the cross, as well as a faithful servant of 
his king. Nay, more ; his conduct toward the 
Indians had never occurred to him as a case of 
conscience at all, so completely was it taken for 
granted that no people except Christians had any 
rights. The earth was the Lord's and the full- 
ness thereof ; and did it not therefore belong to 
the pope, and to Christian kings, who were the 
Lord's vicar, and vicegerents ? — Cyclopedia op 
BiOG., p. 315. 

1051. CONFLAGRATION, Defensive. Colum- 
bia. As soon as it became certain that Columbia 
mu.st fall into the hands of the Federals, Gener- 
al Hardee, the commandant of Charleston, deter- 
mined to abandon that city also ; . . . guards 
were detailed to destroy all the warehouses, stores 
of cotton, and depots of supplies at Charleston. 
The torch was applied, the flames raged, and con- 
sternation spread throughout the city. The great 
depot of the Northwestern Railway, where a 
large quantity of powder was stored, caught fire, 
blew up with terrific violence, and buried two 
hundred people in its ruins. Not until four 
squares in the best part of the city were laid 
in ashes was the conflagration checked. — Rid- 
PATH'sU. S., ch. 66. 

1052. CONFLAGRATION, Destructive. Boston. 
A few days after the Presidential election [of 
1872] the city of Boston was visited by a confla- 
gration only second in its ravages to that of Chi- 
cago, |in the previous year. On the evening of the 
9th of November a fire broke out on the corner 
of King.ston and Sumner streets, spread to the 
north-east, and continued, with almo.st unabated 
fury, until the morning of the 11th. The best 
portion of the city, embracing some of the finest 
blocks in the United States, was laid in ashes. 
The burnt district covered an area of sixty-five 
acres. Eight hundred buildings, property to the 
value of $80,000,000, and fifteen lives were lost 
by the conflagration. — Ridpatii's U. S., ch. 68. 

1053. . Chicago. The year 1871 

is noted in American history for the burning of 
Chicago. On the evening of the 8th of October 
a fire broke out in De Koven Street, and was 
driven by a high wind into the lumber-yards and 
wooden houses of the neighborhood. The flames 
leaped the south branch of the Chicago River, 
and spread with great rapidity through the busi- 
ness part of the city. AH day long the deluge 
of fire rolled on, across the main channel of the 
river, and swept into a blackened ruin the whole 
district between the north branch and the lake 
as far northward as Lincoln Park. The area 
burnt over was two thousand one hundred acres, 
or three and one third square miles. Nearly two 
hundred lives were lost in the conflagration, 
and the property destroyed amounted to about 
$200,000,000. No such terrible devastation had 
been witnessed since the burning of Moscow 



CONFLAGRATION— CONFLICT. 



127 



in 1812. In the extent of the district burned 
over, the Chicago fire stands first ; in the amount 
of property destroyed, second ; and in the suffer- 
ing occasioned, third among tiie great confla- 
grations of the world. — Ridpath's IJ. S., ch. 68. 



1054. 



London. [In 1666 it burn- 



ed for nearly two miles in length and one in 
breadth, the flames continuing three days and 
three nights. The houses were mostly covered 
with thatched straw roofs ; the lead from the 
burning churches ran down the streets in streams. 
The fire was checked in its progress by blowing 
up houses. Not more than eight lives were lost. 
Two hundred thousand people of all ranks and 
degrees were made homeless. Thirteen thousand 
and two hundred dwellings were burned, also 
eighty-nine churches, besides many public struct- 
ures, hospitals, schools, libraries, and a vast num- 
ber of stately edifices. Total estimated loss, 
£7,335,000.— Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 17. 



1055. 



Moscow. A.D. 1813. The 



astounding intelligence was brought to Napoleon 
that the city was utterly deserted. A few miser- 
able creatures, who had been released from the 
prisons to engage in the congenial employment 
of setting fire to the city as soon as the French 
should have taken possession, were found in the 
streets. . . . Rumors of the intended conflagra- 
tion reached his ears. . . . More than a hundred 
thousand of the wretched inhabitants, driven by 
the soldiery from the city, parents and children, 
perished of cold and starvation in the woods. — 
Abbott's Napoleon B. , vol. 2, ch. 18. 



1056. 



Moscow. The crown maga- 



zines, with vast stores of wine and spirits, were in 
a blaze. Not a fire-engine nor a bucket could 
be procured. They had all been carried off. Day 
after day the astonished soldiers saAv the canopy 
of smoke and flame spreading over the city of a 
thousand domes and minarets. . . . The con- 
flaijration went on till, of 40,000 houses in stone, 
only 200 escaped ; of 8000 in wood, 500 only 
were standing ; of 1600 churches, 800 were con- 
sumed. ... A furious wind carried showers of 
sparks far and near. . . . Only one tenth of 
the city was left unconsumed. — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 7, ch. 30, p. 558. 

1057. . New York. On the 16th 

of December, 1835, a fire broke out in the lower 
part of New York City and laid thirty acres of 
buildings in ashes. Five hundred and twenty- 
nine houses and property valued at $18,000,000 
were consumed. — Ridpath's U. S., ch. 54. 

105§. . Rome. Whether Nero was 

guilty of this unparalleled outrage on the lives 
and fortunes of his subjects or not, certain it is 
that on July 19th, a.d. 64, in the tenth year of his 
reign, a fire broke out in shops full of inflam- 
mable materials which lined the valley between 
the Palatine and Caelian hills. For six days and 
seven nights it rolled in streams of resistless flame 
over the greater part of the city, licking up the 
palaces and temples of the gods which covered 
the low hills, and raging through whole .streets 
of the wretched wooden tenements in which 
dwelt myriads of the poorer inhabitants who 
crowded the lower regions of Rome. When its 
course had been checked by tlie voluntary de- 
struction of a vast mass of buildings which lay in 
its path, it broke out a second time, and raged for 



three days longer in the less crowded quarteis i.. 
the city, where its spread was even more fatal to 
pul)lie buildings and the ancient shrines of the 
gods. Never since the Gauls burnt Rome had 
so deadly a calamity fallen on the afiiicted city. 
Of its fourteen districts, four alone escaped un- 
touched ; three were completely laid in ashes ; 
in the seven others were to be .seen the wrecks of 
many buildings, scathed and gutted by the flames. 
The disaster to the city was historically irrepar- 
able. . . . The sen.se of permanent loss was over- 
whelmed at first by the immediate confusion and 
agony of the scene. Amid the sheets of flame 
that roared on every side under the den.se canopy 
of smoke, the shrieks of terrified women and the 
wail of infants and children were heard above 
the crash of falling houses. The incendiary fires 
seemed to be bursting forth in so many directions 
that men stood staring in dumb stupefaction at 
the destruction of their property, or rushed hith- 
er and thither in helpless amazement. The lanes 
and alleys were blocked up with tlie concourse 
of struggling fugitives. Many were suffocated 
by smoke or trampled down in the press. Many 
others were burnt to death in their own burn- 
ing houses, some of whom purposely flung 
them-selves into the flames in the depth of their 
despair. . . . When they had escaped with bare 
life, a vast multitude of homeless, shivering, hun- 
gry human beings, many of them bereaved of 
their nearest and dearest relations, . . . found 
themselves huddled together, . . . one vast 
brotherhood of hopeless wretchedness. — Fak- 
rar's Early Days, p. 31. 

1059. CONFLAGRATION in War. Carthage.. 
In a strong assault on one of the gates, he broke 
it down, and entering with a large force pene- 
trated to the citadel, which sustained a siege of 
several days, while the Romans were in posses- 
sion of the town. At length it was surrendered. 
Scipio, unwilling to destroy this proud and splen- 
did capital, sent to Rome for further orders. 
But these contained no mercy for Carthage. The 
city was set fire to in many different quarters. 
Pillage, carnage, and desolation ensued. The 
conflagration lasted for seventeen daj's. At the 
recital of a scene of this kind, it is impossible to 
restrain our indignation, and not to execrate tliat 
barbarous policy which prescribes a conduct so 
contrary to every worthy feeling of the human 
mind. Thus ended the ill-fated Carthage, in the 
607th year from the building of Rome, and the 
146th before the Christian era. — Tytler's Hist. . 
Book 3, ch. 9. 

1060. CONFLICT, Bootless. BnfM at Bunker 
Hill. The number of the killed and wounded 
in [the British ayny under Gage] . . . was . . . 
at least 1004, ... a third of those engaged. 

. . . The oldest soldiers never saw the like. 
The battle of Quebec, which won half a conti- 
nent, did not cost the lives of so many olficers 
as the battle of Bunker Hill, which gained noth- 
ing but a place of encampment. — B.ancroft's 
U. S., vol. 7, ch. 40. 

1061. CONFLICT, Land of. Kentucki/. Ken- 
tucky has been denominated ' ' the Dark and 
Bloody Ground" of the savage aborigines. It 
never was the habitation of any nation or tribe 
of Indians ; but from the period of the earliest 
aboriginal traditions to the appearance of the 
white man on its soil, Kentucky was the field of 



lU 



CONFLICT— CONQUERED. 



;n ieadly conflict between the northern and south- 
. ern warriors of the forest. . . . When penetrated 
by the bold adventurous white men of Carolina 
and Yiriiinia, who constituted the third party 
for dominion, its title of the " Dark and Bloody 
Ground" was continued. . . . After the declara- 
tion of American Independence, Great Britain 
formed alliance with the Indian savages ... the 
territory of Kentucky became still more emphat- 
ically the " Dark and Bloody Ground." [Like- 
wise during the Rebellion.]— Pollard's First 
Year op the War, ch. 7, p. 186. 

1062. CONFLICT, Rule of. William of Orange. 
[James II.,] the king, was eager to fight, and it 
was obviously his interest to do .so. Every hour 
took away something from his own strength, 
and added something to the strength of his ene- 
mies. It was most important, too, that his troops 
should be blooded. A great battle, however it 
might terminate, could not but injure the prince's 
popularity. All this William perfectly under- 
stood, and determined to avoid an action as long 
as possible. It is said that, when Schomberg 
was told that the enemy were advancing and were 
determined to fight, he answered with the com- 
posure of a tactician confident in his skill, " That 
will be just as we may choose. " — Macatjlay's 
Eng., ch. 9. 

1063. CONFLICT, Self-sustaining. Sjmls. [The 
Confederates invaded Pennsylvania.] General 
Lee cannot expect to keep his communications 
open to the rear ; and, as the staff-officers say, 
"In every battle we fight, we must capture as 
much ammunition as we u.se." — Pollard's Sec- 
ond Year of the War, p. 338. 

1064. CONFLICT, Unnatural. William I., the 
Norman. He was a prince to whom nature had 
denied the requisites of making himself beloved, 
and who, therefore, made it his first object to 
render himself feared. Even the Normans, in- 
stigated probably by the French, endeavored to 
withdraw themselves from his yoke. To estab- 
lish order in that country, he carried over an army 
of Englishmen ; thus, by a capricious vicissitude 
of fortune, we see the Normans brought over for 
the conquest of the English, and the English sent 
back to conquer the Normans. With these troops 
he reduced the rebels to submission, and returned 
to England to be again embroiled in conspiracies 
and rebellion. The last and severest of his trou- 
bles arose from his own children. His eldest son, 
Robert, had been promised by his father the sov- 
ereignty of Maine, a province of France, which 
had submitted to William ; he claimed the per- 
formance in his father's lifetime, who contemp- 
tuously told him he thought it was time enough 
to throw off his clothes when he went to bed. 
Robert, who was of a most violent temper, in- 
stantly withdrew to Normandy, when in a short 
time he engaged all the young nobility to espouse 
his quarrel. Brittany, Anjou, and Maine like- 
wise took part against William, who brought 
over another army of the English to subdue the 
rebellion. The father and son met in fight, and 
being clad in armor did not know each other, till 
Robert, having wounded his father and thrown 
him from his horse, his voice (calling out for as- 
sistance) discovered him to his antagonist. Stung 
with consciousness of the crime, Robert fell at 
his feet, and in the most submissive manner en- 
treated his forgiveness. The indignation of Will- 



iam was not to be appeased ; he gave his son his 
malediction instead of his pardon. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 6, ch. 8. 

■065. CONFLICT, Unprepared for. Greeks. 
[Demosthenes urged immediate and open war 
against the ambitious Philip.] Some of the best 
patriots of Athens, the virtuous Phocion, for ex- 
ample, proposed an opposite counsel. They saw 
that the martial spirit of the republic was extinct, 
the finances of the State were at the lowest ebb, 
and the manners of the people irretrievably cor- 
rupted. There was assuredly too much solidity 
in the argument of Phocion which he opposed to 
the " Philippica " of Demosthenes : " I will rec- 
ommend to you, O Athenians, to go to war, when 
I find you capable of supporting a war ; when I 
see the youth of the Republic animated with 
courage, yet submissive and obedient ; the rich 
cheerfully contributing to the necessities of the 
State ; and the orators no longer cheating and 
pillaging the public." — Tytler's Hist., Book 3, 
ch. 3. 

1066. CONGREGATIONS, Large. Gioenap in 
Wales. [Thirty-two thousand persons present to 
hear John Wesley preach at Gwenap, in its 
magnificent natural amphitheatre.] — Stevens' 
Methodism, vol. 2. ch. 6. 

1067. CONQUERED vs. Concord. Dmdon. a.d. 
1801. [At last England and France made a treaty 
of peace.] The house of ^I. Otto, the French 
minister [at London], was brilliantly illuminated. 
. . . The word concord blazed in letters of light. 
The sailors, not very familiar with the spelling- 
book, exclaimed, " Conquered ! not so by a great 
deal. That will not do." Excitement and dis- 
satisfaction rapidly spread. Yiolence was threat- 
ened ! . . . attempts at explanation were utterly 
useless. The offensive word was removed, and 
a/«iY^ substituted. The .sailors, fully satisfied witli 
the amende honorable, gave three cheers. — Ab- 
bott's Napoleon B., vol. 1, ch. 22. 

106§. CONQUERED, The Conqueror. Francisco 
Pizarro. [A single battle made him master of 
Peru.] He betrayed and murdered the captive 
Inca. He quarrelled with Almagro over the di- 
\asion of the spoils, and finished by putting him 
to death. He accunmlated a greater amount of 
treasure than was ever po.ssessed, before or since, 
by an individual. Spoiled by prosperity without 
parallel, he was cruel to the Peruvians, capricious 
and tyrannical to the Spaniards, and, at length, a 
rebel against his king. A conspiracy, headed by 
the son of the murdered Almagro, was formed 
again.st him. On a Sunday afternoon, in 1.541, 
at the hour when the tyrant was accustomed to 
sleep, a band of the confederates burst into his 
palace, killed or dispersed his servants, and at- 
tacked him. Armed only with a sword and buck- 
ler, he defended himself with the most desperate 
courage. Four of his assailants he slew ; five 
more he wounded ; and still he fought on. At 
last one of the band engaged him and drew his 
attention from the rest T and while Pizarro dealt 
a furious blow at his chief assailant, the others 
succeeded in giving him a mortal wound. He 
fell at the feet of an image of Christ, which, it 
is said, he kissed at the moment of his death. So 
perished, in his sixty-eighth year, the man who 
was, perhaps, the most resolute of all the .sons of 
men. In mere strength of purpose it is ques- 
tionable if his equal ever lived ; but, though this 



CONQUERORS— CONQUEST. 



127 



is one of the most valuable of qualities, and ac- 
romplishes very great things, a man must have 
much more in order to turn to good account the 
prizes won. Pizarro was little more than a mag- 
nificently-gifted brute. — Cyclopedia of Bigg., 
p. 327. 

1069. CONQUERORS by Resolution, Of Cali- 
fornia. [In 1846] ColonelJohn C. Fremont . . . 
determined to strike a blow for his country ; he 
urged the people of California, many of whom 
were Americans, to declare their independence. 
The hardy frontiersmen of the Sacramento valley 
flocked to his standard ; and a campaign was at 
once begun to overthrow the Mexican authority. 
. . . An American fleet had captured the town 
of Monterey . . . and San Diego. . . . Before 
the end of summer the whole of the vast prov- 
ince was subdued . . . the authority of the Unit- 
ed States was completely established. A coun- 
try' large enough for an empire had been con- 
quered by a handful of resolute men. — Rid- 
path'sU. S., ch. 57. 

1 070. CONQUEST by Destruction. Alfonse 
d Albuquerque. Having thus reduced the shores 
and cities of two of the great peninsulas of 
Southern Asia, he next undertook the conquest 
of all the vast regions watered by the Red Sea 
and the Persian Gulf. He bombarded the cities 
commanding those waters, with varying success. 
Meditating the conquest of Egypt, he conceived 
a scheme for diverting the river Nile from its 
course, so as to leave Egypt a desert, and destroy 
its whole population. — Cyclopedi.\ op Bigg., 
p. 315. 

1071. CONQUESTS, Ends of. PyrrluH. [The 
Tarentines, in war with the Romans,] sought aid 
frf)m Pyrrhus, the King of Epirus, and mvited 
him, by a flattering deputation, to be the deliv- 
erer of Italy from its threatened yoke of servi- 
tude. Pyrrhus was one of the ablest generals of 
his age ; but he possessed a restless spirit, and a 
precipitancy in forming projects of military en- 
terprise, without a due attention to means, or a 
deliberate estimate of consequences. Cineas, his 
chief minister, to whom he imparted his design 
of invading Italy, and mentioned, with great con- 
fidence, a perfect assurance of its success, calmly 
asked him what he proposed after that design 
was accomplished. " We shall next," said Pyr- 
rhus, " make ourselves masters of Sicily, which, 
considering the distracted state of that island, will 
be a very easy enterprise." " And what next do 
you intend T said Cineas. " We shall then," re- 
plied Pyrrhus, " pass over into Africa. Do you 
imagine Carthage is capable of holding out 
against our arms ?" "And supposing Carthage 
taken," said Cineas, " what follows T " Then," 
said Pyrrhus, "we return with all our force, and 
pour down upon Macedonia and Greece. " " And 
when all is conquered," replied Cineas, "what is 
then to be done?" "Why, then, to be sure," 
said Pyrrhus, " we have nothing to do but to en- 
joy our bottle, and take our amusement. " "And 
what," said Cineas, "prevents you from enjoy- 
ing your bottle now, and taking j^our amuse- 
ment ?" This dialogue, which is given by Plu- 
tarch, with great naivete, presents us with a just 
delineation of the real views and sentiments of 
the greater part of those mighty conquerors who 
have disturbed the peace of the universe. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist., Book 3, ch. 7. 



1072. CONQUEST, Fruitless. Ancient Per- 
sians. In those early periods [were] a people 
remarkable for their temperance and the virtu- 
ous simplicity of their manners. Herodotus re- 
cords an excellent speech of one Sandanis, a 
Lydian, who, when his sovereign Crojsus pro- 
jected the invasion of Persia, thus strongly point- 
ed out to him the folly of his enterprise : " What 
will you gain," said he, "by waging war with 
such men as the Persians ? Their clothing is 
skins, their food wild fruits, and tlieir drink wa- 
ter. If you are conquered, you lo.se a cultivated 
country ; if you conquer them, what can you 
take from them ? — a barren region. For my part, 
I thank the gods that the Persians have not yet 
formed the design of invading the Lydians." — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 1, ch. 11. 

1073. CONQUEST impossible. Darius. Ambi- 
tious of extensive conquest, he now meditated a 
war against the Scythians, on the absurd pretext 
that they had ravaged a part of Asia about one 
hundred and thirty years before. At the head of 
an army of 700,000 men, he set out from Susa, 
his capital, to wage war against a nation whom 
it was impossible to conquer. . . . The sole 
business of the Scythians was to retreat, driving 
their cattle before them, and filling up the wells 
in their route. The Persians, after long and ex- 
cessive marches, never got more than a distant 
sight of the enemy, while they were perishing 
by thousands in a rugged and barren country. 
At length Darius thought it his wisest measure 
to retreat, having lost the greatest part of his 
army, and leaving behind him the sick and aged 
at the mercy of the barbarians. — Tytlek's 
Hist., Book 1, ch. 11. 

1074. CONQUEST necessary. Cortez. Besides 
repressing the mutiny with a strong hand, he re- 
solved to make all turning back impossible. He 
caused all his vessels, except the smallest, to be 
scuttled and sunk ; from that hour there was no 
.safety except in the total conquest of the coun- 
try. Leaving at Vera Cruz a small garrison, he 
began his immortal march August 16, 1519 [for 
the city of Mexico], with the following forces : 
400 foot soldiers, 1500 horsemen, 1300 Indian 
warriors, 1000 Indians to draw the cannons and 
carry the baggage, and seven pieces of artillery. 
Cyclopedia of Bigg., p. 321. 

1075. CONQUEST, Period of. Reign of Ed- 
ward III. The greatest victories recorded in 
the history of the Middle Ages were gained at 
this time, against great odds, by the English ar- 
mies. Victories indeed they were of which a 
nation may justly be proud. . . . Chandos en- 
countered an equal foe in Du Guesclin ; but 
France had no infantry that dared to face the 
English bows and bills. A French king was 
brought prisoner to London. An English king 
was crowned at Paris. The banner of St. 
George was carried far beyond the PjTenees and 
the Alps. On the south of the Ebro the Eng- 
lish won a great battle, which for a time de- 
cided the fate of Leon and Castile. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 1. 

1076. CONQUEST, Presumptuous. Three Men. 
These three men, the youngest of whom was 
fifty, conceived the project of conquering the 
powerful and wealthy tribes that were supposed 
to inhabit the western coasts of South America. 
They were to do this by their own resources, 



128 



CONQUEST— CONSCIENCE. 



asking nothing from the Governor of Panama 
except liis sanction of the enterprise. It was as 
though three men in New York sliould now un- 
dertake the conquest of the Japanese Empire. 
Pizarro was to command the first body of ad- 
ventures ; Almagro was to raise, as soon as he 
could, a second company, and join Pizarro on 
the coast ; the priest [Fernando de Luques] was 
to remain at Panama to watch over the interests 
of the partnership. [Their success is well 
known.] — Cyclopedia op Bigg., p. 324. 

1077. CONQUEST surrendered. Jerusalem. 
The Holy Lanil was thus recovered by the Chris- 
tians ; and Godfrey of Bouillon obtained the title 
of King of Jerusalem ; but it was only a title, for 
a. papal legate arrived in the mean time, claimed 
the city as the property of God, and took pos- 
session of it as such. Godfrey reserved the port 
of Joppa, and some privileges in Jerusalem. — 
Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 9. 

i07§. CONQUESTS of Peace. Louisiana. [In 
consequence of the ambitious designs of Eng- 
land and the necessities of France, then unable to 
hold the territory against the British navy,] the 
President [Mr. Jefferson] made the largest con- 
quest ever peacefully achieved, at a cost so small 
that the sum expended for the entire territory 
iloes not equal the revenue which has since been 
collected on its soil in a single month, in time of 
great public peril. The country thus acquired 
forms to-day the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota 
west of the Mississippi, Colorado north of the 
Arkansas, besides the Indian Territory and the 
Territories of Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. 
Texas was also included in the transfer. — 
Blaine's Twenty Years op Congress, p. 8. 

1079. CONSCIENCE, Abdication of. Pope Clem- 
ent V. Philip [IV.] held a secret interview with 
him, and offered to raise him to the papal throne 
on six conditions, which were at once accepted. 
. . . The sixth and last condition the king re- 
served t/jbe hereafter specified in proper time and 
place, exacting an oath from Bertrand to fulfil 
it on the first demand. — Students' France, ch. 
4, § 18, p. 186. 

10§0. CONSCIENCE an Accuser. Murderer. 
Benjamin Abbott was preaching in New Jer-sey 
with great zeal against sin in its worst forms. In 
the midst of his discourse he exclaimed : " For 
aught I know, there may be a murderer in this 
congregation !" Immediately a lusty man at- 
tempted to go out ; but when he got to the door 
he bawled out, and stretched out both his arms, 
and ran backward, and cried out very bitter- 
ly, and said he was the murderer, for he had 
killed a man about fifteen years before. — Ste- 
vens' M. E. Church, vol. 1, ch. 8. 

10§1. . Death-bed. [Rev. Simon 

Carlisle was expelled from the ministry for theft, 
an officer having found a missing pistol in his 
saddle-bags. He could not clear himself ; his 
usefulness ended, his disgrace was overwhelm- 
ing. The young man who owned the pistol was 
on his death-bed a few years after. An hour be- 
fore death came] he cried out frantically, " I can- 
not die — I cannot until I reveal one thing. Mr. 
Carlisle never stole that pistol ; I myself put it in 
his saddle-bags." He then became calm, and so 
passed into eternity.— Stevens' M. E. Church 
vol. 3, ch. 3. 



10§2. CONSCIENCE authorized. By Jesuits. 
[On the trial of the conspirators in the infamous 
Gunpowder Plot it was showu that] Rook wood 
. . . had scruples about joining in so extensive a 
scheme of slaughter, saying it was a matter of 
conscience to take awaj^ so much blood ; but 
Catesby silenced him by saying " it had been re- 
solved on good authority that in conscience it 
might be done." Digby, who was only twentj-- 
four years of age, was evidently a weak tool of 
the Jesuits. . . . He cordially joined in the proj- 
ect from religious zeal, as soon as he satisfied 
himself that the action had been approved by his 
spiritual advisers. — Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 
21. 

10§3. CONSCIENCE awakened. Carticright. 
[Peter Cartwright, the celebrated frontier preach- 
er, was awakened, in his sixteenth year, after 
spending much of the night in dancing, at a 
wedding. He went home, not to sleep, but spent 
the remainder of the night on his knees with his 
praying mother, and some time afterward was 
converted at a camp-meeting.] — Stevens' M. E. 
Church, vol. 4, ch. 9. 

10§4. . Joltn Bunyan. He sup- 
posed he was given over to unbelief and wicked- 
ness, and yet he relates, with touching simplic- 
ity : "As to the act of sinning, I was never 
more tender than now. I durst not take up a 
pin or a stick, though but so big as a straw, for 
my conscience now was sore, and would smart 
at every touch. I could not tell how to speak 
my words for fear I should misplace them." 
But the care with which he watched his conduct 
availed him nothing. He was on a morass " that 
shook if he did but stir," and he was " there left 
both of God, and Chri.st, and the Spirit, and of 
all good things." Behind him lay the faults of 
his childhood and youth, every one of which he 
believed to be recorded against him. Within 
were his disobedient inclinations, which he con- 
ceived to be the presence of the devil in his 
heart. — Froude's Bunyan, ch. 3. 

10§5. . Bunyan. One Sunday morn- 
ing when Bunyan was at church with his wife, 
a sermon was delivered on this subject [Sab- 
bath amusement.s] . It seemed to be especially 
addressed to himself, and it much affected him. 
He shook off the impression, and after dinner he 
went as usual to the green. He was on the point 
of striking at a ball when the thought rushed 
across his mind, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go 
to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell ? He 
looked up. The reflection of his own emotion 
was before him in visible form. He imagined 
that he saw Christ Himself looking down at him 
from the sky. But he concluded that it was too 
late for him to repent. He was past pardon. 
He was sure to be damned, and he might as well 
be damned for many sins as for few. Sin, at all 
events, was pleasant, the only pleasant thing that 
he knew ; therefore he would take his fill of it. 
The sin was the game, and nothing but the game. 
He continued to play, but the Puritan sen.sitive- 
ness had taken hold of him. An artificial offence 
had become a real offence when his con.science 
was wounded by it. He was reckless and des- 
perate. — Froude's Bunyan, ch. 2. 

1086. . By Mother's Prayer. [Rev. 

Henry Boehm was the travelling companion of 
Bishop Asbury, and for more than eighty years a 



CONSCIEN'CE. 



129 



Christian minister. He was arrested, on returning 
home one evening, bj^ liearing tlie familiar voice 
of his mother engaged in prayer. He says :] "I 
listened. Among other things, she prayed for 
her children, and mentioned llcnry, her young- 
est son. The mention of my name broke my 
heart, and melted me into contrition. Tears 
rolled down my cheeks, and I felt the importance 
of complying with the command of God, ' My 
Son, give me thine heart.' " [He lived one hun- 
dred years.]— Stevens' M. E. Church, vol. 3, 
p. 423. 

10§7. . Earthqunke. In the early 

part of 1750 repeated earthquakes alarmed the 
metropolis . . . while Charles Wesley was ris- 
ing in the pulpit of the Foundry [Church] to 
preach, at five o'clock in the morning, the earth 
moved through all London and Westminster 
^ith a strong, jarring motion, and a rumbling 
noise like distant thunder. The walls of the 
Foundry trembled ; a great agitation among the 
people followed ; but Wesley cried aloud to them, 
" Therefore will we not fear though the earth be 
moved, and the hills be carried into the midst of 
the sea, for the Lord of Hosts is with us, the 
God of Jacob is our refuge." Multitudes flocked 
to the early Methodist service in deep alarm. 
Throughout the whole night many of the alarmed 
people knocked at the Foundry door, entreating 
admittance, though "our poor people," writes 
Wesley, "were calm and quiet as at any other 
time. " During one of these terrible nights Tower 
Hill, Moorfields, and Hyde Park were filled with 
lamenting men, women, and children. White- 
field stood among them at Hyde Park preaching 
at midnight. A deep moral impression followed 
these events. — Stevens' Methodism, vol. 1, p. 
308. 

1088. . Bev. William Gassaicay. 

[He was ignorant in his early life concerning the 
way of salvation. When he became awakened] 
he detested himself as a sinner. Passing a stream 
he allowed his horse to drink, saying, " You may, 
you are not a sinner ; but I am. I will not 
drink." — Stevens' M. E. Church, vol. 3, p. 394. 

1089. . John Wesley. A young 

lawyer of brilliant talents and aristocratic rela- 
tions was in the habit of meeting with his gay 
associates at a coffee-house in London. He was 
the wit of the company, and at one of their meet- 
ings, when Wesley was to preach in the neigh- 
borhood, his companions sent him to hear the 
itinerant apostle, in order to give them a mim- 
icked specimen of his preaching. Just as he 
entered the place of worship Wesley announced 
as his text, " Prepare to meet thy God !" It struck 
the young man's conscience ; he listened witli 
emotion to the sermon, and thenceforward the 
career of his life was changed. On returning as 
a necessary courtesy to his company in the cof- 
fee-house, they asked him if he had "taken otf 
the old Methodist." " No, gentlemen," was his 
reply, " but he has taken me off ;" and he re- 
tired from their circle to return no more. — Ste- 
vens' Methodism, vol. 1, p. 387. 

1090. CONSCIENCE vs. Conscience. Intoler- 
ance. [During the contentions of sects in the 
reign of James II., Dryden says :] All men are 
engaged either on this side or that ; and though 
conscience is the common word given by both, 
yet if a writer fall among enemies, and cannot 



give the marks of their con.science, he is knocked 
(lown before the reasons of his own are heard. 
— Ivnight's Exg., vol. 4, cli. 20. 

1091. CONSCIENCE conquers Conquerors. 
William II. The death-bed oif William was a 
death-bed of repentance. He spoke, it is relat- 
ed, of the rivers of blood he had .shed. He la- 
mented his barbarities in England. — Knight's 
England, vol. 1, ch. 16, p. 218. 

1092. CONSCIENCE, Defence of. Martin Lu- 
ther. Luther s})iikt' ill li >th (Jirmuii and Latin. 
After he had finished, the princes held a short 
consultation. Then the imperial representative 
reproached him for having spoken disrespectful- 
ly, and for not having answered the proposed 
questions. He repelie 1 Luther's demand for 
counter-evidence, and maintained that his here- 
sies had been condenuied by tlie Church and by 
its general councils. Wh:'i was now demanded 
of him was a plain and straightforward answer, 
whether he would or would not recant. There- 
upon Luther replied : " Since your Imperial Maj- 
esty have desired a direct answer, I shall give 
such an one as shall have neither horns nor teeth 
— viz. , except I be convinced with clear and un- 
doubted evidence of Holy Scripture — for I be- 
lieve neither in the Pope nor in councils alone, 
since it is evident they have often erred and con- 
tradicted themselves ; and as my conscience is 
bound by God's Word, I cannot and will not re- 
cant, because it is neither safe nor ad\isable to 
act contrary to conscience. Here I stand ; I can- 
not do otherwise ; God help me ! Amen !" . . . 
Luther was now happy at hean. As soon as he 
returned to his lodging-place, he lifted up both 
hands and cried out, "' I have done it ! I have 
done it !" And continuing, he remarked: "If 
I had a thousand heads, 1 would lose them all 
rather than to recant." — Rein's Luther, ch. 9, 
p. 89. 

1093. CONSCIENCE, Education of. i?<r. John 
Keictun. Providence was now kind to him ; he 
became captain of a slave-ship, and made several 
voyages on the business of trade. That it was a 
wicked trade he seems to have had no idea ; he 
says he never knew sweeter or more frequent 
hours of divine communion than on his last two 
\-oyages to Guinea. Afterward it occurred to 
him that though his employment was genteel and 
profitable, it made him a sort of jailer, unpleas- 
antly conversant with both chains and shackles ; 
andhel)esought Providence to fix him in a more 
humane calling. In answer to his prayer came 
a fit of apoplexy, which made it dangerous for 
liim to go Xo sea again. — Smith's Cowper, ch. 3. 

1094. CONSCIENCE, Erratic. Duke of York 
{Jamea II.). Dehaueliing a woman onprorai.se 
of niarriai,^", he next allowed her to be traduced 
as having yielded to frequent pro.stitution. and 
then married her ; he was conscientious, liut hi< 
moral sense was as slow as his understanding.— 
Bancroft's U. S., ch. 17. 

1095. CONSCIENCE explained. lieign of 
James II. [In Scot land the anti-Catholic feeling 
was strong. ] The three privy counsellors who had 
lately returned from London took the lead in op- 
position to the royal -will. Hamilton declared 
plainly that he could not do what was asked. 
He was a faithful and loyal subject ; but there 
was a limit imposed by conscience. "Conscience, ' 
said the chancellor— " conscience is a vague 



130 



CONSCIENCE. 



word, which signifies anything or nothing." 
Lockhart,who sat in Parliament a.^ representative , 
of the ereat county of Lanark, struck in : " If I 
conscience be a word without meaning, we will 
change it for another phrase which, I hope, ; 
mean's something. For conscience let us put the ' 
fundamental laws of Scotland. "—3Iacaulay"s 
Eng., ch. 6. 

1096. CONSCIENCE, A guilty. Caramlla. 
[Caracalla, the son of SerWus, was, with his 
brother Geta, chosen by the army to be joint 
emperors of Rome. Discord followed, and Geta 
was assassinated in the presence of and by the 
direction of his brother.] The crime went not 
unpunished. Neither business nor pleasure 
nor flattery could defend Caracalla from the 
stings of a guilty conscience ; and he confessed, 
in the angmsh of a tortured mind, that his dis- 
ordered fancy often beheld the angry forms of 
his father and his brother rising into life, to 
threaten and upbraid him. The consciousness of 
his crime should have induced him to convince 
mankind, by the virtues of his reign, that the 
bloody deed had been the involuntary effect of 
fatal necessity. But the repentance of Caracalla 
only prompted him to remove from the world 
whatever could remind him of his guilt, or re- 
call the memory of his murdered brother. On 
his return from Ihe Senate to the palace, he found 
his mother in the company of several noble ma- 
trons, weeping over the untimely fate of her 
younger son. The jealous emperor threatened 
them with instant death ; the sentence was 
executed against Fadilla, the last remaining 
daughter ofthe Emperor Marcus ; and even the 
afliicted Julia was obliged to silence her lamenta- 
tions, to suppress her sighs, and to receive the 
assassin with smiles of joy and approbation. It 
was computed that, under the vague appellation 
of the friends of Geta, above twenty thousand 
persons of both sexes suffered death. [See No. 
239.]— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 6. I 

1097. CONSCIENCE honored. King WUliam 

Bufus. Two monks having come one day . . . i 
to buy an abbot's place, and having outreached 
each other in the sums they offered, the king 
said to a third monk who stood by, ' ' ^Yhat wilt 
thou give for the place ?" "Not a penny," an- i 
swered the monk, "for it is against my con- : 
science." "Then, " replied the king, "thou of i 
the three best deservest it," and instantly gave it j 
to him. I 

109§. CONSCIENCE, Imperfect. Alforu^e d'Al- \ 
buquerque. [See Conquest by Destruction, No. \ 
1070.] The historians of this conquest mention, 
as a proof of the magnanimity and disinterested- i 
ness of Albuquerque, that he only took from Ma- ' 
lacca, for his personal use, the iron lions which 1 
marked the tomb of the royal family ; although 
he carried away a large ship loaded deep "WTth 
gold and silver, for the use of the king and the 
needs of the public service. Not a man in that 
a^e of the world appears to have questioned the 
right of a strong Christian to seize the gold of a 
weak heathen ; nor did any one see anj-thing 
wrong in the robbery of a heathen king's "family 
tomb. I am happy to inform the reader that 
the ship containing both the treasure and the 
iron lions went to the bottom of the sea a few 
days after leaving Malacca. — Cyclopedia, of 
BioG., p. 315. 



1099. CONSCIENCE, Indiscreet. Marcellus. 
[On the day of a pul)lic festival Marcellus, a cen- 
turion, threw away his belt, his arms, and the en- 
signs of his] office, and exclaimed, with a loud 
voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ 
the eternal King, and that he renounced forever 
the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an 
idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they 
recovered from their astonishment, secured the 
person of Marcellus. He was examined in the 
city of Tingi by the president of that part of 
Mauritania ; and as he was conWcted by his own 
confession, he was condemned and beheaded for 
the crime of desertion. — Gibbon's Romi:, ch. 16. 

1100. CONSCIENCE an Interpreter. Sacri- 
lefje. Pyrrhus listened to e\'il counsellors, and 
plundered the rich treasury of the temple of 
Proserpine. The ships which were conveying 
the plunder were -^N-recked, and P\Trhus, con- 
science-stricken, restored all that was saved. But 
the memory of the deed haunted him ; he has 
recorded his belief that this sacrilegious act was 
the cause of all his future misfortunes. — Lid- 
DELLS Rome, ch. 26, p. 246. 

1101. CONSCIENCE, Liberty of. Boger WUl- 
iama. He was the first person in modern Chris- 
tendom to assert in its plenitude the doctrine of 
the liberty of conscience, the equality of opin- 
ions before the law. ... A moral principle 
has a much wider and nearer influence on hu- 
man happiness ; nor can any discover}' of truth be 
of any more direct benefit to society than that 
which establishes a perpetual religious peace, 
and spreads tranquillity through everj' commu- 
nity and even," bosom. ' If Copernicus is held in 
perpetual reverence because on his death-bed 
he published to the world that the sun is the cen- 
tre of our system — if the name of Kepler is pre- 
served in the annals of human excellence for his 
sagacity in detecting the laws of the planetary 
motion— if the genuis of Newton has been al- 
most adored for dissecting a ray of light, and 
weighing heavenly bodies as in a balance, let 
there be for the name of Roger Williams at least 
some humble place among those who have ad- 
vanced moral science, and made themselves the 
benefactors of mankind. — Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 1, ch. 9. 

1102. . Cromwell. [Cromwell 

.strongly advocated liberty of conscience when 
it was a startling notion to most public men. 
He was among the first of public men to ad- 
vocate it. He'urged that] the c\v\\ magistrate 
had nothing to do to determine of anything 
in matters of religion, by constraint or re- 
straint. But every" man might not only hold, 
but preach and do "in matters of religion what he 
pleased. — Knight's Eng., vol. 4, ch. 3. 

1103. . Cromwell's Time. ThePres- 

Imerian mind of that day, which demanded not 
only the right to the expression of their own 
convictions," but also the repres.sion of all who 
followed not with them. Did not Milton .say of 
them that "Presbyter was priest spelt large?" 
Indeed, in that day there was a universal dis- 
position to persecute and repress ; it was not 
that persecution, in itself, was judged a crime, 
only when it assailed the order of particular opin- 
ion" Toleration was regarded by Episcopalian 
and Presbnerian as an abominable Erastianism. 
or latitudinarian and Laodicean half-heartedneas; 



CONSCIENCE. 



131 



and Oliver alone stood forth \indicating liberty ; 
of conscience to all. — Hood's Cromwell, ch. 
15, p. 195. 

1104. . Cramicell. It is thus we 

tind him speaking on the 22d of January, 1655, 
when he summoned the House to meet him in 
the Painted Chamber : " Is there not yet upon 
the spirits of men a strange itching ? Nothing 
will satisfy them unless they can press their 
finger upon their brethren's consciences, to pinch 
thc'm there. To do this was no part of the con- 
test we had -nith the common adversary. And 
wherein consisted this more than in obtaining 
that liberty from the tyranny of the bishops to 
all species of Protestants to worship God accord- 
ing to their own light and consciences ? For 
want of which many of our brethren forsook 
their native countries to seek their bread from 
strangers, and to live in howling wildernesses ; 
and for which also manj^ that remained here 
were imprisoned, and otherwise abused and made 
the scorn of the nation. Those that were sound 
in the faith, how proper was it for them to labor 
for liberty, for a just liberty, that men might 
not be trampled upon for their consciences ! Had 
not they themselves labored but lately under 
the weight of persecution ? And was it fit for 
them to sit hea^y upon others ? Is it ingenuous 
to ask liberty, and not give it ?" — Hood's Crom- 
well, ch. 15, p. 197. 

1105. CONSCIENCE perverted. The Jesuits. 
In the books of casuistry wliich had been writ- 
ten by his brethren, and printed with the appro- 
bation of his superiors, were to be found doc- 
trines consolatory to transgressors of every class. 
There the bankrupt was taught how he might, 
without sin, secrete his goods from his creditors. 
The servant was taught how he might, -without 
sin, run off with his master's plate. The pander 
was assured that a Christian man might inno- 
cently earn his living by carrying letters and 
messages between married women and their gal- 
lants. The high-spirited and punctilious gen- 
tlemen of France were gratified by a decision in 
favor of duelling. The Italians, accustomed to 
darker and baser modes of vengeance, were glad 
to learn that they might, without any crime, 
shoot at their enemies from behind hedges. To 
deceit was given a license sufficient to destroy 
the whole value of human contracts and of hu- 
man testimony. In truth, if society continued to 
hold together, if life and property enjoyed any 
security, it was because common-sense and com- 
mon humanity restrained men from doing what 
the Society of Jesus assured them they might 
with a safe conscience do. — Macaulat's Eng., 
ch. 6. 



1106. 



Hernando Cortez. His will 



contained one passage so curious, that I will 
conclude by copying it. After recommending 
his heirs to treat the Indians with humanity, he 
proceeds thus: "It has been long a question 
whether we can, in good conscience, hold the 
Indians in slavery. This question not having 
yet been decided, I order my son, Martin, and 
his heirs to spare no pains to arrive at a knowl- 
edge of the truth on this point, for it is a matter 
which interests deeply their conscience and 
mine." Who would have thought to find such 
a passage in the will of a Cortez ! Nothing is 
more certain than this, that Cortez, in all that 



he did in Mexico, fully believed that he was an 
instrument in the hand of a benevolent God ; 
for he found Mexico pagan, and left it Catholic. 
Massacre, rapine, devastation, the betrayal and 
murder of a king, the fall of an empire — these 
were as nothing in view of a result like this ! 
So thought all good Spaniards of that age. — Cy- 

CLOPEDLA OF BlOG., p. 322. 

1107. . Jacques Clement. A young 

and ignorant Dominican monk, named Jacques 
Clement, was artfully prevailed upon to regard 
the murder of the king [Henry III.] under such 
circumstances as not only a lawful, but a highly 
meritorioiLS, enterprise. He . . . prepared him- 
self for the deed bj" fasting, the sacraments, and 
prayer. . . . Having procured a pa.ss . . . and 
a forged letter of recommendation to the king 
. . . was conducted by an officer to the king's 
quarters. On entering Henry's presence he 
stated that he was charged with a communi- 
cation of grave importance, which could only 
be made to his Majesty in private. The king, 
■nithout suspicion, directed the attendants to 
retire ; and while he was engaged in reading 
the paper presented to him, the monk suddenly 
drew a knife from his sleeve and plunged it 
into his abdomen. The king drew the weapon 
from the woimd and struck Clement on the 
face, crying out, " Oh, the vricked monk, he 
lias slain me !" upon which the guards rushed 
in and despatched the "^Tetched assassin on the 
spot with their halberds. — Students' France, 
ch. 17, § 14. 

1108. CONSCIENCE, Phantom of. Constans 
II. The Emperor Constans II. could fly from 
his people, but he could not fly from himself. 
The remorse of his conscience created a phan- 
tom who pursued him by land and sea, by day 
and by night ; and the visionary Theodosius, 
presentingto his lips a cup of blood, said, or 
seemed to say, " Drink, brother, drink ;" a sure 
emblem of the aggravation of his guilt, since 
he had received from the hands of the deacon 
the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious 
to himself and to mankind, Constans perished by 
domestic, perhaps by episcopal, treason, in the 
capital of Sicily. [He had caused the murder 
of his brother Theodosius.] — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 48. 

1109. CONSCIENCE, Power of. Benjamin Ab- 
bott. [Before conversion he was a rude, igno- 
rant, boisterous man, given to drinking, fighting, 
and gambling. When forty years old he was 
awakened by a sermon ; his conscience was 
aroused ; dri\-ing homeward, he believed that the 
tempter was immediately behind him ; his anx- 
iety was terrible, his hair " rising on his head." 
His mind had e\'idently become morbid under 
its moral sufferings. His dreams that night were 
appalling ; the next day, seeking reUef in the 
labors of the field, his "troubled heart beat so 
loud that he could hear the strokes. " He threw 
down the scj-the, and " stood weeping for his 
sins." Truly a sublime manifestation of the 
power of conscience in a rude soul ! He became 
a second John Bunyan, and won many hun- 
dreds to Christ. ]— Stevens' M. E. CnuRCH, vol. 
1, p. 199. 

1110. CONSCIENCE quickened. By Crime. 
When the crime was over [the Roman emperor 
assassinated bus mother], Nero first perceived 



133 



CONSCIENCE. 



its magnitude, and was seized witli the agony 
of a too brief terror and remorse. There is in 
great crimes an awful power of illumination. 
They light up the conscience with a glare which 
shows all things in their true hideousness. He 
spent the night in oppressive silence. For the 
first time in his life his sleep was disturbed 
by dreams. He often started up in terror, and 
dreaded the return of dawn. The gross flattery 
and hypocritical congratulations of his friends 
soon dissipated all personal alarm. But scenes 
cannot change their aspect as easily as the coun- 
tenances of men, and there was to him a deadly 
look in the sea and shore [where he had previous- 
ly sought to drown his mother]. From the lofty 
summit of Misenum ghostly wailings and the 
blast of a solitary trumpet seemed to reach him 
from his mother's grave. — Farrar's Early 
Days, ch. 3, p. 27. 

Jill. . Reign of James II. [Lord 

Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, was a 
Protestant general, and every worldly interest 
prompted him to please the king who had es- 
poused the Roman Catholic cause.] Churchill 
might indeed . . . raise himself still higher in 
the royal favor by conforming to the Church 
of Rome ; and it might seem that one who was 
not less distinguished for avarice and baseness 
than for capacity and valor was not likely to be 
shocked at hearing a mass. But so inconsistent 
is human nature, that there are tender spots 
even in seared consciences. And thus this man, 
who owed his rise in life to his sister's shame 
[as mistress to the Duke of York], who had 
been kept by the most profuse, imperious and 
shameless of harlots [the Duchess of Cleveland], 
and whose public life, to those who can look 
through a blaze of genius and glory, will ap- 
pear a prodigy of turpitude, believed implicitly 
in the religion he had learned when a boy, and 
shuddered at the thought of abjuring it. . . . 
The one crime from which his heart recoiled 
was apostasy. — Macvulay's Eng., ch. 7. 

1112. CONSCIENCE a Reminder. King Philip. 
Philip kept a man in his service to tell him every 
day before he gave audience, " Philip, remember 
thou art mortal." — Rollin, vol. 1, ch. 14. 

1113. CONSCIENCE, Sale of. Reign of James 
II. [James asked the Scottish Parliament to re- 
move the political disabilities of his Roman Cath- 
olic brethren.] The king exhorted the estates to 
give relief to his Roman Catholic subjects, and 
offered, in return, a free trade with England and 
an amnesty for political offences. . . . Objection 
was taken by some zealous Protestants to the men- 
tion made of the Roman CathoHc religion. There 
was no such religion. There was an idolatrous 
apostasy, which the laws punished with the hal- 
ter, and to which it did not become Christian 
men to give flattering titles. To call such a 
superstition Catholic was to give up the whole 
question which was at issue between Rome and 
the reformed churches. The offer of a free trade 
with England was treated as an insult. " Our 
fathers," said one orator, "sold their king for 
southern gold, and we still lie under the reproach 
of that foul bargain. Let it not be said of us that 
we have sold our God !"— Macaulay's Eng., 
ch. 6, p. 111. 

1114. CONSCIENCE, Scruples of. Puritans. 
Some precisians had scruples about teaching the^ 



Latin grammar because the names of Mars, Bac- 
chus, and Apollo occurred in it. The fine arts- 
were all but proscribed. The solemn peal of the 
organ was superstitious. The light music of 
Ben Jonson's masks was dissolute. Half the 
fine paintings of England were idolatrous, and 
the other half indecent. [See Pleasures Con- 
demned, No. 4207.] — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 1, 
p. T6. 

1115. CONSCIENCE, Terrors of. Roman Em- 
peror Theodoric. After a life of virtue and glory, 
Theodoric was descending with shame and guilt 
into the grave ; his mind was humbled by the 
contrast of the past, and justly alarmed by the in- 
visible terrors of futurity. One evening, as it is. 
related, when the head of a large fish w:as served 
on the royal table, he suddenly exclaimed that 
he beheld the angry countenance of Symmachus, 
his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and his mouth 
armed with long, sharp teeth, which threatened 
to devour him. The monarch instantly retired 
to his chamber, and, as he lay, trembling with 
aguish cold, under a weight of bedclothes, he 
expressed, in broken murmurs to his physician 
Elpidius, his deep repentance for the murders of 
Boethius and Symmachus. His malady increas- 
ed, and after a dysentery which continued three 
days, he expired in the palace of Ravenna, in the 
thirty-third, or, if we compute from the invasion 
of Italy, in the thirty-.seventh year of his reign. — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 39. 

1116. CONSCIENCE, Uneducated. English 
Slave TracU. English ships, fitted out in English 
cities, under the special favor of the royal fam- 
il}% of the ministry, and of Parliament, stole from 
Africa, in the years from 1700 to 1750, probably 
a million and a half of souls, of whom one eighth 
were buried in the Atlantic, victims of the pas- 
sage ; and yet in England no general indignation 
rebuked the enormity ; for the public opinion 
of the age was obedient to materialism. — Ban- 
croft's U. S., vol. 3, ch. 24. 

1117. CONSCIENCE, Victory of. Sir Thomas 
More. In the general opinion of Europe, the 
foremost Englishman of the time was Sir Thom- 
as More. As the policy of the divorce ended in 
an open rupture with Rome, he had withdrawn 
silently from the ministry. Triumphant in all 
else, the monarchy was to find its power stop 
short at the conscience of man [who would not 
acknowledge that Henry VIII. 's marriage with 
Catherine was unscriptural, and thus forward 
the licentious remarriage of the king]. The 
great battle of spiritual freedom, the battle of the 
Protestant against ]\Iary, of the Catholic against 
Elizabeth, of the Puritan against Charles, of the 
Independent against the Presbyterian, began at 
the moment when jMore refused to bend or to 
deny his convictions at a king's bidding. "I 
thank the Lord," More said, with a sudden start, 
as the boat dropped silently down the river from 
his garden steps in the early morning — " I thank 
the Lord that the field is Von." At Lambeth 
Cranmer and his fellow-commissioners tendered 
to him the new oath of allegiance ; but, as they 
expected, it was refused. They bade him walk 
in the garden that he might reconsider his reply. 
— Hist, of Eng. People, § 579. 

1118. CONSCIENCE, Warning of. Charles I 
He thought to lessen the horror anil ingratitude 
of the act by appointing a commission of three 



COXSCIEXCE— CONSERVATISM. 



133 



members of his council, and delegating to them 
the power of signing the parliamentary death- 
warrant against Strafford. The commissioners 
ratified the sentence, and tlie king shut himself 
up to weep, and avoid the light of that morning 
which was to witness the fall of his faithful and 
innocent servant. He thought that by obliterat- 
ing this day from his life he would also expunge 
it from the memory of heaven and man. He 
passed the whole night in darkness, in praydrs for 
the dying, and in tears ; but the sun rose to com- 
memorate the injustice of the monarch, the 
treachery of the friend, and the greatness of 
soul of the victim. " I have sinned against my 
conscience," wrote the king several years after 
to the queen, when reproaching himself for that 
signature drawn from him by the love he bore 
his wife and children. "It warned meat the 
time ; I was seized with remorse at the instant 
when I signed this base and criminal conces- 
sion." . . . "Ah ! Strafford is happier than I am," 
replied the prince, concealing his eyes with his 
hands. "Tell him that, did it not concern the 
safety of the kingdom, I would willingly give 
my life for his !" — Lamartdste's Cromwell, 
p. 13. 

1119. CONSCIENCE, Worthless. Javus II. 
Arthur Herbert was brother of the chief justice, 
member for Dover, master of the robes, and rear- 
admiral of England. Arthur Herbert was much 
loved by the sailors, and was reputed one of the 
best of the aristocratic class of naval officers. 
It had been generally supposed that he would 
readily comply ■ftith royal wishes ; for he was 
heedless of religion, he was fond of pleasure and 
expense, he had no private estates, his places 
brought him in £4000 a year, and he had long 
been reckoned among the most devoted person- 
al adherents of James. When, however, the rear- 
admiral was closeted, and required to promise 
that he would vote for the repeal of the Test Act, 
his answer w^as, that his honor and conscience 
would not permit him to give any such pledge. 
"Nobody doubts your honor," said the king; 
" but a man who lives as you do ought not to 
talk about his conscience." To this reproach — 
a reproach which came with a bad grace from 
the lover of Catharine Sedley — Herbert manfully 
replied : " I have my faults, sir ; but I could name 
people who talk much more about conscience 
than I am in the habit of doing, and yet lead 
lives as loose as mine." He was dismissed from 
all his places. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 7. 

1120. CONSCIENCE wronged. Aneml Genivs. 
[Brutus, the assassinator of Ciesar,] sat in his tent 
at dead of night and thought a huge shadowy 
form stood by him ; and when he calmly asked, 
" What and whence art thou ?" it answered, or 
seemed to answer, ' ' I am thine evil genius, Bru- 
tus ; we shall meet again at Philippi." — Lid- 
dell's Rome, ch. 69, § 22. 

1121. CONSECEATION for Conflict. Knights. 
As the champion of God and the ladies (I blush 
to unite such discordant names), he devoted him- 
self to speak the truth ; to maintain the right ; 
to protect the distressed ; to practise courtesy, a 
virtue less familiar to the ancients ; to pursue the 
infidels ; to despise the allurements of ea.?e and 
safety ; and to vindicate in every perilous ad- 
venture the honor of his character. The abuse 
of the same spirit provoked the illiterate knight 



to disdain the arts of industry and peace ; to es- 
teem himself the sole judge and avenger of his 
own injuries ; and proudly to neglect the laws 
of civil society and military discipline. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, cii. 58, p. 'AVd. 

1122. CONSECRATION without Faith. John 
Wesley. [He was earnestly seeking the knowl- 
edge of his personal salvation, when lie read Tay- 
lor's " Holy Living and Dying," which enforces 
utter purity of motive ; he " instantly resolves 
to dedicate all his life to God ; all his thoughts, 
words, and actions, being thoroughly convinced 
there is no medium." He " forsakes all" to be- 
come a missionary to savages and colonists in the 
new world. He goes to Georgia, where he fasts 
much, sleeps on the ground, and refu.ses all food 
but bread and water ; he goes barefoot to en- 
courage the poor children who had no shoes. 
Yet it all brought him no peace of mind. But 
after returning to England Luther's preface to 
the Epistle to the Romans is read in a Moravian 
meeting, and the truth breaks upon liis mind.] 
' ' I felt," he writes, ' ' mv heart strangely warmed ; 
I felt I did trust in Christ alone for .«alvation, 
and an assurance was given me that He had tak- 
en awaj' my sins, even mine, and saved me from 
the law of sin and death." — Stevens' M. E. 
Church, eh. 1. * 

1123. CONSENT enforced. Intimidation. The 
aljandoned Caracalla more than once attempted 
the life of his father, who, at length, broken 
by disease, died at York [a.d. 211. The broth- 
ers] Caracalla and Geta agreed to divide the em- 
pire, the former retaining the Western part, 
and the latter Asia and the Eastern provinces. 
The mutual hatred of those two breathers was 
now fomented by their association in the govern- 
ment. Caracalla, at length worn out by the 
struggle, and unable to bear longer with his ri- 
val, caused him to be openly assassinated in the 
arms of his mother Julia, and had the address to 
persuade the people that he was compelled to this 
atrocious deed by motives of self-preservation. 
On this subject Julius Spartianus has transmit- 
ted a fact, w^hich strongly marks the degenera- 
cy of the Roman character, and that abject ser- 
vility with which the highest ranks of the state 
submitted to the yoke of tyranny. Caracalla, 
after the death of his brother Geta, thought it 
necessary to apologize to the Senate for a deed so 
dark and unnatural. He ordered a body of his 
guards to enter the Senate-house, and two armed 
soldiers to post themselves at the side of every 
senator. Then gravely walking up to the con- 
sul's chair, he pronounced a studied harangue, 
setting forth the imperious necessity of the ac- 
tion, and urging that his concern for the interests 
of the state had, in this single instance, overcome 
his fraternal affection and the humanity of his 
nature. It may be believed that the Conscript 
Fathers were in no disposition to dispute the 
force of his arguments. Caracalla was now pro- 
claimed sole emperor, and one of the first acts of 
his administration was to put to death the cele- 
brated lawyer Papinian, who had refused to jus- 
tify his conduct to the people. —Tytler's Hist., 
Book 5, cli. 2. 

1124. CONSERVATISM cured. Peter the Great. 
There was a good deal of fun in the composition 
of this illustrious patriot, and he turned it to good 
use sometimes in throwing ridicule upon the an- 



134 



COXSERVATISM— CONSOLATION. 



I 



cient usages. One cold day in the winter of 
1703 be invited all his court and nobility to at- 
tend' the wedding of one of bis buffoons ; and 
he was very particular that the old fogies of the 
empire should be present. He gave notice that 
this wedding was to be celebrated according to 
the "usages of our ancestors," and that every 
one must come dressed in the manner of the six- 
teenth centurv. Accordingly, all the guests ap- 
peared in long flowing Asiatic robes of the an- 
cient Russians, to the merriment of the whole 
court. It was an ancient custom that on a wed- 
ding-day no fire should be kindled in the house ; 
and° therefore, the palace was as cold as mortal 
flesh could bear. " Our ancestors" drank only 
brandy, and so on this day not a drop of any 
milder liciuor was allowed. All the barbarous 
and indecent customs formerly in vogue at wed- 
dings were revived for this occasion, and when 
any one objected or complained, the czar would 
reply, laughing : " Our ancestors did so ! Are 
not the ancient customs always the best ?" This 
ridiculous fete, it is said, had much to do in 
bringing the old usages into discredit, and rec- 
onciling timid people to the new ways introduced 
by the czar.— Cyc. of Bigg., p. 431. 

1125. CONSERVATISM, Dangers of. Br. Ar- 
nold. At London, where he wished religious, 
not sectarian, examination to be introduced into 
the University, he was regarded as a bigot, while 
at Oxford he'was regarded as an extreme latitu- 
dinarian. "If I ha"d two necks," said he, "I 
think I had a very good chance of being hanged 
by both sides."— Smiles' Brief Biograpules, 
p. 80. 

1126. CONSERVATISM described. Preserva- 
tion. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, has been 
described by Bacon as a most fit man to keep 
things from growing worse, but no very tit man 
to reduce things to be much better. — Knight's 
Eng., vol.3, ch. 23, p. 359. 

1127. CONSERVATISM, Excessive. Reign of 
Charles II. Danby formed the design of secur- 
ing to the Cavalier'party the exclusive possession 
of all pohtical power, both executive and legis- 
lative. In the year 1675, accordingly, a bill was 
offered to the Lords, which provided that no 
person should hold any office, or should sit in 
either House of Parliament, without first declar- 
ing on oath that he considered resistance to the 
kingly power as in all cases criminal, and that 
he would never endeavor to alter the govern- 
ment either in Church or State. . . . Bucking- 
ham and Shaftesbury were beyond all precedent 
vehement and pertinacious, and at length proved 
successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, 
but was retarded, mutilated, and at length suf- 
fered to drop. — Macaulay's Exg., ch. 2. 

1128. CONSERVATISM, Foolish. Anti-pro- 
gressive. [In 1630 a company was formed who 
undertook to drain ninety-five thousand acres of 
wet land in England. The sportsmen opposed 
it.] The men who walked upon stilts were in- 
dignant at these innovations, which threatened 
to exterminate the wild ducks, which they cher- 
ished as more profitable than sheep or oxen ; 
and thej" destroyed the drainage works in true 
conservative spirit. — Knight's Eng., vol. 7, 
ch. 1. 

1 129. CONSERVATISM, Non-progressive. Duke 
of Newcastle. [In England, previous to this date, 



1751, the year had been made to begin with the 
25th of March. By the energy of Lord Chester- 
field it was changed to the 1st of January.] The 
timid [Duke of] Newcastle told him that he hated 
new-fangled things— that he had better not med- 
dle with things so long established. — Kjsight's 
Eng., vol. 6, ch. 12, p. 183. 

1130. CONSERVATISM, Opposition of. To 

Police. For several years a prodigious clamor 
was raised against this force, not only by thieves 
and street -walkers, but by respectable upholders 
of the ancient watch. The new police was to 
be " the most dangerous and effective engine of 
despotism." It woiild have the certain effect of 
depriving us of our immemorial liberties. — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 8, ch. 13, p. 232. 

1131. . Mines. For three centu- 
ries the exportation of coals to foreign countries 
was almost prohibited by excessive duties, lest 
the mines should be exhausted and our own 
manufacturing superiority be endangered. — 
Knight's Eng.. vol. 2, ch. 29, p. 478. 

1132. CONSERVATIVE, Political. Lord Hali- 
fax. All the prejudices, all the exaggerations 
of both the great parties in the State, moved his 
scorn. He despised the mean arts and unrea- 
sonable clamors of demagogues. He despised 
still more the Tory doctrines of divine right and 
passive obedience. He sneered impartially at 
the bigotry of the Churchman and at the bigotry 
of the Puritan. ... In temper he was what, in our 
time, is called a Conservative. In theory he was 
a Republican. ... He was the chief of tho.se pol- 
iticians whom the two great parties contemptu- 
ously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling 
with his nickname, he a.ssumed it as a title of 
honor, and vindicated, with great -vivacity, the 
dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he 
satd, trims between extremes. The temperate 
zone trims between the climate in which men 
are roasted and the climate in which they are 
frozen. . . . Virtue is nothing but a just temper 
between propensities, any one of which, if in- 
dulged to excess, becomes a vice. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 3. 

1133. CONSISTENCY, Disregard for. James II. 
[Catherine Sedley was the notorious mistress of 
James. His wife, Mary of Modena, was grieved.] 
She asked him how he reconciled his conduct to 
his religious professions. " You are ready, "she 
.said, "to put your kingdom to hazard for the 
sake of your soul, and "yet you are throwing 
away yoiir soul for the sake of that creature." 
Father Petre, on bended knees, seconded these 
remonstrances. It was his duty to do so ; and 
his duty was not the less .strenuously performed 
because it coincided with his interest. The king 
went on for a time sinning and repenting. In his 
hours of remorse his penances were severe. ^lary 
treasured up to the end of her life, and at her 
death bequeathed to the convent of Chaillot, 
the scourge with which he had vigorously aveng- 
ed her wrongs upon his own shoulders. — Ma- 
caulay's Eng. , ch. 6. 

1 1 34. CONSOLATION of Philosophy. Roman 
Senator Boethins. [Imprisoned by Theodoric 
for maintaining the rights of senators.] While 
Boethins, oppressed with fetters, expected each 
moment the sentence or the stroke of death, he 
composed, in the tower of Pa via, the " Consola- 



CONSPIRACY— CONSTRUCTION. 



135 



tion of Philosophy," a golden volume, not un- 
worthy of Plato or Tully. . . . The celestial 
guide "whom he had so long invoked at Rome and 
Athens now condescended to illumine his dun- 
geon. . . . She taught him to compare his long 
prosperity with his recent distress, and to con- 
ceive new hopes from the inconstancy of fort- 
une. . . . His enemies had left liim happiness, in- 
asmuch as they had left him virtue. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 39. 

1135. CONSPIRACY, Alarming. Reign of 
William I. Assassination was an event of daily 
occurrence. Many Normans suddenly disap- 
peared, leaving no trace. The corpses of many 
were found bearing the marks of violence. Death 
by torture was denounced against the murderers, 
and strict search was made for them, but gener- 
ally in vain, for the whole nation was in a con- 
spiracy to screen them. It was at length thought 
necessary to lay a heavy fine on every hundred 
in which a person of French extraction should 
be found slain ; and this regulation was followed 
up by another regulation, providing that every 
person who was found slain should be supposed 
to be a Frenchman, unless he was proved to be a 
Saxon. — Macaulay's Ekg., ch. 1, p. 12. 

1136. CONSPIRACY, Infamous. Royalists, a.d. 
1776. A .secret plot was fostered by Tryon . . . 
through the royalLst mayor of New York and 
others, to prepare a body of conspirators, who 
should raise an in.surrection in aid of How^e on 
his arrival, blow up the magazines, gain posses- 
sion of the guns, and .seize Washington and his 
principal officers. Some of the inferior agents 
were suspected of having intended to procure his 
death. ... It was discovered before it was ma- 
tured. . . . Two or three of his own guard 
were partners in the scheme of treachery ; and 
one of them . . . was hanged. It w^as the first 
military execution of the Revolution. — B.'VN- 
cropt's U. S., vol. 8, ch. 68. 

113T. CONSPIRACY, Political. Reign of 
Charles II. The French Court, which knew 
Danby [the Chancellor of England] to be its mor- 
tal enemy, artfully contrived to ruin him by 
making him pass for a friend. Louis [XI V. ] , by 
the instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faith- 
less and shameless man, who had resided in 
France as minister from England, laid before the 
House of Commons proofs that the treasurer 
had been concerned in an application made by 
the Court to the Court of A"er.sailles for a sum of 
money. The discovery had its natural effect. 
... In their view he w^as the broker who had 
sold England to France. It .seemed clear that 
Ms greatness was at an end, and doubtful whether 
his head could be saved. — Macaulay's Eng., 
ch. 2. 

1138. CONSPIRACY, Unpopular. Cmar. [Cae- 
sar was a.ssassinated by the senators in the Sen- 
ate house.] The conspirators had no .sooner ac- 
complished their purpose than they ran through 
the streets of the city, proclaiming aloud that the 
King of Rome was dead ; but the effect did not 
answer their expectation. The people, almost to 
a man, seemed struck with horror at the deed. 
They loved Caesar, master as he was of their lives 
and liberties. — Tytler'sHist., Book 4, ch. 2. 

1139. CONSPIRACY, TJnproven. Sir WalUr 
Raleigh. [There was an alleged conspiracy 
again.st James I.] Ra'eigh underwent a trial. 



which, though the issue declared him guilt}", 
leaves the mind in a state of absolute scepticism 
with regard to the reality of this conspiracy, or 
of his concern in it. Raleigh's .sentence was su.s- 
pended for the course of fifteen years, during 
mo.st of which time he was confined in the 
Tower, where he employed himself in the com- 
position of his " History of the World," a work 
excellent in point of .style, and in many branches 
valuable in point of matter. In the last year of 
his life he received the king's commission of ad- 
miral to undertake an expedition for the discov- 
ery of some rich mines in Guiana. This, which, 
if not law, humanity at least ought to have in- 
terpreted into a pardon of his offence, was, how- 
ever, not so understood by the monarch, who.se 
heart had no great portion of the generous feel- 
ings. Raleigh's expedition was unsuccessful ; the 
court of Spain com{)lained of an attack which he 
had made upon one of their settlements. James 
wished to be at peace with Spain, and Raleigh, 
at his return, was ordered to be beheaded on 
his former sentence. — Tytlek's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 29. 

1140. CONSPIRACY of Vice. Catiline's. B.C. 
62. Sergius Catiline . . . was a youth of noble 
famil}-, but with a character stained with every 
manner of crime. [He had been one of the min- 
isters of cruelty for Sylla, the Dictator, and ri.sen 
with honors.]' Lost in character, drowned in 
debt, and thence unable to find any other re- 
source for the support of his vices and debauch- 
eries, he now formed the desperate scheme of ex- 
tirpating the whole body of the Senate, of assassi- 
nating all the magistrates of the common wealth, 
and satiating his avarice and ambition by the 
command of the republic and the plunder of the 
citj'. Catiline gained to his interest the profli- 
gate of all ranks and denominations ; knights, 
patricians, and senators, who were desperate 
bankrupts, and some high-born women of in- 
triguing and abandoned character, helped to in- 
crease his party. [The disclosure made by Ful- 
via, a woman of loose character, defeated the con- 
spirators.] — Tytler'sHist., Book 4, ch. 1. 

1141. CONSPIRATORS, Ingrate. Co'sar's. Six- 
ty senators, in all, were parties to the immediate 
conspiracy. Of these nine tenths were members 
of the old faction whom Csesar had pardoned, and 
who, of all his acts, resented most that he had 
been able to pardon them. They were the men 
who had stayed at home, like Cicero, from the 
fields of Thapsus and Munda, and had pretended 
penitence and submission that they might take 
an easier road to rid themselves of their enemy. 
Their motives were the ambition of their order 
and personal hatred of Cffisar ; but they persuad- 
ed themselves that thev were animated by patriot- 
ism ; and as, in their hands, the Republic had 
been a mockery of liberty, so they aimed at re- 
storing it by a mock tyrannicide. — Froude's 
CAESAR, ch. 26. 

1142. CONSTRUCTION vs. Destruction. Crom- 
well. April, 1653, he dissolved "the Rump!" 
" We did not hear a dog bark at their going," 
he said afterward in one of his speeches, and 
it expresses the very truth of the event. Hence- 
forth, until 1658— a brief parenthesis of time, 
indeed, in the historv of the country— he gov- 
erned the coimtry absolutely. In a history so 
brief as this we shall not attempt to detail the cir- 



136 



CONTEMPT— CONTENTMENT. 



cumstances of those troublesome j^ears. Alas ! 
all his battles had been easy to win compared 
with the task of ruling the distracted realm.— 
Hood's Cromwell, ch. 15, p. 186. 

114£t. CONTEMPT expressed. Timour. The 
first epistle of the Mogul emperor must have 
provoked, instead of reconciling, the Turkish 
sultan, whose family and nation he affected to 
despise. "Dost thou not know that the great- 
est part of Asia is subject to our arms and our 
laws ? . . . Be wise in time ; reflect ; repent _; and 
avert the thunder of our vengeance, which is yet 
suspended over thy head ! Thou art no more 
than a pismire ; why wilt thou seek to provoke 
the elephants ? Alas ! they will trample thee 
under their feet."— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 65. 

1144. CONTEMPT for Pretension. Pirates. 
[During the time of Pompey, the pirates of the 
Mediterranean were very numerous and bold. 
They seized prisoners on the land and carried 
them away.] But the most contemptuous cir- 
cumstances of all was, that when they had taken 
a prisoner, and he cried out that he was a Roman, 
and told them his name, they pretended to be 
struck with terror, smote their thighs, and fell 
upon their knees to ask him pardon. The poor 
man, seeing them thus humble themselves before 
him, thought them in earnest, and said he would 
forgive them ; for some were so officious as to 
put on his shoes, and others to help him on with 
his gown, that his quality might no more be 
mistaken. "When they had carried on this farce, 
and enjoyed it for some time, they let a ladder 
down into the sea, and bade liim go in peace ; 
and if he refused to do so, they pushed him off 
the deck, and drowned him. — Plutarch's 

" POMPEY." 



1145. 



Alanc. [Rome was be- 



sieged, and ambassadors sent to Alaric to treat 
for peace.] When they were introduced into 
his presence they declared, perhaps in a more 
lofty style than became their abject condition, 
that the Romans were resolved to maintain 
their dignity, either in peace or war ; and that 
if Alaric refused them a fair and honorable 
capitulation, he might sound his trumpets, 
and prepare to give battle to an innumerable 
people, exercised in arms, and animated by de- 
spair. ' ' The thicker the hay, the easier it is 
mowed," was the concise reply of the barbarian ; 
and this rustic metaphor was accompanied by a 
loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his con- 
tempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, 
enervated by luxury before they were emaciated 
by famine. He then condescended to fix the ran- 
som which he would accept as the price of his 
retreat from the walls of Rome : all the gold and 
silver in the city, whether it were the property 
of the State or of individuals ; all the rich and 
precious movables ; and all the slaves who could 
prove their title to the name of barbarians. The 
ministers of the Senate presumed to a.sk, in a 
modest and suppliant tone, " If such, O king, are 
your demands, what do you intend to leave us ?" 
" Your lives !" replied the haughty conqueror ; 
they trembled, and retired. Yet before they re- 
tired a short suspension of arms was granted, 
which allowed some time for a more "temper- 
ate negotiation. —Gibbon's Rome, ch. 31. 

1146. CONTEMPT, Protected by. Usurper 
Manmns. The unprotected Maximus, whom 



he [Count Gerontius] had invested with the 
purple, was indebted for his life to the contempt 
that was entertained of his power and abilities. 
The caprice of the barbarians, who ravaged 
Spain, once more seated this imperial phantom 
on the throne ; but they soon resigned him to 
the justice of Honorius; and the tyrant Maximus, 
after he had been shown to the people of Ra- 
venna and Rome, was publicly executed. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 31, p. 303. 

1147. CONTEMPT, Religious. Puritans. 
With the fear and hatred inspired by such a tyr- 
anny, contempt was largel}' mingled. The peculi- 
arities of the Puritan, his look, his dress, his 
dialect, his strange scruples, had been, ever since 
the time of Elizabeth, favorite subjects with 
mockers. But these peculiarities appeared far 
more grotesque in a faction which ruled a great 
empire than in obscure and persecuted congre- 
gations. The cant which had moved laughter 
when it was heard on the stage from Tribula- 
tion Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, was 
still more laughable when it proceeded from the 
lips of genecals and counsellors of State. — Ma- 
caulay's Eno. , ch. 2. 

1148. CONTENTMENT in Gardening. Dio- 
cktian. [When Diocletian resigned the imperial 
purple] he had preserved, or at least he soon re- 
covered, a ta.ste for the most innocent as well as 
natural pleasures, and his leisure hours were 
sufficiently employed in building, planting, and 
gardening. His answer to Maximian is deserv- 
edly celebrated. He was solicited by that rest- 
less old man to rcassume the reins of govern- 
ment and the Imperial purple. He rejected 
the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly ob- 
serving that if he could show Maximian the 
cabbages which he had ])lantcd with his own 
hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged 
to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the 
pursuit of power. — Ghujon'sRome, ch. 13. 

1149. CONTENTMENT under Hardships. John 
Wesley, [lie] and 1 lay on the floor; he had 
my great coat for his pillow, and I had Burkitt's 
notes on the New Testament for mine. One 
morning about three o'clock Mr. Wesley turned 
over, and finding me awake, clapped me on the 
side, saying, " Brother Nelson, let us be of good 
cheer ; 1 have one whole side yet, for the skin 
is off but one side." — Stevens' Methodism, vol. 
1, ch. 5. 

1150. CONTENTMENT, Inferior. Samuel 
Johmon. Johnson (laughing): "It must be 
born with a man to be contented to take up 
with little things. Women have a great advan- 
tage that they "may take up with little things, 
without di.sgracing themselves ; a man cannot, 
except with fiddling. Had I learnt to fiddle, I 
should have done nothing else." BoswEf.L : 
"Pray, sir, did you ever play on any musical 
instrument?" Johnson: "No, sir; I once 
bought me a flageolet, but I never made out a 
tune." Boswell: "A flageolet, sir ! so small 
an instrument ? I should have liked to hear you 
play on the violoncello. That should have been 
your instrument." Johnson : " Sir, I might as 
well have played on the violoncello as another, 
but I should have done nothing else. No, sir ; 
a man would never undertake great things could 
he be amused with small. I once tried knotting — 
Dempster's sister undertook to teach me — but 



CONTENTMENT— CONTRADICTION. 



137 



I 



1 could not learn it. " — Boswell's Johnson, 
p. 365. 

1151. CONTENTMENT with Poverty. Dwge- 
nes. [Alexander the Great and his courtiers 
visited Diogenes.] The philosopher was at the 
time lying down in the sun. Alexander was 
surprised at his poverty, and, after saluting liini 
in the kindest manner, asked whether he wanted 
anything. Diogenes replied, "Yes; that you 
would stand a little out of my sunshine." This 
answer raised the indignation and contempt of 
all the courtiers ; but the monarch, struck with 
the philosopher's greatness of soul, said : "Were I 
not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." — Rollin, 
vol. 1, ch. 15. 

1152. CONTENTMENT, Price of. JVapoleo?i 
I. [Entering incognito the cabin of an Italian 
peasant woman, he listened to her story of pov- 
erty, and saw evidences of personal worth.] 
" How much money," said he, " should you want 
to make you perfectly happy '?" " Ah, sir !" she 
replied, ' ' a great deal I should want. " ..." But 
how much ?"..." Oh, sir, ... I should 
want as much as $80 ; but what prospect is there 
of one having $80 ?" The emperor caused an 
attendant to pour into her lap about $600 in 
glittering gold. For a moment she was speech- 
less in bewilderment, and then said : "Ah, sir ! 
ah, madam ! this is too much ; and yet you do 
not look as if you could sport with the feelings 
of a poor woman." " No," Josephine replied ; 
" the money is all yours ; with it you can now 
rent a piece of ground, purchase a flock of 
goats, and I hope you will be able to bring up 
your children comfortably."— Abbott's Napo- 
leon B., vol. 1, ch. 29. 

1153. CONTEST, Unequal. Greeks m. Eiis- 
sians. Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian 
war were more frequently diverted by treaty than 
by arms. In these naval hostilities every disad- 
vantage was on the side of the Greeks ; their sav- 
age enemy afforded no mercy ; his poverty prom- 
ised no spoil ; his impenetrable retreat deprived 
the conqueror of the hopes of revenge ; andthe 
pride or weakness of empire indulged an opinion, 
that no honor could be gained or lost in the in- 
tercourse with barbarians. At first their de- 
mands were high and inadmissible — three pounds 
of gold for each soldier or mariner of the fleet : 
the Russian youth adhered to the design of con- 
quest and glory, but the counsels of moderation 
were recommended by the hoary sages. "Be 
content," they said, "with the liberal offers of 
Caesar ; is it not far better to obtain without a 
combat the possession of gold, silver, silks, and 
all the objects of our desires ? Are we sure of 
victory ? Can we conclude a treaty with the sea ? 
We do not tread on the land ; we float on the 
abyss of water, and a common death hangs over 
our heads." — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 56. 

1154. CONTINGENCIES, Combination of. Cap- 
ture of New Orlearus. The attempt of the enemy 
had been audacious, but was aided by various 
contingencies . . . the river had been obstructed 
by means of a raft consisting of a line of eleven 
dismantled schooners, extending from bank to 
bank, strongly moored, and connected together 
with six heavy chains. Unfortunately a violent 
storm had rent a large chasm in the raft, which 
could not be closed in time. It appears, too, that 
on the night of the attack [by the Federal fleet] 



the river had not been lighted by fire-rafts, al- 
though General Lovell had several times request- 
ed that it should be done. Moreover, the per- 
son in charge of the .signals neglected to throw 
up rockets on the approach of the fleet, and, by 
a strange coincidence, the enemy's signals, on 
that night, were identically the same as those 
used by our gunboats . . . the advance of the 
enemy was not discovered until they were abreast 
of the [two] forts. — Pollard's First Year of 
THE WAii, ch. 12, p. 312. 

1155. CONTINGENCIES of Success. Coluin- 
bun. [Terrific and perilous storms attended his 
return voyage. All gave themselves up for 
lost.] Such were the difficulties and perils 
which attended his return to Europe ; had one 
tenth part of them beset his outward voyage, 
his timid and factious crew would have risen in 
arms against the enterprise, and he never would 
have discovered the New World.— Irving's 
Columbus, Book 5, ch. 2. 

1156. CONTRACTS, Suspension of. Marcus 
Co'Uus. He told the mob that Ca>sar would do 
nothing for them, that Caesar cared only for his 
capitalists. He wrote privately to Cicero that he 
was bringing them over to Fompey, and he was 
doing it in the way in which pretended revolu- 
tionists so often play into the hands of reaction- 
aries. He proposed a law in the Assembly in 
the spirit of Jack Cade, that no debts should be 
paid in Rome for six years, and that every ten- 
ant should occupy his house for two years free 
of rent. The administrators of the government 
treated him as a madman, and deposed him from 
oflice. He left tlie city pretending that he was 
going to Caesar. — Froude's Cesar, ch. 22. 

1157. CONTRADICTION, Proneness to. Sam- 
uel Johnson.. I was sensible tliat he was some- 
times a little actuated by the spirit of contradic- 
tion, and by means of that I hoped I should gain 
my point. I was persuaded, that if I had come 
upon him with a direct proposal, " Sir, will you 
dine in company with Jack Wilkes ?" he would 
have flown into a passion, and would probably 
have answered, " Dine with Jack Wilkes, sir! 
I'd as soon dine with Jack Ketch." I therefore, 
while we were sitting quietly by ourselves at his 
house in an evening, took occasion to open my 
plan thus: "Mr. Dilly, sir, sends his respect- 
ful compliments to you, and would be happy if 
you would do him the honor to dine with him on 
Wednesday next, along with me, as I must soon 
go to Scotland." John.son : " Sir, I am obliged 
to Mr. Dilly. I will wait upon him—" Bos- 
well : " Provided, sir, I suppose, that the com- 
pany which he is to have is agreeable to you." 
Johnson: "What do you mean, sir? What 
do you take me for ? Do you think I am so ig- 
norant of the world as to imagine that I am to pre- 
scribe to a gentleman what company he is to have 
at his table ?" Boswell : " I beg your pardon, 
sir, for wishing to prevent you from nieetmg 
people whom you might not like. Perhaps he 
may have some of what he calls his patriotic 
friends with him." Johnson : " Well, sir, and 
wliat then ? What care I for his patriotic 
friends ? Poh !" Boswell : " I should not be 
surprised to find Jack Wilkes there." John- 
son: " And if Jack Wilkes should be there, what 
is that to me, sir ? My dear friend, let us have 
no more of this,"— Boswell's Johnson. 306. 



138 



CONTRIBUTION— CONTROVERSY. 



115$. CONTEIBUTION, Unconscious. Siege 
of Acre. a. d. 1799. The siege had now contin- 
ued for sixty days. . . . Napoleon had now ex- 
pended all his cannon for balls. By a singular 
expedient he obtained a fresh supply. A party of 
soldiers were sent upon the beach. . . . appar- 
ently throwing up a rampart for the erection of 
a battery. Sir Sidney [Smith] immediately ap- 
proached with the English ships and poured in 
upon them broadside after broadside from all his 
tiers. The soldiers . . . collected the balls as 
they rolled over the sand. [A dollar was paid 
for each ball.] — Abbott's Napoleon B., vol. 1, 
ch. 13. 

1159. CONTROVERSY, Abusive, Lutlier. A 
new pope, Adrian VI., had ascended the papal 
throne. Earnest and severe in disposition, he 
sought most emphatically to crush Luther's her- 
esy, which, in spite of ban and edict, was mak- 
ing continual progress. Nor did he hesitate to 
attack Luther's personal character, and to heap 
abuse upon him. Luther was not disturbed at 
this; he was accustomed to call Adrian "the 
jackass !" — Rein's Luther, ch. 13, p. 119. 

1 160. CONTROVERSY, Afraid of. George Fox, 
the Quaker. By degrees the "hypocrites" fear- 
ed to dispute with him ; and the simplicity of 
his principle found such ready entrance among 
the people, that the priests trembled and .scud as 
he drew near ; " so that it was a dreadful thing to 
them when it was told them, ' The man in leath- 
ern breeches is come.'" — Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 2, ch. 16. 

1161. CONTROVERSY, Angry. SamuelJohn- 
son. Murray : " It seems to me that we are 
not angry at a man for controverting an opinion 
which we believe and value; we rather pity him." 
Johnson: "Why, sir, to be sure ; when you 
wi.sh a man to have that belief which you think 
is of infinite advantage, you wish well to him ; 
but your primary consideration is your own quiet. 
If a madman were to come into this room with 
a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the 
state of his mind ; but our primary consideration 
would be, to take care of ourselves. We should 
knock him down first, and pity him afterward. 
No, sir ; every man will dispute with great good 
humor upon a subject in which he is not inter- 
ested. I will dispute very calmly upon the prob- 
ability of another man's son being hanged ; but 
if a man zealously enforces the probability that 
my own son will be hanged, I shall certainly not 
be in a very good humor with him." — Boswell's 
Johnson, p. 201. 

1162. CONTROVERSY, Bitterness in. Lutlier. 
The more Zwingli endeavored to convince Lu- 
ther of the impossibility of the bodily presence of 
Christ, the more firmly did Luther adhere to the 
literal interpretation of the words of institution. 
And when Zwingli quoted the sixth chapter of 
St. John's Gospel in his favor, venturing rather 
boldly to remark, " This passage will break your 
neck, doctor!" Luther replied, "Do not exalt 
yourself too highly ; you are in Hesse and not in 
Switzerland. Necks are not so readily broken 
here ; spare your proud and defiant words until 
you return home to your fellow-countrymen. If 
not, I will admini.ster a blow which will cause 
you to repent of your remark." Whereupon 
Zwingli responded: "In Switzerland also jus- 
tice is administered in equity, and no one's neck 



is endangered without due process of law. I 
simply made use of a proverbial saying, which 
signifies that a person has lost his cause." The 
Landgrave likewise interposed at this point and 
entreated Luther not to understand such an ex- 
pression so seriously. — Rein's Luther, ch. 17, 
p. 153. 

1163. CONTROVERSY, Christian. Luther. 
Zwingli declared with tears in his eyes : " There 
are no other people on earth with whom I M'ould 
rather agree than with the Wittenbergers. " But 
Luther rejected the profl'ered hand of union, with 
the words, "Your spirit is different from our 
spirit. I am surprised that you are willing to 
recognize in me, who regard j'our teaching to be 
false, a brother. It cannot be that you think 
very highly of your own doctrine." Then Bu- 
cer, who had come from Strasburg, advanced 
and said, "Take your choice ! Either you will 
acknowledge no one as brother who may deviate 
from you in a single point — in which case you 
have no brethren, not even in your own party — 
or else if you recognize some who differ from 
you, then you must also acknowledge us. " And 
when at last the Landgrave exhorted them all 
not to withhold the fraternal love which they 
owed one another as brethren, Luther remarked 
he would not deny his opponents that love which 
he owed to all his enemies. — Rein's Luther, 
ch. 17, p. 155. 

1164. CONTROVERSY, Dread of. Isaac Neic- 
ton. Newton resided at the University of Cam- 
bridge for thirty-three years, devoted to profound 
researches in chemistry and astronomy. His dis- 
coveries in the nature of light and color remain 
to this day the accepted system in all countries. 
He was accustomed to make his apparatus with 
his own hands, even to his brick furnaces and 
brass-work. He seemed to become, at length, 
all mind, spending his days in meditation, insen- 
sible to all that usually interests mankind. Nev- 
ertheless, he was pleasant and amiable in his de- 
meanor and exceedingly bountiful in gifts to his 
dependents and relattves. So little did he value 
the glory of his discoveries, that he was with dif- 
ficulty induced to make them known to the world, 
having a mortal dread of being drawn into con- 
troversy. Some of his most brilliant discoveries 
remained unpublished for several years. And 
when, at last, his "Principia" had appeared, 
which contained the results of his studies, he had 
to be much persuaded before he would consent 
to issue a second edition.— Cyc. opBiog., p. 253. 

1165. CONTROVERSY, Personal. Milton and 
Morus. Morus fitted the "Clamor" [a political 
pamphlet] with a preface, in which Milton was 
further reviled, and styled a " monstrum horen- 
dum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademtum." 
The secret of the authorship was strictly kept, 
and Morus, having been known to be concerned 
in the publication, was soon transformed in pub- 
lic belief into the author. So it was reported to 
]Milton, and so Milton believed. He nursed his 
wrath, and took two years to meditate his blow. 
He caused inquiries to be made into Morus's an- 
tecedents. It happened that Morus's conduct 
had been wanting in discretion, especially in his 
relations with women. He had been equally im- 
prudent in his utterances on some of the certain- 
ties of Calvinistic doctrine.— Milton, by M. 
Pattison, ch. 10. 



CONTROVERSY— CONVERSATION. 



130 



I 



1166. CONTROVERSY prevented. Maryland. 
The provincial legislature in 1649 . . . enacted 
that no person believing in the fundamental doc- 
trines of Christianity should, on account of his 
religious principles or practices, be in any wise 
distressed. . . . Freedom of conscience was re- 
iterated. ... It was declared a fineable offence 
for citizens to apply to each other the opprobri- 
ous names used in religious controversy. While 
Massachusetts was attempting by proscription to 
establish Puritanism, ... it sometimes happen- 
ed in those days that Protestants escaping from 
Protestants found an asylum with the Catholic 
colonists of the Chesapeake.— Ridpath's U. S., 
ch. 26. 

1167. CONTROVERSY, Ridiculous. Milton. 
Milton's " Defensio Secunda" came out in May, 
1654. In this piece (written in Latin) Morus is 
throughout assumed to be the author of the 
" Clamor," and as such is pursued through many 
pages in a strain of invective, in which banter is 
mingled with ferocity. The Hague tittle-tattle 
about Morus's love-affairs is set forth in the pomp 
of Milton's loftiest Latin. Sonorous periods 
could hardly be more disproportioned to their 
material content. To have kissed a girl is paint- 
ed as the blackest of crimes. The sublime and 
the ridiculous are here blended without the step 
between. Milton descends even to abuse the 
publisher. Viae, who had officially signed his 
name to Morus's preface. The mixture of fa- 
natical cholerand grotesque jocularity, in which 
he rolls forth his charges of incontinence again.st 
Moms, and of petty knavery against Viae, are 
only saved from being unseemly by being ridic- 
ulous. The comedy is complete when we re- 
member that Morus'^had not written the " Clam- 
or," nor Viae the preface. Milton's rage blind- 
ed him ; he is mad Ajax castigating innocent 
sheep instead of Achseans. — Milton, by M. 
Pattison, ch. 10. 

116S. CONTROVERSY, Spirit of. Constantino- 
ple. [Reign of Theodosius.] Their diocese enjoyed 
a free importation of vice and error from every 
province of the empire ; the eager pursuit of re- 
ligious controversy afforded a new occupation to 
the busy idleness of the metropolis ; and -we may 
credit the assertion of an intelligent observer, 
who describes, with some pleasantry, the effects 
of their loquacious zeal. " This city," says he, 
" is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of 
them profound theologians, and preach in the 
shops and in the streets. If j'ou desire a man 
to change a piece of silver, he informs you 
wherein the Son differs from the Father ; if you 
ask the price of a loaf, you are told, by way of 
reply, that the Son is inferior to the Father." — 
Gibbon's Rome, ch. 27. 

1169. CONVENTS, Refuge in. Fear of Vice. 
[Samuel Johnson said of religious orders :] "It 
is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Car- 
thusian convent for fear of being immoral, as for 
a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal. 
There is, indeed, great resolution in the immedi- 
ate act of dismembering himself; but when that is 
once done, he has no longer any merit ; for though 
it is out of his power to steal, yet he may all his 
life be a thief in his heart. So when a man has 
once become a Carthusian, he is obliged to con- 
tinue so, whether he chooses it or not. Their 
silence, too, is absurd. We read in the Gospel 



of the apostles being sent to preach, but not to 
hold their tongues. All severity that does not 
tend to increase good or prevent evil is idle. 
I said to the lady abbess of a convent, ' Mad- 
am, you are here not for the love of virtue, but 
the fear of vice.' She said she should remem- 
ber this as long as she lived. " — Bosw ell's John- 
son, p. 275. 

1170. CONVERSATION, Care in. Cat^. [At 
the hospitaljle table of Cato the Censor] conver- 
sation generally turned upon the praises of 
great and excellent men among the Romans ; 
as for the bad and the unworthy, no mention 
was made of them, for he would not allow in 
his company one word, either good or bad, to 
be said of such kind of men. — Plutakch's 
Cato. 

1171. CONVERSATION, Corrupting. Mary 
Stuart. [Mary (^ueen of Scots.] One of those 
mistresses, LadyReves, a dissipated woman, cele- 
brated by Brantome for the notoriety of her ad- 
ventures, was the confidante of the queen. She 
had retained for Bothwell an admiration Avhich 
survived their intimacy. The queen, who amus- 
ed herself by interrogating her confidante re- 
garding the exploits and amours of her old 
favorite, allowed herself to be gradually attract- 
ed toward him by a sentiment which, at first, 
assumed the appearance of a mere good-natured 
curiosity. The confidante, divining, or believing 
she divined, the yet unexpressed desires of the 
queen, introduced Bothwell one evening into the 
garden, and even to the apartment of her mis- 
tress. This secret meeting forever sealed the as- 
cendancy of Bothwell over the queen. — Lamak- 
tine's Queen of Scots, p. 17. 

1172. CONVERSATION, Gifts for. Samuel 
Johnson. In our way to the club to-night, when 
I regretted that Goldsmith would, upon every 
occasion, endeavor to shine, by which he often 
exposed himself, Mr. Langton observed that 
he was not like Addison, who Avas content with 
the fame of his writings, and did not aim also at 
excellency in conversa'tion, for whicli he found 
himself unfit ; and that he said to a lady who 
complained of his having talked little in com- 
pany, "Madam, I have but nine pence in ready 
money, but I can draw for a £1000." I observ- 
ed that Goldsmith had a great deal of gold m 
his cabinet, but, not content with that, was al- 
ways taking out his purse. Johnson: "^^'s, 
sir, and that so often an empty purse !"— Bos- 
well's Johnson, p. 219. 

1173. CONVERSATION, Limit of. Bend- 
leather." [Walter] Scott tells a story of Clerk's 
being once bafiled— almost for the first time— by 
a stranger in a stage-coach, who would not. or 
could not, talk to him on any subject, uutd at 
last Clerk addressed to him this stately remon- 
strance : " I have talked to you, my friend, on 
all the ordinary subjects— literature, fanning, 
merchandise, gaming, game-laws, horse-races, 
suits-at-law, politics, swindling, blasphemy, and 
philosophy— is there any one subject that_ you 
will favor me bv opening upon?" "Sir, re- 
plied the inscrutable stranger, "can.you^say 
anything clever about ' bend-leather f |C.erk 
was Scott's friend. ]—HrTTON's Life of Scott, 
ch. 6. 

1174. CONVERSATION vs. Talk. Samuel 
Johnson. Though his usual ohrase for conver 



140 



CONVERSION. 



siition was talk, yet he made a distinction ; for 
when he onr-e told me that he dined the daj^ be- 
fore at a friend's house, with " a very pretty 
company," and I asked him if there was good 
conversation, he answered, " No, sir ; we had 
talk enough, but no conversation; there Avas 
nothing discussed."— BosyfEhiJ^ Johnson, p. 
488. 

1175. CONVEESION, Clear. John Bunyan. 
" One day," he says, " as I was travelling into 
the country, musing on the wickedness of my 
heart, and considering the enmity that was in 
me to God, the Scripture came into my mind, 
' He hath made peace through the blood of His 
cross.' I saw that the justice of God and my 
sinful soul could embrace and kiss each other. 
I was ready to swoon, not with grief and trouble, 
but with solid joy and peace." Everything be- 
came clear : the Gospel history, the birth, the 
life, the death of the Saviour ; how gently He 
gave Himself to be nailed on the cross for his 
(Bunyan's) sake. " I saw Him in the spirit," 
he goes on, "a man on the right hand of the 
Father, pleading for me, and have seen the man- 
ner of His coming from heaven to judge the 
world with glory."— Froude's Bunyan, ch. 3. 

11T6. CONVEESION demanded. Peruvians. 
The Emperor Attabalipa, at the approach of the 
Spaniards, had drawn up his army near the city 
of Quito. Pizarro began with offering terms of 
friendship, which being disregarded, he prepar- 
ed himself for a hostile assault. A monk ad- 
vanced in the front of the army, holding in his 
hand a Bible, and told the inca Attabalipa, by 
means of an interpreter, that it was absolutely 
necessary for his salvation that he should believe 
all that w\'vs contained in that book. He then 
proceeded to set forth the doctrine of the crea- 
tion, the fall of Adam, the incarnation of our 
Saviour, the redemption of man, the power of 
the apostles, and the transmission of their author- 
My by succession to the Pope of Rome, conclud- 
ing with the donation made by this Pope to Fer- 
dinand and Isabella, the predecessors of the Em- 
peror Charles V. , of all the regions in the New 
World. In consequence of this clear deduction, 
he ordered the inca immediately to embrace the 
Christian faith and acknowledge the pope's su- 
premacy. . . . The terrors of a cruel death pre- 
vailed on Attabalipa to receive the sacrament 
of baptism ; and immediately thereafter he was 
strangled at a stake. The same punishment was 
inflicted on several of the Peruvian chiefs, who, 
from a principle of generous magnanimity, 
chose rather to sufEer death than disclose the 
treasures of the empire to its inhuman and 
insatiable invaders. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 21. 

1177. CONVERSION, Intellectual. Constan- 
tine. The sublime theory of the gospel had 
made a much fainter impression on the heart 
than on the understanding of Constantine him- 
self. He pursued the great object of his ambi- 
tion through the dark and bloody paths of war 
and policy ; and after the victory he abandon- 
ed himself, without moderation, to the abuse of 
his fortune. ... As he gradually advanced in 
the knowledge of truth, he proportionally de- 
clined in the practice of virtue ; and the same 
year of his reign in which he convened the coun- 
cil of Nice was polluted by the execution, or 



rather murder, of his eldest sou. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 20. 

1178. CONVERSION, Peculiar. Martin Luther. 
In the year 1510 an Augustinian monk walked, 
with desolate heart, the streets of Rome, and, 
turning away from the pomp of her churches 
and the corruptions of the Vatican, sought re- 
lief to his awakened soul by ascending, on his 
knees, with pea.sants and beggars, the staircase of 
Pilate, which was supposed to have been trod- 
den by Christ at His trial, and is now enclosed 
near the Lateran Palace. While pausing on the 
successive steps to weep and pray, a voice from 
heaven seemed to cry within him, "The just 
shall live by faith." 'it was the voice of apos- 
tolical Christianity, and the announcement of 
the Reformation. He fled from the supersti- 
tious scene. — Stevens' Methodism, vol. 1, 
p. 19. 

1179. CONVERSION, Remarkable. Henry Dor- 
sey Gough. He was a young man of great wealth, 
residing at Perry Hall, about twelve miles from 
Baltimore, in one of the most spacious and ele- 
(jant residences in America at that time. . . . 
His wife had been deeply impressed by the Meth- 
odist preaching, but he forbade her to hear them 
again. While revelling with wine and gay com- 
panions, one evening it was proposed that they 
should divert themselves by going together to a 
Methodist assembly. Asbury was the preacher, 
and no godless diversion could be found in his 
presence. " What nonsen.se," exclaimed one of 
the convivialists, as they returned — " what non- 
sense have we heard to-night !" ' ' No," exclaim- 
ed Gough, startling them Avith sudden surprise — 
"no; what we have heard is the truth, the 
truth as it is in Jesus." " I will never hinder 
you again from hearing the Methodists," he said 
as he entered his house and met his wife. The 
impression of the .sermon was so profound that 
he could no longer enjoy his accustomed pleas- 
ures. He became deeply serious, and at last 
melancholy, " and was near destroying himself," 
under the awakened sense of his misspent life. . . . 
[His converted slaves were happier than he, with 
all his luxuries.] He went to his chamber, 
leaving a large company of friends at his table ; 
there he threw himself upon his knees and im- 
plored the mercy of God, until he received con- 
scious pardon and peace. In a transport of joy 
he went to his company, exclaiming, "I have 
found the Methodist's blessing — I have found 
the Methodist's God ! "— Stevens' M. E. 
Chuuch, vol. 1, p. 237. 

IISO. . John Bunyan. Bunyan had 

been bred a tinker, and had served as a private 
soldier in the Parliamentary army. Early in his 
life he had been fearfully tortured by remorse 
for his youthful sins, the worst of which seem, 
however, to have been such as the world thinks 
venial. His keen sensibility and his powerful 
imagination made his internal conflicts singu- 
larly terrible. He fancied that he was under 
sentence of reprobation, that he had committed 
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had 
sold Christ, that he was actually possessed by a 
demon. Sometimes loud voices from heaven 
cried out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whis- 
pered impious suggestions in his ear. He saw 
visions of distant mountain-tops, on which the 
sun shone brightly, but from Avhich he was sep- 



CONVERSION— CONVERT. 



in 



arated by a waste of snow. He felt the devil be- 
hind him pulling his clothes. He thought that 
the brand of Cain had been set upon him. He 
feared that he was about to burst asunder like 
Judas. His mental agony disordered his health. 
One day he shook like a man in the palsy. On 
another day he felt a fire within his breast. It 
is difficult to understand how he survived suffer- 
ings so intense and so long continued. At length 
the clouds broke. From the depths of despair 
the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. 
An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart 
to others the blessings of which he was himself 
possessed. He joined the Baptists. — Macaulay's 
Eng., ch. 7. 



11§1. 



Adam Clark. When he was 



a young man a preacher asked him, " Do you 
think that God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven 
your sins?" "No, sir; I have no evidence of 
this," the youth replied. He was directed to 
pray for it, and the passing word was " like a nail 
in a sure place." He accompanied his mother 
to a class meeting, and soon was fervently seeking 
the spiritual life of which he heard its simple 
members speak. He sought it through much 
mental anguish. . . . One morning, in deep dis- 
tress, he went out to his work in the fields ; he 
began, but could not proceed. He fell on his 
knees on the earth, and prayed, but seemed to be 
without ability to utter even a broken supplica- 
tion. . . . His physical strength seems to have 
departed from him. He again endeavored to 
pray . . . but the thickest darkness settled on his 
soul. He fell fiat on his face, and tried to pray. 
His agonies were indescribable. He says he 
seemed forever separated from God. Death . . . 
[would have been welcome, if it had brought an 
end to his painful feelings]. No fear of hell 
produced these terrible conflicts. . . . "Where to 
go, what to do, and what to say he knew not ; 
even the words of prayer at last failed. . . . He 
experienced a sense of the displeasure of a holy 
God for having sinned against Him. . . . Passing 
through this agony, he felt strongly in his soul, 
" Pray to Christ ;" . . . he looked up confidently 
to the Saviour of sinners, his agony subsided, 
his soul became calm. He examined his con- 
science, and found it no longer a register of sins 
against God. He searched for his distress, but 
could not find it. ... A change had taken place 
within him for which he had no name. He sat 
down upon the ridge where he had been working, 
filled with ineffable delight. He felt a sudden 
transition from darkness to light. He was like a 
person who had entered a new world. . . . He 
could draw nigh to God with more confidence 
than he ever could to his earthly father. [Thus 
did this moral young man begin that Christian 
life which adorned and sanctified the eminent 
scholarship of his riper years.] — Stevens' 
]yiETHODisir, vol. 2, p. 286. 

11§2. CONVERSION, Eesults of. Constantine. 
The public establishment of Christianity may be 
considered as one of those important and domes- 
tic revolutions which excite the most lively curios- 
ity, and afford the most valuable instruction. 
The victories and the civil policy of Constantine 
no longer influence the state of Europe ; but a 
considerable portion of the globe still retains the 
impression which it received from the conversion 
of that monarch ; and the ecclesiastical institu- 



tions of his reign are still connectetl, by an in 
dissoluble chain, with the opinions, tlie passions, 
and the interests of the present generation. — Gib- 
box's Ro.ME, ch. 20. 

11§3. CONVEESION, Sudden. Among JJhter 
Moiutiaiiu. "Are tliere any drunkards here ?" 
cried a Methodist itinerant, as he preached amid 
a mongrel multitude [in the open air]. " Yes, I 
am one," replied a sobbing Irishman, who, return- 
ing intoxicated toward his home, had stepped 
aside to the assembly, supposing it was witness- 
ing a cockfight ; and from that day he was not 
only reclaimed from his long-confirmed \ice, but 
became a genuine Christian. — Stevens' Meth- 
odism, vol. 1, p. 2S4. 

1184. CONVERSIONS, Slow. Ma?umi€t. Three 
years were silently employed in the conversion 
of fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of his mis- 
sion ; but in the fourth year he assumed the pro- 
phetic office, and resolving to impart to his fam- 
ily the light of di^ine truth, he prepared a ban- 
quet — a lamb, as it is said — and a bowl of milk, 
for the entertainment of forty guests of the race of 
Hashem. " Friends and kinsmen,"' said ilahomet 
to the assembly, " I offer you, and I alone can 
offer, the most'precious of gifts — the treasures of 
this world and of the world to come. God has 
commanded me to call you to His service. Who 
among you will support my burden ? Who 
among you will be my companion and my viz- 
ier ?" No answer was returned, till the silence 
of astonishment and doubt and contempt was 
at length broken by the impatient courage of Ali, 
a youth in the fourteenth year of his age. " O 
prophet, I am the man ; whosoever rises against 
thee I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, 
break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I 
will be thy vizier over them." [Mahomet accept- 
ed his offer with transport. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 50. 

11§5. CON"VERSIONS by the Sword. Chark- 
magne. Charlemagne traversed the entire terri- 
tory [of the Saxons] to its western extremity, re- 
ceiving the submission of the inhabitants, and 
causing them to be baptized by thousands by the 
army of priests who accompanied his march. But 
these conversions, as one of the chroniclers ob- 
serves, being made at the point of the sword, were 
of necessity insincere. — Students' Fkance, ch. 
5, §5, p. 65. 

1186. CON'VERT, A renegade. Lord Sunder- 
land. Sunderland [prime minister of James II.], 
less scrupulous and less sensible of shame, resolv- 
ed to atone for his late moderation, and to re- 
cover the royal confidence by an act which, to a 
mind impressed with the importance of religious 
truth, must have appeared to be one of the most 
flagitious of crimes, and which even men of 
the world regard as the last excess of baseness. . . . 
The renegade protested that he had been long con- 
vinced of the impossibility of finding salvation 
out of the communion of Rome, and that his 
conscience would not let him rest till he had re- 
nounced the heresies in which he had been 
brought up. The news spread fast. At all the 
coffee-houses it was told how the prime-minister 
of England, his feet bare, and a taper in his hand, 
had repaired to the royal chapel and knocked 
humblv for admittance fliow a priestly voice from 
within'had demanded who was there ; how Sun- 
derland had made answer that a poor sinner who. 



U2 



CONVICTION— CO-OPERATION. 



had long wandered from the true Church implor- 
ed her to receive and to absolve him ; how the 
doors were opened ; and how the neophyte par- 
took of the holy mysteries.— Macaulay's Eng., 
ch. 8. 

1187. CONVICTION, Popular. Joan of Arc. 
Her sanctity seized the hearts of the people. In 
a moment a"ll were for her. Women, ladies, cit- 
izens' wives, all flocked to see her at the house 
where she was staying, with the wife of an advo- 
cate to the parliament, and all returned full of 
emotion. Men went there too ; and counsellors, 
advocates, old hardened judges, who had suffer- 
ed themselves to be taken thither incredulously, 
when they had heard her wept even as the wom- 
en did, and said, " The maid is of God."— MiCH- 
elet's Joan of Arc, p. 10. 

11§§. CONVICTION, Prayer for. Oeorge Mai- 
ler. When conversing with two university friends 
— formerly his companions in worldly pleasures 
and amusements— he told them how happy he 
was, and urged them also to seek the Lord. To 
this, however, they replied, " We do not feel that 
we are sinners," upon which he knelt down in 
their presence, asking God to convince them of 
their lost condition "by nature, and afterward 
went into his bedroom, where he continued to 
pray for them. Upon returning to his sitting- 
room he found the two young men in tears ; for 
God, by His Spirit, in answer to prayer, had con- 
vinced them both of sin. From that time a work 
of grace commenced in their hearts, and they 
became devoted servants of the Lord Jesus. — 
Life of Mijller, p. 13. 

1189. CONVICTION of Sin. Rev. John Nel- 
son. [John Nelson, who became one of Wesley's 
most successful preachers, was a man of good 
morals from his youth. His mind became deeply 
agitated on religious subjects. He went to the 
Established Church and to dissenters' meetings, 
visiting chapel after chapel, but found no relief. ] 
He became morbidly despondent ; he slept little, 
and often awoke from terrible dreams, dripping 
with sweat, and shivering with terror. [He went 
to hear Wesley preach.] " My heart," he says, 
" beat like the pendulum of a clock, and when 
he spoke I thought his whole discourse was aimed 
atme." "This man," he said to himself, "can tell 
the secrets of my breast ; he has shown me the 
remedy for my wretchedness, even the blood of 
Christ." [He soon found the peace he had been 
seeking.] — Stevens' Methodism, vol. 1, p. 177. 

1190. CONVICTIONS maintained. Massachu- 
setts Colony. The colony had been much vexed 
by the efforts of the [London] managers to thrust 
on them a minister of the Established Church. 
Was it not to avoid this very thing that they had 
come to the wilds of the New World ? Should the 
tyranny of the prelates follow them even across 
the sea and into the wilderness ? There was dis- 
sension and strife for awhile ; the English man- 
agers withheld support ; oppression was resorted 
to ; the stores intended for the colonists were soki 
to them at three prices ; and they were obliged to 
borrow money at sixty per cent. But no exac- 
tions could break the spirit of the Pilgrims ; and 
the conflict ended with the purchase of whatever 
rights the London proprietors had in the colony. 
— -RlDPATH'S U. S., ch. 1.3. 

1191. CONVICTIONS, EeaUstic. John Bun- 
yan. More than ever he was convinced that he 



was possessed by the devil. He " compared 
himself to a child carried off by a gypsy." 
" Kick sometimes I did," he says, " and scream 
and cry, but yet I was as bound in the wings of 
temptation, and the wind Avouldbearme away." 
" I blessed the dog and toad, and counted the 
condition of everything that God had made far 
better than this dreadful state of mine. The dog 
or horse had no soul to perish under the everlast- 
ing weight of hell for sin, as mine was like to 
do." — Froude's Bunyan, ch. 3. 

1192. CONVICTIONS, Strong. John Bunyan. 
To Bunyan the future life of Christianity was a 
reality as certain as the next day's sunrise ; and 
he could have been happy on bread and water if 
he could have felt himself prepared to enter it. 
Every created being seemed better off than he 
was. He was sorry that God had made him a 
man. He "blessed the condition of the birds, 
beasts, and fishes, for they had not a sinful na- 
ture. They were not obnoxious to the wrath of 
God ; they were not to go to hell-fire after death. " 
He recalled the texts which spoke of Christ and 
forgiveness. He tried to persuade himself that 
Christ cared for him. He could have talked of 
Christ's love and mercy "even to the very crows 
which sat on the ploughed land before him. " But 
he was too sincere to satisfy himself with formu- 
las and phrases. He could not, he would not, 
profess to be convinced that things would go 
well with him when he was not convinced. — 
Froudr's Bunyan, ch. 3. 

119^. . Conversion. [Benjamin 

Abbott relates the following incident :] A Quaker 
woman went from [his] preaching under strong 
conviction and such anguish of mind that she 
paid no attention to her family, not even to her 
suckling child. Early in the morning I was sent 
for ; when I arrived she was sitting with both 
hands clenched fast in the hair of her head, cry- 
ing out, " Lord, have mercy on me ! Save, Lord, 
or I perish !" I told her to pray in faith ; to 
look to Jesus, and lay hold on the promises, and 
God would have mercy on her ; but she said, " I 
cannot pray." I said, " You do pray very well ; 
go on." I then kneeled down and prayed ; three 
piouswomen who were present did likewise. . . . 
The distressed woman appeared to be Avorse, like 
one going distracted. I then sang. When the last 
words were .sung ... I kneeled down ; in a few 
minutes she clapped her hands together and cried, 
" My Lord, my God, my Father !" Her soul 
was 'immediately set at liberty, and she sprang up 
rejoicing and giving glory to God. — Stevens' 
M. E. Church, vol. 1, p. 257. 

1194. CO-OPERATION, Impossible. James IT. 
[The Dutch ambassador to London,] Dykvelt, 
reported that James was bitterly mortified by the 
conduct of the prince and princess [William of 
Orange and Mary his wife, the daughter of 
James]. "My nephew's duty," said the king, 
" is to strengthen my hands ; but he has alwaj's 
taken a pleasure in crossing me." Dykvelt 
answered that in matters of private concern his 
Highness had shown, and was ready to show, the 
greatest deference to the king's wishes ; but that 
it was scarcely reasonable to expect the aid of a 
Protestant prfnce against the Protestant religion. 
— Macaulay's Eng., ch. 7, p. 226. 

1195. CO-OPERATION in Manufactures. Seven- 
teenth Century. There is the remnant of an old 



CORONATIOX— CORRUPTION. 



143 



system of co-operative industry in the " tributer" 
system of their [the Cornish tinners'] mining la- 
bor, which assigns each man a reward different 
from the ordinary system of wages. The Cor- 
nish tisheries were conducted on the same princi- 
ple, Avhich has probably prevailed from very re- 
mote times. The same system of co-operation 
prevailed in one of the industries of Somerset- 
shire — the cheese-making of Cheddar — for which 
Fuller has the characteristic name of " Join- 
dairies." All the cowkeepers united in manuring 
the common upon which the cows fed. Every 
one brought his milk to a common room, where 
the quantity was measured and recorded. The 
making of a great cheese went duly forward ; 
and. when the milk of a poor man who kept but 
one cow was sufficient for one cheese, he re- 
ceived his cheese. The rich owner of many cows 
had his return earlier, but the poor man was sure 
of his just share. — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 
1, p. 14. 

1196. COKONATION ceremony. Franks. 
The kings of the Franks had hitherto been inau- 
gurated "by a ceremony peculiar to the Gothic 
nation. Seated on a shield, they were carried 
through the ranks, and received the homage of 
the army. Pepin, aware of the violence he had 
done to human institutions, was anxious to im- 
press the belief that his right to the crown was 
of heavenly origin. He adopted from Scripture 
the ceremony of consecration by holy oil, and 
was anointed by the hands of Boniface, Arch- 
bishop of Mentz ; and this ceremony became 
ever after an established usage in the coronation 
of Christian princes. — Tytler's Hist., Book 6, 
ch. 2. 

1197. CORONATION a personal Act. At No- 
ire Dame. [The Senate had chosen and proclaim- 
ed him emperor. The pope was bro.ught from 
Italy to consecrate the ceremony of coronation.] 
The pope anointed the emperor, blessed the 
sword and sceptre, and as he approached to take 
up the crown. Napoleon firmly and with dignity 
took it in his own hand and placed it himself 
upon his head. This characteristic act produced 
an indescribable effect upon the assembly. — Ab- 
bott's Napoleon B., vol. 1, ch. 28. 

119§. CORPULENCE, Distinguished. Louis 
VI. Louis VI., surnamed Le Gros from his cor- 
pulency, was unquestionably one of the ablest 
and best sovereigns who have filled the throne 
of France. — Students' France, ch. 7, § 21, 
p. 126. 

1199. CORPULENCE, Inactive. Clmrles the 
Fat. Emperor Charles the Fat, youngest son of 
Louis the German . . . was utterly unworthy of 
the lofty position to which fortune had raised 
him. He was devoid both of military and po- 
litical talent ; his corpulence rendered him inac- 
tive ; he was cruel, treacherous, cowardly. — 
Students' France, ch. 6, § 7, p. 92. 

1200. CORRESPONDENT, Burdensome. Crom- 
well. [One of his daughters married Ireton.] 
She was called Bridget. Her enlightened intel- 
lect and fervent piety made her the habitual con- 
fidante of all her father's religious feelings. We 
may trace in some scraps of his letters to this 
young female the constant preoccupation of his 
mind. " I do not write to your husband, be- 
cause he replies by a thousand letters to every 
one that I address to him. This makes him sit 



up too late ; besides, I have many other tilings 
to attend to at present." — Lamartine's Crom- 
wet.i,, p. 34. 

1201. CORRUPTION, Audacious. Catiline. 
Catiline, being prosecuted for some great offence, 
corrupted the judges. When they had given 
their verdict, though he was acquitted only by 
a majority of two, he said he had put him.self 
to a needless expense in bribing one of those 
judges, for it would have been sufficient to have 
had a majority of one. — Plut.\.rcu's Cicero. 

1202. CORRUPTION denied. Pelagians. In 
the fifth century arose the Pelagian heresy. Tlie 
authors of it were Pelagius and Calestius, the 
former a native of Britain, the latter of Ireland. 
These men looked upon the doctrines commonly 
received concerning the original corruption of 
human nature, and the necessity of di\ine grace 
to enlighten tlie understanding and purify the 
heart, as prejudicial to the progress both of re- 
ligion and virtue, and tending to lull mankind 
into a presumptuous and fatal security. They 
maintained thij.t these doctrines were equally 
false and pernicious ; that the sins of oiu" first 
parents were imputed to them alone, and not to 
their posterity ; that we derive no corruption 
from their fall, but are born as pure and un- 
spotted as Adam came from the hands of his 
Maker . . . that mankind are capable of arri\nng 
at the highest degree of piety and virtue, by the 
use of their own natural faculties and powers. 
— Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 3. 

1203. CORRUPTION, Ecclesiastical. Papal 

Throne. Amid these contentions of parties it be- 
came a usual practice to adjust the difference 
by setting the popedom up to public sale, and 
disposing of it to the highest bidder ; and bish- 
opric and inferior benefices were filled in the 
same manner. Benedict VIII. and John XIX. , 
two brothers, publicly bought the popedom one 
after another, and on the death of the latter it 
was purcha.sed in a similar manner for a child 
of ten years of age, Benedict IX. — Tytler's 
Hist. , Book 6, ch. 4. 

1204. . Twelfth Century. Corrupt 

as the Clmrch of Rome was, there is rea.son to 
believe that if the church had been overthrown 
in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth century, 
the vacant space would have been occupied by 
some system more corrupt still. There was then, 
through the greater part of Europe, verj- little 
knowledge, and that little was confined to the 
clergy. Not one man in five hundred could have 
spelled his way through a psalm. Books were 
few and costly. The art of printing was un- 
known. Copies of the Bible, inferior in beauty 
and clearness to those which every cottager may 
now command, sold for prices which many priests 
could not afford to give. It was obviously im- 
possible that the laity should search the Script- 
ures for themselves. It is probable, therefore, 
that, as soon as they had put off one spiritual 
yoke, they would have put on another. — Macau- 
lay's Eng., ch. 1, p. 42. 

1205. CORRUPTION, Governmental. Boman. 
[In 399 the ambitious eunuch Eutropius was 
made consul.] Claudian . . . says this infamous 
broker of the empire appreciates and divides the 
Roman provinces from Mount Hamus to the 
Tigris. One man, at the expense of his villa, is 



144 



CORRUPTION. 



made proconsul of Asia ; a second purchases 
Syria with his wife's jewels ; and a third laments 
that he has exchanged his paternal estate for the 
government of Bithj^nia. In the antechamber 
of Eutropius a large tablet is exposed to public 
view, which marks the respective prices of the 
provinces. The different value of Pontus, of 
Galatia, of Lydia, is accurately distinguished. 
Lycia may be obtained for so many thousand 
pieces of gold ; but the opulence of Phrygia will 
require a more considerable sum. The eunuch 
wishes to obliterate, by the general disgrace, liis 
personal ignominy ; and as he has been sold him- 
self, he is desirous of selling the rest of mankind. 
In the eager contention, the balance, which con- 
tains the fate and fortunes of the province, often 
trembles on the beam ; and till one of the scales 
is inclined by a superior weight, the mind of 
the impartial judge remains in anxious suspense. 
— Gibbon's Rome, ch. 32. 

I206. . English. [In 1616] Sir 

Fulk Greville paid £4000 for the chancellorship 
of the Exchequer. Inferior places went to the 
highest bidder. — Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 23, 
p."364. 

1207. . By Ministry. The borough 

of Hull, in the reign of Charles II., chose as 
member of Parliament Andrew Marvell, a gen- 
tleman of little or no fortune, and maintained 
him in London for the service of the public. 
With a view to bribe him, his old school-fellow, 
the Lord Treasurer Danby, went to him in his 
garret. At parting, the Lord Treasurer slipped 
into his hands an order upon the Treasury for 
£1000, and then went into his chariot. Marvell 
looked at the paper, and called after the Treas- 
urer, "My Lord, I request another moment." 
They went up again to the garret, and Jack, 
the servant boy, was called. "Jack, what had 
I for dinner yesterday ?" "Don't you remem- 
ber, sir, you had the little shoulder of mutton 
that you asked me to bring from a woman in 
the market ?" " Very right. What have I for 
dinner to-day ?" ' ' Don't you know, sir, that 
3'ou made me lay up the bladebone to broil ?" 
" 'Tis so ; very right. Go away. My lord, do 
j'ou hear that V Andrew Marvell's dinner is pro- 
vided ; there's your piece of paper, I want it 
not. I knew the sort of kindness you intended. 
I live here to serve my constituents. The Min- 
istry may seek men for their purpose ; I am not 
one." 

120§. CORRUPTION, Judicial. Romans. As 
it was reasonably apprehended that the integrity 
of the judge might be biassed if his interest was 
concerned or his affections were engaged, the 
strictest regulations were established to exclude 
any person, without the special dispensation of 
the emperor, from the government of the prov- 
ince where he was born ; and to prohibit the 
governor or his son from contracting marriage 
with a native or an inhabitant ; or from pur- 
chasing slaves, lands, or houses within the ex- 
tent of his jurisdiction. Notwithstanding these 
rigorous precautions, the Emperor Constantine, 
after a reign of twenty -five years, still deplores 
the venal and oppressive adininistration of jus- 
tice, and expresses the warmest indignation that 
the audience of the judge, his despatch of busi- 
ness, his seasonable delays, and his final sentence 
were publicly sold, either by himself or by the 



officers of his court. The continuance, and per 
haps the impunity, of these crimes is attested by 
the repetition of impotent laws and ineffectual 
menaces. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 17. 

1309. CORRUPTION, Official. Romans. The 
[captive Goths] barbarians, who considered their 
arms as the ensigns of honor and the pledg- 
es of safety, were disposed to offer a price, 
which the lust or avarice of the Imperial officers 
was easily tempted to accept. To preserve their 
arms, the haughty warriors consented, with some 
reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their 
daughters ; the charms of a beauteous maid or 
a comely boy secured the connivance of the in- 
spectors, who sometimes cast an eye of covet- 
ousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments 
of their new allies, or who sacrificed their duty 
to the mean consideration of filling their farms 
with cattle and their houses with slaves. The 
Goths, with arms in their hands, were permitted 
to enter the boats ; and when their strength was 
collected on the other side of the river, the im- 
mense camp which was spread over the plains 
and the hills of the Lower Msesia assumed a 
threatening and even hostile aspect. — Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 26. 



1210. 



Senator Verves. Verres 



held his province for three years. He was su- 
preme judge in all civil and criminal cases. He 
negotiated with the parties to every suit which 
was brought before him, and then sold his deci- 
sions. He confiscated estates on fictitious accu- 
sations. The island was rich in works of art. 
Verres had a taste for such things, and seized 
without scruple the finest productions of Praxi- 
teles or Zeuxis. If those who were wronged 
dared to complain, they were sent to forced labor 
at the quarries, or, as dead men tell no tales, 
were put out of the world. He had an under- 
standing with the pirates, which throws light 
upon the secret of their impunity. A shipful of 
them were brought into Messina as prisoners, 
and were sentenced to be executed. A handsome 
bribe was paid to Verres, and a number of Sicil- 
ians whom he wished out of the way were 
brought out, veiled, and gagged that they might 
not be recognized, and were hanged as the pi- 
rates' substit^ites. Bj' these methods VeiTcs was 
accused of having gathered out of Sicily three 
quarters of a million of our money. Two thirds 
he calculated on having to spend in corrupting 
the consuls and the court before which he might 
be pro.secute(l. — Fkovde's Cesar, ch. 9. 

1211. CORRUPTION, Political. Romans. [Cae- 
sar and Pompej^ tried to ruin each other.] And 
all ranks of men Avere so corrupted that tables 
were publicly set out, upon which the candidates 
for offices -were professedly ready to pay the 
people the price of their votes ; and the people 
came not only to give their voices for the man 
who had bought them, but with all manner of 
offensive weapons to fight for him. Hence it 
often happened that they did not part without 
polluting the tribunal with blood and murder, 
and the city Avas a perpetual scene of anarchy. 
In this dismal situation of things, in these storms 
of epidemic madness, wise men thought it would 
be happy if they ended in nothing worse than 
monarchy. Nay, there were many who scrupled 
not to declare publicly that monarch}' was the 
only cure for the desperate disorders of the 



CORRUPTION— COUNSEL. 



145 



State, and that tlie physician ought to be pitched 
upon who would apply that remedy with the 
gentlest hand ; by which they hinted at Pompey. 
— Plutarch's C^sar. 

1212. . England. The machinery 

of both sides [Whig and Tory] was unlimited 
bribery. The degradation of the briber was as 
great as that of the bribed. Berkeley writes in 
1721 : " This corruption has become a national 
crime, having infected the lowest as well as the 
highest among us." — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, 
ch. 4, p. 56. 

1213. CORRUPTION, Shameful. Francis Ba- 
con. He was charged by the Commons, before 
the Lords, with twenty-two acts of bribery and 
corruption. He attempted no defence. He made 
a distinct confession in writing of the charges 
brought against him. And when a deputation 
of peers asked if that confession was his own 
voluntary act, he replied: " It is my act, my hand, 
my heart'. O my Lords, spare a broken reed." . . . 
He was Sued £40,000 and sentenced to imprison- 
ment in the Tower during the king's pleasure. — 
Knight's Exg., vol. 3. c^i. 24, p."380. 

1214. CORRTJPTION of Statesmen. Engliish. 
[In 1695 the Houses of ParliuniL-ut disclosed] 
the frightful corruption by which statesmen in 
power and statesmen in opposition were moved 
to support, or to resist, some measure in which 
large pecuniary interests were involved ; or to 
screen some public delinquent. Guy, a member 
of Parliament and Secretary of the Treasury, was 
sent to the Tower for receiving a bribe in connec- 
tion with some inquiries into the conduct of a 
colonel of a regiment, who had appropriated the 
monej' with which he ought to have paid the 
quarters of his troops. Trevor, the Speaker of 
the House of Commons, was proved to have 
received a bribe of 1000 guineas from the cor- 
poration of London, for assisting in passing an 
act for the relief of the orphans and other 
creditors of the city of London. He had to put 
the question from the chair, whether he him- 
self was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor; 
and hadto say "The ayes have it." He was 
e.xpelled the house. The East India Company 
had spent £107,000 in secret ser^^ce money. . . . 
Sir Thomas Cook, the chairman of the company, 
had the management of these delicate matters. 
... In his place in Parliament he refused to 
answer inquiries. The Commons then passed a 
bill compelling him to answer, under enormous 
penalties. Upon the bill going to the Upper 
House, the Duke of Leeds spoke strongly against 
the bill, and, laying his hand on his breast, pro- 
tested that he was entirely disinterested in the mat- 
ter. The inquiries went on, implicating others ; 
and the Commons finally impeached Thomas, 
Duke of Leeds, President of the Council, for 
that he did agree with the merchants trading 
to the East Indies, for 500 guineas, to procure 
their charter of coutirmation. The king's [Will- ! 
iam III.] personal friend, Portland, was found I 
to have been proof against these temptations, hav- 
ing refused a bribe of £50,000.— Knight's Eng., 
vol. 5, ch. I'i. p. 177. 

1215. CORRITPTIGN, Unabashed. James II. 
[Sunderland was his prime-minister.] "Wliat sums 
he made by selling places, titles, and pardons 
can only be conjectured, but must have been 
enormous. James seemed t.i take a pleasure in 



loading with wealth one whom he regarded as 
his own convert [to Romanism]. All lines, all 
forfeitures, went to Sunderland. On every grant 
toll was paid to him. If any suitor ventured to 
ask any favor directly from the king, the answer 
was, "Have you spoken to my Lord President ?" 
One bold niim ventured to sjiy that the Lord 
President got all the money of the court. " Well, " 
replied his Majesty, " he deserves it all." We 
shall scarcely overrate the amount of the minis- 
ter's gains if we put them at £30.000 a year ; and 
it miist be remembered that fortvmes of £30,000 
a year were in his time rarer than fortunes of 
£1U0.000 a vear now are. — Macavlay's Eng., 
ch. 9. p. 409. 

1216. CORRUPTION. Universal. Reign of 
James I. [The reign of James I. was exceeding- 
h' corrupt.] It was an age of universal al)u.ses. 
Local magistrates were influenced by the petti- 
est gifts, and Avere called " ba.sket- justices." . . . 
Upon the highest branch of this rotten tree sat 
Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, the great 
Lord Chancellor. ... He was charged by the 
Commons, before the Lords, with twenty-two 
acts of bribery and corruption. He attempted 
no defence. . '. . He made a distinct confession 
in writing, [a.d. 1621.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 3, 
ch. 24, pT 380. 

1217. CORRUPTION tmrestrainaWe. Bylaw. 
[In 1275 Parliament enacted] that no king's offi- 
cer should take any reward to do his office, such 
enactment being one of the many proofs of the 
inefficiency of law to restrain corraption ; for 
within fourteen years there were only two judges 
out of lifteen who were not found guilty of the 
grossest extortions. — Knight's Eng., vol. 1, 
ch. 25, p. 385. 

121§. COSMOS, Philosophy of the. Descartes. 
He sets out upon this principle, that in order to 
form the universe, nothing else was requisite but 
matter and motion ; that extension is the essence 
of all bodies, and space being extended as well 
as matter, there is no difference between space 
and matter, consequently there is no void or vac- 
uum in nature. He divides this homogeneous 
ma.ss of space and matter into angular parts of a 
cubical form, leaving no interstices between 
them. " To these cubes," says he, " the Author 
of Nature gave a rotatory motion round their 
axes, and itkewise an impulse forward, which 
drives them round the suu as a centre." From 
the attrition of the parts in this rotation he sup- 
poses the planets to be formed. This strange ro- 
mance . . . seemed to explain several of the 
phenomena of nature. — Tytler's Hist. , Book 6, 
ch. 36. 

1219. COUNSEL of the Dying. Louis XIV. 

Louis did not long survive the pacilication of his 

empire. He died on the 1st of September, 1715, 

in the seventy-eighth year of his age. . . . The last 

words which he'uttered, as reported by Madame 

Maintenon, who heard them, were the dictates 

equallv of a wise and a magnanimous spirit ; he 

called" to him his grandson the dauphin, who 

stood by his bedside, and holding him between 

his arms gave him his blessing, and sjiid to him, 

" yiy son. vou are going to be a great king ; be 

always a good Christian. Do not follow niy e.x- 

j ample with regard Xo war ; endeavor to live in 

1 peace with your neiirhbors. Render to God what 

! vou owe to Him ; follow ahvays the most mod- 



liG 



COUNSEL— COUNTERFEIT. 



erate counsels ; endeavor to reduce the taxes, 
and thus do that which I liave, unhappily, not 
been able to do. Take notice, my son ; these 
are my last words, and let them sink deep mto 
vour mind— remember that kings die like other 
men."— Tytler's Hist.. Book 6, ch. 34. 

1220. COUNSEL, Inopportune. Deputies of 
Naples. As soon as the place was invested by sea 
and land, Belisarius gave audience to the depu- 
ties of the people, who exhorted him to disre- 
gard a conquest unworthy of his arms, to .seek 
the Gothic king in a field of battle, and, after 
his victory, to claim, as the sovereign of Rome, 
the allegiance of the dependent cities. " When 
I treat with my enemies," replied the Roman 
chief, with a haughty smile, " I am more accus- 
tomed to give than to receive counsel ; but I 
hold in one hand inevitable ruin, and In the 
other peace and freedom, such as Sicily now 
enjoys." — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 41. 

1221. COUNSEL, Safety in. Battle. [When 
the forces of William III. obtained their crown- 
ing victory over those of James II. at Aghrim, 
the army of the latter was commanded by the 
Marquis'^St. Ruth, a French general.] St. Ruth 
had made al)le dispositions for the battle, but, 
jealous of the Irish generals, had kept his plans 
to himself, and when he was killed by a cannon 
shot early in the action, there was no one to 
succeed him. The English troops, in spite of 
the well-chosen position of their opponents, to- 
tally routed James' army.— Am. Cyclopedia, 
" Aghbim." 

1222. COUNSELLOR, An evil. Robert Fer- 
guson. [An exile from England and promoter 
of the rebellion against James II.] Ferguson, 
who, ever since the death of Charles, had been 
Monmouth's evil angel, had a suggestion ready. 
The duke had put himself into a false position 
by declining the royal title. Had he declared 
himself sovereign of England, his cause w^ould 
have worn a show of legality. At present it was 
impossible to reconcile his Declaration with the 
principles of the Constitution. It was clear that 
either Monmouth or his uncle was rightful king. 
]\Ionmouth did not venture to pronounce himself 
the rightful king, and yet denied that his uncle 
was so. Those who fought for James fought 
for the only person who ventured to claim the 
throne, and were, therefore, clearlj' in their duty 
according to the laws of the realm. Those who 
f!)ught for Monmouth fought for some unknown 
jwlity, which w^as to be set up by a convention not 
yet in existence. . . . On the morning of the 20th of 
June he was proclaimed in the market-place of 
Taunton. His followers repeated his new title 
with affectionate delight ; but, as some confu- 
sion might have arisen if he had been called King 
James II., they commonly used the strange 
appellation of King Monmouth. — Macaxjlay's 
ExG., ch. 5, p. 544. 

1223. COUNSELLORS, Dangerous. Of James 
II. But there was at the court a small knot of 
Roman Catholics whose hearts had been ulcer- 
ated by old injuries, who.se heads had been 
turned by recent elevation, who were impatient 
to climb to the highest honors of the State, and 
who, having little to lose, were not troubled by 
thoughts of the day of reckoning. One of these 
was Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine in Ire- 
land, and husband of the Duchess of Cleveland. 



His title had notoriously been purchased by his 
wife's dishonor and his own. His fortune was 
small. His temper, naturally ungentle, had 
been exasperated by his domestic vexations, by 
the public reproaches, and by what he had un- 
dergone in the days of the Popish Plot. . . . 
These men called Avith one voice for war on the 
constitution of the Church and the State. They 
told their master that he owed it to his religion 
and to the dignity of his crown to stand firm 
against the outcry of heretical demagogues, and 
to let the Parliament see from the first that he 
would be master in spite of opposition, and that 
the only effect of opposition would be to make 
him a hard master. — M.\caulay's Eng., ch. 6, 
p. 43. 

1224. COUNSELLORS, Whimsical. " Wise 
Woman." The Germans advanced to within a 
few miles of the Roman outposts. The Romans 
lay intrenched near Cernay. The Germans 
were at Colmar. Ca?.sar offered battle, which 
Ariovistus declined. Cavalry fights happened 
daily which led to nothing. Cajsar then formed 
a second camp, smaller but strongly fortified, 
within sight of the enemy, and threw two legions 
into it. "Ariovistus attacked them, but he was 
beaten back with loss. The " -nise women" ad- 
vised him to tr}' no more till the new moon. 
But Ca3.sar would not wait for the moon, and 
forced an engagement. The wives and daugh- 
ters of the Germans rushed about their camp, 
with streaming hair, adjuring their countrymen 
to save them from slavery. The Germans fought 
like heroes, but they could not stand against 
the short sword and hand-to-hand grapple of the 
legionaries. Better arms and better discipline 
again averted the superiority. ... A few swam 
the river ; a few, Ariovi.stus among them, es- 
caped in boats ; all the rest, men and women 
alike, were cut down and killed. — Fkoudk's 
Cesar, ch. 14. 

1225. COUNTERFEIT, Preserved by. Eeign 
of Numa. [There was at Rome] a sacred buck- 
ler, or a/icile, wdiich was said to have dropped 
from heaven, which gave occasion to the foun- 
dation of a new college of priests, who had the 
charge of it, and paraded with it, on particular oc- 
casions, in a kind of dance or procession. These 
were called Salii {asaliendo) ; and, lest the sacred 
buckler should be stolen or lost, eleven others 
were made exactly resembling it, and deposited in 
the templeof Jupiter.— Tytler's Hist., Book 3, 
ch. 1, p. 298. 

1226. COUNTERFEIT Relics. General Grant. 
[When in Egypt, at the village of Luxor of the 
upper Nile,] they w^ere shown a house where an 
American lived' for fifteen years, making . . . 
mummy-lids, hieroglyphic inscriptions, idols and 
relics of all kinds to' suit the purchaser, which 
now doubtless adorn many a private collection. 
—Gen. Grant's Travels, p. 137. 

1127. COUNTERFEIT signature. Antony. 
The Consul Antony, by the steps he had hither- 
to taken, wanted only to sound the dispositions 
of the people. Finding these to his %\ish, he 
very soon began to discover his own views of am- 
bition. He was possessed of the whole of the 
dictator's papers. He had received likewise 
from Calpurnia, the widow, all the treiisures of 
Caesar. Not content with these, he made a traf- 
fic of fabricating acts and deeds, to which he 



COUNTRY— COURxVGE. 



147 



counterfeited the dictator's subscription, and 
availed himself of them as genuine. — Tytlek's 
Hist., Book 4, eh. 2. 

122S. COUNTEY, Contemptible. SamuelJokn- 
son. Mr. Ogilvie was unlucky enough to choose 
for the topic of his conversation the praises of 
his native country. . . . He observed that Scot- 
land had a great many noble wild prospects. 
Johnson: "I believe, sir, j'ou have a great 
many. Norway, too, has noble wild prospects ; 
and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble 
wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you, the 
noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees 
is the high road that leads him to England !" 
This unexpected and pointed sally produced a 
roar of applause. — Boswell's Johnson, p. 117. 

1229. COUNTEY, A deserted. Rome in Rebel- 
lion. When the troops of Maximin, advancing 
in excellent order, arrived at the foot of the 
Julian Alps, they were terrified by the silence 
a/id desolation that reigned on the frontiers of 
Italy. The villages and open towns had been 
abandoned on their approach by the inhabitants, 
the cattle was driven away, the provisions re- 
moved or destroj'ed, the bridges broken down, 
nor was anything left which could afford either 
shelter or subsistence to an invader. Such had 
been the wise orders of the generals of the 
Senate, whose design was to protract the war, 
to ruin the army of Maximin by the slow opera- 
tion of famine, and to consume his strength 
ill the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, 
which they had plentifully stored with men and 
provisions from the deserted country. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 7. 

1230. COUNTEY, Preservation of One's. So- 
lon's Law. The most peculiar and surprising of 
his other laws is that which declares the man 
infamous who stands neuter in the time of sedi- 
tion. It seems he would not have us be indif- 
ferent and unaffected with the fate of the pub- 
lic when our own concerns are upon a safe bot- 
tom ; nor when we are in health be insensible 
to the distempers and griefs of our country. He 
would have us espouse the better and juster 
cause, and hazard everything in defence of it, 
rather than wait in safety to see which side the 
victory will incline to. — Plutarch. 

1231. COUNTEYMEN abused. Reign of Charles 
II. When the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shrop- 
shire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was 
as easily distinguished from the resident pop- 
ulation as a Turk or a Lascar. His dress, his 
gait, his accent, the manner in which he stared 
at the shops, stumbled into the gutters, ran 
against the porters, and stood under the water- 
spouts marked him out as an excellent subject 
for the operations of swindlers and banterers. 
Bullies jostled him into the kennel. Hackney- 
coachmen splashed him from head to foot. 
Thieves explored with perfect security the huge 
pockets of his horseman's coat, while he stood 
entranced by the splendor of the lord mayor's 
show. Monej'-droppers, sore from the cart's 
tail, introduced themselves to him, and appeared 
to him the most honest, friendly gentlemen 
that he had ever seen. Painted women, the ref- 
use of Lewkner Lane and Whetstone Park, 
passed themselves on him for countesses and 
maids of honor. If he asked his way to St. 
James', his informants sent him to Mile End. 



If he went into a .shop, he was instantlj' discerned 
to be a fit purcha.ser of everything that nobody 
else would Ijuy — of second-hand embroidery, 
copper rings, and watches that would not go. — 
Macaulay's Eno., ch. 3. 

1232. COUEAGE in Battle. Mardus. [When 
the Romans met the Yolscians,] Marcius in- 
quired of Cominius in what manner the enemy's 
army was drawn up, and where their best troops 
were posted. Being an.swered that the Anti- 
ates, who were placed in the centre, were sup- 
posed to be the bravest and most warlike, " I beg 
it of you, then," said Marcius, " as a favor, that 
you will place me directly opposite to them." — 
Plutarch. 

1233. COUEAGE, Christian. Martyrs. [Dr. 
Rowland Taylor, the martyr, was told :] " Ifj'ou 
will not rise with us now, and receive mercy now 
offered, j'ou shall have judgment according to 
your demerit." . . . [He replied :] " So to rise 
should be the greatest fall that ever I could re- 
ceive ; for I should so fall from my dear Sa\iour 
Christ to Antichrist." . . . [Hooper was urgec 
to recant. He replied in these solemn words : 
" I have taught the truth with my tongue anc 
with my pen heretofore ; and hereafter shal 
.shortly contirm the same, by God's grace, with 
my blood." [Latimer Avas iirged to submit to 
the Church, but refu.sed, and before the commis- 
sioners the aged man encoiu'aged his j'ounger 
friend, Ridley, saying :] "Be of good comfort, 
3Iaster Ridley, and play the man ! We .shall this 
day light such a candle, by God's grace, in Eng- 
land as shall never be put out." [Cranmer was 
urged to recant. His natural courage was not 
strong ; but he renounced his former recantation, 
and added :] " Forasmuch as my hand offend- 
ed in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my 
hand shall lirst be punished ; for if I maj^ come 
to the tire, it shall first be burned." ■ At the 
burning he thrust it into the flames, exclaiming, 
with a loud voice, "This hand hath offended !" 
— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, ch. 6. 

1234. . John Wesley. [At Sheffield 

he was contradicted by a blaspheming military 
officer while preaching.] Stones were thrown, 
hitting the desk and people. To save them and 
the house, he gave notice that he would preach 
out of doors, and look the enemy in the face. 
He prayed for sinners as servants of their master, 
the devil, upon which an officer ran at him with 
great fury, threatening revenge for his abuse, as 
he called it, of the king, his master. He forced 
his way through the crowd, drew his sword, and 
presented it to the breast of the preacher, who 
threw open his vest, and, fixing his eye on his as- 
sailant, calmly said : " I fear God, and honor the 
king." The captain's countenance fell in a mo- 
ment ; he put up his sword, andquicklj' retreated 
from the scene. — Stevens' Methodism, vol. 1, 
p. 190. 

1235. COUEAGE of Despair. Gladiators. The 
triumph due to the valor of Probus, the Roman 
general, was conducted with a magnificence 
suitable to his fortune, and the people who had 
.so lately admired the trophies of Aurelian gazed 
with equal pleasure on those of his heroic suc- 
cessor. We cannot, on this occasion, forget the 
desperate courage of about fourscore gladiators, 
reserved, with near six hundred others, for the 
inhuman sports of the amphitheatre. Disdain- 



148 



COURAGE. 



ino- to shed their blood lor the amusement of the 
populace, they killed their keepers, broke from 
the place of their continement, and filled the 
streets of Rome with blood and confusion. Af- 
ter an obstinate resistance they were overpow- 
ered and cut in pieces by the regular forces ; but 
they obtained at least an honorable death, and 
the satisfaction of a just revenge.— Gibbon's 
Rome, ch. 12. 

1236. COURAGE or Disgrace. Frederick the 
0-reat. [His army was about to attack three times 
their number of Austrians. He said to his ofli- 
cers:] " The regiment of cavalry which shall not 
instantly, at the order, charge, shall be dismount- 
ed and sent into garrisons ; the battalion of in- 
fantry that shall but falter shall lose its colors 
and its swords. Now farewell, friends ; soon we 
shall have vanquished, or we shall see each other 
no more." [A great victory was won at Leu- 
then.] -Bancroft's U. S., vol. 4, ch. 12. 

1237. COURAGE, Intrepid. PrtJice of Walex. 
[Margaret of Anjou, wife of the captive king,] 
prepared to strike a decisive blow for the Crown 
of England. This was at Tewkesbury, where 
she commanded her army in person, and led her 
son, the Prince of AVales, through the ranks. But 
all was in vain ; victory declared in favor of Ed- 
ward, and the unhappy mother, separated from 
her son, was sent a prisoner to the Tower of 
London. The Piinoe of Wales, a youth of in- 
trepid spirit, being brought into the presence of 
Edward, and asked, in an insulting manner, how 
he dared to invade the territories of his sovereign, 
"I have entered," said he, "the dominions of 
my father, to revenge Ms injuries and redress w^ 
own." The barbarous Edward is said to have 
struck him in the face with his gauntlet, while 
the dukes of Gloucester and Clarence, and others 
of the attendants, rushed upon the noble youth 
and stabbed him to the heart with their daggers. 
— Tytler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 14. 

123§. COURAGE, Loss of. By one Man. The 
immediate loss of Constantinople may be a.scrib- 
ed to the bullet, or arrow, which pierced the 
gauntlet of .John Justiniani. The sight of his 
blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the cour- 
age of the chief, whose arms and counsels were 
the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrew 
from his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight 
was perceived and stopped by the indefatigable 
emperor. "Your Avound," exclaimed Palseolo- 
gus, "is slight; the danger is pressing; your 
presence is necessary ; and whither will you re- 
tire V" " I will retire," said the trembling Gen- 
oese, " by the same road which God has opened 
to the Turks ;" and at these words he hastily 
passed through one of the breaches of the inner 
Avail. By this pusillanimous act he stained the 
honors of a military life ; and the few days which 
he survived in Galata, or the Isle of Chios, were 
embittered by his own and the public reproach. 
His example was imitated by the greatest part of 
the Latin auxiliaries. — Gibbon's IIo.mk, ch. 68. 
1239. COURAGE of Madness. Ghaiies XII. 
[After receiving pacific proposals from the 
Turks, he rejected them and defied the whole 
power of the Ottoman Empire.] His OAvn offi- 
cers employed supplications, remonstrances, and 
at length menaces, to make him depart from 
his frantic design. Charles Avas inflexible. [He 
had but three hundred men, and was surrounded 



by Turks.] The attack was begun, and the in- 
trenchments, invested at once on every quarter, 
were broken in an instant. A small hoftse with- 
in the camp became the citadel and last resort of 
Charles and his intrepid Swedes. Their number 
was now reduced to a very few, whom personal 
regard attached to their sovereign. They did not 
fail, however, to remonstrate with him against 
the madness of his resolution ; and in consulting 
how to sustain a siege in this last retreat, there 
Avas but one man who declared a positive opin- 
ion that the place might be defended. This was 
his Majesty's cook. "" Then, sir," says the king, 
" I name you my chief engineer." They noAV 
proceeded to barricade the doors and Avindows, 
and kept up an Incessant fire from Avithin upon 
the whole Turkish army. The besiegers, exas- 
perated at length at the numbers killed by this 
handful of madmen, threw fire upon the roof of 
the house, which in a moment was all in flames. 
It Avas noAV necessary to quit their post ; a des- 
perate sally Avas made, and this handful of 
Swedes, armed Avith their swords and pistols, 
Avere cutting their passage through an army of 
several thousand men, Avhen Charles, entangled 
Avith his spurs, and accidentally falling to the 
ground, Avas surrounded by a body of janizaries. 
In short, the whole troop, after making an in- 
credible carnage, Avere seized and taken prison- 
ers. An attempt of this kind is only to be par- 
alleled in the romances of knight-errantry. This 
obstinancy and infatuation was the occasion of 
the loss of Charles' dominions in Germany, and 
almost of his kingdom of Sweden. — Tytler's 
Hist., Book 6, ch. 35. 

1240. COURAGE, Masterly. Charles XII 
[The Danes and Pru.ssians besieged Stralsund in 
Pomerania. The Swedes made a brave defence.] 
An incident is recorded of this siege which strong- 
ly marks the character of Charles. The town 
Avas bombarded, and a shell penetrated the roof 
of his house, and fell into the apartment where 
he was dictating his despatches. The secretary, 
terrified out of his senses, having let fall his pen 
— " Go on," said the king, graA'ely ; " what has 
the bombshell to do with the letter which I am 
dictating ?" The city, however, Avas taken, and 
Charles obliged to escape in a small bark to 
Carlescroon, where he passed the Avintcr. — Tyt- 
ler's Hist., Book 6, ch. 35. 

1241. COURAGE, Moral. Martin Luther. 
[He had been summoned to appear before the 
emperor at Worms.] As he Avas nearing the 
city of Worms, his friend Spalatin, who was in 
the company of the elector, sent him a message 
Avarning him not to enter the city and to incur 
so great danger. Luther replied to him : "To 
Worms was I called, and to Worms must I go. 
And Avere there as many devils there as tiles up- 
on the roofs, yet would I enter into that city." 
— Rein's Luther, ch. 9, p. 84. 

1242. . Bev. Samuel Johixson. 

[Convicted of disseminating seditious tracts.] 
Julian Johnson, as he Avas popularly called, Avas 
sentenced to stand thrice in the pillory, and to 
be whipped from NcAA'gate to Tyburn. The 
judge, Sir Francis Withins, told the criminal to 
be thankful for the great lenity of the attorney- 
general, Avho might "have treated the case as one 
of high treason." " I OAve him no thanks," an- 
swered Johnson, dauntlessly. "Am I, whose 



COURAGE. 



U9 



only crime is that I have defended the Church 
and the hiws, to be grateful for being scourged 
like a dog, while popish scribblers are suffered 
daily to insult the Church and to violate the laws 
with impunity ?" The energy with which he 
spoke was such that both the judges and the 
Crown lawyers thought it necessary to vindicate 
themselves, and protested that they knew of no 
popish publications such as those to which the 
prisoner alluded. He instantly drew from his 
pocket some Roman Catholic books and trinkets, 
which were then freely exposed for sale under 
the royal patronage, read aloud the titles of the 
books, and threw a rosary across the table to the 
king's counsel. " And now," he cried, with a 
loud voice, " I lay this information before God, 
before this court, and before the English people. 
We shall soon see whether ]Mr. Attorney will do 
his duty." — Macaxjlay's Eng., ch. 6. 

1243. . Gtideon Ouseley. [Gideon 

Ouseley met with much opposition, and some- 
times {x-ril, from the Irish Roman Catholics 
among whom he labored as an itinerant Metho- 
dist. He was an Irishman of great courage and 
frankness.] In a town filled with Romanists he 
hired the bellman, as was his custom, to announce 
through the streets preaching for the evening. 
The man, afraid of opposition, uttered the an- 
nouncement timidly and indistinctly. Ouseley, 
passing in the street, heard him, and taking the 
bell, rang it himself, proclaiming aloud : " This 
is to give you notice that Gideon Ouseley, the 
Irish missionary, is to preach this evening in 
such a place, and at such an hour. And I am 
tJie man myse^/"."— Stevens' Methodisai. 

1244, . Raleigh. [When Sir Wal- 

ti;r Raleigh came to the scaffold he was very 
f.'dnt, and commenced his speech to the crowd 
by saying that during the last two days lie had 
been visited by two ague fits.] "If, therefore, 
you perceive any weakness in me, I beseech you 
ascribe it to my sickness rather than to myself." 
He took the axe and kis.sed the blade, and said to 
the sheriff, " 'Tis a sharp medicine, but a sound 
cure for all diseases."— Knight's Eng., vol. 3, 
ch. 24, p. 376. 

1245. . Gurdun. [When Rich- 
ard I. (the Lion) was near his death,] he then or- 
dered Bertram de Gurdun, who had wounded 
him, to come into his presence, and said to him : 
" What harm have I done to you, that you have 
killed me ?" On which he made answer : " You 
slew my father and my two brothers with your 
own hand, and you intend now to kill me ; 
therefore take any revenge on me that you may 
think fit, for I will readily endure the greatest 
torments you can devise, so long as you have 
met with your end, after having inflicted evils 
so many and so great upon the world. " — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 1, ch. 22, p. 330. 

1246. COURAGE, Noble. Riunbold. [Under 
the Duke of Argyle he had attempted to over- 
throw the rule of James II. in Scotland. The 
enterprise was disastrous, and Rumbold mortally 
wounded.] He was hastily tried, convicted, and 
sentenced to be hanged and quarter(^d within a 
few hours, near the city cross in the High Street 
[Edinburgh]. Though unable to stand without 
the support of two men, he maintained his forti- 
tude to the last, and under tne gibbet raised his 
feeble voice against popery and tyranny with 



such vehemence that the officers ordered the 
drums to strike up lest the people sliotild hear 
him. He was a friend, he said, to limited mon- 
archy ; but he never would believe that Provi- 
dence had sent a few men into the world ready 
booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready 
saddled and bridled to be ridden. " I de.sire," 
lie cried, " to bless and magnify God's holy name 
for this, that I stand here, not for any wrong 
that I have done, but for adhering to His cause 
in an evil day. If every hair of my head were 
a man, in this quarrel I would venture them all." 
— Mac.\ulay's Eng., ch. 5, p. 525. 

1247. COURAGE, Opportunity for. Frederick 
the Great. [He addressed his officers before his 
unequal battle with the Austrians.] A part of 
Silesia, my capital [Berlin], my stores of war, are 
lost ; my disasters would be extreme had I not 
a boundless trust in your courage, firmness, and 
love of country. . . . The moment for courage 
has come. Listen, then ; I am resolved, against 
all rules of the art of war, to attack the nearly 
threefold .stronger army of Charles of Lcjrraine, 
wherever I may find it. There is no question of 
the number of the enemy, nor of the strength of 
their position. We must beat them, or all of us 
find our graves before their batteries. Thus I 
think, thus I mean to act. . . . Does any one 
of you fear to share all dangers with me, he can 
this day retire ; I never will reproach him. 
Then, as the enthusiasm enkindled around him, 
he added, with a serene smile, " I know that not 
one of you will leave me." — Bancroft's U. S., 
vol. 4, ch. 4. 

124S. COURAGE, Only physical. Marlborough. 
[The Duchess of Marlborough held the office of 
lady of the wardrobe to Queen Anne. She was 
to be removed from her position because of the 
dislike of the queen. Her husband, " the great- 
est captain of the age,"] presented to the queen a 
humble letter from the duchess, expressing her 
apprehension that her lord could not live six 
months if some end was not put to his suffer- 
ings on her account. " I am really sorry that I 
ever did anything that was uneasy to your Majes- 
ty." The duke then implored her majesty not 
to renounce the duchess — not to discharge her 
from the great office she held. ' ' I cannot change 
my resolution," said the queen. Again he en- 
treated. "Let the key be sent me within three 
days." The victor of Blenheim is now on his 
knees, imploring for a respite of ten days. " Send 
me the key in two days," cried the inexorable 
queen. The duchess had more spirit than her 
lord. When the duke told her the queen ex- 
pected the gold key, she took it from her side 
and threw it'into the middle of the room, and bid 
him take it up and carry it to whom he pleased. 
—Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 24, p. 265. 

1249. COURAGE recovered. Bishop Cranmer. 
The courage which Cranmer had shown since 
the accession of Mary gave way the moment his 
final doom was announced. The moral coward- 
ice which had displayed itself in his miserable 
compliance with the lust and despotism of Henry 
displayed itself again in six successive recanta- 
tions by which lie hoped to purchase pardon. 
But pardon was impossible ; and Cranmer's 
strangely mingled nature found a power in its 
very w^eakness when he was brought into the 
church of St. Mary at Oxford on the 21st of 



150 



COURAGE— COURT. 



March, to repeat his recantation on the way to 
the stake. "Now," ended his address to the 
hushed congregation before him — " now I come 
to the great thing tliat troubletli my conscience 
more than any other thing that ever I said or did 
in my Hfe, and tliat is the setting abroad of writ- 
ings contrary to the truth ; which here I now re- 
nounce and refuse as things written by my hand 
contrary to the truth wliich I thought in my 
heart, and written for fear of death to save my 
life, if it might be. And, forasmuch as my hand 
offended in writing contrary to my heart, my 
hand therefore shall be the first punished ; for 
if I come to the fire, it shall be the first burned. 
This was the hand that wrote it," he again ex- 
claimed at the stake, " therefore it shall suffer 
first punishment ;" and holding it steadily in the 
flame, "he never stirred nor cried" till life was 
gone. — Hist, of Eng. People, § 667. 

1250. COURAGE, Religious. Puritan. Abra- 
ham Holmes, a retired officer of the Parliamen- 
tary army, and one of those zealots who would 
own no king but King Jesus, had been taken at 
Sedgemoor. His arm had been frightfully man- 
gled and shattered in the battle ; and, as no sur- 
geon was at hand, the stout old soldier amputat- 
ed it himself. He was carried up to London 
and examined by the king in council, but would 
make no submission. " I am an aged man," he 
said, "and what remains to me of life is not 
worth a falsehood or a baseness. I have alwaj's 
been a Republican, and I am so still." He was 
sent back to the west and hanged. The people 
remarked with awe and wonder that the beasts 
which were to drag him to the gallows became 
restive and went back. Holmes himself doubted 
not that the Angel of the Lord, as in the old 
lime, stood in the wa3\ sword in hand, invisible 
to human eyes, but visible to the inferior animals. 
"Stop, gentlemen," he cried, "let me go on 
foot. There is more in this than you think. 
Remember how the ass saw Him whom the 
prophet could not see." He walked manfully to 
the gallows. — Macaulay's Exg., ch. 5, p. 600. 

1251. COURAGE, Safety in. Bajazet. [Amu- 
rath, the famous Ottoman general, held a council 
of war before battle with the Christians on the 
plain of Cassova.] In default of artillery to break 
open these masses, Ainebeg and Saridje Pasha 
proposed to place in the first lines, before the front 
of the Ottoman army, the six thousand Asiatic 
camels that carried the tents, the provisions, and 
the baggage of their divisions, to the end of ex- 
hausting upon these animals the arrows of the 
enemy, and of striking astonishment and terror 
into the ranks of the Christians by the aspect and 
by the moanings of the camels, unknown to the 
soldiers of Europe. This opinion was prevailing 
when the impetuous Bajazet, more chivalrous 
still than princely, opposed it with the disdain 
of a hero. " Have the sous of Othman," cried 
Bajazet, " ever feared to meet their enemies face 
to face ? Is it then in sheltering themselves like 
women behind the baggage, the elephants, or the 
camels, that they have conquered Asia from mul- 
titudes armed against them with all the arts and 
the appliances of warfare ? Are such artifices 
worthy of the divine cause for which we fight ? 
Is it not an avowal of fear at a moment when 
the only safety is in courage ? Is it not to doubt 
of God in presence of His prof aners ? Is not our 



confidence in Him as our first bulwark our best 
force ? The victory is his who believes himself 
victor, not his who is in dread of being van- 
quished." [They obtained a decisive victory.] 
Lamartine's Tukkey, p. 272. 

1252. COURAGE, Unfaltering. Pelopidas. 
When he had arrived at Pharsalus, he assembled 
his forces, and then marched directly against 
Alexander ; who, knowing that Pelopidas had 
but few Thebans about him, and that he him- 
self had double the number of Thessalian in- 
fantry, went to meet him as far as the temple 
of Thetes. "When he was informed that the ty- 
rant was advancing toward him with a great 
army, " So much the better," said he, " for we 
shall beat so many the more." — Plutarch's 
Pelopidas. 

1253. COURAGE, Unshaken. At Tripoli. 
Decatur conceived the project of running into 
the harbor with a small vessel, surprising the 
frigate, and setting her on fire. How neatly th's 
was done, most readers know. The surprise 
was so complete, that Decatur had possession of 
the ship in just ten minutes after he had given the 
order to board. Combustibles were all ready, 
and were placed in various parts of the vesseL 
At the signal they were set on fire, and the shi]>, 
dry as tinder from many months' exposure to a 
tropical sun, blazed up with such rapidity that 
the ketch in which the Americans had boarded 
her narrowly escaped being involved in the 
same conflagration. ... In this affair Lieuten- 
ant Lawrence commanded one division of the at- 
tacking party, and behaved with admirable cool- 
ness and gallantry. Decatur pronounced a fine 
eulogium upon him when he said, " There is 
no more dodge about Lawrence than there is 
about the mainmast." — Cyclopedia op Biog , 
p. 123. 

1254. COURT, Infamous. Trial of Clodius. 
[He attempted to corrupt Pompeia, the wife of 
Caesar, and was brought to trial.] Marcus Cras- 
sus . . . during the night sent for the judges ' 
one by one. He gave them money. What else he 
gave or promised them must continue veiled in 
Cicero's Latin. Before these influences the res- 
olution of the judges melted away, and when 
the time came thirtj^-one out of fifty-six high- 
born Roman peers and gentlemen declared Clo- 
dius innocent. The original cause was nothing. 
That a profligate young man should escape pun- 
ishment for a licentious frolic was comparatively 
of no consequence ; ])ut the trial acquired a no- 
toriety of infamy which shook once more the 
already tottering constitution. — Froude's C^- 
SAR, ell. 12. 

1255. COURT, A terrible. Star Chamber. 
The king in his coimcil had always asserted a 
right in the last resort to enforce justice and 
peace by dealing with offenders too strong to be 
dealt with by his ordinary courts. Henry sys- 
tematized this occasional jurisdiction by ap- 
pointing, in 1486, a committee of his council as a 
regular court, to which the place where it usu- 
ally sat gave the name of the court of star cham- 
ber. The king's aim was probably little more 
than a purpose to enforce order on the land by 
bringing the great nobles before his own judg- 
ment-seat ; but the establishment of the court 
as a regular and no longer an exceptional tribu- 
nal, whose traditional powers were confirmed 



COURTESAN— COVETOUSNESS. 



151 



by Parliamentary statute, and where the absence 
of a jury cancelled the prisoner's right to be tried 
by his peers, furnished his son with an instru- 
ment of t^'ranny which laid justice at the feet 
of the monarchy. — Hist, of Eng. People, 
§ 496. 

1256. COURTESAN, Influential. Aspas/a. 
The house of the courtesan Aspasia was honor- 
ed with his [Socrates] frequent visits. He 
found in that accomplished woman a mind 
stored with various knowledge, an acute and 
vigorous understanding, and those engaging 
manners which gave her a powerful hold on the 
minds of the Athenian youth. She was the 
mistress and confidante of Pericles, who did 
not disdain to consult her on affairs of public 
concern. If we should hesitate to suppose that 
the philosopher thought it not unworthy of 
his character to improve her morals and reclaim 
her mind to virtue, he might reasonably seek 
his own improvement, and avail himself of 
her knowledge of the world to enlarge and 
extend his power of utility. — Tytler's Hist., 
Book 2, ch. 9. 

1257. COURTESY denied. James K. Polk. 
When Mr. Polk closed his service in the [Speak- 
er's] chair, at the end of the Twenty-fifth Con- 
gress, no Whig member could be found to 
move the customary resolution of thanks — an 
act of courtesy which derives its chief grace by 
coming from a political opponent. When the 
resolution was presented by a Democratic Rep- 
resentative from the South, it was opposed in de- 
bate by prominent Whig members. . . . The 
Whigs as a party resisted its adoption. The Dem- 
ocrats could not even bring the House to a vote 
upon the resolution without the use of the pre- 
icious question. [He was accused of partiality, 
injustice, and narrowness.] — Blaine's Twenty 
Years of Congress, p. 59. 

1258. COURTESY forfeited. Cromwell. [He 
swept over the country like a tempest.] He 
threw himself before Winchester. The last- 
named place surrendered by capitulation. While 
here he very courteously sent in to the Bishop 
of Winchester, and offered him a guard to se- 
cure his person ; but the bishop, tlying into the 
castle, refused his courtesy. Afterward, when 
the castle began to be battered by two pieces of 
ordnance, he sent to the lieutenant-general, 
thanking him for the great favor offered to him, 
and being now more sensible what it was, he 
desired the enjoyment of it. To whom the 
wise lieutenant-general replied, that since he 
made not u.se of the courtesy, but wilfully ran 
away from it, he must now partake of the same 
conditions as the others who were with him in 
the castle ; and if he were taken, he must ex- 
pect to be used as a pri.souer of war. — Hood's 
Cromwell, ch. 10, p. 138. 

1259. COURTESY, Marked. English. Cour- 
tesy to strangers, and to each other, which . . . 
was a peculiarit}' of the English [in 1509], has 
scarcely so maintained its -ancient ascendancy. 
' ' They have the incredible courtesj' of remain- 
ing with their heads uncovered, with an admir- 
able grace, while they talk to each other." — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 15, p. 254. 

1260. COURTESY to the Unfortunate. Black 
Prince. [At the battle of Poitiers the Black 
Prince defeats and captures the French king 



John II.] That niglit the Prince of Wales [the 
Black Prince] made a supper in his lodging for 
the French king and to the great lords that 
were prisoners. " And always the Prince serv- 
ed before the king, as humbly as he cf)uld, and 
would not sit at the king's board, for any (iesire 
that the king could make, and exhorted him 
not to be of heavy cheer, for that King Edward, 
his father, should bear him all honor and amity, 
and accord with him .so reasonably that they 
should be friends ever after." . . . This scene, 
so gracefully performed by him who, a few 
hours before, was " courageous and cruel as a 
lion," was in perfect accordance with the system 
of chivalry. — Knight's Eng., vol. 1, ch. 31, p. 
476. 

1261. COURTS, Injustice of. Persecution. To 
abolish the worship and to dissolve the govern- 
ment of the Christians, it was thought necessary 
to subject to the most intolerable hardships the 
condition of those perverse indi\iduals who 
should still reject the religion of nature, of Rome, 
and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal birth 
were declared incapable of holding any honors 
or employments ; slaves were forever deprived of 
the hopes of freedom, and the whole bod}' of the 
people were put out of the protection of the law. 
The judges were authorized to hear and to deter- 
mine every action that was brought against a 
Christian. But the Christians were not permit- 
ted to complain of any injury which they them- 
selves had suffered ; and thus those unfortunate 
sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they 
were excluded from the benefits, of public jus- 
tice. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 16. 

1262. COURTS packed. Beign of James IT. 
[.Judges were appointed for the purpoise of secur- 
ing the desired judgment.] .Judgment was given 
by the lord chief justice, Sir Edward Herbert, 
lie announced that he had submitted the question 
to all the judges, and that, in the opinion of eleven 
of them, the king might lawfully dispense with 
penal statutes in particular cases, and for special 
reasons of grave importance. . . . There can be no 
reasonable doubt that the dissenting judge was, 
like the plaintiff and the plaintiff's counseh acting 
collusively. It was important that there should 
be a great preponderance of authority in favor of 
the dispensing power ; yet it was important that 
the bench, wliich had been carefully packed for 
the occasion, should appear to be independent. 
One judge, therefore, the least respectable of the 
twelve, was permitted, or more probablj' com- 
manded, to give his voice against the preroga- 
tive. — Macaulay's Eng., ch. 6, p. 78. 

1263. COURTS, Scandalous. Peign of Charles 
T. The judges of the couuiion law, holding 
their situations during the pleasure of the king, 
were scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious 
as they were, they were less ready and efficient 
instruments of arbitrary power tlian a class of 
courts, the memory of which is still, after the 
lapse of more than two centuries, held in deep 
abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among 
these courts in power and in infamj' were the 
Star Chamber and the High Commission, the for- 
mer a politica?, the latter a religious, inquisition. 
Neither was a part of the old Constitution of Eng- 
land. — Macaulay's ExG., ch. 1. p. 83. 

1264. CO"VETOUSNESS, Contemptible. Henry 
III. History presents him in scarcely any other 



153 



COVETOUSNESS— COWARDICE. 



light than that of an extortioner and a beggar. 
The records of the Exchequer abundantly show, 
that, for fort}' years, there were no contrivances 
for obtaining money so mean or unjust that he 
disdained to practise them. — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 1, ch. 24, p. 261. 

1265. COVETOUSNESS punished. Oold. Mith- 
ridates . . . sent Aquillius round the cities of the 
province seated on an ass, with a proclamation 
stating that to his covetous dealings alone the 
war was due, and then put him to death by hav- 
ing molten gold poured down his throat. — Lid- 
dell's Rome, ch. 59, 4^ 6, p. 596. 

1266. COVETOUSNESS, Royal. Henry III. 
In 1239 the queen bore a son, Edward ; and then 
the streets were illuminated, while bands of 
dancers made the night joyful with drum and 
tambourine. But Henry . . . was not satisfied with 
barren rejtMcings. He sent out messengers to ask 
for presents, into city and into country. They 
came back. If well loaded, the king smiled ; if 
the gift were small, it was rejected with contempt. 
" God gave us the child," said a Norman, " but 
the king sells him to us." In 1251 he went about 
seeking hospitality of abbots, friars, clerks, and 
men of low degree, staying with them and asking 
gifts." . . . 'Two years before this . . . Henry 
shamelessly transgressed the bounds of royal dig- 
nity, by exacting New Year's gifts from the citi- 
zens of London. " Lend me £100," said the king 
to the abbot of Ramsay ; and the abbot replied : 
" I have sometimes given, but never lend," and 
so went to the money-lenders and borrowed it, 
"that he might .satisfy the wants of this beggar 
king."— Knight's Eng., vol. 1, ch. 24, p. 362. 

1267. COWARD, The deserted. Perseus. [Af- 
ter receiving an overwhelming defeat from the 
Romans, Perseus, the King of the Macedonians,] 
fled from Pydna to Pella, with his cavalry, which 
had suffered no loss. When the foot overtook 
them, they reproached them as cowards and trai- 
tors, pulled them off their horses, and wounded 
several of them ; so that the king, dreading the 
consequences of the tumult, turned his horse out 
of the common road ; and, lest he should be 
known, wrapped up his purple robe, and put it 
before him ; he also took off his diadem, and car- 
ried it in his hand ; and that he might converse 
the more conveniently with his friends, alighted 
from his horse and led him. But they all slunk 
away from him by degrees : one under pretense 
of tying his shoe, another of watering his horse, 
and a third of being thirsty himself ; not that 
they were so much afraid of the enemy, as of the 
cruelty of Perseus, who, exasperated with his 
misfortunes, sought to lay the blame of his mis- 
carriage on anybody but himself. — Plutarch's 
Paulus u3i;milius. 

126S. COWARD, Professions of the. Gelimer. 
[The defeated king of Carthage.] In the even- 
ing Belisarius led his infantry to the attack of 
the camp ; and the pusillanimous flight of Geli- 
mer exposed the vanity of his recent declarations, 
that to the vanquished death was a relief, life a 
burden, and infamy the only object of terror. 
His departure was secret ; but as soon as the 
Vandals discovered that their king had deserted 
them, they hastily dispersed, anxious only for 
their personal safety, and careless of every ob- 
ject that is dear or valuable to mankind. — Gib- 
BO.x's Rome, ch. 41. 



1269. COWARDICE, Appearance of. Abdallah. 
[Gregory offered his daughter's hand and great 
riches to the youth who would bring him the 
head of Abdallah, the general of the Saracens. 
He withdrew from tlie fleld at the solicitation of 
his brethren.] A noble Arabian ... on the 
news of the battle, Zobeir, with twelve compan- 
ions, cut his way through the camp of the Greeks, 
and pressed forward, without tasting either food 
or repose, to partake of the dangers of his breth- 
ren. He cast his eyes round the field : " Where," 
said he, " is our general ?" "In his tent." "Is 
the tent a station for the general of the Moslems ?" 
Abdallah represented with a blush the importance 
of his own life, and the temptation that was held 
forth by the Roman prefect. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. 51. 

1270. COWARDICE of the Cruel. Nero. 
Nero, abandoned by his guards, was obliged to 
conceal himself in the house of one of his freed- 
men. The Senate proclaimed him an enemy to 
his country, and condemned him to die more 
7)iajorum^that is, to be scourged, thrown from 
the Tarpeian rock, and then flung into the Ti- 
ber. Unable to bear the thoughts of such a death, 
Nero tried the points of two daggers, but wanted 
courage to die by his own hand. He entreated 
the aid of one of his slaves, who was not slow in 
the performance of that friendly oflSce ... a 
character happily difficult to be paralleled in the 
annals of human nature. — Tytler's Hist. , Book 

5, ch. 1. 

1271. COWARDICE despised. " General White- 
feather." [General Whitlock surrendered Monte- 
video in a cowardly manner, and returned to 
England with a whole skin. He was nicknamed 
General Whitefeather.]— Knight's Eng., vol. 7, 
ch. 27, p. 486. 

1272. . " Little King." Ferdinand 

attacked his former ally with the united forces 
of Castile and Arragon. The war was tedious, 
and lasted several years. Isabella accompanied 
her husband in several of his military expedi- 
tions, and attended him when he laid siege to the 
city of Granada, in 1491. After a blockade of 
eight months, the pusillanimous Abo-Abdell, 
who has been called El Rey Chico, or the Little 
King, meanly capitulated, contrary to the senti- 
ments and urgent remonstrances of above twenty 
thousand of the inhabitants, who offered to de- 
fend their native city to the last extremity. The 
treaty between Abo-Abdeli and Ferdinand secur- 
ed to the Moors of Granada a small mountain- 
ous part of the kingdom, with the enjoyment of 
their laws and refigion. The Moorish prince, 
execrated by his people, betook himself to this 
despicable retreat. He is said to have wept when 
he cast back his eyes to the beautiful plain and 
city of Granada. " You have reason," said his 
mother, " to weep like a woman for the loss of 
that kingdom, which you could not defend like 
a man." Thus ended the dominion of the Moors 
in Spain, about eight hundred years after its 
foundation [a.d. 1491].— Tytler's Hist., Book 

6, ch. 14. 

1273. COWARDICE, Disgrace of. Daniel Scott. 
[Sir Walter Scott's l)rother.] Daniel Scott was 
the black sheep of the family. He got into diffi- 
culties in business, formed a bad connection with 
an artful woman, and was sent to try his fortunes 
in the West Indies. There he was employed in 



COWARDICE— CREDULITY. 



153 



some service against a body of refractory negroes, 
. . . and apparently showed the white feather. Mr. 
Lockhart says that " he returned to Scotland a 
dishonored man ; and though he found shelter 
and compassion from his mother, liis brother 
would never see him again. Nay, when, soon 
after, his health, shattered by dissolute indul- 
gence, . . . gave way altogether, and he died, as 
yet a young man, the poet refu.sed either to at- 
tend his funeral or to wear mourning for him, 
like the rest of his family." Indeed, he always 
spoke of him as his " relative," not as his lm)th< r. 
Here again Scott's severity was due to his broth- 
er's failure as a "man of honor" — i.e., in cour- 
age. — Mutton's Scott, ch. 11. 

1274. COWARDICE prevented. Eohert Ouis- 
card. [Normans were victorious over the Greeks.] 
On the report and distant prospect of these for- 
midable numbers, Robert assembled a council of 
his principal officers. " You behold," said he, 
"your danger ; it is urgent and inevitable. The 
hills are covered with arms and standards, and 
the emperor of the Greeks is accu.stomed to wars 
and triumphs. Obedience and union are our 
only safety, and I am ready to yield the com- 
mand to a more worthy leader." The vote and 
acclamation, even of his secret enemies, assured 
him, in that perilous moment, of their esteem 
and confidence ; and the duke thus continued : 
" Let us trust in the rewards of victory, and de- 
prive cowardice of the means of escape. Let us 
burn our vessels and our baggage, and give bat- 
tle on this spot, as if it were the place of our na- 
tivity and our burial." The resolution was 
unanimously approved ; and, without conlining 
himself to his lines, Guiscard awaited in battle 
array the nearer approach of the enemy. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 56. 

12T5. COWARDICE punished. Romans. The 
dictator, or consul, had a right to command the 
service of the Roman youth, and to punish an 
obstinate or cowardly disobedience by the mo.st 
severe and ignominious penalties — by .striking the 
offender out of the list of citizens, by confiscating 
his property, and by selling his person into sla- 
very. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 3. 

1276. . Deputies. On the 2d of 



June [1793] the Tuileries were completely sur- 
rounded by an armed multitude of 80,000 men, 
with a formidable park of artillery commanded 
by Henriot ; and the commune required from 
the affrighted deputies an immediate decree for 
the arrest of the Girondist members. They at 
first refused compliance, but were at length com- 
pelled to vote at the point of the bayonet the ar- 
rest of thirty-two Girondist members, including 
Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Petion, 
and all the celebrated names of the party. Such 
was the fall of the Girondists— a inemorable and 
righteous retribution for their cowardly aban- 
donment of the king.— Students' France, ch. 
27, § 2, p. 566. 

1277. COWARDICE reproved. Romans. 
[During the war of the Allies the enemy] gave 
the Romans a good opportunity of attacking 
them, and they were afraid to embrace it ; after 
both parties were retired Marius called his sol- 
diers together, and made this short speech to 
tliem : " I know not which to call the greatest 
cowards, the enemy or you ; for neither dare 
they face your backs nor you theirs." At last, 



pretending to be incapacitated for the service by 
his infirmities, he laid down the command. — 
Plutakcii. 

1278. COWARDICE, Shameful. General Hull. 
[The British] advanced to the siege of Detroit. 
The Americans, in their trenches outside of the 
fort, were eager for battle, and .stood with lighted 
matches awrdting the order to fire. When the 
British were within five hundred yards, U) the 
amazement of both armies, Hull hoisted a white 
rtag over the fort. There was a brief parley and 
a .surrender, perhaps the most shameful in the 
history of the United States. Not only the army 
in Detroit, but all the forces under ilvdl's com- 
mand, became prisoners of war. The whole of 
Michigan territory was .surrendered to the Brit- 
ish. At the capitulation, the American ofiicers, 
in rage and despair, stamped the ground, broke 
their swords, and tore off their epaulets. The 
whole country was humiliated . [Hull was court- 
martialed, convicted of cowardice, and .sentenced 
to be shot. President Madison pardoned him.] 
— RiDPATii's U. S., ch. 49, p. 895. 

1279. COWARDICE, Unpardonable. Germans. 
In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Ger- 
mans) cowardice is the most unpardonable of 
sins. A brave man was the worthy favorite of 
their martial deities ; the wretch who had lost 
his .shield was alike banished from the religious 
and civil assemblies of his countrymen.— Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 9. 

1280. COWARDS punished. Lacedmnoniam, 

Such persons are not only excluded all offices, 
but it is infamous to internuirry with them. Any 
man who meets them is at liberty to strike them. 
They are obliged to appear in a forlorn manner, 
and in a vile habit, with patches of divers colors ; 
and to wear their beards half shaved and half 
unshaved.— Plutakch. 

1281. CREDULITY of Philosophers. Seven. 
Seven friends and philosophers, Diogenes and 
Hermias, Eulalius and Priscian, Damascius, Isi- 
dore, and Simplicius, who dis.sented from the 
religion of their sovereign, embraced the resolu- 
tion of seeking in a foreign land the freedom 
which was denied in their native coimtry. They 
had heard, and they credulously believed, that 
the republic of Plato was realized in the desi)ot- 
ic government of Persia, and that a patriot king 
reigned over the happiest and most virtuous of 
nations. They were soon astonished by the nat- 
ural discovery, that Persia resembled the other 
countries of the globe ; that Chosroes, who af- 
fected the name of a philosopher, was vain, ci-uel, 
and ambitious ; that bigotry and a spirit of in- 
tolerance prevailed among the .Magi ; that the 
nobles were haughtv, the courtiers servile, and 
the magistrates unjust ; that the guilty some- 
times escaped, and that the innocent were often 
oppressed. The disappointment of the phi- 
losophers provoked them to overlook the real 
virtues of the Persians ; and they were scandal- 
ized, more deeplv perhaps than became their 
profession, with tlu> plurality of wives and con- 
cubines, the incestuous marriages, and the cus- 
tom of e.vposinu- dead boilies to the dogs and vult- 
ures, in.stead of hiding them in the earth, or 
consuming them with fire. Their repentance was 
expressed'by a prec-ipitate return, and they loud- 
ly declared that they had rather die on the bor- 



154 



CREDULITY— CRIME. 



ders of the empire than enjoy tlie wealth and 
favor of the barbarian.— Gibbon's Rome, eh. 40. 

I2§2. CREDULITY, Eeligious. Priestcraft. 
[Tlie blood which tiowed during the agony of 
our Lord was pretended to be exhibited accord- 
ing to the price paid for the sight. Latimer de- 
clared it to be clarified honey, colored with saf- 
fron.] There was in the priory of Cardigan an 
image of the Virgm, with a taper in her hand, 
which was found standing on the river Tyne, 
with the taper always burning ; but being car- 
ried into Christ's Church, in Cardigan, the image 
would not stay there, but was found three or four 
times in the place where now is builded the 
Church of our Lady, and the taper burning in 
her hand, which continued still burning for the 
space of nine years without wasting, until the 
time that one foresware himself thereon, and 
then it extincted and never burned thereafter. 
. . . There was an image at Bangor worth to 
the friars 20 marks by the year in corn, cat- 
tle and cheese, and money. . . . The famous 
rood of Boxley, of which the figure could move 
its threatening eyes, twitch his nostrils, throw 
back his head, or nod approbation, is elevated on 
a scaffold, and goes through the performance at 
which past generations had wondered and ti:em- 
b'.ed . . . The imposture is proclaimed from 
the pulpit . . . the machinery is disclosed and 
consigned to the flames.— Knight's Eng., vol. 2, 
eh. 25, p. 409. 

12§3. CREDULITY of the Sick. Lord Audley. 
The belief in empirical remedies was not con- 
fined to the humble classes. Lord Audley, in 
1553, sends to Cecil, who was seriously ill, reci- 
pes for two medicines which he had proved up- 
on himself and his wife. One of these is founded 
on the healing virtues of a sow pig nine days old, 
distilled with many herbs and spices. The other 
is more ample : 'Item. Take a . . . hedgehog, 
and quarter him in pieces, and put the said beast 
in a still with these ingredients : item, a quart of 
red wine, a pint of rose-water, a quart of sugar, 
cinnamon and great raisins, one date, twelve nepe" 
[turnips]. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 8, p. 498. 

12§4. CREDULITY, Superstitious. Bomam. 
The nations and the sects of the Roman world 
admitted, with equal credulity and similar ab- 
horrence, the reality of that infernal art which 
was able to control the eternal order of the plan- 
ets and the voluntary operations of the human 
mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of 
spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and ex- 
ecrable rites, which could extinguish or recall 
life, inllime the passions of the soul, blast the 
works of creation, and extort from the reluctant 
demons the secrets of futurity. They believed, 
with tlie wildest inconsistency, that the preter- 
natural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell 
was exercised, from the vilest motives of malice 
or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant 
sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in pen- 
ury and contempt. The arts of magic were equal- 
ly condemned l)y the public opinion and by the 
laws of Rome ; but as they tended to gratify the 
most imperious passions of the heart of man, 
they were continually proscribed and continual- 
ly practised. An imaginary cause is capable of 
producing the most serious and mischievous ef- 
fects. The dark predictions of the death of an 
emperor, or the success of a conspiracy, were 



calculated only to stimulate the hopes of ambi- 
tion and to dissolve the ties of fidelity ; and the 
intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the 
actual crimes of treason and sacrilege. Such vain 
terrors disturbed the peace of society and the 
happiness of individuals ; and the harmless flame 
which insensibly melted a waxen image might 
derive a powerful and pernicious energy from 
the affrighted fancy of the person whom it was 
maliciously designed to represent. From the in- 
fusion of those herbs which were supposed to 
possess a supernatural influence, it was an easy 
step to the use of more substantial poison ; and 
the folly of mankind sometimes became the in- 
strument and the mask of the most atrocious 
crimes. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 



25, p. 536. 



12§5. 



Persians. [Artaxerxes 



summoned a great council of the Magi, which 
was reduced by selection from eighty thousand to 
seven.] One of these, Erdaviraph, a young but 
holy prelate, received from the hands of his 
brethren three cups of soporiferous wine. He 
drank them off, and instantly fell into a long and 
profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he relat- 
ed to the king and to the believing multitude his 
journey to heaven and his intimate conferences 
with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced by 
this supernatural evidence ; and the articles of 
the faith of Zoroaster were fixed with equal 
authority and precision. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 8. 

12§6. CRIME, Epidemic of. England. There 
was a good deal of alarm in the autumn of 1692 
from the daring crimes that sometimes seem epi- 
demic in a nation. Hence a proclamation against 
highwaymen was issued. Gangs of banditti 
robbed mails and stage-coaches even in the daj'- 
time. . . . Burglars were almost as bold and 
numerous as footpads and highwaymen. [There 
had been four years of war with James II. and 
Louis XIV.] — Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 10, 
p. 155. 

12§7. CRIME, Evidence of. Circumstantial. 
[Burning of Rome by Nero.] Whether he was 
really guilty or not of having ordered that im- 
mense conflagration, it is certain that he was sus- 
pected of it by his contemporaries, and has been 
charged with it by many historians of his country. 
It is certain, also, that his head had been full for 
years of the image of flaming cities ; that he used 
to say that Prialu was to be congratulated -on 
having seen the ruin of Troy ; that he was never 
able to resist the fixed idea of a crime ; that the 
year following he gave a public recitation of a 
poem called '"Troica," from the orchestra of the 
theatre, and that this was only the burning of 
Rome under a thin disgui.se ; and that just before 
his flight he meditated setting fire to Rome once 
more. It was rumored that when some one had 
told him how Gains used to quote the phrase 
of Euripides — 
" When I am dead, sink the whole earth in 

flames !" 
he replied, " Nay, but while I live !" He was 
accused of the ambition of destroying Rome, 
that he might replace its tortuous and narrow 
lanes with'broad, regular streets and uniform 
Hellenic edifices, and so have an excuse for 
changing its name from Rome to Neropolis. It 
was believed that in his morbid appetite for new 
sensations he was quite capable of devising a 



CRIME— CRIMINALS. 



155 



truly artistic spectacle which would thrill his 
jaded yestheticism, and supply him with vivid 
Imagery for the vapid autitlicscs of his poems. It 
was both believed aud recorded that during the 
terrors of the actual spectacle he had clinibecl the 
Tower of Mtecenas, had expressed his delight at 
what he called " the flower and loveliness of the 
flames," and in his scenic dress had sung on his 
own private stage the " Capture of Ilium." — 
Fakkar's Early Days, p. 29. 

i288. CRIME, Expiation of. Burning of 
Boiae. It is clear that a lihetlding of blood — in 
fact, some form or other of human sacrilice — 
was imperatively demanded by popular feeling 
as an expiation of the ruinous crime which had 
plunged so many thousands into the depths of 
misery. In vain had the Sibylline Books been 
once more consulted, and in vain had public 
prayer been offered, in accordance with their 
directions, to Vulcan and the goddesses of Earth 
and Hades. In vain had the Roman matrons 
walked in procession in dark robes, and with 
their long hair unbound, to propitiate the in- 
sulted majesty of Juno, and to sprinkle with sea- 
water her ancient statue. In vain had largesses 
been lavished upon the people and propitiatory 
sacrifices offered to the gods. In vain had public 
banquets been celebrated in honor of various 
deities. A crime had been committed, and 
Romans had perished imavenged. Blood cried 
for blood before the sullen suspicion against 
Nero could be averted, or the indignation of 
heaven appeased. [Nero accused, and then per- 
secuted, the Christians for his own crime.] — 
Farrau's Early Days, p. 35. 

12§9. CRIME of Imagination. Capital. [On 
the trial of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1521,] a 
monk of the Charter-house, who pretended to a 
knowledge of future events, ' ' had divers times 
said to the duke that he should be King of 
England ; but the duke said that in himself he 
never consented to it." The judicial inference 
was, that he had committed the crime of imag- 
ining the death of the king, and that his words 
were satisfactory evidence of such imagining. 
Buckingham was convicted [and beheaded]. — 
Knight's Eng. , vol. 2, ch. 17, p. 287. 

1290. CRIME, Memorial of. ''Labrador." 
Men were already with the Portuguese an estab- 
lished article of traffic ; the inhabitants of the 
American coast seemed well fitted for labor ; and 
Corte-Real [the Portuguese sailor] freighted his 
ships with more than fifty Indians, whom, on 
his return, he sold as slaves. . . . The name of 
Labrador, transferred to a more northern coast, 
is probably a memorial of his crime. — Ban- 
croft's History of U. S., ch. 1. 

1291. CRIME, Organization for. England, 
1752. Fielding said, ' ' there are at this time a great 
gang of rogues, whose number falls little short of 
a hundred, who are incorporated into one body, 
have officers and a treasurer, and have reduced 
theft and robbery into a regular system." — 
Knight's Eng., vol. 6, ch. 12, p. 192. 

1292. CRIME, Reaction of. Rosamond. [She 
was the exiled murderess of Alboin, her royal 
husband.] With her daughter, the heiress of 
the Lombard throne, her two lovers, her trusty 
Gepidae, and the spoils of the palace of Verona, 
Rosamond descended the Adige and the Po, aud 



was transported by a Greek vessel to the safe har- 
bor of Ravenna. Longinus beheld with delight 
the charms and the treasures of the widow'of 
Alboin : her .situation and her past conduct might 
justify the most licentious propo.sals ; and she 
readil}' listened to the passion of a minister who, 
even in the decline of the empire, was respected 
as the equal of kings. The death of a jealous 
lover was an easy and grateful sacrifice ; and as 
Helmichis [her former lover] issued from the 
bath he received the deadly potion from 4he 
hand of his mistress. The taste of the liquor, its 
speedy operation, and his experience of the char- 
acter of Rosamond, convinced him that he was 
poi-soned ; he pointed his dagger to her breast, 
compelled her to drain llic remainder of the cup, 
and expired in a few minutes, with the consola- 
tion that .she could not survive to enjoy the fruits 
of her wickedness. — Gibbon's Rome, ch. 45. 

1293. CRIME taught. " Devil's Acre." In 
1837 there was a district lying near Westmin- 
ster Abbey, called "The Devil's Acre," where 
depravity was universal; where professional beg- 
gars were fitted out with all the appliances nf 
imposture ; where there was an agency oflice f( -r 
the hire of children to be carried about by for- 
lorn widows and deserted wives to move tie 
compassion of street-giving benevolence ; where 
young pickpockets were duly trained in the a-t 
and mystery which was to conduct them in dee 
course to an expensive voj'age for the good i if 
their country [to Botany Bay]. — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 8, ch. 22, p. 399. 

1294. CRIMES, Equality of. Stoics. Fro:n 
the portico the Roman civilians learned to \\\^., 
to reason, aud to die ; but they imbibed in son-e 
degree the prejudices of the sect — the love of 
paradox, the pertinacious habits of dispute, aud 
a minute attachment to words and verbal dis- 
tinctions. The superiority of form to matU'-r 
was introduced to ascertain the right of propert;,'; 
aud the equality of crimes is countenanced by an 
opinion of Trebatius, that he who touches the ear 
touches the whole body ; and that he who steals 
from a heap of corn or a hogshead of wine is 
guilty of the entire theft. — Gibbon's Rome, 
ch. U. 

1295. CRIMINAL, A monster. Catiline. In 
an age when licentiousness of the grossest kind 
was too common to attract attention, Catiline 
had achieved a notoriety for infamy. He had 
intrigued with a Vestal virgin, the sister of Cice- 
ro's wife, Terentia. If Cicero is to i)e l)elieved, 
he hati made away with his own wife, that he 
might marry Aurelia Orestilla, a woman a- wick- 
ed as she was beautiful, and he had killed his 
child also because Aurelia had objected to be in- 
cumbered with a stepson. But this, too, was 
common in high society in those days. Adidtery 
and incest had become familiar excitenunts. 
Boys of ten years old had learned the art of poi- 
soning their fathers. — Fkofde's C.i;sAR, ch. 11. 

1296. CRIMINALS branded. Cletncal. The 

act for Bishops, to punish priests and other re- 
ligious men for dishonest life, . . . provides that 
if a person not in orders shall have once been ad- 
mitted to such benefit [of clergy], he shall not 
be airain .so admitted, but be marked with M uj)- 
on the brawn of the left thumb if convicted of 
murder, aud with T if for any other felony, and 



15G 



CRIMINALS— CRITICISM. 



Hieii be delivered to the ordinary. — Knight's 
ExG., vol. 2, ch. 15, p. 243. 

1297. CKIMINALS, Clerical. Favored. [In 
l.")12 a statute was passed, which] exempts from 
henetit of clerg>' all murderers, highway rob- 
bers, and burglars, such as be within holy orders 
only except. . . . The ecclesiastical authorities 
rcir'arded it as encroachment upon the privileges 
of'^the Church, and they prevented its renewal 
at the expiration of the first year. ... A cer- 
tain abbot . . . denounced from the pulpit at 
Paul's Cross all those who had assented to the 
act. — Knight's Eng., vol. 2, ch. 17, p. 277. 

1298. CEIMINALS, Conniving witli. Pirates. 
[The Emperor Maximian appointed Carausius to 
the command of his fleet in the British Channel 
for the suppression of the German pirates.] The 
iuteirrity of the new- admiral corresponded not 
A\ith his abilities. "When the German pirates 
sailed from their own harbors he connived at 
their passage, but he diligently intercepted their 
Trturn, anctappropriated to his own use an ample 
.sliare of the spoil which they had acquired. The 
wealth of Carausius was, on this occasion, very 
justly considered as an evidence of his guilt ; 
and "]Maximian gave orders for his death. — Gib- 
bon's Rome, ch. 13, p. 409. 

1299. CRIMINALS, Haunts of. London. The 
house of the Carmelite Friars . . . had, before 
the Reformation, been a .sanctuary for criminals, 
and .still retained the privilege of protecting 
df?btors from arrest. Insolvents consequently 
■\A ere to be found in every dwelling, from cellar 
to garret. Of these a large proportion were 
knaves and libertines, and were followed to their 
asyhun by women more abandoned than them- 
selves. . '. . Though the immunities legally 
belonging to the place extended only to cases of 
debt ; cheats, false witnesses, forgers, and high- 
waymen found refuge there ; for amid a rabble 
so desperate no peace officer's life was in safety. 
At the cry of " Rescue," bullies, with .swords and 
cudgels, and termagant hags, with spits and 
broomsticks, poured forth by hundreds. . . . 
Even the warrant of the chief justice of Eng- 
land could not be executed without the help of a 
company of musketeers. — Macaulay's Eng. , 
ch. 3, p. 338. 

1300. CRIMINALS honored. Highlanders. 
The " Highlanders being in general poorly pro- 
vided for, they are apt to covet other men's 
goods ; nor are they taught by any law-s to dis- 
tinguish with great accuracy their own property 
from that of other people. They are not 
ashamed of the gallows — nay, they pay a relig- 
ious respect to a fortunate plunderer." — CuN- 
NiNGH.or, IN Knight's Eng., vol. 5, ch. 6. 

1301. CRIMINALS, Protection from. Police, 
1780. [The London] police-officer of that day 
was called a " thief -taker" — he was in no sense 
of the word a detective or a preventive function- 
ary. He knew the thieves, and the thieves knew 
him. His business was to " let the matter ripen" 
when he had information of a house to be broken 
open or a mail to be robbed. "When he was 
sure of a capital conviction he took his man, and 
obtained £40 " blood money." — Knight's Eng., 
vol. 7, ch. 6, p. 117. 

1302. CRIMINALS, Rule of. Brideicell, Vl^%. 
yix. Booth is committed to Bridewell. . . . 



"When he goes to prison, a number of persons 
gather round him in the yard, and demand 
"garni.sh." The keeper explained that it was 
customary for every new prisoner to treat the 
others with something to drink. The J'oung 
man had no money, and the keepers quietly 
permit the scoundrels to strip him of his clothes. 
All persons sent to Bridewell were treated alike, 
so far as the prison discipline was concerned. — 
Fielding, in Knight's Eng., vol. 7, ch. 6, p. 117. 

1303. CRISIS, Equal to the. Croimcell. Pym 
was dead, Hampden was dead. Cromwell, as 
he looked along its benches, would notice many 
a place vacated where once sat some .strong 
friend of order and of freedom. It had so shrunk- 
en from honor that it had come to be called 
" the Rump." ... On the 20th of April, 1653, 
while Cromwell was quietly .sitting in his own 
"lodgings" in "Whitehall, there was brought to 
him a message, that at that verj' moment a bill 
was being hurried tlirough the Hou.se, by which 
this most comely piece of government was re- 
sohiug its own indefectible perpetuity, and thus 
attempting a great act of u.surpation. Let the 
reader, therefore, distinctly understand that it 
was the usurpation of capability against incapa- 
bility ; the House must be checkmated. Crom- 
well, therefore, immediately gathered his officers 
round him and walked down to the assembly 
[and turned it into the street]. — Hood's Crom- 
well, ch. 14, p. 176. 

1304. CRITIC at Church, The. Lord George 
Sackville Germain. [Minister in charge of the 
American department under George III., a.d. 
1775.] Apparelled on Sunday morning in gala, 
as if for the drawing-room, he constantly 
marched out all his h^ousehold to the parish 
church, where he would mark time for the sing- 
ing gallery, chide a rustic chorister for a dis- 
cord^ stand up during the sermon to survey the 
congregation or overawe the idle, and with un- 
movedsincerity gesticulate approbation to the 
preacher, whoin he sometimes cheered on by 
name. . . . This friendless man . . . could plan 
. . . how to lav America in ashes. — Bancroft's 
U. S., vol. 8, ch. 51. 

1305. CRITICISM, Aroused by. Lord Byron. 
The Edinburgh lieriew appeared which con- 
tained the celebrated article that stung the poet 
so cruelly. "The poesy of this young lord," 
began the reviewer, " belongs to the class which 
neither gods nor men are said to permit. . . . 
His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and 
can no more get above or below the level than 
if they were so much stagnant water." And so 
on for three bantering pages, interspersed with 
specimens of the noble " minor's" stanzas. This 
stinging satire, which would have crushed some 
young writers of verses, fixed Lord BjTon in 
the career of letters. — Cyclopedia of Bigg., 
p. 294. 

1306. CRITICISM, Directed. Aldbiades. Al- 
cibiades had a dog of uncommon size and beau- 
ty, which cost him 70 minse, and yet his tail, 
which was his principal ornament, he cau.sed 
to be cut off. Some of