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Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection

by Walter Savage Landor · English · Gutenberg #21628 · 814,838 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection

Author: Walter Savage Landor


        
Release date: May 28, 2007 [eBook #21628]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS AND POEMS: A SELECTION ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sam W. and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









      IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS
      AND POEMS: A SELECTION

               By
       WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR




CONTENTS


IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS

          Marcellus and Hannibal

          Queen Elizabeth and Cecil

          Epictetus and Seneca

          Peter the Great and Alexis

          Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

          Joseph Scaliger and Montaigne

          Boccaccio and Petrarca

          Bossuet and the Duchess de Fontanges

          John of Gaunt and Joanna of Kent

          Leofric and Godiva

          Essex and Spenser

          Lord Bacon and Richard Hooker

          Oliver Cromwell and Walter Noble

          Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney

          Southey and Porson

          The Abbé Delille and Walter Landor

          Diogenes and Plato

          Alfieri and Salomon the Florentine Jew

          Rousseau and Malesherbes

          Lucullus and Caesar

          Epicurus, Leontion, and Ternissa

          Dante and Beatrice

          Fra Filippo Lippi and Pope Eugenius the Fourth

          Tasso and Cornelia

          La Fontaine and de La Rochefoucault

          Lucian and Timotheus

          Bishop Shipley and Benjamin Franklin

          Southey and Landor

          The Emperor of China and Tsing-Ti

          Louis XVIII and Talleyrand

          Oliver Cromwell and Sir Oliver Cromwell

          The Count Gleichem: the Countess: their Children, and Zaida


THE PENTAMERON

          First Day's Interview

          Third Day's Interview

          Fourth Day's Interview

          Fifth Day's Interview


POEMS

       I. She I love (alas in vain!)

      II. Pleasure! why thus desert the heart

     III. Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives

      IV. Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!

       V. The gates of fame and of the grave

      VI. Twenty years hence my eyes may grow

     VII. Here, ever since you went abroad

    VIII. Tell me not things past all belief

      IX. Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak

       X. Fiesole Idyl

      XI. Ah what avails the sceptred race

     XII. With rosy hand a little girl prest down

    VIII. Ternissa! you are fled!

     XIV. Various the roads of life; in one

      XV. Yes; I write verses now and then

     XVI. On seeing a hair of Lucretia Borgia

    XVII. Once, and once only, have I seen thy face

   XVIII. To Wordsworth

     XIX. To Charles Dickens

      XX. To Barry Cornwall

     XXI. To Robert Browning

    XXII. Age

   XXIII. Leaf after leaf drops off, flower after flower

    XXIV. Well I remember how you smiled

     XXV. I strove with none, for none was worth my strife

    XXVI. Death stands above me, whispering low

   XXVII. A Pastoral

  XXVIII. The Lover

    XXIX. The Poet who Sleeps

     XXX. Daniel Defoe

    XXXI. Idle Words

   XXXII. To the River Avon




IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS




MARCELLUS AND HANNIBAL


_Hannibal._ Could a Numidian horseman ride no faster? Marcellus! oh!
Marcellus! He moves not--he is dead. Did he not stir his fingers?
Stand wide, soldiers--wide, forty paces; give him air; bring water;
halt! Gather those broad leaves, and all the rest, growing under the
brushwood; unbrace his armour. Loose the helmet first--his breast
rises. I fancied his eyes were fixed on me--they have rolled back
again. Who presumed to touch my shoulder? This horse? It was surely
the horse of Marcellus! Let no man mount him. Ha! ha! the Romans, too,
sink into luxury: here is gold about the charger.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ Execrable thief! The golden chain of our king
under a beast's grinders! The vengeance of the gods hath overtaken the
impure----

_Hannibal._ We will talk about vengeance when we have entered Rome,
and about purity among the priests, if they will hear us. Sound for
the surgeon. That arrow may be extracted from the side, deep as it is.
The conqueror of Syracuse lies before me. Send a vessel off to
Carthage. Say Hannibal is at the gates of Rome. Marcellus, who stood
alone between us, fallen. Brave man! I would rejoice and cannot. How
awfully serene a countenance! Such as we hear are in the islands of
the Blessed. And how glorious a form and stature! Such too was theirs!
They also once lay thus upon the earth wet with their blood--few other
enter there. And what plain armour!

_Gaulish Chieftain._ My party slew him; indeed, I think I slew him
myself. I claim the chain: it belongs to my king; the glory of Gaul
requires it. Never will she endure to see another take it.

_Hannibal._ My friend, the glory of Marcellus did not require him to
wear it. When he suspended the arms of your brave king in the temple,
he thought such a trinket unworthy of himself and of Jupiter. The
shield he battered down, the breast-plate he pierced with his
sword--these he showed to the people and to the gods; hardly his wife
and little children saw this, ere his horse wore it.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ Hear me; O Hannibal!

_Hannibal._ What! when Marcellus lies before me? when his life may
perhaps be recalled? when I may lead him in triumph to Carthage? when
Italy, Sicily, Greece, Asia, wait to obey me? Content thee! I will
give thee mine own bridle, worth ten such.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ For myself?

_Hannibal._ For thyself.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ And these rubies and emeralds, and that
scarlet----?

_Hannibal._ Yes, yes.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ O glorious Hannibal! unconquerable hero! O my
happy country! to have such an ally and defender. I swear eternal
gratitude--yes, gratitude, love, devotion, beyond eternity.

_Hannibal._ In all treaties we fix the time: I could hardly ask a
longer. Go back to thy station. I would see what the surgeon is about,
and hear what he thinks. The life of Marcellus! the triumph of
Hannibal! what else has the world in it? Only Rome and Carthage: these
follow.

_Marcellus._ I must die then? The gods be praised! The commander of a
Roman army is no captive.

_Hannibal._ [_To the Surgeon._] Could not he bear a sea voyage?
Extract the arrow.

_Surgeon._ He expires that moment.

_Marcellus._ It pains me: extract it.

_Hannibal._ Marcellus, I see no expression of pain on your
countenance, and never will I consent to hasten the death of an enemy
in my power. Since your recovery is hopeless, you say truly you are no
captive.

[_To the Surgeon._] Is there nothing, man, that can assuage the mortal
pain? for, suppress the signs of it as he may, he must feel it. Is
there nothing to alleviate and allay it?

_Marcellus._ Hannibal, give me thy hand--thou hast found it and
brought it me, compassion.

[_To the Surgeon._] Go, friend; others want thy aid; several fell
around me.

_Hannibal._ Recommend to your country, O Marcellus, while time permits
it, reconciliation and peace with me, informing the Senate of my
superiority in force, and the impossibility of resistance. The tablet
is ready: let me take off this ring--try to write, to sign it, at
least. Oh, what satisfaction I feel at seeing you able to rest upon
the elbow, and even to smile!

_Marcellus._ Within an hour or less, with how severe a brow would
Minos say to me, 'Marcellus, is this thy writing?'

Rome loses one man: she hath lost many such, and she still hath many
left.

_Hannibal._ Afraid as you are of falsehood, say you this? I confess in
shame the ferocity of my countrymen. Unfortunately, too, the nearer
posts are occupied by Gauls, infinitely more cruel. The Numidians are
so in revenge: the Gauls both in revenge and in sport. My presence is
required at a distance, and I apprehend the barbarity of one or other,
learning, as they must do, your refusal to execute my wishes for the
common good, and feeling that by this refusal you deprive them of
their country, after so long an absence.

_Marcellus._ Hannibal, thou art not dying.

_Hannibal._ What then? What mean you?

_Marcellus._ That thou mayest, and very justly, have many things yet
to apprehend: I can have none. The barbarity of thy soldiers is
nothing to me: mine would not dare be cruel. Hannibal is forced to be
absent; and his authority goes away with his horse. On this turf lies
defaced the semblance of a general; but Marcellus is yet the regulator
of his army. Dost thou abdicate a power conferred on thee by thy
nation? Or wouldst thou acknowledge it to have become, by thy own sole
fault, less plenary than thy adversary's?

I have spoken too much: let me rest; this mantle oppresses me.

_Hannibal._ I placed my mantle on your head when the helmet was first
removed, and while you were lying in the sun. Let me fold it under,
and then replace the ring.

_Marcellus._ Take it, Hannibal. It was given me by a poor woman who
flew to me at Syracuse, and who covered it with her hair, torn off in
desperation that she had no other gift to offer. Little thought I that
her gift and her words should be mine. How suddenly may the most
powerful be in the situation of the most helpless! Let that ring and
the mantle under my head be the exchange of guests at parting. The
time may come, Hannibal, when thou (and the gods alone know whether as
conqueror or conquered) mayest sit under the roof of my children, and
in either case it shall serve thee. In thy adverse fortune, they will
remember on whose pillow their father breathed his last; in thy
prosperity (Heaven grant it may shine upon thee in some other
country!) it will rejoice thee to protect them. We feel ourselves the
most exempt from affliction when we relieve it, although we are then
the most conscious that it may befall us.

There is one thing here which is not at the disposal of either.

_Hannibal._ What?

_Marcellus._ This body.

_Hannibal._ Whither would you be lifted? Men are ready.

_Marcellus._ I meant not so. My strength is failing. I seem to hear
rather what is within than what is without. My sight and my other
senses are in confusion. I would have said--this body, when a few
bubbles of air shall have left it, is no more worthy of thy notice
than of mine; but thy glory will not let thee refuse it to the piety
of my family.

_Hannibal._ You would ask something else. I perceive an inquietude not
visible till now.

_Marcellus._ Duty and Death make us think of home sometimes.

_Hannibal._ Thitherward the thoughts of the conqueror and of the
conquered fly together.

_Marcellus._ Hast thou any prisoners from my escort?

_Hannibal._ A few dying lie about--and let them lie--they are Tuscans.
The remainder I saw at a distance, flying, and but one brave man among
them--he appeared a Roman--a youth who turned back, though wounded.
They surrounded and dragged him away, spurring his horse with their
swords. These Etrurians measure their courage carefully, and tack it
well together before they put it on, but throw it off again with
lordly ease.

Marcellus, why think about them? or does aught else disquiet your
thoughts?

_Marcellus._ I have suppressed it long enough. My son--my beloved son!

_Hannibal._ Where is he? Can it be? Was he with you?

_Marcellus._ He would have shared my fate--and has not. Gods of my
country! beneficent throughout life to me, in death surpassingly
beneficent: I render you, for the last time, thanks.




QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CECIL


_Elizabeth._ I advise thee again, churlish Cecil, how that our Edmund
Spenser, whom thou callest most uncourteously a whining whelp, hath
good and solid reason for his complaint. God's blood! shall the lady
that tieth my garter and shuffles the smock over my head, or the lord
that steadieth my chair's back while I eat, or the other that looketh
to my buck-hounds lest they be mangy, be holden by me in higher esteem
and estate than he who hath placed me among the bravest of past times,
and will as safely and surely set me down among the loveliest in the
future?

_Cecil._ Your Highness must remember he carouseth fully for such
deserts: fifty pounds a year of unclipped moneys, and a butt of canary
wine; not to mention three thousand acres in Ireland, worth fairly
another fifty and another butt, in seasonable and quiet years.

_Elizabeth._ The moneys are not enough to sustain a pair of grooms and
a pair of palfreys, and more wine hath been drunken in my presence at
a feast. The moneys are given to such men, that they may not incline
nor be obligated to any vile or lowly occupation; and the canary, that
they may entertain such promising wits as court their company and
converse; and that in such manner there may be alway in our land a
succession of these heirs unto fame. He hath written, not indeed with
his wonted fancifulness, nor in learned and majestical language, but
in homely and rustic wise, some verses which have moved me, and haply
the more inasmuch as they demonstrate to me that his genius hath been
dampened by his adversities. Read them.

_Cecil._

      How much is lost when neither heart nor eye
        Rosewinged Desire or fabling Hope deceives;
      When boyhood with quick throb hath ceased to spy
        The dubious apple in the yellow leaves;

      When, rising from the turf where youth reposed,
        We find but deserts in the far-sought shore;
      When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed,
        And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more.

_Elizabeth._ The said Edmund hath also furnished unto the weaver at
Arras, John Blanquieres, on my account, a description for some of his
cunningest wenches to work at, supplied by mine own self, indeed, as
far as the subject-matter goes, but set forth by him with figures and
fancies, and daintily enough bedecked. I could have wished he had
thereunto joined a fair comparison between Dian--no matter--he might
perhaps have fared the better for it; but poets' wits--God help
them!--when did they ever sit close about them? Read the poesy, not
over-rich, and concluding very awkwardly and meanly.

_Cecil._

      Where forms the lotus, with its level leaves
        And solid blossoms, many floating isles,
      What heavenly radiance swift descending cleaves
        The darksome wave! Unwonted beauty smiles

      On its pure bosom, on each bright-eyed flower,
        On every nymph, and twenty sate around,
      Lo! 'twas Diana--from the sultry hour
        Hither she fled, nor fear'd she sight or sound.

      Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reeds
        Drew to these haunts, whom awe forbade to fly!
      Three faithful dogs before him rais'd their heads,
        And watched and wonder'd at that fixèd eye.

      Forth sprang his favourite--with her arrow-hand
        Too late the goddess hid what hand may hide,
      Of every nymph and every reed complain'd,
        And dashed upon the bank the waters wide.

      On the prone head and sandal'd feet they flew--
        Lo! slender hoofs and branching horns appear!
      The last marr'd voice not e'en the favourite knew,
        But bay'd and fasten'd on the upbraiding deer.

      Far be, chaste goddess, far from me and mine
        The stream that tempts thee in the summer noon!
      Alas, that vengeance dwells with charms divine----

_Elizabeth._ Pshaw! give me the paper: I forewarned thee how it
ended--pitifully, pitifully.

_Cecil._ I cannot think otherwise than that the undertaker of the
aforecited poesy hath chosen your Highness; for I have seen painted--I
know not where, but I think no farther off than Putney--the
identically same Dian, with full as many nymphs, as he calls them, and
more dogs. So small a matter as a page of poesy shall never stir my
choler nor twitch my purse-string.

_Elizabeth._ I have read in Plinius and Mela of a runlet near Dodona,
which kindled by approximation an unlighted torch, and extinguished a
lighted one. Now, Cecil, I desire no such a jetty to be celebrated as
the decoration of my court: in simpler words, which your gravity may
more easily understand, I would not from the fountain of honour give
lustre to the dull and ignorant, deadening and leaving in its tomb the
lamp of literature and genius. I ardently wish my reign to be
remembered: if my actions were different from what they are, I should
as ardently wish it to be forgotten. Those are the worst of suicides,
who voluntarily and propensely stab or suffocate their fame, when God
hath commanded them to stand on high for an example. We call him
parricide who destroys the author of his existence: tell me, what
shall we call him who casts forth to the dogs and birds of prey its
most faithful propagator and most firm support? Mark me, I do not
speak of that existence which the proudest must close in a ditch--the
narrowest, too, of ditches and the soonest filled and fouled, and
whereunto a pinch of ratsbane or a poppy-head may bend him; but of
that which reposes on our own good deeds, carefully picked up,
skilfully put together, and decorously laid out for us by another's
kind understanding: I speak of an existence such as no father is
author of, or provides for. The parent gives us few days and
sorrowful; the poet, many and glorious: the one (supposing him
discreet and kindly) best reproves our faults; the other best
remunerates our virtues.

A page of poesy is a little matter: be it so; but of a truth I do tell
thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard
cannot trouble; it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one
that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake
titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast-board; but I may
not save those upon whose heads I shake them from rottenness and
oblivion. This year they and their sovereign dwell together; next
year, they and their beagle. Both have names, but names perishable.
The keeper of my privy seal is an earl: what then? the keeper of my
poultry-yard is a Caesar. In honest truth, a name given to a man is no
better than a skin given to him: what is not natively his own falls
off and comes to nothing.

I desire in future to hear no contempt of penmen, unless a depraved
use of the pen shall have so cramped them as to incapacitate them for
the sword and for the council chamber. If Alexander was the Great,
what was Aristoteles who made him so, and taught him every art and
science he knew, except three--those of drinking, of blaspheming, and
of murdering his bosom friends? Come along: I will bring thee back
again nearer home. Thou mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many
nights, and never eke out the substance of a stanza; but Edmund, if
perchance I should call upon him for his counsel, would give me as
wholesome and prudent as any of you. We should indemnify such men for
the injustice we do unto them in not calling them about us, and for
the mortification they must suffer at seeing their inferiors set
before them. Edmund is grave and gentle: he complains of fortune, not
of Elizabeth; of courts, not of Cecil. I am resolved--so help me,
God!--he shall have no further cause for his repining. Go, convey unto
him those twelve silver spoons, with the apostles on them, gloriously
gilded; and deliver into his hand these twelve large golden pieces,
sufficing for the yearly maintenance of another horse and groom.
Beside which, set open before him with due reverence this Bible,
wherein he may read the mercies of God toward those who waited in
patience for His blessing; and this pair of crimson silk hose, which
thou knowest I have worn only thirteen months, taking heed that the
heel-piece be put into good and sufficient restoration, at my sole
charges, by the Italian woman nigh the pollard elm at Charing Cross.




EPICTETUS AND SENECA


_Seneca._ Epictetus, I desired your master, Epaphroditus, to send you
hither, having been much pleased with his report of your conduct, and
much surprised at the ingenuity of your writings.

_Epictetus._ Then I am afraid, my friend----

_Seneca._ _My friend!_ are these the expressions--Well, let it pass.
Philosophers must bear bravely. The people expect it.

_Epictetus._ Are philosophers, then, only philosophers for the people;
and, instead of instructing them, must they play tricks before them?
Give me rather the gravity of dancing dogs. Their motions are for the
rabble; their reverential eyes and pendant paws are under the
pressure of awe at a master; but they are dogs, and not below their
destinies.

_Seneca._ Epictetus! I will give you three talents to let me take that
sentiment for my own.

_Epictetus._ I would give thee twenty, if I had them, to make it
thine.

_Seneca._ You mean, by lending it the graces of my language?

_Epictetus._ I mean, by lending it to thy conduct. And now let me
console and comfort thee, under the calamity I brought on thee by
calling thee _my friend_. If thou art not my friend, why send for me?
Enemy I can have none: being a slave, Fortune has now done with me.

_Seneca._ Continue, then, your former observations. What were you
saying?

_Epictetus._ That which thou interruptedst.

_Seneca._ What was it?

_Epictetus._ I should have remarked that, if thou foundest ingenuity
in my writings, thou must have discovered in them some deviation from
the plain, homely truths of Zeno and Cleanthes.

_Seneca._ We all swerve a little from them.

_Epictetus._ In practice too?

_Seneca._ Yes, even in practice, I am afraid.

_Epictetus._ Often?

_Seneca._ Too often.

_Epictetus._ Strange! I have been attentive, and yet have remarked but
one difference among you great personages at Rome.

_Seneca._ What difference fell under your observation?

_Epictetus._ Crates and Zeno and Cleanthes taught us that our desires
were to be subdued by philosophy alone. In this city, their acute and
inventive scholars take us aside, and show us that there is not only
one way, but two.

_Seneca._ Two ways?

_Epictetus._ They whisper in our ear, 'These two ways are philosophy
and enjoyment: the wiser man will take the readier, or, not finding
it, the alternative.' Thou reddenest.

_Seneca._ Monstrous degeneracy.

_Epictetus._ What magnificent rings! I did not notice them until thou
liftedst up thy hands to heaven, in detestation of such effeminacy and
impudence.

_Seneca._ The rings are not amiss; my rank rivets them upon my
fingers: I am forced to wear them. Our emperor gave me one,
Epaphroditus another, Tigellinus the third. I cannot lay them aside a
single day, for fear of offending the gods, and those whom they love
the most worthily.

_Epictetus._ Although they make thee stretch out thy fingers, like the
arms and legs of one of us slaves upon a cross.

_Seneca._ Oh, horrible! Find some other resemblance.

_Epictetus._ The extremities of a fig-leaf.

_Seneca._ Ignoble!

_Epictetus._ The claws of a toad, trodden on or stoned.

_Seneca._ You have great need, Epictetus, of an instructor in
eloquence and rhetoric: you want topics, and tropes, and figures.

_Epictetus._ I have no room for them. They make such a buzz in the
house, a man's own wife cannot understand what he says to her.

_Seneca._ Let us reason a little upon style. I would set you right,
and remove from before you the prejudices of a somewhat rustic
education. We may adorn the simplicity of the wisest.

_Epictetus._ Thou canst not adorn simplicity. What is naked or
defective is susceptible of decoration: what is decorated is
simplicity no longer. Thou mayest give another thing in exchange for
it; but if thou wert master of it, thou wouldst preserve it inviolate.
It is no wonder that we mortals, little able as we are to see truth,
should be less able to express it.

_Seneca._ You have formed at present no idea of style.

_Epictetus._ I never think about it. First, I consider whether what I
am about to say is true; then, whether I can say it with brevity, in
such a manner as that others shall see it as clearly as I do in the
light of truth; for, if they survey it as an ingenuity, my desire is
ungratified, my duty unfulfilled. I go not with those who dance round
the image of Truth, less out of honour to her than to display their
agility and address.

_Seneca._ We must attract the attention of readers by novelty, and
force, and grandeur of expression.

_Epictetus._ We must. Nothing is so grand as truth, nothing so
forcible, nothing so novel.

_Seneca._ Sonorous sentences are wanted to awaken the lethargy of
indolence.

_Epictetus._ Awaken it to what? Here lies the question; and a weighty
one it is. If thou awakenest men where they can see nothing and do no
work, it is better to let them rest: but will not they, thinkest thou,
look up at a rainbow, unless they are called to it by a clap of
thunder?

_Seneca._ Your early youth, Epictetus, has been, I will not say
neglected, but cultivated with rude instruments and unskilful hands.

_Epictetus._ I thank God for it. Those rude instruments have left the
turf lying yet toward the sun; and those unskilful hands have plucked
out the docks.

_Seneca._ We hope and believe that we have attained a vein of
eloquence, brighter and more varied than has been hitherto laid open
to the world.

_Epictetus._ Than any in the Greek?

_Seneca._ We trust so.

_Epictetus._ Than your Cicero's?

_Seneca._ If the declaration may be made without an offence to
modesty. Surely, you cannot estimate or value the eloquence of that
noble pleader?

_Epictetus._ Imperfectly, not being born in Italy; and the noble
pleader is a much less man with me than the noble philosopher. I
regret that, having farms and villas, he would not keep his distance
from the pumping up of foul words against thieves, cut-throats, and
other rogues; and that he lied, sweated, and thumped his head and
thighs, in behalf of those who were no better.

_Seneca._ Senators must have clients, and must protect them.

_Epictetus._ Innocent or guilty?

_Seneca._ Doubtless.

_Epictetus._ If I regret what is and might not be, I may regret more
what both is and must be. However, it is an amiable thing, and no
small merit in the wealthy, even to trifle and play at their leisure
hours with philosophy. It cannot be expected that such a personage
should espouse her, or should recommend her as an inseparable mate to
his heir.

_Seneca._ I would.

_Epictetus._ Yes, Seneca, but thou hast no son to make the match for;
and thy recommendation, I suspect, would be given him before he could
consummate the marriage. Every man wishes his sons to be philosophers
while they are young; but takes especial care, as they grow older, to
teach them its insufficiency and unfitness for their intercourse with
mankind. The paternal voice says: 'You must not be particular; you are
about to have a profession to live by; follow those who have thriven
the best in it.' Now, among these, whatever be the profession, canst
thou point out to me one single philosopher?

_Seneca._ Not just now; nor, upon reflection, do I think it feasible.

_Epictetus._ Thou, indeed, mayest live much to thy ease and
satisfaction with philosophy, having (they say) two thousand talents.

_Seneca._ And a trifle to spare--pressed upon me by that godlike
youth, my pupil Nero.

_Epictetus._ Seneca! where God hath placed a mine, He hath placed the
materials of an earthquake.

_Seneca._ A true philosopher is beyond the reach of Fortune.

_Epictetus._ The false one thinks himself so. Fortune cares little
about philosophers; but she remembers where she hath set a rich man,
and she laughs to see the Destinies at his door.




PETER THE GREAT AND ALEXIS


_Peter._ And so, after flying from thy father's house, thou hast
returned again from Vienna. After this affront in the face of Europe,
thou darest to appear before me?

_Alexis._ My emperor and father! I am brought before your Majesty, not
at my own desire.

_Peter._ I believe it well.

_Alexis._ I would not anger you.

_Peter._ What hope hadst thou, rebel, in thy flight to Vienna?

_Alexis._ The hope of peace and privacy; the hope of security; and,
above all things, of never more offending you.

_Peter._ That hope thou hast accomplished. Thou imaginedst, then, that
my brother of Austria would maintain thee at his court--speak!

_Alexis._ No, sir! I imagined that he would have afforded me a place
of refuge.

_Peter._ Didst thou, then, take money with thee?

_Alexis._ A few gold pieces.

_Peter._ How many?

_Alexis._ About sixty.

_Peter._ He would have given thee promises for half the money; but the
double of it does not purchase a house, ignorant wretch!

_Alexis._ I knew as much as that: although my birth did not appear to
destine me to purchase a house anywhere; and hitherto your liberality,
my father, hath supplied my wants of every kind.

_Peter._ Not of wisdom, not of duty, not of spirit, not of courage,
not of ambition. I have educated thee among my guards and horses,
among my drums and trumpets, among my flags and masts. When thou wert
a child, and couldst hardly walk, I have taken thee into the arsenal,
though children should not enter according to regulations: I have
there rolled cannon-balls before thee over iron plates; and I have
shown thee bright new arms, bayonets and sabres; and I have pricked
the back of my hands until the blood came out in many places; and I
have made thee lick it; and I have then done the same to thine.
Afterward, from thy tenth year, I have mixed gunpowder in thy grog; I
have peppered thy peaches; I have poured bilge-water (with a little
good wholesome tar in it) upon thy melons; I have brought out girls to
mock thee and cocker thee, and talk like mariners, to make thee
braver. Nothing would do. Nay, recollect thee! I have myself led thee
forth to the window when fellows were hanged and shot; and I have
shown thee every day the halves and quarters of bodies; and I have
sent an orderly or chamberlain for the heads; and I have pulled the
cap up from over the eyes; and I have made thee, in spite of thee,
look steadfastly upon them, incorrigible coward!

And now another word with thee about thy scandalous flight from the
palace, in time of quiet, too! To the point! Did my brother of Austria
invite thee? Did he, or did he not?

_Alexis._ May I answer without doing an injury or disservice to his
Imperial Majesty?

_Peter._ Thou mayest. What injury canst thou or any one do, by the
tongue, to such as he is?

_Alexis._ At the moment, no; he did not. Nor indeed can I assert that
he at any time invited me; but he said he pitied me.

_Peter._ About what? hold thy tongue; let that pass. Princes never
pity but when they would make traitors: then their hearts grow
tenderer than tripe. He pitied thee, kind soul, when he would throw
thee at thy father's head; but finding thy father too strong for him,
he now commiserates the parent, laments the son's rashness and
disobedience, and would not make God angry for the world. At first,
however, there must have been some overture on his part; otherwise
thou are too shamefaced for intrusion. Come--thou hast never had wit
enough to lie--tell me the truth, the whole truth.

_Alexis._ He said that if ever I wanted an asylum, his court was open
to me.

_Peter._ Open! so is the tavern; but folks pay for what they get
there. Open, truly! and didst thou find it so?

_Alexis._ He received me kindly.

_Peter._ I see he did.

_Alexis._ Derision, O my father! is not the fate I merit.

_Peter._ True, true! it was not intended.

_Alexis._ Kind father! punish me then as you will.

_Peter._ Villain! wouldst thou kiss my hand, too? Art thou ignorant
that the Austrian threw thee away from him, with the same indifference
as he would the outermost leaf of a sandy sunburnt lettuce?

_Alexis._ Alas! I am not ignorant of this.

_Peter._ He dismissed thee at my order. If I had demanded from him his
daughter, to be the bedfellow of a Kalmuc, he would have given her,
and praised God.

_Alexis._ O father! is his baseness my crime?

_Peter._ No; thine is greater. Thy intention, I know, is to subvert
the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to establish.
Thou hast never rejoiced at my victories.

_Alexis._ I have rejoiced at your happiness and your safety.

_Peter._ Liar! coward! traitor! when the Polanders and Swedes fell
before me, didst thou from thy soul congratulate me? Didst thou get
drunk at home or abroad, or praise the Lord of Hosts and Saint
Nicholas? Wert thou not silent and civil and low-spirited?

_Alexis._ I lamented the irretrievable loss of human life; I lamented
that the bravest and noblest were swept away the first; that the
gentlest and most domestic were the earliest mourners; that frugality
was supplanted by intemperance; that order was succeeded by confusion;
and that your Majesty was destroying the glorious plans you alone were
capable of devising.

_Peter._ I destroy them! how? Of what plans art thou speaking?

_Alexis._ Of civilizing the Muscovites. The Polanders in part were
civilized: the Swedes, more than any other nation on the Continent;
and so excellently versed were they in military science, and so
courageous, that every man you killed cost you seven or eight.

_Peter._ Thou liest; nor six. And civilized, forsooth? Why, the robes
of the metropolitan, him at Upsal, are not worth three ducats, between
Jew and Livornese. I have no notion that Poland and Sweden shall be
the only countries that produce great princes. What right have they to
such as Gustavus and Sobieski? Europe ought to look to this before
discontents become general, and the people do to us what we have the
privilege of doing to the people. I am wasting my words: there is no
arguing with positive fools like thee. So thou wouldst have desired me
to let the Polanders and Swedes lie still and quiet! Two such powerful
nations!

_Alexis._ For that reason and others I would have gladly seen them
rest, until our own people had increased in numbers and prosperity.

_Peter._ And thus thou disputest my right, before my face, to the
exercise of the supreme power.

_Alexis._ Sir! God forbid!

_Peter._ God forbid, indeed! What care such villains as thou art what
God forbids! He forbids the son to be disobedient to the father; He
forbids--He forbids--twenty things. I do not wish, and will not have,
a successor who dreams of dead people.

_Alexis._ My father! I have dreamed of none such.

_Peter._ Thou hast, and hast talked about them--Scythians, I think,
they call 'em. Now, who told thee, Mr. Professor, that the Scythians
were a happier people than we are; that they were inoffensive; that
they were free; that they wandered with their carts from pasture to
pasture, from river to river; that they traded with good faith; that
they fought with good courage; that they injured none, invaded none,
and feared none? At this rate I have effected nothing. The great
founder of Rome, I heard in Holland, slew his brother for despiting
the weakness of his walls; and shall the founder of this better place
spare a degenerate son, who prefers a vagabond life to a civilized
one, a cart to a city, a Scythian to a Muscovite? Have I not shaved my
people, and breeched them? Have I not formed them into regular armies,
with bands of music and haversacks? Are bows better than cannon?
shepherds than dragoons, mare's milk than brandy, raw steaks than
broiled? Thine are tenets that strike at the root of politeness and
sound government. Every prince in Europe is interested in rooting them
out by fire and sword. There is no other way with false doctrines:
breath against breath does little.

_Alexis._ Sire, I never have attempted to disseminate my opinions.

_Peter._ How couldst thou? the seed would fall only on granite. Those,
however, who caught it brought it to me.

_Alexis._ Never have I undervalued civilization: on the contrary, I
regretted whatever impeded it. In my opinion, the evils that have been
attributed to it sprang from its imperfections and voids; and no
nation has yet acquired it more than very scantily.

_Peter._ How so? give me thy reasons--thy fancies, rather; for reason
thou hast none.

_Alexis._ When I find the first of men, in rank and genius, hating one
another, and becoming slanderers and liars in order to lower and
vilify an opponent; when I hear the God of mercy invoked to massacres,
and thanked for furthering what He reprobates and condemns--I look
back in vain on any barbarous people for worse barbarism. I have
expressed my admiration of our forefathers, who, not being Christians,
were yet more virtuous than those who are; more temperate, more just,
more sincere, more chaste, more peaceable.

_Peter._ Malignant atheist!

_Alexis._ Indeed, my father, were I malignant I must be an atheist;
for malignity is contrary to the command, and inconsistent with the
belief, of God.

_Peter._ Am I Czar of Muscovy, and hear discourses on reason and
religion? from my own son, too! No, by the Holy Trinity! thou art no
son of mine. If thou touchest my knee again, I crack thy knuckles with
this tobacco-stopper: I wish it were a sledge-hammer for thy sake.
Off, sycophant! Off, runaway slave!

_Alexis._ Father! father! my heart is broken! If I have offended,
forgive me!

_Peter._ The State requires thy signal punishment.

_Alexis._ If the State requires it, be it so; but let my father's
anger cease!

_Peter._ The world shall judge between us. I will brand thee with
infamy.

_Alexis._ Until now, O father! I never had a proper sense of glory.
Hear me, O Czar! let not a thing so vile as I am stand between you and
the world! Let none accuse you!

_Peter._ Accuse me, rebel! Accuse me, traitor!

_Alexis._ Let none speak ill of you, O my father! The public voice
shakes the palace; the public voice penetrates the grave; it precedes
the chariot of Almighty God, and is heard at the judgment-seat.

_Peter._ Let it go to the devil! I will have none of it here in
Petersburg. Our church says nothing about it; our laws forbid it. As
for thee, unnatural brute, I have no more to do with thee neither!

Ho, there! chancellor! What! come at last! Wert napping, or counting
thy ducats?

_Chancellor._ Your Majesty's will and pleasure!

_Peter._ Is the Senate assembled in that room?

_Chancellor._ Every member, sire.

_Peter._ Conduct this youth with thee, and let them judge him; thou
understandest me.

_Chancellor._ Your Majesty's commands are the breath of our nostrils.

_Peter._ If these rascals are amiss, I will try my new cargo of
Livonian hemp upon 'em.

_Chancellor._ [_Returning._] Sire, sire!

_Peter._ Speak, fellow! Surely they have not condemned him to death,
without giving themselves time to read the accusation, that thou
comest back so quickly.

_Chancellor._ No, sire! Nor has either been done.

_Peter._ Then thy head quits thy shoulders.

_Chancellor._ O sire!

_Peter._ Curse thy silly _sires_! what art thou about?

_Chancellor._ Alas! he fell.

_Peter._ Tie him up to thy chair, then. Cowardly beast! what made him
fall?

_Chancellor._ The hand of Death; the name of father.

_Peter._ Thou puzzlest me; prithee speak plainlier.

_Chancellor._ We told him that his crime was proven and manifest; that
his life was forfeited.

_Peter._ So far, well enough.

_Chancellor._ He smiled.

_Peter._ He did! did he? Impudence shall do him little good. Who could
have expected it from that smock-face! Go on--what then?

_Chancellor._ He said calmly, but not without sighing twice or thrice,
'Lead me to the scaffold: I am weary of life; nobody loves me.' I
condoled with him, and wept upon his hand, holding the paper against
my bosom. He took the corner of it between his fingers, and said,
'Read me this paper; read my death-warrant. Your silence and tears
have signified it; yet the law has its forms. Do not keep me in
suspense. My father says, too truly, I am not courageous; but the
death that leads me to my God shall never terrify me.'

_Peter._ I have seen these white-livered knaves die resolutely; I have
seen them quietly fierce like white ferrets with their watery eyes and
tiny teeth. You read it?

_Chancellor._ In part, sire! When he heard your Majesty's name
accusing him of treason and attempts at rebellion and parricide, he
fell speechless. We raised him up: he was motionless; he was dead!

_Peter._ Inconsiderate and barbarous varlet as thou art, dost thou
recite this ill accident to a father! and to one who has not dined!
Bring me a glass of brandy.

_Chancellor._ And it please your Majesty, might I call a--a----

_Peter._ Away and bring it: scamper! All equally and alike shall obey
and serve me.

Hark ye! bring the bottle with it: I must cool myself--and--hark ye! a
rasher of bacon on thy life! and some pickled sturgeon, and some krout
and caviare, and good strong cheese.




HENRY VIII AND ANNE BOLEYN


_Henry._ Dost thou know me, Nanny, in this yeoman's dress? 'Sblood!
does it require so long and vacant a stare to recollect a husband
after a week or two? No tragedy-tricks with me! a scream, a sob, or
thy kerchief a trifle the wetter, were enough. Why, verily the little
fool faints in earnest. These whey faces, like their kinsfolk the
ghosts, give us no warning. Hast had water enough upon thee? Take
that, then: art thyself again?

_Anne._ Father of mercies! do I meet again my husband, as was my last
prayer on earth? Do I behold my beloved lord--in peace--and pardoned,
my partner in eternal bliss? it was his voice. I cannot see him: why
cannot I? Oh, why do these pangs interrupt the transports of the
blessed?

_Henry._ Thou openest thy arms: faith! I came for that. Nanny, thou
art a sweet slut. Thou groanest, wench: art in labour? Faith! among
the mistakes of the night, I am ready to think almost that thou hast
been drinking, and that I have not.

_Anne._ God preserve your Highness: grant me your forgiveness for one
slight offence. My eyes were heavy; I fell asleep while I was reading.
I did not know of your presence at first; and, when I did, I could
not speak. I strove for utterance: I wanted no respect for my liege
and husband.

_Henry._ My pretty warm nestling, thou wilt then lie! Thou wert
reading, and aloud too, with thy saintly cup of water by thee,
and--what! thou art still girlishly fond of those dried cherries!

_Anne._ I had no other fruit to offer your Highness the first time I
saw you, and you were then pleased to invent for me some reason why
they should be acceptable. I did not dry these: may I present them,
such as they are? We shall have fresh next month.

_Henry._ Thou art always driving away from the discourse. One moment
it suits thee to know me, another not.

_Anne._ Remember, it is hardly three months since I miscarried. I am
weak, and liable to swoons.

_Henry._ Thou hast, however, thy bridal cheeks, with lustre upon them
when there is none elsewhere, and obstinate lips resisting all
impression; but, now thou talkest about miscarrying, who is the father
of that boy?

_Anne._ Yours and mine--He who hath taken him to his own home, before
(like me) he could struggle or cry for it.

_Henry._ Pagan, or worse, to talk so! He did not come into the world
alive: there was no baptism.

_Anne._ I thought only of our loss: my senses are confounded. I did
not give him my milk, and yet I loved him tenderly; for I often
fancied, had he lived, how contented and joyful he would have made you
and England.

_Henry._ No subterfuges and escapes. I warrant, thou canst not say
whether at my entrance thou wert waking or wandering.

_Anne._ Faintness and drowsiness came upon me suddenly.

_Henry._ Well, since thou really and truly sleepedst, what didst dream
of?

_Anne._ I begin to doubt whether I did indeed sleep.

_Henry._ Ha! false one--never two sentences of truth together! But
come, what didst think about, asleep or awake?

_Anne._ I thought that God had pardoned me my offences, and had
received me unto Him.

_Henry._ And nothing more?

_Anne._ That my prayers had been heard and my wishes were
accomplishing: the angels alone can enjoy more beatitude than this.

_Henry._ Vexatious little devil! She says nothing now about me, merely
from perverseness. Hast thou never thought about me, nor about thy
falsehood and adultery?

_Anne._ If I had committed any kind of falsehood, in regard to you or
not, I should never have rested until I had thrown myself at your feet
and obtained your pardon; but, if ever I had been guilty of that other
crime, I know not whether I should have dared to implore it, even of
God's mercy.

_Henry._ Thou hast heretofore cast some soft glances upon Smeaton;
hast thou not?

_Anne._ He taught me to play on the virginals, as you know, when I was
little, and thereby to please your Highness.

_Henry._ And Brereton and Norris--what have they taught thee?

_Anne._ They are your servants, and trusty ones.

_Henry._ Has not Weston told thee plainly that he loved thee?

_Anne._ Yes; and----

_Henry._ What didst thou?

_Anne._ I defied him.

_Henry._ Is that all?

_Anne._ I could have done no more if he had told me that he hated me.
Then, indeed, I should have incurred more justly the reproaches of
your Highness: I should have smiled.

_Henry._ We have proofs abundant: the fellows shall one and all
confront thee. Aye, clap thy hands and kiss thy sleeve, harlot!

_Anne._ Oh that so great a favour is vouchsafed me! My honour is
secure; my husband will be happy again; he will see my innocence.

_Henry._ Give me now an account of the moneys thou hast received from
me within these nine months. I want them not back: they are letters of
gold in record of thy guilt. Thou hast had no fewer than fifteen
thousand pounds in that period, without even thy asking; what hast
done with it, wanton?

_Anne._ I have regularly placed it out to interest.

_Henry._ Where? I demand of thee.

_Anne._ Among the needy and ailing. My Lord Archbishop has the account
of it, sealed by him weekly. I also had a copy myself; those who took
away my papers may easily find it; for there are few others, and they
lie open.

_Henry._ Think on my munificence to thee; recollect who made thee.
Dost sigh for what thou hast lost?

_Anne._ I do, indeed.

_Henry._ I never thought thee ambitious; but thy vices creep out one
by one.

_Anne._ I do not regret that I have been a queen and am no longer
one; nor that my innocence is called in question by those who never
knew me; but I lament that the good people who loved me so cordially,
hate and curse me; that those who pointed me out to their daughters
for imitation check them when they speak about me; and that he whom
next to God I have served with most devotion is my accuser.

_Henry._ Wast thou conning over something in that dingy book for thy
defence? Come, tell me, what wast thou reading?

_Anne._ This ancient chronicle. I was looking for someone in my own
condition, and must have missed the page. Surely in so many hundred
years there shall have been other young maidens, first too happy for
exaltation, and after too exalted for happiness--not, perchance,
doomed to die upon a scaffold, by those they ever honoured and served
faithfully; that, indeed, I did not look for nor think of; but my
heart was bounding for any one I could love and pity. She would be
unto me as a sister dead and gone; but hearing me, seeing me,
consoling me, and being consoled. O my husband! it is so heavenly a
thing----

_Henry._ To whine and whimper, no doubt, is vastly heavenly.

_Anne._ I said not so; but those, if there be any such, who never
weep, have nothing in them of heavenly or of earthly. The plants, the
trees, the very rocks and unsunned clouds, show us at least the
semblances of weeping; and there is not an aspect of the globe we live
on, nor of the waters and skies around it, without a reference and a
similitude to our joys or sorrows.

_Henry._ I do not remember that notion anywhere. Take care no enemy
rake out of it something of materialism. Guard well thy empty hot
brain; it may hatch more evil. As for those odd words, I myself would
fain see no great harm in them, knowing that grief and frenzy strike
out many things which would else lie still, and neither spurt nor
sparkle. I also know that thou hast never read anything but Bible and
history--the two worst books in the world for young people, and the
most certain to lead astray both prince and subject. For which reason
I have interdicted and entirely put down the one, and will (by the
blessing of the Virgin and of holy Paul) commit the other to a rigid
censor. If it behoves us kings to enact what our people shall eat and
drink--of which the most unruly and rebellious spirit can entertain no
doubt--greatly more doth it behove us to examine what they read and
think. The body is moved according to the mind and will; we must take
care that the movement be a right one, on pain of God's anger in this
life and the next.

_Anne._ O my dear husband! it must be a naughty thing, indeed, that
makes Him angry beyond remission. Did you ever try how pleasant it is
to forgive any one? There is nothing else wherein we can resemble God
perfectly and easily.

_Henry._ Resemble God perfectly and easily! Do vile creatures talk
thus of the Creator?

_Anne._ No, Henry, when His creatures talk thus of Him, they are no
longer vile creatures! When they know that He is good, they love Him;
and, when they love Him, they are good themselves. O Henry! my husband
and king! the judgments of our Heavenly Father are righteous; on this,
surely, we must think alike.

_Henry._ And what, then? Speak out; again I command thee, speak
plainly! thy tongue was not so torpid but this moment. Art ready? Must
I wait?

_Anne._ If any doubt remains upon your royal mind of your equity in
this business: should it haply seem possible to you that passion or
prejudice, in yourself or another, may have warped so strong an
understanding--do but supplicate the Almighty to strengthen and
enlighten it, and He will hear you.

_Henry._ What! thou wouldst fain change thy quarters, ay?

_Anne._ My spirit is detached and ready, and I shall change them
shortly, whatever your Highness may determine.

_Henry._ Yet thou appearest hale and resolute, and (they tell me)
smirkest and smilest to everybody.

_Anne._ The withered leaf catches the sun sometimes, little as it can
profit by it; and I have heard stories of the breeze in other climates
that sets in when daylight is about to close, and how constant it is,
and how refreshing. My heart, indeed, is now sustained strangely; it
became the more sensibly so from that time forward, when power and
grandeur and all things terrestrial were sunk from sight. Every act of
kindness in those about me gives me satisfaction and pleasure, such as
I did not feel formerly. I was worse before God chastened me; yet I
was never an ingrate. What pains have I taken to find out the
village-girls who placed their posies in my chamber ere I arose in the
morning! How gladly would I have recompensed the forester who lit up a
brake on my birthnight, which else had warmed him half the winter! But
these are times past: I was not Queen of England.

_Henry._ Nor adulterous, nor heretical.

_Anne._ God be praised!

_Henry._ Learned saint! thou knowest nothing of the lighter, but
perhaps canst inform me about the graver, of them.

_Anne._ Which may it be, my liege?

_Henry._ Which may it be? Pestilence! I marvel that the walls of this
tower do not crack around thee at such impiety.

_Anne._ I would be instructed by the wisest of theologians: such is
your Highness.

_Henry._ Are the sins of the body, foul as they are, comparable to
those of the soul?

_Anne._ When they are united, they must be worse.

_Henry._ Go on, go on: thou pushest thy own breast against the sword.
God hath deprived thee of thy reason for thy punishment. I must hear
more: proceed, I charge thee.

_Anne._ An aptitude to believe one thing rather than another, from
ignorance or weakness, or from the more persuasive manner of the
teacher, or from his purity of life, or from the strong impression of
a particular text at a particular time, and various things beside, may
influence and decide our opinion; and the hand of the Almighty, let us
hope, will fall gently on human fallibility.

_Henry._ Opinion in matters of faith! rare wisdom! rare religion!
Troth, Anne! thou hast well sobered me. I came rather warmly and
lovingly; but these light ringlets, by the holy rood, shall not shade
this shoulder much longer. Nay, do not start; I tap it for the last
time, my sweetest. If the Church permitted it, thou shouldst set forth
on thy long journey with the Eucharist between thy teeth, however
loath.

_Anne._ Love your Elizabeth, my honoured lord, and God bless you! She
will soon forget to call me. Do not chide her: think how young she is.

Could I, could I kiss her, but once again! it would comfort my
heart--or break it.




JOSEPH SCALIGER AND MONTAIGNE


_Montaigne._ What could have brought you, M. de l'Escale, to visit the
old man of the mountain, other than a good heart? Oh, how delighted
and charmed I am to hear you speak such excellent Gascon. You rise
early, I see: you must have risen with the sun, to be here at this
hour; it is a stout half-hour's walk from the brook. I have capital
white wine, and the best cheese in Auvergne. You saw the goats and
the two cows before the castle.

Pierre, thou hast done well: set it upon the table, and tell Master
Matthew to split a couple of chickens and broil them, and to pepper
but one. Do you like pepper, M. de l'Escale?

_Scaliger._ Not much.

_Montaigne._ Hold hard! let the pepper alone: I hate it. Tell him to
broil plenty of ham; only two slices at a time, upon his salvation.

_Scaliger._ This, I perceive, is the antechamber to your library: here
are your everyday books.

_Montaigne._ Faith! I have no other. These are plenty, methinks; is
not that your opinion?

_Scaliger._ You have great resources within yourself, and therefore
can do with fewer.

_Montaigne._ Why, how many now do you think here may be?

_Scaliger._ I did not believe at first that there could be above
fourscore.

_Montaigne._ Well! are fourscore few?--are we talking of peas and
beans?

_Scaliger._ I and my father (put together) have written well-nigh as
many.

_Montaigne._ Ah! to write them is quite another thing: but one reads
books without a spur, or even a pat from our Lady Vanity. How do you
like my wine?--it comes from the little knoll yonder: you cannot see
the vines, those chestnut-trees are between.

_Scaliger._ The wine is excellent; light, odoriferous, with a
smartness like a sharp child's prattle.

_Montaigne._ It never goes to the head, nor pulls the nerves, which
many do as if they were guitar-strings. I drink a couple of bottles a
day, winter and summer, and never am the worse for it. You gentlemen
of the Agennois have better in your province, and indeed the very best
under the sun. I do not wonder that the Parliament of Bordeaux should
be jealous of their privileges, and call it Bordeaux. Now, if you
prefer your own country wine, only say it: I have several bottles in
my cellar, with corks as long as rapiers, and as polished. I do not
know, M. de l'Escale, whether you are particular in these matters: not
quite, I should imagine, so great a judge in them as in others?

_Scaliger._ I know three things: wine, poetry, and the world.

_Montaigne._ You know one too many, then. I hardly know whether I know
anything about poetry; for I like Clem Marot better than Ronsard.
Ronsard is so plaguily stiff and stately, where there is no occasion
for it; I verily do think the man must have slept with his wife in a
cuirass.

_Scaliger._ It pleases me greatly that you like Marot. His versions of
the Psalms is lately set to music, and added to the New Testament of
Geneva.

_Montaigne._ It is putting a slice of honeycomb into a barrel of
vinegar, which will never grow the sweeter for it.

_Scaliger._ Surely, you do not think in this fashion of the New
Testament!

_Montaigne._ Who supposes it? Whatever is mild and kindly is there.
But Jack Calvin has thrown bird-lime and vitriol upon it, and whoever
but touches the cover dirties his fingers or burns them.

_Scaliger._ Calvin is a very great man, I do assure you, M. de
Montaigne.

_Montaigne._ I do not like your great men who beckon me to them, call
me their begotten, their dear child, and their entrails; and, if I
happen to say on any occasion, 'I beg leave, sir, to dissent a little
from you,' stamp and cry, 'The devil you do!' and whistle to the
executioner.

_Scaliger._ You exaggerate, my worthy friend!

_Montaigne._ Exaggerate do I, M. de l'Escale? What was it he did the
other day to the poor devil there with an odd name?--Melancthon, I
think it is.

_Scaliger._ I do not know: I have received no intelligence of late
from Geneva.

_Montaigne._ It was but last night that our curate rode over from
Lyons (he made two days of it, as you may suppose) and supped with me.
He told me that Jack had got his old friend hanged and burned. I could
not join him in the joke, for I find none such in the New Testament,
on which he would have founded it; and, if it is one, it is not in my
manner or to my taste.

_Scaliger._ I cannot well believe the report, my dear sir. He was
rather urgent, indeed, on the combustion of the heretic Michael
Servetus some years past.

_Montaigne._ A thousand to one, my spiritual guide mistook the name.
He has heard of both, I warrant him, and thinks in his conscience that
either is as good a roast as the other.

_Scaliger._ Theologians are proud and intolerant, and truly the
farthest of all men from theology, if theology means the rational
sense of religion, or indeed has anything to do with it in any way.
Melancthon was the very best of the reformers; quiet, sedate,
charitable, intrepid, firm in friendship, ardent in faith, acute in
argument, and profound in learning.

_Montaigne._ Who cares about his argumentation or his learning, if he
was the rest?

_Scaliger._ I hope you will suspend your judgment on this affair until
you receive some more certain and positive information.

_Montaigne._ I can believe it of the Sieur Calvin.

_Scaliger._ I cannot. John Calvin is a grave man, orderly and
reasonable.

_Montaigne._ In my opinion he has not the order nor the reason of my
cook. Mat never took a man for a sucking-pig, cleaning and scraping
and buttering and roasting him; nor ever twitched God by the sleeve
and swore He should not have His own way.

_Scaliger._ M. de Montaigne, have you ever studied the doctrine of
predestination?

_Montaigne._ I should not understand it, if I had; and I would not
break through an old fence merely to get into a cavern. I would not
give a fig or a fig-leaf to know the truth of it, as far as any man
can teach it me. Would it make me honester or happier, or, in other
things, wiser?

_Scaliger._ I do not know whether it would materially.

_Montaigne._ I should be an egregious fool then to care about it. Our
disputes on controverted points have filled the country with
missionaries and cut-throats. Both parties have shown a disposition to
turn this comfortable old house of mine into a fortress. If I had
inclined to either, the other would have done it. Come walk about it
with me; after a ride, you can do nothing better to take off fatigue.

_Scaliger._ A most spacious kitchen!

_Montaigne._ Look up!

_Scaliger._ You have twenty or more flitches of bacon hanging there.

_Montaigne._ And if I had been a doctor or a captain, I should have
had a cobweb and predestination in the place of them. Your soldiers of
the _religion_ on the one side, and of the _good old faith_ on the
other, would not have left unto me safe and sound even that good old
woman there.

_Scaliger._ Oh, yes! they would, I hope.

_Old Woman._ Why dost giggle, Mat? What should he know about the
business? He speaks mighty bad French, and is as spiteful as the
devil. Praised be God, we have a kind master, who thinks about us, and
feels for us.

_Scaliger._ Upon my word, M. de Montaigne, this gallery is an
interesting one.

_Montaigne._ I can show you nothing but my house and my dairy. We have
no chase in the month of May, you know--unless you would like to bait
the badger in the stable. This is rare sport in rainy days.

_Scaliger._ Are you in earnest, M. de Montaigne?

_Montaigne._ No, no, no, I cannot afford to worry him outright: only a
little for pastime--a morning's merriment for the dogs and wenches.

_Scaliger._ You really are then of so happy a temperament that, at
your time of life, you can be amused by baiting a badger!

_Montaigne._ Why not? Your father, a wiser and graver and older man
than I am, was amused by baiting a professor or critic. I have not a
dog in the kennel that would treat the badger worse than brave Julius
treated Cardan and Erasmus, and some dozens more. We are all childish,
old as well as young; and our very last tooth would fain stick, M. de
l'Escale, in some tender place of a neighbour. Boys laugh at a person
who falls in the dirt; men laugh rather when they make him fall, and
most when the dirt is of their own laying.

Is not the gallery rather cold, after the kitchen? We must go through
it to get into the court where I keep my tame rabbits; the stable is
hard by: come along, come along.

_Scaliger._ Permit me to look a little at those banners. Some of them
are old indeed.

_Montaigne._ Upon my word, I blush to think I never took notice how
they are tattered. I have no fewer than three women in the house, and
in a summer's evening, only two hours long, the worst of these rags
might have been darned across.

_Scaliger._ You would not have done it surely!

_Montaigne._ I am not over-thrifty; the women might have been better
employed. It is as well as it is then; ay?

_Scaliger._ I think so.

_Montaigne._ So be it.

_Scaliger._ They remind me of my own family, we being descended from
the great Cane della Scala, Prince of Verona, and from the House of
Hapsburg, as you must have heard from my father.

_Montaigne._ What signifies it to the world whether the great Cane was
tied to his grandmother or not? As for the House of Hapsburg, if you
could put together as many such houses as would make up a city larger
than Cairo, they would not be worth his study, or a sheet of paper on
the table of it.




BOCCACCIO AND PETRARCA


_Boccaccio._ Remaining among us, I doubt not that you would soon
receive the same distinctions in your native country as others have
conferred upon you: indeed, in confidence I may promise it. For
greatly are the Florentines ashamed that the most elegant of their
writers and the most independent of their citizens lives in exile, by
the injustice he had suffered in the detriment done to his property,
through the intemperate administration of their laws.

_Petrarca._ Let them recall me soon and honourably: then perhaps I may
assist them to remove their ignominy, which I carry about with me
wherever I go, and which is pointed out by my exotic laurel.

_Boccaccio._ There is, and ever will be, in all countries and under
all governments, an ostracism for their greatest men.

_Petrarca._ At present we will talk no more about it. To-morrow I
pursue my journey towards Padua, where I am expected; where some few
value and esteem me, honest and learned and ingenious men; although
neither those Transpadane regions, nor whatever extends beyond them,
have yet produced an equal to Boccaccio.

_Boccaccio._ Then, in the name of friendship, do not go thither!--form
such rather from your fellow-citizens. I love my equals heartily; and
shall love them the better when I see them raised up here, from our
own mother earth, by you.

_Petrarca._ Let us continue our walk.

_Boccaccio._ If you have been delighted (and you say you have been) at
seeing again, after so long an absence, the house and garden wherein I
have placed the relaters of my stories, as reported in the _Decameron_,
come a little way farther up the ascent, and we will pass through the
vineyard on the west of the villa. You will see presently another on
the right, lying in its warm little garden close to the roadside, the
scene lately of somewhat that would have looked well, as illustration,
in the midst of your Latin reflections. It shows us that people the
most serious and determined may act at last contrariwise to the line
of conduct they have laid down.

_Petrarca._ Relate it to me, Messer Giovanni; for you are able to give
reality the merits and charms of fiction, just as easily as you give
fiction the semblance, the stature, and the movement of reality.

_Boccaccio._ I must here forgo such powers, if in good truth I possess
them.

_Petrarca._ This long green alley, defended by box and cypresses, is
very pleasant. The smell of box, although not sweet, is more agreeable
to me than many that are: I cannot say from what resuscitation of
early and tender feeling. The cypress, too, seems to strengthen the
nerves of the brain. Indeed, I delight in the odour of most trees and
plants.

Will not that dog hurt us?--he comes closer.

_Boccaccio._ Dog! thou hast the colours of a magpie and the tongue of
one; prithee be quiet: art thou not ashamed?

_Petrarca._ Verily he trots off, comforting his angry belly with his
plenteous tail, flattened and bestrewn under it. He looks back, going
on, and puffs out his upper lip without a bark.

_Boccaccio._ These creatures are more accessible to temperate and just
rebuke than the creatures of our species, usually angry with less
reason, and from no sense, as dogs are, of duty. Look into that white
arcade! Surely it was white the other day; and now I perceive it is
still so: the setting sun tinges it with yellow.

_Petrarca._ The house has nothing of either the rustic or the
magnificent about it; nothing quite regular, nothing much varied. If
there is anything at all affecting, as I fear there is, in the story
you are about to tell me, I could wish the edifice itself bore
externally some little of the interesting that I might hereafter turn
my mind toward it, looking out of the catastrophe, though not away
from it. But I do not even find the peculiar and uncostly decoration
of our Tuscan villas: the central turret, round which the kite
perpetually circles in search of pigeons or smaller prey, borne
onward, like the Flemish skater, by effortless will in motionless
progression. The view of Fiesole must be lovely from that window; but
I fancy to myself it loses the cascade under the single high arch of
the Mugnone.

_Boccaccio._ I think so. In this villa--come rather farther off: the
inhabitants of it may hear us, if they should happen to be in the
arbour, as most people are at the present hour of day--in this villa,
Messer Francesco, lives Monna Tita Monalda, who tenderly loved Amadeo
degli Oricellari. She, however, was reserved and coy; and Father
Pietro de' Pucci, an enemy to the family of Amadeo, told her nevermore
to think of him, for that, just before he knew her, he had thrown his
arm round the neck of Nunciata Righi, his mother's maid, calling her
most immodestly a sweet creature, and of a whiteness that marble would
split with envy at.

Monna Tita trembled and turned pale. 'Father, is the girl really so
very fair?' said she anxiously.

'Madonna,' replied the father, 'after confession she is not much
amiss: white she is, with a certain tint of pink not belonging to her,
but coming over her as through the wing of an angel pleased at the
holy function; and her breath is such, the very ear smells it: poor,
innocent, sinful soul! Hei! The wretch, Amadeo, would have endangered
her salvation.'

'She must be a wicked girl to let him,' said Monna Tita. 'A young man
of good parentage and education would not dare to do such a thing of
his own accord. I will see him no more, however. But it was before he
knew me: and it may not be true. I cannot think any young woman would
let a young man do so, even in the last hour before Lent. Now in what
month was it supposed to be?'

'Supposed to be!' cried the father indignantly: 'in June; I say in
June.'

'Oh! that now is quite impossible: for on the second of July,
forty-one days from this, and at this very hour of it, he swore to me
eternal love and constancy. I will inquire of him whether it is true:
I will charge him with it.'

She did. Amadeo confessed his fault, and, thinking it a venial one,
would have taken and kissed her hand as he asked forgiveness.

_Petrarca._ Children! children! I will go into the house, and if their
relatives, as I suppose, have approved of the marriage, I will
endeavour to persuade the young lady that a fault like this, on the
repentance of her lover, is not unpardonable. But first, is Amadeo a
young man of loose habits?

_Boccaccio._ Less than our others: in fact, I never heard of any
deviation, excepting this.

_Petrarca._ Come, then, with me.

_Boccaccio._ Wait a little.

_Petrarca._ I hope the modest Tita, after a trial, will not be too
severe with him.

_Boccaccio._ Severity is far from her nature; but, such is her purity
and innocence, she shed many and bitter tears at his confession, and
declared her unalterable determination of taking the veil among the
nuns of Fiesole. Amadeo fell at her feet, and wept upon them. She
pushed him from her gently, and told him she would still love him if
he would follow her example, leave the world, and become a friar of
San Marco. Amadeo was speechless; and, if he had not been so, he never
would have made a promise he intended to violate. She retired from
him. After a time he arose, less wounded than benumbed by the sharp
uncovered stones in the garden-walk; and, as a man who fears to fall
from a precipice goes farther from it than is necessary, so did Amadeo
shun the quarter where the gate is, and, oppressed by his agony and
despair, throw his arms across the sundial and rest his brow upon it,
hot as it must have been on a cloudless day in August. When the
evening was about to close, he was aroused by the cries of rooks
overhead; they flew towards Florence, and beyond; he, too, went back
into the city.

Tita fell sick from her inquietude. Every morning ere sunrise did
Amadeo return; but could hear only from the labourers in the field
that Monna Tita was ill, because she had promised to take the veil and
had not taken it, knowing, as she must do, that the heavenly
bridegroom is a bridegroom never to be trifled with, let the spouse be
young and beautiful as she may be. Amadeo had often conversed with the
peasant of the farm, who much pitied so worthy and loving a gentleman;
and, finding him one evening fixing some thick and high stakes in the
ground, offered to help him. After due thanks, 'It is time,' said the
peasant, 'to rebuild the hovel and watch the grapes.'

'This is my house,' cried he. 'Could I never, in my stupidity, think
about rebuilding it before? Bring me another mat or two: I will sleep
here to-night, to-morrow night, every night, all autumn, all winter.'

He slept there, and was consoled at last by hearing that Monna Tita
was out of danger, and recovering from her illness by spiritual means.
His heart grew lighter day after day. Every evening did he observe the
rooks, in the same order, pass along the same track in the heavens,
just over San Marco; and it now occurred to him, after three weeks,
indeed, that Monna Tita had perhaps some strange idea, in choosing his
monastery, not unconnected with the passage of these birds. He grew
calmer upon it, until he asked himself whether he might hope. In the
midst of this half-meditation, half-dream, his whole frame was shaken
by the voices, however low and gentle, of two monks, coming from the
villa and approaching him. He would have concealed himself under this
bank whereon we are standing; but they saw him, and called him by
name. He now perceived that the younger of them was Guiberto Oddi,
with whom he had been at school about six or seven years ago, and who
admired him for his courage and frankness when he was almost a child.

'Do not let us mortify poor Amadeo,' said Guiberto to his companion.
'Return to the road: I will speak a few words to him, and engage him
(I trust) to comply with reason and yield to necessity.' The elder
monk, who saw he should have to climb the hill again, assented to the
proposal, and went into the road. After the first embraces and few
words, 'Amadeo! Amadeo!' said Guiberto, 'it was love that made me a
friar; let anything else make you one.'

'Kind heart!' replied Amadeo. 'If death or religion, or hatred of me,
deprives me of Tita Monalda, I will die, where she commanded me, in
the cowl. It is you who prepare her, then, to throw away her life and
mine!'

'Hold! Amadeo!' said Guiberto, 'I officiate together with good Father
Fontesecco, who invariably falls asleep amid our holy function.'

Now, Messer Francesco, I must inform you that Father Fontesecco has
the heart of a flower. It feels nothing, it wants nothing; it is pure
and simple, and full of its own little light. Innocent as a child, as
an angel, nothing ever troubled him but how to devise what he should
confess. A confession costs him more trouble to invent than any
Giornata in my _Decameron_ cost me. He was once overheard to say on
this occasion, 'God forgive me in His infinite mercy, for making it
appear that I am a little worse than He has chosen I should be!' He is
temperate; for he never drinks more than exactly half the wine and
water set before him. In fact, he drinks the wine and leaves the
water, saying: 'We have the same water up at San Domenico; we send it
hither: it would be uncivil to take back our own gift, and still more
to leave a suspicion that we thought other people's wine poor
beverage.' Being afflicted by the gravel, the physician of his convent
advised him, as he never was fond of wine, to leave it off entirely;
on which he said, 'I know few things; but this I know well--in water
there is often gravel, in wine never. It hath pleased God to afflict
me, and even to go a little out of His way in order to do it, for the
greater warning to other sinners. I will drink wine, brother
Anselmini, and help His work.'

I have led you away from the younger monk.

'While Father Fontesecco is in the first stage of beatitude, chanting
through his nose the _Benedicite_, I will attempt,' said Guiberto, 'to
comfort Monna Tita.'

'Good, blessed Guiberto!' exclaimed Amadeo in a transport of
gratitude, at which Guiberto smiled with his usual grace and suavity.
'O Guiberto! Guiberto! my heart is breaking. Why should she want you
to comfort her?--but--comfort her then!' and he covered his face
within his hands.

'Remember,' said Guiberto placidly, 'her uncle is bedridden; her aunt
never leaves him; the servants are old and sullen, and will stir for
nobody. Finding her resolved, as they believe, to become a nun, they
are little assiduous in their services. Humour her, if none else does,
Amadeo; let her fancy that you intend to be a friar; and, for the
present, walk not on these grounds.'

'Are you true, or are you traitorous?' cried Amadeo, grasping his
friend's hand most fiercely.

'Follow your own counsel, if you think mine insincere,' said the young
friar, not withdrawing his hand, but placing the other on Amadeo's.
'Let me, however, advise you to conceal yourself; and I will direct
Silvestrina to bring you such accounts of her mistress as may at least
make you easy in regard to her health. Adieu.'

Amadeo was now rather tranquil; more than he had ever been, not only
since the displeasure of Monna Tita, but since the first sight of her.
Profuse at all times in his gratitude to Silvestrina, whenever she
brought him good news, news better than usual, he pressed her to his
bosom. Silvestrina Pioppi is about fifteen, slender, fresh,
intelligent, lively, good-humoured, sensitive; and any one but Amadeo
might call her very pretty.

_Petrarca._ Ah, Giovanni! here I find your heart obtaining the mastery
over your vivid and volatile imagination. Well have you said, the
maiden being really pretty, any one but Amadeo might think her so. On
the banks of the Sorga there are beautiful maids; the woods and the
rocks have a thousand times repeated it. I heard but one echo; I heard
but one name: I would have fled from them for ever at another.

_Boccaccio._ Francesco, do not beat your breast just now: wait a
little. Monna Tita would take the veil. The fatal certainty was
announced to Amadeo by his true Guiberto, who had earnestly and
repeatedly prayed her to consider the thing a few months longer.

'I will see her first! By all the saints of heaven I will see her!'
cried the desperate Amadeo, and ran into the house, toward the still
apartment of his beloved. Fortunately Guiberto was neither less active
nor less strong than he, and overtaking him at the moment, drew him
into the room opposite. 'If you will be quiet and reasonable, there is
yet a possibility left you,' said Guiberto in his ear, although
perhaps he did not think it. 'But if you utter a voice or are seen by
any one, you ruin the fame of her you love, and obstruct your own
prospects for ever. It being known that you have not slept in Florence
these several nights, it will be suspected by the malicious that you
have slept in the villa with the connivance of Monna Tita. Compose
yourself; answer nothing; rest where you are: do not add a worse
imprudence to a very bad one. I promise you my assistance, my speedy
return, and best counsel: you shall be released at daybreak.' He
ordered Silvestrina to supply the unfortunate youth with the cordials
usually administered to the uncle, or with the rich old wine they were
made of; and she performed the order with such promptitude and
attention, that he was soon in some sort refreshed.

_Petrarca._ I pity him from my innermost heart, poor young man! Alas,
we are none of us, by original sin, free from infirmities or from
vices.

_Boccaccio._ If we could find a man exempt by nature from vices and
infirmities, we should find one not worth knowing: he would also be
void of tenderness and compassion. What allowances then could his best
friends expect from him in their frailties? What help, consolation,
and assistance in their misfortunes? We are in the midst of a workshop
well stored with sharp instruments: we may do ill with many, unless we
take heed; and good with all, if we will but learn how to employ them.

_Petrarca._ There is somewhat of reason in this. You strengthen me to
proceed with you: I can bear the rest.

_Boccaccio._ Guiberto had taken leave of his friend, and had advanced
a quarter of a mile, which (as you perceive) is nearly the whole way,
on his return to the monastery, when he was overtaken by some peasants
who were hastening homeward from Florence. The information he
collected from them made him determine to retrace his steps. He
entered the room again, and, from the intelligence he had just
acquired, gave Amadeo the assurance that Monna Tita must delay her
entrance into the convent; for that the abbess had that moment gone
down the hill on her way toward Siena to venerate some holy relics,
carrying with her three candles, each five feet long, to burn before
them; which candles contained many particles of the myrrh presented at
the Nativity of our Saviour by the Wise Men of the East. Amadeo
breathed freely, and was persuaded by Guiberto to take another cup of
old wine, and to eat with him some cold roast kid, which had been
offered him for _merenda_. After the agitation of his mind a heavy
sleep fell upon the lover, coming almost before Guiberto departed: so
heavy indeed that Silvestrina was alarmed. It was her apartment; and
she performed the honours of it as well as any lady in Florence could
have done.

_Petrarca._ I easily believe it: the poor are more attentive than the
rich, and the young are more compassionate than the old.

_Boccaccio._ O Francesco! what inconsistent creatures are we!

_Petrarca._ True, indeed! I now foresee the end. He might have done
worse.

_Boccaccio._ I think so.

_Petrarca._ He almost deserved it.

_Boccaccio._ I think that too.

_Petrarca._ Wretched mortals! our passions for ever lead us into this,
or worse.

_Boccaccio._ Ay, truly; much worse generally.

_Petrarca._ The very twig on which the flowers grew lately scourges us
to the bone in its maturity.

_Boccaccio._ Incredible will it be to you, and, by my faith, to me it
was hardly credible. Certain, however, is it that Guiberto on his
return by sunrise found Amadeo in the arms of sleep.

_Petrarca._ Not at all, not at all: the truest lover might suffer and
act as he did.

_Boccaccio._ But, Francesco, there was another pair of arms about him,
worth twenty such, divinity as he is. A loud burst of laughter from
Guiberto did not arouse either of the parties; but Monna Tita heard
it, and rushed into the room, tearing her hair, and invoking the
saints of heaven against the perfidy of man. She seized Silvestrina by
that arm which appeared the most offending: the girl opened her eyes,
turned on her face, rolled out of bed, and threw herself at the feet
of her mistress, shedding tears, and wiping them away with the only
piece of linen about her. Monna Tita too shed tears. Amadeo still
slept profoundly; a flush, almost of crimson, overspreading his
cheeks. Monna Tita led away, after some pause, poor Silvestrina, and
made her confess the whole. She then wept more and more, and made the
girl confess it again, and explain her confession. 'I cannot believe
such wickedness,' she cried: 'he could not be so hardened. O sinful
Silvestrina! how will you ever tell Father Doni one half, one quarter?
He never can absolve you.'

_Petrarca._ Giovanni, I am glad I did not enter the house; you were
prudent in restraining me. I have no pity for the youth at all: never
did one so deserve to lose a mistress.

_Boccaccio._ Say, rather, to gain a wife.

_Petrarca._ Absurdity! impossibility!

_Boccaccio._ He won her fairly; strangely, and on a strange table, as
he played his game. Listen! that guitar is Monna Tita's. Listen! what
a fine voice (do not you think it?) is Amadeo's.

_Amadeo._ [_Singing._]

            Oh, I have err'd!
      I laid my hand upon the nest
      (Tita, I sigh to sing the rest)
            Of the wrong bird.

_Petrarca._ She laughs too at it! Ah! Monna Tita was made by nature to
live on this side of Fiesole.




BOSSUET AND THE DUCHESS DE FONTANGES


_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, it is the king's desire that I compliment you
on the elevation you have attained.

_Fontanges._ O monseigneur, I know very well what you mean. His
Majesty is kind and polite to everybody. The last thing he said to me
was, 'Angélique! do not forget to compliment Monseigneur the bishop on
the dignity I have conferred upon him, of almoner to the dauphiness. I
desired the appointment for him only that he might be of rank
sufficient to confess, now you are duchess. Let him be your confessor,
my little girl.'

_Bossuet._ I dare not presume to ask you, mademoiselle, what was your
gracious reply to the condescension of our royal master.

_Fontanges._ Oh, yes! you may. I told him I was almost sure I should
be ashamed of confessing such naughty things to a person of high rank,
who writes like an angel.

_Bossuet._ The observation was inspired, mademoiselle, by your
goodness and modesty.

_Fontanges._ You are so agreeable a man, monseigneur, I will confess
to you, directly, if you like.

_Bossuet._ Have you brought yourself to a proper frame of mind, young
lady?

_Fontanges._ What is that?

_Bossuet._ Do you hate sin?

_Fontanges._ Very much.

_Bossuet._ Are you resolved to leave it off?

_Fontanges._ I have left it off entirely since the king began to love
me. I have never said a spiteful word of anybody since.

_Bossuet._ In your opinion, mademoiselle, are there no other sins than
malice?

_Fontanges._ I never stole anything; I never committed adultery; I
never coveted my neighbour's wife; I never killed any person, though
several have told me they should die for me.

_Bossuet._ Vain, idle talk! Did you listen to it?

_Fontanges._ Indeed I did, with both ears; it seemed so funny.

_Bossuet._ You have something to answer for, then.

_Fontanges._ No, indeed, I have not, monseigneur. I have asked many
times after them, and found they were all alive, which mortified me.

_Bossuet._ So, then! you would really have them die for you?

_Fontanges._ Oh, no, no! but I wanted to see whether they were in
earnest, or told me fibs; for, if they told me fibs, I would never
trust them again.

_Bossuet._ Do you hate the world, mademoiselle?

_Fontanges._ A good deal of it: all Picardy, for example, and all
Sologne; nothing is uglier--and, oh my life! what frightful men and
women!

_Bossuet._ I would say, in plain language, do you hate the flesh and
the devil?

_Fontanges._ Who does not hate the devil? If you will hold my hand the
while, I will tell him so. I hate you, beast! There now. As for flesh,
I never could bear a fat man. Such people can neither dance nor hunt,
nor do anything that I know of.

_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle Marie-Angélique de Scoraille de Rousille,
Duchess de Fontanges! do you hate titles and dignities and yourself?

_Fontanges._ Myself! does any one hate me? Why should I be the first?
Hatred is the worst thing in the world: it makes one so very ugly.

_Bossuet._ To love God, we must hate ourselves. We must detest our
bodies, if we would save our souls.

_Fontanges._ That is hard: how can I do it? I see nothing so
detestable in mine. Do you? To love is easier. I love God whenever I
think of Him, He has been so very good to me; but I cannot hate
myself, if I would. As God hath not hated me, why should I? Beside, it
was He who made the king to love me; for I heard you say in a sermon
that the hearts of kings are in His rule and governance. As for titles
and dignities, I do not care much about them while his Majesty loves
me, and calls me his Angélique. They make people more civil about us;
and therefore it must be a simpleton who hates or disregards them, and
a hypocrite who pretends it. I am glad to be a duchess. Manon and
Lisette have never tied my garter so as to hurt me since, nor has the
mischievous old La Grange said anything cross or bold: on the
contrary, she told me what a fine colour and what a plumpness it gave
me. Would not you rather be a duchess than a waiting-maid or a nun, if
the king gave you your choice?

_Bossuet._ Pardon me, mademoiselle, I am confounded at the levity of
your question.

_Fontanges._ I am in earnest, as you see.

_Bossuet._ Flattery will come before you in other and more dangerous
forms: you will be commended for excellences which do not belong to
you; and this you will find as injurious to your repose as to your
virtue. An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest
reproof. If you reject it, you are unhappy; if you accept it, you are
undone. The compliments of a king are of themselves sufficient to
pervert your intellect.

_Fontanges._ There you are mistaken twice over. It is not my person
that pleases him so greatly: it is my spirit, my wit, my talents, my
genius, and that very thing which you have mentioned--what was it? my
intellect. He never complimented me the least upon my beauty. Others
have said that I am the most beautiful young creature under heaven; a
blossom of Paradise, a nymph, an angel; worth (let me whisper it in
your ear--do I lean too hard?) a thousand Montespans. But his Majesty
never said more on the occasion than that I was _imparagonable!_ (what
is that?) and that he adored me; holding my hand and sitting quite
still, when he might have romped with me and kissed me.

_Bossuet._ I would aspire to the glory of converting you.

_Fontanges._ You may do anything with me but convert me: you must not
do that; I am a Catholic born. M. de Turenne and Mademoiselle de Duras
were heretics: you did right there. The king told the chancellor that
he prepared them, that the business was arranged for you, and that you
had nothing to do but get ready the arguments and responses, which you
did gallantly--did not you? And yet Mademoiselle de Duras was very
awkward for a long while afterwards in crossing herself, and was once
remarked to beat her breast in the litany with the points of two
fingers at a time, when every one is taught to use only the second,
whether it has a ring upon it or not. I am sorry she did so; for
people might think her insincere in her conversion, and pretend that
she kept a finger for each religion.

_Bossuet._ It would be as uncharitable to doubt the conviction of
Mademoiselle de Duras as that of M. le Maréchal.

_Fontanges._ I have heard some fine verses, I can assure you,
monseigneur, in which you are called the conqueror of Turenne. I
should like to have been his conqueror myself, he was so great a man.
I understand that you have lately done a much more difficult thing.

_Bossuet._ To what do you refer, mademoiselle?

_Fontanges._ That you have overcome quietism. Now, in the name of
wonder, how could you manage that?

_Bossuet._ By the grace of God.

_Fontanges._ Yes, indeed; but never until now did God give any
preacher so much of His grace as to subdue this pest.

_Bossuet._ It has appeared among us but lately.

_Fontanges._ Oh, dear me! I have always been subject to it dreadfully,
from a child.

_Bossuet._ Really! I never heard so.

_Fontanges._ I checked myself as well as I could, although they
constantly told me I looked well in it.

_Bossuet._ In what, mademoiselle?

_Fontanges._ In quietism; that is, when I fell asleep at sermon time.
I am ashamed that such a learned and pious man as M. de Fénelon should
incline to it,[1] as they say he does.

_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, you quite mistake the matter.

_Fontanges._ Is not then M. de Fénelon thought a very pious and
learned person?

_Bossuet._ And justly.

_Fontanges._ I have read a great way in a romance he has begun, about
a knight-errant in search of a father. The king says there are many
such about his court; but I never saw them nor heard of them before.
The Marchioness de la Motte, his relative, brought it to me, written
out in a charming hand, as much as the copy-book would hold; and I got
through, I know not how far. If he had gone on with the nymphs in the
grotto, I never should have been tired of him; but he quite forgot his
own story, and left them at once; in a hurry (I suppose) to set out
upon his mission to Saintonge in the _pays de d'Aunis_, where the king
has promised him a famous _heretic hunt_. He is, I do assure you, a
wonderful creature: he understands so much Latin and Greek, and knows
all the tricks of the sorceresses. Yet you keep him under.

_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, if you really have anything to confess, and
if you desire that I should have the honour of absolving you, it would
be better to proceed in it, than to oppress me with unmerited eulogies
on my humble labours.

_Fontanges._ You must first direct me, monseigneur: I have nothing
particular. The king assures me there is no harm whatever in his love
toward me.

_Bossuet._ That depends on your thoughts at the moment. If you
abstract the mind from the body, and turn your heart toward Heaven----

_Fontanges._ O monseigneur, I always did so--every time but once--you
quite make me blush. Let us converse about something else, or I shall
grow too serious, just as you made me the other day at the funeral
sermon. And now let me tell you, my lord, you compose such pretty
funeral sermons, I hope I shall have the pleasure of hearing you
preach mine.

_Bossuet._ Rather let us hope, mademoiselle, that the hour is yet far
distant when so melancholy a service will be performed for you. May he
who is unborn be the sad announcer of your departure hence![2] May he
indicate to those around him many virtues not perhaps yet full-blown
in you, and point triumphantly to many faults and foibles checked by
you in their early growth, and lying dead on the open road, you shall
have left behind you! To me the painful duty will, I trust, be
spared: I am advanced in age; you are a child.

_Fontanges._ Oh, no! I am seventeen.

_Bossuet._ I should have supposed you younger by two years at least.
But do you collect nothing from your own reflection, which raises so
many in my breast? You think it possible that I, aged as I am, may
preach a sermon at your funeral. We say that our days are few; and
saying it, we say too much. Marie-Angélique, we have but one: the past
are not ours, and who can promise us the future? This in which we live
is ours only while we live in it; the next moment may strike it off
from us; the next sentence I would utter may be broken and fall
between us.[3] The beauty that has made a thousand hearts to beat at
one instant, at the succeeding has been without pulse and colour,
without admirer, friend, companion, follower. She by whose eyes the
march of victory shall have been directed, whose name shall have
animated armies at the extremities of the earth, drops into one of its
crevices and mingles with its dust. Duchess de Fontanges! think on
this! Lady! so live as to think on it undisturbed!

_Fontanges._ O God! I am quite alarmed. Do not talk thus gravely. It
is in vain that you speak to me in so sweet a voice. I am frightened
even at the rattle of the beads about my neck: take them off, and let
us talk on other things. What was it that dropped on the floor as you
were speaking? It seemed to shake the room, though it sounded like a
pin or button.

_Bossuet._ Leave it there!

_Fontanges._ Your ring fell from your hand, my lord bishop! How quick
you are! Could not you have trusted me to pick it up?

_Bossuet._ Madame is too condescending: had this happened, I should
have been overwhelmed with confusion. My hand is shrivelled: the ring
has ceased to fit it. A mere accident may draw us into perdition; a
mere accident may bestow on us the means of grace. A pebble has moved
you more than my words.

_Fontanges._ It pleases me vastly: I admire rubies. I will ask the
king for one exactly like it. This is the time he usually comes from
the chase. I am sorry you cannot be present to hear how prettily I
shall ask him: but that is impossible, you know; for I shall do it
just when I am certain he would give me anything. He said so himself:
he said but yesterday--

      'Such a sweet creature is worth a world':

and no actor on the stage was more like a king than his Majesty was
when he spoke it, if he had but kept his wig and robe on. And yet you
know he is rather stiff and wrinkled for so great a monarch; and his
eyes, I am afraid, are beginning to fail him, he looks so close at
things.

_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, such is the duty of a prince who desires to
conciliate our regard and love.

_Fontanges._ Well, I think so, too, though I did not like it in him at
first. I am sure he will order the ring for me, and I will confess to
you with it upon my finger. But first I must be cautious and
particular to know of him how much it is his royal will that I should
say.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The opinions of Molinos on Mysticism and Quietism had begun to
spread abroad; but Fénelon, who had acquired already a very high
celebrity for eloquence, had not yet written on the subject. We may
well suppose that Bossuet was among the earliest assailants of a
system which he afterward attacked so vehemently.

[2] Bossuet was in his fifty-fourth year; Mademoiselle de Fontanges
died in child-bed the year following: he survived her twenty-three
years.

[3] Though Bossuet was capable of uttering and even of feeling such a
sentiment, his conduct towards Fénelon, the fairest apparition that
Christianity ever presented, was ungenerous and unjust.

While the diocese of Cambray was ravaged by Louis, it was spared by
Marlborough; who said to the archbishop that, if he was sorry he had
not taken Cambray, it was chiefly because he lost for a time the
pleasure of visiting so great a man. Peterborough, the next of our
generals in glory, paid his respects to him some years afterward.




JOHN OF GAUNT AND JOANNA OF KENT


      Joanna, called the Fair Maid of Kent, was cousin of
      the Black Prince, whom she married. John of Gaunt was
      suspected of aiming at the crown in the beginning of
      Richard's minority, which, increasing the hatred of
      the people against him for favouring the sect of
      Wickliffe, excited them to demolish his house and to
      demand his impeachment.

_Joanna._ How is this, my cousin, that you are besieged in your own
house by the citizens of London? I thought you were their idol.

_Gaunt._ If their idol, madam, I am one which they may tread on as
they list when down; but which, by my soul and knighthood! the ten
best battle-axes among them shall find it hard work to unshrine.

Pardon me: I have no right, perhaps, to take or touch this hand; yet,
my sister, bricks and stones and arrows are not presents fit for you.
Let me conduct you some paces hence.

_Joanna._ I will speak to those below in the street. Quit my hand:
they shall obey me.

_Gaunt._ If you intend to order my death, madam, your guards who have
entered my court, and whose spurs and halberts I hear upon the
staircase, may overpower my domestics; and, seeing no such escape as
becomes my dignity, I submit to you. Behold my sword and gauntlet at
your feet! Some formalities, I trust, will be used in the proceedings
against me. Entitle me, in my attainder, not John of Gaunt, not Duke
of Lancaster, not King of Castile; nor commemorate my father, the most
glorious of princes, the vanquisher and pardoner of the most powerful;
nor style me, what those who loved or who flattered me did when I was
happier, cousin to the Fair Maid of Kent. Joanna, those days are over!
But no enemy, no law, no eternity can take away from me, or move
further off, my affinity in blood to the conqueror in the field of
Crecy, of Poitiers, and Najera. Edward was my brother when he was but
your cousin; and the edge of my shield has clinked on his in many a
battle. Yes, we were ever near--if not in worth, in danger. She weeps.

_Joanna._ Attainder! God avert it! Duke of Lancaster, what dark
thought--alas! that the Regency should have known it! I came hither,
sir, for no such purpose as to ensnare or incriminate or alarm you.

These weeds might surely have protected me from the fresh tears you
have drawn forth.

_Gaunt._ Sister, be comforted! this visor, too, has felt them.

_Joanna._ O my Edward! my own so lately! Thy memory--thy beloved
image--which never hath abandoned me, makes me bold: I dare not say
'generous'; for in saying it I should cease to be so--and who could be
called generous by the side of thee? I will rescue from perdition the
enemy of my son.

Cousin, you loved your brother. Love, then, what was dearer to him
than his life: protect what he, valiant as you have seen him, cannot!
The father, who foiled so many, hath left no enemies; the innocent
child, who can injure no one, finds them!

Why have you unlaced and laid aside your visor? Do not expose your
body to those missiles. Hold your shield before yourself, and step
aside. I need it not. I am resolved----

_Gaunt._ On what, my cousin? Speak, and, by the saints! it shall be
done. This breast is your shield; this arm is mine.

_Joanna._ Heavens! who could have hurled those masses of stone from
below? they stunned me. Did they descend all of them together; or did
they split into fragments on hitting the pavement?

_Gaunt._ Truly, I was not looking that way: they came, I must believe,
while you were speaking.

_Joanna._ Aside, aside! further back! disregard _me_! Look! that last
arrow sticks half its head deep in the wainscot. It shook so violently
I did not see the feather at first.

No, no, Lancaster! I will not permit it. Take your shield up again;
and keep it all before you. Now step aside: I am resolved to prove
whether the people will hear me.

_Gaunt._ Then, madam, by your leave----

_Joanna._ Hold!

_Gaunt._ Villains! take back to your kitchens those spits and skewers
that you, forsooth, would fain call swords and arrows; and keep your
bricks and stones for your graves!

_Joanna._ Imprudent man! who can save you? I shall be frightened: I
must speak at once.

O good kind people! ye who so greatly loved me, when I am sure I had
done nothing to deserve it, have I (unhappy me!) no merit with you
now, when I would assuage your anger, protect your fair fame, and send
you home contented with yourselves and me? Who is he, worthy citizens,
whom ye would drag to slaughter?

True, indeed, he did revile someone. Neither I nor you can say
whom--some feaster and rioter, it seems, who had little right (he
thought) to carry sword or bow, and who, to show it, hath slunk away.
And then another raised his anger: he was indignant that, under his
roof, a woman should be exposed to stoning. Which of you would not be
as choleric in a like affront? In the house of which among you should
I not be protected as resolutely?

No, no: I never can believe those angry cries. Let none ever tell me
again he is the enemy of my son, of his king, your darling child,
Richard. Are your fears more lively than a poor weak female's? than a
mother's? yours, whom he hath so often led to victory, and praised to
his father, naming each--he, John of Gaunt, the defender of the
helpless, the comforter of the desolate, the rallying signal of the
desperately brave!

Retire, Duke of Lancaster! This is no time----

_Gaunt._ Madam, I obey; but not through terror of that puddle at the
house door, which my handful of dust would dry up. Deign to command
me!

_Joanna._ In the name of my son, then, retire!

_Gaunt._ Angelic goodness! I must fairly win it.

_Joanna._ I think I know his voice that crieth out: 'Who will answer
for him?' An honest and loyal man's, one who would counsel and save me
in any difficulty and danger. With what pleasure and satisfaction,
with what perfect joy and confidence, do I answer our right-trusty and
well-judging friend!

'Let Lancaster bring his sureties,' say you, 'and we separate.' A
moment yet before we separate; if I might delay you so long, to
receive your sanction of those securities: for, in such grave matters,
it would ill become us to be over-hasty. I could bring fifty, I could
bring a hundred, not from among soldiers, not from among courtiers;
but selected from yourselves, were it equitable and fair to show such
partialities, or decorous in the parent and guardian of a king to
offer any other than herself.

Raised by the hand of the Almighty from amidst you, but still one of
you, if the mother of a family is a part of it, here I stand surety
for John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, for his loyalty and allegiance.

_Gaunt._ [_Running back toward Joanna._] Are the rioters, then,
bursting into the chamber through the windows?

_Joanna._ The windows and doors of this solid edifice rattled and
shook at the people's acclamation. My word is given for you: this was
theirs in return. Lancaster! what a voice have the people when they
speak out! It shakes me with astonishment, almost with consternation,
while it establishes the throne: what must it be when it is lifted up
in vengeance!

_Gaunt._ Wind; vapour----

_Joanna._ Which none can wield nor hold. Need I say this to my cousin
of Lancaster?

_Gaunt._ Rather say, madam, that there is always one star above which
can tranquillize and control them.

_Joanna._ Go, cousin! another time more sincerity!

_Gaunt._ You have this day saved my life from the people; for I now
see my danger better, when it is no longer close before me. My Christ!
if ever I forget----

_Joanna._ Swear not: every man in England hath sworn what you would
swear. But if you abandon my Richard, my brave and beautiful child,
may--Oh! I could never curse, nor wish an evil; but, if you desert him
in the hour of need, you will think of those who have not deserted
you, and your own great heart will lie heavy on you, Lancaster!

Am I graver than I ought to be, that you look dejected? Come, then,
gentle cousin, lead me to my horse, and accompany me home. Richard
will embrace us tenderly. Every one is dear to every other upon rising
out fresh from peril; affectionately then will he look, sweet boy,
upon his mother and his uncle! Never mind how many questions he may
ask you, nor how strange ones. His only displeasure, if he has any,
will be that he stood not against the rioters or among them.

_Gaunt._ Older than he have been as fond of mischief, and as fickle in
the choice of a party.

I shall tell him that, coming to blows, the assailant is often in the
right; that the assailed is always.




LEOFRIC AND GODIVA


_Godiva._ There is a dearth in the land, my sweet Leofric! Remember
how many weeks of drought we have had, even in the deep pastures of
Leicestershire; and how many Sundays we have heard the same prayers
for rain, and supplications that it would please the Lord in His mercy
to turn aside His anger from the poor, pining cattle. You, my dear
husband, have imprisoned more than one malefactor for leaving his dead
ox in the public way; and other hinds have fled before you out of the
traces, in which they, and their sons and their daughters, and haply
their old fathers and mothers, were dragging the abandoned wain
homeward. Although we were accompanied by many brave spearmen and
skilful archers, it was perilous to pass the creatures which the
farmyard dogs, driven from the hearth by the poverty of their masters,
were tearing and devouring; while others, bitten and lamed, filled the
air either with long and deep howls or sharp and quick barkings, as
they struggled with hunger and feebleness, or were exasperated by heat
and pain. Nor could the thyme from the heath, nor the bruised branches
of the fir-tree, extinguish or abate the foul odour.

_Leofric._ And now, Godiva, my darling, thou art afraid we should be
eaten up before we enter the gates of Coventry; or perchance that in
the gardens there are no roses to greet thee, no sweet herbs for thy
mat and pillow.

_Godiva._ Leofric, I have no such fears. This is the month of roses: I
find them everywhere since my blessed marriage. They, and all other
sweet herbs, I know not why, seem to greet me wherever I look at them,
as though they knew and expected me. Surely they cannot feel that I am
fond of them.

_Leofric._ O light, laughing simpleton! But what wouldst thou? I came
not hither to pray; and yet if praying would satisfy thee, or remove
the drought, I would ride up straightway to Saint Michael's and pray
until morning.

_Godiva._ I would do the same, O Leofric! but God hath turned away His
ear from holier lips than mine. Would my own dear husband hear me, if
I implored him for what is easier to accomplish--what he can do like
God?

_Leofric._ How! what is it?

_Godiva._ I would not, in the first hurry of your wrath, appeal to
you, my loving lord, on behalf of these unhappy men who have offended
you.

_Leofric._ Unhappy! is that all?

_Godiva._ Unhappy they must surely be, to have offended you so
grievously. What a soft air breathes over us! how quiet and serene and
still an evening! how calm are the heavens and the earth! Shall none
enjoy them; not even we, my Leofric? The sun is ready to set: let it
never set, O Leofric, on your anger. These are not my words: they are
better than mine. Should they lose their virtue from my unworthiness
in uttering them?

_Leofric._ Godiva, wouldst thou plead to me for rebels?

_Godiva._ They have, then, drawn the sword against you? Indeed, I knew
it not.

_Leofric._ They have omitted to send me my dues, established by my
ancestors, well knowing of our nuptials, and of the charges and
festivities they require, and that in a season of such scarcity my own
lands are insufficient.

_Godiva._ If they were starving, as they said they were----

_Leofric._ Must I starve too? Is it not enough to lose my vassals?

_Godiva._ Enough! O God! too much! too much! May you never lose them!
Give them life, peace, comfort, contentment. There are those among
them who kissed me in my infancy, and who blessed me at the baptismal
font. Leofric, Leofric! the first old man I meet I shall think is one
of those; and I shall think on the blessing he gave, and (ah me!) on
the blessing I bring back to him. My heart will bleed, will burst; and
he will weep at it! he will weep, poor soul, for the wife of a cruel
lord who denounces vengeance on him, who carries death into his
family!

_Leofric._ We must hold solemn festivals.

_Godiva._ We must, indeed.

_Leofric._ Well, then?

_Godiva._ Is the clamorousness that succeeds the death of God's dumb
creatures, are crowded halls, are slaughtered cattle festivals?--are
maddening songs, and giddy dances, and hireling praises from
parti-coloured coats? Can the voice of a minstrel tell us better
things of ourselves than our own internal one might tell us; or can
his breath make our breath softer in sleep? O my beloved! let
everything be a joyance to us: it will, if we will. Sad is the day,
and worse must follow, when we hear the blackbird in the garden, and
do not throb with joy. But, Leofric, the high festival is strown by
the servant of God upon the heart of man. It is gladness, it is
thanksgiving; it is the orphan, the starveling, pressed to the bosom,
and bidden as its first commandment to remember its benefactor. We
will hold this festival; the guests are ready: we may keep it up for
weeks, and months, and years together, and always be the happier and
the richer for it. The beverage of this feast, O Leofric, is sweeter
than bee or flower or vine can give us: it flows from heaven; and in
heaven will it abundantly be poured out again to him who pours it out
here abundantly.

_Leofric._ Thou art wild.

_Godiva._ I have, indeed, lost myself. Some Power, some good kind
Power, melts me (body and soul and voice) into tenderness and love. O
my husband, we must obey it. Look upon me! look upon me! lift your
sweet eyes from the ground! I will not cease to supplicate; I dare
not.

_Leofric._ We may think upon it.

_Godiva._ Oh, never say that! What! think upon goodness when you can
be good? Let not the infants cry for sustenance! The Mother of Our
Blessed Lord will hear them; us never, never afterward.

_Leofric._ Here comes the bishop: we are but one mile from the walls.
Why dismountest thou? no bishop can expect this. Godiva! my honour and
rank among men are humbled by this. Earl Godwin will hear of it. Up!
up! the bishop hath seen it: he urgeth his horse onward. Dost thou not
hear him now upon the solid turf behind thee?

_Godiva._ Never, no, never will I rise, O Leofric, until you remit
this most impious task--this tax on hard labour, on hard life.

_Leofric._ Turn round: look how the fat nag canters, as to the tune of
a sinner's psalm, slow and hard-breathing. What reason or right can
the people have to complain, while their bishop's steed is so sleek
and well caparisoned? Inclination to change, desire to abolish old
usages. Up! up! for shame! They shall smart for it, idlers! Sir
Bishop, I must blush for my young bride.

_Godiva._ My husband, my husband! will you pardon the city?

_Leofric._ Sir Bishop! I could think you would have seen her in this
plight. Will I pardon? Yea, Godiva, by the holy rood, will I pardon
the city, when thou ridest naked at noontide through the streets!

_Godiva._ O my dear, cruel Leofric, where is the heart you gave me? It
was not so: can mine have hardened it?

_Bishop._ Earl, thou abashest thy spouse; she turneth pale, and
weepeth. Lady Godiva, peace be with thee.

_Godiva._ Thanks, holy man! peace will be with me when peace is with
your city. Did you hear my lord's cruel word?

_Bishop._ I did, lady.

_Godiva._ Will you remember it, and pray against it?

_Bishop._ Wilt _thou_ forget it, daughter?

_Godiva._ I am not offended.

_Bishop._ Angel of peace and purity!

_Godiva._ But treasure it up in your heart: deem it an incense, good
only when it is consumed and spent, ascending with prayer and
sacrifice. And, now, what was it?

_Bishop._ Christ save us! that He will pardon the city when thou
ridest naked through the streets at noon.

_Godiva._ Did he swear an oath?

_Bishop._ He sware by the holy rood.

_Godiva._ My Redeemer, Thou hast heard it! save the city!

_Leofric._ We are now upon the beginning of the pavement: these are
the suburbs. Let us think of feasting: we may pray afterward;
to-morrow we shall rest.

_Godiva._ No judgments, then, to-morrow, Leofric?

_Leofric._ None: we will carouse.

_Godiva._ The saints of heaven have given me strength and confidence;
my prayers are heard; the heart of my beloved is now softened.

_Leofric._ Ay, ay.

_Godiva._ Say, dearest Leofric, is there indeed no other hope, no
other mediation?

_Leofric._ I have sworn. Beside, thou hast made me redden and turn my
face away from thee, and all the knaves have seen it: this adds to the
city's crime.

_Godiva._ I have blushed, too, Leofric, and was not rash nor obdurate.

_Leofric._ But thou, my sweetest, art given to blushing: there is no
conquering it in thee. I wish thou hadst not alighted so hastily and
roughly: it hath shaken down a sheaf of thy hair. Take heed thou sit
not upon it, lest it anguish thee. Well done! it mingleth now sweetly
with the cloth of gold upon the saddle, running here and there, as if
it had life and faculties and business, and were working thereupon
some newer and cunninger device. O my beauteous Eve! there is a
Paradise about thee! the world is refreshed as thou movest and
breathest on it. I cannot see or think of evil where thou art. I could
throw my arms even here about thee. No signs for me! no shaking of
sunbeams! no reproof or frown of wonderment.--I _will_ say it--now,
then, for worse--I could close with my kisses thy half-open lips, ay,
and those lovely and loving eyes, before the people.

_Godiva._ To-morrow you shall kiss me, and they shall bless you for
it. I shall be very pale, for to-night I must fast and pray.

_Leofric._ I do not hear thee; the voices of the folk are so loud
under this archway.

_Godiva._ [_To herself._] God help them! good kind souls! I hope they
will not crowd about me so to-morrow. O Leofric! could my name be
forgotten, and yours alone remembered! But perhaps my innocence may
save me from reproach; and how many as innocent are in fear and
famine! No eye will open on me but fresh from tears. What a young
mother for so large a family! Shall my youth harm me? Under God's hand
it gives me courage. Ah! when will the morning come? Ah! when will the
noon be over?

      The story of Godiva, at one of whose festivals or
      fairs I was present in my boyhood, has always much
      interested me; and I wrote a poem on it, sitting, I
      remember, by the _square pool_ at Rugby. When I showed
      it to the friend in whom I had most confidence, he
      began to scoff at the subject; and, on his reaching
      the last line, his laughter was loud and immoderate.
      This conversation has brought both laughter and stanza
      back to me, and the earnestness with which I entreated
      and implored my friend _not to tell the lads_, so
      heart-strickenly and desperately was I ashamed. The
      verses are these, if any one else should wish another
      laugh at me:

      'In every hour, in every mood,
      O lady, it is sweet and good
        To bathe the soul in prayer;
      And, at the close of such a day,
      When we have ceased to bless and pray,
        To dream on thy long hair.'

      May the peppermint be still growing on the bank in
      that place!




ESSEX AND SPENSER


_Essex._ Instantly on hearing of thy arrival from Ireland, I sent a
message to thee, good Edmund, that I might learn, from one so
judicious and dispassionate as thou art, the real state of things in
that distracted country; it having pleased the queen's Majesty to
think of appointing me her deputy, in order to bring the rebellious to
submission.

_Spenser._ Wisely and well considered; but more worthily of her
judgment than her affection. May your lordship overcome, as you have
ever done, the difficulties and dangers you foresee.

_Essex._ We grow weak by striking at random; and knowing that I must
strike, and strike heavily, I would fain see exactly where the stroke
shall fall.

Now what tale have you for us?

_Spenser._ Interrogate me, my lord, that I may answer each question
distinctly, my mind being in sad confusion at what I have seen and
undergone.

_Essex._ Give me thy account and opinion of these very affairs as thou
leftest them; for I would rather know one part well than all
imperfectly; and the violences of which I have heard within the day
surpass belief.

Why weepest thou, my gentle Spenser? Have the rebels sacked thy house?

_Spenser._ They have plundered and utterly destroyed it.

_Essex._ I grieve for thee, and will see thee righted.

_Spenser._ In this they have little harmed me.

_Essex._ How! I have heard it reported that thy grounds are fertile,
and thy mansion large and pleasant.

_Spenser._ If river and lake and meadow-ground and mountain could
render any place the abode of pleasantness, pleasant was mine, indeed!

On the lovely banks of Mulla I found deep contentment. Under the dark
alders did I muse and meditate. Innocent hopes were my gravest cares,
and my playfullest fancy was with kindly wishes. Ah! surely of all
cruelties the worst is to extinguish our kindness. Mine is gone: I
love the people and the land no longer. My lord, ask me not about
them: I may speak injuriously.

_Essex._ Think rather, then, of thy happier hours and busier
occupations; these likewise may instruct me.

_Spenser._ The first seeds I sowed in the garden, ere the old castle
was made habitable for my lovely bride, were acorns from Penshurst. I
planted a little oak before my mansion at the birth of each child. My
sons, I said to myself, shall often play in the shade of them when I
am gone; and every year shall they take the measure of their growth,
as fondly as I take theirs.

_Essex._ Well, well; but let not this thought make thee weep so
bitterly.

_Spenser._ Poison may ooze from beautiful plants; deadly grief from
dearest reminiscences. I _must_ grieve, I _must_ weep: it seems the
law of God, and the only one that men are not disposed to contravene.
In the performance of this alone do they effectually aid one another.

_Essex._ Spenser! I wish I had at hand any arguments or persuasions of
force sufficient to remove thy sorrow; but, really, I am not in the
habit of seeing men grieve at anything except the loss of favour at
court, or of a hawk, or of a buck-hound. And were I to swear out
condolences to a man of thy discernment, in the same round, roll-call
phrases we employ with one another upon these occasions, I should be
guilty, not of insincerity, but of insolence. True grief hath ever
something sacred in it; and, when it visiteth a wise man and a brave
one, is most holy.

Nay, kiss not my hand: he whom God smiteth hath God with him. In His
presence what am I?

_Spenser._ Never so great, my lord, as at this hour, when you see
aright who is greater. May He guide your counsels, and preserve your
life and glory!

_Essex._ Where are thy friends? Are they with thee?

_Spenser._ Ah, where, indeed! Generous, true-hearted Philip! where art
thou, whose presence was unto me peace and safety; whose smile was
contentment, and whose praise renown? My lord! I cannot but think of
him among still heavier losses: he was my earliest friend, and would
have taught me wisdom.

_Essex._ Pastoral poetry, my dear Spenser, doth not require tears and
lamentations. Dry thine eyes; rebuild thine house: the queen and
council, I venture to promise thee, will make ample amends for every
evil thou hast sustained. What! does that enforce thee to wail still
louder?

_Spenser._ Pardon me, bear with me, most noble heart! I have lost what
no council, no queen, no Essex, can restore.

_Essex._ We will see that. There are other swords, and other arms to
yield them, beside a Leicester's and a Raleigh's. Others can crush
their enemies, and serve their friends.

_Spenser._ O my sweet child! And of many so powerful, many so wise and
so beneficent, was there none to save thee? None, none!

_Essex._ I now perceive that thou lamentest what almost every father
is destined to lament. Happiness must be bought, although the payment
may be delayed. Consider: the same calamity might have befallen thee
here in London. Neither the houses of ambassadors, nor the palaces of
kings, nor the altars of God Himself, are asylums against death. How
do I know but under this very roof there may sleep some latent
calamity, that in an instant shall cover with gloom every inmate of
the house, and every far dependent?

_Spenser._ God avert it!

_Essex._ Every day, every hour of the year, do hundreds mourn what
thou mournest.

_Spenser._ Oh, no, no, no! Calamities there are around us; calamities
there are all over the earth; calamities there are in all seasons: but
none in any season, none in any place, like mine.

_Essex._ So say all fathers, so say all husbands. Look at any old
mansion-house, and let the sun shine as gloriously as it may on the
golden vanes, or the arms recently quartered over the gateway or the
embayed window, and on the happy pair that haply is toying at it:
nevertheless, thou mayest say that of a certainty the same fabric hath
seen much sorrow within its chambers, and heard many wailings; and
each time this was the heaviest stroke of all. Funerals have passed
along through the stout-hearted knights upon the wainscot, and amid
the laughing nymphs upon the arras. Old servants have shaken their
heads, as if somebody had deceived them, when they found that beauty
and nobility could perish.

Edmund! the things that are too true pass by us as if they were not
true at all; and when they have singled us out, then only do they
strike us. Thou and I must go too. Perhaps the next year may blow us
away with its fallen leaves.

_Spenser._ For you, my lord, many years (I trust) are waiting: I never
shall see those fallen leaves. No leaf, no bud, will spring upon the
earth before I sink into her breast for ever.

_Essex._ Thou, who art wiser than most men, shouldst bear with
patience, equanimity, and courage what is common to all.

_Spenser._ Enough, enough, enough! Have all men seen their infant
burnt to ashes before their eyes?

_Essex._ Gracious God! Merciful Father! what is this?

_Spenser._ Burnt alive! burnt to ashes! burnt to ashes! The flames
dart their serpent tongues through the nursery window. I cannot quit
thee, my Elizabeth! I cannot lay down our Edmund! Oh, these flames!
They persecute, they enthral me; they curl round my temples; they hiss
upon my brain; they taunt me with their fierce, foul voices; they carp
at me, they wither me, they consume me, throwing back to me a little
of life to roll and suffer in, with their fangs upon me. Ask me, my
lord, the things you wish to know from me: I may answer them; I am now
composed again. Command me, my gracious lord! I would yet serve you:
soon I shall be unable. You have stooped to raise me up; you have
borne with me; you have pitied me, even like one not powerful. You
have brought comfort, and will leave it with me, for gratitude is
comfort.

Oh! my memory stands all a-tiptoe on one burning point: when it drops
from it, then it perishes. Spare me: ask me nothing; let me weep
before you in peace--the kindest act of greatness.

_Essex._ I should rather have dared to mount into the midst of the
conflagration than I now dare entreat thee not to weep. The tears that
overflow thy heart, my Spenser, will staunch and heal it in their
sacred stream; but not without hope in God.

_Spenser._ My hope in God is that I may soon see again what He has
taken from me. Amid the myriads of angels, there is not one so
beautiful; and even he (if there be any) who is appointed my guardian
could never love me so. Ah! these are idle thoughts, vain wanderings,
distempered dreams. If there ever were guardian angels, he who so
wanted one--my helpless boy--would not have left these arms upon my
knees.

_Essex._ God help and sustain thee, too gentle Spenser! I never will
desert thee. But what am I? Great they have called me! Alas, how
powerless, then, and infantile is greatness in the presence of
calamity!

Come, give me thy hand: let us walk up and down the gallery. Bravely
done! I will envy no more a Sidney or a Raleigh.




LORD BACON AND RICHARD HOOKER


_Bacon._ Hearing much of your worthiness and wisdom, Master Richard
Hooker, I have besought your comfort and consolation in this my too
heavy affliction: for we often do stand in need of hearing what we
know full well, and our own balsams must be poured into our breasts by
another's hand. As the air at our doors is sometimes more expeditious
in removing pain and heaviness from the body than the most far-fetched
remedies would be, so the voice alone of a neighbourly and friendly
visitant may be more effectual in assuaging our sorrows, than whatever
is most forcible in rhetoric and most recondite in wisdom. On these
occasions we cannot put ourselves in a posture to receive the latter,
and still less are we at leisure to look into the corners of our
store-room, and to uncurl the leaves of our references. As for Memory,
who, you may tell me, would save us the trouble, she is footsore
enough in all conscience with me, without going farther back.
Withdrawn as you live from court and courtly men, and having ears
occupied by better reports than such as are flying about me, yet haply
so hard a case as mine, befalling a man heretofore not averse from the
studies in which you take delight, may have touched you with some
concern.

_Hooker._ I do think, my Lord of Verulam, that, unhappy as you appear,
God in sooth has forgone to chasten you, and that the day which in His
wisdom He appointed for your trial, was the very day on which the
king's Majesty gave unto your ward and custody the great seal of his
English realm. And yet perhaps it may be--let me utter it without
offence--that your features and stature were from that day forward no
longer what they were before. Such an effect do power and rank and
office produce even on prudent and religious men.

A hound's whelp howleth, if you pluck him up above where he stood:
man, in much greater peril from falling, doth rejoice. You, my lord,
as befitted you, are smitten and contrite, and do appear in deep
wretchedness and tribulation to your servants and those about you; but
I know that there is always a balm which lies uppermost in these
afflictions, and that no heart rightly softened can be very sore.

_Bacon._ And yet, Master Richard, it is surely no small matter to
lose the respect of those who looked up to us for countenance; and the
favour of a right learned king; and, O Master Hooker, such a power of
money! But money is mere dross. I should always hold it so, if it
possessed not two qualities: that of making men treat us reverently,
and that of enabling us to help the needy.

_Hooker._ The respect, I think, of those who respect us for what a
fool can give and a rogue can take away, may easily be dispensed with;
but it is indeed a high prerogative to help the needy; and when it
pleases the Almighty to deprive us of it, let us believe that He
foreknoweth our inclination to negligence in the charge entrusted to
us, and that in His mercy He hath removed from us a most fearful
responsibility.

_Bacon._ I know a number of poor gentlemen to whom I could have
rendered aid.

_Hooker._ Have you examined and sifted their worthiness?

_Bacon._ Well and deeply.

_Hooker._ Then must you have known them long before your adversity,
and while the means of succouring them were in your hands.

_Bacon._ You have circumvented and entrapped me, Master Hooker. Faith!
I am mortified: you the schoolman, I the schoolboy!

_Hooker._ Say not so, my lord. Your years, indeed, are fewer than
mine, by seven or thereabout; but your knowledge is far higher, your
experience richer. Our wits are not always in blossom upon us. When
the roses are overcharged and languid, up springs a spike of rue.
Mortified on such an occasion? God forfend it! But again to the
business. I should never be over-penitent for my neglect of needy
gentlemen who have neglected themselves much worse. They have chosen
their profession with its chances and contingencies. If they had
protected their country by their courage or adorned it by their
studies, they would have merited, and under a king of such learning
and such equity would have received in some sort, their reward. I look
upon them as so many old cabinets of ivory and tortoise-shell,
scratched, flawed, splintered, rotten, defective both within and
without, hard to unlock, insecure to lock up again, unfit to use.

_Bacon._ Methinks it beginneth to rain, Master Richard. What if we
comfort our bodies with a small cup of wine, against the ill-temper of
the air. Wherefore, in God's name, are you affrightened?

_Hooker._ Not so, my lord; not so.

_Bacon._ What then affects you?

_Hooker._ Why, indeed, since your lordship interrogates me--I looked,
idly and imprudently, into that rich buffet; and I saw, unless the
haze of the weather has come into the parlour, or my sight is the
worse for last night's reading, no fewer than six silver pints.
Surely, six tables for company are laid only at coronations.

_Bacon._ There are many men so squeamish that forsooth they would keep
a cup to themselves, and never communicate it to their nearest and
best friend; a fashion which seems to me offensive in an honest house,
where no disease of ill repute ought to be feared. We have lately,
Master Richard, adopted strange fashions; we have run into the wildest
luxuries. The Lord Leicester, I heard it from my father--God forfend
it should ever be recorded in our history!--when he entertained Queen
Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle, laid before her Majesty a fork of pure
silver. I the more easily credit it, as Master Thomas Coriatt doth
vouch for having seen the same monstrous sign of voluptuousness at
Venice. We are surely the especial favourites of Providence, when such
wantonness hath not melted us quite away. After this portent, it would
otherwise have appeared incredible that we should have broken the
Spanish Armada.

Pledge me: hither comes our wine.

[_To the Servant._] Dolt! villain! is not this the beverage I reserve
for myself?

The blockhead must imagine that Malmsey runs in a stream under the
ocean, like the Alpheus. Bear with me, good Master Hooker, but verily
I have little of this wine, and I keep it as a medicine for my many
and growing infirmities. You are healthy at present: God in His
infinite mercy long maintain you so! Weaker drink is more wholesome
for you. The lighter ones of France are best accommodated by Nature to
our constitutions, and therefore she has placed them so within our
reach that we have only to stretch out our necks, in a manner, and
drink them from the vat. But this Malmsey, this Malmsey, flies from
centre to circumference, and makes youthful blood boil.

_Hooker._ Of a truth, my knowledge in such matters is but spare. My
Lord of Canterbury once ordered part of a goblet, containing some
strong Spanish wine, to be taken to me from his table when I dined by
sufferance with his chaplains, and, although a most discreet, prudent
man as befitteth his high station, was not so chary of my health as
your lordship. Wine is little to be trifled with, physic less. The
Cretans, the brewers of this Malmsey, have many aromatic and powerful
herbs among them. On their mountains, and notably on Ida, grows that
dittany which works such marvels, and which perhaps may give activity
to this hot medicinal drink of theirs. I would not touch it,
knowingly: an unregarded leaf, dropped into it above the ordinary,
might add such puissance to the concoction as almost to break the
buckles in my shoes; since we have good and valid authority that the
wounded hart, on eating thereof, casts the arrow out of his haunch or
entrails, although it stuck a palm deep.[4]

_Bacon._ When I read of such things I doubt them. Religion and
politics belong to God, and to God's vicegerent the king; we must not
touch upon them unadvisedly: but if I could procure a plant of dittany
on easy terms, I would persuade my apothecary and my gamekeeper to
make some experiments.

_Hooker._ I dare not distrust what grave writers have declared in
matters beyond my knowledge.

_Bacon._ Good Master Hooker, I have read many of your reasonings, and
they are admirably well sustained: added to which, your genius has
given such a strong current to your language as can come only from a
mighty elevation and a most abundant plenteousness. Yet forgive me, in
God's name, my worthy master, if you descried in me some expression of
wonder at your simplicity. We are all weak and vulnerable somewhere:
common men in the higher parts; heroes, as was feigned of Achilles, in
the lower. You would define to a hair's-breadth the qualities, states,
and dependencies of principalities, dominations, and powers; you would
be unerring about the apostles and the churches; and 'tis marvellous
how you wander about a pot-herb!

_Hooker._ I know my poor weak intellects, most noble lord, and how
scantily they have profited by my hard painstaking. Comprehending few
things, and those imperfectly, I say only what others have said
before, wise men and holy; and if, by passing through my heart into
the wide world around me, it pleaseth God that this little treasure
shall have lost nothing of its weight and pureness, my exultation is
then the exultation of humility. Wisdom consisteth not in knowing many
things, nor even in knowing them thoroughly; but in choosing and in
following what conduces the most certainly to our lasting happiness
and true glory. And this wisdom, my Lord of Verulam, cometh from
above.

_Bacon._ I have observed among the well-informed and the ill-informed
nearly the same quantity of infirmities and follies: those who are
rather the wiser keep them separate, and those who are wisest of all
keep them better out of sight. Now, examine the sayings and writings
of the prime philosophers, and you will often find them, Master
Richard, to be untruths made to resemble truths. The business with
them is to approximate as nearly as possible, and not to touch it: the
goal of the charioteer is _evitata fervidis rotis_, as some poet
saith. But we who care nothing for chants and cadences, and have no
time to catch at applauses, push forward over stones and sands
straightway to our object. I have persuaded men, and shall persuade
them for ages, that I possess a wide range of thought unexplored by
others, and first thrown open by me, with many fair enclosures of
choice and abstruse knowledge. I have incited and instructed them to
examine all subjects of useful and rational inquiry; few that occurred
to me have I myself left untouched or untried: one, however, hath
almost escaped me, and surely one worth the trouble.

_Hooker._ Pray, my lord, if I am guilty of no indiscretion, what may
it be?

_Bacon._ Francis Bacon.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Lest it be thought that authority is wanting for the strong
expression of Hooker on the effects of dittany, the reader is referred
to the curious treatise of Plutarch on the reasoning faculty of
animals, in which (near the end) he asks: 'Who instructed deer wounded
by the Cretan arrow to seek for dittany? on the tasting of which herb
the bolts fall immediately from their bodies.'




OLIVER CROMWELL AND WALTER NOBLE


_Cromwell._ What brings thee back from Staffordshire, friend Walter?

_Noble._ I hope, General Cromwell, to persuade you that the death of
Charles will be considered by all Europe as a most atrocious action.

_Cromwell._ Thou hast already persuaded me: what then?

_Noble._ Surely, then, you will prevent it, for your authority is
great. Even those who upon their consciences found him guilty would
remit the penalty of blood, some from policy, some from mercy. I have
conversed with Hutchinson, with Ludlow,[5] your friend and mine, with
Henry Nevile, and Walter Long: you will oblige these worthy friends,
and unite in your favour the suffrages of the truest and trustiest men
living. There are many others, with whom I am in no habits of
intercourse, who are known to entertain the same sentiments; and these
also are among the country gentlemen, to whom our parliament owes the
better part of its reputation.

_Cromwell._ You country gentlemen bring with you into the People's
House a freshness and sweet savour which our citizens lack mightily. I
would fain merit your esteem, heedless of those pursy fellows from
hulks and warehouses, with one ear lappeted by the pen behind it, and
the other an heirloom, as Charles would have had it, in Laud's
Star-chamber. Oh, they are proud and bloody men! My heart melts; but,
alas! my authority is null: I am the servant of the Commonwealth. I
will not, dare not, betray it. If Charles Stuart had threatened my
death only, in the letter we ripped out of the saddle, I would have
reproved him manfully and turned him adrift: but others are concerned;
lives more precious than mine, worn as it is with fastings, prayers,
long services, and preyed upon by a pouncing disease. The Lord hath
led him into the toils laid for the innocent. Foolish man! he never
could eschew evil counsel.

_Noble._ In comparison with you, he is but as a pinnacle to a
buttress. I acknowledge his weaknesses, and cannot wink upon his
crimes: but that which you visit as the heaviest of them perhaps was
not so, although the most disastrous to both parties--the bearing of
arms against his people. He fought for what he considered his
hereditary property; we do the same: should we be hanged for losing a
lawsuit?

_Cromwell._ No, unless it is the second. Thou talkest finely and
foolishly, Wat, for a man of thy calm discernment. If a rogue holds a
pistol to my breast, do I ask him who he is? Do I care whether his
doublet be of cat-skin or of dog-skin? Fie upon such wicked sophisms!
Marvellous, how the devil works upon good men's minds!

_Noble._ Charles was always more to be dreaded by his friends than by
his enemies, and now by neither.

_Cromwell._ God forbid that Englishmen should be feared by Englishmen!
but to be daunted by the weakest, to bend before the worst--I tell
thee, Walter Noble, if Moses and the prophets commanded me to this
villainy, I would draw back and mount my horse.

_Noble._ I wish that our history, already too dark with blood, should
contain, as far as we are concerned in it, some unpolluted pages.

_Cromwell._ 'Twere better, much better. Never shall I be called, I
promise thee, an unnecessary shedder of blood. Remember, my good,
prudent friend, of what materials our sectaries are composed: what
hostility against all eminence, what rancour against all glory. Not
only kingly power offends them, but every other; and they talk of
_putting to the sword_, as if it were the quietest, gentlest, and most
ordinary thing in the world. The knaves even dictate from their stools
and benches to men in armour, bruised and bleeding for them; and with
school-dames' scourges in their fists do they give counsel to those
who protect them from the cart and halter. In the name of the Lord, I
must spit outright (or worse) upon these crackling bouncing
firebrands, before I can make them tractable.

_Noble._ I lament their blindness; but follies wear out the faster by
being hard run upon. This fermenting sourness will presently turn
vapid, and people will cast it out. I am not surprised that you are
discontented and angry at what thwarts your better nature. But come,
Cromwell, overlook them, despise them, and erect to yourself a
glorious name by sparing a mortal enemy.

_Cromwell._ A glorious name, by God's blessing, I will erect; and all
our fellow-labourers shall rejoice at it: but I see better than they
do the blow descending on them, and my arm better than theirs can ward
it off. Noble, thy heart overflows with kindness for Charles Stuart:
if he were at liberty to-morrow by thy intercession, he would sign thy
death-warrant the day after, for serving the Commonwealth. A
generation of vipers! there is nothing upright nor grateful in them:
never was there a drop of even Scotch blood in their veins. Indeed, we
have a clue to their bedchamber still hanging on the door, and I
suspect that an Italian fiddler or French valet has more than once
crossed the current.

_Noble._ That may be: nor indeed is it credible that any royal or
courtly family has gone on for three generations without a spur from
interloper. Look at France! some stout Parisian saint performed the
last miracle there.

_Cromwell._ Now thou talkest gravely and sensibly: I could hear thee
discourse thus for hours together.

_Noble._ Hear me, Cromwell, with equal patience on matters more
important. We all have our sufferings: why increase one another's
wantonly? Be the blood Scotch or English, French or Italian, a
drummer's or a buffoon's, it carries a soul upon its stream; and every
soul has many places to touch at, and much business to perform, before
it reaches its ultimate destination. Abolish the power of Charles;
extinguish not his virtues. Whatever is worthy to be loved for
anything is worthy to be preserved. A wise and dispassionate
legislator, if any such should arise among men, will not condemn to
death him who has done, or is likely to do, more service than injury
to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects to ours, and
their business is never with virtues or with hopes.

_Cromwell._ Walter! Walter! we laugh at speculators.

_Noble._ Many indeed are ready enough to laugh at speculators, because
many profit, or expect to profit, by established and widening abuses.
Speculations toward evil lose their name by adoption; speculations
towards good are for ever speculations, and he who hath proposed them
is a chimerical and silly creature. Among the matters under this
denomination I never find a cruel project, I never find an oppressive
or unjust one: how happens it?

_Cromwell._ Proportions should exist in all things. Sovereigns are
paid higher than others for their office; they should therefore be
punished more severely for abusing it, even if the consequences of
this abuse were in nothing more grievous or extensive. We cannot clap
them in the stocks conveniently, nor whip them at the market-place.
Where there is a crown there must be an axe: I would keep it there
only.

_Noble._ Lop off the rotten, press out the poisonous, preserve the
rest; let it suffice to have given this memorable example of national
power and justice.

_Cromwell._ Justice is perfect; an attribute of God: we must not
trifle with it.

_Noble._ Should we be less merciful to our fellow-creatures than to
our domestic animals? Before we deliver them to be killed, we weigh
their services against their inconveniences. On the foundation of
policy, when we have no better, let us erect the trophies of humanity:
let us consider that, educated in the same manner and situated in the
same position, we ourselves might have acted as reprovably. Abolish
that for ever which must else for ever generate abuses; and attribute
the faults of the man to the office, not the faults of the office to
the man.

_Cromwell._ I have no bowels for hypocrisy, and I abominate and detest
kingship.

_Noble._ I abominate and detest hangmanship; but in certain stages of
society both are necessary. Let them go together; we want neither now.

_Cromwell._ Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose
their direction and begin to bend: such nails are then thrown into the
dust or into the furnace. I must do my duty; I must accomplish what is
commanded me; I must not be turned aside. I am loath to be cast into
the furnace or the dust; but God's will be done! Prithee, Wat, since
thou readest, as I see, the books of philosophers, didst thou ever
hear of Digby's remedies by sympathy?

_Noble._ Yes, formerly.

_Cromwell._ Well, now, I protest, I do believe there is something in
them. To cure my headache, I must breathe a vein in the neck of
Charles.

_Noble._ Oliver, Oliver! others are wittiest over wine, thou over
blood: cold-hearted, cruel man.

_Cromwell._ Why, dost thou verily think me so, Walter? Perhaps thou
art right in the main: but He alone who fashioned me in my mother's
womb, and who sees things deeper than we do, knows that.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] Ludlow, a most humane and temperate man, signed the death-warrant
of Charles, for violating the constitution he had sworn to defend, for
depriving the subject of property, liberty, limbs, and life
unlawfully. In equity he could do no otherwise; and to equity was the
only appeal, since the laws of the land had been erased by the king
himself.




LORD BROOKE AND SIR PHILIP SIDNEY


      Lord Brooke is less known than the personage with whom
      he converses, and upon whose friendship he had the
      virtue and good sense to found his chief distinction.
      On his monument at Warwick, written by himself, we
      read that he was servant of Queen Elizabeth,
      counsellor of King James and friend of Sir Philip
      Sidney. His style is stiff, but his sentiments are
      sound and manly.

_Brooke._ I come again unto the woods and unto the wilds of Penshurst,
whither my heart and the friend of my heart have long invited me.

_Sidney._ Welcome, welcome! And now, Greville, seat yourself under
this oak; since if you had hungered or thirsted from your journey, you
would have renewed the alacrity of your old servants in the hall.

_Brooke._ In truth I did; for no otherwise the good household would
have it. The birds met me first, affrightened by the tossing up of
caps; and by these harbingers I knew who were coming. When my palfrey
eyed them askance for their clamorousness, and shrank somewhat back,
they quarrelled with him almost before they saluted me, and asked him
many pert questions. What a pleasant spot, Sidney, have you chosen
here for meditation! A solitude is the audience-chamber of God. Few
days in our year are like this; there is a fresh pleasure in every
fresh posture of the limbs, in every turn the eye takes.

      Youth! credulous of happiness, throw down
      Upon this turf thy wallet--stored and swoln
      With morrow-morns, bird-eggs, and bladders burst--
      That tires thee with its wagging to and fro:
      Thou too wouldst breathe more freely for it, Age!
      Who lackest heart to laugh at life's deceit.

It sometimes requires a stout push, and sometimes a sudden resistance,
in the wisest men, not to become for a moment the most foolish. What
have I done? I have fairly challenged you, so much my master.

_Sidney._ You have warmed me: I must cool a little and watch my
opportunity. So now, Greville, return you to your invitations, and I
will clear the ground for the company; for Youth, for Age, and
whatever comes between, with kindred and dependencies. Verily we need
no taunts like those in your verses: here we have few vices, and
consequently few repinings. I take especial care that my young
labourers and farmers shall never be idle, and I supply them with bows
and arrows, with bowls and ninepins, for their Sunday evening,[6]
lest they drink and quarrel. In church they are taught to love God;
after church they are practised to love their neighbour: for business
on workdays keeps them apart and scattered, and on market-days they
are prone to a rivalry bordering on malice, as competitors for custom.
Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes
them good. We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for
prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment:
the course is then over; the wheel turns round but once; while the
reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.

_Brooke._ You reason justly and you act rightly. Piety--warm, soft,
and passive as the ether round the throne of Grace--is made callous
and inactive by kneeling too much: her vitality faints under rigorous
and wearisome observances. A forced match between a man and his
religion sours his temper, and leaves a barren bed.

_Sidney._ Desire of lucre, the worst and most general country vice,
arises here from the necessity of looking to small gains; it is,
however, but the tartar that encrusts economy.

_Brooke._ Oh that anything so monstrous should exist in this profusion
and prodigality of blessings! The herbs, elastic with health, seem to
partake of sensitive and animated life, and to feel under my hand the
benediction I would bestow on them. What a hum of satisfaction in
God's creatures! How is it, Sidney, the smallest do seem the happiest?

_Sidney._ Compensation for their weaknesses and their fears;
compensation for the shortness of their existence. Their spirits mount
upon the sunbeam above the eagle; and they have more enjoyment in
their one summer than the elephant in his century.

_Brooke._ Are not also the little and lowly in our species the most
happy?

_Sidney._ I would not willingly try nor over-curiously examine it. We,
Greville, are happy in these parks and forests: we were happy in my
close winter-walk of box and laurustine. In our earlier days did we
not emboss our bosoms with the daffodils, and shake them almost unto
shedding with our transport? Ay, my friend, there is a greater
difference, both in the stages of life and in the seasons of the year,
than in the conditions of men: yet the healthy pass through the
seasons, from the clement to the inclement, not only unreluctantly
but rejoicingly, knowing that the worst will soon finish, and the best
begin anew; and we are desirous of pushing forward into every stage of
life, excepting that alone which ought reasonably to allure us most,
as opening to us the _Via Sacra_, along which we move in triumph to
our eternal country. We may in some measure frame our minds for the
reception of happiness, for more or for less; we should, however, well
consider to what port we are steering in search of it, and that even
in the richest its quantity is but too exhaustible. There is a
sickliness in the firmest of us, which induceth us to change our side,
though reposing ever so softly: yet, wittingly or unwittingly, we turn
again soon into our old position.

God hath granted unto both of us hearts easily contented, hearts
fitted for every station, because fitted for every duty. What appears
the dullest may contribute most to our genius; what is most gloomy may
soften the seeds and relax the fibres of gaiety. We enjoy the
solemnity of the spreading oak above us: perhaps we owe to it in part
the mood of our minds at this instant; perhaps an inanimate thing
supplies me, while I am speaking, with whatever I possess of
animation. Do you imagine that any contest of shepherds can afford
them the same pleasure as I receive from the description of it; or
that even in their loves, however innocent and faithful, they are so
free from anxiety as I am while I celebrate them? The exertion of
intellectual power, of fancy and imagination, keeps from us greatly
more than their wretchedness, and affords us greatly more than their
enjoyment. We are motes in the midst of generations: we have our
sunbeams to circuit and climb. Look at the summits of the trees around
us, how they move, and the loftiest the most: nothing is at rest
within the compass of our view, except the grey moss on the
park-pales. Let it eat away the dead oak, but let it not be compared
with the living one.

Poets are in general prone to melancholy; yet the most plaintive ditty
hath imparted a fuller joy, and of longer duration, to its composer,
than the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian. A bottle of wine
bringeth as much pleasure as the acquisition of a kingdom, and not
unlike it in kind: the senses in both cases are confused and
perverted.

_Brooke._ Merciful Heaven! and for the fruition of an hour's
drunkenness, from which they must awaken with heaviness, pain, and
terror, men consume a whole crop of their kind at one harvest home.
Shame upon those light ones who carol at the feast of blood! and worse
upon those graver ones who nail upon their escutcheon the name of
great! Ambition is but Avarice on stilts and masked. God sometimes
sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the
chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration. Only
some cause like unto that which is now scattering the mental fog of
the Netherlands, and is preparing them for the fruits of freedom, can
justify us in drawing the sword abroad.

_Sidney._ And only the accomplishment of our purpose can permit us
again to sheathe it; for the aggrandizement of our neighbour is nought
of detriment to us: on the contrary, if we are honest and industrious,
his wealth is ours. We have nothing to dread while our laws are
equitable and our impositions light: but children fly from mothers who
strip and scourge them.

_Brooke._ We are come to an age when we ought to read and speak
plainly what our discretion tells us is fit: we are not to be set in a
corner for mockery and derision, with our hands hanging down
motionless and our pockets turned inside out.

       *       *       *       *       *

But away, away with politics: let not this city-stench infect our
fresh country air!

       *       *       *       *       *

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Censurable as that practice may appear, it belonged to the age of
Sidney. Amusements were permitted the English on the seventh day, nor
were they restricted until the Puritans gained the ascendancy.




SOUTHEY AND PORSON


_Porson._ I suspect, Mr. Southey, you are angry with me for the
freedom with which I have spoken of your poetry and Wordsworth's.

_Southey._ What could have induced you to imagine it, Mr. Professor?
You have indeed bent your eyes upon me, since we have been together,
with somewhat of fierceness and defiance: I presume you fancied me to
be a commentator. You wrong me in your belief that any opinion on my
poetical works hath molested me; but you afford me more than
compensation in supposing me acutely sensible of injustice done to
Wordsworth. If we must converse on these topics, we will converse on
him. What man ever existed who spent a more inoffensive life, or
adorned it with nobler studies?

_Porson._ I believe so; and they who attack him with virulence are men
of as little morality as reflection. I have demonstrated that one of
them, he who wrote the _Pursuits of Literature_, could not construe a
Greek sentence or scan a verse; and I have fallen on the very _Index_
from which he drew out his forlorn hope on the parade. This is
incomparably the most impudent fellow I have met with in the course of
my reading, which has lain, you know, in a province where impudence is
no rarity.

       *       *       *       *       *

I had visited a friend in _King's Road_ when he entered.

'Have you seen the _Review_?' cried he. 'Worse than ever! I am
resolved to insert a paragraph in the papers, declaring that I had no
concern in the last number.'

'Is it so very bad?' said I, quietly.

'Infamous! detestable!' exclaimed he.

'Sit down, then: nobody will believe you,' was my answer.

Since that morning he has discovered that I drink harder than usual,
that my faculties are wearing fast away, that once, indeed, I had some
Greek in my head, but--he then claps the forefinger to the side of his
nose, turns his eye slowly upward, and looks compassionately and
calmly.

_Southey._ Come, Mr. Porson, grant him his merits: no critic is better
contrived to make any work a monthly one, no writer more dexterous in
giving a finishing touch.

_Porson._ The plagiary has a greater latitude of choice than we; and
if he brings home a parsnip or turnip-top, when he could as easily
have pocketed a nectarine or a pineapple, he must be a blockhead. I
never heard the name of the _Pursuer of Literature_, who has little
more merit in having stolen than he would have had if he had never
stolen at all; and I have forgotten that other man's, who evinced his
fitness to be the censor of our age, by a translation of the most
naked and impure satires of antiquity--those of Juvenal, which owe
their preservation to the partiality of the friars. I shall entertain
an unfavourable opinion of him if he has translated them well: pray,
has he?

_Southey._ Indeed, I do not know. I read poets for their poetry, and
to extract that nutriment of the intellect and of the heart which
poetry should contain. I never listen to the swans of the cesspool,
and must declare that nothing is heavier to me than rottenness and
corruption.

_Porson._ You are right, sir, perfectly right. A translator of Juvenal
would open a public drain to look for a needle, and may miss it. My
nose is not easily offended; but I must have something to fill my
belly. Come, we will lay aside the scrip of the transpositor and the
pouch of the pursuer, in reserve for the days of unleavened bread;
and again, if you please, to the lakes and mountains. Now we are both
in better humour, I must bring you to a confession that in your friend
Wordsworth there is occasionally a little trash.

_Southey._ A haunch of venison would be trash to a Brahmin, a bottle
of Burgundy to the xerif of Mecca. We are guided by precept, by habit,
by taste, by constitution. Hitherto our sentiments on poetry have been
delivered down to us from authority; and if it can be demonstrated, as
I think it may be, that the authority is inadequate, and that the
dictates are often inapplicable and often misinterpreted, you will
allow me to remove the cause out of court. Every man can see what is
very bad in a poem; almost every one can see what is very good: but
you, Mr. Porson, who have turned over all the volumes of all the
commentators, will inform me whether I am right or wrong in asserting
that no critic hath yet appeared who hath been able to fix or to
discern the exact degrees of excellence above a certain point.

_Porson._ None.

_Southey._ The reason is, because the eyes of no one have been upon a
level with it. Supposing, for the sake of argument, the contest of
Hesiod and Homer to have taken place: the judges who decided in favour
of the worse, and he, indeed, in poetry has little merit, may have
been elegant, wise, and conscientious men. Their decision was in
favour of that to the species of which they had been the most
accustomed. Corinna was preferred to Pindar no fewer than five times,
and the best judges in Greece gave her the preference; yet whatever
were her powers, and beyond a question they were extraordinary, we may
assure ourselves that she stood many degrees below Pindar. Nothing is
more absurd than the report that the judges were prepossessed by her
beauty. Plutarch tells us that she was much older than her competitor,
who consulted her judgment in his earlier odes. Now, granting their
first competition to have been when Pindar was twenty years old, and
that the others were in the years succeeding, her beauty must have
been somewhat on the decline; for in Greece there are few women who
retain the graces, none who retain the bloom of youth, beyond the
twenty-third year. Her countenance, I doubt not, was expressive: but
expression, although it gives beauty to men, makes women pay dearly
for its stamp, and pay soon. Nature seems, in protection to their
loveliness, to have ordered that they who are our superiors in
quickness and sensibility should be little disposed to laborious
thought, or to long excursions in the labyrinths of fancy. We may be
convinced that the verdict of the judges was biased by nothing else
than the habitudes of thinking; we may be convinced, too, that living
in an age when poetry was cultivated highly, and selected from the
most acute and the most dispassionate, they were subject to no greater
errors of opinion than are the learned messmates of our English
colleges.

_Porson._ You are more liberal in your largesses to the fair Greeks
than a friend of mine was, who resided in Athens to acquire the
language. He assured me that beauty there was in bud at thirteen, in
full blossom at fifteen, losing a leaf or two every day at seventeen,
trembling on the thorn at nineteen, and under the tree at twenty.

_Southey._ Mr. Porson, it does not appear to me that anything more is
necessary, in the first instance, than to interrogate our hearts in
what manner they have been affected. If the ear is satisfied; if at
one moment a tumult is aroused in the breast, and tranquillized at
another, with a perfect consciousness of equal power exerted in both
cases; if we rise up from the perusal of the work with a strong
excitement to thought, to imagination, to sensibility; above all, if
we sat down with some propensities toward evil, and walk away with
much stronger toward good, in the midst of a world which we never had
entered and of which we never had dreamed before--shall we perversely
put on again the _old man_ of criticism, and dissemble that we have
been conducted by a most beneficent and most potent genius? Nothing
proves to me so manifestly in what a pestiferous condition are its
lazarettos, as when I observe how little hath been objected against
those who have substituted words for things, and how much against
those who have reinstated things for words.

Let Wordsworth prove to the world that there may be animation without
blood and broken bones, and tenderness remote from the stews. Some
will doubt it; for even things the most evident are often but little
perceived and strangely estimated. Swift ridiculed the music of Handel
and the generalship of Marlborough; Pope the perspicacity and the
scholarship of Bentley; Gray the abilities of Shaftesbury and the
eloquence of Rousseau. Shakespeare hardly found those who would
collect his tragedies; Milton was read from godliness; Virgil was
antiquated and rustic; Cicero, Asiatic. What a rabble has persecuted
my friend! An elephant is born to be consumed by ants in the midst of
his unapproachable solitudes: Wordsworth is the prey of Jeffrey. Why
repine? Let us rather amuse ourselves with allegories, and recollect
that God in the creation left His noblest creature at the mercy of a
serpent.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Porson._ Wordsworth goes out of his way to be attacked; he picks up a
piece of dirt, throws it on the carpet in the midst of the company,
and cries, _This is a better man than any of you!_ He does indeed
mould the base material into what form he chooses; but why not rather
invite us to contemplate it than challenge us to condemn it? Here
surely is false taste.

_Southey._ The principal and the most general accusation against him
is, that the vehicle of his thoughts is unequal to them. Now did ever
the judges at the Olympic games say: 'We would have awarded to you the
meed of victory, if your chariot had been equal to your horses: it is
true they have won; but the people are displeased at a car neither new
nor richly gilt, and without a gryphon or sphinx engraved on the
axle'? You admire simplicity in Euripides; you censure it in
Wordsworth: believe me, sir, it arises in neither from penury of
thought--which seldom has produced it--but from the strength of
temperance, and at the suggestion of principle.

Take up a poem of Wordsworth's and read it--I would rather say, read
them all; and, knowing that a mind like yours must grasp closely what
comes within it, I will then appeal to you whether any poet of our
country, since Milton, hath exerted greater powers with less of strain
and less of ostentation. I would, however, by his permission, lay
before you for this purpose a poem which is yet unpublished and
incomplete.

_Porson._ Pity, with such abilities, he does not imitate the ancients
somewhat more.

_Southey._ Whom did they imitate? If his genius is equal to theirs he
has no need of a guide. He also will be an ancient; and the very
counterparts of those who now decry him will extol him a thousand
years hence in malignity to the moderns.




THE ABBÉ DELILLE AND WALTER LANDOR


The Abbé Delille was the happiest of creatures, when he could weep
over the charms of innocence and the country in some crowded and
fashionable circle at Paris. We embraced most pathetically on our
first meeting there, as if the one were condemned to quit the earth,
the other to live upon it.

_Delille._ You are reported to have said that descriptive poetry has
all the merits of a handkerchief that smells of roses?

_Landor._ This, if I said it, is among the things which are neither
false enough nor true enough to be displeasing. But the Abbé Delille
has merits of his own. To translate Milton well is more laudable than
originality in trifling matters; just as to transport an obelisk from
Egypt, and to erect it in one of the squares, must be considered a
greater labour than to build a new chandler's shop.

_Delille._ Milton is indeed extremely difficult to translate; for,
however noble and majestic, he is sometimes heavy, and often rough and
unequal.

_Landor._ Dear Abbé, porphyry is heavy, gold is heavier; Ossa and
Olympus are rough and unequal; the steppes of Tartary, though high,
are of uniform elevation: there is not a rock, nor a birch, nor a
cytisus, nor an arbutus upon them great enough to shelter a
new-dropped lamb. Level the Alps one with another, and where is their
sublimity? Raise up the vale of Tempe to the downs above, and where
are those sylvan creeks and harbours in which the imagination watches
while the soul reposes; those recesses in which the gods partook the
weaknesses of mortals, and mortals the enjoyments of the gods?

You have treated our poet with courtesy and distinction; in your
trimmed and measured dress, he might be taken for a Frenchman. Do not
think me flattering. You have conducted Eve from Paradise to Paris,
and she really looks prettier and smarter than before she tripped.
With what elegance she rises from a most awful dream! You represent
her (I repeat your expression) as springing up _en sursaut_, as if
you had caught her asleep and tickled the young creature on that sofa.

Homer and Virgil have been excelled in sublimity by Shakespeare and
Milton, as the Caucasus and Atlas of the old world by the Andes and
Teneriffe of the new; but you would embellish them all.

_Delille._ I owe to Voltaire my first sentiment of admiration for
Milton and Shakespeare.

_Landor._ He stuck to them as a woodpecker to an old forest-tree, only
for the purpose of picking out what was rotten: he has made the holes
deeper than he found them, and, after all his cries and chatter, has
brought home but scanty sustenance to his starveling nest.

_Delille._ You must acknowledge that there are fine verses in his
tragedies.

_Landor._ Whenever such is the first observation, be assured, M.
l'Abbé, that the poem, if heroic or dramatic, is bad. Should a work of
this kind be excellent, we say, 'How admirably the characters are
sustained! What delicacy of discrimination! There is nothing to be
taken away or altered without an injury to the part or to the whole.'
We may afterward descend on the versification. In poetry, there is a
greater difference between the good and the excellent than there is
between the bad and the good. Poetry has no golden mean; mediocrity
here is of another metal, which Voltaire, however, had skill enough to
encrust and polish. In the least wretched of his tragedies, whatever
is tolerable is Shakespeare's; but, gracious Heaven! how deteriorated!
When he pretends to extol a poet he chooses some defective part, and
renders it more so whenever he translates it. I will repeat a few
verses from Metastasio in support of my assertion. Metastasio was both
a better critic and a better poet, although of the second order in
each quality; his tyrants are less philosophical, and his chambermaids
less dogmatic. Voltaire was, however, a man of abilities, and author
of many passable epigrams, beside those which are contained in his
tragedies and heroics; yet it must be confessed that, like your
Parisian lackeys, they are usually the smartest when out of place.

_Delille._ What you call epigram gives life and spirit to grave works,
and seems principally wanted to relieve a long poem. I do not see why
what pleases us in a star should not please us in a constellation.




DIOGENES AND PLATO


_Diogenes._ Stop! stop! come hither! Why lookest thou so scornfully
and askance upon me?

_Plato._ Let me go! loose me! I am resolved to pass.

_Diogenes._ Nay, then, by Jupiter and this tub! thou leavest three
good ells of Milesian cloth behind thee. Whither wouldst thou amble?

_Plato._ I am not obliged in courtesy to tell you.

_Diogenes._ Upon whose errand? Answer me directly.

_Plato._ Upon my own.

_Diogenes._ Oh, then, I will hold thee yet awhile. If it were upon
another's, it might be a hardship to a good citizen, though not to a
good philosopher.

_Plato._ That can be no impediment to my release: you do not think me
one.

_Diogenes._ No, by my Father Jove!

_Plato._ Your father!

_Diogenes._ Why not? Thou shouldst be the last man to doubt it. Hast
not thou declared it irrational to refuse our belief to those who
assert that they are begotten by the gods, though the assertion (these
are thy words) be unfounded on reason or probability? In me there is a
chance of it: whereas in the generation of such people as thou art
fondest of frequenting, who claim it loudly, there are always too many
competitors to leave it probable.

_Plato._ Those who speak against the great do not usually speak from
morality, but from envy.

_Diogenes._ Thou hast a glimpse of the truth in this place, but as
thou hast already shown thy ignorance in attempting to prove to me
what a _man_ is, ill can I expect to learn from thee what is a _great
man_.

_Plato._ No doubt your experience and intercourse will afford me the
information.

_Diogenes._ Attend, and take it. The great man is he who hath nothing
to fear and nothing to hope from another. It is he who, while he
demonstrates the iniquity of the laws, and is able to correct them,
obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on the ambitious both as weak
and fraudulent. It is he who hath no disposition or occasion for any
kind of deceit, no reason for being or for appearing different from
what he is. It is he who can call together the most select company
when it pleases him.

_Plato._ Excuse my interruption. In the beginning of your definition I
fancied that you were designating your own person, as most people do
in describing what is admirable; now I find that you have some other
in contemplation.

_Diogenes._ I thank thee for allowing me what perhaps I _do_ possess,
but what I was not then thinking of; as is often the case with rich
possessors: in fact, the latter part of the description suits me as
well as any portion of the former.

_Plato._ You may call together the best company, by using your hands
in the call, as you did with me; otherwise I am not sure that you
would succeed in it.

_Diogenes._ My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together,
select them, detain them, dismiss them. Imbecile and vicious men
cannot do any of these things. Their thoughts are scattered, vague,
uncertain, cumbersome: and the worst stick to them the longest; many
indeed by choice, the greater part by necessity, and accompanied, some
by weak wishes, others by vain remorse.

_Plato._ Is there nothing of greatness, O Diogenes! in exhibiting how
cities and communities may be governed best, how morals may be kept
the purest, and power become the most stable?

_Diogenes._ _Something_ of greatness does not constitute the great
man. Let me, however, see him who hath done what thou sayest: he must
be the most universal and the most indefatigable traveller, he must
also be the oldest creature, upon earth.

_Plato._ How so?

_Diogenes._ Because he must know perfectly the climate, the soil, the
situation, the peculiarities, of the races, of their allies, of their
enemies; he must have sounded their harbours, he must have measured
the quantity of their arable land and pasture, of their woods and
mountains; he must have ascertained whether there are fisheries on
their coasts, and even what winds are prevalent. On these causes, with
some others, depend the bodily strength, the numbers, the wealth, the
wants, the capacities of the people.

_Plato._ Such are low thoughts.

_Diogenes._ The bird of wisdom flies low, and seeks her food under
hedges: the eagle himself would be starved if he always soared aloft
and against the sun. The sweetest fruit grows near the ground, and the
plants that bear it require ventilation and lopping. Were this not to
be done in thy garden, every walk and alley, every plot and border,
would be covered with runners and roots, with boughs and suckers. We
want no poets or logicians or metaphysicians to govern us: we want
practical men, honest men, continent men, unambitious men, fearful to
solicit a trust, slow to accept, and resolute never to betray one.
Experimentalists may be the best philosophers: they are always the
worst politicians. Teach people their duties, and they will know their
interests. Change as little as possible, and correct as much.

Philosophers are absurd from many causes, but principally from laying
out unthriftily their distinctions. They set up four virtues:
fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. Now a man may be a very
bad one, and yet possess three out of the four. Every cut-throat must,
if he has been a cut-throat on many occasions, have more fortitude and
more prudence than the greater part of those whom we consider as the
best men. And what cruel wretches, both executioners and judges, have
been strictly just! how little have they cared what gentleness, what
generosity, what genius, their sentence hath removed from the earth!
Temperance and beneficence contain all other virtues. Take them home,
Plato; split them, expound them; do what thou wilt with them, if thou
but use them.

Before I gave thee this lesson, which is a better than thou ever
gavest any one, and easier to remember, thou wert accusing me of
invidiousness and malice against those whom thou callest the great,
meaning to say the powerful. Thy imagination, I am well aware, had
taken its flight toward Sicily, where thou seekest thy great man, as
earnestly and undoubtingly as Ceres sought her Persephone. Faith!
honest Plato, I have no reason to envy thy worthy friend Dionysius.
Look at my nose! A lad seven or eight years old threw an apple at me
yesterday, while I was gazing at the clouds, and gave me nose enough
for two moderate men. Instead of such a godsend, what should I have
thought of my fortune, if, after living all my lifetime among golden
vases, rougher than my hand with their emeralds and rubies, their
engravings and embossments; among Parian caryatides and porphyry
sphinxes; among philosophers with rings upon their fingers and linen
next their skin; and among singing-boys and dancing-girls, to whom
alone thou speakest intelligibly--I ask thee again, what should I in
reason have thought of my fortune, if, after these facilities and
superfluities, I had at last been pelted out of my house, not by one
young rogue, but by thousands of all ages, and not with an apple (I
wish I could say a rotten one), but with pebbles and broken pots; and,
to crown my deserts, had been compelled to become the teacher of so
promising a generation? Great men, forsooth! thou knowest at last who
they are.

_Plato._ There are great men of various kinds.

_Diogenes._ No, by my beard, are there not!

_Plato._ What! are there not great captains, great geometricians,
great dialectitians?

_Diogenes._ Who denied it? A great man was the postulate. Try thy hand
now at the powerful one.

_Plato._ On seeing the exercise of power, a child cannot doubt who is
powerful, more or less; for power is relative. All men are weak, not
only if compared to the Demiurgos, but if compared to the sea or the
earth, or certain things upon each of them, such as elephants and
whales. So placid and tranquil is the scene around us, we can hardly
bring to mind the images of strength and force, the precipices, the
abysses----

_Diogenes._ Prithee hold thy loose tongue, twinkling and glittering
like a serpent's in the midst of luxuriance and rankness! Did never
this reflection of thine warn thee that, in human life, the precipices
and abysses would be much farther from our admiration if we were less
inconsiderate, selfish, and vile? I will not however stop thee long,
for thou wert going on quite consistently. As thy great men are
fighters and wranglers, so thy mighty things upon the earth and sea
are troublesome and intractable encumbrances. Thou perceivedst not
what was greater in the former case, neither art thou aware what is
greater in this. Didst thou feel the gentle air that passed us?

_Plato._ I did not, just then.

_Diogenes._ That air, so gentle, so imperceptible to thee, is more
powerful not only than all the creatures that breathe and live by it;
not only than all the oaks of the forest, which it rears in an age and
shatters in a moment; not only than all the monsters of the sea, but
than the sea itself, which it tosses up into foam, and breaks against
every rock in its vast circumference; for it carries in its bosom,
with perfect calm and composure, the incontrollable ocean and the
peopled earth, like an atom of a feather.

To the world's turmoils and pageantries is attracted, not only the
admiration of the populace, but the zeal of the orator, the enthusiasm
of the poet, the investigation of the historian, and the contemplation
of the philosopher: yet how silent and invisible are they in the
depths of air! Do I say in those depths and deserts? No; I say in the
distance of a swallow's flight--at the distance she rises above us,
ere a sentence brief as this could be uttered.

What are its mines and mountains? Fragments welded up and dislocated
by the expansion of water from below; the most part reduced to mud,
the rest to splinters. Afterwards sprang up fire in many places, and
again tore and mangled the mutilated carcass, and still growls over
it.

What are its cities and ramparts, and moles and monuments? Segments of
a fragment, which one man puts together and another throws down. Here
we stumble upon thy great ones at their work. Show me now, if thou
canst, in history, three great warriors, or three great statesmen, who
have acted otherwise than spiteful children.

_Plato._ I will begin to look for them in history when I have
discovered the same number in the philosophers or the poets. A prudent
man searches in his own garden after the plant he wants, before he
casts his eyes over the stalls in Kenkrea or Keramicos.

Returning to your observation on the potency of the air, I am not
ignorant or unmindful of it. May I venture to express my opinion to
you, Diogenes, that the earlier discoverers and distributors of wisdom
(which wisdom lies among us in ruins and remnants, partly distorted
and partly concealed by theological allegory) meant by Jupiter the air
in its agitated state; by Juno the air in its quiescent. These are the
great agents, and therefore called the king and queen of the gods.
Jupiter is denominated by Homer the _compeller of clouds_: Juno
receives them, and remits them in showers to plants and animals.

I may trust you, I hope, O Diogenes?

_Diogenes._ Thou mayest lower the gods in my presence, as safely as
men in the presence of Timon.

_Plato._ I would not lower them: I would exalt them.

_Diogenes._ More foolish and presumptuous still!

_Plato._ Fair words, O Sinopean! I protest to you my aim is truth.

_Diogenes._ I cannot lead thee where of a certainty thou mayest always
find it; but I will tell thee what it is. Truth is a point; the
subtilest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn
away, or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt
those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life-blood,
of those who press earnestly upon it. Let us away from this narrow
lane skirted with hemlock, and pursue our road again through the wind
and dust toward the _great_ man and the _powerful_. Him I would call
the powerful one who controls the storms of his mind, and turns to
good account the worst accidents of his fortune. The great man, I was
going on to demonstrate, is somewhat more. He must be able to do this,
and he must have an intellect which puts into motion the intellect of
others.

_Plato._ Socrates, then, was your great man.

_Diogenes._ He was indeed; nor can all thou hast attributed to him
ever make me think the contrary. I wish he could have kept a little
more at home, and have thought it as well worth his while to converse
with his own children as with others.

_Plato._ He knew himself born for the benefit of the human race.

_Diogenes._ Those who are born for the benefit of the human race go
but little into it: those who are born for its curse are crowded.

_Plato._ It was requisite to dispel the mists of ignorance and error.

_Diogenes._ Has he done it? What doubt has he elucidated, or what fact
has he established? Although I was but twelve years old and resident
in another city when he died, I have taken some pains in my inquiries
about him from persons of less vanity and less perverseness than his
disciples. He did not leave behind him any true philosopher among
them; any who followed his mode of argumentation, his subjects of
disquisition, or his course of life; any who would subdue the
malignant passions or coerce the looser; any who would abstain from
calumny or from cavil; any who would devote his days to the glory of
his country, or, what is easier and perhaps wiser, to his own
well-founded contentment and well-merited repose. Xenophon, the best
of them, offered up sacrifices, believed in oracles, consulted
soothsayers, turned pale at a jay, and was dysenteric at a magpie.

_Plato._ He had courage at least.

_Diogenes._ His courage was of so strange a quality, that he was
ready, if jay or magpie did not cross him, to fight for Spartan or
Persian. Plato, whom thou esteemest much, and knowest somewhat less,
careth as little for portent and omen as doth Diogenes. What he would
have done for a Persian I cannot say; certain I am that he would have
no more fought for a Spartan than he would for his own father: yet he
mortally hates the man who hath a kinder muse or a better milliner, or
a seat nearer the minion of a king. So much for the two disciples of
Socrates who have acquired the greatest celebrity!

       *       *       *       *       *

_Plato._ Diogenes! if you must argue or discourse with me, I will
endure your asperity for the sake of your acuteness; but it appears to
me a more philosophical thing to avoid what is insulting and
vexatious, than to breast and brave it.

_Diogenes._ Thou hast spoken well.

_Plato._ It belongs to the vulgar, not to us, to fly from a man's
opinions to his actions, and to stab him in his own house for having
received no wound in the school. One merit you will allow me: I always
keep my temper; which you seldom do.

_Diogenes._ Is mine a good or a bad one?

_Plato._ Now, must I speak sincerely?

_Diogenes._ Dost thou, a philosopher, ask such a question of me, a
philosopher? Ay, sincerely or not at all.

_Plato._ Sincerely as you could wish, I must declare, then, your
temper is the worst in the world.

_Diogenes._ I am much in the right, therefore, not to keep it. Embrace
me: I have spoken now in thy own manner. Because thou sayest the most
malicious things the most placidly, thou thinkest or pretendest thou
art sincere.

_Plato._ Certainly those who are most the masters of their resentments
are likely to speak less erroneously than the passionate and morose.

_Diogenes._ If they would, they might; but the moderate are not
usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them
moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence:
they are also timid in regard to fortune and favour, and hazard
little. There is no mass of sincerity in any place. What there is must
be picked up patiently, a grain or two at a time; and the season for
it is after a storm, after the overflowing of banks, and bursting of
mounds, and sweeping away of landmarks. Men will always hold something
back; they must be shaken and loosened a little, to make them let go
what is deepest in them, and weightiest and purest.

_Plato._ Shaking and loosening as much about you as was requisite for
the occasion, it became you to demonstrate where and in what manner I
had made Socrates appear less sagacious and less eloquent than he was;
it became you likewise to consider the great difficulty of finding new
thoughts and new expressions for those who had more of them than any
other men, and to represent them in all the brilliancy of their wit
and in all the majesty of their genius. I do not assert that I have
done it; but if I have not, what man has? what man has come so nigh to
it? He who could bring Socrates, or Solon, or Diogenes through a
dialogue, without disparagement, is much nearer in his intellectual
powers to them, than any other is near to him.

_Diogenes._ Let Diogenes alone, and Socrates, and Solon. None of the
three ever occupied his hours in tingeing and curling the tarnished
plumes of prostitute Philosophy, or deemed anything worth his
attention, care, or notice, that did not make men brave and
independent. As thou callest on me to show thee where and in what
manner thou hast misrepresented thy teacher, and as thou seemest to
set an equal value on eloquence and on reasoning, I shall attend to
thee awhile on each of these matters, first inquiring of thee whether
the axiom is Socratic, that it is never becoming to get drunk,
_unless_ in the solemnities of Bacchus?

_Plato._ This god was the discoverer of the vine and of its uses.

_Diogenes._ Is drunkenness one of its uses, or the discovery of a god?
If Pallas or Jupiter hath given us reason, we should sacrifice our
reason with more propriety to Jupiter or Pallas. To Bacchus is due a
libation of wine; the same being his gift, as thou preachest.

Another and a graver question.

Did Socrates teach thee that 'slaves are to be scourged, and by no
means admonished as though they were the children of the master'?

_Plato._ He did not argue upon government.

_Diogenes._ He argued upon humanity, whereon all government is
founded: whatever is beside it is usurpation.

_Plato._ Are slaves then never to be scourged, whatever be their
transgressions and enormities?

_Diogenes._ Whatever they be, they are less than his who reduced them
to this condition.

_Plato._ What! though they murder his whole family?

_Diogenes._ Ay, and poison the public fountain of the city.

What am I saying? and to whom? Horrible as is this crime, and next in
atrocity to parricide, thou deemest it a lighter one than stealing a
fig or grape. The stealer of these is scourged by thee; the sentence
on the poisoner is to cleanse out the receptacle. There is, however, a
kind of poisoning which, to do thee justice, comes before thee with
all its horrors, and which thou wouldst punish capitally, even in such
a sacred personage as an aruspex or diviner: I mean the poisoning by
incantation. I, and my whole family, my whole race, my whole city, may
bite the dust in agony from a truss of henbane in the well; and little
harm done forsooth! Let an idle fool set an image of me in wax before
the fire, and whistle and caper to it, and purr and pray, and chant a
hymn to Hecate while it melts, entreating and imploring her that I may
melt as easily--and thou wouldst, in thy equity and holiness, strangle
him at the first stave of his psalmody.

_Plato._ If this is an absurdity, can you find another?

_Diogenes._ Truly, in reading thy book, I doubted at first, and for a
long continuance, whether thou couldst have been serious; and whether
it were not rather a satire on those busy-bodies who are incessantly
intermeddling in other people's affairs. It was only on the
protestation of thy intimate friends that I believed thee to have
written it in earnest. As for thy question, it is idle to stoop and
pick out absurdities from a mass of inconsistency and injustice; but
another and another I could throw in, and another and another
afterward, from any page in the volume. Two bare, staring falsehoods
lift their beaks one upon the other, like spring frogs. Thou sayest
that no punishment decreed by the laws tendeth to evil. What! not if
immoderate? not if partial? Why then repeal any penal statute while
the subject of its animadversion exists? In prisons the less criminal
are placed among the more criminal, the inexperienced in vice together
with the hardened in it. This is part of the punishment, though it
precedes the sentence; nay, it is often inflicted on those whom the
judges acquit: the law, by allowing it, does it.

The next is, that he who is punished by the laws is the better for it,
however the less depraved. What! if anteriorly to the sentence he
lives and converses with worse men, some of whom console him by
deadening the sense of shame, others by removing the apprehension of
punishment? Many laws as certainly make men bad, as bad men make many
laws; yet under thy regimen they take us from the bosom of the nurse,
turn the meat about upon the platter, pull the bed-clothes off, make
us sleep when we would wake, and wake when we would sleep, and never
cease to rummage and twitch us, until they see us safe landed at the
grave. We can do nothing (but be poisoned) with impunity. What is
worst of all, we must marry certain relatives and connexions, be they
distorted, blear-eyed, toothless, carbuncled, with hair (if any)
eclipsing the reddest torch of Hymen, and with a hide outrivalling in
colour and plaits his trimmest saffron robe. At the mention of this
indeed, friend Plato, even thou, although resolved to stand out of
harm's way, beginnest to make a wry mouth, and findest it difficult to
pucker and purse it up again, without an astringent store of moral
sentences. Hymen is truly no acquaintance of thine. We know the
delicacies of love which thou wouldst reserve for the gluttony of
heroes and the fastidiousness of philosophers. Heroes, like gods, must
have their own way; but against thee and thy confraternity of elders I
would turn the closet-key, and your mouths might water over, but your
tongues should never enter those little pots of comfiture. Seriously,
you who wear embroidered slippers ought to be very cautious of
treading in the mire. Philosophers should not only live the simplest
lives, but should also use the plainest language. Poets, in employing
magnificent and sonorous words, teach philosophy the better by thus
disarming suspicion that the finest poetry contains and conveys the
finest philosophy. You will never let any man hold his right station:
you would rank Solon with Homer for poetry. This is absurd. The only
resemblance is in both being eminently wise. Pindar, too, makes even
the cadences of his dithyrambics keep time to the flute of Reason. My
tub, which holds fifty-fold thy wisdom, would crack at the
reverberation of thy voice.

_Plato._ Farewell.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Diogenes._ I mean that every one of thy whimsies hath been picked up
somewhere by thee in thy travels; and each of them hath been rendered
more weak and puny by its place of concealment in thy closet. What
thou hast written on the immortality of the soul goes rather to prove
the immortality of the body; and applies as well to the body of a
weasel or an eel as to the fairer one of Agathon or of Aster. Why not
at once introduce a new religion, since religions keep and are
relished in proportion as they are salted with absurdity, inside and
out? and all of them must have one great crystal of it for the centre;
but Philosophy pines and dies unless she drinks limpid water. When
Pherecydes and Pythagoras felt in themselves the majesty of
contemplation, they spurned the idea that flesh and bones and arteries
should confer it: and that what comprehends the past and the future
should sink in a moment and be annihilated for ever. 'No,' cried they,
'the power of thinking is no more in the brain than in the hair,
although the brain may be the instrument on which it plays. It is not
corporeal, it is not of this world; its existence is eternity, its
residence is infinity.' I forbear to discuss the rationality of their
belief, and pass on straightway to thine; if, indeed, I am to consider
as one, belief and doctrine.

_Plato._ As you will.

_Diogenes._ I should rather, then, regard these things as mere
ornaments; just as many decorate their apartments with lyres and
harps, which they themselves look at from the couch, supinely
complacent, and leave for visitors to admire and play on.

_Plato._ I foresee not how you can disprove my argument on the
immortality of the soul, which, being contained in the best of my
dialogues, and being often asked for among my friends, I carry with
me.

_Diogenes._ At this time?

_Plato._ Even so.

_Diogenes._ Give me then a certain part of it for my perusal.

_Plato._ Willingly.

_Diogenes._ Hermes and Pallas! I wanted but a cubit of it, or at most
a fathom, and thou art pulling it out by the plethron.

_Plato._ This is the place in question.

_Diogenes._ Read it.

_Plato._ [_Reads._] 'Sayest thou not that death is the opposite of
life, and that they spring the one from the other?' '_Yes._' 'What
springs then from the living?' '_The dead._' 'And what from the dead?'
'_The living._' 'Then all things alive spring from the dead.'

_Diogenes._ Why the repetition? but go on.

_Plato._ [_Reads._] 'Souls therefore exist after death in the infernal
regions.'

_Diogenes._ Where is the _therefore_? where is it even as to
_existence_? As to the _infernal regions_, there is nothing that
points toward a proof, or promises an indication. Death neither
springs from life, nor life from death. Although death is the
inevitable consequence of life, if the observation and experience of
ages go for anything, yet nothing shows us, or ever hath signified,
that life comes from death. Thou mightest as well say that a
barley-corn dies before the germ of another barley-corn grows up from
it, than which nothing is more untrue; for it is only the protecting
part of the germ that perishes, when its protection is no longer
necessary. The consequence, that souls exist after death, cannot be
drawn from the corruption of the body, even if it were demonstrable
that out of this corruption a live one could rise up. Thou hast not
said that the soul is among those dead things which living things must
spring from; thou hast not said that a living soul produces a dead
soul, or that a dead soul produces a living one.

_Plato._ No, indeed.

_Diogenes._ On my faith, thou hast said, however, things no less
inconsiderate, no less inconsequent, no less unwise; and this very
thing must be said and proved, to make thy argument of any value. Do
dead men beget children?

_Plato._ I have not said it.

_Diogenes._ Thy argument implies it.

_Plato._ These are high mysteries, and to be approached with
reverence.

_Diogenes._ Whatever we cannot account for is in the same predicament.
We may be gainers by being ignorant if we can be thought mysterious.
It is better to shake our heads and to let nothing out of them, than
to be plain and explicit in matters of difficulty. I do not mean in
confessing our ignorance or our imperfect knowledge of them, but in
clearing them up perspicuously: for, if we answer with ease, we may
haply be thought good-natured, quick, communicative; never deep,
never sagacious; not very defective possibly in our intellectual
faculties, yet unequal and chinky, and liable to the probation of
every clown's knuckle.

_Plato._ The brightest of stars appear the most unsteady and tremulous
in their light; not from any quality inherent in themselves, but from
the vapours that float below, and from the imperfection of vision in
the surveyor.

_Diogenes._ Draw thy robe round thee; let the folds fall gracefully,
and look majestic. That sentence is an admirable one; but not for me.
I want sense, not stars. What then? Do no vapours float below the
others? and is there no imperfection in the vision of those who look
at _them_, if they are the same men, and look the next moment? We must
move on: I shall follow the dead bodies, and the benighted driver of
their fantastic bier, close and keen as any hyena.

_Plato._ Certainly, O Diogenes, you excel me in elucidations and
similes: mine was less obvious.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Diogenes._ I know the respect thou bearest to the dogly character,
and can attribute to nothing else the complacency with which thou hast
listened to me since I released thy cloak. If ever the Athenians, in
their inconstancy, should issue a decree to deprive me of the
appellation they have conferred on me, rise up, I pray thee, in my
defence, and protest that I have not merited so severe a mulct.
Something I do deserve at thy hands; having supplied thee, first with
a store of patience, when thou wert going without any about thee,
although it is the readiest viaticum and the heartiest sustenance of
human life; and then with weapons from this tub, wherewith to drive
the importunate cock before thee out of doors again.




ALFIERI AND SALOMON THE FLORENTINE JEW


_Alfieri._ Let us walk to the window, Signor Salomon. And now, instead
of the silly, simpering compliments repeated at introductions, let me
assure you that you are the only man in Florence with whom I would
willingly exchange a salutation.

_Salomon._ I must think myself highly flattered, Signor Conte, having
always heard that you are not only the greatest democrat, but also the
greatest aristocrat, in Europe.

_Alfieri._ These two things, however opposite, which your smile would
indicate, are not so irreconcilable as you imagine. Let us first
understand the words, and then talk about them. The democrat is he who
wishes the people to have a due share in the government, and this
share if you please shall be the principal one. The aristocrat of our
days is contented with no actual share in it; but if a man of family
is conscious of his dignity, and resentful that another has invaded
it, he may be, and is universally, called an aristocrat. The principal
difference is, that one carries outward what the other carries inward.
I am thought an aristocrat by the Florentines for conversing with few
people, and for changing my shirt and shaving my beard on other days
than festivals; which the most aristocratical of them never do,
considering it, no doubt, as an excess. I am, however, from my soul a
republican, if prudence and modesty will authorize any man to call
himself so; and this, I trust, I have demonstrated in the most
valuable of my works, the _Treatise on Tyranny_ and the _Dialogue_
with my friends at Siena. The aristocratical part of me, if part of me
it must be called, hangs loose and keeps off insects. I see no
aristocracy in the children of sharpers from behind the counter, nor,
placing the matter in the most favourable point of view, in the
descendants of free citizens who accepted from any vile
enslaver--French, Spanish, German, or priest, or monk (represented
with a piece of buffoonery, like a beehive on his head and a picklock
key at his girdle)--the 

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