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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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      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 titles of counts and marquises. In Piedmont
the matter is different: we must either have been the rabble or the
lords; we were military, and we retain over the populace the same rank
and spirit as our ancestors held over the soldiery.

_Salomon._ Signor Conte, I have heard of levellers, but I have never
seen one: all are disposed to level down, but nobody to level up. As
for nobility, there is none in Europe beside the Venetian. Nobility
must be self-constituted and independent: the free alone are noble;
slavery, like death, levels all. The English come nearest to the
Venetian: they are independent, but want the main characteristic, the
_self-constituted_. You have been in England, Signor Conte, and can
judge of them better than I can.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Alfieri._ It is among those who stand between the peerage and the
people that there exists a greater mass of virtue and of wisdom than
in the rest of Europe. Much of their dignified simplicity may be
attributed to the plainness of their religion, and, what will always
be imitated, to the decorous life of their king: for whatever may be
the defects of either, if we compare them with others round us, they
are excellent.

_Salomon._ A young religion jumps upon the shoulders of an older one,
and soon becomes like her, by mockery of her tricks, her cant, and her
decrepitude. Meanwhile the old one shakes with indignation, and swears
there is neither relationship nor likeness. Was there ever a religion
in the world that was not the true religion, or was there ever a king
that was not the best of kings?

_Alfieri._ In the latter case we must have arrived nigh perfection;
since it is evident from the authority of the gravest men--theologians,
presidents, judges, corporations, universities, senates--that every
prince is better than his father, 'of blessed memory, now with God'. If
they continue to rise thus transcendently, earth in a little time will
be incapable of holding them, and higher heavens must be raised upon
the highest heavens for their reception. The lumber of our Italian
courts, the most crazy part of which is that which rests upon a red
cushion in a gilt chair, with stars and sheep and crosses dangling from
it, must be approached as Artaxerxes and Domitian. These automatons, we
are told nevertheless, are very condescending. Poor fools who tell us
it! ignorant that where on one side is condescension, on the other side
must be baseness. The rascals have ruined my physiognomy. I wear an
habitual sneer upon my face, God confound them for it! even when I
whisper a word of love in the prone ear of my donna.

_Salomon._ This temper or constitution of mind I am afraid may do
injury to your works.

_Alfieri._ Surely not to all: my satire at least must be the better
for it.

_Salomon._ I think differently. No satire can be excellent where
displeasure is expressed with acrimony and vehemence. When satire
ceases to smile, it should be momentarily, and for the purpose of
inculcating a moral. Juvenal is hardly more a satirist than Lucan: he
is indeed a vigorous and bold declaimer, but he stamps too often, and
splashes up too much filth. We Italians have no delicacy in wit: we
have indeed no conception of it; we fancy we must be weak if we are
not offensive. The scream of Pulcinello is imitated more easily than
the masterly strokes of Plautus, or the sly insinuations of Catullus
and of Flaccus.

_Alfieri._ We are the least witty of men because we are the most
trifling.

_Salomon._ You would persuade me then that to be witty one must be
grave: this is surely a contradiction.

_Alfieri._ I would persuade you only that banter, pun, and quibble are
the properties of light men and shallow capacities; that genuine
humour and true wit require a sound and capacious mind, which is
always a grave one. Contemptuousness is not incompatible with them:
worthless is that man who feels no contempt for the worthless, and
weak who treats their emptiness as a thing of weight. At first it may
seem a paradox, but it is perfectly true, that the gravest nations
have been the wittiest; and in those nations some of the gravest men.
In England, Swift and Addison; in Spain, Cervantes. Rabelais and La
Fontaine are recorded by their countrymen to have been _rêveurs_. Few
men have been graver than Pascal; few have been wittier.

       *       *       *       *       *

That Shakespeare was gay and pleasurable in conversation I can easily
admit; for there never was a mind at once so plastic and so pliant:
but without much gravity, could there have been that potency and
comprehensiveness of thought, that depth of feeling, that creation of
imperishable ideas, that sojourn in the souls of other men? He was
amused in his workshop: such was society. But when he left it, he
meditated intensely upon those limbs and muscles on which he was about
to bestow new action, grace, and majesty; and so great an intensity of
meditation must have strongly impressed his whole character.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Salomon._ Certainly no race of men upon earth ever was so unwarlike,
so indifferent to national dignity and to personal honour, as the
Florentines are now: yet in former days a certain pride, arising from
a resemblance in their government to that of Athens, excited a
vivifying desire of approximation where no danger or loss accompanied
it; and Genius was no less confident of his security than of his
power. Look from the window. That cottage on the declivity was
Dante's: that square and large mansion, with a circular garden before
it elevated artificially, was the first scene of Boccaccio's
_Decameron_. A boy might stand at an equal distance between them, and
break the windows of each with his sling. What idle fabricators of
crazy systems will tell me that climate is the creator of genius? The
climate of Austria is more regular and more temperate than ours, which
I am inclined to believe is the most variable in the whole universe,
subject, as you have perceived, to heavy fogs for two months in
winter, and to a stifling heat, concentrated within the hills, for
five more. Yet a single man of genius hath never appeared in the whole
extent of Austria, an extent of several thousand times greater than
our city; and this very street has given birth to fifty.

_Alfieri._ Since the destruction of the republic, Florence has
produced only one great man, Galileo, and abandoned him to every
indignity that fanaticism and despotism could invent. Extraordinary
men, like the stones that are formed in the higher regions of the air,
fall upon the earth only to be broken and cast into the furnace. The
precursor of Newton lived in the deserts of the moral world, drank
water, and ate locusts and wild honey. It was fortunate that his head
also was not lopped off: had a singer asked it, instead of a dancer,
it would have been.

_Salomon._ In fact it was; for the fruits of it were shaken down and
thrown away: he was forbidden to publish the most important of his
discoveries, and the better part of his manuscripts was burned after
his death.

_Alfieri._ Yes, Signor Salomon, those things may rather be called our
heads than this knob above the shoulder, of which (as matters stand)
we are rather the porters than the proprietors, and which is really
the joint concern of barber and dentist.

_Salomon._ Our thoughts, if they may not rest at home, may wander
freely. Delighting in the remoter glories of my native city, I forget
at times its humiliation and ignominy. A town so little that the voice
of a cabbage-girl in the midst of it may be heard at the extremities,
reared within three centuries a greater number of citizens illustrious
for their genius than all the remainder of the Continent (excepting
her sister Athens) in six thousand years. My ignorance of the Greek
forbids me to compare our Dante with Homer. The propriety and force of
language and the harmony of verse in the glorious Grecian are quite
lost to me. Dante had not only to compose a poem, but in great part a
language. Fantastical as the plan of his poem is, and, I will add,
uninteresting and uninviting; unimportant, mean, contemptible, as are
nine-tenths of his characters and his details, and wearisome as is the
scheme of his versification--there are more thoughts highly poetical,
there is more reflection, and the nobler properties of mind and
intellect are brought into more intense action, not only than in the
whole course of French poetry, but also in the whole of continental;
nor do I think (I must here also speak with hesitation) that any one
drama of Shakespeare contains so many. Smile as you will, Signor
Conte, what must I think of a city where Michel Angelo, Frate
Bartolomeo, Ghiberti (who formed them), Guicciardini, and Machiavelli
were secondary men? And certainly such were they, if we compare them
with Galileo and Boccaccio and Dante.

_Alfieri._ I smiled from pure delight, which I rarely do; for I take
an interest deep and vital in such men, and in those who appreciate
them rightly and praise them unreservedly. These are my
fellow-citizens: I acknowledge no other; we are of the same tribe, of
the same household; I bow to them as being older than myself, and I
love them as being better.

_Salomon._ Let us hope that our Italy is not yet effete. Filangieri
died but lately: what think you of him?

_Alfieri._ If it were possible that I could ever see his statue in a
square at Constantinople, though I should be scourged for an idolater,
I would kiss the pedestal. As this, however, is less likely than that
I should suffer for writing satirically, and as criticism is less
likely to mislead me than speculation, I will revert to our former
subject.

Indignation and contempt may be expressed in other poems than such as
are usually called satires. Filicaia, in his celebrated address to
Italy, steers a middle course.

       *       *       *       *       *

A perfect piece of criticism must exhibit _where_ a work is good or
bad; _why_ it is good or bad; in what degree it is good or bad; must
also demonstrate in what manner, and to what extent, the same ideas or
reflections have come to others, and, if they be clothed in poetry,
why by an apparently slight variation, what in one author is
mediocrity, in another is excellence. I have never seen a critic of
Florence, or Pisa, or Milan, or Bologna, who did not commend and
admire the sonnet of Cassiani on the rape of Proserpine, without a
suspicion of its manifold and grave defects.

       *       *       *       *       *

Does not this describe the devils of our carnival, rather than the
majestic brother of Jupiter, at whose side upon asphodel and amaranth
the sweet Persephone sits pensively contented, in that deep motionless
quiet which mortals pity and which the gods enjoy; rather than him
who, under the umbrage of Elysium, gazes at once upon all the beauties
that on earth were separated--Helena and Eriphyle, Polyxena and
Hermione, Deidamia and Deianira, Leda and Omphale, Atalanta and
Cydippe, Laodamia, with her arm round the neck of a fond youth whom
she still seems afraid of losing, and, apart, the daughters of Niobe
clinging to their parent?

_Salomon._ These images are better than satires; but continue, in
preference to other thoughts or pursuits, the noble career you have
entered. Be contented, Signor Conte, with the glory of our first great
dramatist, and neglect altogether any inferior one. Why vex and
torment yourself about the French? They buzz and are troublesome while
they are swarming; but the master will soon hive them. Is the whole
nation worth the worst of your tragedies? All the present race of
them, all the creatures in the world which excite your indignation,
will lie in the grave, while young and old are clapping their hands or
beating their bosoms at your _Bruto Primo_. Consider also that kings
and emperors should in your estimation be but as grasshoppers and
beetles: let them consume a few blades of your clover without
molesting them, without bringing them to crawl on you and claw you.
The difference between them and men of genius is almost as great as
between men of genius and those higher intelligences who act in
immediate subordination to the Almighty. Yes, I assert it, without
flattery and without fear, the angels are not higher above mortals
than you are above the proudest that trample on them.

_Alfieri._ I believe, sir, you were the first in commending my
tragedies.

_Salomon._ He who first praises a good book becomingly is next in
merit to the author.

_Alfieri._ As a writer and as a man I know my station: if I found in
the world five equal to myself, I would walk out of it, not to be
jostled.

I must now, Signor Salomon, take my leave of you; for his Eminence my
coachman and their Excellencies my horses are waiting.




ROUSSEAU AND MALESHERBES


_Rousseau._ I am ashamed, sir, of my countrymen: let my humiliation
expiate their offence. I wish it had not been a minister of the Gospel
who received you with such inhospitality.

_Malesherbes._ Nothing can be more ardent and more cordial than the
expressions with which you greet me, M. Rousseau, on my return from
your lakes and mountains.

_Rousseau._ If the pastor took you for a courtier, I reverence him for
his contemptuousness.

_Malesherbes._ Why so? Indeed you are in the wrong, my friend. No
person has a right to treat another with contemptuousness unless he
knows him to deserve it. When a courtier enters the house of a pastor
in preference to the next, the pastor should partake in the sentiment
that induced him, or at least not to be offended to be preferred. A
courtier is such at court: in the house of a clergyman he is not a
courtier, but a guest. If to be a courtier is offensive, remember that
we punish offences where they are committed, where they can be
examined, where pleadings can be heard for and against the accused,
and where nothing is admitted extraneous from the indictment,
excepting what may be adduced in his behalf by witnesses to the
general tenor of his character.

_Rousseau._ Is it really true that the man told you to mount the
hayloft if you wished a night's lodging?

_Malesherbes._ He did: a certain proof that he no more took me to be a
courtier than I took him to be. I accepted his offer, and never slept
so soundly. Moderate fatigue, the Alpine air, the blaze of a good fire
(for I was admitted to it some moments), and a profusion of
odoriferous hay, below which a cow was sleeping, subdued my senses,
and protracted my slumbers beyond the usual hour.

_Rousseau._ You have no right, sir, to be the patron and remunerator
of inhospitality. Three or four such men as you would corrupt all
Switzerland, and prepare it for the fangs of France and Austria.
Kings, like hyenas, will always fall upon dead carcasses, although
their bellies are full, and although they are conscious that in the
end they will tear one another to pieces over them. Why should you
prepare their prey? Were your fire and effulgence given you for this?
Why, in short, did you thank this churl? Why did you recommend him to
his superiors for preferment on the next vacancy?

_Malesherbes._ I must adopt your opinion of his behaviour in order to
answer you satisfactorily. You suppose him inhospitable: what milder
or more effectual mode of reproving him, than to make every dish at
his table admonish him? If he did evil, have I no authority before me
which commands me to render him good for it? Believe me, M. Rousseau,
the execution of this command is always accompanied by the heart's
applause, and opportunities of obedience are more frequent here than
anywhere. Would not you exchange resentment for the contrary feeling,
even if religion or duty said nothing about the matter? I am afraid
the most philosophical of us are sometimes a little perverse, and will
not be so happy as they might be, because the path is pointed out to
them, and because he who points it out is wise and powerful. Obstinacy
and jealousy, the worst parts of childhood and of manhood, have range
enough for their ill humours without the heavens.

_Rousseau._ Sir, I perceive you are among my enemies. I did not think
it; for, whatever may be my faults, I am totally free from suspicion.

_Malesherbes._ And do not think it now, I entreat you, my good friend.

_Rousseau._ Courts and society have corrupted the best heart in
France, and have perverted the best intellect.

_Malesherbes._ They have done much evil then.

_Rousseau._ Answer me, and your own conscience: how could you choose
to live among the perfidies of Paris and Versailles?

_Malesherbes._ Lawyers, and advocates in particular, must live there;
philosophers need not. If every honest man thought it requisite to
leave those cities, would the inhabitants be the better?

_Rousseau._ You have entered into intimacies with the members of
various administrations, opposite in plans and sentiments, but alike
hostile to you, and all of whom, if they could have kept your talents
down, would have done it. Finding the thing impossible, they ceased to
persecute, and would gladly tempt you under the semblance of
friendship and esteem to supplicate for some office, that they might
indicate to the world your unworthiness by refusing you: a proof, as
you know, quite sufficient and self-evident.

_Malesherbes._ They will never tempt me to supplicate for anything but
justice, and that in behalf of others. I know nothing of parties. If I
am acquainted with two persons of opposite sides in politics, I
consider them as you consider a watchmaker and a cabinet-maker: one
desires to rise by one way, the other by another. Administrations and
systems of government would be quite indifferent to those very
functionaries and their opponents, who appear the most zealous
partisans, if their fortunes and consequence were not affixed to them.
Several of these men seem consistent, and indeed are; the reason is,
versatility would loosen and detach from them the public esteem and
confidence----

_Rousseau._ By which their girandoles are lighted, their dinners
served, their lackeys liveried, and their opera-girls vie in
benefit-nights. There is no State in Europe where the least wise have
not governed the most wise. We find the light and foolish keeping up
with the machinery of government easily and leisurely, just as we see
butterflies keep up with carriages at full speed. This is owing in
both cases to their levity and their position: the stronger and the
more active are left behind. I am resolved to prove that
farmers-general are the main causes of the defects in our music.

_Malesherbes._ Prove it, or anything else, provided that the
discussion does not irritate and torment you.

_Rousseau._ Truth is the object of philosophy.

_Malesherbes._ Not of philosophers: the display of ingenuity, for the
most part, is and always has been it. I must here offer you an opinion
of my own, which, if you think well of me, you will pardon, though you
should disbelieve its solidity. My opinion then is, that truth is not
reasonably the main and ultimate object of philosophy; but that
philosophy should seek truth merely as the means of acquiring and of
propagating happiness. Truths are simple; wisdom, which is formed by
their apposition and application, is concrete: out of this, in its
vast varieties, open to our wants and wishes, comes happiness. But the
knowledge of all the truths ever yet discovered does not lead
immediately to it, nor indeed will ever reach it, unless you make the
more important of them bear upon your heart and intellect, and form,
as it were, the blood that moves and nurtures them.

_Rousseau._ I never until now entertained a doubt that truth is the
ultimate aim and object of philosophy: no writer has denied it, I
think.

_Malesherbes._ Designedly none may: but when it is agreed that
happiness is the chief good, it must also be agreed that the chief
wisdom will pursue it; and I have already said, what your own
experience cannot but have pointed out to you, that no truth, or
series of truths, hypothetically, can communicate or attain it. Come,
M. Rousseau, tell me candidly, do you derive no pleasure from a sense
of superiority in genius and independence?

_Rousseau._ The highest, sir, from a consciousness of independence.

_Malesherbes._ _Ingenuous_ is the epithet we affix to modesty, but
modesty often makes men act otherwise than ingenuously: you, for
example, now. You are angry at the servility of people, and disgusted
at their obtuseness and indifference, on matters of most import to
their welfare. If they were equal to you, this anger would cease; but
the fire would break out somewhere else, on ground which appears at
present sound and level. Voltaire, for instance, is less eloquent than
you: but Voltaire is wittier than any man living. This quality----

_Rousseau._ Is the quality of a buffoon and a courtier. But the
buffoon should have most of it, to support his higher dignity.

_Malesherbes._ Voltaire's is Attic.

_Rousseau_. If malignity is Attic. Petulance is not wit, although a
few grains of wit may be found in petulance: quartz is not gold,
although a few grains of gold may be found in quartz. Voltaire is a
monkey in mischief, and a spaniel in obsequiousness. He declaims
against the cruel and tyrannical; and he kisses the hands of
adulteresses who murder their husbands, and of robbers who decimate
their gang.

_Malesherbes._ I will not discuss with you the character of the man,
and only that part of the author's on which I spoke. There may be
malignity in wit, there cannot be violence. You may irritate and
disquiet with it; but it must be by means of a flower or a feather.
Wit and humour stand on one side, irony and sarcasm on the other.

_Rousseau._ They are in near neighbourhood.

_Malesherbes._ So are the Elysian fields and Tartarus.

_Rousseau._ Pray, go on: teach me to stand quiet in my stall, while my
masters and managers pass by.

_Malesherbes._ Well then--Pascal argues as closely and methodically;
Bossuet is as scientific in the structure of his sentences;
Demosthenes, many think, has equal fire, vigour, dexterity: equal
selection of topics and equal temperance in treating them,
immeasurably as he falls short of you in appeals to the sensibility,
and in everything which by way of excellence we usually call genius.

_Rousseau._ Sir, I see no resemblance between a pleader at the bar, or
a haranguer of the populace, and me.

_Malesherbes._ Certainly his questions are occasional: but one great
question hangs in the centre, and high above the rest; and this is,
whether the Mother of liberty and civilization shall exist, or whether
she shall be extinguished in the bosom of her family. As we often
apply to Eloquence and her parts the terms we apply to Architecture
and hers, let me do it also, and remark that nothing can be more
simple, solid, and symmetrical, nothing more frugal in decoration or
more appropriate in distribution, than the apartments of Demosthenes.
Yours excel them in space and altitude; your ornaments are equally
chaste and beautiful, with more variety and invention, more airiness
and light. But why, among the Loves and Graces, does Apollo flay
Marsyas?--and why may not the tiara still cover the ears of Midas?
Cannot you, who detest kings and courtiers, keep away from them? If I
must be with them, let me be in good humour and good spirits. If I
will tread upon a Persian carpet, let it at least be in clean shoes.

As the raciest wine makes the sharpest vinegar, so the richest fancies
turn the most readily to acrimony. Keep yours, my dear M. Rousseau,
from the exposure and heats that generate it. Be contented; enjoy your
fine imagination; and do not throw your salad out of window, nor shove
your cat off your knee, on hearing it said that Shakespeare has a
finer, or that a minister is of opinion that you know more of music
than of state. My friend! the quarrels of ingenious men are generally
far less reasonable and just, less placable and moderate, than those
of the stupid and ignorant. We ought to blush at this: and we should
blush yet more deeply if we bring them in as parties to our
differences. Let us conquer by kindness; which we cannot do easily or
well without communication.

_Rousseau._ The minister would expel me from his antechamber, and
order his valets to buffet me, if I offered him any proposal for the
advantage of mankind.

_Malesherbes._ Call to him, then, from this room, where the valets are
civiler. Nature has given you a speaking-trumpet, which neither storm
can drown nor enemy can silence. If you esteem him, instruct him; if
you despise him, do the same. Surely, you who have much benevolence
would not despise any one willingly or unnecessarily. Contempt is for
the incorrigible: now, where upon earth is he whom your genius, if
rightly and temperately exerted, would not influence and correct?

I never was more flattered or honoured than by your patience in
listening to me. Consider me as an old woman who sits by the bedside
in your infirmity, who brings you no savoury viand, no exotic fruit,
but a basin of whey or a basket of strawberries from your native
hills; assures you that what oppressed you was a dream, occasioned by
the wrong position in which you lay; opens the window, gives you fresh
air, and entreats you to recollect the features of Nature, and to
observe (which no man ever did so accurately) their beauty. In your
politics you cut down a forest to make a toothpick, and cannot make
even that out of it! Do not let us in jurisprudence be like critics in
the classics, and change whatever can be changed, right or wrong. No
statesman will take your advice. Supposing that any one is liberal in
his sentiments and clear-sighted in his views, nevertheless love of
power is jealous, and he would rejoice to see you fleeing from
persecution or turning to meet it. The very men whom you would benefit
will treat you worse. As the ministers of kings wish their masters to
possess absolute power that the exercise of it may be delegated to
them, which it naturally is from the violence and sloth alternate with
despots as with wild beasts, and that they may apprehend no check or
control from those who discover their misdemeanours, in like manner
the people places more trust in favour than in fortune, and hopes to
obtain by subserviency what it never might by election or by chance.
Else in free governments, so some are called (for names once given are
the last things lost), all minor offices and employments would be
assigned by ballot. Each province or canton would present a list
annually of such persons in it as are worthy to occupy the local
administrations.

To avoid any allusion to the country in which we live, let us take
England for example. Is it not absurd, iniquitous, and revolting, that
the minister of a church in Yorkshire should be appointed by a lawyer
in London, who never knew him, never saw him, never heard from a
single one of the parishioners a recommendation of any kind? Is it not
more reasonable that a justice of the peace should be chosen by those
who have always been witnesses of his integrity?

_Rousseau._ The king should appoint his ministers, and should invest
them with power and splendour; but those ministers should not appoint
to any civil or religious place of trust or profit which the community
could manifestly fill better. The greater part of offices and
dignities should be conferred for a short and stated time, that all
might hope to attain and strive to deserve them. Embassies in
particular should never exceed one year in Europe, nor consulates two.
To the latter office I assign this duration as the more difficult to
fulfil properly, from requiring a knowledge of trade, although a
slight one, and because those who possess any such knowledge are
inclined for the greater part to turn it to their own account, which a
consul ought by no means to do. Frequent election of representatives
and of civil officers in the subordinate employments would remove most
causes of discontent in the people, and of instability in kingly
power. Here is a lottery in which every one is sure of a prize, if not
for himself, at least for somebody in his family or among his friends;
and the ticket would be fairly paid for out of the taxes.

_Malesherbes._ So it appears to me. What other system can present so
obviously to the great mass of the people the two principal piers and
buttresses of government, tangible interest and reasonable hope? No
danger of any kind can arise from it, no antipathies, no divisions, no
imposture of demagogues, no caprice of despots. On the contrary, many
and great advantages in places which at the first survey do not appear
to border on it. At present, the best of the English juridical
institutions, that of justices of the peace, is viewed with diffidence
and distrust. Elected as they would be, and increased in number, the
whole judicature, civil and criminal, might be confided to them, and
their labours be not only not aggravated but diminished. Suppose them
in four divisions to meet at four places in every county once in
twenty days, and to possess the power of imposing a fine not exceeding
two hundred francs on every cause implying oppression, and one not
exceeding fifty on such as they should unanimously declare frivolous.

_Rousseau._ Few would become attorneys, and those from among the
indigent.

_Malesherbes._ Almost the greatest evil that exists in the world,
moral or physical, would be removed. A second appeal might be made in
the following session; a third could only come before Parliament, and
this alone by means of attorneys, the number of whom altogether would
not exceed the number of coroners; for in England there are as many
who cut their own throats as who would cut their own purses.

_Rousseau._ The famous _trial by jury_ would cease: this would disgust
the English.

_Malesherbes._ The number of justices would be much augmented: nearly
all those who now are jurymen would enjoy this rank and dignity, and
would be flattered by sitting on the same bench with the first
gentlemen of the land.

_Rousseau._ What number would sit?

_Malesherbes._ Three or five in the first instance; five or seven in
the second--as the number of causes should permit.

_Rousseau._ The laws of England are extremely intricate and perplexed:
such men would be puzzled.

_Malesherbes._ Such men having no interest in the perplexity, but on
the contrary an interest in unravelling it, would see such laws
corrected. Intricate as they are, questions on those which are the
most so are usually referred by the judges themselves to private
arbitration; of which my plan, I conceive, has all the advantages,
united to those of open and free discussion among men of unperverted
sense, and unbiased by professional hopes and interests. The different
courts of law in England cost about seventy millions of francs
annually. On my system, the justices or judges would receive
five-and-twenty francs daily; as the _special jurymen_ do now, without
any sense of shame or impropriety, however rich they may be: such
being the established practice.

_Rousseau._ Seventy millions! seventy millions!

_Malesherbes._ There are attorneys and conveyancers in London who gain
one hundred thousand francs a year, and advocates more. The
chancellor----

_Rousseau._ The Celeno of these harpies----

_Malesherbes._ Nets above one million, and is greatly more than an
archbishop in the Church, scattering preferment in Cumberland and
Cornwall from his bench at Westminster.

_Rousseau._ Absurdities and enormities are great in proportion to
custom or insuetude. If we had lived from childhood with a boa
constrictor, we should think it no more a monster than a canary-bird.
The sum you mentioned, of seventy millions, is incredible.

_Malesherbes._ In this estimate the expense of letters by the post,
and of journeys made by the parties, is not and cannot be included.

_Rousseau._ The whole machine of government, civil and religious,
ought never to bear upon the people with a weight so oppressive. I do
not add the national defence, which being principally naval is more
costly, nor institutions for the promotion of the arts, which in a
country like England ought to be liberal. But such an expenditure
should nearly suffice for these also, in time of peace. Religion and
law indeed should cost nothing: at present the one hangs property, the
other quarters it. I am confounded at the profusion. I doubt whether
the Romans expended so much in that year's war which dissolved the
Carthaginian empire, and left them masters of the universe. What is
certain, and what is better, it did not cost a tenth of it to colonize
Pennsylvania, in whose forests the cradle of freedom is suspended, and
where the eye of philanthropy, tired with tears and vigils, may wander
and may rest. Your system, or rather your arrangement of one already
established, pleases me. Ministers would only lose thereby that
portion of their possessions which they give away to needy relatives,
unworthy dependants, or the requisite supporters of their authority
and power.

_Malesherbes._ On this plan, no such supporters would be necessary, no
such dependants could exist, and no such relatives could be
disappointed. Beside, the conflicts of their opponents must be
periodical, weak, and irregular.

_Rousseau._ The craving for the rich carrion would be less keen; the
zeal of opposition, as usual, would be measured by the stomach,
whereon hope and overlooking have always a strong influence.

_Malesherbes._ My excellent friend, do not be offended with me for an
ingenuous and frank confession: promise me your pardon.

_Rousseau._ You need none.

_Malesherbes._ Promise it, nevertheless.

_Rousseau._ You have said nothing, done nothing, which could in any
way displease me.

_Malesherbes._ You grant me, then, a bill of indemnity for what I may
have undertaken with a good intention since we have been together?

_Rousseau._ Willingly.

_Malesherbes._ I fell into your views, I walked along with you side by
side, merely to occupy your mind, which I perceived was agitated.

In compliance with your humour, to engage your fancy, to divert it
awhile from Switzerland, by which you appear and partly on my account
to be offended, I began with reflections upon England: I raised up
another cloud in the region of them, light enough to be fantastic and
diaphanous, and to catch some little irradiation from its western
sun. Do not run after it farther; it has vanished already. Consider:
the three great nations----

_Rousseau._ Pray, which are those?

_Malesherbes._ I cannot in conscience give the palm to the Hottentots,
the Greenlanders, or the Hurons: I meant to designate those who united
to empire the most social virtue and civil freedom. Athens, Rome, and
England have received on the subject of government elaborate treatises
from their greatest men. You have reasoned more dispassionately and
profoundly on it than Plato has done, or probably than Cicero, led
away as he often is by the authority of those who are inferior to
himself: but do you excel Aristoteles in calm and patient
investigation? Or, think you, are your reading and range of thought
more extensive than Harrington's and Milton's? Yet what effect have
the political works of these marvellous men produced upon the
world?--what effect upon any one state, any one city, any one hamlet?
A clerk in office, an accountant, a gauger of small beer, a songwriter
for a tavern dinner, produces more. He thrusts his rags into the hole
whence the wind comes, and sleeps soundly. While you and I are talking
about elevations and proportions, pillars and pilasters, architraves
and friezes, the buildings we should repair are falling to the earth,
and the materials for their restoration are in the quarry.

_Rousseau._ I could answer you: but my mind has certain moments of
repose, or rather of oscillation, which I would not for the world
disturb. Music, eloquence, friendship, bring and prolong them.

_Malesherbes._ Enjoy them, my dear friend, and convert them if
possible to months and years. It is as much at your arbitration on
what theme you shall meditate, as in what meadow you shall botanize;
and you have as much at your option the choice of your thoughts, as of
the keys in your harpsichord.

_Rousseau._ If this were true, who could be unhappy?

_Malesherbes._ Those of whom it is not true. Those who from want of
practice cannot manage their thoughts, who have few to select from,
and who, because of their sloth or of their weakness, do not roll away
the heaviest from before them.




LUCULLUS AND CAESAR


_Caesar._ Lucius Lucullus, I come to you privately and unattended for
reasons which you will know; confiding, I dare not say in your
friendship, since no service of mine toward you hath deserved it, but
in your generous and disinterested love of peace. Hear me on. Cneius
Pompeius, according to the report of my connexions in the city, had,
on the instant of my leaving it for the province, begun to solicit his
dependants to strip me ignominiously of authority. Neither vows nor
affinity can bind him. He would degrade the father of his wife; he
would humiliate his own children, the unoffending, the unborn; he
would poison his own nascent love--at the suggestion of Ambition.
Matters are now brought so far, that either he or I must submit to a
reverse of fortune; since no concession can assuage his malice, divert
his envy, or gratify his cupidity. No sooner could I raise myself up,
from the consternation and stupefaction into which the certainty of
these reports had thrown me, than I began to consider in what manner
my own private afflictions might become the least noxious to the
republic. Into whose arms, then, could I throw myself more naturally
and more securely, to whose bosom could I commit and consign more
sacredly the hopes and destinies of our beloved country, than his who
laid down power in the midst of its enjoyments, in the vigour of
youth, in the pride of triumph, when Dignity solicited, when
Friendship urged, entreated, supplicated, and when Liberty herself
invited and beckoned to him from the senatorial order and from the
curule chair? Betrayed and abandoned by those we had confided in, our
next friendship, if ever our hearts receive any, or if any will
venture in those places of desolation, flies forward instinctively to
what is most contrary and dissimilar. Caesar is hence the visitant of
Lucullus.

_Lucullus._ I had always thought Pompeius more moderate and more
reserved than you represent him, Caius Julius; and yet I am considered
in general, and surely you also will consider me, but little liable to
be prepossessed by him.

_Caesar._ Unless he may have ingratiated himself with you recently,
by the administration of that worthy whom last winter his partisans
dragged before the Senate, and forced to assert publicly that you and
Cato had instigated a party to circumvent and murder him; and whose
carcass, a few days afterward, when it had been announced that he had
died by a natural death, was found covered with bruises, stabs, and
dislocations.

_Lucullus._ You bring much to my memory which had quite slipped out of
it, and I wonder that it could make such an impression on yours. A
proof to me that the interest you take in my behalf began earlier than
your delicacy will permit you to acknowledge. You are fatigued, which
I ought to have perceived before.

_Caesar._ Not at all; the fresh air has given me life and alertness: I
feel it upon my cheek even in the room.

_Lucullus._ After our dinner and sleep, we will spend the remainder of
the day on the subject of your visit.

_Caesar._ Those Ethiopian slaves of yours shiver with cold upon the
mountain here; and truly I myself was not insensible to the change of
climate, in the way from Mutina.

What white bread! I never found such even at Naples or Capua. This
Formian wine (which I prefer to the Chian), how exquisite!

_Lucullus._ Such is the urbanity of Caesar, even while he bites his
lip with displeasure. How! surely it bleeds! Permit me to examine the
cup.

_Caesar._ I believe a jewel has fallen out of the rim in the carriage:
the gold is rough there.

_Lucullus._ Marcipor, let me never see that cup again! No answer, I
desire. My guest pardons heavier faults. Mind that dinner be prepared
for us shortly.

_Caesar._ In the meantime, Lucullus, if your health permits it, shall
we walk a few paces round the villa? for I have not seen anything of
the kind before.

_Lucullus._ The walls are double; the space between them two feet: the
materials for the most part earth and straw. Two hundred slaves, and
about as many mules and oxen, brought the beams and rafters up the
mountain; my architects fixed them at once in their places: every part
was ready, even the wooden nails. The roof is thatched, you see.

_Caesar._ Is there no danger that so light a material should be
carried off by the winds, on such an eminence?

_Lucullus._ None resists them equally well.

_Caesar._ On this immensely high mountain, I should be apprehensive of
the lightning, which the poets, and I think the philosophers too, have
told us strikes the highest.

_Lucullus._ The poets are right; for whatever is received as truth is
truth in poetry; and a fable may illustrate like a fact. But the
philosophers are wrong, as they generally are, even in the commonest
things; because they seldom look beyond their own tenets, unless
through captiousness, and because they argue more than they meditate,
and display more than they examine. Archimedes and Euclid are, in my
opinion, after our Epicurus, the worthiest of the name, having kept
apart to the demonstrable, the practical, and the useful. Many of the
rest are good writers and good disputants; but unfaithful suitors of
simple science, boasters of their acquaintance with gods and
goddesses, plagiarists and impostors. I had forgotten my roof,
although it is composed of much the same materials as the
philosophers'. Let the lightning fall: one handful of silver, or less,
repairs the damage.

_Caesar._ Impossible! nor indeed one thousand, nor twenty, if those
tapestries and pictures are consumed.

_Lucullus._ True; but only the thatch would burn. For, before the
baths were tessellated, I filled the area with alum and water, and
soaked the timbers and laths for many months, and covered them
afterward with alum in powder, by means of liquid glue. Mithridates
taught me this. Having in vain attacked with combustibles a wooden
tower, I took it by stratagem, and found within it a mass of alum,
which, if a great hurry had not been observed by us among the enemy in
the attempt to conceal it, would have escaped our notice. I never
scrupled to extort the truth from my prisoners; but my instruments
were purple robes and plate, and the only wheel in my armoury destined
to such purposes was the wheel of Fortune.

_Caesar._ I wish, in my campaigns, I could have equalled your clemency
and humanity; but the Gauls are more uncertain, fierce, and perfidious
than the wildest tribes of Caucasus; and our policy cannot be carried
with us, it must be formed upon the spot. They love you, not for
abstaining from hurting them, but for ceasing; and they embrace you
only at two seasons--when stripes are fresh, or when stripes are
imminent. Elsewhere, I hope to become the rival of Lucullus in this
admirable part of virtue.

I shall never build villas, because--but what are your proportions?
Surely the edifice is extremely low.

_Lucullus._ There is only one floor; the height of the apartments is
twenty feet to the cornice, five above it; the breadth is twenty-five,
the length forty. The building, as you perceive, is quadrangular:
three sides contain four rooms each; the other has many partitions and
two stories, for domestics and offices. Here is my salt-bath.

_Caesar._ A bath, indeed, for all the Nereids named by Hesiod, with
room enough for the Tritons and their herds and horses.

_Lucullus._ Here stand my two cows. Their milk is brought to me with
its warmth and froth; for it loses its salubrity both by repose and by
motion. Pardon me, Caesar: I shall appear to you to have forgotten
that I am not conducting Marcus Varro.

_Caesar._ You would convert him into Cacus: he would drive them off.
What beautiful beasts! how sleek and white and cleanly! I never saw
any like them, excepting when we sacrifice to Jupiter the stately
leader from the pastures of the Clitumnus.

_Lucullus._ Often do I make a visit to these quiet creatures, and with
no less pleasure than in former days to my horses. Nor indeed can I
much wonder that whole nations have been consentaneous in treating
them as objects of devotion: the only thing wonderful is that
gratitude seems to have acted as powerfully and extensively as fear;
indeed, more extensively, for no object of worship whatever has
attracted so many worshippers. Where Jupiter has one, the cow has ten:
she was venerated before he was born, and will be when even the
carvers have forgotten him.

_Caesar._ Unwillingly should I see it; for the character of our gods
hath formed the character of our nation. Serapis and Isis have stolen
in among them within our memory, and others will follow, until at last
Saturn will not be the only one emasculated by his successor. What can
be more august than our rites? The first dignitaries of the republic
are emulous to administer them: nothing of low or venal has any place
in them; nothing pusillanimous, nothing unsocial and austere. I speak
of them as they were; before Superstition woke up again from her
slumber, and caught to her bosom with maternal love the alluvial
monsters of the Nile. Philosophy, never fit for the people, had
entered the best houses, and the image of Epicurus had taken the place
of the Lemures. But men cannot bear to be deprived long together of
anything they are used to, not even of their fears; and, by a reaction
of the mind appertaining to our nature, new stimulants were looked
for, not on the side of pleasure, where nothing new could be expected
or imagined, but on the opposite. Irreligion is followed by
fanaticism, and fanaticism by irreligion, alternately and perpetually.

_Lucullus._ The religion of our country, as you observe, is well
adapted to its inhabitants. Our progenitor, Mars, hath Venus recumbent
on his breast and looking up to him, teaching us that pleasure is to
be sought in the bosom of valour and by the means of war. No great
alteration, I think, will ever be made in our rites and
ceremonies--the best and most imposing that could be collected from
all nations, and uniting them to us by our complacence in adopting
them. The gods themselves may change names, to flatter new power: and,
indeed, as we degenerate, Religion will accommodate herself to our
propensities and desires. Our heaven is now popular: it will become
monarchal; not without a crowded court, as befits it, of apparitors
and satellites and minions of both sexes, paid and caressed for
carrying to their stern, dark-bearded master prayers and
supplications. Altars must be strown with broken minds, and incense
rise amid abject aspirations. Gods will be found unfit for their
places; and it is not impossible that, in the ruin imminent from our
contentions for power, and in the necessary extinction both of ancient
families and of generous sentiments, our consular fasces may become
the water-sprinklers of some upstart priesthood, and that my son may
apply for lustration to the son of my groom. The interest of such men
requires that the spirit of arms and of arts be extinguished. They
will predicate peace, that the people may be tractable to them; but a
religion altogether pacific is the fomenter of wars and the nurse of
crimes, alluring Sloth from within and Violence from afar. If ever it
should prevail among the Romans, it must prevail alone: for nations
more vigorous and energetic will invade them, close upon them, trample
them under foot; and the name of Roman, which is now the most
glorious, will become the most opprobrious upon earth.

_Caesar._ The time, I hope, may be distant; for next to my own name I
hold my country's.

_Lucullus._ Mine, not coming from Troy or Ida, is lower in my
estimation: I place my country's first.

You are surveying the little lake beside us. It contains no fish,
birds never alight on it, the water is extremely pure and cold; the
walk round is pleasant, not only because there is always a gentle
breeze from it, but because the turf is fine and the surface of the
mountain on this summit is perfectly on a level to a great extent in
length--not a trifling advantage to me, who walk often and am weak. I
have no alley, no garden, no enclosure; the park is in the vale below,
where a brook supplies the ponds, and where my servants are lodged;
for here I have only twelve in attendance.

_Caesar._ What is that so white, towards the Adriatic?

_Lucullus._ The Adriatic itself. Turn round and you may descry the
Tuscan Sea. Our situation is reported to be among the highest of the
Apennines. Marcipor has made the sign to me that dinner is ready. Pass
this way.

_Caesar._ What a library is here! Ah, Marcus Tullius! I salute thy
image. Why frownest thou upon me--collecting the consular robe and
uplifting the right arm, as when Rome stood firm again, and Catiline
fled before thee?

_Lucullus._ Just so; such was the action the statuary chose, as adding
a new endearment to the memory of my absent friend.

_Caesar._ Sylla, who honoured you above all men, is not here.

_Lucullus._ I have his _Commentaries_: he inscribed them, as you know,
to me. Something even of our benefactors may be forgotten, and
gratitude be unreproved.

_Caesar._ The impression on that couch, and the two fresh honeysuckles
in the leaves of those two books, would show, even to a stranger, that
this room is peculiarly the master's. Are they sacred?

_Lucullus._ To me and Caesar.

_Caesar._ I would have asked permission----

_Lucullus._ Caius Julius, you have nothing to ask of Polybius and
Thucydides; nor of Xenophon, the next to them on the table.

_Caesar._ Thucydides! the most generous, the most unprejudiced, the
most sagacious, of historians. Now, Lucullus, you whose judgment in
style is more accurate than any other Roman's, do tell me whether a
commander, desirous of writing his _Commentaries_, could take to
himself a more perfect model than Thucydides?

_Lucullus._ Nothing is more perfect, nor ever will be: the scholar of
Pericles, the master of Demosthenes, the equal of the one in military
science, and of the other not the inferior in civil and forensic; the
calm dispassionate judge of the general by whom he was defeated, his
defender, his encomiast. To talk of such men is conducive not only to
virtue but to health.

       *       *       *       *       *

This other is my dining-room. You expect the dishes.

_Caesar._ I misunderstood--I fancied----

_Lucullus._ Repose yourself, and touch with the ebony wand, beside
you, the sphinx on either of those obelisks, right or left.

_Caesar._ Let me look at them first.

_Lucullus._ The contrivance was intended for one person, or two at
most, desirous of privacy and quiet. The blocks of jasper in my pair,
and of porphyry in yours, easily yield in their grooves, each forming
one partition. There are four, containing four platforms. The lower
holds four dishes, such as sucking forest-boars, venison, hares,
tunnies, sturgeons, which you will find within; the upper three, eight
each, but diminutive. The confectionery is brought separately, for the
steam would spoil it, if any should escape. The melons are in the
snow, thirty feet under us: they came early this morning from a place
in the vicinity of Luni, travelling by night.

_Caesar._ I wonder not at anything of refined elegance in Lucullus;
but really here Antiochia and Alexandria seem to have cooked for us,
and magicians to be our attendants.

_Lucullus._ The absence of slaves from our repast is the luxury, for
Marcipor alone enters, and he only when I press a spring with my foot
or wand. When you desire his appearance, touch that chalcedony just
before you.

_Caesar._ I eat quick and rather plentifully; yet the valetudinarian
(excuse my rusticity, for I rejoice at seeing it) appears to equal the
traveller in appetite, and to be contented with one dish.

_Lucullus._ It is milk: such, with strawberries, which ripen on the
Apennines many months in continuance, and some other berries of sharp
and grateful flavour, has been my only diet since my first residence
here. The state of my health requires it; and the habitude of nearly
three months renders this food not only more commodious to my studies
and more conducive to my sleep, but also more agreeable to my palate
than any other.

_Caesar._ Returning to Rome or Baiae, you must domesticate and tame
them. The cherries you introduced from Pontus are now growing in
Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul; and the largest and best in the
world, perhaps, are upon the more sterile side of Lake Larius.

_Lucullus._ There are some fruits, and some virtues, which require a
harsh soil and bleak exposure for their perfection.

_Caesar._ In such a profusion of viands, and so savoury, I perceive no
odour.

_Lucullus._ A flue conducts heat through the compartments of the
obelisks; and, if you look up, you may observe that those gilt roses,
between the astragals in the cornice, are prominent from it half a
span. Here is an aperture in the wall, between which and the outer is
a perpetual current of air. We are now in the dog-days; and I have
never felt in the whole summer more heat than at Rome in many days of
March.

_Caesar._ Usually you are attended by troops of domestics and of
dinner-friends, not to mention the learned and scientific, nor your
own family, your attachment to which, from youth upward, is one of the
higher graces in your character. Your brother was seldom absent from
you.

_Lucullus._ Marcus was coming; but the vehement heats along the Arno,
in which valley he has a property he never saw before, inflamed his
blood, and he now is resting for a few days at Faesulae, a little town
destroyed by Sylla within our memory, who left it only air and water,
the best in Tuscany. The health of Marcus, like mine, has been
declining for several months: we are running our last race against
each other, and never was I, in youth along the Tiber, so anxious of
first reaching the goal. I would not outlive him: I should reflect too
painfully on earlier days, and look forward too despondently on
future. As for friends, lampreys and turbots beget them, and they
spawn not amid the solitude of the Apennines. To dine in company with
more than two is a Gaulish and German thing. I can hardly bring myself
to believe that I have eaten in concert with twenty; so barbarous and
herdlike a practice does not now appeal to me--such an incentive to
drink much and talk loosely; not to add, such a necessity to speak
loud, which is clownish and odious in the extreme. On this mountain
summit I hear no noises, no voices, not even of salutation; we have no
flies about us, and scarcely an insect or reptile.

_Caesar._ Your amiable son is probably with his uncle: is he well?

_Lucullus._ Perfectly. He was indeed with my brother in his intended
visit to me; but Marcus, unable to accompany him hither, or
superintend his studies in the present state of his health, sent him
directly to his Uncle Cato at Tusculum--a man fitter than either of us
to direct his education, and preferable to any, excepting yourself and
Marcus Tullius, in eloquence and urbanity.

_Caesar._ Cato is so great, that whoever is greater must be the
happiest and first of men.

_Lucullus._ That any such be still existing, O Julius, ought to excite
no groan from the breast of a Roman citizen. But perhaps I wrong you;
perhaps your mind was forced reluctantly back again, on your past
animosities and contests in the Senate.

_Caesar._ I revere him, but cannot love him.

_Lucullus._ Then, Caius Julius, you groaned with reason; and I would
pity rather than reprove you.

On the ceiling at which you are looking, there is no gilding, and
little painting--a mere trellis of vines bearing grapes, and the
heads, shoulders, and arms rising from the cornice only, of boys and
girls climbing up to steal them, and scrambling for them: nothing
overhead; no giants tumbling down, no Jupiter thundering, no Mars and
Venus caught at mid-day, no river-gods pouring out their urns upon us;
for, as I think nothing so insipid as a flat ceiling, I think nothing
so absurd as a storied one. Before I was aware, and without my
participation, the painter had adorned that of my bedchamber with a
golden shower, bursting from varied and irradiated clouds. On my
expostulation, his excuse was that he knew the Danaë of Scopas, in a
recumbent posture, was to occupy the centre of the room. The walls,
behind the tapestry and pictures, are quite rough. In forty-three days
the whole fabric was put together and habitable.

The wine has probably lost its freshness: will you try some other?

_Caesar._ Its temperature is exact; its flavour exquisite. Latterly I
have never sat long after dinner, and am curious to pass through the
other apartments, if you will trust me.

_Lucullus._ I attend you.

_Caesar._ Lucullus, who is here? What figure is that on the poop of
the vessel? Can it be----

_Lucullus._ The subject was dictated by myself; you gave it.

_Caesar._ Oh, how beautifully is the water painted! How vividly the
sun strikes against the snows on Taurus! The grey temples and pierhead
of Tarsus catch it differently, and the monumental mound on the left
is half in shade. In the countenance of those pirates I did not
observe such diversity, nor that any boy pulled his father back: I did
not indeed mark them or notice them at all.

_Lucullus._ The painter in this fresco, the last work finished, had
dissatisfied me in one particular. 'That beautiful young face,' said
I, 'appears not to threaten death.'

'Lucius,' he replied, 'if one muscle were moved it were not Caesar's:
beside, he said it jokingly, though resolved.'

'I am contented with your apology, Antipho; but what are you doing
now? for you never lay down or suspend your pencil, let who will talk
and argue. The lines of that smaller face in the distance are the
same.'

'Not the same,' replied he, 'nor very different: it smiles, as surely
the goddess must have done at the first heroic act of her descendant.'

_Caesar._ In her exultation and impatience to press forward she seems
to forget that she is standing at the extremity of the shell, which
rises up behind out of the water; and she takes no notice of the
terror on the countenance of this Cupid who would detain her, nor of
this who is flying off and looking back. The reflection of the shell
has given a warmer hue below the knee; a long streak of yellow light
in the horizon is on the level of her bosom, some of her hair is
almost lost in it; above her head on every side is the pure azure of
the heavens.

Oh! and you would not have shown me this? You, among whose primary
studies is the most perfect satisfaction of your guests!

_Lucullus._ In the next apartment are seven or eight other pictures
from our history.

There are no more: what do you look for?

_Caesar._ I find not among the rest any descriptive of your own
exploits. Ah, Lucullus! there is no surer way of making them
remembered.

This, I presume by the harps in the two corners, is the music-room.

_Lucullus._ No, indeed; nor can I be said to have one here; for I love
best the music of a single instrument, and listen to it willingly at
all times, but most willingly while I am reading. At such seasons a
voice or even a whisper disturbs me; but music refreshes my brain when
I have read long, and strengthen it from the beginning. I find also
that if I write anything in poetry (a youthful propensity still
remaining), it gives rapidity and variety and brightness to my ideas.
On ceasing, I command a fresh measure and instrument, or another
voice; which is to the mind like a change of posture, or of air to the
body. My heal this benefited by the gentle play thus opened to the
most delicate of the fibres.

_Caesar._ Let me augur that a disorder so tractable may be soon
removed. What is it thought to be?

_Lucullus._ I am inclined to think, and my physician did not long
attempt to persuade me of the contrary, that the ancient realms of
Aeaetes have supplied me with some other plants than the cherry, and
such as I should be sorry to see domesticated here in Italy.

_Caesar._ The gods forbid! Anticipate better things! The reason of
Lucullus is stronger than the medicaments of Mithridates; but why not
use them too? Let nothing be neglected. You may reasonably hope for
many years of life: your mother still enjoys it.

_Lucullus._ To stand upon one's guard against Death exasperates her
malice and protracts our sufferings.

_Caesar._ Rightly and gravely said: but your country at this time
cannot do well without you.

_Lucullus._ The bowl of milk, which to-day is presented to me, will
shortly be presented to my Manes.

_Caesar._ Do you suspect the hand?

_Lucullus._ I will not suspect a Roman: let us converse no more about
it.

_Caesar._ It is the only subject on which I am resolved never to
think, as relates to myself. Life may concern us, death not; for in
death we neither can act nor reason, we neither can persuade nor
command; and our statues are worth more than we are, let them be but
wax.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Lucullus._ From being for ever in action, for ever in contention, and
from excelling in them all other mortals, what advantage derive we? I
would not ask what satisfaction, what glory? The insects have more
activity than ourselves, the beasts more strength, even inert matter
more firmness and stability; the gods alone more goodness. To the
exercise of this every country lies open; and neither I eastward nor
you westward have found any exhausted by contests for it.

Must we give men blows because they will not look at us? or chain them
to make them hold the balance evener?

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what
you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the
bier. There was a time when the most ardent friend to Alexander of
Macedon would have embraced the partisan for his enthusiasm, who
should have compared him with Alexander of Pherae. It must have been
at a splendid feast, and late at it, when Scipio should have been
raised to an equality with Romulus, or Cato with Curius. It has been
whispered in my ear, after a speech of Cicero, 'If he goes on so, he
will tread down the sandal of Marcus Antonius in the long run, and
perhaps leave Hortensius behind.' Officers of mine, speaking about
you, have exclaimed with admiration: 'He fights like Cinna.' Think,
Caius Julius (for you have been instructed to think both as a poet and
as a philosopher), that among the hundred hands of Ambition, to whom
we may attribute them more properly than to Briareus, there is not one
which holds anything firmly. In the precipitancy of her course, what
appears great is small, and what appears small is great. Our estimate
of men is apt to be as inaccurate and inexact as that of things, or
more. Wishing to have all on our side, we often leave those we should
keep by us, run after those we should avoid, and call importunately on
others who sit quiet and will not come. We cannot at once catch the
applause of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise. What
are parties? Do men really great ever enter into them? Are they not
ball-courts, where ragged adventurers strip and strive, and where
dissolute youths abuse one another, and challenge and game and wager?
If you and I cannot quite divest ourselves of infirmities and
passions, let us think, however, that there is enough in us to be
divided into two portions, and let us keep the upper undisturbed and
pure. A part of Olympus itself lies in dreariness and in clouds,
variable and stormy; but it is not the highest: there the gods govern.
Your soul is large enough to embrace your country: all other affection
is for less objects, and less men are capable of it. Abandon, O
Caesar! such thoughts and wishes as now agitate and propel you: leave
them to mere men of the marsh, to fat hearts and miry intellects.
Fortunate may we call ourselves to have been born in an age so
productive of eloquence, so rich in erudition. Neither of us would be
excluded, or hooted at, on canvassing for these honours. He who can
think dispassionately and deeply as I do, is great as I am; none
other. But his opinions are at freedom to diverge from mine, as mine
are from his; and indeed, on recollection, I never loved those most
who thought with me, but those rather who deemed my sentiments worth
discussion, and who corrected me with frankness and affability.

_Caesar._ Lucullus, you perhaps have taken the wiser and better part,
certainly the pleasanter. I cannot argue with you: I would gladly hear
one who could, but you again more gladly. I should think unworthily of
you if I thought you capable of yielding or receding. I do not even
ask you to keep our conversation long a secret, so greatly does it
preponderate in your favour; so much more of gentleness, of eloquence,
and of argument. I came hither with one soldier, avoiding the cities,
and sleeping at the villa of a confidential friend. To-night I sleep
in yours, and, if your dinner does not disturb me, shall sleep
soundly. You go early to rest I know.

_Lucullus._ Not, however, by daylight. Be assured, Caius Julius, that
greatly as your discourse afflicts me, no part of it shall escape my
lips. If you approach the city with arms, with arms I meet you; then
your denouncer and enemy, at present your host and confidant.

_Caesar._ I shall conquer you.

_Lucullus._ That smile would cease upon it: you sigh already.

_Caesar._ Yes, Lucullus, if I am oppressed I shall overcome my
oppressor: I know my army and myself. A sigh escaped me, and many more
will follow; but one transport will rise amid them, when, vanquisher
of my enemies and avenger of my dignity, I press again the hand of
Lucullus, mindful of this day.




EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA


       *       *       *       *       *

_Ternissa._ The broad and billowy summits of yon monstrous trees, one
would imagine, were made for the storms to rest upon when they are
tired of raving. And what bark! It occurs to me, Epicurus, that I have
rarely seen climbing plants attach themselves to these trees, as they
do to the oak, the maple, the beech, and others.

_Leontion._ If your remark be true, perhaps the resinous are not
embraced by them so frequently because they dislike the odour of the
resin, or some other property of the juices; for they, too, have their
affections and antipathies no less than countries and their climes.

_Ternissa._ For shame! what would you with me?

_Epicurus._ I would not interrupt you while you were speaking, nor
while Leontion was replying; this is against my rules and practice.
Having now ended, kiss me, Ternissa!

_Ternissa._ Impudent man! in the name of Pallas, why should I kiss
you?

_Epicurus._ Because you expressed hatred.

_Ternissa._ Do we kiss when we hate?

_Epicurus._ There is no better end of hating. The sentiment should not
exist one moment; and if the hater gives a kiss on being ordered to do
it, even to a tree or a stone, that tree or stone becomes the monument
of a fault extinct.

_Ternissa._ I promise you I never will hate a tree again.

_Epicurus._ I told you so.

_Leontion._ Nevertheless, I suspect, my Ternissa, you will often be
surprised into it. I was very near saying, 'I hate these rude square
stones!' Why did you leave them here, Epicurus?

_Epicurus._ It is true, they are the greater part square, and seem to
have been cut out in ancient times for plinths and columns; they are
also rude. Removing the smaller, that I might plant violets and
cyclamens and convolvuluses and strawberries, and such other herbs as
grow willingly in dry places, I left a few of these for seats, a few
for tables and for couches.

_Leontion._ Delectable couches!

_Epicurus._ Laugh as you may, they will become so when they are
covered with moss and ivy, and those other two sweet plants whose
names I do not remember to have found in any ancient treatise, but
which I fancy I have heard Theophrastus call 'Leontion' and
'Ternissa'.

_Ternissa._ The bold, insidious, false creature!

_Epicurus._ What is that volume, may I venture to ask, Leontion? Why
do you blush?

_Leontion._ I do not blush about it.

_Epicurus._ You are offended, then, my dear girl.

_Leontion._ No, nor offended. I will tell you presently what it
contains. Account to me first for your choice of so strange a place to
walk in: a broad ridge, the summit and one side barren, the other a
wood of rose-laurels impossible to penetrate. The worst of all is, we
can see nothing of the city or the Parthenon, unless from the very
top.

_Epicurus._ The place commands, in my opinion, a most perfect view.

_Leontion._ Of what, pray?

_Epicurus._ Of itself; seeming to indicate that we, Leontion, who
philosophize, should do the same.

_Leontion._ Go on, go on! say what you please: I will not hate
anything yet. Why have you torn up by the root all these little
mountain ash-trees? This is the season of their beauty: come,
Ternissa, let us make ourselves necklaces and armlets, such as may
captivate old Sylvanus and Pan; you shall have your choice. But why
have you torn them up?

_Epicurus._ On the contrary, they were brought hither this morning.
Sosimenes is spending large sums of money on an olive-ground, and has
uprooted some hundreds of them, of all ages and sizes. I shall cover
the rougher part of the hill with them, setting the clematis and vine
and honeysuckle against them, to unite them.

_Ternissa._ Oh, what a pleasant thing it is to walk in the green light
of the vine trees, and to breathe the sweet odour of their invisible
flowers!

_Epicurus._ The scent of them is so delicate that it requires a sigh
to inhale it; and this, being accompanied and followed by enjoyment,
renders the fragrance so exquisite. Ternissa, it is this, my sweet
friend, that made you remember the green light of the foliage, and
think of the invisible flowers as you would of some blessing from
heaven.

_Ternissa._ I see feathers flying at certain distances just above the
middle of the promontory: what can they mean?

_Epicurus._ Cannot you imagine them to be the feathers from the wings
of Zethes and Caläis, who came hither out of Thrace to behold the
favourite haunts of their mother Oreithyia? From the precipice that
hangs over the sea a few paces from the pinasters she is reported to
have been carried off by Boreas; and these remains of the primeval
forest have always been held sacred on that belief.

_Leontion._ The story is an idle one.

_Ternissa._ Oh no, Leontion! the story is very true.

_Leontion._ Indeed!

_Ternissa._ I have heard not only odes, but sacred and most ancient
hymns upon it; and the voice of Boreas is often audible here, and the
screams of Oreithyia.

_Leontion._ The feathers, then, really may belong to Caläis and
Zethes.

_Ternissa._ I don't believe it; the winds would have carried them
away.

_Leontion._ The gods, to manifest their power, as they often do by
miracles, could as easily fix a feather eternally on the most
tempestuous promontory, as the mark of their feet upon the flint.

_Ternissa._ They could indeed; but we know the one to a certainty, and
have no such authority for the other. I have seen these pinasters from
the extremity of the Piraeus, and have heard mention of the altar
raised to Boreas: where is it?

_Epicurus._ As it stands in the centre of the platform, we cannot see
it from hence; there is the only piece of level ground in the place.

_Leontion._ Ternissa intends the altar to prove the truth of the
story.

_Epicurus._ Ternissa is slow to admit that even the young can deceive,
much less the old; the gay, much less the serious.

_Leontion._ It is as wise to moderate our belief as our desires.

_Epicurus._ Some minds require much belief, some thrive on little.
Rather an exuberance of it is feminine and beautiful. It acts
differently on different hearts; it troubles some, it consoles others;
in the generous it is the nurse of tenderness and kindness, of heroism
and self-devotion; in the ungenerous it fosters pride, impatience of
contradiction and appeal, and, like some waters, what it finds a dry
stick or hollow straw, it leaves a stone.

_Ternissa._ We want it chiefly to make the way of death an easy one.

_Epicurus._ There is no easy path leading out of life, and few are the
easy ones that lie within it. I would adorn and smoothen the
declivity, and make my residence as commodious as its situation and
dimensions may allow; but principally I would cast under-foot the
empty fear of death.

_Ternissa._ Oh, how can you?

_Epicurus._ By many arguments already laid down: then by thinking that
some perhaps, in almost every age, have been timid and delicate as
Ternissa; and yet have slept soundly, have felt no parent's or
friend's tear upon their faces, no throb against their breasts: in
short, have been in the calmest of all possible conditions, while
those around were in the most deplorable and desperate.

_Ternissa._ It would pain me to die, if it were only at the idea that
any one I love would grieve too much for me.

_Epicurus._ Let the loss of our friends be our only grief, and the
apprehension of displeasing them our only fear.

_Leontion._ No apostrophes! no interjections! Your argument was
unsound; your means futile.

_Epicurus._ Tell me, then, whether the horse of a rider on the road
should not be spurred forward if he started at a shadow.

_Leontion._ Yes.

_Epicurus._ I thought so: it would, however, be better to guide him
quietly up to it, and to show him that it was one. Death is less than
a shadow: it represents nothing, even imperfectly.

_Leontion._ Then at the best what is it? why care about it, think
about it, or remind us that it must befall us? Would you take the same
trouble, when you see my hair entwined with ivy, to make me remember
that, although the leaves are green and pliable, the stem is fragile
and rough, and that before I go to bed I shall have many knots and
entanglements to extricate? Let me have them; but let me not hear of
them until the time is come.

_Epicurus._ I would never think of death as an embarrassment, but as a
blessing.

_Ternissa._ How? a blessing?

_Epicurus._ What, if it makes our enemies cease to hate us? what, if
it makes our friends love us the more?

_Leontion._ Us? According to your doctrine we shall not exist at all.

_Epicurus._ I spoke of that which is consolatory while we are here,
and of that which in plain reason ought to render us contented to stay
no longer. You, Leontion, would make others better; and better they
certainly will be, when their hostilities languish in an empty field,
and their rancour is tired with treading upon dust. The generous
affections stir about us at the dreary hour of death, as the blossoms
of the Median apple swell and diffuse their fragrance in the cold.

_Ternissa._ I cannot bear to think of passing the Styx, lest Charon
should touch me; he is so old and wilful, so cross and ugly.

_Epicurus._ Ternissa! Ternissa! I would accompany you thither, and
stand between. Would you not too, Leontion?

_Leontion._ I don't know.

_Ternissa._ Oh, that we could go together!

_Leontion._ Indeed!

_Ternissa._ All three, I mean--I said--or was going to say it. How
ill-natured you are, Leontion, to misinterpret me; I could almost cry.

_Leontion._ Do not, do not, Ternissa! Should that tear drop from your
eyelash you would look less beautiful.

_Epicurus._ If it is well to conquer a world, it is better to conquer
two.

_Ternissa._ That is what Alexander of Macedon wept because he could
not accomplish.

_Epicurus._ Ternissa! we three can accomplish it; or any one of us.

_Ternissa._ How? pray!

_Epicurus._ We can conquer this world and the next; for you will have
another, and nothing should be refused you.

_Ternissa._ The next by piety: but this, in what manner?

_Epicurus._ By indifference to all who are indifferent to us; by
taking joyfully the benefit that comes spontaneously; by wishing no
more intensely for what is a hair's-breadth beyond our reach than for
a draught of water from the Ganges; and by fearing nothing in another
life.

_Ternissa._ This, O Epicurus! is the grand impossibility.

_Epicurus._ Do you believe the gods to be as benevolent and good as
you are? or do you not?

_Ternissa._ Much kinder, much better in every way.

_Epicurus._ Would you kill or hurt the sparrow that you keep in your
little dressing-room with a string around the leg, because he hath
flown where you did not wish him to fly?

_Ternissa._ No! it would be cruel; the string about the leg of so
little and weak a creature is enough.

_Epicurus._ You think so; I think so; God thinks so. This I may say
confidently; for whenever there is a sentiment in which strict justice
and pure benevolence unite, it must be His.

_Ternissa._ O Epicurus! when you speak thus--

_Leontion._ Well, Ternissa, what then?

_Ternissa._ When Epicurus teaches us such sentiments as these, I am
grieved that he has not so great an authority with the Athenians as
some others have.

_Leontion._ You will grieve more, I suspect, my Ternissa, when he
possesses that authority.

_Ternissa._ What will he do?

_Leontion._ Why turn pale? I am not about to answer that he will
forget or leave you. No; but the voice comes deepest from the
sepulchre, and a great name hath its root in the dead body. If you
invited a company to a feast, you might as well place round the table
live sheep and oxen and vases of fish and cages of quails, as you
would invite a company of friendly hearers to the philosopher who is
yet living. One would imagine that the iris of our intellectual eye
were lessened by the glory of his presence, and that, like eastern
kings, he could be looked at near only when his limbs are stiff, by
waxlight, in close curtains.

_Epicurus._ One of whom we know little leaves us a ring or other token
of remembrance, and we express a sense of pleasure and of gratitude;
one of whom we know nothing writes a book, the contents of which might
(if we would let them) have done us more good and might have given us
more pleasure, and we revile him for it. The book may do what the
legacy cannot; it may be pleasurable and serviceable to others as well
as ourselves: we would hinder this too. In fact, all other love is
extinguished by self-love: beneficence, humanity, justice, philosophy,
sink under it. While we insist that we are looking for Truth, we
commit a falsehood. It never was the first object with any one, and
with few the second.

Feed unto replenishment your quieter fancies, my sweetest little
Ternissa! and let the gods, both youthful and aged, both gentle and
boisterous, administer to them hourly on these sunny downs: what can
they do better?

_Leontion._ But those feathers, Ternissa, what god's may they be?
since you will not pick them up, nor restore them to Caläis nor to
Zethes.

_Ternissa._ I do not think they belong to any god whatever; and shall
never be persuaded of it unless Epicurus says it is so.

_Leontion._ O unbelieving creature! do you reason against the
immortals?

_Ternissa._ It was yourself who doubted, or appeared to doubt, the
flight of Oreithyia. By admitting too much we endanger our religion.
Beside, I think I discern some upright stakes at equal distances, and
am pretty sure the feathers are tied to them by long strings.

_Epicurus._ You have guessed the truth.

_Ternissa._ Of what use are they there?

_Epicurus._ If you have ever seen the foot of a statue broken off just
below the ankle, you have then, Leontion and Ternissa, seen the form
of the ground about us. The lower extremities of it are divided into
small ridges, as you will perceive if you look around; and these are
covered with corn, olives, and vines. At the upper part, where
cultivation ceases, and where those sheep and goats are grazing,
begins my purchase. The ground rises gradually unto near the summit,
where it grows somewhat steep, and terminates in a precipice. Across
the middle I have traced a line, denoted by those feathers, from one
dingle to the other; the two terminations of my intended garden. The
distance is nearly a thousand paces, and the path, perfectly on a
level, will be two paces broad, so that I may walk between you; but
another could not join us conveniently. From this there will be
several circuitous and spiral, leading by the easiest ascent to the
summit; and several more, to the road along the cultivation
underneath: here will, however, be but one entrance. Among the
projecting fragments and the massive stones yet standing of the
boundary-wall, which old pomegranates imperfectly defend, and which my
neighbour has guarded more effectively against invasion, there are
hillocks of crumbling mould, covered in some places with a variety of
moss; in others are elevated tufts, or dim labyrinths of eglantine.

_Ternissa._ Where will you place the statues? for undoubtedly you must
have some.

_Epicurus._ I will have some models for statues. Pygmalion prayed the
gods to give life to the image he adored: I will not pray them to give
marble to mine. Never may I lay my wet cheek upon the foot under which
is inscribed the name of Leontion or Ternissa!

_Leontion._ Do not make us melancholy; never let us think that the
time can come when we shall lose our friends. Glory, literature,
philosophy have this advantage over friendship: remove one object from
them, and others fill the void; remove one from friendship, one only,
and not the earth nor the universality of worlds, no, nor the
intellect that soars above and comprehends them, can replace it!

_Epicurus._ Dear Leontion! always amiable, always graceful! How lovely
do you now appear to me! what beauteous action accompanied your words!

_Leontion._ I used none whatever.

_Epicurus._ That white arm was then, as it is now, over the shoulder
of Ternissa; and her breath imparted a fresh bloom to your cheek, a
new music to your voice. No friendship is so cordial or so delicious
as that of girl for girl; no hatred so intense and immovable as that
of woman for woman. In youth you love one above the others of your
sex; in riper age you hate all, more or less, in proportion to
similarity of accomplishments and pursuits--which sometimes (I wish it
were oftener) are bonds of union to man. In us you more easily pardon
faults than excellences in each other. _Your_ tempers are such, my
beloved scholars, that even this truth does not ruffle them; and such
is your affection, that I look with confidence to its unabated ardour
at twenty.

_Leontion._ Oh, then I am to love Ternissa almost fifteen months!

_Ternissa._ And I am destined to survive the loss of it three months
above four years!

_Epicurus._ Incomparable creatures! may it be eternal! In loving ye
shall follow no example; ye shall step securely over the iron rule
laid down for others by the Destinies, and _you_ for ever be Leontion,
and _you_ Ternissa.

_Leontion._ Then indeed we should not want statues.

_Ternissa._ But men, who are vainer creatures, would be good for
nothing without them: they must be flattered even by the stones.

_Epicurus._ Very true. Neither the higher arts nor the civic virtues
can flourish extensively without the statues of illustrious men. But
gardens are not the places for them. Sparrows, wooing on the general's
truncheon (unless he be such a general as one of ours in the last
war), and snails besliming the emblems of the poet, do not remind us
worthily of their characters. Porticos are their proper situations,
and those the most frequented. Even there they may lose all honour and
distinction, whether from the thoughtlessness of magistrates or from
the malignity of rivals. Our own city, the least exposed of any to the
effects of either, presents us a disheartening example. When the
Thebans in their jealousy condemned Pindar to the payment of a fine
for having praised the Athenians too highly, our citizens erected a
statue of bronze to him.

_Leontion._ Jealousy of Athens made the Thebans fine him; and jealousy
of Thebes made the Athenians thus record it.

_Epicurus._ And jealousy of Pindar, I suspect, made some poet persuade
the archons to render the distinction a vile and worthless one, by
placing his effigy near a king's--one Evagoras of Cyprus.

_Ternissa._ Evagoras, I think I remember to have read in the
inscription, was rewarded in this manner for his reception of Conon,
defeated by the Lacedemonians.

_Epicurus._ Gratitude was due to him, and some such memorial to record
it. External reverence should be paid unsparingly to the higher
magistrates of every country who perform their offices exemplarily;
yet they are not on this account to be placed in the same degree with
men of primary genius. They never exalt the human race, and rarely
benefit it; and their benefits are local and transitory, while those
of a great writer are universal and eternal.

If the gods did indeed bestow on us a portion of their fire, they seem
to have lighted it in sport and left it; the harder task and the
nobler is performed by that genius who raises it clear and glowing
from its embers, and makes it applicable to the purposes that dignify
or delight our nature. I have ever said, 'Reverence the rulers.' Let,
then, his image stand; but stand apart from Pindar's. Pallas and Jove!
defend me from being carried down the stream of time among a shoal of
royalets, and the rootless weeds they are hatched on!

_Ternissa._ So much piety would deserve the exemption, even though
your writings did not hold out the decree.

_Leontion._ Child, the compliment is ill turned: if you are ironical,
as you must be on the piety of Epicurus, Atticism requires that you
should continue to be so, at least to the end of the sentence.

_Ternissa._ Irony is my abhorrence. Epicurus may appear less pious
than some others, but I am certain he is more; otherwise the gods
would never have given him----

_Leontion._ What? what? let us hear!

_Ternissa._ Leontion!

_Leontion._ Silly girl! Were there any hibiscus or broom growing near
at hand, I would send him away and whip you.

_Epicurus._ There is fern, which is better.

_Leontion._ I was not speaking to you: but now you shall have
something to answer for yourself. Although you admit no statues in the
country, you might at least, methinks, have discovered a retirement
with a fountain in it: here I see not even a spring.

_Epicurus._ Fountain I can hardly say there is; but on the left there
is a long crevice or chasm, which we have never yet visited, and which
we cannot discern until we reach it. This is full of soft mould, very
moist, and many high reeds and canes are growing there; and the rock
itself too drips with humidity along it, and is covered with more
tufted moss and more variegated lichens. This crevice, with its
windings and sinuosities, is about four hundred paces long, and in
many parts eleven, twelve, thirteen feet wide, but generally six or
seven. I shall plant it wholly with lilies of the valley, leaving the
irises which occupy the sides as well as the clefts, and also those
other flowers of paler purple, from the autumnal cups of which we
collect the saffron; and forming a narrow path of such turf as I can
find there, or rather following it as it creeps among the bays and
hazels and sweet-brier, which had fallen at different times from the
summit and are now grown old, with an infinity of primroses at the
roots. There are nowhere twenty steps without a projection and a turn,
nor in any ten together is the chasm of the same width or figure.
Hence the ascent in its windings is easy and imperceptible quite to
the termination, where the rocks are somewhat high and precipitous; at
the entrance they lose themselves in privet and elder, and you must
make your way between them through the canes. Do not you remember
where I carried you both across the muddy hollow in the footpath?

_Ternissa._ Leontion does.

_Epicurus._ That place is always wet; not only in this month of
Puanepsion,[7] which we are beginning to-day, but in midsummer. The
water that causes it comes out a little way above it, but originates
from the crevice, which I will cover at top with rose-laurel and
mountain-ash, with clematis and vine; and I will intercept the little
rill in its wandering, draw it from its concealment, and place it like
Bacchus under the protection of the nymphs, who will smile upon it in
its marble cradle, which at present I keep at home.

_Ternissa._ Leontion, why do you turn away your face? have the nymphs
smiled upon you in it?

_Leontion._ I bathed in it once, if you must know, Ternissa! Why now,
Ternissa, why do you turn away yours? have the nymphs frowned upon you
for invading their secrets?

_Ternissa._ Epicurus, you are in the right to bring it away from
Athens, from under the eye of Pallas: she might be angry.

_Epicurus._ You approve of its removal then, my lovely friend?

_Ternissa._ Mightily. [_Aside._] I wish it may break in pieces on the
road.

_Epicurus._ What did you say?

_Ternissa._ I wish it were now on the road, that I might try whether
it would hold me--I mean with my clothes on.

_Epicurus._ It would hold you, and one a span longer. I have another
in the house; but it is not decorated with fauns and satyrs and
foliage, like this.

_Leontion._ I remember putting my hand upon the frightful satyr's
head, to leap in: it seems made for the purpose. But the sculptor
needed not to place the naiad quite so near--he must have been a very
impudent man; it is impossible to look for a moment at such a piece of
workmanship.

_Ternissa._ For shame! Leontion!--why, what was it? I do not desire to
know.

_Epicurus._ I don't remember it.

_Leontion._ Nor I neither; only the head.

_Epicurus._ I shall place the satyr toward the rock, that you may
never see him, Ternissa.

_Ternissa._ Very right; he cannot turn round.

_Leontion._ The poor naiad had done it, in vain.

_Ternissa._ All these labourers will soon finish the plantation, if
you superintend them, and are not appointed to some magistrature.

_Epicurus._ Those who govern us are pleased at seeing a philosopher
out of the city, and more still at finding in a season of scarcity
forty poor citizens, who might become seditious, made happy and quiet
by such employment.

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of erudition:
never to be listened to, and to be listened to always. Aware of
these, I devote a large portion of my time and labours to the
cultivation of such minds as flourish best in cities, where my garden
at the gate, although smaller than this, we find sufficiently
capacious. There I secure my listeners; here my thoughts and
imaginations have their free natural current, and tarry or wander as
the will invites: may it ever be among those dearest to me!--those
whose hearts possess the rarest and divinest faculty, of retaining or
forgetting at option what ought to be forgotten or retained.

_Leontion._ The whole ground then will be covered with trees and
shrubs?

_Epicurus._ There are some protuberances in various parts of the
eminence, which you do not perceive till you are upon them or above
them. They are almost level at the top, and overgrown with fine grass;
for they catch the better soil brought down in small quantities by the
rains. These are to be left unplanted: so is the platform under the
pinasters, whence there is a prospect of the city, the harbour, the
isle of Salamis, and the territory of Megara. 'What then!' cried
Sosimenes, 'you would hide from your view my young olives, and the
whole length of the new wall I have been building at my own expense
between us! and, when you might see at once the whole of Attica, you
will hardly see more of it than I could buy.'

_Leontion._ I do not perceive the new wall, for which Sosimenes, no
doubt, thinks himself another Pericles.

_Epicurus._ Those old junipers quite conceal it.

_Ternissa._ They look warm and sheltering; but I like the rose-laurels
much better: and what a thicket of them here is!

_Epicurus._ Leaving all the larger, I shall remove many thousands of
them; enough to border the greater part of the walk, intermixed with
roses.

There is an infinity of other plants and flowers, or weeds as
Sosimenes calls them, of which he has cleared his oliveyard, and which
I shall adopt. Twenty of his slaves came in yesterday, laden with
hyacinths and narcissi, anemones and jonquils. 'The curses of our
vineyards,' cried he, 'and good neither for man nor beast. I have
another estate infested with lilies of the valley: I should not wonder
if you accepted these too.'

'And with thanks,' answered I.

The whole of his remark I could not collect: he turned aside, and (I
believe) prayed. I only heard 'Pallas'--'Father'--'sound
mind'--'inoffensive man'--'good neighbour'. As we walked together I
perceived him looking grave, and I could not resist my inclination to
smile as I turned my eyes toward him. He observed it, at first with
unconcern, but by degrees some doubts arose within him, and he said,
'Epicurus, you have been throwing away no less than half a talent on
this sorry piece of mountain, and I fear you are about to waste as
much in labour: for nothing was ever so terrible as the price we are
obliged to pay the workman, since the conquest of Persia and the
increase of luxury in our city. Under three obols none will do his
day's work. But what, in the name of all the deities, could induce you
to plant those roots, which other people dig up and throw away?'

'I have been doing,' said I, 'the same thing my whole life through,
Sosimenes!'

'How!' cried he; 'I never knew that.'

'Those very doctrines,' added I, 'which others hate and extirpate, I
inculcate and cherish. They bring no riches, and therefore are thought
to bring no advantage; to me, they appear the more advantageous for
that reason. They give us immediately what we solicit through the
means of wealth. We toil for the wealth first; and then it remains to
be proved whether we can purchase with it what we look for. Now, to
carry our money to the market, and not to find in the market our
money's worth, is great vexation; yet much greater has already
preceded, in running up and down for it among so many competitors, and
through so many thieves.'

After a while he rejoined, 'You really, then, have not overreached
me?'

'In what, my friend?' said I.

'These roots,' he answered, 'may perhaps be good and saleable for some
purpose. Shall you send them into Persia? or whither?'

'Sosimenes, I shall make love-potions of the flowers.'

_Leontion._ O Epicurus! should it ever be known in Athens that they
are good for this, you will not have, with all your fences of prunes
and pomegranates, and precipices with brier upon them, a single root
left under ground after the month of Elaphebolion.[8]

_Epicurus._ It is not every one that knows the preparation.

_Leontion._ Everybody will try it.

_Epicurus._ And you, too, Ternissa?

_Ternissa._ Will you teach me?

_Epicurus._ This, and anything else I know. We must walk together when
they are in flower.

_Ternissa._ And can you teach me, then?

_Epicurus._ I teach by degrees.

_Leontion._ By very slow ones, Epicurus! I have no patience with you;
tell us directly.

_Epicurus._ It is very material what kind of recipient you bring with
you. Enchantresses use a brazen one; silver and gold are employed in
other arts.

_Leontion._ I will bring any.

_Ternissa._ My mother has a fine golden one. She will lend it me; she
allows me everything.

_Epicurus._ Leontion and Ternissa, those eyes of yours brighten at
inquiry, as if they carried a light within them for a guidance.

_Leontion._ No flattery!

_Ternissa._ No flattery! Come, teach us!

_Epicurus._ Will you hear me through in silence?

_Leontion._ We promise.

_Epicurus._ Sweet girls! the calm pleasures, such as I hope you will
ever find in your walks among these gardens, will improve your beauty,
animate your discourse, and correct the little that may hereafter rise
up for correction in your dispositions. The smiling ideas left in our
bosoms from our infancy, that many plants are the favourites of the
gods, and that others were even the objects of their love--having once
been invested with the human form, beautiful and lively and happy as
yourselves--give them an interest beyond the vision; yes, and a
station--let me say it--on the vestibule of our affections. Resign
your ingenuous hearts to simple pleasures; and there is none in man,
where men are Attic, that will not follow and outstrip their
movements.

_Ternissa._ O Epicurus!

_Epicurus._ What said Ternissa?

_Leontion._ Some of those anemones, I do think, must be still in
blossom. Ternissa's golden cup is at home; but she has brought with
her a little vase for the filter--and has filled it to the brim. Do
not hide your head behind my shoulder, Ternissa; no, nor in my lap.

_Epicurus._ Yes, there let it lie--the lovelier for that tendril of
sunny brown hair upon it. How it falls and rises! Which is the hair?
which the shadow?

_Leontion._ Let the hair rest.

_Epicurus._ I must not, perhaps, clasp the shadow!

_Leontion._ You philosophers are fond of such unsubstantial things.
Oh, you have taken my volume! This is deceit.

You live so little in public, and entertain such a contempt for
opinion, as to be both indifferent and ignorant what it is that people
blame you for.

_Epicurus._ I know what it is I should blame myself for, if I attended
to them. Prove them to be wiser and more disinterested in their wisdom
than I am, and I will then go down to them and listen to them. When I
have well considered a thing, I deliver it--regardless of what those
think who neither take the time nor possess the faculty of considering
anything well, and who have always lived far remote from the scope of
our speculations.

_Leontion._ In the volume you snatched away from me so slyly, I have
defended a position of yours which many philosophers turn into
ridicule--namely, that politeness is among the virtues. I wish you
yourself had spoken more at large upon the subject.

_Epicurus._ It is one upon which a lady is likely to display more
ingenuity and discernment. If philosophers have ridiculed my
sentiment, the reason is, it is among those virtues which in general
they find most difficult to assume or counterfeit.

_Leontion._ Surely life runs on the smoother for this equability and
polish; and the gratification it affords is more extensive than is
afforded even by the highest virtue. Courage, on nearly all occasions,
inflicts as much of evil as it imparts of good. It may be exerted in
defence of our country, in defence of those who love us, in defence of
the harmless and the helpless; but those against whom it is thus
exerted may possess an equal share of it. If they succeed, then
manifestly the ill it produces is greater than the benefit; if they
succumb, it is nearly as great. For many of their adversaries are
first killed and maimed, and many of their own kindred are left to
lament the consequences of the aggression.

_Epicurus._ You have spoken first of courage, as that virtue which
attracts your sex principally.

_Ternissa._ Not me; I am always afraid of it. I love those best who
can tell me the most things I never knew before, and who have patience
with me, and look kindly while they teach me, and almost as if they
were waiting for fresh questions. Now let me hear directly what you
were about to say to Leontion.

_Epicurus._ I was proceeding to remark that temperance comes next; and
temperance has then its highest merit when it is the support of
civility and politeness. So that I think I am right and equitable in
attributing to politeness a distinguished rank, not among the
ornaments of life, but among the virtues. And you, Leontion and
Ternissa, will have leaned the more propensely toward this opinion, if
you considered, as I am sure you did, that the peace and concord of
families, friends, and cities are preserved by it; in other terms, the
harmony of the world.

_Ternissa._ Leontion spoke of courage, you of temperance; the next
great virtue, in the division made by the philosophers, is justice.

_Epicurus._ Temperance includes it; for temperance is imperfect if it
is only an abstinence from too much food, too much wine, too much
conviviality or other luxury. It indicates every kind of forbearance.
Justice is forbearance from what belongs to another. Giving to this
one rightly what that one would hold wrongfully in magistrature not in
the abstract, and is only a part of its office. The perfectly
temperate man is also the perfectly just man; but the perfectly just
man (as philosophers now define him) may not be the perfectly
temperate one. I include the less in the greater.

_Leontion._ We hear of judges, and upright ones too, being immoderate
eaters and drinkers.

_Epicurus._ The Lacedemonians are temperate in food and courageous in
battle; but men like these, if they existed in sufficient numbers,
would devastate the universe. We alone, we Athenians, with less
military skill perhaps, and certainly less rigid abstinence from
voluptuousness and luxury, have set before it the only grand example
of social government and of polished life. From us the seed is
scattered; from us flow the streams that irrigate it; and ours are the
hands, O Leontion, that collect it, cleanse it, deposit it, and convey
and distribute it sound and weighty through every race and age.
Exhausted as we are by war, we can do nothing better than lie down and
doze while the weather is fine overhead, and dream (if we can) that we
are affluent and free.

O sweet sea air! how bland art thou and refreshing! Breathe upon
Leontion! breathe upon Ternissa! bring them health and spirits and
serenity, many springs and many summers, and when the vine-leaves have
reddened and rustle under their feet!

These, my beloved girls, are the children of Eternity: they played
around Theseus and the beauteous Amazon; they gave to Pallas the bloom
of Venus, and to Venus the animation of Pallas. Is it not better to
enjoy by the hour their soft, salubrious influence, than to catch by
fits the rancid breath of demagogues; than to swell and move under it
without or against our will; than to acquire the semblance of
eloquence by the bitterness of passion, the tone of philosophy by
disappointment, or the credit of prudence by distrust? Can fortune,
can industry, can desert itself, bestow on us anything we have not
here?

_Leontion._ And when shall those three meet? The gods have never
united them, knowing that men would put them asunder at the first
appearance.

_Epicurus._ I am glad to leave the city as often as possible, full as
it is of high and glorious reminiscences, and am inclined much rather
to indulge in quieter scenes, whither the Graces and Friendship lead
me. I would not contend even with men able to contend with me. You,
Leontion, I see, think differently, and have composed at last your
long-meditated work against the philosophy of Theophrastus.

_Leontion._ Why not? he has been praised above his merits.

_Epicurus._ My Leontion! you have inadvertently given me the reason
and origin of all controversial writings. They flow not from a love of
truth or a regard for science, but from envy and ill-will. Setting
aside the evil of malignity--always hurtful to ourselves, not always
to others--there is weakness in the argument you have adduced. When a
writer is praised above his merits in his own times, he is certain of
being estimated below them in the times succeeding. Paradox is dear to
most people: it bears the appearance of originality, but is usually
the talent of the superficial, the perverse, and the obstinate.

Nothing is more gratifying than the attention you are bestowing on me,
which you always apportion to the seriousness of my observations.

_Leontion._ I dislike Theophrastus for his affected contempt of your
doctrines.

_Epicurus._ Unreasonably, for the contempt of them; reasonably, if
affected. Good men may differ widely from me, and wiser ones
misunderstand me; for, their wisdom having raised up to them schools
of their own, they have not found leisure to converse with me; and
from others they have received a partial and inexact report. My
opinion is, that certain things are indifferent and unworthy of
pursuit or attention, as lying beyond our research and almost our
conjecture; which things the generality of philosophers (for the
generality are speculative) deem of the first importance. Questions
relating to them I answer evasively, or altogether decline. Again,
there are modes of living which are suitable to some and unsuitable to
others. What I myself follow and embrace, what I recommend to the
studious, to the irritable, to the weak in health, would ill agree
with the commonality of citizens. Yet my adversaries cry out: 'Such is
the opinion and practice of Epicurus!' For instance, I have never
taken a wife, and never will take one; but he from among the mass, who
should avow his imitation of my example, would act as wisely and more
religiously in saying that he chose celibacy because Pallas had done
the same.

_Leontion._ If Pallas had many such votaries she would soon have few
citizens to supply them.

_Epicurus._ And extremely bad ones, if all followed me in retiring
from the offices of magistracy and of war. Having seen that the most
sensible men are the most unhappy, I could not but examine the causes
of it; and, finding that the same sensibility to which they are
indebted for the activity of their intellect is also the restless
mover of their jealousy and ambition, I would lead them aside from
whatever operates upon these, and throw under their feet the terrors
their imagination has created. My philosophy is not for the populace
nor for the proud: the ferocious will never attain it; the gentle will
embrace it, but will not call it mine. I do not desire that they
should: let them rest their heads upon that part of the pillow which
they find the softest, and enjoy their own dreams unbroken.

_Leontion._ The old are all against you, Epicurus, the name of
pleasure is an affront to them: they know no other kind of it than
that which has flowered and seeded, and of which the withered stems
have indeed a rueful look.

_Epicurus._ Unhappily the aged are retentive of long-acquired maxims,
and insensible to new impressions, whether from fancy or from truth:
in fact, their eyes blend the two together. Well might the poet tell
us:

      Fewer the gifts that gnarled Age presents
      To elegantly-handed Infancy,
      Than elegantly-handed Infancy
      Presents to gnarled Age. From both they drop;
      The middle course of life receives them all,
      Save the light few that laughing Youth runs off with,
      Unvalued as a mistress or a flower.

_Leontion._ Since, in obedience to your institutions, O Epicurus, I
must not say I am angry, I am offended at least with Theophrastus for
having so misrepresented your opinions, on the necessity of keeping
the mind composed and tranquil, and remote from every object and every
sentiment by which a painful sympathy may be excited. In order to
display his elegance of language, he runs wherever he can lay a
censure on you, whether he believes in its equity or not.

_Epicurus._ This is the case with all eloquent men, and all
disputants. Truth neither warms nor elevates them, neither obtains for
them profit nor applause.

_Ternissa._ I have heard wise remarks very often and very warmly
praised.

_Epicurus._ Not for the truth in them, but for the grace, or because
they touched the spring of some preconception or some passion. Man is
a hater of truth, a lover of fiction.

Theophrastus is a writer of many acquirements and some shrewdness,
usually judicious, often somewhat witty, always elegant; his thoughts
are never confused, his sentences are never incomprehensible. If
Aristoteles thought more highly of him than his due, surely you ought
not to censure Theophrastus with severity on the supposition of his
rating me below mine; unless you argue that a slight error in a short
sum is less pardonable than in a longer. Had Aristoteles been living,
and had he given the same opinion of me, your friendship and perhaps
my self-love might have been wounded; for, if on one occasion he spoke
too favourably, he never spoke unfavourably but with justice. This is
among the indications of orderly and elevated minds; and here stands
the barrier that separates them from the common and the waste. Is a
man to be angry because an infant is fretful? Is a philosopher to
unpack and throw away his philosophy, because an idiot has tried to
overturn it on the road, and has pursued it with gibes and ribaldry?

_Leontion._ Theophrastus would persuade us that, according to your
system, we not only should decline the succour of the wretched, but
avoid the sympathies that poets and historians would awaken in us.
Probably for the sake of introducing some idle verses, written by a
friend of his, he says that, following the guidance of Epicurus, we
should altogether shun the theatre; and not only when Prometheus and
Oedipus and Philoctetes are introduced, but even when generous and
kindly sentiments are predominant, if they partake of that tenderness
which belongs to pity. I know not what Thracian lord recovers his
daughter from her ravisher; such are among the words they exchange:

_Father._

      Insects that dwell in rotten reeds, inert
      Upon the surface of a stream or pool,
      Then rush into the air on meshy vans,
      Are not so different in their varying lives
      As we are.--Oh! what father on this earth,
      Holding his child's cool cheek within his palms
      And kissing his fair front, would wish him man?--
      Inheritor of wants and jealousies,
      Of labour, of ambition, of distress,
      And, cruellest of all the passions, lust.
      Who that behold me, persecuted, scorned,
      A wanderer, e'er could think what friends were mine,
      How numerous, how devoted? with what glee
      Smiled my old house, with what acclaim my courts
      Rang from without whene'er my war-horse neighed?

_Daughter._

      Thy fortieth birthday is not shouted yet
      By the young peasantry, with rural gifts
      And nightly fires along the pointed hills,
      Yet do thy temples glitter with grey hair
      Scattered not thinly: ah, what sudden change!
      Only thy voice and heart remain the same:
      No! that voice trembles, and that heart (I feel),
      While it would comfort and console me, breaks.

_Epicurus._ I would never close my bosom against the feelings of
humanity; but I would calmly and well consider by what conduct of life
they may enter it with the least importunity and violence. A
consciousness that we have promoted the happiness of others, to the
uttermost of our power, is certain not only to meet them at the
threshold, but to bring them along with us, and to render them
accurate and faithful prompters, when we bend perplexedly over the
problem of evil figured by the tragedians. If there were more of pain
than of pleasure in the exhibitions of the dramatist, no man in his
senses would attend them twice. All the imitative arts have delight
for the principal object: the first of these is poetry; the highest of
poetry is tragic.

_Leontion._ The epic has been called so.

_Epicurus._ Improperly; for the epic has much more in it of what is
prosaic. Its magnitude is no argument. An Egyptian pyramid contains
more materials than an Ionic temple, but requires less contrivance,
and exhibits less beauty of design. My simile is yet a defective one;
for a tragedy must be carried on with an unbroken interest, and,
undecorated by loose foliage or fantastic branches, it must rise,
like the palm-tree, with a lofty unity. On these matters I am unable
to argue at large, or perhaps correctly; on those, however, which I
have studied and treated, my terms are so explicit and clear, that
Theophrastus can never have misunderstood them. Let me recall to your
attention but two axioms.

Abstinence from low pleasures is the only means of meriting or of
obtaining the higher.

Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness
in another.

_Leontion._ Explain to me, then, O Epicurus, why we suffer so much
from ingratitude.

_Epicurus._ We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we
suffer from self-love. Passion weeps while she says, 'I did not
deserve this from him'; Reason, while she says it, smoothens her brow
at the clear fountain of the heart. Permit me also, like Theophrastus,
to borrow a few words from a poet.

_Ternissa._ Borrow as many such as any one will entrust to you, and
may Hermes prosper your commerce! Leontion may go to the theatre then;
for she loves it.

_Epicurus._ Girls! be the bosom friends of Antigone and Ismene; and
you shall enter the wood of the Eumenides without shuddering, and
leave it without the trace of a tear. Never did you appear so graceful
to me, O Ternissa--no, not even after this walk do you--as when I saw
you blow a fly from the forehead of Philoctetes in the propylëa. The
wing, with which Sophocles and the statuary represent him, to drive
away the summer insects in his agony, had wearied his flaccid arm,
hanging down beside him.

_Ternissa._ Do you imagine, then, I thought him a living man?

_Epicurus._ The sentiment was both more delicate and more august from
being indistinct. You would have done it, even if he _had_ been a
living man; even if he could have clasped you in his arms, imploring
the deities to resemble you in gentleness, you would have done it.

_Ternissa._ He looked so abandoned by all, and so heroic, yet so
feeble and so helpless! I did not think of turning around to see if
any one was near me; or else, perhaps----

_Epicurus._ If you could have thought of looking around, you would no
longer have been Ternissa. The gods would have transformed you for it
into some tree.

_Leontion._ And Epicurus had been walking under it this day, perhaps.

_Epicurus._ With Leontion, the partner of his sentiments. But the walk
would have been earlier or later than the present hour; since the
middle of the day, like the middle of certain fruits, is good for
nothing.

_Leontion._ For dinner, surely?

_Epicurus._ Dinner is a less gratification to me than to many: I dine
alone.

_Ternissa._ Why?

_Epicurus._ To avoid the noise, the heat, and the intermixture both of
odours and of occupations. I cannot bear the indecency of speaking
with a mouth in which there is food. I careen my body (since it is
always in want of repair) in as unobstructed a space as I can, and I
lie down and sleep awhile when the work is over.

_Leontion._ Epicurus! although it would be very interesting, no doubt,
to hear more of what you do after dinner--[_Aside to him._] now don't
smile: I shall never forgive you if you say a single word--yet I would
rather hear a little about the theatre, and whether you think at last
that women should frequent it; for you have often said the contrary.

_Epicurus._ I think they should visit it rarely; not because it
excites their affections, but because it deadens them. To me nothing
is so odious as to be at once among the rabble and among the heroes,
and, while I am receiving into my heart the most exquisite of human
sensations, to feel upon my shoulder the hand of some inattentive and
insensible young officer.

_Leontion._ Oh, very bad indeed! horrible!

_Ternissa._ You quite fire at the idea.

_Leontion._ Not I: I don't care about it.

_Ternissa._ Not about what is very bad indeed? quite horrible?

_Leontion._ I seldom go thither.

_Epicurus._ The theatre is delightful when we erect it in our own
house or arbour, and when there is but one spectator.

_Leontion._ You must lose the illusion in great part, if you only read
the tragedy, which I fancy to be your meaning.

_Epicurus._ I lose the less of it. Do not imagine that the illusion
is, or can be, or ought to be, complete. If it were possible, no
Phalaris or Perillus could devise a crueller torture. Here are two
imitations: first, the poet's of the sufferer; secondly, the actor's
of both: poetry is superinduced. No man in pain ever uttered the
better part of the language used by Sophocles. We admit it, and
willingly, and are at least as much illuded by it as by anything else
we hear or see upon the stage. Poets and statuaries and painters give
us an adorned imitation of the object, so skilfully treated that we
receive it for a correct one. This is the only illusion they aim at:
this is the perfection of their arts.

_Leontion._ Do you derive no pleasure from the representation of a
consummate actor?

_Epicurus._ High pleasure; but liable to be overturned in an instant:
pleasure at the mercy of any one who sits beside me.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Leontion._ In my treatise I have only defended your tenets against
Theophrastus.

_Epicurus._ I am certain you have done it with spirit and eloquence,
dear Leontion; and there are but two words in it I would wish you to
erase.

_Leontion._ Which are they?

_Epicurus._ Theophrastus and Epicurus. If you love me, you will do
nothing that may make you uneasy when you grow older; nothing that may
allow my adversary to say, 'Leontion soon forgot her Epicurus.' My
maxim is, never to defend my systems or paradoxes; if you undertake
it, the Athenians will insist that I impelled you secretly, or that my
philosophy and my friendship were ineffectual on you.

_Leontion._ They shall never say that.

_Epicurus._ I am not unmoved by the kindness of your intentions. Most
people, and philosophers, too, among the rest, when their own conduct
or opinions are questioned, are admirably prompt and dexterous in the
science of defence; but when another's are assailed, they parry with
as ill a grace and faltering a hand as if they never had taken a
lesson in it at home. Seldom will they see what they profess to look
for; and, finding it, they pick up with it a thorn under the nail.
They canter over the solid turf, and complain that there is no corn
upon it; they canter over the corn, and curse the ridges and furrows.
All schools of philosophy, and almost all authors, are rather to be
frequented for exercise than for freight; but this exercise ought to
acquire us health and strength, spirits and good-humour. There is none
of them that does not supply some truth useful to every man, and some
untruth equally so to the few that are able to wrestle with it. If
there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt; if
there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no
wisdom, no knowledge, no genius: and Fancy herself would lie muffled
up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated. I wish we could
demonstrate the existence of utility in some other evils as easily as
in this.

_Leontion._ My remarks on the conduct and on the style of Theophrastus
are not confined to him solely. I have taken at last a general view of
our literature, and traced as far as I am able its deviation and
decline. In ancient works we sometimes see the mark of the chisel; in
modern we might almost suppose that no chisel was employed at all, and
that everything was done by grinding and rubbing. There is an
ordinariness, an indistinctness, a generalization, not even to be
found in a flock of sheep. As most reduce what is sand into dust, the
few that avoid it run to a contrary extreme, and would force us to
believe that what is original must be unpolished and uncouth.

_Epicurus._ There have been in all ages, and in all there will be,
sharp and slender heads made purposely and peculiarly for creeping
into the crevices of our nature. While we contemplate the magnificence
of the universe, and mensurate the fitness and adaptation of one part
to another, the small philosopher hangs upon a hair or creeps within a
wrinkle, and cries out shrilly from his elevation that we are blind
and superficial. He discovers a wart, he pries into a pore; and he
calls it knowledge of man. Poetry and criticism, and all the fine
arts, have generated such living things, which not only will be
co-existent with them but will (I fear) survive them. Hence history
takes alternately the form of reproval and of panegyric; and science
in its pulverized state, in its shapeless and colourless atoms,
assumes the name of metaphysics. We find no longer the rich succulence
of Herodotus, no longer the strong filament of Thucydides, but
thoughts fit only for the slave, and language for the rustic and the
robber. These writings can never reach posterity, nor serve better
authors near us; for who would receive as documents the perversions of
venality and party? Alexander we know was intemperate, and Philip both
intemperate and perfidious: we require not a volume of dissertation on
the thread of history, to demonstrate that one or other left a
tailor's bill unpaid, and the immorality of doing so; nor a supplement
to ascertain on the best authorities which of the two it was. History
should explain to us how nations rose and fell, what nurtured them in
their growth, what sustained them in their maturity; not which orator
ran swiftest through the crowd from the right hand to the left, which
assassin was too strong for manacles, or which felon too opulent for
crucifixion.

_Leontion._ It is better, I own it, that such writers should amuse our
idleness than excite our spleen.

_Ternissa._ What is spleen?

_Epicurus._ Do not ask her; she cannot tell you. The spleen, Ternissa,
is to the heart what Arimanes is to Oromazes.

_Ternissa._ I am little the wiser yet. Does he ever use such hard
words with you?

_Leontion._ He means the evil Genius and the good Genius, in the
theogony of the Persians: and would perhaps tell you, as he hath told
me, that the heart in itself is free from evil, but very capable of
receiving and too tenacious of holding it.

_Epicurus._ In our moral system, the spleen hangs about the heart and
renders it sad and sorrowful, unless we continually keep it in
exercise by kind offices, or in its proper place by serious
investigation and solitary questionings. Otherwise, it is apt to
adhere and to accumulate, until it deadens the principles of sound
action, and obscures the sight.

_Ternissa._ It must make us very ugly when we grow old.

_Leontion._ In youth it makes us uglier, as not appertaining to it: a
little more or less ugliness in decrepitude is hardly worth
considering, there being quite enough of it from other quarters: I
would stop it here, however.

_Ternissa._ Oh, what a thing is age!

_Leontion._ Death without death's quiet.

_Ternissa._ Leontion said that even bad writers may amuse our idle
hours: alas! even good ones do not much amuse mine, unless they record
an action of love or generosity. As for the graver, why cannot they
come among us and teach us, just as you do?

_Epicurus._ Would you wish it?

_Ternissa._ No, no! I do not want them: only I was imagining how
pleasant it is to converse as we are doing, and how sorry I should be
to pore over a book instead of it. Books always make me sigh, and
think about other things. Why do you laugh, Leontion?

_Epicurus._ She was mistaken in saying bad authors may amuse our
idleness. Leontion knows not then how sweet and sacred idleness is.

_Leontion._ To render it sweet and sacred, the heart must have a
little garden of its own, with its umbrage and fountains and
perennial flowers--a careless company! Sleep is called sacred as well
as sweet by Homer; and idleness is but a step from it. The idleness of
the wise and virtuous should be both, it being the repose and
refreshment necessary for past exertions and for future; it punishes
the bad man, it rewards the good; the deities enjoy it, and Epicurus
praises it. I was indeed wrong in my remark; for we should never seek
amusement in the foibles of another, never in coarse language, never
in low thoughts. When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it
grows corrupt and grovelling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be
found at home.

_Epicurus._ Aspasia believed so, and bequeathed to Leontion, with
every other gift that Nature had bestowed upon her, the power of
delivering her oracles from diviner lips.

_Leontion._ Fie! Epicurus! It is well you hide my face for me with
your hand. Now take it away; we cannot walk in this manner.

_Epicurus._ No word could ever fall from you without its weight; no
breath from you ought to lose itself in the common air.

_Leontion._ For shame! What would you have?

_Ternissa._ He knows not what he would have nor what he would say. I
must sit down again. I declare I scarcely understand a single
syllable. Well, he is very good, to tease you no longer. Epicurus has
an excellent heart; he would give pain to no one; least of all to you.

_Leontion,_ I have pained him by this foolish book, and he would only
assure me that he does not for a moment bear me malice. Take the
volume; take it, Epicurus! tear it in pieces.

_Epicurus._ No, Leontion! I shall often look with pleasure on this
trophy of brave humanity; let me kiss the hand that raises it!

_Ternissa._ I am tired of sitting: I am quite stiff: when shall we
walk homeward?

_Epicurus._ Take my arm, Ternissa!

_Ternissa._ Oh! I had forgotten that I proposed to myself a trip as
far up as the pinasters, to look at the precipice of Oreithyia. Come
along! come along! how alert does the sea air make us! I seem to feel
growing at my feet and shoulders the wings of Zethes or Caläis.

_Epicurus._ Leontion walks the nimblest to-day.

_Ternissa._ To display her activity and strength, she runs before us.
Sweet Leontion, how good she is! but she should have stayed for us: it
would be in vain to try to overtake her.

No, Epicurus! Mind! take care! you are crushing these little
oleanders--and now the strawberry plants--the whole heap. Not I,
indeed. What would my mother say, if she knew it? And Leontion! she
will certainly look back.

_Epicurus._ The fairest of the Eudaimones never look back: such are
the Hours and Love, Opportunity and Leontion.

_Ternissa._ How could you dare to treat me in this manner? I did not
say again I hated anything.

_Epicurus._ Forgive me!

_Ternissa._ Violent creature!

_Epicurus._ If tenderness is violence. Forgive me; and say you love
me.

_Ternissa._ All at once? could you endure such boldness?

_Epicurus._ Pronounce it! whisper it.

_Ternissa._ Go, go. Would it be proper?

_Epicurus._ Is that sweet voice asking its heart or me? let the
worthier give the answer.

_Ternissa._ O Epicurus! you are very, very dear to me; and are the
last in the world that would ever tell you were called so.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] The Attic month of Puanepsion had its commencement in the latter
days of October; its name is derived from +puana+, the legumes
which were offered in sacrifice to Apollo at that season.

[8] The thirteenth of Elaphebolion was the tenth of April.




DANTE AND BEATRICE


_Dante._ When you saw me profoundly pierced with love, and reddening
and trembling, did it become you, did it become you, you whom I have
always called _the most gentle Bice_, to join in the heartless
laughter of those girls around you? Answer me. Reply unhesitatingly.
Requires it so long a space for dissimulation and duplicity? Pardon!
pardon! pardon! My senses have left me; my heart being gone, they
follow.

_Beatrice._ Childish man! pursuing the impossible.

_Dante._ And was it this you laughed at? We cannot touch the hem of
God's garment; yet we fall at His feet and weep.

_Beatrice._ But weep not, gentle Dante! fall not before the weakest of
His creatures, willing to comfort, unable to relieve you. Consider a
little. Is laughter at all times the signal or the precursor of
derision? I smiled, let me avow it, from the pride I felt in your
preference of me; and if I laughed, it was to conceal my sentiments.
Did you never cover sweet fruit with worthless leaves? Come, do not
drop again so soon so faint a smile. I will not have you grave, nor
very serious. I pity you; I must not love you: if I might, I would.

_Dante._ Yet how much love is due to me, O Bice, who have loved you,
as you well remember, even from your tenth year. But it is reported,
and your words confirm it, that you are going to be married.

_Beatrice._ If so, and if I could have laughed at that, and if my
laughter could have estranged you from me, would you blame me?

_Dante._ Tell me the truth.

_Beatrice._ The report is general.

_Dante._ The truth! the truth! Tell me, Bice.

_Beatrice._ Marriages, it is said, are made in heaven.

_Dante._ Is heaven then under the paternal roof?

_Beatrice._ It has been to me hitherto.

_Dante._ And now you seek it elsewhere.

_Beatrice._ I seek it not. The wiser choose for the weaker. Nay, do
not sigh so. What would you have, my grave pensive Dante? What can I
do?

_Dante._ Love me.

_Beatrice._ I always did.

_Dante._ Love me? O bliss of heaven!

_Beatrice._ No, no, no! Forbear! Men's kisses are always mischievous
and hurtful; everybody says it. If you truly loved me, you would never
think of doing so.

_Dante._ Nor even this!

_Beatrice._ You forget that you are no longer a boy; and that it is
not thought proper at your time of life to continue the arm at all
about the waist. Beside, I think you would better not put your head
against my bosom; it beats too much to be pleasant to you. Why do you
wish it? why fancy it can do you any good? It grows no cooler; it
seems to grow even hotter. Oh, how it burns! Go, go; it hurts me too:
it struggles, it aches, it sobs. Thank you, my gentle friend, for
removing your brow away; your hair is very thick and long; and it
began to heat me more than you can imagine. While it was there, I
could not see your face so well, nor talk with you so quietly.

_Dante._ Oh, when shall we talk quietly in future?

_Beatrice._ When I am married. I shall often come to visit my father.
He has always been solitary since my mother's death, which happened in
my infancy, long before you knew me.

_Dante._ How can he endure the solitude of his house when you have
left it?

_Beatrice._ The very question I asked him.

_Dante._ You did not then wish to ... to ... go away?

_Beatrice._ Ah no! It is sad to be an outcast at fifteen.

_Dante._ An outcast?

_Beatrice._ Forced to leave a home.

_Dante._ For another?

_Beatrice._ Childhood can never have a second.

_Dante._ But childhood is now over.

_Beatrice._ I wonder who was so malicious as to tell my father that?
He wanted me to be married a whole year ago.

_Dante._ And, Bice, you hesitated?

_Beatrice._ No; I only wept. He is a dear good father. I never
disobeyed him but in those wicked tears; and they ran the faster the
more he reprehended them.

_Dante._ Say, who is the happy youth?

_Beatrice._ I know not who ought to be happy if you are not.

_Dante._ I?

_Beatrice._ Surely you deserve all happiness.

_Dante._ Happiness! any happiness is denied me. Ah, hours of
childhood! bright hours! what fragrant blossoms ye unfold! what bitter
fruits to ripen!

_Beatrice._ Now cannot you continue to sit under that old fig-tree at
the corner of the garden? It is always delightful to me to think of
it.

_Dante._ Again you smile: I wish I could smile too.

_Beatrice._ You were usually more grave than I, although very often,
two years ago, you told me I was the graver. Perhaps I _was_ then
indeed; and perhaps I ought to be now: but really I must smile at the
recollection, and make you smile with me.

_Dante._ Recollection of what in particular?

_Beatrice._ Of your ignorance that a fig-tree is the brittlest of
trees, especially when it is in leaf; and moreover of your tumble,
when your head was just above the wall, and your hand (with the verses
in it) on the very coping-stone. Nobody suspected that I went every
day to the bottom of our garden, to hear you repeat your poetry on the
other side; nobody but yourself; you soon found me out. But on that
occasion I thought you might have been hurt; and I clambered up our
high peach-tree in the grass plot nearest the place; and thence I saw
Messer Dante, with his white sleeve reddened by the fig-juice, and the
seeds sticking to it pertinaciously, and Messer blushing, and trying
to conceal his calamity, and still holding the verses. They were all
about me.

_Dante._ Never shall any verse of mine be uttered from my lips, or
from the lips of others, without the memorial of Bice.

_Beatrice._ Sweet Dante! in the purity of your soul shall Bice live;
as (we are told by the goatherds and foresters) poor creatures have
been found preserved in the serene and lofty regions of the Alps, many
years after the breath of life had left them. Already you rival Guido
Cavalcante and Cino da Pistoja: you must attempt, nor perhaps shall it
be vainly, to surpass them in celebrity.

_Dante._ If ever I am above them ... and I must be ... I know already
what angel's hand will have helped me up the ladder. Beatrice, I vow
to heaven, shall stand higher than Selvaggia, high and glorious and
immortal as that name will be. You have given me joy and sorrow; for
the worst of these (I will not say the least) I will confer on you all
the generations of our Italy, all the ages of our world. But first
(alas, from me you must not have it!) may happiness, long happiness,
attend you!

_Beatrice._ Ah, those words rend your bosom! why should they?

_Dante._ I could go away contented, or almost contented, were I sure
of it. Hope is nearly as strong as despair, and greatly more
pertinacious and enduring. You have made me see clearly that you never
can be mine in this world: but at the same time, O Beatrice, you have
made me see quite as clearly that you may and must be mine in another!
I am older than you: precedency is given to age, and not to
worthiness; I will pray for you when I am nearer to God, and purified
from the stains of earth and mortality. He will permit me to behold
you, lovely as when I left you. Angels in vain should call me onward.

_Beatrice._ Hush, sweetest Dante! hush!

_Dante._ It is there where I shall have caught the first glimpse of
you again, that I wish all my portion of Paradise to be assigned me;
and there, if far below you, yet within the sight of you, to establish
my perdurable abode.

_Beatrice._ Is this piety? Is this wisdom? O Dante! And may not I be
called away first?

_Dante._ Alas, alas, how many small feet have swept off the early dew
of life, leaving the path black behind them! But to think that you
should go before me! It almost sends me forward on my way, to receive
and welcome you. If indeed, O Beatrice, such should be God's immutable
will, sometimes look down on me when the song to Him is suspended.
Oh! look often on me with prayer and pity; for there all prayers are
accepted, and all pity is devoid of pain! Why are you silent?

_Beatrice._ It is very sinful not to love all creatures in the world.
But it is true, O Dante! that we always love those the most who make
us the most unhappy?

_Dante._ The remark, I fear, is just.

_Beatrice._ Then, unless the Virgin be pleased to change my
inclinations, I shall begin at last to love my betrothed; for already
the very idea of him renders me sad, wearisome, and comfortless.
Yesterday he sent me a bunch of violets. When I took them up,
delighted as I felt at that sweetest of odours, which you and I once
inhaled together....

_Dante._ And only once.

_Beatrice._ You know why. Be quiet now, and hear me. I dropped the
posy; for around it, hidden by various kinds of foliage, was twined
the bridal necklace of pearls. O Dante, how worthless are the finest
of them (and there are many fine ones) in comparison with those little
pebbles, some of which (for perhaps I may not have gathered up all)
may be still lying under the peach-tree, and some (do I blush to say
it?) under the fig! Tell me not who threw these, nor for what. But you
know you were always thoughtful, and sometimes reading, sometimes
writing, and sometimes forgetting me, while I waited to see the
crimson cap, and the two bay-leaves I fastened in it, rise above the
garden-wall. How silently you are listening, if you do listen!

_Dante._ Oh, could my thoughts incessantly and eternally dwell among
these recollections, undisturbed by any other voice ... undistracted
by any other presence! Soon must they abide with me alone, and be
repeated by none but me ... repeated in the accents of anguish and
despair! Why could you not have held in the sad home of your heart
that necklace and those violets?

_Beatrice._ My Dante! we must all obey ... I my father, you your God.
He will never abandon you.

_Dante._ I have ever sung, and will for ever sing, the most glorious
of His works: and yet, O Bice! He abandons me, He casts me off; and He
uses your hand for this infliction.

_Beatrice._ Men travel far and wide, and see many on whom to fix or
transfer their affections; but we maidens have neither the power nor
the will. Casting our eyes on the ground, we walk along the straight
and narrow road prescribed for us; and, doing this, we avoid in great
measure the thorns and entanglements of life. We know we are
performing our duty; and the fruit of this knowledge is contentment.
Season after season, day after day, you have made me serious, pensive,
meditative, and almost wise. Being so little a girl, I was proud that
you, so much taller, should lean on my shoulder to overlook my work.
And greatly more proud was I when in time you taught me several Latin
words, and then whole sentences, both in prose and verse, pasting a
strip of paper over, or obscuring with impenetrable ink, those
passages in the poets which were beyond my comprehension, and might
perplex me. But proudest of all was I when you began to reason with
me. What will now be my pride if you are convinced by the first
arguments I ever have opposed to you; or if you only take them up and
try if they are applicable. Certainly do I know (indeed, indeed I do)
that even the patience to consider them will make you happier. Will it
not then make me so? I entertain no other wish. Is not this true love?

_Dante._ Ah, yes! the truest, the purest, the least perishable, but
not the sweetest. Here are the rue and hyssop; but where the rose?

_Beatrice._ Wicked must be whatever torments you: and will you let
love do it? Love is the gentlest and kindest breath of God. Are you
willing that the tempter should intercept it, and respire it polluted
into your ear? Do not make me hesitate to pray to the Virgin for you,
nor tremble lest she look down on you with a reproachful pity. To her
alone, O Dante, dare I confide all my thoughts! Lessen not my
confidence in my only refuge.

_Dante._ God annihilate a power so criminal! Oh, could my love flow
into your breast with hers! It should flow with equal purity.

_Beatrice._ You have stored my little mind with many thoughts; dear
because they are yours, and because they are virtuous. May I not, O my
Dante! bring some of them back again to your bosom; as the _contadina_
lets down the string from the cottage-beam in winter, and culls a few
bunches of the soundest for the master of the vineyard? You have not
given me glory that the world should shudder at its eclipse. To prove
that I am worthy of the smallest part of it, I must obey God; and,
under God, my father. Surely the voice of Heaven comes to us audibly
from a parent's lips. You will be great, and, what is above, all
greatness, good.

_Dante._ Rightly and wisely, my sweet Beatrice, have you spoken in
this estimate. Greatness is to goodness what gravel is to porphyry:
the one is a movable accumulation, swept along the surface of the
earth; the other stands fixed and solid and alone, above the violence
of war and of the tempest; above all that is residuous of a wasted
world. Little men build up great ones; but the snow colossus soon
melts: the good stand under the eye of God; and therefore stand.

_Beatrice._ Now you are calm and reasonable, listen to me, Bice. You
must marry.

_Dante._ Marry?

_Beatrice._ Unless you do, how can we meet again unreservedly? Worse,
worse than ever! I cannot bear to see those large heavy tears
following one another, heavy and slow as nuns at the funeral of a
sister. Come, I will kiss off one, if you will promise me faithfully
to shed no more. Be tranquil, be tranquil; only hear reason. There are
many who know you; and all who know you must love you. Don't you hear
me? Why turn aside? and why go farther off? I will have that hand. It
twists about as if it hated its confinement. Perverse and peevish
creature! you have no more reason to be sorry than I have; and you
have many to the contrary which I have not. Being a man, you are at
liberty to admire a variety, and to make a choice. Is that no comfort
to you?

_Dante._

      Bid this bosom cease to grieve?
        Bid these eyes fresh objects see?
      Where's the comfort to believe
        None might once have rivall'd me?
      What! my freedom to receive?
        Broken hearts, are they the free?
      For another can I live
        When I may not live for thee?

_Beatrice._ I will never be fond of you again if you are so violent.
We have been together too long, and we may be noticed.

_Dante._ Is this our last meeting? If it is ... and that it is, my
heart has told me ... you will not, surely you will not refuse....

_Beatrice._ Dante! Dante! they make the heart sad after: do not wish
it. But prayers ... oh, how much better are they, how much quieter and
lighter they render it! They carry it up to heaven with them; and
those we love are left behind no longer.




FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND POPE EUGENIUS THE FOURTH


_Eugenius._ Filippo! I am informed by my son Cosimo de' Medici of many
things relating to thy life and actions, and among the rest, of thy
throwing off the habit of a friar. Speak to me as to a friend. Was
that well done?

_Filippo._ Holy Father! it was done most unadvisedly.

_Eugenius._ Continue to treat me with the same confidence and
ingenuousness; and, beside the remuneration I intend to bestow on thee
for the paintings wherewith thou hast adorned my palace, I will remove
with my own hand the heavy accumulation of thy sins, and ward off the
peril of fresh ones, placing within thy reach every worldly solace and
contentment.

_Filippo._ Infinite thanks, Holy Father! from the innermost heart of
your unworthy servant, whose duty and wishes bind him alike and
equally to a strict compliance with your paternal commands.

_Eugenius._ Was it a love of the world and its vanities that induced
thee to throw aside the frock?

_Filippo._ It was indeed, Holy Father! I never had the courage to
mention it in confession among my manifold offences.

_Eugenius._ Bad! bad! Repentance is of little use to the sinner,
unless he pour it from a full and overflowing heart into the capacious
ear of the confessor. Ye must not go straightforward and bluntly up to
your Maker, startling Him with the horrors of your guilty conscience.
Order, decency, time, place, opportunity, must be observed.

_Filippo._ I have observed the greater part of them: time, place, and
opportunity.

_Eugenius._ That is much. In consideration of it, I hereby absolve
thee.

_Filippo._ I feel quite easy, quite new-born.

_Eugenius._ I am desirous of hearing what sort of feelings thou
experiencest, when thou givest loose to thy intractable and unruly
wishes. Now, this love of the world, what can it mean? A love of
music, of dancing, of riding? What in short is it in thee?

_Filippo._ Holy Father! I was ever of a hot and amorous constitution.

_Eugenius._ Well, well! I can guess, within a trifle, what that leads
unto. I very much disapprove of it, whatever it may be. And then? and
then? Prithee go on: I am inflamed with a miraculous zeal to cleanse
thee.

_Filippo._ I have committed many follies, and some sins.

_Eugenius._ Let me hear the sins; I do not trouble my head about the
follies; the Church has no business with them. The State is founded on
follies, the Church on sins. Come then, unsack them.

_Filippo._ Concupiscence is both a folly and a sin. I felt more and
more of it when I ceased to be a monk, not having (for a time) so
ready means of allaying it.

_Eugenius._ No doubt. Thou shouldst have thought again and again
before thou strippedst off the cowl.

_Filippo._ Ah! Holy Father! I am sore at heart. I thought indeed how
often it had held two heads together under it, and that stripping it
off was double decapitation. But compensation and contentment came,
and we were warm enough without it.

_Eugenius._ I am minded to reprove thee gravely. No wonder it pleased
the Virgin, and the saints about her, to permit that the enemy of our
faith should lead thee captive into Barbary.

_Filippo._ The pleasure was all on their side.

_Eugenius._ I have heard a great many stories both of males and
females who were taken by Tunisians and Algerines: and although there
is a sameness in certain parts of them, my especial benevolence toward
thee, worthy Filippo, would induce me to lend a vacant ear to thy
report. And now, good Filippo, I could sip a small glass of Muscatel
or Orvieto, and turn over a few bleached almonds, or essay a smart
dried apricot at intervals, and listen while thou relatest to me the
manners and customs of that country, and particularly as touching thy
own adversities. First, how wast thou taken?

_Filippo._ I was visiting at Pesaro my worshipful friend the canonico
Andrea Paccone, who delighted in the guitar, played it skilfully, and
was always fond of hearing it well accompanied by the voice. My own
instrument I had brought with me, together with many gay Florentine
songs, some of which were of such a turn and tendency, that the
canonico thought they would sound better on water, and rather far from
shore, than within the walls of the canonicate. He proposed then, one
evening when there was little wind stirring, to exercise three young
abbates[9] on their several parts, a little way out of hearing from
the water's edge.

_Eugenius._ I disapprove of exercising young abbates in that manner.

_Filippo._ Inadvertently, O Holy Father! I have made the affair seem
worse than it really was. In fact, there were only two genuine
abbates; the third was Donna Lisetta, the good canonico's pretty
niece, who looks so archly at your Holiness when you bend your knees
before her at bedtime.

_Eugenius._ How? Where?

_Filippo._ She is the angel on the right-hand side of the Holy Family,
with a tip of amethyst-coloured wing over a basket of figs and
pomegranates. I painted her from memory: she was then only fifteen,
and worthy to be the niece of an archbishop. Alas! she never will be:
she plays and sings among the infidels, and perhaps would eat a
landrail on a Friday as unreluctantly as she would a roach.

_Eugenius._ Poor soul! So this is the angel with the amethyst-coloured
wing? I thought she looked wanton: we must pray for her release ...
from the bondage of sin. What followed in your excursion?

_Filippo._ Singing, playing, fresh air, and plashing water, stimulated
our appetites. We had brought no eatable with us but fruit and thin
_marzopane_, of which the sugar and rose-water were inadequate to ward
off hunger; and the sight of a fishing-vessel between us and Ancona,
raised our host immoderately. 'Yonder smack,' said he, 'is sailing at
this moment just over the best sole-bank in the Adriatic. If she
continues her course and we run toward her, we may be supplied, I
trust in God, with the finest fish in Christendom. Methinks I see
already the bellies of those magnificent sole bestar the deck, and
emulate the glories of the orient sky.' He gave his orders with such a
majestic air, that he looked rather like an admiral than a priest.

_Eugenius._ How now, rogue! Why should not the churchman look
majestically and courageously? I myself have found occasion for it,
and exerted it.

_Filippo._ The world knows the prowess of your Holiness.

_Eugenius._ Not mine, not mine, Filippo! but His who gave me the sword
and the keys, and the will and the discretion to use them. I trust the
canonico did not misapply his station and power, by taking the fish at
any unreasonably low price; and that he gave his blessing to the
remainder, and to the poor fishermen and to their nets.

_Filippo._ He was angry at observing that the vessel, while he thought
it was within hail, stood out again to sea.

_Eugenius._ He ought to have borne more manfully so slight a vexation.

_Filippo._ On the contrary, he swore bitterly he would have the
master's ear between his thumb and forefinger in another half-hour,
and regretted that he had cut his nails in the morning lest they
should grate on his guitar. 'They may fish well,' cried he, 'but they
can neither sail nor row; and, when I am in the middle of that tub of
theirs, I will teach them more than they look for.' Sure enough he was
in the middle of it at the time he fixed: but it was by aid of a rope
about his arms and the end of another laid lustily on his back and
shoulders. 'Mount, lazy long-chined turnspit, as thou valuest thy
life,' cried Abdul the corsair, 'and away for Tunis.' If silence is
consent, he had it. The captain, in the Sicilian dialect, told us we
might talk freely, for he had taken his siesta. 'Whose guitars are
those?' said he. As the canonico raised his eyes to heaven and
answered nothing, I replied, 'Sir, one is mine: the other is my worthy
friend's there.' Next he asked the canonico to what market he was
taking those young slaves, pointing to the abbates. The canonico
sobbed and could not utter one word. I related the whole story; at
which he laughed. He then took up the music, and commanded my reverend
guest to sing an air peculiarly tender, invoking the compassion of a
nymph, and calling her cold as ice. Never did so many or such profound
sighs accompany it. When it ended, he sang one himself in his own
language, on a lady whose eyes were exactly like the scimitars of
Damascus, and whose eyebrows met in the middle like the cudgels of
prize-fighters. On the whole she resembled both sun and moon, with the
simple difference that she never allowed herself to be seen, lest all
the nations of the earth should go to war for her, and not a man to be
left to breathe out his soul before her. This poem had obtained the
prize at the University of Fez, had been translated into the Arabic,
the Persian, and the Turkish languages, and was the favourite lay of
the corsair. He invited me lastly to try my talent. I played the same
air on the guitar, and apologized for omitting the words, from my
utter ignorance of the Moorish. Abdul was much pleased, and took the
trouble to convince me that the poetry they conveyed, which he
translated literally, was incomparably better than ours. 'Cold as
ice!' he repeated, scoffing: 'anybody might say that who had seen
Atlas: but a genuine poet would rather say, "Cold as a lizard or a
lobster."' There is no controverting a critic who has twenty stout
rowers, and twenty well-knotted rope-ends. Added to which, he seemed
to know as much of the matter as the generality of those who talked
about it. He was gratified by my attention and edification, and thus
continued: 'I have remarked in the songs I have heard, that these wild
woodland creatures of the west, these nymphs, are a strange
fantastical race. But are your poets not ashamed to complain of their
inconstancy? whose fault is that? If ever it should be my fortune to
take one, I would try whether I could not bring her down to the level
of her sex; and if her inconstancy caused any complaints, by Allah!
they should be louder and shriller than ever rose from the throat of
Abdul.' I still thought it better to be a disciple than a commentator.

_Eugenius._ If we could convert this barbarian and detain him awhile
at Rome, he would learn that women and nymphs (and inconstancy also)
are one and the same. These cruel men have no lenity, no suavity. They
who do not as they would be done by, are done by very much as they do.
Women will glide away from them like water; they can better bear two
masters than half one; and a new metal must be discovered before any
bars are strong enough to confine them. But proceed with your
narrative.

_Filippo._ Night had now closed upon us. Abdul placed the younger of
the company apart, and after giving them some boiled rice, sent them
down into his own cabin. The sailors, observing the consideration and
distinction with which their master had treated me, were civil and
obliging. Permission was granted me, at my request, to sleep on deck.

_Eugenius._ What became of your canonico?

_Filippo._ The crew called him a conger, a priest, and a porpoise.

_Eugenius._ Foul-mouthed knaves! could not one of these terms content
them? On thy leaving Barbary was he left behind?

_Filippo._ Your Holiness consecrated him, the other day, Bishop of
Macerata.

_Eugenius._ True, true; I remember the name, Saccone. How did he
contrive to get off?

_Filippo._ He was worth little at any work; and such men are the
quickest both to get off and to get on. Abdul told me he had received
three thousand crowns for his ransom.

_Eugenius._ He was worth more to him than to me. I received but two
first-fruits, and such other things as of right belong to me by
inheritance. The bishopric is passably rich: he may serve thee.

_Filippo._ While he was a canonico he was a jolly fellow; not very
generous; for jolly fellows are seldom that; but he would give a
friend a dinner, a flask of wine or two in preference, and a piece of
advice as readily as either. I waited on monsignor at Macerata, soon
after his elevation.

_Eugenius._ He must have been heartily glad to embrace his companion
in captivity, and the more especially as he himself was the cause of
so grievous a misfortune.

_Filippo._ He sent me word he was so unwell he could not see me.
'What!' said I to his valet, 'is monsignor's complaint in his eyes?'
The fellow shrugged up his shoulders and walked away. Not believing
that the message was a refusal to admit me, I went straight upstairs,
and finding the door of an antechamber half open, and a chaplain
milling an egg-posset over the fire, I accosted him. The air of
familiarity and satisfaction he observed in me left no doubt in his
mind that I had been invited by his patron. 'Will the man never come?'
cried his lordship. 'Yes, monsignor!' exclaimed I, running in and
embracing him; 'behold him here!' He started back, and then I first
discovered the wide difference between an old friend and an
egg-posset.

_Eugenius._ Son Filippo! thou hast seen but little of the world, and
art but just come from Barbary. Go on.

_Filippo._ 'Fra Filippo!' said he gravely, 'I am glad to see you. I
did not expect you just at present: I am not very well: I had ordered
a medicine and was impatient to take it. If you will favour me with
the name of your inn, I will send for you when I am in a condition to
receive you; perhaps within a day or two.' 'Monsignor!' said I, 'a
change of residence often gives a man a cold, and oftener a change of
fortune. Whether you caught yours upon deck (where we last saw each
other), from being more exposed than usual, or whether the mitre holds
wind, is no question for me, and no concern of mine.'

_Eugenius._ A just reproof, if an archbishop had made it. On uttering
it, I hope thou kneeledst and kissedst his hand.

_Filippo._ I did not indeed.

_Eugenius._ Oh, there wert thou greatly in the wrong! Having, it is
reported, a good thousand crowns yearly of patrimony, and a canonicate
worth six hundred more, he might have attempted to relieve thee from
slavery, by assisting thy relatives in thy redemption.

_Filippo._ The three thousand crowns were the uttermost he could
raise, he declared to Abdul, and he asserted that a part of the money
was contributed by the inhabitants of Pesaro. 'Do they act out of pure
mercy?' said he. 'Ay, they must, for what else could move them in
behalf of such a lazy, unserviceable street-fed cur?' In the morning,
at sunrise, he was sent aboard. And now, the vessel being under weigh,
'I have a letter from my lord Abdul,' said the master, 'which, being
in thy language, two fellow slaves shall read unto thee publicly.'
They came forward and began the reading. 'Yesterday I purchased these
two slaves from a cruel, unrelenting master, under whose lash they
have laboured for nearly thirty years. I hereby give orders that five
ounces of my own gold be weighed out to them.' Here one of the slaves
fell on his face; the other lifted up his hands, praised God, and
blessed his benefactor.

_Eugenius._ The pirate? the unconverted pirate?

_Filippo._ Even so. 'Here is another slip of paper for thyself to read
immediately in my presence,' said the master. The words it contained
were, 'Do thou the same, or there enters thy lips neither food nor
water until thou landest in Italy. I permit thee to carry away more
than double the sum: I am no sutler: I do not contract for thy
sustenance.' The canonico asked of the master whether he knew the
contents of the letter; he replied no. 'Tell your master, lord Abdul,
that I shall take them into consideration.' 'My lord expected a much
plainer answer, and commanded me, in case of any such as thou hast
delivered, to break this seal.' He pressed it to his forehead and then
broke it. Having perused the characters reverentially, 'Christian!
dost thou consent?' The canonico fell on his knees, and overthrew the
two poor wretches who, saying their prayers, had remained in the same
posture before him quite unnoticed. 'Open thy trunk and take out thy
money-bag, or I will make room for it in thy bladder.' The canonico
was prompt in the execution of the command. The master drew out his
scales, and desired the canonico to weigh with his own hand five
ounces. He groaned and trembled: the balance was unsteady. 'Throw in
another piece: it will not vitiate the agreement,' cried the master.
It was done. Fear and grief are among the thirsty passions, but add
little to the appetite. It seemed, however, as if every sigh had left
a vacancy in the stomach of the canonico. At dinner the cook brought
him a salted bonito, half an ell in length; and in five minutes his
reverence was drawing his middle finger along the white backbone, out
of sheer idleness, until were placed before him some as fine dried
locusts as ever provisioned the tents of Africa, together with olives
the size of eggs and colour of bruises, shining in oil and brine. He
found them savoury and pulpy, and, as the last love supersedes the
foregoing, he gave them the preference, even over the delicate
locusts. When he had finished them, he modestly requested a can of
water. A sailor brought a large flask, and poured forth a plentiful
supply. The canonico engulfed the whole, and instantly threw himself
back in convulsive agony. 'How is this?' cried the sailor. The master
ran up and, smelling the water, began to buffet him, exclaiming, as he
turned round to all the crew, 'How came this flask here?' All were
innocent. It appeared, however, that it was a flask of mineral water,
strongly sulphureous, taken out of a Neapolitan vessel, laden with a
great abundance of it for some hospital in the Levant. It had taken
the captor by surprise in the same manner as the canonico. He himself
brought out instantly a capacious stone jar covered with dew, and
invited the sufferer into the cabin. Here he drew forth two richly-cut
wineglasses, and, on filling one of them, the outside of it turned
suddenly pale, with a myriad of indivisible drops, and the senses were
refreshed with the most delicious fragrance. He held up the glass
between himself and his guest, and looking at it attentively, said,
'Here is no appearance of wine; all I can see is water. Nothing is
wickeder than too much curiosity: we must take what Allah sends us,
and render thanks for it, although it fall far short of our
expectations. Besides, our Prophet would rather we should even drink
wine than poison.' The canonico had not tasted wine for two months: a
longer abstinence than ever canonico endured before. He drooped: but
the master looked still more disconsolate. 'I would give whatever I
possess on earth rather than die of thirst,' cried the canonico. 'Who
would not?' rejoined the captain, sighing and clasping his fingers.
'If it were not contrary to my commands, I could touch at some cove or
inlet.' 'Do, for the love of Christ!' exclaimed the canonico. 'Or even
sail back,' continued the captain. 'O Santa Vergine!' cried in anguish
the canonico. 'Despondency,' said the captain, with calm solemnity,
'has left many a man to be thrown overboard: it even renders the
plague, and many other disorders, more fatal. Thirst too has a
powerful effect in exasperating them. Overcome such weaknesses, or I
must do my duty. The health of the ship's company is placed under my
care; and our lord Abdul, if he suspected the pest, would throw a Jew,
or a Christian, or even a bale of silk, into the sea: such is the
disinterestedness and magnanimity of my lord Abdul.' 'He believes in
fate; does he not?' said the canonico. 'Doubtless: but he says it is
as much fated that he should throw into the sea a fellow who is
infected, as that the fellow should have ever been so.' 'Save me, oh,
save me!' cried the canonico, moist as if the spray had pelted him.
'Willingly, if possible,' answered calmly the master. 'At present I
can discover no certain symptoms; for sweat, unless followed by
general prostration, both of muscular strength and animal spirits, may
be cured without a hook at the heel.' 'Giesu-Maria!' ejaculated the
canonico.

_Eugenius._ And the monster could withstand that appeal?

_Filippo._ It seems so. The renegade who related to me, on my return,
these events as they happened, was very circumstantial. He is a
Corsican, and had killed many men in battle, and more out; but is (he
gave me his word for it) on the whole an honest man.

_Eugenius._ How so? honest? and a renegade?

_Filippo._ He declared to me that, although the Mahomedan is the best
religion to live in, the Christian is the best to die in; and that,
when he has made his fortune, he will make his confession, and lie
snugly in the bosom of the Church.

_Eugenius._ See here the triumphs of our holy faith! The lost sheep
will be found again.

_Filippo._ Having played the butcher first.

_Eugenius._ Return we to that bad man, the master or captain, who
evinced no such dispositions.

_Filippo._ He added, 'The other captives, though older men, have
stouter hearts than mine.' 'Alas! they are longer used to hardships,'
answered he. 'Dost thou believe, in thy conscience,' said the captain,
'that the water we have aboard would be harmless to them? for we have
no other; and wine is costly; and our quantity might be insufficient
for those who can afford to pay for it.' 'I will answer for their
lives,' replied the canonico. 'With thy own?' interrogated sharply the
Tunisian. 'I must not tempt God,' said, in tears, the religious man.
'Let us be plain,' said the master. 'Thou knowest thy money is safe; I
myself counted it before thee when I brought it from the scrivener's;
thou hast sixty broad gold pieces; wilt thou be answerable, to the
whole amount of them, for the lives of thy two countrymen if they
drink this water?' 'O sir!' said the canonico, 'I will give it, if,
only for these few days of voyage, you vouchsafe me one bottle daily
of that restorative wine of Bordeaux. The other two are less liable to
the plague: they do not sorrow and sweat as I do. They are spare men.
There is enough of me to infect a fleet with it; and I cannot bear to
think of being in any wise the cause of evil to my fellow-creatures.'
'The wine is my patron's,' cried the Tunisian; 'he leaves everything
at my discretion: should I deceive him?' 'If he leaves everything at
your discretion,' observed the logician of Pesaro, 'there is no deceit
in disposing of it.' The master appeared to be satisfied with the
argument. 'Thou shalt not find me exacting,' said he; 'give me the
sixty pieces, and the wine shall be thine.' At a signal, when the
contract was agreed to, the two slaves entered, bringing a hamper of
jars. 'Read the contract before thou signest,' cried the master. He
read. 'How is this? how is this? _Sixty golden ducats to the brothers
Antonio and Bernabo Panini, for wine received from them?_' The aged
men tottered under the stroke of joy; and Bernabo, who would have
embraced his brother, fainted.

On the morrow there was a calm, and the weather was extremely sultry.
The canonico sat in his shirt on deck, and was surprised to see, I
forget which of the brothers, drink from a goblet a prodigious draught
of water. 'Hold!' cried he angrily; 'you may eat instead; but putrid
or sulphureous water, you have heard, may produce the plague, and
honest men be the sufferers by your folly and intemperance.' They
assured him the water was tasteless, and very excellent, and had been
kept cool in the same kind of earthern jars as the wine. He tasted it,
and lost his patience. It was better, he protested, than any wine in
the world. They begged his acceptance of the jar containing it. But
the master, who had witnessed at a distance the whole proceeding, now
advanced, and, placing his hand against it, said sternly, 'Let him
have his own.' Usually, when he had emptied the second bottle, a
desire of converting the Mohammedans came over him: and they showed
themselves much less obstinate and refractory than they are generally
thought. He selected those for edification who swore the oftenest and
the loudest by the Prophet; and he boasted in his heart of having
overcome, by precept and example, the stiffest tenet of their
abominable creed. Certainly they drank wine, and somewhat freely. The
canonico clapped his hands, and declared that even some of the
apostles had been more pertinacious recusants of the faith.

_Eugenius._ Did he so? Cappari! I would not have made him a bishop for
twice the money if I had known it earlier. Could not he have left them
alone? Suppose one or other of them did doubt and persecute, was he
the man to blab it out among the heathen?

_Filippo._ A judgment, it appears, fell on him for so doing. A very
quiet sailor, who had always declined his invitations, and had always
heard his arguments at a distance and in silence, being pressed and
urged by him, and reproved somewhat arrogantly and loudly, as less
docile than his messmates, at last lifted up his leg behind him,
pulled off his right slipper, and counted deliberately and distinctly
thirty-nine sound strokes of the same, on the canonico's broadest
tablet, which (please your Holiness) might be called, not inaptly,
from that day the tablet of memory. In vain he cried out. Some of the
mariners made their moves at chess and waved their left hands as if
desirous of no interruption; others went backward and forward about
their business, and took no more notice than if their messmate was
occupied in caulking a seam or notching a flint. The master himself,
who saw the operation, heard the complaint in the evening, and lifted
up his shoulders and eyebrows, as if the whole were quite unknown to
him. Then, acting as judge-advocate, he called the young man before
him and repeated the accusation. To this the defence was purely
interrogative. 'Why would he convert me? I never converted him.'
Turning to his spiritual guide, he said, 'I quite forgive thee: nay, I
am ready to appear in thy favour, and to declare that, in general,
thou hast been more decorous than people of thy faith and profession
usually are, and hast not scattered on deck that inflammatory language
which I, habited in the dress of a Greek, heard last Easter. I went
into three churches; and the preachers in all three denounced the
curse of Allah on every soul that differed from them a tittle. They
were children of perdition, children of darkness, children of the
devil, one and all. It seemed a matter of wonder to me, that, in such
numerous families and of such indifferent parentage, so many slippers
were kept under the heel. Mine, in an evil hour, escaped me: but I
quite forgive thee. After this free pardon I will indulge thee with a
short specimen of my preaching. I will call none of you a generation
of vipers, as ye call one another; for vipers neither bite nor eat
during many months of the year: I will call none of you wolves in
sheep's clothing; for if ye are, it must be acknowledged that the
clothing is very clumsily put on. You priests, however, take people's
souls aboard whether they will or not, just as we do your bodies: and
you make them pay much more for keeping these in slavery than we make
you pay for setting you free body and soul together. You declare that
the precious souls, to the especial care of which Allah has called and
appointed you, frequently grow corrupt, and stink in His nostrils.
Now, I invoke thy own testimony to the fact that thy soul, gross as I
imagine it to be from the greasy wallet that holds it, had no carnal
thoughts whatsoever, and that thy carcass did not even receive a
fly-blow, while it was under my custody. Thy guardian angel (I speak
it in humility) could not ventilate thee better. Nevertheless, I
should scorn to demand a single maravedi for my labour and skill, or
for the wear and tear of my pantoufle. My reward will be in Paradise,
where a houri is standing in the shade, above a vase of gold and
silver fish, with a kiss on her lip, and an unbroken pair of green
slippers in her hand for me.' Saying which, he took off his foot
again, the one he had been using, and showed the sole of it, first to
the master, then to all the crew, and declared it had become (as they
might see) so smooth and oily by the application, that it was
dangerous to walk on deck in it.

_Eugenius._ See! what notions these creatures have, both of their
fool's paradise and of our holy faith! The seven Sacraments, I warrant
you, go for nothing! Purgatory, purgatory itself, goes for nothing!

_Filippo._ Holy Father! we must stop thee. _That_ does not go for
nothing, however.

_Eugenius._ Filippo! God forbid I should suspect thee of any heretical
taint; but this smells very like it. If thou hast it now, tell me
honestly. I mean, hold thy tongue. Florentines are rather lax. Even
Son Cosimo might be stricter: so they say: perhaps his enemies. The
great always have them abundantly, beside those by whom they are
served, and those also whom they serve. Now would I give a silver
rose with my benediction on it, to know of a certainty what became of
those poor creatures the abbates. The initiatory rite of Mohammedanism
is most diabolically malicious. According to the canons of our
Catholic Church, it disqualifies the neophyte for holy orders, without
going so far as adapting him to the choir of the pontifical chapel.
They limp; they halt.

_Filippo._ Beatitude! which of them?

_Eugenius._ The unbelievers: they surely are found wanting.

_Filippo._ The unbelievers too?

_Eugenius._ Ay, ay, thou half renegade! Couldst not thou go over with
a purse of silver, and try whether the souls of these captives be
recoverable? Even if they should have submitted to such unholy rites,
I venture to say they have repented.

_Filippo._ The devil is in them if they have not.

_Eugenius._ They may become again as good Christians as before.

_Filippo._ Easily, methinks.

_Eugenius._ Not so easily; but by aid of Holy Church in the
administration of indulgences.

_Filippo._ They never wanted those, whatever they want.

_Eugenius._ The corsair then is not one of those ferocious creatures
which appear to connect our species with the lion and panther.

_Filippo._ By no means, Holy Father! He is an honest man; so are many
of his countrymen, bating the Sacrament.

_Eugenius._ Bating! poor beguiled Filippo! Being unbaptized, they are
only as the beasts that perish: nay worse: for the soul being
imperishable, it must stick to their bodies at the last day, whether
they will or no, and must sink with it into the fire and brimstone.

_Filippo._ Unbaptized! why, they baptize every morning.

_Eugenius._ Worse and worse! I thought they only missed the stirrup;
I find they overleap the saddle. Obstinate blind reprobates! of whom
it is written ... of whom it is written ... of whom, I say, it is
written ... as shall be manifest before men and angels in the day of
wrath.

_Filippo._ More is the pity! for they are hospitable, frank, and
courteous. It is delightful to see their gardens, when one has not the
weeding and irrigation of them. What fruit! what foliage! what
trellises! what alcoves! what a contest of rose and jessamine for
supremacy in odour! of lute and nightingale for victory in song! And
how the little bright ripples of the docile brooks, the fresher for
their races, leap up against one another, to look on! and how they
chirrup and applaud, as if they too had a voice of some importance in
these parties of pleasure that are loath to separate.

_Eugenius._ Parties of pleasure! birds, fruits, shallow-running
waters, lute-players, and wantons! Parties of pleasure! and composed
of these! Tell me now, Filippo, tell me truly, what complexion in
general have the discreeter females of that hapless country.

_Filippo._ The colour of an orange-flower, on which an overladen bee
has left a slight suffusion of her purest honey.

_Eugenius._ We must open their eyes.

_Filippo._ Knowing what excellent hides the slippers of this people
are made of, I never once ventured on their less perfect theology,
fearing to find it written that I should be abed on my face the next
fortnight. My master had expressed his astonishment that a religion so
admirable as ours was represented should be the only one in the world
the precepts of which are disregarded by all conditions of men. 'Our
Prophet,' said he, 'our Prophet ordered us to go forth and conquer; we
did it: yours ordered you to sit quiet and forbear; and, after
spitting in His face, you threw the order back into it, and fought
like devils.'

_Eugenius._ The barbarians talk of our Holy Scriptures as if they
understood them perfectly. The impostor they follow has nothing but
fustian and rodomontade in his impudent lying book from beginning to
end. I know it, Filippo, from those who have contrasted it, page by
page, paragraph by paragraph, and have given the knave his due.

_Filippo._ Abdul is by no means deficient in a good opinion of his own
capacity and his Prophet's all-sufficiency, but he never took me to
task about my faith or his own.

_Eugenius._ How wert thou mainly occupied?

_Filippo._ I will give your Holiness a sample both of my employments
and of his character. He was going one evening to a country-house,
about fifteen miles from Tunis; and he ordered me to accompany him. I
found there a spacious garden, overrun with wild flowers and most
luxuriant grass, in irregular tufts, according to the dryness or the
humidity of the spot. The clematis overtopped the lemon and
orange-trees; and the perennial pea sent forth here a pink blossom,
here a purple, here a white one, and after holding (as it were) a
short conversation with the humbler plants, sprang up about an old
cypress, played among its branches, and mitigated its gloom. White
pigeons, and others in colour like the dawn of day, looked down on us
and ceased to coo, until some of their companions, in whom they had
more confidence, encouraged them loudly from remoter boughs, or
alighted on the shoulders of Abdul, at whose side I was standing. A
few of them examined me in every position their inquisitive eyes could
take; displaying all the advantages of their versatile necks, and
pretending querulous fear in the midst of petulant approaches.

_Eugenius._ Is it of pigeons thou art talking, O Filippo? I hope it
may be.

_Filippo._ Of Abdul's pigeons. He was fond of taming all creatures;
men, horses, pigeons, equally: but he tamed them all by kindness. In
this wilderness is an edifice not unlike our Italian chapter-houses
built by the Lombards, with long narrow windows, high above the
ground. The centre is now a bath, the waters of which, in another part
of the enclosure, had supplied a fountain, at present in ruins, and
covered by tufted canes, and by every variety of aquatic plants. The
structure has no remains of roof: and, of six windows, one alone is
unconcealed by ivy. This had been walled up long ago, and the cement
in the inside of it was hard and polished. 'Lippi!' said Abdul to me,
after I had long admired the place in silence, 'I leave to thy
superintendence this bath and garden. Be sparing of the leaves and
branches: make paths only wide enough for me. Let me see no mark of
hatchet or pruning-hook, and tell the labourers that whoever takes a
nest or an egg shall be impaled.'

_Eugenius._ Monster! so then he would really have impaled a poor
wretch for eating a bird's egg? How disproportionate is the punishment
to the offence!

_Filippo._ He efficiently checked in his slaves the desire of
transgressing his command. To spare them as much as possible, I
ordered them merely to open a few spaces, and to remove the weaker
trees from the stronger. Meanwhile I drew on the smooth blank window
the figure of Abdul and of a beautiful girl.

_Eugenius._ Rather say handmaiden: choicer expression; more decorous.

_Filippo._ Holy Father! I have been lately so much out of practice, I
take the first that comes in my way. Handmaiden I will use in
preference for the future.

_Eugenius._ On then! and God speed thee!

_Filippo._ I drew Abdul with a blooming handmaiden. One of his feet
is resting on her lap, and she is drying the ankle with a saffron
robe, of which the greater part is fallen in doing it. That she is a
bondmaid is discernible, not only by her occupation, but by her
humility and patience, by her loose and flowing brown hair, and by her
eyes expressing the timidity at once of servitude and of fondness. The
countenance was taken from fancy, and was the loveliest I could
imagine: of the figure I had some idea, having seen it to advantage in
Tunis. After seven days Abdul returned. He was delighted with the
improvement made in the garden. I requested him to visit the bath. 'We
can do nothing to that,' answered he impatiently. 'There is no
sudatory, no dormitory, no dressing-room, no couch. Sometimes I sit an
hour there in the summer, because I never found a fly in it--the
principal curse of hot countries, and against which plague there is
neither prayer nor amulet, nor indeed any human defence.' He went away
into the house. At dinner he sent me from his table some quails and
ortolans, and tomatoes and honey and rice, beside a basket of fruit
covered with moss and bay-leaves, under which I found a verdino fig,
deliciously ripe, and bearing the impression of several small teeth,
but certainly no reptile's.

_Eugenius._ There might have been poison in them, for all that.

_Filippo._ About two hours had passed, when I heard a whir and a crash
in the windows of the bath (where I had dined and was about to sleep),
occasioned by the settling and again the flight of some pheasants.
Abdul entered. 'Beard of the Prophet! what hast thou been doing? That
is myself! No, no, Lippi! thou never canst have seen her: the face
proves it: but those limbs! thou hast divined them aright: thou hast
had sweet dreams then! Dreams are large possessions: in them the
possessor may cease to possess his own. To the slave, O Allah! to the
slave is permitted what is not his!... I burn with anguish to think
how much ... yea, at that very hour. I would not another should, even
in a dream.... But, Lippi! thou never canst have seen above the
sandal?' To which I answered, 'I never have allowed my eyes to look
even on that. But if any one of my lord Abdul's fair slaves resembles,
as they surely must all do, in duty and docility, the figure I have
represented, let it express to him my congratulation on his
happiness.' 'I believe,' said he, 'such representations are forbidden
by the Koran; but as I do not remember it, I do not sin. There it
shall stay, unless the angel Gabriel comes to forbid it.' He smiled in
saying so.

_Eugenius._ There is hope of this Abdul. His faith hangs about him
more like oil than pitch.

_Filippo._ He inquired of me whether I often thought of those I loved
in Italy, and whether I could bring them before my eyes at will. To
remove all suspicion from him, I declared I always could, and that one
beautiful object occupied all the cells of my brain by night and day.
He paused and pondered, and then said, 'Thou dost not love deeply.' I
thought I had given the true signs. 'No, Lippi! we who love ardently,
we, with all our wishes, all the efforts of our souls, cannot bring
before us the features which, while they were present, we thought it
impossible we ever could forget. Alas! when we most love the absent,
when we most desire to see her, we try in vain to bring her image back
to us. The troubled heart shakes and confounds it, even as ruffled
waters do with shadows. Hateful things are more hateful when they
haunt our sleep: the lovely flee away, or are changed into less
lovely.'

_Eugenius._ What figures now have these unbelievers?

_Filippo._ Various in their combinations as the letters or the
numerals; but they all, like these, signify something. Almeida (did I
not inform your Holiness?) has large hazel eyes....

_Eugenius._ Has she? thou never toldest me that. Well, well! and what
else has she? Mind! be cautious! use decent terms.

_Filippo._ Somewhat pouting lips.

_Eugenius._ Ha! ha! What did they pout at?

_Filippo._ And she is rather plump than otherwise.

_Eugenius._ No harm in that.

_Filippo._ And moreover is cool, smooth, and firm as a nectarine
gathered before sunrise.

_Eugenius._ Ha! ha! do not remind me of nectarines. I am very fond of
them; and this is not the season! Such females as thou describest are
said to be among the likeliest to give reasonable cause for suspicion.
I would not judge harshly, I would not think uncharitably; but,
unhappily, being at so great a distance from spiritual aid,
peradventure a desire, a suggestion, an inkling ... ay? If she, the
lost Almeida, came before thee when her master was absent ... which I
trust she never did.... But those flowers and shrubs and odours and
alleys and long grass and alcoves, might strangely hold, perplex, and
entangle, two incautious young persons ... ay?

_Filippo._ I confessed all I had to confess in this matter the evening
I landed.

_Eugenius._ Ho! I am no candidate for a seat at the rehearsal of
confessions: but perhaps my absolution might be somewhat more pleasing
and unconditional. Well! well! since I am unworthy of such confidence,
go about thy business ... paint! paint!

_Filippo._ Am I so unfortunate as to have offended your Beatitude?

_Eugenius._ Offend _me_, man! who offends _me_? I took an interest in
thy adventures, and was concerned lest thou mightest have sinned; for
by my soul! Filippo! those are the women that the devil hath set his
mark on.

_Filippo._ It would do your Holiness's heart good to rub it out again,
wherever he may have had the cunning to make it.

_Eugenius._ Deep! deep!

_Filippo._ Yet it may be got at; she being a Biscayan by birth, as she
told me, and not only baptized, but going by sea along the coast for
confirmation, when she was captured.

_Eugenius._ Alas! to what an imposition of hands was this tender young
thing devoted! Poor soul!

_Filippo._ I sigh for her myself when I think of her.

_Eugenius._ Beware lest the sigh be mundane, and lest the thought
recur too often. I wish it were presently in my power to examine her
myself on her condition. What thinkest thou? Speak.

_Filippo._ Holy Father! she would laugh in your face.

_Eugenius._ So lost!

_Filippo._ She declared to me she thought she should have died, from
the instant she was captured until she was comforted by Abdul: but
that she was quite sure she should if she were ransomed.

_Eugenius._ Has the wretch then shaken her faith?

_Filippo._ The very last thing he would think of doing. Never did I
see the virtue of resignation in higher perfection than in the
laughing, light-hearted Almeida.

_Eugenius._ Lamentable! Poor lost creature! lost in this world and in
the next.

_Filippo._ What could she do? how could she help herself?

_Eugenius._ She might have torn his eyes out, and have died a martyr.

_Filippo._ Or have been bastinadoed, whipped, and given up to the
cooks and scullions for it.

_Eugenius._ Martyrdom is the more glorious the greater the indignities
it endures.

_Filippo._ Almeida seems unambitious. There are many in our Tuscany
who would jump at the crown over those sloughs and briers, rather than
perish without them: she never sighs after the like.

_Eugenius._ Nevertheless, what must she witness! what abominations!
what superstitions!

_Filippo._ Abdul neither practises nor exacts any other superstition
than ablutions.

_Eugenius._ Detestable rites! without our authority. I venture to
affirm that, in the whole of Italy and Spain, no convent of monks or
nuns contains a bath; and that the worst inmate of either would
shudder at the idea of observing such a practice in common with the
unbeliever. For the washing of the feet indeed we have the authority
of the earlier Christians; and it may be done; but solemnly and
sparingly. Thy residence among the Mahomedans, I am afraid, hath
rendered thee more favourable to them than beseems a Catholic, and thy
mind, I do suspect, sometimes goes back into Barbary unreluctantly.

_Filippo._ While I continued in that country, although I was well
treated, I often wished myself away, thinking of my friends in
Florence, of music, of painting, of our villeggiatura at the
vintage-time; whether in the green and narrow glades of Pratolino,
with lofty trees above us, and little rills unseen, and little bells
about the necks of sheep and goats, tinkling together ambiguously; or
amid the grey quarries, or under the majestic walls of modern Fiesole;
or down in the woods of the Doccia, where the cypresses are of such a
girth that, when a youth stands against one of them, and a maiden
stands opposite, and they clasp it, their hands at the time do little
more than meet. Beautiful scenes, on which heaven smiles eternally,
how often has my heart ached for you! He who hath lived in this
country can enjoy no distant one. He breathes here another air; he
lives more life; a brighter sun invigorates his studies, and serener
stars influence his repose. Barbary hath also the blessing of climate;
and although I do not desire to be there again, I feel sometimes a
kind of regret at leaving it. A bell warbles the more mellifluously in
the air when the sound of the stroke is over, and when another swims
out from underneath it, and pants upon the element that gave it birth.
In like manner the recollection of a thing is frequently more pleasing
than the actuality; what is harsh is dropped in the space between.
There is in Abdul a nobility of soul on which I often have reflected
with admiration. I have seen many of the highest rank and
distinction, in whom I could find nothing of the great man, excepting
a fondness for low company, and an aptitude to shy and start at every
spark of genius or virtue that sprang up above or before them. Abdul
was solitary, but affable: he was proud, but patient and complacent. I
ventured once to ask him how the master of so rich a house in the
city, of so many slaves, of so many horses and mules, of such
cornfields, of such pastures, of such gardens, woods, and fountains,
should experience any delight or satisfaction in infesting the open
sea, the high-road of nations. Instead of answering my question, he
asked me in return whether I would not respect any relative of mine
who avenged his country, enriched himself by his bravery, and endeared
to him his friends and relatives by his bounty. On my reply in the
affirmative, he said that his family had been deprived of possessions
in Spain much more valuable than all the ships and cargoes he could
ever hope to capture, and that the remains of his nation were
threatened with ruin and expulsion. 'I do not fight,' said he,
'whenever it suits the convenience, or gratifies the malignity, or the
caprice of two silly, quarrelsome princes, drawing my sword in
perfectly good humour, and sheathing it again at word of command, just
when I begin to get into a passion. No; I fight on my own account; not
as a hired assassin, or still baser journeyman.'

_Eugenius._ It appears then really that the Infidels have some
semblances of magnanimity and generosity?

_Filippo._ I thought so when I turned over the many changes of fine
linen; and I was little short of conviction when I found at the bottom
of my chest two hundred Venetian zecchins.

_Eugenius._ Corpo di Bacco! Better things, far better things, I would
fain do for thee, not exactly of this description; it would excite
many heart-burnings. Information has been laid before me, Filippo,
that thou art attached to a certain young person, by name Lucrezia,
daughter of Francesco Buti, a citizen of Prato.

_Filippo._ I acknowledge my attachment: it continues.

_Eugenius._ Furthermore, that thou hast offspring by her.

_Filippo._ Alas! 'tis undeniable.

_Eugenius._ I will not only legitimatize the said offspring by _motu
proprio_ and rescript to consistory and chancery....

_Filippo._ Holy Father! Holy Father! For the love of the Virgin, not a
word to consistory or chancery of the two hundred zecchins. As I hope
for salvation, I have but forty left, and thirty-nine would not serve
them.

_Eugenius._ Fear nothing. Not only will I perform what I have
promised, not only will I give the strictest order that no money be
demanded by any officer of my courts, but, under the seal of Saint
Peter, I will declare thee and Lucrezia Buti man and wife.

_Filippo._ Man and wife!

_Eugenius._ Moderate thy transport.

_Filippo._ O Holy Father! may I speak?

_Eugenius._ Surely she is not the wife of another?

_Filippo._ No, indeed.

_Eugenius._ Nor within the degrees of consanguinity and affinity?

_Filippo._ No, no, no. But ... man and wife! Consistory and chancery
are nothing to this fulmination.

_Eugenius._ How so?

_Filippo._ It is man and wife the first fortnight, but wife and man
ever after. The two figures change places: the unit is the decimal and
the decimal is the unit.

_Eugenius._ What, then, can I do for thee?

_Filippo._ I love Lucrezia; let me love her; let her love me. I can
make her at any time what she is not; I could never make her again
what she is.

_Eugenius._ The only thing I can do then is to promise I will forget
that I have heard anything about the matter. But, to forget it, I must
hear it first.

_Filippo._ In the beautiful little town of Prato, reposing in its
idleness against the hill that protects it from the north, and looking
over fertile meadows, southward to Poggio Cajano, westward to Pistoja,
there is the convent of Santa Margarita. I was invited by the sisters
to paint an altar-piece for the chapel. A novice of fifteen, my own
sweet Lucrezia, came one day alone to see me work at my Madonna. Her
blessed countenance had already looked down on every beholder lower by
the knees. I myself who made her could almost have worshipped her.

_Eugenius._ Not while incomplete; no half-virgin will do.

_Filippo._ But there knelt Lucrezia! there she knelt! first looking
with devotion at the Madonna, then with admiring wonder and grateful
delight at the artist. Could so little a heart be divided? 'Twere a
pity! There was enough for me; there is never enough for the Madonna.
Resolving on a sudden that the object of my love should be the object
of adoration to thousands, born and unborn, I swept my brush across
the maternal face, and left a blank in heaven. The little girl
screamed; I pressed her to my bosom.

_Eugenius._ In the chapel?

_Filippo._ I knew not where I was; I thought I was in Paradise.

_Eugenius._ If it was not in the chapel, the sin is venial. But a
brush against a Madonna's mouth is worse than a beard against her
votary's.

_Filippo._ I thought so too, Holy Father!

_Eugenius._ Thou sayest thou hast forty zecchins; I will try in due
season to add forty more. The fisherman must not venture to measure
forces with the pirate. Farewell! I pray God my son Filippo, to have
thee alway in His holy keeping.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] Little boys, wearing clerical habits, are often called _abbati_.




TASSO AND CORNELIA


_Tasso._ She is dead, Cornelia! she is dead!

_Cornelia._ Torquato! my Torquato! after so many years of separation
do I bend once more your beloved head to my embrace?

_Tasso._ She is dead!

_Cornelia._ Tenderest of brothers! bravest and best and most
unfortunate of men! What, in the name of heaven, so bewilders you?

_Tasso._ Sister! sister! sister! I could not save her.

_Cornelia._ Certainly it was a sad event; and they who are out of
spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of
the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent.

_Tasso._ How! What is this?

_Cornelia._ The little girl was crushed, they say, by a wheel of the
car laden with grapes, as she held out a handful of vine-leaves to one
of the oxen. And did you happen to be there at the moment?

_Tasso._ So then the little too can suffer! the ignorant, the
indigent, the unaspiring! Poor child! She was kind-hearted, else never
would calamity have befallen her.

_Cornelia._ I wish you had not seen the accident.

_Tasso._ I see it? I? I saw it not. No other is crushed where I am.
The little girl died for her kindness! Natural death!

_Cornelia._ Be calm, be composed, my brother!

_Tasso._ You would not require me to be composed or calm if you
comprehended a thousandth part of my sufferings.

_Cornelia._ Peace! peace! we know them all.

_Tasso._ Who has dared to name them? Imprisonment, derision, madness.

_Cornelia._ Hush! sweet Torquato! If ever these existed, they are
past.

_Tasso._ You do think they are sufferings? ay?

_Cornelia._ Too surely.

_Tasso._ No, not too surely: I will not have that answer. They would
have been; but Leonora was then living. Unmanly as I am! did I
complain of them? and while she was left me?

_Cornelia._ My own Torquato! is there no comfort in a sister's love?
Is there no happiness but under the passions? Think, O my brother, how
many courts there are in Italy: are the princes more fortunate than
you? Which among them all loves truly, deeply, and virtuously? Among
them all is there any one, for his genius, for his generosity, for his
gentleness, ay, for his mere humanity, worthy to be beloved?

_Tasso._ Princes! talk to me of princes! How much cross-grained wood a
little gypsum covers! a little carmine quite beautifies! Wet your
forefinger with your spittle; stick a broken gold-leaf on the
sinciput; clip off a beggar's beard to make it tresses; kiss it; fall
down before it; worship it. Are you not irradiated by the light of its
countenance? Princes! princes! Italian princes! Estes! What matters
that costly carrion? Who thinks about it? [_After a pause._] She is
dead! She is dead!

_Cornelia._ We have not heard it here.

_Tasso._ At Sorrento you hear nothing but the light surges of the sea,
and the sweet sprinkles of the guitar.

_Cornelia._ Suppose the worst to be true.

_Tasso._ Always, always.

_Cornelia._ If she ceases, as then perhaps she must, to love and to
lament you, think gratefully, contentedly, devoutly, that her arms had
clasped your neck before they were crossed upon her bosom, in that
long sleep which you have rendered placid, and from which your
harmonious voice shall once more awaken her. Yes, Torquato! her bosom
had throbbed to yours, often and often, before the organ peal shook
the fringes round the catafalque. Is not this much, from one so high,
so beautiful?

_Tasso._ Much? yes; for abject me. But I did so love her! so love her!

_Cornelia._ Ah! let the tears flow: she sends you that balm from
heaven.

_Tasso._ So love her did poor Tasso! Else, O Cornelia, it had indeed
been much. I thought, in the simplicity of my heart, that God was as
great as an emperor, and could bestow and had bestowed on me as much
as the German had conferred or could confer on his vassal. No part of
my insanity was ever held in such ridicule as this. And yet the idea
cleaves to me strangely, and is liable to stick to my shroud.

_Cornelia._ Woe betide the woman who bids you to forget that woman who
has loved you: she sins against her sex. Leonora was unblameable.
Never think ill of her for what you have suffered.

_Tasso._ Think ill of her? I? I? I? No; those we love, we love for
everything; even for the pain they have given us. But she gave me
none; it was where she was not that pain was.

_Cornelia._ Surely, if love and sorrow are destined for companionship,
there is no reason why the last comer of the two should supersede the
first.

_Tasso._ Argue with me, and you drive me into darkness. I am easily
persuaded and led on while no reasons are thrown before me. With these
you have made my temples throb again. Just heaven! dost thou grant us
fairer fields, and wider, for the whirlwind to lay waste? Dost thou
build us up habitations above the street, above the palace, above the
citadel, for the plague to enter and carouse in? Has not my youth paid
its dues, paid its penalties? Cannot our griefs come first, while we
have strength to bear them? The fool! the fool! who thinks it a
misfortune that his love is unrequited. Happier young man! look at the
violets until thou drop asleep on them. Ah! but thou must awake!

_Cornelia._ O heavens! what must you have suffered! for a man's heart
is sensitive in proportion to its greatness.

_Tasso._ And a woman's?

_Cornelia._ Alas! I know not; but I think it can be no other. Comfort
thee, comfort thee, dear Torquato!

_Tasso._ Then do not rest thy face upon my arm; it so reminds me of
her. And thy tears too! they melt me into her grave.

_Cornelia._ Hear you not her voice as it appeals to you, saying to
you, as the priests around have been saying to _her_, Blessed soul!
rest in peace?

_Tasso._ I heard it not; and yet I am sure she said it. A thousand
times has she repeated it, laying her head on my heart to quiet it,
simple girl! She told it to rest in peace ... and she went from me!
Insatiable love! ever self-torturer, never self-destroyer! the world,
with all its weight of miseries, cannot crush thee, cannot keep thee
down. Generally men's tears, like the droppings of certain springs,
only harden and petrify what they fall on; but mine sank deep into a
tender heart, and were its very blood. Never will I believe she has
left me utterly. Oftentimes, and long before her departure, I fancied
we were in heaven together. I fancied it in the fields, in the
gardens, in the palace, in the prison. I fancied it in the broad
daylight, when my eyes were open, when blessed spirits drew around me
that golden circle which one only of earth's inhabitants could enter.
Oftentimes in my sleep also I fancied it; and sometimes in the
intermediate state, in that serenity which breathes about the
transported soul, enjoying its pure and perfect rest, a span below the
feet of the Immortal.

_Cornelia._ She has not left you; do not disturb her peace by these
repinings.

_Tasso._ She will bear with them. Thou knowest not what she was,
Cornelia; for I wrote to thee about her while she seemed but human. In
my hours of sadness, not only her beautiful form, but her very voice
bent over me. How girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how
pliable in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and reproaches!
what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that angels breathe in the
metropolitan temple of the Christian world, her soul at every season
preserved one temperature. But it was when she could and did love me!
Unchanged must ever be the blessed one who has leaned in fond security
on the unchangeable. The purifying flame shoots upward, and is the
glory that encircles their brows when they meet above.

_Cornelia._ Indulge in these delightful thoughts, my Torquato! and
believe that your love is and ought to be imperishable as your glory.
Generations of men move forward in endless procession to consecrate
and commemorate both. Colour-grinders and gilders, year after year,
are bargained with to refresh the crumbling monuments and tarnished
decorations of rude, unregarded royalty, and to fasten the nails that
cramp the crown upon its head. Meanwhile, in the laurels of my
Torquato there will always be one leaf above man's reach, above time's
wrath and injury, inscribed with the name of Leonora.

_Tasso._ O Jerusalem! I have not then sung in vain the Holy Sepulchre.

_Cornelia._ After such devotion of your genius, you have undergone too
many misfortunes.

_Tasso._ Congratulate the man who has had many, and may have more. I
have had, I have, I can have, one only.

_Cornelia._ Life runs not smoothly at all seasons, even with the
happiest; but after a long course, the rocks subside, the views widen,
and it flows on more equably at the end.

_Tasso._ Have the stars smooth surfaces? No, no; but how they shine!

_Cornelia._ Capable of thoughts so exalted, so far above the earth we
dwell on, why suffer any to depress and anguish you?

_Tasso._ Cornelia, Cornelia! the mind has within its temples and
porticoes and palaces and towers: the mind has under it, ready for the
course, steeds brighter than the sun and stronger than the storm; and
beside them stand winged chariots, more in number than the Psalmist
hath attributed to the Almighty. The mind, I tell thee again, hath its
hundred gates, compared whereto the Theban are but willow wickets; and
all those hundred gates can genius throw open. But there are some that
groan heavily on their hinges, and the hand of God alone can close
them.

_Cornelia._ Torquato has thrown open those of His holy temple;
Torquato hath stood, another angel, at His tomb; and am I the sister
of Torquato? Kiss me, my brother, and let my tears run only from my
pride and joy! Princes have bestowed knighthood on the worthy and
unworthy; thou hast called forth those princes from their ranks,
pushing back the arrogant and presumptuous of them like intrusive
varlets, and conferring on the bettermost crowns and robes,
imperishable and unfading.

_Tasso._ I seem to live back into those days. I feel the helmet on my
head; I wave the standard over it: brave men smile upon me; beautiful
maidens pull them gently back by the scarf, and will not let them
break my slumber, nor undraw the curtain. Corneliolina!...

_Cornelia._ Well, my dear brother! why do you stop so suddenly in the
midst of them? They are the pleasantest and best company, and they
make you look quite happy and joyous.

_Tasso._ Corneliolina, dost thou remember Bergamo? What city was ever
so celebrated for honest and valiant men, in all classes, or for
beautiful girls! There is but one class of those: Beauty is above all
ranks; the true Madonna, the patroness and bestower of felicity, the
queen of heaven.

_Cornelia._ Hush, Torquato, hush! talk not so.

_Tasso._ What rivers, how sunshiny and revelling, are the Brembo and
the Serio! What a country the Valtellina! I went back to our father's
house, thinking to find thee again, my little sister; thinking to kick
away thy ball of yellow silk as thou wast stooping for it, to make
thee run after me and beat me. I woke early in the morning; thou wert
grown up and gone. Away to Sorrento: I knew the road: a few strides
brought me back: here I am. To-morrow, my Cornelia, we will walk
together, as we used to do, into the cool and quiet caves on the
shore; and we will catch the little breezes as they come in and go out
again on the backs of the jocund waves.

_Cornelia._ We will indeed to-morrow; but before we set out we must
take a few hours' rest, that we may enjoy our ramble the better.

_Tasso._ Our Sorrentines, I see, are grown rich and avaricious. They
have uprooted the old pomegranate hedges, and have built high walls to
prohibit the wayfarer from their vineyards.

_Cornelia._ I have a basket of grapes for you in the book-room that
overlooks our garden.

_Tasso._ Does the old twisted sage-tree grow still against the window?

_Cornelia._ It harboured too many insects at last, and there was
always a nest of scorpions in the crevice.

_Tasso._ Oh! what a prince of a sage-tree! And the well, too, with its
bucket of shining metal, large enough for the largest cocomero to cool
in it for dinner.

_Cornelia._ The well, I assure you, is as cool as ever.

_Tasso._ Delicious! delicious! And the stone-work round it, bearing no
other marks of waste than my pruning-hook and dagger left behind?

_Cornelia._ None whatever.

_Tasso._ White in that place no longer; there has been time enough for
it to become all of one colour: grey, mossy, half-decayed.

_Cornelia._ No, no; not even the rope has wanted repair.

_Tasso._ Who sings yonder?

_Cornelia._ Enchanter! No sooner did you say the word cocomero than
here comes a boy carrying one upon his head.

_Tasso._ Listen! listen! I have read in some book or other those
verses long ago. They are not unlike my _Aminta_. The very words!

_Cornelia._ Purifier of love, and humanizer of ferocity, how many, my
Torquato, will your gentle thoughts make happy!

_Tasso._ At this moment I almost think I am one among them.[10]

_Cornelia._ Be quite persuaded of it. Come, brother, come with me. You
shall bathe your heated brow and weary limbs in the chamber of your
childhood. It is there we are always the most certain of repose. The
boy shall sing to you those sweet verses; and we will reward him with
a slice of his own fruit.

_Tasso._ He deserves it; cut it thick.

_Cornelia._ Come then, my truant! Come along, my sweet smiling
Torquato!

_Tasso._ The passage is darker than ever. Is this the way to the
little court? Surely those are not the steps that lead down toward the
bath? Oh yes! we are right; I smell the lemon-blossoms. Beware of the
old wilding that bears them; it may catch your veil; it may scratch
your fingers! Pray, take care: it has many thorns about it. And now,
Leonora! you shall hear my last verses! Lean your ear a little toward
me; for I must repeat them softly under this low archway, else others
may hear them too. Ah! you press my hand once more. Drop it, drop it!
or the verses will sink into my breast again, and lie there silent!
Good girl!

      Many, well I know, there are
      Ready in your joys to share,
      And (I never blame it) you
      Are almost as ready too.
      But when comes the darker day,
      And those friends have dropt away,
      Which is there among them all
      You should, if you could, recall?
      One who wisely loves and well
      Hears and shares the griefs you tell;
      Him you ever call apart
      When the springs o'erflow the heart;
      For you know that he alone
      Wishes they were _but_ his own.
      Give, while these he may divide,
      Smiles to all the world beside.

_Cornelia._ We are now in the full light of the chamber; cannot you
remember it, having looked so intently all around?

_Tasso._ O sister! I could have slept another hour. You thought I
wanted rest: why did you waken me so early? I could have slept another
hour or longer. What a dream! But I am calm and happy.

_Cornelia._ May you never more be otherwise! Indeed, he cannot be
whose last verses are such as those.

_Tasso._ Have you written any since that morning?

_Cornelia._ What morning?

_Tasso._ When you caught the swallow in my curtains, and trod upon my
knees in catching it, luckily with naked feet. The little girl of
thirteen laughed at the outcry of her brother Torquatino, and sang
without a blush her earliest lay.

_Cornelia._ I do not recollect it.

_Tasso._ I do.

      Rondinello! rondinello!
      Tu sei nero, ma sei bello.
      Cosa fà se tu sei nero?
      Rondinello! sei il primiero
      De' volanti, palpitanti,
      (E vi sono quanti quanti!)
      Mai tenuto a questo petto,
      E perciò sei il mio diletto.[11]

_Cornelia._ Here is the cocomero; it cannot be more insipid. Try it.

_Tasso._ Where is the boy who brought it? where is the boy who sang my
_Aminta_? Serve him first; give him largely. Cut deeper; the knife is
too short: deeper; mia brava Corneliolina! quite through all the red,
and into the middle of the seeds. Well done!

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The miseries of Tasso arose not only from the imagination and the
heart. In the metropolis of the Christian world, with many admirers
and many patrons, bishops, cardinals, princes, he was left destitute,
and almost famished. These are his own words: '_Appena_ in questo
stato ho comprato _due meloni_: e benchè io sia stato _quasi sempre
infermo_, molte volte mi sono contentato del manzo: e la ministra di
latte o di zucca, _quando ho potuto averne_, mi è stata in vece di
delizie.' In another part he says that he was unable to pay the
carriage of a parcel. No wonder; if he had not wherewithal to buy
enough of zucca for a meal. Even had he been in health and appetite,
he might have satisfied his hunger with it for about five farthings,
and have left half for supper. And now a word on his insanity. Having
been so imprudent not only as to make it too evident in his poetry
that he was the lover of Leonora, but also to signify (not very
obscurely) that his love was returned, he much perplexed the Duke of
Ferrara, who, with great discretion, suggested to him the necessity of
feigning madness. The lady's honour required it from a brother; and a
true lover, to convince the world, would embrace the project with
alacrity. But there was no reason why the seclusion should be in a
dungeon, or why exercise and air should be interdicted. This cruelty,
and perhaps his uncertainty of Leonora's compassion, may well be
imagined to have produced at last the malady he had feigned. But did
Leonora love Tasso as a man would be loved? If we wish to do her
honour, let us hope it: for what greater glory can there be, than to
have estimated at the full value so exalted a genius, so affectionate
and so generous a heart!

[11] The author wrote the verses first in English, but he found it
easy to write them better in Italian: they stood in the text as below:
they only do for a girl of thirteen:

      'Swallow! swallow! though so jetty
      Are your pinions, you are pretty:
      And what matter were it though
      You were blacker than a crow?
      Of the many birds that fly
      (And how many pass me by!)
      You 're the first I ever prest,
      Of the many, to my breast:
      Therefore it is very right
      You should be my own delight.'




LA FONTAINE AND DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT


_La Fontaine._ I am truly sensible of the honour I receive, M. de la
Rochefoucault, in a visit from a personage so distinguished by his
birth and by his genius. Pardon my ambition, if I confess to you that
I have long and ardently wished for the good fortune, which I never
could promise myself, of knowing you personally.

_Rochefoucault._ My dear M. de la Fontaine!

_La Fontaine._ Not '_de_ la', not '_de_ la'. I am _La_ Fontaine,
purely and simply.

_Rochefoucault._ The whole; not derivative. You appear, in the midst
of your purity, to have been educated at court, in the lap of the
ladies. What was the last day (pardon!) I had the misfortune to miss
you there?

_La Fontaine._ I never go to court. They say one cannot go without
silk stockings; and I have only thread: plenty of them indeed, thank
God! Yet, would you believe it? Nanon, in putting a _solette_ to the
bottom of one, last week, sewed it so carelessly, she made a kind of
cord across: and I verily believe it will lame me for life; for I
walked the whole morning upon it.

_Rochefoucault._ She ought to be whipped.

_La Fontaine._ I thought so too, and grew the warmer at being unable
to find a wisp of osier or a roll of packthread in the house. Barely
had I begun with my garter, when in came the Bishop of Grasse, my old
friend Godeau, and another lord, whose name he mentioned, and they
both interceded for her so long and so touchingly, that at last I was
fain to let her rise up and go. I never saw men look down on the
erring and afflicted more compassionately. The bishop was quite
concerned for me also. But the other, although he professed to feel
even more, and said that it must surely be the pain of purgatory to
me, took a pinch of snuff, opened his waistcoat, drew down his
ruffles, and seemed rather more indifferent.

_Rochefoucault._ Providentially, in such moving scenes, the worst is
soon over. But Godeau's friend was not too sensitive.

_La Fontaine._ Sensitive! no more than if he had been educated at the
butcher's or the Sorbonne.

_Rochefoucault._ I am afraid there are as many hard hearts under satin
waistcoats as there are ugly visages under the same material in
miniature cases.

_La Fontaine._ My lord, I could show you a miniature case which
contains your humble servant, in which the painter has done what no
tailor in his senses would do; he has given me credit for a coat of
violet silk, with silver frogs as large as tortoises. But I am loath
to get up for it while the generous heart of this dog (if I mentioned
his name he would jump up) places such confidence on my knee.

_Rochefoucault._ Pray do not move on any account; above all, lest you
should disturb that amiable grey cat, fast asleep in his innocence on
your shoulder.

_La Fontaine._ Ah, rogue! art thou there? Why! thou hast not licked my
face this half-hour.

_Rochefoucault._ And more, too, I should imagine. I do not judge from
his somnolency, which, if he were President of the Parliament, could
not be graver, but from his natural sagacity. Cats weigh
practicabilities. What sort of tongue has he?

_La Fontaine._ He has the roughest tongue and the tenderest heart of
any cat in Paris. If you observe the colour of his coat, it is rather
blue than grey; a certain indication of goodness in these
contemplative creatures.

_Rochefoucault._ We were talking of his tongue alone; by which cats,
like men, are flatterers.

_La Fontaine._ Ah! you gentlemen of the court are much mistaken in
thinking that vices have so extensive a range. There are some of our
vices, like some of our diseases, from which the quadrupeds are
exempt; and those, both diseases and vices, are the most
discreditable.

_Rochefoucault._ I do not bear patiently any evil spoken of the court:
for it must be acknowledged, by the most malicious, that the court is
the purifier of the whole nation.

_La Fontaine._ I know little of the court, and less of the whole
nation; but how can this be?

_Rochefoucault._ It collects all ramblers and gamblers; all the
market-men and market-women who deal in articles which God has thrown
into their baskets, without any trouble on their part; all the
seducers and all who wish to be seduced; all the duellists who erase
their crimes with their swords, and sweat out their cowardice with
daily practice; all the nobles whose patents of nobility lie in gold
snuff-boxes, or have worn Mechlin ruffles, or are deposited within the
archives of knee-deep waistcoats; all stock-jobbers and
church-jobbers, the black-legged and the red-legged game, the flower
of the _justaucorps_, the _robe_, and the _soutane_. If these were
spread over the surface of France, instead of close compressure in the
court or cabinet, they would corrupt the whole country in two years.
As matters now stand, it will require a quarter of a century to effect
it.

_La Fontaine._ Am I not right then in preferring my beasts to yours?
But if yours were loose, mine (as you prove to me) would be the last
to suffer by it, poor dear creatures! Speaking of cats, I would have
avoided all personality that might be offensive to them: I would not
exactly have said, in so many words, that, by their tongues, they are
flatterers, like men. Language may take a turn advantageously in
favour of our friends. True, we resemble all animals in something. I
am quite ashamed and mortified that your lordship, or anybody, should
have had the start of me in this reflection. When a cat flatters with
his tongue he is not insincere: you may safely take it for a real
kindness. He is loyal, M. de la Rochefoucault! my word for him, he is
loyal. Observe too, if you please, no cat ever licks you when he wants
anything from you; so that there is nothing of baseness in such an act
of adulation, if we must call it so. For my part, I am slow to
designate by so foul a name, that (be it what it may) which is
subsequent to a kindness. Cats ask plainly for what they want.

_Rochefoucault._ And, if they cannot get it by protocols they get it
by invasion and assault.

_La Fontaine._ No! no! usually they go elsewhere, and fondle those
from whom they obtain it. In this I see no resemblance to invaders and
conquerors. I draw no parallels: I would excite no heart-burnings
between us and them. Let all have their due.

I do not like to lift this creature off, for it would waken him, else
I could find out, by some subsequent action, the reason why he has not
been on the alert to lick my cheek for so long a time.

_Rochefoucault._ Cats are wary and provident. He would not enter into
any contest with you, however friendly. He only licks your face, I
presume, while your beard is but a match for his tongue.

_La Fontaine._ Ha! you remind me. Indeed I did begin to think my beard
was rather of the roughest; for yesterday Madame de Rambouillet sent
me a plate of strawberries, the first of the season, and raised (would
you believe it?) under glass. One of these strawberries was dropping
from my lips, and I attempted to stop it. When I thought it had fallen
to the ground, 'Look for it, Nanon; pick it up and eat it,' said I.

'Master!' cried the wench, 'your beard has skewered and spitted it.'
'Honest girl,' I answered, 'come, cull it from the bed of its
adoption.'

I had resolved to shave myself this morning: but our wisest and best
resolutions too often come to nothing, poor mortals!

_Rochefoucault._ We often do very well everything but the only thing
we hope to do best of all; and our projects often drop from us by
their weight. A little while ago your friend Molière exhibited a
remarkable proof of it.

_La Fontaine._ Ah, poor Molière! the best man in the world; but
flighty, negligent, thoughtless. He throws himself into other men, and
does not remember where. The sight of an eagle, M. de la
Rochefoucault, but the memory of a fly.

_Rochefoucault_. I will give you an example: but perhaps it is already
known to you.

_La Fontaine._ Likely enough. We have each so many friends, neither of
us can trip but the other is invited to the laugh. Well; I am sure he
has no malice, and I hope I have none: but who can see his own faults?

_Rochefoucault._ He had brought out a new edition of his comedies.

_La Fontaine._ There will be fifty; there will be a hundred: nothing
in our language, or in any, is so delightful, so graceful; I will add,
so clear at once and so profound.

_Rochefoucault._ You are among the few who, seeing well his other
qualities, see that Molière is also profound. In order to present the
new edition to the dauphin, he had put on a sky-blue velvet coat,
powdered with fleurs-de-lis. He laid the volume on his library table;
and, resolving that none of the courtiers should have an opportunity
of ridiculing him for anything like absence of mind, he returned to
his bedroom, which, as may often be the case in the economy of poets,
is also his dressing-room. Here he surveyed himself in his mirror, as
well as the creeks and lagoons in it would permit.

_La Fontaine._ I do assure you, from my own observation, M. de la
Rochefoucault, that his mirror is a splendid one. I should take it to
be nearly three feet high, reckoning the frame, with the Cupid above
and the elephant under. I suspected it was the present of some great
lady; and indeed I have since heard as much.

_Rochefoucault._ Perhaps then the whole story may be quite as fabulous
as the part of it which I have been relating.

_La Fontaine._ In that case, I may be able to set you right again.

_Rochefoucault._ He found his peruke a model of perfection; tight, yet
easy; not an inch more on one side than on the other. The black patch
on the forehead....

_La Fontaine._ Black patch too! I would have given a fifteen-sous
piece to have caught him with that black patch.

_Rochefoucault._ He found it lovely, marvellous, irresistible. Those
on each cheek....

_La Fontaine._ Do you tell me he had one on each cheek?

_Rochefoucault._ Symmetrically. The cravat was of its proper descent,
and with its appropriate charge of the best Strasburg snuff upon it.
The waistcoat, for a moment, puzzled and perplexed him. He was not
quite sure whether the right number of buttons were in their holes;
nor how many above, nor how many below, it was the fashion of the week
to leave without occupation. Such a piece of ignorance is enough to
disgrace any courtier on earth. He was in the act of striking his
forehead with desperation; but he thought of the patch, fell on his
knees, and thanked Heaven for the intervention.

_La Fontaine._ Just like him! just like him! good soul!

_Rochefoucault._ The breeches ... ah! those require attention: all
proper: everything in its place. Magnificent. The stockings rolled up,
neither too loosely nor too negligently. A picture! The buckles in the
shoes ... all but one ... soon set to rights ... well thought of! And
now the sword ... ah, that cursed sword! it will bring at least one
man to the ground if it has its own way much longer ... up with it! up
with it higher.... _Allons!_ we are out of danger.

_La Fontaine._ Delightful! I have him before my eyes. What simplicity!
aye, what simplicity!

_Rochefoucault._ Now for hat. Feather in? Five at least. Bravo!

He took up hat and plumage, extended his arm to the full length,
raised it a foot above his head, lowered it thereon, opened his
fingers, and let them fall again at his side.

_La Fontaine._ Something of the comedian in that; aye, M. de la
Rochefoucault? But, on the stage or off, all is natural in Molière.

_Rochefoucault._ Away he went: he reached the palace, stood before the
dauphin.... O consternation! O despair! 'Morbleu! bête que je suis,'
exclaimed the hapless man, 'le livre, où donc est-il?' You are
forcibly struck, I perceive, by this adventure of your friend.

_La Fontaine._ Strange coincidence! quite unaccountable! There are
agents at work in our dreams, M. de la Rochefoucault, which we shall
never see out of them, on this side the grave. [_To himself._]
Sky-blue? no. Fleurs-de-lis? bah! bah! Patches? I never wore one in my
life.

_Rochefoucault._ It well becomes your character for generosity, M. La
Fontaine, to look grave, and ponder, and ejaculate, on a friend's
untoward accident, instead of laughing, as those who little know you,
might expect. I beg your pardon for relating the occurrence.

_La Fontaine._ Right or wrong, I cannot help laughing any longer.
Comical, by my faith! above the tiptop of comedy. Excuse my flashes
and dashes and rushes of merriment. Incontrollable! incontrollable!
Indeed the laughter is immoderate. And you all the while are sitting
as grave as a judge; I mean a criminal one; who has nothing to do but
to keep up his popularity by sending his rogues to the gallows. The
civil indeed have much weighty matter on their minds: they must
displease one party: and sometimes a doubt arises whether the fairer
hand or the fuller shall turn the balance.

_Rochefoucault._ I congratulate you on the return of your gravity and
composure.

_La Fontaine._ Seriously now: all my lifetime I have been the
plaything of dreams. Sometimes they have taken such possession of me,
that nobody could persuade me afterward they were other than real
events. Some are very oppressive, very painful, M. de la
Rochefoucault! I have never been able, altogether, to disembarrass my
head of the most wonderful vision that ever took possession of any
man's. There are some truly important differences, but in many
respects this laughable adventure of my innocent, honest friend
Molière seemed to have befallen myself. I can only account for it by
having heard the tale when I was half asleep.

_Rochefoucault._ Nothing more probable.

_La Fontaine._ You absolutely have relieved me from an incubus.

_Rochefoucault._ I do not yet see how.

_La Fontaine._ No longer ago than when you entered this chamber, I
would have sworn that I myself had gone to the Louvre, that I myself
had been commanded to attend the dauphin, that I myself had come into
his presence, had fallen on my knee, and cried, 'Peste! où est donc le
livre?' Ah, M. de la Rochefoucault, permit me to embrace you: this is
really to find a friend at court.

_Rochefoucault._ My visit is even more auspicious than I could have
ventured to expect: it was chiefly for the purpose of asking your
permission to make another at my return to Paris.... I am forced to go
into the country on some family affairs: but hearing that you have
spoken favourably of my _Maxims_, I presume to express my satisfaction
and delight at your good opinion.

_La Fontaine._ Pray, M. de la Rochefoucault, do me the favour to
continue here a few minutes. I would gladly reason with you on some of
your doctrines.

_Rochefoucault._ For the pleasure of hearing your sentiments on the
topics I have treated, I will, although it is late, steal a few
minutes from the court, of which I must take my leave on parting for
the province.

_La Fontaine._ Are you quite certain that all your _Maxims_ are true,
or, what is of greater consequence, that they are all original? I have
lately read a treatise written by an Englishman, Mr. Hobbes; so loyal
a man that, while others tell you kings are appointed by God, he tells
you God is appointed by kings.

_Rochefoucault._ Ah! such are precisely the men we want. If he
establishes this verity, the rest will follow.

_La Fontaine._ He does not seem to care so much about the rest. In his
treatise I find the ground-plan of your chief positions.

_Rochefoucault._ I have indeed looked over his publication; and we
agree on the natural depravity of man.

_La Fontaine._ Reconsider your expression. It appears to me that what
is natural is not depraved: that depravity is deflection from nature.
Let it pass: I cannot, however, concede to you that the generality of
men are bad. Badness is accidental, like disease. We find more
tempers good than bad, where proper care is taken in proper time.

_Rochefoucault._ Care is not nature.

_La Fontaine._ Nature is soon inoperative without it; so soon indeed
as to allow no opportunity for experiment or hypothesis. Life itself
requires care, and more continually than tempers and morals do. The
strongest body ceases to be a body in a few days without a supply of
food. When we speak of men being naturally bad or good, we mean
susceptible and retentive and communicative of them. In this case (and
there can be no other true or ostensible one) I believe that the more
are good; and nearly in the same proportion as there are animals and
plants produced healthy and vigorous than wayward and weakly. Strange
is the opinion of Mr. Hobbes, that, when God hath poured so abundantly
His benefits on other creatures, the only one capable of great good
should be uniformly disposed to greater evil.

_Rochefoucault._ Yet Holy Writ, to which Hobbes would reluctantly
appeal, countenances the supposition.

_La Fontaine._ The Jews, above all nations, were morose and splenetic.
Nothing is holy to me that lessens in my view the beneficence of my
Creator. If you could show Him ungentle and unkind in a single
instance, you would render myriads of men so, throughout the whole
course of their lives, and those too among the most religious. The
less that people talk about God the better. He has left us a design to
fill up: He has placed the canvas, the colours, and the pencils,
within reach; His directing hand is over ours incessantly; it is our
business to follow it, and neither to turn round and argue with our
Master, nor to kiss and fondle Him. We must mind our lesson, and not
neglect our time: for the room is closed early, and the lights are
suspended in another, where no one works. If every man would do all
the good he might within an hour's walk from his house, he would live
the happier and the longer: for nothing is so conducive to longevity
as the union of activity and content. But, like children, we deviate
from the road, however well we know it, and run into mire and puddles
in despite of frown and ferule.

_Rochefoucault._ Go on, M. La Fontaine! pray go on. We are walking in
the same labyrinth, always within call, always within sight of each
other. We set out at its two extremities, and shall meet at last.

_La Fontaine._ I doubt it. From deficiency of care proceed many
vices, both in men and children, and more still from care taken
improperly. Mr. Hobbes attributes not only the order and peace of
society, but equity and moderation and every other virtue, to the
coercion and restriction of the laws. The laws, as now constituted, do
a great deal of good; they also do a great deal of mischief. They
transfer more property from the right owner in six months than all the
thieves of the kingdom do in twelve. What the thieves take they soon
disseminate abroad again; what the laws take they hoard. The thief
takes a part of your property: he who prosecutes the thief for you
takes another part: he who condemns the thief goes to the tax-gatherer
and takes the third. Power has been hitherto occupied in no employment
but in keeping down Wisdom. Perhaps the time may come when Wisdom
shall exert her energy in repressing the sallies of Power.

_Rochefoucault._ I think it more probable that they will agree; that
they will call together their servants of all liveries, to collect
what they can lay their hands upon; and that meanwhile they will sit
together like good housewives, making nets from our purses to cover
the coop for us. If you would be plump and in feather, pick up your
millet and be quiet in your darkness. Speculate on nothing here below,
and I promise you a nosegay in Paradise.

_La Fontaine._ Believe me, I shall be most happy to receive it there
at your hands, my lord duke.

The greater number of men, I am inclined to think, with all the
defects of education, all the frauds committed on their credulity, all
the advantages taken of their ignorance and supineness, are disposed,
on most occasions, rather to virtue than to vice, rather to the kindly
affections than the unkindly, rather to the social than the selfish.

_Rochefoucault._ Here we differ: and were my opinion the same as
yours, my book would be little read and less commended.

_La Fontaine._ Why think so?

_Rochefoucault._ For this reason. Every man likes to hear evil of all
men: every man is delighted to take the air of the common, though not
a soul will consent to stand within his own allotment. No enclosure
act! no finger-posts! You may call every creature under heaven fool
and rogue, and your auditor will join with you heartily: hint to him
the slightest of his own defects or foibles, and he draws the rapier.
You and he are the judges of the world, but not its denizens.

_La Fontaine._ Mr. Hobbes has taken advantage of these weaknesses. In
his dissertation he betrays the timidity and malice of his character.
It must be granted he reasons well, according to the view he has taken
of things; but he has given no proof whatever that his view is a
correct one. I will believe that it is, when I am persuaded that
sickness is the natural state of the body, and health the unnatural.
If you call him a sound philosopher, you may call a mummy a sound man.
Its darkness, its hardness, its forced uprightness, and the place in
which you find it, may commend it to you; give me rather some weakness
and peccability, with vital warmth and human sympathies. A shrewd
reasoner in one thing, a sound philosopher is another. I admire your
power and precision. Monks will admonish us how little the author of
the _Maxims_ knows of the world; and heads of colleges will cry out 'a
libel on human nature!' but when they hear your titles, and, above
all, your credit at court, they will cast back cowl, and peruke, and
lick your boots. You start with great advantages. Throwing off from a
dukedom, you are sure of enjoying, if not the tongue of these
puzzlers, the full cry of the more animating, and will certainly be as
long-lived as the imperfection of our language will allow. I consider
your _Maxims_ as a broken ridge of hills, on the shady side of which
you are fondest of taking your exercise: but the same ridge hath also
a sunny one. You attribute (let me say it again) all actions to
self-interest. Now, a sentiment of interest must be preceded by
calculation, long or brief, right or erroneous. Tell me then in what
region lies the origin of that pleasure which a family in the country
feels on the arrival of an unexpected friend. I say a family in the
country; because the sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon
canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of
delight. If I may judge from the few examples I have been in a
position to see, no earthly one can be greater. There are pleasures
which lie near the surface, and which are blocked up by artificial
ones, or are diverted by some mechanical scheme, or are confined by
some stiff evergreen vista of low advantage. But these pleasures do
occasionally burst forth in all their brightness; and, if ever you
shall by chance find one of them, you will sit by it, I hope,
complacently and cheerfully, and turn toward it the kindliest aspect
of your meditations.

_Rochefoucault._ Many, indeed most people, will differ from me.
Nothing is quite the same to the intellect of any two men, much less
of all. When one says to another, 'I am entirely of your opinion,' he
uses in general an easy and indifferent phrase, believing in its
accuracy, without examination, without thought. The nearest
resemblance in opinions, if we could trace every line of it, would be
found greatly more divergent than the nearest in the human form or
countenance, and in the same proportion as the varieties of mental
qualities are more numerous and fine than of the bodily. Hence I do
not expect nor wish that my opinions should in all cases be similar to
those of others: but in many I shall be gratified if, by just degrees
and after a long survey, those of others approximate to mine. Nor does
this my sentiment spring from a love of power, as in many good men
quite unconsciously, when they would make proselytes, since I shall
see few and converse with fewer of them, and profit in no way by their
adherence and favour; but it springs from a natural and a cultivated
love of all truths whatever, and from a certainty that these delivered
by me are conducive to the happiness and dignity of man. You shake
your head.

_La Fontaine._ Make it out.

_Rochefoucault._ I have pointed out to him at what passes he hath
deviated from his true interest, and where he hath mistaken
selfishness for generosity, coldness for judgment, contraction of
heart for policy, rank for merit, pomp for dignity; of all mistakes,
the commonest and the greatest. I am accused of paradox and
distortion. On paradox I shall only say, that every new moral truth
has been called so. Inexperienced and negligent observers see no
difference in the operations of ravelling and unravelling: they never
come close enough: they despise plain work.

_La Fontaine._ The more we simplify things, the better we descry their
substances and qualities. A good writer will not coil them up and
press them into the narrowest possible space, nor macerate them into
such particles that nothing shall be remaining of their natural
contexture. You are accused of this too, by such as have forgotten
your title-page, and who look for treatises where maxims only have
been promised. Some of them perhaps are spinning out sermons and
dissertations from the poorest paragraph in the volume.

_Rochefoucault._ Let them copy and write as they please; against or
for, modestly or impudently. I have hitherto had no assailant who is
not of too slender a make to be detained an hour in the stocks he had
unwarily put his foot into. If you hear of any, do not tell of them.
On the subjects of my remarks, had others thought as I do, my labour
would have been spared me. I am ready to point out the road where I
know it, to whosoever wants it; but I walk side by side with few or
none.

_La Fontaine._ We usually like those roads which show us the fronts of
our friends' houses and the pleasure-grounds about them, and the
smooth garden-walks, and the trim espaliers, and look at them with
more satisfaction than at the docks and nettles that are thrown in
heaps behind. The _Offices_ of Cicero are imperfect; yet who would not
rather guide his children by them than by the line and compass of
harder-handed guides; such as Hobbes for instance?

_Rochefoucault._ Imperfect as some gentlemen in hoods may call the
_Offices_, no founder of a philosophical or of a religious sect has
been able to add to them anything important.

_La Fontaine._ Pity! that Cicero carried with him no better
authorities than reason and humanity. He neither could work miracles,
nor damn you for disbelieving them. Had he lived fourscore years
later, who knows but he might have been another Simon Peter, and have
talked Hebrew as fluently as Latin, all at once! Who knows but we
might have heard of his patrimony! who knows but our venerable popes
might have claimed dominion from him, as descendant from the kings of
Rome!

_Rochefoucault._ The hint, some centuries ago, would have made your
fortune, and that saintly cat there would have kittened in a mitre.

_La Fontaine._ Alas! the hint could have done nothing: Cicero could
not have lived later.

_Rochefoucault._ I warrant him. Nothing is easier to correct than
chronology. There is not a lady in Paris, nor a jockey in Normandy,
that is not eligible to a professor's chair in it. I have seen a man's
ancestor, whom nobody ever saw before, spring back over twenty
generations. Our Vatican Jupiters have as little respect for old
Chronos as the Cretan had: they mutilate him when and where they think
necessary, limp as he may by the operation.

_La Fontaine._ When I think, as you make me do, how ambitious men are,
even those whose teeth are too loose (one would fancy) for a bite at
so hard an apple as the devil of ambition offers them, I am inclined
to believe that we are actuated not so much by selfishness as you
represent it, but under another form, the love of power. Not to speak
of territorial dominion or political office, and such other things as
we usually class under its appurtenances, do we not desire an
exclusive control over what is beautiful and lovely? the possession
of pleasant fields, of well-situated houses, of cabinets, of images,
of pictures, and indeed of many things pleasant to see but useless to
possess; even of rocks, of streams, and of fountains? These things,
you will tell me, have their utility. True, but not to the wisher, nor
does the idea of it enter his mind. Do not we wish that the object of
our love should be devoted to us only; and that our children should
love us better than their brothers and sisters, or even than the
mother who bore them? Love would be arrayed in the purple robe of
sovereignty, mildly as he may resolve to exercise his power.

_Rochefoucault._ Many things which appear to be incontrovertible are
such for their age only, and must yield to others which, in their age,
are equally so. There are only a few points that are always above the
waves. Plain truths, like plain dishes, are commended by everybody,
and everybody leaves them whole. If it were not even more impertinent
and presumptuous to praise a great writer in his presence than to
censure him in his absence, I would venture to say that your prose,
from the few specimens you have given of it, is equal to your verse.
Yet, even were I the possessor of such a style as yours, I would never
employ it to support my _Maxims_. You would think a writer very
impudent and self-sufficient who should quote his own works: to defend
them is doing more. We are the worst auxiliaries in the world to the
opinions we have brought into the field. Our business is, to measure
the ground, and to calculate the forces; then let them try their
strength. If the weak assails me, he thinks me weak; if the strong, he
thinks me strong. He is more likely to compute ill his own vigour than
mine. At all events, I love inquiry, even when I myself sit down. And
I am not offended in my walks if my visitor asks me whither does that
alley lead. It proves that he is ready to go on with me; that he sees
some space before him; and that he believes there may be something
worth looking after.

_La Fontaine._ You have been standing a long time, my lord duke: I
must entreat you to be seated.

_Rochefoucault._ Excuse me, my dear M. la Fontaine; I would much
rather stand.

_La Fontaine._ Mercy on us! have you been upon your legs ever since
you rose to leave me?

_Rochefoucault._ A change of position is agreeable: a friend always
permits it.

_La Fontaine._ Sad doings! sad oversight! The other two chairs were
sent yesterday evening to be scoured and mended. But that dog is the
best tempered dog! an angel of a dog, I do assure you; he would have
gone down in a moment, at a word. I am quite ashamed of myself for
such inattention. With your sentiments of friendship for me, why could
you not have taken the liberty to shove him gently off, rather than
give me this uneasiness?

_Rochefoucault._ My true and kind friend! we authors are too
sedentary; we are heartily glad of standing to converse, whenever we
can do it without any restraint on our acquaintance.

_La Fontaine._ I must reprove that animal when he uncurls his body. He
seems to be dreaming of Paradise and houris. Ay, twitch thy ear, my
child! I wish at my heart there were as troublesome a fly about the
other: God forgive me! The rogue covers all my clean linen! shirt and
cravat! what cares he!

_Rochefoucault._ Dogs are not very modest.

_La Fontaine._ Never say that, M. de la Rochefoucault! The most modest
people upon earth! Look at a dog's eyes, and he half closes them, or
gently turns them away, with a motion of the lips, which he licks
languidly, and of the tail, which he stirs tremulously, begging your
forbearance. I am neither blind nor indifferent to the defects of
these good and generous creatures. They are subject to many such as
men are subject to: among the rest, they disturb the neighbourhood in
the discussion of their private causes; they quarrel and fight on
small motives, such as a little bad food, or a little vainglory, or
the sex. But it must be something present or near that excites them;
and they calculate not the extent of evil they may do or suffer.

_Rochefoucault._ Certainly not: how should dogs calculate?

_La Fontaine._ I know nothing of the process. I am unable to inform
you how they leap over hedges and brooks, with exertion just
sufficient, and no more. In regard to honour and a sense of dignity,
let me tell you, a dog accepts the subsidies of his friends, but never
claims them: a dog would not take the field to obtain power for a son,
but would leave the son to obtain it by his own activity and prowess.
He conducts his visitor or inmate out a-hunting, and makes a present
of the game to him as freely as an emperor to an elector. Fond as he
is of slumber, which is indeed one of the pleasantest and best things
in the universe, particularly after dinner, he shakes it off as
willingly as he would a gadfly, in order to defend his master from
theft or violence. Let the robber or assailant speak as courteously
as he may, he waives your diplomatical terms, gives his reasons in
plain language, and makes war. I could say many other things to his
advantage; but I never was malicious, and would rather let both
parties plead for themselves; give me the dog, however.

_Rochefoucault._ Faith! I will give you both, and never boast of my
largess in so doing.

_La Fontaine._ I trust I have removed from you the suspicion of
selfishness in my client, and I feel it quite as easy to make a
properer disposal of another ill attribute, namely cruelty, which we
vainly try to shuffle off our own shoulders upon others, by employing
the offensive and most unjust term, brutality. But to convince you of
my impartiality, now I have defended the dog from the first obloquy, I
will defend the man from the last, hoping to make you think better of
each. What you attribute to cruelty, both while we are children and
afterward, may be assigned, for the greater part, to curiosity.
Cruelty tends to the extinction of life, the dissolution of matter,
the imprisonment and sepulture of truth; and if it were our ruling and
chief propensity, the human race would have been extinguished in a few
centuries after its appearance. Curiosity, in its primary sense,
implies care and consideration.

_Rochefoucault._ Words often deflect from their primary sense. We find
the most curious men the most idle and silly, the least observant and
conservative.

_La Fontaine._ So we think; because we see every hour the idly
curious, and not the strenuously; we see only the persons of the one
set, and only the works of the other.

More is heard of cruelty than of curiosity, because while curiosity is
silent both in itself and about its object, cruelty on most occasions
is like the wind, boisterous in itself, and exciting a murmur and
bustle in all the things it moves among. Added to which, many of the
higher topics whereto our curiosity would turn, are intercepted from
it by the policy of our guides and rulers; while the principal ones on
which cruelty is most active, are pointed to by the sceptre and the
truncheon, and wealth and dignity are the rewards of their attainment.
What perversion! He who brings a bullock into a city for its
sustenance is called a butcher, and nobody has the civility to take
off the hat to him, although knowing him as perfectly as I know
Matthieu le Mince, who served me with those fine kidneys you must have
remarked in passing through the kitchen: on the contrary, he who
reduces the same city to famine is styled M. le Général or M. le
Maréchal, and gentlemen like you, unprejudiced (as one would think)
and upright, make room for him in the antechamber.

_Rochefoucault._ He obeys orders without the degrading influence of
any passion.

_La Fontaine._ Then he commits a baseness the more, a cruelty the
greater. He goes off at another man's setting, as ingloriously as a
rat-trap: he produces the worst effects of fury, and feels none: a
Cain unirritated by a brother's incense.

_Rochefoucault._ I would hide from you this little rapier, which, like
the barber's pole, I have often thought too obtrusive in the streets.

_La Fontaine._ Never shall I think my countrymen half civilized while
on the dress of a courtier is hung the instrument of a cut-throat. How
deplorably feeble must be that honour which requires defending at
every hour of the day!

_Rochefoucault._ Ingenious as you are, M. La Fontaine, I do not
believe that, on this subject, you could add anything to what you have
spoken already; but really, I do think one of the most instructive
things in the world would be a dissertation on dress by you.

_La Fontaine._ Nothing can be devised more commodious than the dress
in fashion. Perukes have fallen among us by the peculiar dispensation
of Providence. As in all the regions of the globe the indigenous have
given way to stronger creatures, so have they (partly at least) on the
human head. At present the wren and the squirrel are dominant there.
Whenever I have a mind for a filbert, I have only to shake my foretop.
Improvement does not end in that quarter. I might forget to take my
pinch of snuff when it would do me good, unless I saw a store of it on
another's cravat. Furthermore, the slit in the coat behind tells in a
moment what it was made for: a thing of which, in regard to ourselves,
the best preachers have to remind us all our lives: then the central
part of our habiliment has either its loop-hole or its portcullis in
the opposite direction, still more demonstrative. All these are for
very mundane purposes: but Religion and Humanity have whispered some
later utilities. We pray the more commodiously, and of course the more
frequently, for rolling up a royal ell of stocking round about our
knees: and our high-heeled shoes must surely have been worn by some
angel, to save those insects which the flat-footed would have crushed
to death.

_Rochefoucault._ Ah! the good dog has awakened: he saw me and my
rapier, and ran away. Of what breed is he? for I know nothing of dogs.

_La Fontaine._ And write so well!

_Rochefoucault._ Is he a truffler?

_La Fontaine._ No, not he; but quite as innocent.

_Rochefoucault._ Something of the shepherd-dog, I suspect.

_La Fontaine._ Nor that neither; although he fain would make you
believe it. Indeed he is very like one: pointed nose, pointed ears,
apparently stiff, but readily yielding; long hair, particularly about
the neck; noble tail over his back, three curls deep, exceedingly
pleasant to stroke down again; straw-colour all above, white all
below. He might take it ill if you looked for it; but so it is, upon
my word: an ermeline might envy it.

_Rochefoucault._ What are his pursuits?

_La Fontaine._ As to pursuit and occupation, he is good for nothing.
In fact, I like those dogs best ... and those men too.

_Rochefoucault._ Send Nanon then for a pair of silk stockings, and
mount my carriage with me: it stops at the Louvre.




LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS


_Timotheus._ I am delighted, my Cousin Lucian, to observe how popular
are become your _Dialogues of the Dead_. Nothing can be so gratifying
and satisfactory to a rightly disposed mind, as the subversion of
imposture by the force of ridicule. It hath scattered the crowd of
heathen gods as if a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of them. Now,
I am confident you never would have assailed the false religion,
unless you were prepared for the reception of the true. For it hath
always been an indication of rashness and precipitancy, to throw down
an edifice before you have collected materials for reconstruction.

_Lucian._ Of all metaphors and remarks, I believe this of yours, my
good cousin Timotheus, is the most trite, and pardon me if I add, the
most untrue. Surely we ought to remove an error the instant we detect
it, although it may be out of our competence to state and establish
what is right. A lie should be exposed as soon as born: we are not to
wait until a healthier child is begotten. Whatever is evil in any way
should be abolished. The husbandman never hesitates to eradicate
weeds, or to burn them up, because he may not happen at the time to
carry a sack on his shoulder with wheat or barley in it. Even if no
wheat or barley is to be sown in future, the weeding and burning are
in themselves beneficial, and something better will spring up.

_Timotheus._ That is not so certain.

_Lucian._ Doubt it as you may, at least you will allow that the
temporary absence of evil is an advantage.

_Timotheus._ I think, O Lucian, you would reason much better if you
would come over to our belief.

_Lucian._ I was unaware that belief is an encourager and guide to
reason.

_Timotheus._ Depend upon it, there can be no stability of truth, no
elevation of genius, without an unwavering faith in our holy
mysteries. Babes and sucklings who are blest with it, stand higher,
intellectually as well as morally, than stiff unbelievers and proud
sceptics.

_Lucian._ I do not wonder that so many are firm holders of this novel
doctrine. It is pleasant to grow wise and virtuous at so small an
expenditure of thought or time. This saying of yours is exactly what I
heard spoken with angry gravity not long ago.

_Timotheus._ Angry! no wonder! for it is impossible to keep our
patience when truths so incontrovertible are assailed. What was your
answer?

_Lucian._ My answer was: If you talk in this manner, my honest friend,
you will excite a spirit of ridicule in the gravest and most saturnine
of men, who never had let a laugh out of their breasts before. Lie to
_me_, and welcome; but beware lest your own heart take you to task for
it, reminding you that both anger and falsehood are reprehended by all
religions, yours included.

_Timotheus._ Lucian! Lucian! you have always been called profane.

_Lucian._ For what? for having turned into ridicule the gods whom you
have turned out of house and home, and are reducing to dust?

_Timotheus._ Well; but you are equally ready to turn into ridicule the
true and holy.

_Lucian._ In other words, to turn myself into a fool. He who brings
ridicule to bear against Truth, finds in his hand a blade without a
hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame of wit flickers and
expires against the incombustible walls of her sanctuary.

_Timotheus._ Fine talking! Do you know, you have really been called an
atheist?

_Lucian._ Yes, yes; I know it well. But, in fact, I believe there are
almost as few atheists in the world as there are Christians.

_Timotheus._ How! as few? Most of Europe, most of Asia, most of
Africa, is Christian.

_Lucian._ Show me five men in each who obey the commands of Christ,
and I will show you five hundred in this very city who observe the
dictates of Pythagoras. Every Pythagorean obeys his defunct
philosopher; and almost every Christian disobeys his living God. Where
is there one who practises the most important and the easiest of His
commands, to abstain from strife? Men easily and perpetually find
something new to quarrel about; but the objects of affection are
limited in number, and grow up scantily and slowly. Even a small house
is often too spacious for them, and there is a vacant seat at the
table. Religious men themselves, when the Deity has bestowed on them
everything they prayed for, discover, as a peculiar gift of
Providence, some fault in the actions or opinions of a neighbour, and
run it down, crying and shouting after it, with more alacrity and more
clamour than boys would a leveret or a squirrel in the playground. Are
our years and our intellects, and the word of God itself, given us for
this, O Timotheus?

_Timotheus._ A certain latitude, a liberal construction....

_Lucian._ Ay, ay! These 'liberal constructions' let loose all the
worst passions into those 'certain latitudes'. The priests themselves,
who ought to be the poorest, are the richest; who ought to be the most
obedient, are the most refractory and rebellious. All trouble and all
piety are vicarious. They send missionaries, at the cost of others,
into foreign lands, to teach observances which they supersede at home.
I have ridiculed the puppets of all features, all colours, all sizes,
by which an impudent and audacious set of impostors have been gaining
an easy livelihood these two thousand years.

_Timotheus._ Gently! gently! Ours have not been at it yet two hundred.
We abolish all idolatry. We know that Jupiter was not the father of
gods and men: we know that Mars was not the Lord of Hosts: we know who
is: we are quite at ease upon that question.

_Lucian._ Are you so fanatical, my good Timotheus, as to imagine that
the Creator of the world cares a fig by what appellation you adore
Him? whether you call Him on one occasion Jupiter, on another Apollo?
I will not add Mars or Lord of Hosts; for, wanting as I may be in
piety, I am not, and never was, so impious as to call the Maker the
Destroyer; to call Him Lord of Hosts who, according to your holiest of
books, declared so lately and so plainly that He permits no hosts at
all; much less will He take the command of one against another. Would
any man in his senses go down into the cellar, and seize first an
amphora from the right, and then an amphora from the left, for the
pleasure of breaking them in pieces, and of letting out the wine he
had taken the trouble to put in? We are not contented with attributing
to the gods our own infirmities; we make them even more wayward, even
more passionate, even more exigent and more malignant: and then some
of us try to coax and cajole them, and others run away from them
outright.

_Timotheus._ No wonder: but only in regard to yours: and even those
are types.

_Lucian._ There are honest men who occupy their lives in discovering
types for all things.

_Timotheus._ Truly and rationally thou speakest now. Honest men and
wise men above their fellows are they, and the greatest of all
discoverers. There are many types above thy reach, O Lucian!

_Lucian._ And one which my mind, and perhaps yours also, can
comprehend. There is in Italy, I hear, on the border of a quiet and
beautiful lake, a temple dedicated to Diana; the priests of which
temple have murdered each his predecessor for unrecorded ages.

_Timotheus._ What of that? They were idolaters.

_Lucian._ They made the type, however: take it home with you, and hang
it up in your temple.

_Timotheus._ Why! you seem to have forgotten on a sudden that I am a
Christian: you are talking of the heathens.

_Lucian._ True! true! I am near upon eighty years of age, and to my
poor eyesight one thing looks very like another.

_Timotheus._ You are too indifferent.

_Lucian._ No indeed. I love those best who quarrel least, and who
bring into public use the most civility and good humour.

_Timotheus._ Our holy religion inculcates this duty especially.

_Lucian._ Such being the case, a pleasant story will not be thrown
away upon you. Xenophanes, my townsman of Samosata, was resolved to
buy a new horse: he had tried him, and liked him well enough. I asked
him why he wished to dispose of his old one, knowing how sure-footed
he was, how easy in his paces, and how quiet in his pasture. 'Very
true, O Lucian,' said he; 'the horse is a clever horse; noble eye,
beautiful figure, stately step; rather too fond of neighing and of
shuffling a little in the vicinity of a mare; but tractable and good
tempered.' 'I would not have parted with him then,' said I. 'The fact
is,' replied he, 'my grandfather, whom I am about to visit, likes no
horses but what are _Saturnized_. To-morrow I begin my journey: come
and see me set out.' I went at the hour appointed. The new purchase
looked quiet and demure; but _he_ also pricked up his ears, and gave
sundry other tokens of equinity, when the more interesting part of his
fellow-creatures came near him. As the morning oats began to operate,
he grew more and more unruly, and snapped at one friend of Xenophanes,
and sidled against another, and gave a kick at a third. 'All in play!
all in play!' said Xenophanes; 'his nature is more of a lamb's than a
horse's.' However, these mute salutations being over, away went
Xenophanes. In the evening, when my lamp had just been replenished for
the commencement of my studies, my friend came in striding as if he
were still across the saddle. 'I am apprehensive, O Xenophanes,' said
I, 'your new acquaintance has disappointed you.' 'Not in the least,'
answered he. 'I do assure you, O Lucian! he is the very horse I was
looking out for.' On my requesting him to be seated, he no more
thought of doing so than if it had been in the presence of the Persian
king. I then handed my lamp to him, telling him (as was true) it
contained all the oil I had in the house, and protesting I should be
happier to finish my Dialogue in the morning. He took the lamp into my
bedroom, and appeared to be much refreshed on his return.
Nevertheless, he treated his chair with great delicacy and
circumspection, and evidently was afraid of breaking it by too sudden
a descent. I did not revert to the horse: but he went on of his own
accord. 'I declare to you, O Lucian! it is impossible for me to be
mistaken in a palfrey. My new one is the only one in Samosata that
could carry me at one stretch to my grandfather's.' 'But _has_ he?'
said I, timidly. 'No; he has not yet,' answered my friend. 'To-morrow,
then, I am afraid, we really must lose you.' 'No,' said he; 'the horse
does trot hard: but he is the better for that: I shall soon get used
to him.' In fine, my worthy friend deferred his visit to his
grandfather: his rides were neither long nor frequent: he was ashamed
to part with his purchase, boasted of him everywhere, and, humane as
he is by nature, could almost have broken on the cross the quiet
contented owner of old Bucephalus.

_Timotheus._ Am I to understand by this, O Cousin Lucian, that I ought
to be contented with the impurities of paganism?

_Lucian._ Unless you are very unreasonable. A moderate man finds
plenty in it.

_Timotheus._ We abominate the Deities who patronize them, and we hurl
down the images of the monsters.

_Lucian._ Sweet cousin! be tenderer to my feelings. In such a tempest
as this, my spark of piety may be blown out. Hold your hand cautiously
before it, until I can find my way. Believe me, no Deities (out of
their own houses) patronize immorality; none patronize unruly
passions, least of all the fierce and ferocious. In my opinion, you
are wrong in throwing down the images of those among them who look on
you benignly: the others I give up to your discretion. But I think it
impossible to stand habitually in the presence of a sweet and open
countenance, graven or depicted, without in some degree partaking of
the character it expresses. Never tell any man that he can derive no
good, in his devotions, from this or from that: abolish neither hope
nor gratitude.

_Timotheus._ God is offended at vain efforts to represent Him.

_Lucian._ No such thing, my dear Timotheus. If you knew Him at all,
you would not talk of Him so irreverently. He is pleased, I am
convinced, at every effort to resemble Him, at every wish to remind
both ourselves and others of His benefits. You cannot think so often
of Him without an effigy.

_Timotheus._ What likeness is there in the perishable to the
Unperishable?

_Lucian._ I see no reason why there may not be a similitude. All that
the senses can comprehend may be represented by any material; clay or
fig-tree, bronze or ivory, porphyry or gold. Indeed I have a faint
remembrance that, according to your sacred volumes, man was made by
God after His own image. If so, man's intellectual powers are worthily
exercised in attempting to collect all that is beautiful, serene, and
dignified, and to bring Him back to earth again by showing Him the
noblest of His gifts, the work most like His own. Surely He cannot
hate or abandon those who thus cherish His memory, and thus implore
His regard. Perishable and imperfect is everything human: but in these
very qualities I find the best reason for striving to attain what is
least so. Would not any father be gratified by seeing his child
attempt to delineate his features? And would not the gratification be
rather increased than diminished by his incapacity? How long shall the
narrow mind of man stand between goodness and omnipotence? Perhaps the
effigy of your ancestor Isknos is unlike him; whether it is or no, you
cannot tell; but you keep it in your hall, and would be angry if
anybody broke it to pieces or defaced it. Be quite sure there are many
who think as much of their gods as you think of your ancestor Isknos,
and who see in their images as good a likeness. Let men have their own
way, especially their way to the temples. It is easier to drive them
out of one road than into another. Our judicious and good-humoured
Trajan has found it necessary on many occasions to chastise the
law-breakers of your sect, indifferent as he is what gods are
worshipped, so long as their followers are orderly and decorous. The
fiercest of the Dacians never knocked off Jupiter's beard, or broke an
arm off Venus; and the emperor will hardly tolerate in those who have
received a liberal education what he would punish in barbarians. Do
not wear out his patience: try rather to imitate his equity, his
equanimity, and forbearance.

_Timotheus._ I have been listening to you with much attention, O
Lucian! for I seldom have heard you speak with such gravity. And yet,
O Cousin Lucian! I really do find in you a sad deficiency of that
wisdom which alone is of any value. You talk of Trajan! what is
Trajan?

_Lucian._ A beneficent citizen, an impartial judge, a sagacious ruler;
the comrade of every brave soldier, the friend and associate of every
man eminent in genius, throughout his empire, the empire of the world.
All arts, all sciences, all philosophies, all religions, are protected
by him. Wherefore his name will flourish, when the proudest of these
have perished in the land of Egypt. Philosophies and religions will
strive, struggle, and suffocate one another. Priesthoods, I know not
how many, are quarrelling and scuffling in the street at this instant,
all calling on Trajan to come and knock an antagonist on the head; and
the most peaceful of them, as it wishes to be thought, proclaiming him
an infidel for turning a deaf ear to its imprecations. Mankind was
never so happy as under his guidance; and he has nothing now to do but
to put down the battles of the gods. If they must fight it out, he
will insist on our neutrality.

_Timotheus._ He has no authority and no influence over us in matters
of faith. A wise and upright man, whose serious thoughts lead him
forward to religion, will never be turned aside from it by any worldly
consideration or any human force.

_Lucian._ True: but mankind is composed not entirely of the upright
and the wise. I suspect that we may find some, here and there, who are
rather too fond of novelties in the furniture of temples; and I have
observed that new sects are apt to warp, crack, and split, under the
heat they generate. Our homely old religion has run into fewer
quarrels, ever since the Centaurs and Lapiths (whose controversy was
on a subject quite comprehensible), than yours has engendered in
twenty years.

_Timotheus._ We shall obviate that inconvenience by electing a supreme
Pontiff to decide all differences. It has been seriously thought about
long ago: and latterly we have been making out an ideal series down to
the present day, in order that our successors in the ministry may have
stepping-stones up to the fountain-head. At first the disseminators of
our doctrines were equal in their commission; we do not approve of
this any longer, for reasons of our own.

_Lucian._ You may shut, one after another, all our other temples, but,
I plainly see, you will never shut the temple of Janus. The Roman
Empire will never lose its pugnacious character while your sect
exists. The only danger is, lest the fever rage internally and consume
the vitals. If you sincerely wish your religion to be long-lived,
maintain in it the spirit of its constitution, and keep it patient,
humble, abstemious, domestic, and zealous only in the services of
humanity. Whenever the higher of your priesthood shall attain the
riches they are aiming at, the people will envy their possessions and
revolt from their impostures. Do not let them seize upon the palace,
and shove their God again into the manger.

_Timotheus._ Lucian! Lucian! I call this impiety.

_Lucian._ So do I, and shudder at its consequences. Caverns which at
first look inviting, the roof at the aperture green with overhanging
ferns and clinging mosses, then glittering with native gems and with
water as sparkling and pellucid, freshening the air all around; these
caverns grow darker and closer, until you find yourself among animals
that shun the daylight, adhering to the walls, hissing along the
bottom, flapping, screeching, gaping, glaring, making you shrink at
the sounds, and sicken at the smells, and afraid to advance or
retreat.

_Timotheus._ To what can this refer? Our caverns open on verdure, and
terminate in veins of gold.

_Lucian._ Veins of gold, my good Timotheus, such as your excavations
have opened and are opening, in the spirit of avarice and ambition,
will be washed (or as you would say, _purified_) in streams of blood.
Arrogance, intolerance, resistance to authority and contempt of law,
distinguish your aspiring sectarians from the other subjects of the
empire.

_Timotheus._ Blindness hath often a calm and composed countenance;
but, my Cousin Lucian! it usually hath also the advantage of a
cautious and a measured step. It hath pleased God to blind you, like
all the other adversaries of our faith; but He has given you no staff
to lean upon. You object against us the very vices from which we are
peculiarly exempt.

_Lucian._ Then it is all a story, a fable, a fabrication, about one of
your earlier leaders cutting off with his sword a servant's ear? If
the accusation is true, the offence is heavy. For not only was the
wounded man innocent of any provocation, but he is represented as
being in the service of the high priest at Jerusalem. Moreover, from
the direction and violence of the blow, it is evident that his life
was aimed at. According to law, you know, my dear cousin, all the
party might have been condemned to death, as accessories to an attempt
at murder. I am unwilling to think so unfavourably of your sect; nor
indeed do I see the possibility that, in such an outrage, the
principal could be pardoned. For any man but a soldier to go about
armed is against the Roman law, which, on that head, as on many
others, is borrowed from the Athenian; and it is incredible that in
any civilized country so barbarous a practice can be tolerated.
Travellers do indeed relate that, in certain parts of India, there are
princes at whose courts even civilians are armed. But _traveller_ has
occasionally the same signification as _liar_, and _India_ as _fable_.
However, if the practice really does exist in that remote and rarely
visited country, it must be in some region of it very far beyond the
Indus or the Ganges: for the nations situated between those rivers
are, and were in the reign of Alexander, and some thousand years
before his birth, as civilized as the Europeans; nay, incomparably
more courteous, more industrious, and more pacific; the three grand
criterions.

But answer my question: is there any foundation for so mischievous a
report?

_Timotheus._ There was indeed, so to say, an ear, or something of the
kind, abscinded; probably by mistake. But high priests' servants are
propense to follow the swaggering gait of their masters, and to carry
things with a high hand, in such wise as to excite the choler of the
most quiet. If you knew the character of the eminently holy man who
punished the atrocious insolence of that bloody-minded wretch, you
would be sparing of your animadversions. We take him for our model.

_Lucian._ I see you do.

_Timotheus._ We proclaim him Prince of the Apostles.

_Lucian._ I am the last in the world to question his princely
qualifications; but, if I might advise you, it should be to follow in
preference Him whom you acknowledge to be an unerring guide; who
delivered to you His ordinances with His own hand, equitable, plain,
explicit, compendious, and complete; who committed no violence, who
countenanced no injustice, whose compassion was without weakness,
whose love was without frailty, whose life was led in humility, in
purity, in beneficence, and, at the end, laid down in obedience to His
Father's will.

_Timotheus._ Ah, Lucian! what strangely imperfect notions! all that is
little.

_Lucian._ Enough to follow.

_Timotheus._ Not enough to compel others. I did indeed hope, O Lucian!
that you would again come forward with the irresistible arrows of your
wit, and unite with us against our adversaries. By what you have just
spoken, I doubt no longer that you approve of the doctrines inculcated
by the blessed Founder of our religion.

_Lucian._ To the best of my understanding.

_Timotheus._ So ardent is my desire for the salvation of your precious
soul, O my cousin! that I would devote many hours of every day to
disputation with you on the principal points of our Christian
controversy.

_Lucian._ Many thanks, my kind Timotheus! But I think the blessed
Founder of your religion very strictly forbade that there should be
_any_ points of controversy. Not only has He prohibited them on the
doctrines He delivered, but on everything else. Some of the most
obstinate might never have doubted of His Divinity, if the conduct of
His followers had not repelled them from the belief of it. How can
they imagine you sincere when they see you disobedient? It is in vain
for you to protest that you worship the God of Peace, when you are
found daily in the courts and market-places with clenched fists and
bloody noses. I acknowledge the full value of your offer; but really I
am as anxious for the salvation of your precious time as you appear to
be for the salvation of my precious soul, particularly since I am
come to the conclusion that souls cannot be lost, and that time can.

_Timotheus._ We mean by _salvation_ exemption from eternal torments.

_Lucian._ Among all my old gods and their children, morose as some of
the senior are, and mischievous as are some of the junior, I have
never represented the worst of them as capable of inflicting such
atrocity. Passionate and capricious and unjust are several of them;
but a skin stripped off the shoulder, and a liver tossed to a vulture,
are among the worst of their inflictions.

_Timotheus._ This is scoffing.

_Lucian._ Nobody but an honest man has a right to scoff at anything.

_Timotheus._ And yet people of a very different cast are usually those
who scoff the most.

_Lucian._ We are apt to push forward at that which we are without: the
low-born at titles and distinctions, the silly at wit, the knave at
the semblance of probity. But I was about to remark, that an honest
man may fairly scoff at all philosophies and religions which are
proud, ambitious, intemperate, and contradictory. The thing most
adverse to the spirit and essence of them all is falsehood. It is the
business of the philosophical to seek truth: it is the office of the
religious to worship her; under what name is unimportant. The
falsehood that the tongue commits is slight in comparison with what is
conceived by the heart, and executed by the whole man, throughout
life. If, professing love and charity to the human race at large, I
quarrel day after day with my next neighbour; if, professing that the
rich can never see God, I spend in the luxuries of my household a
talent monthly; if, professing to place so much confidence in His
word, that, in regard to wordly weal, I need take no care for
to-morrow, I accumulate stores even beyond what would be necessary,
though I quite distrusted both His providence and His veracity; if,
professing that 'he who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord', I
question the Lord's security, and haggle with Him about the amount of
the loan; if, professing that I am their steward, I keep ninety-nine
parts in the hundred as the emolument of my stewardship; how, when God
hates liars and punishes defrauders, shall I, and other such thieves
and hypocrites, fare hereafter?

_Timotheus._ Let us hope there are few of them.

_Lucian._ We cannot hope against what is: we may, however, hope that
in future these will be fewer; but never while the overseers of a
priesthood look for offices out of it, taking the lead in politics, in
debate, and strife. Such men bring to ruin all religion, but their own
first, and raise unbelievers not only in Divine Providence, but in
human faith.

_Timotheus._ If they leave the altar for the market-place, the
sanctuary for the senate-house, and agitate party questions instead of
Christian verities, everlasting punishments await them.

_Lucian._ Everlasting?

_Timotheus._ Certainly: at the very least. I rank it next to heresy in
the catalogue of sins; and the Church supports my opinion.

_Lucian._ I have no measure for ascertaining the distance between the
opinions and practices of men; I only know that they stand widely
apart in all countries on the most important occasions; but this
newly-hatched word _heresy_, alighting on my ear, makes me rub it. A
beneficent God descends on earth in the human form, to redeem us from
the slavery of sin, from the penalty of our passions: can you imagine
He will punish an error in opinion, or even an obstinacy in unbelief,
with everlasting torments? Supposing it highly criminal to refuse to
weigh a string of arguments, or to cross-question a herd of witnesses,
on a subject which no experience has warranted and no sagacity can
comprehend; supposing it highly criminal to be contented with the
religion which our parents taught us, which they bequeathed to us as
the most precious of possessions, and which it would have broken their
hearts if they had foreseen we should cast aside; yet are eternal
pains the just retribution of what at worst is but indifference and
supineness?

_Timotheus._ Our religion has clearly this advantage over yours: it
teaches us to regulate our passions.

_Lucian._ Rather say it _tells_ us. I believe all religions do the
same; some indeed more emphatically and primarily than others; but
_that_ indeed would be incontestably of Divine origin, and
acknowledged at once by the most sceptical, which should thoroughly
teach it. Now, my friend Timotheus, I think you are about seventy-five
years of age.

_Timotheus._ Nigh upon it.

_Lucian._ Seventy-five years, according to my calculation, are
equivalent to seventy-five gods and goddesses in regulating our
passions for us, if we speak of the amatory, which are always thought
in every stage of life the least to be pardoned.

_Timotheus._ Execrable!

_Lucian._ I am afraid the sourest hang longest on the tree. Mimnermus
says:

      In early youth we often sigh
      Because our pulses beat so high;
      All this we conquer, and at last
      We sigh that we are grown so chaste.

_Timotheus._ Swine!

_Lucian._ No animal sighs oftener or louder. But, my dear cousin, the
quiet swine is less troublesome and less odious than the grumbling and
growling and fierce hyena, which will not let the dead rest in their
graves. We may be merry with the follies and even the vices of men,
without doing or wishing them harm; punishment should come from the
magistrate, not from us. If we are to give pain to any one because he
thinks differently from us, we ought to begin by inflicting a few
smart stripes on ourselves; for both upon light and upon grave
occasions, if we have thought much and often, our opinions must have
varied. We are always fond of seizing and managing what appertains to
others. In the savage state all belongs to all. Our neighbours the
Arabs, who stand between barbarism and civilization, waylay
travellers, and plunder their equipage and their gold. The wilier
marauders in Alexandria start up from under the shadow of temples,
force us to change our habiliments for theirs, and strangle us with
fingers dipped in holy water if we say they sit uneasily.

_Timotheus._ This is not the right view of things.

_Lucian._ That is never the right view which lets in too much light.
About two centuries have elapsed since your religion was founded. Show
me the pride it has humbled; show me the cruelty it has mitigated;
show me the lust it has extinguished or repressed. I have now been
living ten years in Alexandria; and you never will accuse me, I think,
of any undue partiality for the system in which I was educated; yet,
from all my observation, I find no priest or elder, in your community,
wise, tranquil, firm, and sedate as Epicurus, and Carneades, and Zeno,
and Epictetus; or indeed in the same degree as some who were often
called forth into political and military life; Epaminondas, for
instance, and Phocion.

_Timotheus._ I pity them from my soul: they were ignorant of the
truth: they are lost, my cousin! take my word for it, they are lost
men.

_Lucian._ Unhappily, they are. I wish we had them back again; or
that, since we have lost them, we could at least find among us the
virtues they left for our example.

_Timotheus._ Alas, my poor cousin! you too are blind; you do not
understand the plainest words, nor comprehend those verities which are
the most evident and palpable. Virtues! if the poor wretches had any,
they were false ones.

_Lucian._ Scarcely ever has there been a politician, in any free
state, without much falsehood and duplicity. I have named the most
illustrious exceptions. Slender and irregular lines of a darker colour
run along the bright blade that decides the fate of nations, and may
indeed be necessary to the perfection of its temper. The great warrior
has usually his darker lines of character, necessary (it may be) to
constitute his greatness. No two men possess the same quantity of the
same virtues, if they have many or much. We want some which do not far
outstep us, and which we may follow with the hope of reaching; we want
others to elevate, and others to defend us. The order of things would
be less beautiful without this variety. Without the ebb and flow of
our passions, but guided and moderated by a beneficent light above,
the ocean of life would stagnate; and zeal, devotion, eloquence, would
become dead carcasses, collapsing and wasting on unprofitable sands.
The vices of some men cause the virtues of others, as corruption is
the parent of fertility.

_Timotheus._ O my cousin! this doctrine is diabolical.

_Lucian._ What is it?

_Timotheus._ Diabolical; a strong expression in daily use among us. We
turn it a little from its origin.

_Lucian._ Timotheus, I love to sit by the side of a clear water,
although there is nothing in it but naked stones. Do not take the
trouble to muddy the stream of language for my benefit; I am not about
to fish in it.

_Timotheus._ Well, we will speak about things which come nearer to
your apprehension. I only wish you were somewhat less indifferent in
your choice between the true and the false.

_Lucian._ We take it for granted that what is not true must be false.

_Timotheus._ Surely we do.

_Lucian._ This is erroneous.

_Timotheus._ Are you grown captious? Pray explain.

_Lucian._ What is not true, I need not say, must be untrue; but that
alone is false which is intended to deceive. A witness may be
mistaken, yet would not you call him a false witness unless he
asserted what he knew to be false.

_Timotheus._ Quibbles upon words!

_Lucian._ On words, on quibbles, if you please to call distinctions
so, rests the axis of the intellectual world. A winged word hath stuck
ineradicably in a million hearts, and envenomed every hour throughout
their hard pulsation. On a winged word hath hung the destiny of
nations. On a winged word hath human wisdom been willing to cast the
immortal soul, and to leave it dependent for all its future happiness.
It is because a word is unsusceptible of explanation, or because they
who employed it were impatient of any, that enormous evils have
prevailed, not only against our common sense, but against our common
humanity. Hence the most pernicious of absurdities, far exceeding in
folly and mischief the worship of threescore gods; namely, that an
implicit faith in what outrages our reason, which we know is God's
gift, and bestowed on us for our guidance, that this weak, blind,
stupid faith is surer of His favour than the constant practice of
every human virtue. They at whose hands one prodigious lie, such as
this, hath been accepted, may reckon on their influence in the
dissemination of many smaller, and may turn them easily to their own
account. Be sure they will do it sooner or later. The fly floats on
the surface for a while, but up springs the fish at last and swallows
it.

_Timotheus._ Was ever man so unjust as you are? The abominable old
priesthoods are avaricious and luxurious: ours is willing to stand or
fall by maintaining its ordinances of fellowship and frugality. Point
out to me a priest of our religion whom you could, by any temptation
or entreaty, so far mislead, that he shall reserve for his own
consumption one loaf, one plate of lentils, while another poor
Christian hungers. In the meanwhile the priests of Isis are proud and
wealthy, and admit none of the indigent to their tables. And now, to
tell you the whole truth, my Cousin Lucian, I come to you this morning
to propose that we should lay our heads together and compose a merry
dialogue on these said priests of Isis. What say you?

_Lucian._ These said priests of Isis have already been with me,
several times, on a similar business in regard to yours.

_Timotheus._ Malicious wretches!

_Lucian._ Beside, they have attempted to persuade me that your
religion is borrowed from theirs, altering a name a little and laying
the scene of action in a corner, in the midst of obscurity and ruins.

_Timotheus._ The wicked dogs! the hellish liars! We have nothing in
common with such vile impostors. Are they not ashamed of taking such
unfair means of lowering us in the estimation of our fellow-citizens?
And so, they artfully came to you, craving any spare jibe to throw
against us! They lie open to these weapons; we do not: we stand above
the malignity, above the strength, of man. You would do justly in
turning their own devices against them: it would be amusing to see how
they would look. If you refuse me, I am resolved to write a Dialogue
of the Dead, myself, and to introduce these hypocrites in it.

_Lucian._ Consider well first, my good Timotheus, whether you can do
any such thing with propriety; I mean to say judiciously in regard to
composition.

_Timotheus._ I always thought you generous and open-hearted, and quite
inaccessible to jealousy.

_Lucian._ Let nobody ever profess himself so much as that: for,
although he may be insensible of the disease, it lurks within him, and
only waits its season to break out. But really, my cousin, at present
I feel no symptoms: and, to prove that I am ingenuous and sincere with
you, these are my reasons for dissuasion. We believers in the Homeric
family of gods and goddesses, believe also in the locality of Tartarus
and Elysium. We entertain no doubt whatever that the passions of men
and demigods and gods are nearly the same above ground and below; and
that Achilles would dispatch his spear through the body of any shade
who would lead Briseis too far among the myrtles, or attempt to throw
the halter over the ears of any chariot horse belonging to him in the
meads of asphodel. We admit no doubt of these verities, delivered down
to us from the ages when Theseus and Hercules had descended into Hades
itself. Instead of a few stadions in a cavern, with a bank and a bower
at the end of it, under a very small portion of our diminutive Hellas,
you Christians possess the whole cavity of the earth for punishment,
and the whole convex of the sky for felicity.

_Timotheus._ Our passions are burnt out amid the fires of
purification, and our intellects are elevated to the enjoyment of
perfect intelligence.

_Lucian._ How silly then and incongruous would it be, not to say how
impious, to represent your people as no better and no wiser than they
were before, and discoursing on subjects which no longer can or ought
to concern them. Christians must think your Dialogue of the Dead no
less irreligious than their opponents think mine, and infinitely more
absurd. If indeed you are resolved on this form of composition, there
is no topic which may not, with equal facility, be discussed on
earth; and you may intersperse as much ridicule as you please, without
any fear of censure for inconsistency or irreverence. Hitherto such
writers have confined their view mostly to speculative points,
sophistic reasonings, and sarcastic interpellations.

_Timotheus._ Ha! you are always fond of throwing a little pebble at
the lofty Plato, whom we, on the contrary, are ready to receive (in a
manner) as one of ourselves.

_Lucian._ To throw pebbles is a very uncertain way of showing where
lie defects. Whenever I have mentioned him seriously, I have brought
forward, not accusations, but passages from his writings, such as no
philosopher or scholar or moralist can defend.

_Timotheus._ His doctrines are too abstruse and too sublime for you.

_Lucian._ Solon, Anaxagoras, and Epicurus, are more sublime, if truth
is sublimity.

_Timotheus._ Truth is, indeed; for God is truth.

_Lucian._ We are upon earth to learn what can be learnt upon earth,
and not to speculate on what never can be. This you, O Timotheus, may
call philosophy: to me it appears the idlest of curiosity; for every
other kind may teach us something, and may lead to more beyond. Let
men learn what benefits men; above all things, to contract their
wishes, to calm their passions, and, more especially, to dispel their
fears. Now these are to be dispelled, not by collecting clouds, but by
piercing and scattering them. In the dark we may imagine depths and
heights immeasurable, which, if a torch be carried right before us, we
find it easy to leap across. Much of what we call sublime is only the
residue of infancy, and the worst of it.

The philosophers I quoted are too capacious for schools and systems.
Without noise, without ostentation, without mystery, not quarrelsome,
not captious, not frivolous, their lives were commentaries on their
doctrine. Never evaporating into mist, never stagnating into mire,
their limpid and broad morality runs parallel with the lofty summits
of their genius.

_Timotheus._ Genius! was ever genius like Plato's?

_Lucian._ The most admired of his Dialogues, his _Banquet_, is beset
with such puerilities, deformed with such pedantry, and disgraced with
such impurity, that none but the thickest beards, and chiefly of the
philosophers and the satyrs, should bend over it. On a former occasion
he has given us a specimen of history, than which nothing in our
language is worse: here he gives us one of poetry, in honour of Love,
for which the god has taken ample vengeance on him, by perverting his
taste and feelings. The grossest of all the absurdities in this
dialogue is, attributing to Aristophanes, so much of a scoffer and so
little of a visionary, the silly notion of male and female having been
originally complete in one person, and walking circuitously. He may be
joking: who knows?

_Timotheus._ Forbear! forbear! do not call this notion a silly one:
he took it from our Holy Scriptures, but perverted it somewhat. Woman
was made from man's rib, and did not require to be cut asunder all
the way down: this is no proof of bad reasoning, but merely of
misinterpretation.

_Lucian._ If you would rather have bad reasoning, I will adduce a
little of it. Farther on, he wishes to extol the wisdom of Agathon by
attributing to him such a sentence as this:

'It is evident that Love is the most beautiful of the gods, _because_
he is the youngest of them.'

Now, even on earth, the youngest is not always the most beautiful; how
infinitely less cogent, then, is the argument when we come to speak of
the Immortals, with whom age can have no concern! There was a time
when Vulcan was the youngest of the gods: was he, also, at that time,
and for that reason, the most beautiful? Your philosopher tells us,
moreover, that 'Love is of all deities the most _liquid_; else he
never could fold himself about everything, and flow into and out of
men's souls.'

The three last sentences of Agathon's rhapsody are very harmonious,
and exhibit the finest specimen of Plato's style; but we, accustomed
as we are to hear him lauded for his poetical diction, should hold
that poem a very indifferent one which left on the mind so superficial
an impression. The garden of Academus is flowery without fragrance,
and dazzling without warmth: I am ready to dream away an hour in it
after dinner, but I think it insalutary for a night's repose. So
satisfied was Plato with his _Banquet_, that he says of himself, in
the person of Socrates, 'How can I or any one but find it difficult to
speak after a discourse so eloquent? It would have been wonderful if
the brilliancy of the sentences at the end of it, and the choice of
expression throughout, had not astonished all the auditors. I, who can
never say anything nearly so beautiful, would if possible have made my
escape, and have fairly run off for shame.' He had indeed much better
run off before he made so wretched a pun on the name of Gorgias. 'I
dreaded,' says he, 'lest Agathon, _measuring my discourse by the head
of the eloquent Gorgias, should turn me to stone_ for inability of
utterance.'

Was there ever joke more frigid? What painful twisting of unelastic
stuff! If Socrates was the wisest man in the world, it would require
another oracle to persuade us, after this, that he was the wittiest.
But surely a small share of common sense would have made him abstain
from hazarding such failures. He falls on his face in very flat and
very dry ground; and, when he gets up again, his quibbles are
well-nigh as tedious as his witticisms. However, he has the presence
of mind to throw them on the shoulders of Diotima, whom he calls a
prophetess, and who, ten years before the plague broke out in Athens,
obtained from the gods (he tells us) that delay. Ah! the gods were
doubly mischievous: they sent her first. Read her words, my cousin, as
delivered by Socrates; and if they have another plague in store for
us, you may avert it by such an act of expiation.

_Timotheus._ The world will have ended before ten years are over.

_Lucian._ Indeed!

_Timotheus._ It has been pronounced.

_Lucian._ How the threads of belief and unbelief run woven close
together in the whole web of human life! Come, come; take courage; you
will have time for your Dialogue. Enlarge the circle; enrich it with a
variety of matter, enliven it with a multitude of characters, occupy
the intellect of the thoughtful, the imagination of the lively; spread
the board with solid viands, delicate rarities, and sparkling wines;
and throw, along the whole extent of it, geniality and festal crowns.

_Timotheus._ What writer of dialogues hath ever done this, or
undertaken, or conceived, or hoped it?

_Lucian._ None whatever; yet surely you yourself may, when even your
babes and sucklings are endowed with abilities incomparably greater
than our niggardly old gods have bestowed on the very best of us.

_Timotheus._ I wish, my dear Lucian, you would let our babes and
sucklings lie quiet, and say no more about them: as for your gods, I
leave them at your mercy. Do not impose on me the performance of a
task in which Plato himself, if he had attempted it, would have
failed.

_Lucian._ No man ever detected false reasoning with more quickness;
but unluckily he called in Wit at the exposure; and Wit, I am sorry to
say, held the lowest place in his household. He sadly mistook the
qualities of his mind in attempting the facetious; or, rather, he
fancied he possessed one quality more than belonged to him. But, if he
himself had not been a worse quibbler than any whose writings are come
down to us, we might have been gratified by the exposure of wonderful
acuteness wretchedly applied. It is no small service to the community
to turn into ridicule the grave impostors, who are contending which of
them shall guide and govern us, whether in politics or religion. There
are always a few who will take the trouble to walk down among the
seaweeds and slippery stones, for the sake of showing their credulous
fellow-citizens that skins filled with sand, and set upright at the
forecastle, are neither men nor merchandise.

_Timotheus._ I can bring to mind, O Lucian, no writer possessing so
great a variety of wit as you.

_Lucian._ No man ever possessed any variety of this gift; and the
holder is not allowed to exchange the quality for another. Banter (and
such is Plato's) never grows large, never sheds its bristles, and
never do they soften into the humorous or the facetious.

_Timotheus._ I agree with you that banter is the worst species of wit.
We have indeed no correct idea what persons those really were whom
Plato drags by the ears, to undergo slow torture under Socrates. One
sophist, I must allow, is precisely like another: no discrimination of
character, none of manner, none of language.

_Lucian._ He wanted the fancy and fertility of Aristophanes.

_Timotheus._ Otherwise, his mind was more elevated and more poetical.

_Lucian._ Pardon me if I venture to express my dissent in both
particulars. Knowledge of the human heart, and discrimination of
character, are requisites of the poet. Few ever have possessed them in
an equal degree with Aristophanes: Plato has given no indication of
either.

_Timotheus._ But consider his imagination.

_Lucian._ On what does it rest? He is nowhere so imaginative as in his
_Polity_. Nor is there any state in the world that is, or would be,
governed by it. One day you may find him at his counter in the midst
of old-fashioned toys, which crack and crumble under his fingers while
he exhibits and recommends them; another day, while he is sitting on a
goat's bladder, I may discover his bald head surmounting an enormous
mass of loose chaff and uncleanly feathers, which he would persuade
you is the pleasantest and healthiest of beds, and that dreams descend
on it from the gods.

      'Open your mouth, and shut your eyes, and see what Zeus shall
          send you,'

says Aristophanes in his favourite metre. In this helpless condition
of closed optics and hanging jaw, we find the followers of Plato. It
is by shutting their eyes that they see, and by opening their mouths
that they apprehend. Like certain broad-muzzled dogs, all stand
equally stiff and staunch, although few scent the game, and their lips
wag, and water, at whatever distance from the net. We must leave them
with their hands hanging down before them, confident that they are
wiser than we are, were it only for this attitude of humility. It is
amusing to see them in it before the tall, well-robed Athenian, while
he mis-spells the charms, and plays clumsily the tricks, he acquired
from the conjurors here in Egypt. I wish you better success with the
same materials. But in my opinion all philosophers should speak
clearly. The highest things are the purest and brightest; and the best
writers are those who render them the most intelligible to the world
below. In the arts and sciences, and particularly in music and
metaphysics, this is difficult: but the subjects not being such as lie
within the range of the community, I lay little stress upon them, and
wish authors to deal with them as they best may, only beseeching that
they recompense us, by bringing within our comprehension the other
things with which they are entrusted for us. The followers of Plato
fly off indignantly from any such proposal. If I ask them the meaning
of some obscure passage, they answer that I am unprepared and unfitted
for it, and that his mind is so far above mine, I cannot grasp it. I
look up into the faces of these worthy men, who mingle so much
commiseration with so much calmness, and wonder at seeing them look no
less vacant than my own.

_Timotheus._ You have acknowledged his eloquence, while you derided
his philosophy and repudiated his morals.

_Lucian._ Certainly there was never so much eloquence with so little
animation. When he has heated his oven, he forgets to put the bread
into it; instead of which, he throws in another bundle of faggots. His
words and sentences are often too large for the place they occupy. If
a water-melon is not to be placed in an oyster-shell, neither is a
grain of millet in a golden salver. At high festivals a full band may
enter: ordinary conversation goes on better without it.

_Timotheus._ There is something so spiritual about him, that many of
us Christians are firmly of opinion he must have been partially
enlightened from above.

_Lucian._ I hope and believe we all are. His entire works are in our
library. Do me the favour to point out to me a few of those passages
where in poetry he approaches the spirit of Aristophanes, or where in
morals he comes up to Epictetus.

_Timotheus._ It is useless to attempt it if you carry your prejudices
with you. Beside, my dear cousin, I would not offend you, but really
your mind has no point about it which could be brought to contact or
affinity with Plato's.

_Lucian._ In the universality of his genius there must surely be some
atom coincident with another in mine. You acknowledge, as everybody
must do, that his wit is the heaviest and lowest: pray, is the
specimen he has given us of history at all better?

_Timotheus._ I would rather look to the loftiness of his mind, and the
genius that sustains him.

_Lucian._ So would I. Magnificent words, and the pomp and procession
of stately sentences, may accompany genius, but are not always nor
frequently called out by it. The voice ought not to be perpetually nor
much elevated in the ethic and didactic, nor to roll sonorously, as if
it issued from a mask in the theatre. The horses in the plain under
Troy are not always kicking and neighing; nor is the dust always
raised in whirlwinds on the banks of Simois and Scamander; nor are the
rampires always in a blaze. Hector has lowered his helmet to the
infant of Andromache, and Achilles to the embraces of Briseis. I do
not blame the prose-writer who opens his bosom occasionally to a
breath of poetry; neither, on the contrary, can I praise the gait of
that pedestrian who lifts up his legs as high on a bare heath as in a
cornfield. Be authority as old and obstinate as it may, never let it
persuade you that a man is the stronger for being unable to keep
himself on the ground, or the weaker for breathing quietly and softly
on ordinary occasions. Tell me, over and over, that you find every
great quality in Plato: let me only once ask you in return, whether he
ever is ardent and energetic, whether he wins the affections, whether
he agitates the heart. Finding him deficient in every one of these
faculties, I think his disciples have extolled him too highly. Where
power is absent, we may find the robes of genius, but we miss the
throne. He would acquit a slave who killed another in self-defence,
but if he killed any free man, even in self-defence; he was not only
to be punished with death, but to undergo the cruel death of a
parricide. This effeminate philosopher was more severe than the manly
Demosthenes, who quotes a law against the striking of a slave: and
Diogenes, when one ran away from him, remarked that it would be
horrible if Diogenes could not do without a slave, when a slave could
do without Diogenes.

_Timotheus._ Surely the allegories of Plato are evidences of his
genius.

_Lucian._ A great poet in the hours of his idleness may indulge in
allegory: but the highest poetical character will never rest on so
unsubstantial a foundation. The poet must take man from God's hands,
must look into every fibre of his heart and brain, must be able to
take the magnificent work to pieces, and to reconstruct it. When this
labour is completed, let him throw himself composedly on the earth,
and care little how many of its ephemeral insects creep over him. In
regard to these allegories of Plato, about which I have heard so much,
pray what and where are they? You hesitate, my fair cousin Timotheus!
Employ one morning in transcribing them, and another in noting all the
passages which are of practical utility in the commerce of social
life, or purify our affections at home, or excite and elevate our
enthusiasm in the prosperity and glory of our country. Useful books,
moral books, instructive books are easily composed: and surely so
great a writer should present them to us without blot or blemish: I
find among his many volumes no copy of a similar composition. My
enthusiasm is not easily raised indeed; yet such a whirlwind of a poet
must carry it away with him; nevertheless, here I stand, calm and
collected, not a hair of my beard in commotion. Declamation will find
its echo in vacant places: it beats ineffectually on the
well-furnished mind. Give me proof; bring the work; show the passages;
convince, confound, overwhelm me.

_Timotheus._ I may do that another time with Plato. And yet, what
effect can I hope to produce on an unhappy man who doubts even that
the world is on the point of extinction?

_Lucian._ Are there many of your association who believe that this
catastrophe is so near at hand?

_Timotheus._ We all believe it; or rather, we all are certain of it.

_Lucian._ How so? Have you observed any fracture in the disk of the
sun? Are any of the stars loosened in their orbits? Has the beautiful
light of Venus ceased to pant in the heavens, or has the belt of Orion
lost its gems?

_Timotheus._ Oh, for shame!

_Lucian._ Rather should I be ashamed of indifference on so important
an occasion.

_Timotheus._ We know the fact by surer signs.

_Lucian._ These, if you could vouch for them, would be sure enough for
me. The least of them would make me sweat as profusely as if I stood
up to the neck in the hot preparation of a mummy. Surely no wise or
benevolent philosopher could ever have uttered what he knew or
believed might be distorted into any such interpretation. For if men
are persuaded that they and their works are so soon about to perish,
what provident care are they likely to take in the education and
welfare of their families? What sciences will they improve, what
learning will they cultivate, what monuments of past ages will they be
studious to preserve, who are certain that there can be no future
ones? Poetry will be censured as rank profaneness, eloquence will be
converted into howls and execrations, statuary will exhibit only
Midases and Ixions, and all the colours of painting will be mixed
together to produce one grand conflagration: _flammantia moenia
mundi_.

_Timotheus._ Do not quote an atheist; especially in Latin. I hate the
language; the Romans are beginning to differ from us already.

_Lucian._ Ah! you will soon split into smaller fractions. But pardon
me my unusual fault of quoting. Before I let fall a quotation I must
be taken by surprise. I seldom do it in conversation, seldomer in
composition; for it mars the beauty and unity of style, especially
when it invades it from a foreign tongue. A quoter is either
ostentatious of his acquirements or doubtful of his cause. And
moreover, he never walks gracefully who leans upon the shoulder of
another, however gracefully that other may walk. Herodotus, Plato,
Aristoteles, Demosthenes, are no quoters. Thucydides, twice or thrice,
inserts a few sentences of Pericles: but Thucydides is an emanation of
Pericles, somewhat less clear indeed, being lower, although at no
great distance from that purest and most pellucid source. The best of
the Romans, I agree with you, are remote from such originals, if not
in power of mind, or in acuteness of remark, or in sobriety of
judgment, yet in the graces of composition. While I admired, with a
species of awe such as not Homer himself ever impressed me with, the
majesty and sanctimony of Livy, I have been informed by learned Romans
that in the structure of his sentences he is often inharmonious, and
sometimes uncouth. I can imagine such uncouthness in the goddess of
battles, confident of power and victory, when part of her hair is
waving round the helmet, loosened by the rapidity of her descent or
the vibration of her spear. Composition may be too adorned even for
beauty. In painting it is often requisite to cover a bright colour
with one less bright; and, in language, to relieve the ear from the
tension of high notes, even at the cost of a discord. There are urns
of which the borders are too prominent and too decorated for use, and
which appear to be brought out chiefly for state, at grand carousals.
The author who imitates the artificers of these, shall never have my
custom.

_Timotheus._ I think you judge rightly: but I do not understand
languages: I only understand religion.

_Lucian._ He must be a most accomplished, a most extraordinary man,
who comprehends them both together. We do not even talk clearly when
we are walking in the dark.

_Timotheus._ Thou art not merely walking in the dark, but fast asleep.

_Lucian._ And thou, my cousin, wouldst kindly awaken me with a red-hot
poker. I have but a few paces to go along the corridor of life:
prithee let me turn into my bed again and lie quiet. Never was any man
less an enemy to religion than I am, whatever may be said to the
contrary: and you shall judge of me by the soundness of my advice. If
your leaders are in earnest, as many think, do persuade them to
abstain from quarrelsomeness and contention, and not to declare it
necessary that there should perpetually be a religious as well as a
political war between east and west. No honest and considerate man
will believe in their doctrines, who, inculcating peace and good-will,
continue all the time to assail their fellow-citizens with the utmost
rancour at every divergency of opinion, and, forbidding the indulgence
of the kindlier affections, exercise at full stretch the fiercer. This
is certain: if they obey any commander, they will never sound a charge
when his order is to sound a retreat: if they acknowledge any
magistrate, they will never tear down the tablet of his edicts.

_Timotheus._ We have what is all-sufficient.

_Lucian._ I see you have.

_Timotheus._ You have ridiculed all religion and all philosophy.

_Lucian._ I have found but little of either. I have cracked many a
nut, and have come only to dust or maggots.

_Timotheus._ To say nothing of the saints, are all philosophers fools
or impostors? And, because you cannot rise to the ethereal heights of
Plato, nor comprehend the real magnitude of a man so much above you,
must he be a dwarf?

_Lucian._ The best sight is not that which sees best in the dark or
the twilight; for no objects are then visible in their true colours,
and just proportions; but it is that which presents to us things as
they are, and indicates what is within our reach and what is beyond
it. Never were any three writers, of high celebrity, so little
understood in the main character, as Plato, Diogenes, and Epicurus.
Plato is a perfect master of logic and rhetoric; and whenever he errs
in either, as I have proved to you he does occasionally, he errs
through perverseness, not through unwariness. His language often
settles into clear and most beautiful prose, often takes an imperfect
and incoherent shape of poetry, and often, cloud against cloud, bursts
with a vehement detonation in the air. Diogenes was hated both by the
vulgar and the philosophers. By the philosophers, because he exposed
their ignorance, ridiculed their jealousies, and rebuked their pride:
by the vulgar, because they never can endure a man apparently of their
own class who avoids their society and partakes in none of their
humours, prejudices, and animosities. What right has he to be greater
or better than they are? he who wears older clothes, who eats staler
fish, and possesses no vote to imprison or banish anybody. I am now
ashamed that I mingled in the rabble, and that I could not resist the
childish mischief of smoking him in his tub. He was the wisest man of
his time, not excepting Aristoteles; for he knew that he was greater
than Philip or Alexander. Aristoteles did not know that he himself
was, or knowing it, did not act up to his knowledge; and here is a
deficiency of wisdom.

_Timotheus._ Whether you did or did not strike the cask, Diogenes
would have closed his eyes equally. He would never have come forth and
seen the truth, had it shone upon the world in that day. But,
intractable as was this recluse, Epicurus, I fear, is quite as
lamentable. What horrible doctrines!

_Lucian._ Enjoy, said he, the pleasant walks where you are: repose and
eat gratefully the fruit that falls into your bosom: do not weary your
feet with an excursion, at the end whereof you will find no
resting-place: reject not the odour of roses for the fumes of pitch
and sulphur. What horrible doctrines!

_Timotheus._ Speak seriously. He was much too bad for ridicule.

_Lucian._ I will then speak as you desire me, seriously. His smile
was so unaffected and so graceful, that I should have thought it very
injudicious to set my laugh against it. No philosopher ever lived with
such uniform purity, such abstinence from censoriousness, from
controversy, from jealousy, and from arrogance.

_Timotheus._ Ah, poor mortal! I pity him, as far as may be; he is in
hell: it would be wicked to wish him out: we are not to murmur against
the all-wise dispensations.

_Lucian._ I am sure he would not; and it is therefore I hope he is
more comfortable than you believe.

_Timotheus._ Never have I defiled my fingers, and never will I defile
them, by turning over his writings. But in regard to Plato, I can have
no objection to take your advice.

_Lucian._ He will reward your assiduity: but he will assist you very
little if you consult him principally (and eloquence for this should
principally be consulted) to strengthen your humanity. Grandiloquent
and sonorous, his lungs seem to play the better for the absence of the
heart. His imagination is the most conspi