LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. / 6 ^ if ♦ D 1 Chautauqua Library..... Garnet Series. READINGS FROM MACAULAY, ITALY. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Kj DONALD Gv^M ITCH ELL. (IK MARVEL.; BOSTON: CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 117 FRANKLIN STREET. 1885. i^f' CONTENTS. ITALIAN WRITERS: — PAGE I. — Dante 3 II. — Petrarch 33 III. — Machiavelli 57 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME: — Preface 121 HoRATius 147 The Battle of the Lake Regillus 177 Virginia 217 The Prophecy of Capys 245 Pompeii 265 Copyright, 1885, By rand, AVERY, & CO. LORD MACAULAY. It is now sixty years since an article upon Milton, in "The Edinburgh Review," called the attention of shrewd readers to a new English v^Titer, who, in the judgment of many, showed a scholarship far keener than Brougham's, with a gift of style more captivating than that of Jeffrey, and flashes of wit rivalling those of that other veteran of the " Review," — Rev. Syd- ney Smith. Two years later, appeared the study of Machiavelli from the same hand ; and thereafter in quick succession, with like eloquent periods, and show of abundant learning, and piquant epigrams, followed the papers on " History " and " Hallam " and " South- ey's Colloquies." Americans quickly caught a relish for this new literary savor ; and, in the year 1 840, two little bouncing, green-covered volumes of essays intro- duced to the readers of our Western world — Thomas Babington Macaulay. iv LORD MA CAUL AY. He was born of good, vigorous Scotch stock (upon the father's side) ; his great-grandfather, Aulay Macaulay, was minister of Coll, and had four- teen children; his grandfather, John, was minister of Inverary, and had twelve children. His father, Zachary, went to Jamaica when young, and brought thence experience and indignations which made him an efficient co-worker with Wilberforce. Through this latter, Zachary was made governor of the ill-fated colony of Sierra Leone, and returned thence just at the close of the last century, to establish himself as agent of the colony, and African merchant, in Lon- don. On the year of his return, he married a pretty Quaker girl of Bristol (a protegee of Mistress Hannah More) ; and, in a twelvemonth thereafter, his oldest child — the subject of this sketch — was born at Roth- ley, in a beautiful valley of Leicestershire, where the young mother was visiting an aunt (elder sister of Zachary Macaulay), who presided over the charming old country-house of the Babingtons. The child was sound in wind and limb, and con- tinued exceptionally sound for a space of more than fifty years. The father's first London home was be- tween Threadneedle and Lombard Streets; and the curious in those matters tell us of a bare space — LORD MACAULAY. V Draper's Garden — near by, where the baby Macau- lay was wheeled by his nurse, to catch sunshine. His boyish memories, however, belonged to a later home at Clapham, then an out-of-town village. There was his first schooling, under a private master (his father being fairly rich) ; and there he budded out into young poems and precocious talk. His pleasant biographer (Trevelyan) tells of a visit the bright boy made at Strawberry Hill, — Walpole's old show-place. There was a spilling of hot drink during the visita- tion, that came near to scalding the lad ; and when the sympathizing hostess asked after his suffering, "Thank you, madam," said he: "the agony is abated." The story is eminently credible ; and so are others, — of his reading his poetry to Miss Hannah More, and getting an approving nod of her gray curls and mob-cap. At Cambridge, where he went at the usual age, he studied what he would, and disdained what he would, — as he did all through his life. Mathematics were a standing grief to him, and odious j or, if dwelling on them, twisting their certainties into probabilities, and so making them subject to the world of "ifs and buts " which he loved to start buzzing about the ears VI LORD MAC AULA Y. of those who loved the exact sciences. But, if he missed thus some of the schedule honors, he won others. Up and down in those Cambridge cofejies, he was a man looked for, and listened to, and ap- plauded. Scholastic honors did come in their time, too, in spite of his lunges outside the traces. There was a medal for poetic work (not of his best) ; and a fellowship, at last, which gave him a needed, though small, income ; for his father's Afric business had failed, and there were no home moneys for him, nor any thence, thereafter. The father was too old, and too full of scruples, to beat money out of other peo- ple's preserves. The first writings of Macaulay which came to pub- lic issue, were in " Knight's Quarterly Magazine." Among them were criticisms on Italian writers (Dante and Petrarch) ; a remarkable imaginary conversation between Cowley and Milton ; and the glittering, jin- gling "Battle of Ivry," — full of that rush and verbal splendor which he loved all his life, and which he brought, in later years, to a re-heralding of the old "Lays of Rome." On the very next year after this " Battle of Ivry " had sparkled into print, appeared the paper on Mil- ton, to which allusion has been made, and which LORD MA CAUL AY. Vll opened London doors to the fresh-fledged student at law. But he did not stay at law. Diarists of those days — such as Crabb Robinson — speak of a young man of five or six and twenty, who has emerged upon the dinner-giving public, and is astounding old habitues by his fulness and briUiancy of talk. He has not, to be sure, those lighter graces of conversation which shone shortly thereafter under the mirrors of Gore House and the smiles of Lady Blessington ; but he comes to be a table-match for Sydney Smith, and is courted by Lady Holland, and sought after by the poet Rogers who is living on the honors of his *' Memory " and his bank. His alliance with " The Edinburgh Review " makes him the pet of the great Whigs ; and, through Lansdowne, he finds his way into Parliawiient, making speeches there which revived the memory of the younger Pitt. He lacked, indeed, the true oratorical manner : he scorned studied graces of utterance. Tory critics said he wrote his speeches, and committed them to memory. There was no need for that. Words tripped to his tongue as easily as to his pen. Yet he was rather ungainly — his cravat often awry. He had a square, un-American face, and a shaggy brow. There were no delicate modulations of vill LORD MAC AULA Y. voice, no art of pantomime, no conscious or uncon- scious assumption of graceful attitudes, little light and shade in his elocution; but there was vigor, nervous directness, no broken sentence, no word missing; and when subject-matter enfevered him, there was the hurry and the overstrained voice of extreme earnestness. Meanwhile the writing for the " Review " went on. An official position assured him a moderate income ; but, his father's family being largely dependent on him, he needed more. A Whig government offered him place in India, which he accepted. No Oriental glamour allured him, and he was in chase of no " Light of Asia ; " but the new position was worth ten thou- sand pounds per annum. He counted upon saving the half of it, and returning in five years with a moderate fortune. He did better even than this, — shortening his period of exile by nearly a twelve- month, and bringing back thirty thousand pounds. His sister (later. Lady Trevelyan) went with him as the mistress of his Calcutta household ; and his affec- tionate and most tender relations with this, as with his younger sister, are beautifully set forth in the charm- ing biography by Otto Trevelyan. It is a biography that everybody should read. We are brought to no LORD MACAULAY. IX post-mortem in it, and no opening of old sores. It is modest, courteous, discreet, and full. Macaulay did monumental work in India upon the Penal Code. He also kept up there his voracious habits of reading and study. Titles only of what he read and re-read in India, and on the long voyages (by sailing-ship in those days) thither and back, would fill pages. A paper or two for the " Review " kept him in the mind of British readers. A History of England was hovering in his thought, and the music of the " Lays of Rome " was taking shape, in the intervals of his study. His father died while Macaulay was upon the voy- age home, — a father wholly unlike the son in his rigidities and asperities, but always venerated, and in these latter years treated with a noble generosity. A first visit to Italy was made shortly after the re- turn from India, of which there is pleasant though fragmentary record in the Trevelyan biography. It is in Rome itself that he puts some of the last touches to the "Lays," — goes to the site of the old bridge across the Tiber, that he may determine with his own eyes if Horatius could indeed see, from that scene ot his " brave deed," " his home upon the Aventine." It was not until the year 1842 that he took courage X LORD MACAU LAY. to submit to print that solitary book of his verse ; for he did hesitate, — did doubt the wisdom of putting in peril his literary reputation by such overture in rhyme. It extorted a paean of praise from that muscular critic, Professor Wilson; while the fastidious Leigh Hunt, representing the dilettanti^ writes, begging for a little money, and regretting that the ^' Lays " have not the " true poetical aroma which breathes from * The Faerie Queene.' " At least, there is virility in them, and no maunder- ing : it is the work of a man who loved " bottled porter better than Falernian." There is, too, a scholarly handling, with high historic air blowing through ; his prosody is up to the rules ; the longs and shorts are split to a hair's-breadth, — jingling and merry where the sense calls for it, and sober and resonant where meaning is weighty, and flashing — when need is — with sword-play and spear-heads that glitter and waver over marching men; but nowhere the tremu- lous poetic siisuri'us that falters, and touches, and detains by its mystic sounds, tempting one into dim border-lands where higher and more inspired singers find their way, and thence call to us. His sandals of verse are not winged. Christabel is not of his school, nor the ''star-shaped" shadows of Wordsworth. LORD MACAULAY. XI The parliamentary career of Macaulay, after his re- turn from India, was notable for some speeches on copyright, for advocacy of liberal dealing with the Catholics of Ireland, and for his opposition to the Corn Laws. It was also notable for a repulse from his old supporters in Edinburgh. Certain arts of the poli- tician he could not learn : he could not truckle ; he could not hob-nob with constituents who made vulgar claims upon him ; he could not hsten to twaddle from visiting-committees without breaking into a righteous wrath that hurt his chances. Edinburgh, however, afterward cleared the record, by giving him a triumph- ant return. Meantime that wonderful history had been written, and its roll of magniloquent periods made echo in every quarter of the literary world. Its success was phenomenal. After the issue of its second couplet of volumes, the publishers sent to the author a check for twenty thousand pounds on accoiait. With its Macau- lay indorsement, it is a trophy which is guarded, and which will find its way to the British Museum. The history is a partisan history, but it is the work of a bold and out- spoken and manly partisan. The colors he uses are intense and glaring, but they are blended in the making of his great panorama of King xii LORD MAC AULA Y. William's times, with a marvellous art. We are told that he was an advocate, and not a philosopher ; that he was a rhetorician, and not a poet : we may grant this, and more ; and yet I think we shall continue to cherish his work. Men of greater critical acumen and nicer exploration may sap the grounds of some of his judgments ; cooler writers, and those of more self- restraint, may draw the fires by which his indignations are kindled ; but it will be very long before the world will cease to find high intellectual refreshment in the crackle of his epigrams, in his artful deployment of testimony, and in the roll of his sonorous periods. It was in the year 1856, when Macaulay had done his last work upon the history, that he moved away from his bachelor quarters m the Albany (Piccadilly), and established himself at Holly Lodge, which, under its new name of Airlie Lodge, may still be found upon a winding lane, in that labyrinth of city lanes which lies between Kensington Gardens and Holland House. There was a bit of green lawn attached, which he came to love in those last days of his, though he had been without strong rural proclivities. But now, and there, among the thorn-trees reddening into bloom, and the rhododendrons bursting their buds, the May mornings were "delicious." He enjoys, too, the modest hospi- LORD MACAULAY. xiii talities he can show in a home of his o^vn. There are notes in his journal or letters of " a goose for Michael- mas," and of " a chine and oysters for Christmas Eve," and excellent " audit ale " on Lord Mayor's Day. There, too, at Holly Lodge, comes to him in August, 1857, when he was "very sad about India," an offer of a peerage. He accepts it, as he had accepted all the good things of life, cheerily and squarely, and is thenceforward Baron Macaulay of Rothley. He appears from time to time in the House of Lords, but never speaks there. His speaking-days are over. A little unwonted fluttering of the heart warns him that the end is not far off. A visit to the English lakes and to Scotland in 1859 does not give him any access of strength. He worries very much because his beloved sister, Lady Trevelyan, was to go away the next year, to join her husband at Madras. "This prolonged parting," he says, " this slow sipping of the vinegar and the gall, is terrible." And the parting came earlier than he thought, and easier. For on a day of December, in the same year, he died in his hbrary-chair. His nephew and biog- rapher had parted from him in the morning, at which time " he was sitting, with his head bent forward on his chest, in a languid and drowsy reverie." XIV LORD MA CAUL AY. In the evening, a little before seven, Lady Trevelyan was summoned. As we drove up to the porch of my uncle's house, the maids ran, crying, out into the dark- ness to meet us, and we knew that all was over." The date was Dec. 28, and his age fifty-nine. He was buried in Westminster Abbey; and the stone which marks his tomb, is at the feet of the statue of Addison. ' DANTE ALIGHIERI. The distinguished poet, whose character is reviewed in the following pages, was born in Florence in May of the year 1265. It was a time of fierce political strug- gle. The contest between Church and State, known as the War of Guelphs and Ghibellines, was at its height. By birth allied to the Guelphs, Dante was, by circumstances, compelled to identify himself with the other party. It was overthrown ; and he was exiled, and condemned to be burned alive if captured on Florentine soil. His life was thenceforward one of struggle, of poverty, and of discouragement; but it enabled him to give his genius to the compositions of those great poetical works which entitle him to be called the first great name in literature after the Dark Ages. He died at Ravenna in 132 1, being but little past middle life, but broken by the disheartening vicissitudes of his fortune. R. S. H. READINGS FROM MACAULAY. . ITALIAN WRITERS l^Kniglifs Quarterly Magazine^ January, 1824.] I. DANTE. " Fairest of stars, last in the train of night If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet." MiLTON. In a review of Italian literature, Dante has a double claim to precedency. He was the earliest and the greatest writer of his country. He was the first man who fully descried and exhibited the powers of his native dialect. The Latin tongue, which under the most favorable circumstances, and in the hands of the greatest masters, had still been poor, feeble, and singu- larly unpoetical, and which had, in the age of Dante, been debased by the admixture of innumerable barbar- ous words and idioms, was still cultivated ^vith super- stitious veneration, and received, in the last stage of corruption, more honors than it had deserved in the period of its life and vigor. It was the language of the cabinet, of the university, of the cliurch. It was 3 4 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. employed by all who aspired to distinction in the higher walks of poetry. In compassion to the igno- rance of his mistress, a cavalier might now and then proclaim his passion in Tuscan or Provengal rhymes. The vulgar might occasionally be edified by a pious allegory in the popular jargon. But no writer had conceived it possible that the dialect of peasants and market-women should possess sufficient energy and precision for a majestic and durable work. Dante adventured first. He detected the rich treasures of thought and diction which still lay latent in their ore. He refined them into purity. He burnished them into splendor. He fitted them for every purpose of use and magnificence. And he has thus acquired the glory, not only of producing the finest narrative poem of modern times, but also of creating a language dis- tinguished by unrivalled melody, and peculiarly capa- ble of furnishing to lofty and passionate thoughts their appropriate garb of severe and concise expression. To many this may appear a singular panegyric on the Italian tongue. Indeed, the great majority of the young gentlemen and young ladies, who, when they are asked whether they read Italian, answer "Yes," never go beyond the stories at the end of their grammar, — *' The Pastor Fido," — or an act of Artaserse. They could as soon read a Babylonian brick as a canto of Dante. Hence, it is a general opinion, among those who know little or nothing of the subject, that this admirable language is adapted only to the effeminate cant of sonneteers, musicians, and connoisseurs. DANTE. 5 The fact is, that Dante and Petrarcli have been the Oromasdes and Arimanes of ItaHan Hterature. I wish not to detract from the merits of Petrarch. No one can doubt that his poems exhibit, amidst some imbe- cihty and more affectation, much elegance, ingenuity, and tenderness. They present us with a mixture which can only be compared to the whimsical concert described by the humorous poet of Modena : — " S' udian gli usignuoli, al primo albore, E gli asini cantar versi d' amore." ^ I am not, however, at present speaking of the intrin- sic excellences of his writings, which I shall take another opportunity to examine, but of the effect which they produced on the literature of Italy. The florid and luxurious charms of his style enticed the poets and the public from the contemplation of nobler and sterner models. In truth, the ugh a rude state of society is that in which great origmal works are most frequently produced, it is also that in which they are worst appreciated. This may appear paradoxical ; but it is proved by experience, and is consistent with rea- son. To be without any received canons of taste is good for the few who can create, but bad for the many who can only imitate and judge. Great and active minds cannot remain at rest. In a cultivated age they are too often contented to move on in the beaten path. But, where no path exists, they will make one. Thus the Iliad, the Odyssey, " The Divine * Tassoni : Secchia Rapila, canto i. stanza 6. 6 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. Comedy," appeared in dark and half barbarous times ; and thus of the few original works which have been produced in raoix^' polished ages, we owe a large pro- portion to men in low stations and of uninformed minds. I will instance, in our own language, "The Pilgrim's Progress " and " Robinson Crusoe." Of all the prose works of fiction which we possess, these are, I will not say the best, but the most peculiar, the most unprecedented, the most inimitable. Had Bun- yan and Defoe been educated gentlemen, they would probably have published translations and imitations of French romances "by a person of quality." I am not sure that we should have had " Lear " if Shakspeare had been able to read Sophocles. But tliese circumstances, while they foster genius, are unfavorable to the science of criticism. Men judge by comparison. They are unable to estimate the gran- deur of an object when there is no standard by which they can measure it. One of the French philosophers (I beg Gerard's pardon) who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, tells us, that, when he first visited the Great Pyramid, he was surprised to see it so diminutive. It stood alone in a boundless plain. There was nothing near it from which he could calculate its magnitude. But when the cam.p was pitched beside it, and the tents appeared like diminutive specks around its base, he then perceived the immensity of this mightiest work of man In the same manner, it is not till a crowd of petty v/riters has sprung up, that tlie merit of the great master spirits of literature is understood. DANTE. 7 We had, indeed, ample proof that Dante was highly admired in his own and the following age. I wish that we had equal proof that he was admired for his excellences. But it is a remarkable corroboration of what has been said, that this great man seems to have been utterly unable to appreciate himself. In his treatise, " De Vulgari Eloquentia," he talks with satis- faction of what he has done for Italian literature, of the purity and correctness of his style. " Cependantj' says a favorite ' writer of mine, " // n'est ni pur, ni correct, viais il est createur:' Considering the difficul- ties with which Dante had to struggle, we may per- haps be more inclined than the French critic to allow him this praise. Still, it is by no means his highest or most peculiar title to applause. It is scarcely neces- sary to say that those qualities which escaped the notice of the poet himself were not likely to attract the atten- tion of the commentators. The fact is, that while the public homage was paid to some absurdities with which his works may be justly charged, and to many more which were falsely imputed to them ; while lecturers were paid to expound and eulogize his physics, his metaphysics, his theology, all bad of their kind ; while annotators labored to detect allegorical meanings of which the author never dreamed, — the great powers of his imagination, and the incomparable force of his style, were neither admired nor imitated. Arimanes had prevailed. " The Divine Comedy " was to that * Sismondi: Litterature du Midi de I'Europe. 8 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. age what St. Paul's Cathedral was to Omai. The poor Otaheitean stared listlessly for a moment at the huge cupola, and ran into a toy-shop to play with beads. Italy, too, was charmed with literary trinkets, and played with them for four centuries. From the time of Petrarch to the appearance of Al- fieri's tragedies, we may trace in almost every page of Italian literature the influence of those celebrated son- nets, which, from the nature both of their beauties and their faults, were peculiarly unfit to be models for gen- eral imitation. Almost all the poets of that period, however different in the degree and quality of their talents, are characterized by great exaggeration, and, as- a necessary consequence, great coldness of senti- ment; by a passion for frivolous and tawdry orna- ment ; and, above all, by an extreme feebleness and diffuseness of style. Tasso, Marino, Guarini, Metas- tasio, and a crowd of writers of inferior merit and celebrity, were spellbound in the enchanted gardens of a gaudy and meretricious Alcina, who concealed debility and deformity beneath the deceitful semblance of loveliness and health. Ariosto, the great Ariosto himself, like his own Ruggiero, stooped for a time to linger amidst the magic flowers and fountains, and to caress the gay and painted sorceress. But to him, as to his own Ruggiero, had been given the omnipotent ring and the winged courser, which bore him from the paradise of deception to the regions of light and nature. The evil of which I speak was not confined to the DANTE, 9 graver poets. It infected satire, comedy, burlesque. No person can admire more than I do the great mas- terpieces of wit and humor which Italy has produced. Still, I cannot but discern and lament a great defi- ciency, which is common to them all. I find in them abundance of ingenuity, of droll naivete, of profound and just reflection, of happy expression. Manners, characters, opinions, are treated with " a most learned spirit of human dealing." But something is still want- ing. We read, and we admire, and we yawn. We look in vain for the bacchanalian fury which inspired the comedy of Athens, for the fierce and withering scorn which animates the invectives of Juvenal and Dryden, or even for the compact and pointed diction which adds zest to the verses of Pope and Boileau. There is no enthusiasm, no energy, no condensation, nothing which springs from strong feeling, nothing which tends to excite it. Many fine thoughts and fine expressions reward the toil of reading. Still, it is a toil. "The Secchia Rapita," in some points the best poem of its kind, is painfully diffuse and languid. " The Animali Parlanti of Casti " is perfectly intolera- ble. I admire the dexterity of the plot and the liber- ality of the opinions. I admit that it is impossible to turn to a page which does not contain something that deserves to be remembered, but it is at least six times as long as it ought to be. And the garrulous feeble- ness of the style is a still greater fault than the length of the work. It may be thought that I have gone too far in at- lO READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. tributing these evils to the influence of the works and the fame of Petrarch. It cannot, however, be doubted that they have arisen, in a great measure, from a neg- lect of the style of Dante. This is not more proved by the decline of Italian poetry than by its resuscita- tion. After the lapse of four hundred and fifty years, there appeared a man capable of appreciating and imitating the father of Tuscan literature, — Vittorio Alfieri. Like the prince in the nursery tale, he sought and found the Sleeping Beauty within the recesses which had so long concealed her from mankind. The portal was indeed rusted by time, the dust of ages had accumulated on the hangings, the furniture was of antique fashion, and the gorgeous color of the embroidery had faded ; but the living charms which were well worth all the rest remained in the bloom of eternal youth, and well rewarded the bold adventurer who roused them from their long slumber. In every line of the " Philip " and the " Saul," the greatest poems, I think, of the eighteenth century, we may trace the influence of that mighty genius which has immortalized the ill-starred love of Francesca, and the paternal agonies of Ugolino. Alfieri bequeathed the sovereignty of Italian literature to the author of the " Aristodemus," — a man of genius scarcely in- ferior to his own, and a still more devoted disciple of the great Florentine. It must be acknowledged that this eminent writer has sometimes pushed too far his idolatry of Dante. To borrow a sprightly illustration from Sir John Denham, he has not only imitated his DANTE. 1 1 garb, but borrowed his clothes. He often quotes his phrases ; and he has, not very judiciously as it appears to me, imitated his versification. Nevertheless, he has displayed many of the higher excellences of his mas- ter ; and his works may justly inspire us with a hope that Italian language will long flourish under a new literary dynasty, or, rather, under the legitimate line, which has at length been restored to a throne long occupied by specious usurpers. The man to whom the literature of his country owes its origin and its revival was born in times singu- larly adapted to call forth his extraordinary powers. Religious zeal, chivalrous love and honor, democratic liberty, are the three most powerful principles that have ever influenced the character of large masses of men. Each of them singly has often excited the greatest enthusiasm, and produced the most important changes. In the time of Dante, all the three, often in amalgamation, generally in conflict, agitated the pub- lic mind. The preceding generation had witnessed the wrongs and the revenge of the brave, the accom- plished, the unfortunate Emperor Frederick the Second, — a poet in an age of schoolmen, a philosopher in an age of monks, a statesman in an age of crusaders. During the whole life of the poet, Italy was experien- cing the consequences of the memorable struggle which he had maintained against the Church. The finest works of imagination have always been produced in times of political convulsion, as the richest vineyards and the sweetest flowers always grow on the soil which 12 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. has been fertilized by the fiery deluge of a volcano. To look no farther than the literary history of our own country, can we doubt that Shakspeare was, in a great measure, produced by the Reformation, and Words- worth by the French Revolution ? Poets often avoid political transactions : they often affect to despise them. But, whether they perceive it or not, they must be in- fluenced by them. As long as their minds have any point of contact with those of their fellow-men, the electric impulse, at whatever distance it may originate, will be circuitously communicated to them. This will be the case, even in large societies, where the division of labor enables many speculative men to observe the face of nature, or to analyze their own minds, at a distance from the seat of political transac- tions. In the little republic of which Dante was a member, the state of things was very different. These small communities are most unmercifully abused by most of our modern professors of the science of gov- ernment. In such states, they tell us, factions are always most violent ; where both parties are cooped up within a narrow space, political difference neces- sarily produces personal malignity. Every man must be a soldier : every moment may produce a war. No citizen can lie down secure that he shall not be roused by the alarum-bell, to repel or avenge an injury. In such petty quarrels, Greece squandered the blood which might have purchased for her the permanent empire of the world, and Italy wasted the energy and the abilities which would have enabled her to DANTE. 13 defend her independence against the Pontiffs and the Csesars. All this is true, yet there is still a compensation. Mankind has not derived so much benefit from the empire of Rome as from the city of Athens, nor from the kingdom of France as from the city of Florence. The violence of party feeling may be an evil ; but it calls forth that activity of mind which, in some states of society, it is desirable to produce at any expense. Universal soldiership may be an evil ; but, where every man is a soldier, there will be no standing army. And is it no evil that one man in every fifty should be bred to the trade of slaughter? should live only by destroy- ing, and by exposing himself to be destroyed ? should fight without enthusiasm, and conquer without glory ? be sent to a hospital when wounded, and rot on a dunghill when old ? Such, over more than two-thirds of Europe, is the fate of soldiers. It was something that the citizen of Milan or Florence fought, not merely in the vague and rhetorical sense in which the words are often used, but in sober truth, for his par- ents, his children, his lands, his house, his altars. It was something that he marched forth to battle beneath the Carroccio, which had been the object of his child- ish veneration ; that his aged father looked down from the battlements on his exploits ; that his friends and his rivals were the witnesses of his glory. If he fell, he was consigned to no venal or heedless guardians. The same day saw him conveyed within the walls which he had defended. His wounds were dressed' 14 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. by his mother; his confession was whispered to the friendly priest who had heard and absolved the folhes of his youth ; his last sigh was breathed upon the lips of the lady of his love. Surely, mere is no sword like that which is beaten out of a ploughshare. Surely, this state of things was not unmixedly bad : its evils were alleviated by enthusiasm and by tenderness ; and it will, at least, be acknowledged that it was well fitted to nurse poetical genius in an imaginative and observ- ant mind. Nor did the religious spirit of the age tend less to this result than its political circumstances. Fanaticism is an evil, but it is not the greatest of evils. It is good that a people should be roused by any means from a state of utter torpor, — that their minds should be diverted from objects merely sensual, to meditations, however erroneous, on the mysteries of the moral and intellectual world ; and from interests which are im- mediately selfish to those which relate to the past, the future, and the remote. These effects have some- times been produced by the worst superstitions that ever existed; but the Catholic religion, even in the time of its utmost extravagance and atrocity, never wholly lost the spirit of the Great Teacher, whose pre- cepts form the noblest code, as his conduct furnished the purest example, of moral excellence. It is of all religions the most poetical. The ancient superstitions furnished the fancy with beautiful images, but took no hold on the heart. The doctrines of the Reformed Churches have most powerfully influenced the feelings DANTE. 15 and the conduct of men, but have not presented them with visions of sensible beauty and grandeur. The Roman-Cathohc Church has united to the awful doc- trines of the one what Mr. Coleridge calls the " fair humanities " of the other. It has enriched sculpture and painting with the loveliest and most majestic forms. To the Phidian Jupiter it can oppose the Moses of Michael Angelo ; and to the voluptuous beauty of the Queen of Cyprus, the serene and pensive loveliness of the Virgin Mother. The legends of its martyrs and its saints may vie in ingenuity and interest with the mythological fables of Greece ; its ceremonies and processions were the delight of the vulgar ; the huge fabric of secular power with which it was connected, attracted the admiration of the statesman. At the same time, it never lost sight of the most solemn and tremendous doctrines of Christianity, — the incarnate God, the judgment, the retribution, the eternity of happiness or torment. Thus, while, like the ancient religions, it received incalculable support from policy and ceremony, it never wholly became, like those reli- gions, a merely political and ceremonial institution. The beginning of the thirteenth century was, as Machiavelli has remarked, the era of a great revival of this extraordinary system. The policy of Innocent, — the growth of the Inquisition and the mendicant orders, — the wars against the Albigenses, the Pagans of the East, and the unfortunate princes of the house of Swabia, agitated Italy during the two following gen- erations. In this point, Dante was completely under 1 6 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. the influence of his age. He was a man of a turbid and melancholy spirit. In early youth he had enter- tained a strong and unfortunate passion, which, long after the death of her whom he loved, continued to haunt him. Dissipation, ambition, misfortunes, had not effaced it. He was not only a sincere, but a pas- sionate, believer. The crimes and abuses of the Church of Rome were indeed loathsome to him, but to all its doctrines and all its rites he adhered with enthusiastic fondness and veneration ; and at length, driven from his native country, reduced to a situation the most painful to a man of his disposition, con- demned to learn by experience that no " food is so bitter as the bread of dependence, and no ascent so painful as the staircase of a patron, his wounded spirit took refuge in visionary devotion. Beatrice, the un- forgotten object of his early tenderness, was invested by his imagination with glorious and mysterious attri- butes : she was enthroned among the highest of the celestial hierarchy. Almighty wisdom had assigned to her the care of the sinful and unhappy wanderer who had loved her with such a perfect love.^ By a con- fusion, like that which often takes place in dreams, he has sometimes lost sight of her hum^an nature, and even of her personal existence, and seems to consider her as one of the attributes of the Deity. * " Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e come e duro calle Lo scendere e '1 salir per 1' altrui scale." Paradiso, canto xvii. * " L' aniico niio, e non della ventura." — Inferno, canto ii. DANTE. 17 But those religious hopes which had released the mind of the sublime enthusiast from the terrors of death had not rendered his speculations on human life more cheerful. This is an inconsistency which may often be observed in men of a similar temperament. j He hoped for happiness beyond the grave, but he felt j none on earth. It is from this cause, more than from any other, that his description of Heaven is so far in- ferior to the Hell or the Purgatory. With the passions and miseries of the suffering spirits, he feels a strong sympathy. But among the beatified he appears as one who has nothing in common with them, — as one who is incapable of comprehending, not only the degree, but the nature, of their enjoyment. We think that we see him standing amidst those smiling and radiant spirits with that scowl of unutterable misery on his brow, and that curl of bitter disdain on his lips, which all his portraits have preserved, and which might furnish Chantrey with hints for the head of his pro- jected Satan. ' There is no poet whose intellectual and moral char- acter are so closely connected. The great source, as it appears to me, of the power of " The- Divine Comedy," is the strong belief with which the story seems to be told. In this respect, the only books which approach to its excellence are " Gulliver's Travels " and " Rob- j . Crusoe." The solemnity of his asseverations, consistency and minuteness of his details, the ear- tness with which he labors to make the reader derstand the exact shape and size of every thir.g 1 8 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. that he describes, give an air of reality to his wildest fictions. I should only weaken this statement by quot- ing instances of a feeling which pervades the whole work, and to which it owes much of its fascination. This is the real justification of the many passages in his poem which bad critics have condemned as grotesque. I am concerned to see that Mr. Gary, to whom Dante owes more than ever poet owed to translator, has j sanctioned an accusation utterly unworthy of his abil- ities. " His solicitude," says that gentleman, " to de- fine all his images in such a manner as to bring them within the circle of our vision, and to subject them to the power of the pencil, renders him little better than grotesque, where Miltoa has since taught us to expect sublimity." It is true that Dante has never shrunk from embodying his conceptions in determinate words, that he has even given measures and numbers, where Milton would have left his images to float un- defined in a gorgeous haze of language. Both were right. Milton did not profess to have been in heaven/' or hell. He might, therefore, reasonably confine him self to magnificent generalities. Far different wa^ the office of the lonely traveller, who had wandered through the nations of the dead. Had he described the abode of the rejected spirits in language resem- bling the splendid lines of the English poet, — had he told us of — " An universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good. Where all lile dies, death lives, and Nature breeds DANTE. 19 Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things, ] Abominable, unutterable, and worse I Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, I Gorgons, and hydras, and chimaeras dire," — I mis would doubtless have been noble writing. But •"Ivhere would have been that strong impression of teality, which, in accordance with his plan, it should lave been his great object to produce? It was ab- fjfeolutely necessary for him to delineate accurately 7** all monstrous, all prodigious things," to utter what might to others appear " unutterable," to relate with the air of truth what fables had never feigned, to embody what fear had never conceived. And I will frankly confess that the vague sublimity of Milton affects me less than these reviled details of Dante. We read Milton, and we know that we are reading a great poet. When we read Dante, the poet van- ishes. We are listening to the man who has returned from " the valley of the dolorous abyss : " ^ we seem to see the dilated eye of horror, to hear the shudder- ing accents with which he tells his fearful tale. Con- sidered in this light, the narratives are exactly what they should be, — definite in themselves, but suggest- ing to the mind ideas of awful and indefinite wonder. They are made up of the images of the earth : they are told in the language of the earth. Yet the whole effect is, beyond expression, wild and unearthly. The fact is, that supernatural beings, as long as they are ccnsidered merely with reference to their own nature, * " La valle d' abisso doloroso." — In/enio, canto iv. 20 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. excite our feelings very feebly. It is when the greaf" gulf which separates them from us is passed, when we suspect some strange and undefinable relation bef' tween the laws of the visible and the invisible world/ that they rouse, perhaps, the strongest emotions ofp which our nature is capable. How many children^-^ and how many men, are afraid of ghosts, who are not^' afraid of God ! And this because, though they enter-rc" tain a much stronger conviction of the existence of aj Deity than of the reality of apparitions, they have no: apprehension that he will manifest himself to them in^ any sensible manner. While this is the case, to de-^ scribe superhuman beings in the language, and to* attribute to them the actions, of humanity may be '' grotesque, unphilosophical, inconsistent ; but it will be ^ the only mode of working upon the feelings of men, and, therefore, the only mode suited for poetry. Shak- speare understood this well, as he understood every thing that belonged to his art. Who does not sym- pathize with the rapture of Ariel, flying, after sunset, on the wings of the bat, or sucking in the cups of flowers with the bee ? Who does not shudder at the caldron of " Macbeth " ? Where is the philosopher who is not moved when he thinks of the strange con- nection between the infernal spirits and "the sow's blood that hath eaten her nine farrow " ? But this difficult task of representing supernatural beings to our minds in a manner which shall be neither unin- telligible to our intellects, nor wholly inconsistent with " our ideas of their nature, has never been so well per- DANTE. 21 /jformed as by Dante. I will refer to three instances, liwhich are, perhaps, the most striking, — the descrip- tion of the transformations of the serpents and the S^robbers, in the twenty-fifth canto of the " Inferno ; " jthe passage concerning Nimrod, in the thirty-first [.canto of the same part ; and the magnificent proces- ision in the twenty-ninth canto of the " Purgatorio." ^ The metaphors and comparisons of Dante harmonize J admirably with that air of strong reality of which I )|u.ej/ai f]8' ox^efcrdai,, aW^ a conventional belief? Even Spenser's allegory scarcely tolerable, till we contrive to forget that U' signifies innocence, and consider her merely as .'' oppressed lady under the protection of a genero^ knight. Those writers who have, more judiciously, attempts to preserve the personality of the classical divinities ^ have failed from a different cause. They have bee/' es imitators, and imitators at a disadvantage. Euripides id and Catullus believed in Bacchus and Cybele as little w as we do. But they lived among men who did. d Their imaginations, if not their opinions, took the color of the age. Hence the glorious inspiration of the Bacchse and the Atys. Our minds are formed by circumstances, and I do not believe that it would be : in the power of the greatest modern poet to lash him- self up to a degree of enthusiasm adequate to the production of such works. DANTE. 27 Dante alone, among the poets of later times, has been, in this respect, neither an allegorist nor an imi- tator ; and, consequently, he alone has introduced the ancient fictions with effect. His Minos, his Charon, his Pluto, are absolutely terrific. Nothing can be more beautiful or original than the use which he has made of the river of Lethe. He has never assigned to his mythological characters any functions inconsist- ent with the creed of the Catholic Church. He has related nothing concerning them which a good Chris- tian of that age might not beheve possible. On this account, there is nothing in these passages that appears puerile or pedantic. On the contrary, this singular use of classical names suggests to the mind a vague and awful idea of some mysterious revelation, anterior to all recorded history, of which the dispersed frag- jaients might have been retained amidst the impostures and superstitions of later religions. Indeed, the myth- \logy of " The Divine Comedy " is of the elder and \ore colossal mould. It breathes the spirit of Homer id ^schylus, not of Ovid and Claudian. j This is the more extraordinary, since Dante seems /o have been utterly ignorant of the Greek language ; and his favorite Latin models could only have served to mislead him. Indeed, it is impossible not to re- mark his admiration of writers far inferior to himself, and, in particular, his idolatry of Virgil, who, ele- gant and splendid as he is, has no pretensions to the depth and originality of mind which characterize his Tuscan worshipper. In truth, it may be laid down, 28 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. as an almost universal rule, that good poets are bad critics. Their minds are under the tyranny of ten thousand associations imperceptible to others. The worst writer may easily happen to touch a spring which is connected in their minds with a long succession of beautiful images. They are like the gigantic slaves of Aladdin, gifted with matchless power, but bound by spells so mighty, that when a child whom they could have crushed touched a talisman, of whose secret he was ignorant, they immediately became his vassals. It has more than once happened to me to see minds, graceful and majestic as the Titania of Shakspeare, bewitched by the charms of an ass's head, bestowing on it the fondest caresses, and crowning it with the sweetest flowers. I need only mention the poems at- tributed to Ossian. They are utterly worthless, except as an edifying instance of the success of a story withJ out evidence, and of a book without merit. They ar'e a chaos of words which present no image, of imag'es which have no archetype. They are without form aijid void, and darkness is upon the face of them. Yet holw many men of genius have panegyrized and imitated them ! \^ The style of Dante is, if not his highest, perhaps hisi, most peculiar, excellence. I know nothing with which it can be compared. The noblest models of Greel<: composition must yield to it. His words are the few^ est and the best which it is possible to use. The first expression in which he clothes his thoughts is always so energetic and comprehensive that amplification DANTE, 29 would only injure the effect. There is probably no writer in any language who has presented so many strong pictures to the mind. Yet there is probably no writer equally concise. This perfection of style is the principal merit of the " Paradiso," which, as I have already remarked, is by no means equal, in other respects, to the two preceding parts of the poem. The force and felicity of the diction, however, irresistibly attract the reader through the theological lectures and the sketches of ecclesiastical biography, with which this division of the work too much abounds. It may seem almost absurd to quote particular specimens of an excellence which is diffused over all his hundred cantos. I will, however, instance the third canto of the "Inferno," and the sixth of the "Purgatorio," as passages incomparable in their kind. The merit of the latter is, perhaps, rather oratorical than poetical : |nor can I recollect any thing in the great Athenian speeches which equals it in force of invective, and bit- terness of sarcasm. I have heard the most eloquent statesman of the age remark, that, next to Demos- thenes, Dante is the writer who ought to be most attentively studied by every man who desires to attain •oratorical eminence. But it is time to close this feeble and rambling critique. I cannot refrain, however, from saying a few words upon the translations of "The Divine Comedy." Boyd's is as tedious and languid as the original is rapid and forcible. The strange measure which he has chosen, and, for aught I know, invented, is most unfit 30 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. for such a work. Translations ought never to be written in a verse which requires much command of rhyme. The stanza becomes a bed of Procrustes, and the thoughts of the unfortunate author are aUer- nately racked and curtailed to fit their new receptacle. The abrupt and yet consecutive style of Dante suffers more than that of any other poet by a version diffuse in style, and divided into paragraphs — for they de- serve no other name — of equal length. Nothing can be said in favor of Hayley's attempt, but that it is better than Boyd's. His mind was a tolerable specimen of filigree-work, — rather elegant, and very feeble. All that can be said for his best works is, that they are neat. All that can be said against his worst is, that they are stupid. He might have translated " Metastasio " tolerably. But he was utterly unable to do justice to the — " Rime e aspre e chiocce, Come si converrebbe al tristo buco." * I turn with pleasure from these wretched perform- ances to Mr. Gary's translation. It is a work whictji well deserves a separate discussion, and on which, ifj this article were not already too long, I could dwell with great pleasure. At present, I will only say that; there is no other version in the world, as far as I know, so faithful, yet that there is no other version which so fully proves that the translator is himself a man of poetical genius. Those who are ignorant of the Ital- * Inferno, canto xxxii. DANTE. 3 1 ian language should read it to become acquainted with "The Divine Comedy." Those who are most intimate with Italian literature should read it for its original merits ; and I believe that they will find it difficult to determine whether the author deserves most praise for his intimacy with the language of Dante, or for his extraordinary mastery over his own. FRANCESCO PETRACCA, OR PETRARCH. This great literary genius and favorite of fortune was born in the year 1304, in Arezzo, where his father, an associate and compatriot of Dante, was an exile. By blood he was a Florentine. His father lost his fortune, and he was obliged to become a priest to secure sup- port. His whole life was devoted to Hterature. He was singularly fortunate in his friendships, and by them was brought into connection with the most influential men in church, state, and society of his day. The re- nowned Boccaccio, in his later life, became one of his most useful and devoted friends. He was crowned poet at Rome, with imposing ceremonies. His life was passed in Avignon, Bologna, Vaucluse, Parma, Milan, Padua ; and he died in 1 3 74, at Arqua, where he was found in his library with his head reclining upon a book — dead. He was the first great scholar of the Renaissance, and the originator of those great collections of libraries, coins, manuscripts, and monu- ments of antiquity, which have been of such service to the world. He was the repeated recipient of offer:; of honors in the Church, which he as repeatedly de^- clined, to devote himself exclusively to study anc' Hterature. \ R. S. H. . 32 [Knighfs Quarterly Magazine, April, 1824.] II. PETRARCH. Et vos, o lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte. Sic positae quoniam suaves miscetis odores. — ViRGlL. It would not be easy to name a \vriter whose celeb- rity, when both its extent and its duration are taken into the account, can be considered as equal to that of Petrarch. Four centuries and a half have elapsed since his death. Yet still the inhabitants of every nation throughout the western world are as familiar with his character and his adventures as with the most illustrious names, and the most recent anecdotes, of their own literary history. This is indeed a rare dis- tinction. His detractors must acknowledge that it could not have been acquired by a poet destitute of i;nerit. His admirers will scarcely maintain that the imassisted merit of Petrarch could have raised him to that eminence which has not yet been attained by Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante, — that eminence, of which perhaps no modern writer, excepting himself md Cervantes, has long retained possession, — an r:iuropean reputation. It is not difficult to discover some of the causes to which this great man has owed a celebrity which I 34 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. cannot but think disproportioned to his real claims on the admiration of mankind. In the first place, he is an egotist. Egotism in conversation is universally abhorred. Lovers, and I believe lovers alone, pardon it in each other. No services, no talents, no powers of pleasing, render it endurable. Gratitude, admira- tion, interest, fear, scarcely prevent those who are con- demned to listen to it from indicating their disgust and fatigue. The childless uncle, the powerful patron, can scarcely extort this compliance. We leave the inside of the mail in a storm, and mount the box, rather ihan hear the history of our companion. The chap'ain bites his lips in the presence of the archbishop. The midshipman yawns at the table of the First Lord, "^^et, from whatever cause, this practice, the pest of conver- sation, gives to writing a zest which nothing else can impart. Rousseau made the boldest experiment of this kind, and it fully succeeded. In our own tim^;, Lord Byron, by a series of attempts of the same nature, made himself the object of general interest and admi- ration. Wordsworth wrote with egotism more intense:, but less obvious ; and he has been rewarded witu . . sect of worshippers, comparatively small in numbe_ but far more enthusiastic in their devotion. It is neec] • less to multiply instances. Even now all the walks of literature are infested with mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibiting all the dis- tortions of their intellects, and stripping the covering from all the putrid sores of their feelings. Nor are there wanting many who push their imitation of the PETRARCH. 35 beggars whom they resemble a step farther, and who find it easier to extort a pittance from the spectator, by simulating deformity and debility from which they are exempt, than by such honest labor as their health and strength enable them to perform. In the mean time, the credulous public pities and pampers a nui- sance which requires only the treadmill and the whip. This art, often successful when employed by dunces, gives irresistible fascination to works which possess intrinsic merit. We are always desirous to know some- thing of the character and situation of those whose writings we have perused with pleasure. The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more inter- est, than any other lines in his poems. It is amusing to observe with what labor critics have attempted to glean from the poems of Homer some hints as to his situation and feelings. According to one hypothesis, he intended to describe himself under the name of Demodocus. Others maintain that he was the identical Phemius whose life Ulysses spared. This propensity of the human mind explains, I think, in a great degree, the extensive popularity of a poet whose works are little else than the expression of his personal feelings. In the second place, Petrarch was not only an ego- tist, but an amatory egotist. The hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, which he described, were derived from the passion which of all passions exerts the widest influence, and which of all passions borrows most from the imagination. He had also another immense ad- 36 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. vantage. He was the first eminent amatory poet who appeared after the great convulsion which had changed, not only the political, but the moral, state of the world. The Greeks, who, in their public institutions and their literary tastes, were diametrically opposed to the Orien- tal nations, bore a considerable resemblance to those nations in their domestic habits. Like them, they despised the intellects, and immured the persons, of their women ; and it was among the least of the fright- ful evils to which this pernicious system gave birth, that all the accomplishments of mind, and all the fas- cinations of manner, which, in a highly cultivated age, will generally be necessary to attach men to their female associates, were monopolized by the Phrynes and the Lamias. The indispensable ingredients of honorable and chivalrous love were nowhere to be found united. The matrons and their daughters, con- fined in the harem, — insipid, uneducated, ignorant of all but the mechanical arts, scarcely seen till they were married, — could rarely excite interest; while their j^rilliant rivals, half Graces, half Harpies, elegant and informed, but fickle and rapacious, could never inspire respect, ; The state of society in Rome was, in this point, Lar happier ; and the Latin literature partook of the supie- riority. The Roman poets have decidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion c'f love. There is no subject which they have treated with so much success. Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Hor- ace, and Propertius, in spite of all their faults, must be PETRARCH. 3/ allowed to rank high in this department of the art. To these I would add my favorite Plautus ; who, though he took his plots from Greece, found, I suspect, the originals of his enchanting female characters at Rome. Still, many evils remained ; and, in the decline of the great empire, all that was pernicious in its domestic institutions appeared more strongly. Under the influ- ence of governments at once dependent and tyrannical, which purchased, by cringing to their enemies, the power of trampling on their subjects, the Romans sunk into the lowest state of effeminacy and debasement. Falsehood, cowardice, sloth, conscious and unrepining degradation, formed the national character. Such a character is totally incompatible with the stronger pas- sions. Love, in particular, which, in the modern sense of the word, implies protection and devotion on the one side, confidence on the other, respect and fidelity on both, could not exist among the sluggish and heartless slaves who cringed, around the thrones of Honorius and Augustulus. At this period the great renovation commenced. The warriors of the north, destitute as they were of knowledge and humanity, brought with them, from their forests and marshes, those qualities without which humanity is a weakness, and knowledge a curse, — energy, independence, the dread of shame, the contempt of danger. It would be most interesting to examine the manner in which the admixture of the savage conquerors and the effeminate slaves, after many generations of darkness and agitation, produced the modern European charac- 38 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. ter ; to trace back, from the first conflict to the final amalgamation, the operation of that mysterious al- chemy which, from hostile and worthless elements, has extracted the pure gold of human nature, — to analyze the mass, and to determine the proportions in which the ingredients are mingled. But I will confine myself to the subject to which I have more particularly re- ferred. The nature of the passion of love had under- gone a complete change. It still retained, indeed, the fanciful and voluptuous character which it had pos- sessed among the southern nations of antiquity. But it was tinged with the superstitious veneration with which the northern warriors had been accustomed to regard women. Devotion and war had imparted to it their most solemn and animating feelings. It was sanctified by the blessings of the Church, and deco- rated with the wreaths of the tournament. Venus, as in the ancient fable, was again rising above the dark and tempestuous waves which had so long covered her beauty. But she rose not now, as of old, in exposed and luxurious loveliness. She still wore the cestus of her ancient witchcraft ; but the diadem of Juno was on her brow, and the aegis of Pallas in her hand. Love might, in fact, be called a new passion ; and it is not astonishing that the first poet of eminence who wholly devoted his genius to this theme should have excited an extraordinary sensation. He may be compared to an adventurer who accidentally lands in a rich and unknown island, and who, though he may only set up an ill-shaped cross upon the shore, acquires possession PETRARCH. 39 of its treasures, and gives it his name. The claim of Petrarch was indeed somewhat hke that of Amerigo Vespucci to the continent which should have derived its appellation from Columbus. The Provengal poets were unquestionably the masters, of the Florentine. But they wrote in an age which could not appreciate their merits, and their imitator lived at the very period when composition in the vernacular language began to attract general attention. Petrarch was in literature what a Valentine is in love. The public preferred him, not because his merits were of a transcendent order, but because he was the first person whom they saw after they awoke from their long sleep. Nor did Petrarch gain less by comparison with his immediate successors than with those who had preceded him. Till more than a century after his death, Italy produced no poet who could be compared to him. This decay of genius is doubtless to be ascribed, in a great measure, to the influence which his own works had exercised upon the literature of his country. Yet it has conduced much to his fame. Nothing is more favorable to the reputation of a writer than to be suc- ceeded by a race inferior to himself; and it is an ad- vantage, from obvious causes, much more frequently enjoyed by those who corrupt the national taste than by those who improve it. Another cause has co-operated with those which I have mentioned, to spread the renown of Petrarch. I mean the interest which is inspired by the events of his Hfe, — an interest which must have been stronerlv / 40 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y, felt by his contemporaries, since, after an interval of five hundred years, no critic can be wholly exem]jt from its influence. Among the great men to whom we owe the resuscitation of science, he deserves the fore- most place ; and his enthusiastic attachment to this great cause constitutes his most just and splendid title to the gratitude of posterity. He was the votary of literature. He loved it with a perfect love. He wor- shipped it with an almost fanatical devotion. He was the missionary who proclaimed its discoveries to dis- tant countries ; the pilgrim who travelled far and wide to collect its relics ; the hermit who retired to se- clusion to meditate on its beauties ; the champion who fought its battles ; the conqueror, who, in more than a metaphorical sense, led barbarism and ignorance in triumph, and received in the Capitol the laurel which his magnificent victory had earned. Nothing can be conceived more noble or affecting than that ceremony. The superb palaces and porticos, by which had rolled the ivory chariots of Marius and Csesar, had long mouldered into dust. The laurelled fasces, the golden eagles, the shouting legions, the captives and the pictured cities, were indeed wanting to his victorious procession. The sceptre had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the mightier influence of an intellectual empire, and was now to confer the prouder reward of an intellectual triumph. To the man who had extended the dominion of her ancient language, who had erected the trophies of philosophy and imagination in the haunts of ignorance PETRARCH. 41 and ferocity, whose captives were the hearts of ad- miring nations enchained by the influence of his song, whose spoils were the treasures of ancient genius rescued from obscurity and decay, the Eternal City offered the just and glorious tribute of her gratitude. Amidst the ruined monuments of ancient, and the infant erections of modern, art, he who had restored the broken link between the two ages of human civili- zation was crowned with the wreath which he had deserved from the moderns who owed to him their refinement, — from the ancients who owed to him their fame. Never was a coronation so august witnessed by Westminster or by Rheims. When we turn from this glorious spectacle to the private chamber of the poet, — when we contemplate the struggle of passion and virtue, — the eye dimmed, the cheek furrowed by the tears of sinful and hopeless desire, — when we reflect on the whole history of his attachment, from the gay fantasy of his youth to the lingering despair of his age, pity and affection mingle with our admiration. Even after death had placed the last seal on his misery, we see him devoting to the cause of the human mind all the strength and energy which love and sorrow had spared. He lived the apostle of literature, — he fell its martyr, — he was found dead with his head reclined on a book. Those who have studied the life and writings of Petrarch with attention, will perhaps be inclined to make some deductions from this panegyric. It cannot be denied that his merits were disfigured by a most 42 RE A DINGS FROM MA CA ULA Y. unpleasant affectation. His zeal for literature com- municated a tinge of pedantry to all his feelings and opinions. His love was the love of a sonneteer : his patriotism was the patriotism of an antiquarian. The interest with which we contemplate the works, and study the history, of those who, in former ages, have occupied our country, arises from the associations which connect them with the community in which are com- prised all the objects of our affection and our hope. In the mind of Petrarch, these feelings were reversed. He loved Italy because it abounded with the monu- ments of the ancient masters of the world. His native city, — the fair and glorious Florence, — the modern Athens, then in all the bloom and strength of its youth, could not obtain, from the most distinguished of its citizens, any portion of that passionate homage which he paid to the decrepitude of Rome. These and many other blemishes, though they must in candor be ac- knowledged, can but in a very slight degree diminish the glory of his career. For my own part, I look upon it with so much fondness and. pleasure, that I feel re- luctant to turn from it to the consideration of his works, which I by no means contemplate with equal admiration. Nevertheless, I think highly of the poetical powers of Petrarch. He did not possess, indeed, the art of strongly presenting sensible objects to the imagination ; and this is the more remarkable, because the talent of which I speak is that which peculiarly distinguishes the Italian poets. In "The Divine Comedy" it is dis- PETRARCH. 43 played in its highest perfection. It characterizes almost every celebrated poem in the language. Perhaps this is to be attributed to the circumstance, that painting and sculpture had attained a high degree of excellence in Italy before poetry had been extensively cultivated. Men were debarred from books, but accustomed from childhood to contemplate the admirable works of art, which, even in the thirteenth century, Italy began to produce. Hence their imaginations received so strong a bias, that, even in their writings, a taste for graphic delineation is discernible. The progress of things in England has been in all respects different. The con- sequence is, that English historical pictures are poems on canvas; while Italian poems are pictures painted to the mind by means of words. Of this national characteristic the writings of Petrarch are almost to- tally destitute. His sonnets, indeed, from their subject and nature ; and his Latin poems, from the restraints which always shackle one who writes in a dead lan- guage, — cannot fairly be received in evidence. But his " Triumphs " absolutely required the exercise of this talent, and exhibit no indications of it. Genius, however, he certainly possessed, and genius of a high order. His ardent, tender, and magnificent turn of thought, his brilliant fancy, his command of expression, at once forcible and elegant, must be ac- knowledged. Nature meant him for the prince of lyric writers. But by one fatal present she deprived her other gifts of half their value. He would have been a much greater poet had he been a less clever man. 44 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. His ingenuity was the bane of his mind. He aban- doned the noble and natural style, in which he might have excelled, for the conceits which he produced with a facility at once admirable and disgusting. His muse, like the Roman lady in Livy, was tempted by gaudy ornaments to betray the fastnesses of her strength, and, like her, was crushed beneath the glittering bribes which had seduced her. The paucity of his thoughts is very remarkable. It is impossible to look without amazement on a mind so fertile in combinations, yet so barren of images. His amatory poetry is wholly made up of a very few topics, disposed in so many orders, and exhibited in so many lights, that it reminds us of those arithmetical prob- lems about permutations, which so much astonish the unlearned. The French cook, who boasted that he could make fifteen different dishes out of a nettle-top, was not a greater master of his art. The mind of Petrarch was a kaleidoscope. At every turn, it pre- sents us with new forms, always fantastic, occasionally beautiful ; and we can scarcely believe that all these varieties have been produced by the same worthless fragments of glass. The sameness of his images is, indeed, in some degree, to be attributed to the same- ness of his subject. It would be unreasonable to expect perpetual variety from so many hundred compositions, all of the same length, ail in the same measure, and all addressed to the same insipid and heartless coquette. I cannot but suspect also that the perverted taste, which is the blemish of his amatory verses, was to be PETRARCH. 45 attributed to the influence of Laura, who probably, like most critics of her sex, preferred a gaudy to a majes- tic style. Be this as it may, he no sooner changes his subject than be changes his manner. When he speaks of the wrongs and degradation of Italy, devastated by foreign invaders, and but feebly defended by her pusil- lanimous children, the effeminate lisp of the sonneteer is exchanged for a cry, wild and solemn, and piercing as that which proclaimed, " Sleep no more ! " to the bloody house of Cawdor. " Italy seems not to feel her sufferings," exclaims her impassioned poet : " decrepit, sluggish, and languid, will she sleep forever? Will there be none to awake her? Oh that I had my hands twisted in her hair ! " ^ Nor is it with less energy that he denounces against the Mahometan Babylon the vengeance of Europe and of Christ. His magnificent enumeration of the ancient exploits of the Greeks must always excite admiration, and cannot be perused without the deepest interest, at a time when the wise and good, bitterly disappointed in so many other countries, are looking with breathless anxiety towards the natal land of liberty, — the field of Marathon, — and the deadly pass where the Lion of Lacedsemon turned to bay.'' 1 Che suol guai non par che senta; Vecchia, oziosa, e lenta. Dormira sempre, e non fia chi la svegli? Le man 1' avess' io awolte entro e capegll. — Canzone xl. 2 Maratona, e le mortali strette Che difese il Leon con poca gente. — Canzone v. 46 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY, His poems on religious subjects also deserve the highest commendation. At the head of these must be placed the " Ode to the Virgin." It is, perhaps, the finest hymn in the world. His devout veneration re- ceives an exquisitely poetical character from the deli- cate perception of the sex and the loveliness of his idol, which we may easily trace throughout the whole composition. I could dwell with pleasure on these and similar parts of the writings of Petrarch, but I must return to his amatory poetry : to that he intrusted his fame, and to that he has principally owed it. The prevailing defect of his best compositions on this subject is the universal brilliancy with which they are lighted up. The natural language of the passions is, indeed, often figurative and fantastic ; and with none is this more the case than with that of love. Still, there is a limit. The feehngs should, indeed, have their ornamental garb ; but, like an elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. The drapery should be so arranged, as at once to answer the pur- poses of modest concealment and judicious display. The decorations should sometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten a beauty, but never to conceal, much less to distort, the charms to which they are subsidiary. The love of Petrarch, on the contrary, arrays itself like a foppish savage, whose nose is bored with a golden ring, whose skin is painted with grotesque forms and dazzling colors, and whose ears are drawn down to his shoulders by the weight of PETRARCH. 47 jewels. It is a rule without any exception, in all kinds of composition, that the principal idea, the pre- dominant feeling, should never be confounded with the accompanying decoration^. It should generally be dis- tinguished from them by greater simplicity of expres- sion ; as we recognize Napoleon in the pictures of his battles, amidst a crowd of embroidered coats and plumes, by his gray cloak and his hat without a feather. In the verses of Petrarch, it is generally impossible to say what thought is meant to be prominent. All is equally elaborate. The chief wears the same gorgeous and degrading livery with his retinue, and obtains only his share of the indifferent stare which we bestow upon them in common. The poems have no strong lights and shades, no background, no foreground : they are like the illuminated figures in an Oriental manuscript, — plenty of rich tints, and no perspective. Such are the faults of the most celebrated of these composi- tions. Of those which are universally acknowledged to be bad, it is scarcely possible to speak with patience. Yet they have much in common with their splendid companions. They differ from them as a May-day procession of chimney-sweepers differs from the Field of Cloth of Gold. They have the gaudiness, but not the wealth. His muse belongs to that numerous class of females who have no objection to be dirty, while they can be tawdry. When his brilliant conceits are exhausted, he supplies their place with metaphysical quibbles, forced antitheses, bad puns, and execrable charades. In his fifth sonnet he may, I think, be said 48 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. to have sounded the lowest chasm of the Bathos. Upon the whole, that piece may be safely pronounced to be the worst attempt at poetry, and the worst at- tempt at wit, in the world. , A strong proof of the truth of these criticisms is, that almost all the sonnets produce exactly the same effect on the mind of the reader. They relate to all the various moods of a lover, from joy to despair; yet they are perused, as far as my experience and ob- servation have gone, with exactly the same feeling. The fact is, that in none of them are the passion and the ingenuity mixed in just proportions. There is not enough sentiment to dilute the condiments which are employed to season it. The repast which he sets be- fore us resembles the Spanish entertainment in Dry- den's "Mock Astrologer," at which the relish of all the dishes and sauces was overpowered by the common flavor of spice. Fish, — flesh, — fowl, — every thing at table tasted of nothing but red pepper. The writings of Petrarch may indeed suffer unde- servedly from one cause to which I must allude. His imitators 'have so much familiarized the ear of Italy and of Europe to the favorite topics of amorous flat- tery and lamentation, that we can scarcely think them original when we find them in the first author ; and, even when our understandings have convinced us that they were new to him, they are still old to us. This has been the fate of many of the finest passages of the most eminent writers. It is melancholy to trace a noble thought from stage to stage of its profanation ; PETRARCH. 49 to see it transferred from the first illustrious wearer to his lackeys, turned, and turned again, and at last hung on a scarecrow. Petrarch has really suffered much from this cause. Yet that he should have so suffered is a sufficient proof that his excellences were not of the highest order. A line may be stolen, but the per- vading spirit of a great poet is not to be surreptitiously obtained by a plagiarist. The continued imitation of twenty-five centuries has left Homer as it found him. If every simile and every turn of Dante had been copied ten thousand times, " The Divine Comedy " would have retained all its freshness. It was easy for the porter in " Farquhar " to pass for Beau CHncher, by borrowing his lace and his pulvilio. It would have been more difficult to enact Sir Harry Wildair. Before I quit this subject, I must defend Petrarch from one accusation, which is in the present day fre- quently brought against him. His sonnets are pro- nounced by a large sect of critics not to possess certain qualities which they maintain to be indispensable to sonnets, with as much confidence, and as much reason, as their protot}^pe3 of old insisted on the unities of the drama. I am an exoteric — utterly unable to explain the mysteries of this new poetical faith. I only know that it is a faith, which except a man do keep pure and undefiled, without doubt he shall be called a block- head. I cannot, however, refrain from asking what is the particular virtue which belongs to fourteen as dis- tinguished from all other numbers. Does it arise from its being a multiple of seven ? Has this principle any 50 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. reference to the sabbatical ordinance ? Or is it to the order of rhymes that these singular properties are attached? Unhappily the sonnets of Shakspeare differ as much in this respect from those of Petrarch, as from a Spenserian or an octave stanza. Away with this un- meaning jargon ! We have pulled down the old regime of criticism. I trust that we shall never tolerate the equally pedantic and irrational despotism which some of the revolutionary leaders would erect upon its ruins. We have not dethroned Aristotle and Bossu for this. These sonnet-fanciers would do well to reflect, that, though the style of Petrarch may not suit the standard of perfection which they have chosen, they lie under great obligations to these very poems, — that, but for Petrarch, the measure, concerning which they legislate so judiciously, would probably never have attracted notice ; and that to him they owe the pleasure of admiring, and the glory of composing, pieces, which seem to have been produced by Master Slender, with the assistance of his man Simple. I cannot conclude these remarks without making a few observations on the Latin writings of Petrarch. It appears, that, both by himself and by his contempora- ries, these were far more highly valued than his com- positions in the vernacular language. Posterity, the supreme court of literary appeal, has not only reversed the judgment, but, according to its general practice, reversed it with costs, and condemned the unfortunate works to pay, not only for their own inferiority, but also for the injustice of those who had given them an PETRARCH, 51 Linmerited preference. And it must be owned, that, without making large allowances for the circumstances under which they were produced, we cannot pronounce a very favorable judgment. They must be considered as exotics, transplanted to a foreign climate, and reared in an unfavorable situation ; and it would be unreason- able to expect from them the health and the vigor which we find in the indigenous plants around them, or which they might themselves have possessed in their native soil. He has but very imperfectly imitated the style of the Latin authors, and has not compensated for the deficiency by enriching the ancient language with the graces of modern poetry. The splendor and ingenuity, which we admire, even when we condemn it, in his Italian works, is almost totally wanting, and only illuminates with rare and occasional glimpses the dreary obscurity of the " Africa." The eclogues have more animation, but they can only be called poems by courtesy. They have nothing in common with his writings in his native language, except the eternal pun about Laura and Daphne. None of these works would have placed him on a level with Vida or Buchanan. Yet when we compare him with those who preceded him, when we consider that he went on the forlorn hope of literature, that he was the first who perceived, and the first who attempted to revive, the finer elegan- cies of the ancient language of the world, we shall, perhaps, think more highly of him than of those who could never have surpassed his beauties if they had not inherited them. 52 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. He has aspired to emulate the philosophical elo- quence of Cicero, as well as the poetical majesty of Virgil. His essay on the " Remedies of Good and Evil Fortune " is a singular work in a colloquial form and a most scholastic style. It seems to be framed upon the model of the "Tusculan Questions," — with what suc- cess those who have read it may easily determine. It consists of a series of dialogues : in each of these a person is introduced who has experienced some happy or some adverse event ; he gravely states his case, and a reasoner, or rather Reason personified, confutes him, — a task not very difficult, since the disciple defends his position only by pertinaciously repeating it, in almost the same words, at the end of every argument of his antagonist. In this manner Petrarch solves an immense variety of cases. Indeed, I doubt whether it would be possible to name any pleasure or any calamity which does not find a place in this dissertation. He gives excellent advice to a man who is in expectation of dis- covering the philosopher's stone ; to another, who has formed a fine aviary ; to a third, who is delighted with the tricks of a favorite monkey. His lectures to the unfortunate are equally singular. He seems to imagine that a precedent in point is a sufficient consolation for every form of suffering. " Our town is taken," says one complainant. " So was Troy," replies his com- forter. *' My wife has eloped," says another. " If it has happened to you once, it happened to Menelaus twice." One poor fellow is in great distress at having discovered that his wife's son is none of his. " It is PETRARCH. 53 hard," says he, " that I should have had the expense of bringing up one who is indifferent to me." — "You are a man," returns his monitor, quoting the famous Hne of Terence ; " and nothing that belongs to any- other man ought to be indifferent to you." The physi- cal calamities of life are not omitted ; and there is in particular a disquisition on the advantages of having the itch, which, if not convincing, is certainly very amusing. The invectives upon an unfortunate physician, or rather, upon the medical science, have more spirit. Petrarch was thoroughly in earnest on this subject. And the bitterness of his feelings occasionally produces, in the midst of his classical and scholastic pedantry, a sentence worthy of the second Philippic. Swift him- self might have envied the chapter on the causes of the paleness of physicians. Of his Latin works, the " Epistles " are the most gen- erally known and admired. As compositions they are certainly superior to his essays. But their excellence is only comparative. From so large a collection of letters, written by so eminent a man, during so varied and eventful a life, we should have expected a com- plete and spirited view of the literature, the manners, and the politics of the age. A traveller, a poet, a scholar, a lover, a courtier, a recluse, he might have perpetuated, in an imperishable record, the form and pressure of the age and body of the time. Those who read his correspondence, in the hope of finding such information as this, will be utterly disappointed. It 54 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. contains nothing characteristic of the period or of the individual. It is a series, not of letters, but of themes, and, as it is not generally known, might be very safely employed at public schools as a magazine of common- places. Whether he write on politics to the Emperor and the Doge, or send advice and consolation to a pri- vate friend, every line is crowded with examples and quotations, and sounds big with Anaxagoras and Scipio. Such was the interest excited by the character of Pe- trarch, and such the admiration which was felt for his epistolary style, that it was with difficulty that his let- ters reached the place of their destination. The poet describes, with pretended regret and real complacency, the importunity of the curious, who often opened, and sometimes stole, these favorite compositions. It is a re- markable fact, that, of all his epistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the dead and the unborn. Nothing can be more absurd than his whim of composing grave letters of expostulation and com- mendation to Cicero and Seneca, yet these strange performances are written in a far more natural manner than his communications to his living correspondents. But, of all his Latin works, the preference must be given to the " Epistle to Posterity," a simple, noble, and pathetic composition, most honorable both to his taste and his heart. If we can make allowance for some of the affected humility of an author, we shall, perhaps, think that no literary man has left a more pleasing memorial of himself. In conclusion, we may pronounce that the works of PETRARCH. 55 Petrarch were below both his genius and his celebrity, and that the circumstances under which he wrote were as adverse to the development of his powers as they were favorable to the extension of his fame. NICOLO MACHIAVELLI. The subject of the following essay by Lord Macau- lay was bom in Florence of noble ancestry in May, 1469. His father was a jurist of some note, and fur- nished his son with the best facilities for education. At the early age of twenty-five years Nicolo Machia- velli entered public life in the diplomatic service of his country, and for eighteen years was a very promi- nent figure in Florentine politics. With the accession to power of the Medici he was deprived of office, exiled, arrested, imprisoned, racked, and not released till Giovanni de Medici became pope. He then re- tired to the country, where, in the remaining years of his life, he produced the literary works which have made his name immortal. He accomplished his own restoration to favor with the ruling family, but was never again a prominent factor in pohtical hfe. He died in 1527, aged fifty-eight years. R. S. H. 56 [Edinburgh Review^ March, 1827.] III. MACHIAVELLI.i Those who have attended to this practice of our literary tribunal are well aware, that, by means of cer- tain legal fictions similar to those of Westminster Hall, we are frequently enabled to take cognizance of cases lying beyond the sphere of our original jurisdictiont We need hardly say, therefore, that, in the presen. instance, M. Perier is merely a Richard Roe, who will not be mentioned in any subsequent stage of the pro- ceedings, and whose name is used for the sole purpose of bringing Machiavelli into court. We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious as that of the man whose character and writings we now propose to consider. The terms in which he is commonly described would seem to im- port that he was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of ambition and revenge, the original in- ventor of perjury, and that, before the publication of his fatal " Prince," there had never been a hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue, or a convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that Maurice of * (Euvres completes de Machiavel, tradtdtes par J. V, Perier. Paris, 1825. 57 58 READINGS FROM MACAULAY, Saxony learned all his fraudulent policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks, that, since it was translated into Turkish, the Sultans have been more addicted than formerly to the custom of strangling their brothers. Lord Lyttelton charges the poor Flor- entine with the manifold treasons of the house of Guise, and with the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Several authors have hinted that the Gunpowder Plot is to be primarily attributed to his doctrines, and seem to think that his effigy ought to be substituted for that of Guy Faux, in those processions by which the ingen- ious youth of England annually commemorate the preservation of the Three Estates. The Church of Rome has pronounced his works accursed things. Nor have our own countrymen been backward in testi- fying their opinion of his merits. Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonyme for the Devil.^ It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, not well acquainted with the history and literature of Italy, to read without horror and amazement the celebrated treatise which has brought so much obloquy on the name of Machiavelli. Such a display of wickedness, naked yet not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific atrocity, seemed rather to belong to a fiend than to the most depraved of men. Principles which the most I Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick, Tho' he gave his name to our old Nick. Htidibras, Part III., Canto I. But we believe there is a schism on this subject among the antiquarians. MACHIAVELLI. 59 hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some palliating sophism, even to his own mind, are professed without the slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the fundamental axioms of all political science. It is not strange that ordinary readers should regard the author of such a book as the most depraved and shameless of human beings. Wise men, however, have always been inclined to look with great suspicion on the angels and daemons of the multitude ; and, in the present instance, several circumstances have led even superficial obseivers to question the justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous republican. In the same year in which he composed his manual of " King-craft," he suffered imprisonment and torture in the cause of public liberty. It seems inconceivable that the martyr of freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of tyranny. Several eminent writers have, therefore, endeavored to detect in this unfortunate performance some concealed meaning, more consistent with the character and conduct of the author than that which appears at the first glance. One hypothesis is, that Machiavelh intended to prac- tise on the young Lorenzo de Medici a fraud similar to that which Sunderland is said to have employed against our James the Second, and that he urged his pupil to violent and perfidious measures, as the surest means of accelerating the moment of deliverance and revenge. Another supposition, which Lord Bacon 6o READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. seems to countenance, is that the treatise was merely a piece of grave irony, intended to warn nations against the arts of ambitious men. It would be easy to show that neither of these solutions is consistent with many passages in "The Prince" itself. But the most decisive refutation is that which is furnished by the other works of Machiavelli. In all the writings which he gave to the public, and in all those which the research of editors has, in the course of three centuries, discovered ; in his Comedies, designed for the entertainment of the multitude ; in his " Comments on Livy," intended for the perusal of the most enthu- siastic patriots of Florence ; in his history, inscribed to one of the most amiable and estimable of the Popes ; in his public despatches ; in his private memoranda, — the same obliquity of moral principle for which " The Prince "is so severely censured is more or less dis- cernible. We doubt whether it would be possible to find, in all the many volumes of his compositions, a single expression indicating that dissimulation and treachery had ever struck him as discreditable. After this, it may seem ridiculous to say that we are acquainted with few writings which exhibit so much elevation of sentiment, so pure and warm a zeal for the pubhc good, or so just a view of the duties and rights of citizens, as those of Machiavelli. Yet so it is. And even from "The Prince" itself we could select many passages in support of this remark. To a reader of our age and country, this inconsistency is, at first, perfectly bewildering. The whole man seems to MACHIAVELLL 6 1 be an enigma, a grotesque assemblage of incongmous qualities, selfishness and generosity, cruelty and be- nevolence, craft and simplicity, abject villany and romantic heroism. One sentence is such as a veteran diplomatist would scarcely write in cipher for the direction of his most confidential spy : the next seems to be extracted from a theme composed by an ardent schoolboy on the death of Leonidas. An act of dex- terous perfidy and an act of patriotic self-devotion call forth the same kind and the same degree of respectful admiration. The moral sensibility of the writer seems at once to be morbidly obtuse and mor- bidly acute. Two characters altogether dissimilar are united in him. They are not merely joined, but inter- woven. They are the warp and the woof of his mind ; and their combination, like that of the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to the whole texture a glan- cing and ever- changing appearance. The explanation might have been easy if he had been a very weak or a very affected man. But he was evidently neither the one nor the other. His works prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding was strong, his taste pure, and his sense of the ridiculous exquisitely keen. This is strange, and yet the strangest is behind. There is no reason whatever to think that those amongst whom he lived saw any thing shocking or incongruous in his writings. Abundant proofs remain of the high estimation in which both his works and his person were held by the most respectable among 62 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. his contemporaries. Clement the Seventh patronized the pubhcation of those very books which the Council of Trent, in the following generation, pronounced unfit for the perusal of Christians. Some members of the democratical party censured the secretary for dedi- cating " The Prince " to a patron who bore the unpopular name of Medici. But, to those immoral doctrines which have since called forth such severe reprehensions, no exception appears to have been taken. The cry against them was first raised beyond the Alps, and seems to have been heard with amaze- ment in Italy. The earliest assailant, as far as we are aware, was a countryman of our own. Cardinal Pole. The author of the " Anti-Machiavelli " was a French Protestant. It is, therefore, in the state of moral feeling among the Italians of those times that we must seek for the real explanation of what seems most mysterious in the life and writings of this remarkable man. As this is a subject which suggests many interesting considerations, both political and metaphysical, we shall make no apology for discussing it at some length. During the gloomy and disastrous centuries which followed the downfall of the Roman Empire, Italy had preserved, in a far greater degree than any other part of Western Europe, the traces of ancient civilization. The night which descended upon her was the night of an Arctic summer. The dawn began to re-appear before the last reflection of the preceding sunset had faded from the horizon. It was in the time of the MA CHI A VELLI. 63 French Merovingians and of the Saxon Heptarchy that ignorance and ferocity seemed to have done their worst. Yet even then the Neapohtan provinces, recognizing the authority of the Eastern Empire, preserved something of Eastern knowledge and refine- ment. Rome, protected by the sacred character of her pontiffs, enjoyed at least comparative security and repose. Even" in those regions where the sanguinary Lombards had fixed their monarchy, there was incom- parably more of wealth, of information, of physical comfort, and of social order, than could be found in Gaul, Britain, or Germany. That which most distinguished Italy from the neigh- boring countries was the importance which the popu- lation of the towns, at a very early period, began to acquire. Some cities had been founded in wild and remote situations, by fugitives who had escaped from the rage of the barbarians. Such were Venice and Genoa, which preserved their freedom by their ob- scurity, till they became able to preserve it by their power. Other cities seem to have retained, under all the changing dynasties of invaders, under Odoacer and Theodoric, Narses and Alboin, the municipal in- stitutions which had been conferred on them by the liberal policy of the Great Republic. In provinces which the central government was too feeble either to protect or to oppress, these institutions gradually ac- quired stability and vigor. The citizens, defended by their walls, and governed by their o^^^l magistrates and their own by-laws, enjoyed a considerable share of 64 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. republican independence. Thus a strong democratic spirit was called into action. The Carlovingian sover- eigns were too imbecile to subdue it. The generous policy of Otho encouraged it. It might perhaps have been suppressed by a close coalition between the Church and the Empire. It was fostered and invigo- rated by their disputes. In the twelfth century it attained its full vigor, and, after a long and doubtful conflict, triumphed over the abihties and courage of the Swabian Princes. The assistance of the Ecclesiastical power had greatly contributed to the success of the Guelfs. That success would, however, have been a doubtful good, if its only effect had been to substitute a moral for a po- litical servitude, and to exalt the Popes at the expense of the Caesars. Happily the public mind of Italy had long contained the seeds of free opinions, which were now rapidly developed by the genial influence of free institutions. The people of that country had observed the whole machinery of the Church, its saints and its miracles, its lofty pretensions and its splendid ceremo- nial, its worthless blessings and its harmless curses, too long and too closely to be duped. They stood behind the scenes on which others were gazing with childish awe and interest. They witnessed the arrangement of the pulleys and the manufacture of the thunders. They saw the natural faces, and heard the natural voices, of the actors. Distant nations looked on the Pope as the vicegerent of the Almighty, the oracle of the All-Wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the MACHIAVELLI. 65 disputes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies of his youth, and with all the dishonest arts by which he had attained power. They knew how often he had employed the keys of the Church to re- lease himself from the most sacred engagements, and its wealth to pamper his mistresses and nephews. The doctrines and rites of the established religion they treated with decent reverence. But, though they still called themselves Catholics, they had ceased to be Papists. Those spiritual arms which carried terror into the palaces and camps of the proudest sovereigns, ex- cited only contempt in the immediate neighborhood of the Vatican. Alexander, when he commanded our Henry the Second to submit to the lash before the tomb of a rebellious subject, was himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending that he entertained de- signs against their liberties, had driven him from their city ; and, though he solemnly promised to confine himself for the future to his spiritual functions, they still refused to re-admit him. In every other part of Europe, a large and powerful privileged class trampled on the people, and defied the government. But, in the most flourishing parts of Italy, the feudal nobles were reduced to comparative insignificance. In some districts, they took shelter under the protection of the powerful commonwealths which they were unable to oppose, and gradually sank into the mass of burghers. In other places, they possessed great influence ; but it was an influence 66 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. widely different from that which was exercised by the aristocracy of any transalpine kingdom. They were not petty princes, but eminent citizens. Instead of strengthening their fastnesses among the mountains, they embellished their palaces in the market-place. The state of society in the Neapolitan dominions, and in some parts of the Ecclesiastical State, more nearly resembled that which existed in the great monarchies of Europe. But the governments of Lombardy and Tuscany, through all their revolutions, preserved a different character. A people, when assembled in a town, is far more formidable to its rulers than when dispersed over a wide extent of country. The most arbitrary of the Caesars found it necessary to feed and divert the inhabitants of their unwieldy capital at the expense of the provinces. The citizens of Madrid have more than once besieged their sovereign in his own palace, and extorted from him the most humiliat- ing concessions. The Sultans have often been com- pelled to propitiate the furious rabble of Constantinople with the head of an unpopular vizier. From the same cause, there was a certain tinge of democracy in the monarchies and aristocracies of Northern -Italy. Thus liberty, partially indeed and transiently, re- visited Italy; and with liberty came commerce and empire, science and taste, all the comforts and all the ornaments of life. The Crusades, from which the in- habitants of other countries gained nothing but relics and wounds, brought to the rising commonwealths of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of MACHIAVELLI. 6/ wealth, dominion, and knowledge. The moral and the geographical position of those commonwealths enabled them to profit ahke by the barbarism of the West and by the civilization of the East. ItaHan ships covered every sea. Italian factories rose on every shore. The tables of Italian money-changers were set in every city. Manufactures flourished. Banks were established. The operations of the commercial ma- chine were facilitated by many useful and beautiful in- ventions. We doubt whether any country of Europe, our own excepted, have at the present time reached so high a point of wealth and civilization as some parts of Italy had attained four hundred years ago. Historians rarely descend to those details from which alone the real state of a community can be collected. Hence posterity is too often deceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and rhetoricians, who mistake the splendor of a court for the happiness of a people. Fortunately, John Villani has given us an ample and precise ac- count of the state of Florence in the early part of the fourteenth century. The revenue of the Republic amounted to three hundred thousand florins, a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals, was at least equivalent to six hundred thousand pounds sterhng, — a larger sum than England and Ire- land, two centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth. The manufacture of wool alone employed two hundred factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average, for twelve hun- dred thousand florins, — a sum fully equal, in exchange- 6S READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. able value, to two millions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only, but of all Europe. The trans- actions of these establishments were sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the contempora- ries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward the Third of England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thou- sand children were taught to read, twelve hundred studied arithmetic, six hundred received a learned education. The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to that of the public prosperity. Under the despotic successors of Augustus, all the fields of the intellect had been turned into arid wastes, still marked out by formal boundaries, still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The deluge of barbarism came. It swept away all the landmarks. It obliterated all the signs of former tillage. But it fertilized while it devastated. When it receded, the wilderness was as the garden of God, rejoicing on every side, laughing, clapping its hands, pouring forth, in spontaneous abundance, every thing brilliant or fragrant or nourishing. A new Ian- MA CHI A VELLL 69 guage, characterized by simple sweetness and simple energy, had attained perfection. No tongue ever fur- nished more gorgeous and vivid tints to poetry ; nor was it long before a poet appeared, who knew how to employ them. Early in the fourteenth century came forth " The Divine Comedy," beyond comparison the greatest work of imagination which had appeared since the poems of Homer. The following generation pro- duced indeed no second Dante, but it was eminently distinguished by general intellectual activity. The study of the Latin writers had never been wholly neglected in Italy. But Petrarch introduced a more profound, liberal, and elegant scholarship, had com- municated to his countrymen that enthusiasm for the literature, the history, and the antiquities of Rome, which divided his own heart with a frigid mistress and a more frigid Muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to the more sublime and graceful models of Greece. From this time, the admiration of learning and genius became almost an idolatry among the people of Italy. Kings and republics, cardinals and doges, vied with each other in honoring and flattering Petrarch. Embassies from rival states soHcited the honor of his instructions. His coronation agitated the Court of Naples and the people of Rome as much as the most important political transaction could have done. To collect books and antiques, to found professorships, to patronize men of learning, became almost universal fashions among the great. The spirit of literary re- search allied itself to that of commercial enterprise. 70 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. Every place to which the merchant princes of Florence extended their gigantic traffic, from the bazars of the Tigris to the monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked for medals and manuscripts. ■ Architecture, painting, and sculpture were munificently encouraged. Indeed, it would be difficult to name an Italian of eminence, during the period of which we speak, who, whatever may have been his general character, did not at least affect a love of letters and of the arts. Knowledge and public prosperity continued to ad- vance together. Both attained their meridian in the age of Lorenzo the Magnificent. We cannot refrain from quoting the splendid passage in which the Tus- can Thucydides describes the state of Italy at that period. " Ridotta tutta in somma pace e tranquillita, coltivata non meno ne' luoghi piu montuosi e piu steriH che nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili, ne sottoposta ad altro imperio che de' suoi medesimi, non solo era ab- bondantissima d' abitatori e di ricchezze ; ma illustrata sommamente dalla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo splendore di molte nobilissime e bellissime citta, dalla sedia e maesta della religione, fioriva d' uomini pres- tantissimi nell' amministrazione delle cose pubbliche, e d' ingegni molto nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qua- lunque arte preclara ed industriosa." When we peruse this just and splendid description, we can scarcely per- suade ourselves that we are reading of times in which the annals of England and France present us only with a frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity, and igno- rance. From the oppressions of illiterate masters, and MA CHI A VELLL 7 1 the sufferings of a degraded peasantry, it is delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened States of Italy, to the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, the ar- senals, the villas, the museums, the libraries, the marts filled with every article of comfort or luxury, the fac- tories swarming with artisans, the Apennines covered with rich cultivation up to their very summits, the Po wafting the harvests of Lombardy to the granaries of Venice, and carrying back the silks of Bengal and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With peculiar pleasure, every cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence, the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where twinkled the midnight lamp of Pohtian, the statues on which the young eye of Michael Angelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the May-day dance of the Etrurian virgins. Alas for the beautiful city ! Alas for the wit and the learning, the genius and the love ! " Le donne, e i cavalier, gli affanni, e gli agi, Che ne 'nvogliava amore e cortesia O dove i cuor son fatti si malvagi." A time was at hand when all the seven vials of the Apocalypse were to be poured forth and shaken out over those pleasant countries, — a time of slaughter, famine, beggary, infamy, slavery, despair. In the Italian States, as in many natural bodies, un- timely decrepitude was the penalty of precocious ma- turity. Their early greatness, and their early decline, /J READINGS FROM MACAULAY. are prij^cipally to be attributed to the same cause, — the preponderance which the towns acquired in the political system. In a community of hunters or of shepherds, every man easily and necessarily becomes a soldier. His ordinary avocations are perfectly compatible with all the duties of military service. However remote may be the expedition on which he is bound, he finds it easy to transport with him the stock from which he derives his subsistence. The whole people is an army, the whole year a march. Such was the state of society which facihtated the gigantic conquests of Attila and Tamerlane. But a people which subsists by the cultivation of the earth is in a very different situation. The hus- bandman is bound to the soil on which he labors. A long campaign would be ruinous to him. Sdll, his pur- suits are such as give to his frame both the active and the passive strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, at least in the infancy of agricultural science, demand his uninterrupted attention. At particular times of the year he is almost wholly unemployed, and can, without injury to himself, afford the time neces- sary for a short expedition. Thus the legions of Rome were supplied during its earlier wars. The season during which the fields did not require the presence of the cultivators sufficed for a short inroad and a bat- tle. These operations, too frequently interrupted to produce decisive results, yet served to keep up among the people a degree of discipline and courage which MACHIAVELLI. 75 rendered them not only secure but formidable. , .^rd or archers and billmen of the Middle Ages, who, ' '*3.ra- provisions for forty days at their backs, left the fiei for the camp, were troops of the same description. But when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish, a great change takes place. The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom render the exertions and hardships of war insupportable. The business of traders and artisans requires their constant presence and attention. In such a community, there is little superfluous time ; but there is generally much super- fluous money. Some members of the society are, therefore, hired to reheve the rest from a task incon- sistent with their habits and engagements. The history of Greece is, in this, as in many other respects, the best commentary on the history of Italy. Five hundred years before the Christian era, the citi- zens of the republics round the ^gean Sea formed perhaps the finest militia that ever existed. As wealth and refinement advanced, the system underwent a gradual alteration. The Ionian States were the first in which commerce and the arts were cultivated, and the first in which the ancient discipline decayed. Within eighty years after the battle of Plataea, merce- nary troops were everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In the time of Demosthenes, it was scarcely possible to persuade or compel the Athenians to enlist for foreign service. The laws of Lycurgus prohibited trade and manufactures. The Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national force long after their ^j P READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY, are prhibors had begun to hire soldiers. But their mili- the ^y spirit dechned with their singular institutions. In prthe second century before Christ, Greece contained only one nation of warriors, the savage highlanders of ^tolia, who were some generations behind their coun- trymen in civilization and intelligence. All the causes which produced these effects among the Greeks acted still more strongly on the modern Italians. Instead of a power like Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst them an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pacific. Where there are numerous slaves, every freeman is induced by the strongest motives to familiarize himself with the use of arms. The com- monwealths of Italy did not, like those of Greece, swarm with thousands of these household enemies. Lastly, the mode in which military operations were conducted during the prosperous times of Italy was peculiarly unfavorable to the formation of an efficient militia. Men covered with iron from head to foot, armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on horses of the largest breed, were considered as composing the strength of an army. The infantry was regarded as comparatively worthless, and was neglected till it became really so. These tactics maintained their ground for centuries in most parts of Europe. That foot-soldiers could withstand the charge of heavy cav- alry was thought utterly impossible, till, towards the close of the fifteenth century, the rude mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved the spell, and astounded the most experienced generals by receiving the dreaded shock on an impenetrable forest of pikes. MA CHI A VELLI. 75 The use of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquired with compara- tive ease. But nothing short of the daily exercise of years could train the man at arms to support his pon- derous panoply, and manage his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe this most important branch of war became a separate profession. Beyond the Alps, in- deed, though a profession, it was not generally a trade. It was the duty and the amusement of a large class of country gentlemen. It was the ser\dce by which they held their lands, and the diversion by which, in the absence of mental resources, they beguiled their leis- ure. But in the Northern States of Italy, as we have already remarked, the growing power of the cities, where it had not exterminated this order of men, had completely changed their habits. Here, therefore, the practice of employing mercenaries became universal, at a time when it was almost unknown in other coun- tries. When war becomes the trade of a separate class, the least dangerous course left to a government is to form that class into a standing army. It is scarcely possi- ble that men can pass their lives in the service of one state, without feeling some interest in its greatness. Its victories are their victories. Its defeats are their defeats. The contract loses something of its mercan- tile character. The services of the soldier are consid- ered as the effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tribute of national gratitude. To betray the power which employs him, to be even remiss in its service, 76 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. are in his eyes the most atrocious and degrading of crimes. When the princes and commonweahhs of Italy began to use hired troops, their wisest course would have been to form separate military establishments. Unhappily this was not done. The mercenary war- riors of the Peninsula, instead of being attached to the service of different powers, were regarded as the common property of all. The connection between the state and its defenders was reduced to the most simple and naked traffic. The adventurer brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, and his experience, into the market. Whether the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the bargain, was to him a matter of perfect indiffer- ence. He was for the highest wages and the longest term. When the campaign for which he had con- tracted was finished, there was neither law nor punc- tilio to prevent him from instantly turning his arms against his late masters. The soldier was altogether disjoined from the citizen and from the subject. The natural consequences followed. Left to the conduct of men who neither loved those whom they defended, nor hated those whom they opposed, who were often bound by stronger ties to the army against which they fought than to the state which they served, who lost by the termination of the conflict, and gained by its prolongation, war completely changed its char- acter. Every man came into the field of battle im- pressed v/ith the knowledge, that, in a few days, he MA CHI A VELLI. 77 might be taking the pay of the power against which he was then employed, and fighting by the side of his enemies against his associates. The strongest interests and the strongest feehngs concurred to mitigate the hostihty of those who had lately been brethren in arms, and who might soon be brethren in arms once more. Their common profession was a bond of union not to be forgotten, even when they were engaged in the ser- vice of contending parties. Hence it was that opera- tions, languid and indecisive beyond any recorded in history, marches and countermarches, pillaging expe- ditions and blockades, bloodless capitulations and equally bloodless combats, make up the military his- tory of Italy during the course of nearly two centuries. Mighty armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A great victory is won. Thousands of prisoners are taken, and hardly a life is lost. A pitched battle seems to have been really less dangerous than an ordinary civil tumult. Courage was now no longer necessary, even to the military character. Men grew old in camps, and ac- quired the highest renown by their warlike achieve- ments, without being once required to face serious danger. The political consequences are too well known. The richest and most enlightened part of the world was left undefended to the assaults of every barbarous invader, to the brutality of Switzerland, the insolence of France, and the fierce rapacity of Aragon. The moral effects which followed from this state of things were still more remarkable. 78 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Among the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps, valor was absolutely indispensable. Without it none could be eminent, few could be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally considered as the foulest re- proach. Among the polished Italians, enriched by commerce, governed by law, and passionately attached to Hterature, every thing was done by superiority of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific than the peace of their neighbors, required rather civil than military qualifications. Hence, while courage was the point of honor in other countries, ingenuity became the point of honor in Italy. From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly analogous, two opposite systems of fashionable morality. Through the greater part of Europe, the vices which pecuharly belong to timid dispositions, and which are the natural defence of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been most disreputable. On the other hand, the excesses of haughty and daring spirits have been treated with indulgence, and even with respect. The Italians regarded with correspond- ing lenity those crimes which require self-command, address, quick observation, fertile invention, and pro- found knowledge of human nature. Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would have been the idol of the North. The folhes of his youth, the selfish ambition of his manhood, the Lollards roasted at slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field of battle, the expiring lease of priestcraft re- newed for another century, the dreadful legacy of a MA CHI A VELLL ^g causeless and hopeless war bequeathed to a people who had no interest in its event, every thing is for- gotten but the victory of Agincourt. Francis Sforza, on the other hand, was the model of Italian heroes. He made his employers and his rivals alike his tools. He first overpowered his open enemies by the help of faithless allies : he then armed himself against his allies with the spoils taken from his enemies. By his incomparable dexterity, he raised himself from the precarious and dependent situation of a military ad- venturer to the first throne of Italy. To such a man much was forgiven, — hollow friendship, ungenerous enmity, violated faith. Such are the opposite errors which men commit, when their morality is not a science, but a taste, when they abandon eternal prin- ciples for accidental associations. We have illustrated our meaning by an instance taken from history. We will select another from fiction. Othello murders his wife; he gives orders for the murder of his lieutenant ; he ends by murder- ing himself. Yet he never loses the esteem and affec- tion of Northern readers. His intrepid and ardent spirit redeems every thing. The unsuspecting confi- dence with which he hstens to his adviser, the agony with which he shrinks from the thought of shame, the tempest of passion with which he commits his crimes, and the haughty fearlessness with which he avows them, give an extraordinary interest to his character, lago, on the contrary, is the object of universal loath- ing. Many are inclined to suspect that Shakspeare 80 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. has been seduced into an exaggeration unusual with him, and has drawn a monster who has no archetype in human nature. Now, we suspect that an ItaUan audience in the fifteenth century would have felt very differently. Othello would have inspired nothing but detestation and contempt. The folly with which he trusts the friendly professions of a man whose pro- motion he had obstructed, the creduhty with which he takes unsupported assertions, and trivial circum- stances, for unanswerable proofs, the violence with which he silences the exculpation till the exculpation can only aggravate his misery, would have excited the abhorrence and disgust of his spectators. The con- duct of lago they would assuredly have condemned, but they would have condemned it as we condemn that of his victim. Something of interest and respect would have mingled with their disapprobation. The readiness of the traitor's wit, the clearness of his judg- ment, the skill with which he penetrates the disposi- tions of others, and conceals his own, would have insured to him a certain portion of their esteem. So wide was the difference between the Italians and their neighbors. A similar difference existed between the Greeks of the second century before Christ, and their masters, the Romans. The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to their engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, and the literature of the Western world. In poetry, in phi- MA CHI A VELLL 8 1 losophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they had no rivals- Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane ; but of courage and sincer- ity they were almost utterly destitute. Every rude centurion consoled himself for his intellectual inferior- ity, by remarking that knowledge and taste seemed only to make men atheists, cowards, and slaves. The distinction long continued to be strongly marked, and furnished an admirable subject for the fierce sarcasms of Juvenal. The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was the Greek of the time of Juvenal and the Greek of the time of Pericles, joined in one. Like the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and mean. But, like the latter, he had a country. Its independence and pros- perity were dear to him. If his character were de- graded by some base crimes, it was, on the other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an honorable ambition. A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice con- demned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady, the latter a constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost," he too often flings the remains of his virtue after it in despair. The Highland gentleman, who, a century ago, lived by taking black-mail from his neighbors, committed the same crime for which Wild was accompanied to 82 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Tyburn by the huzzas of two hundred thousand people. But there can be no doubt that he was a much less depraved man than Wild. The deed for which Mrs. Brownrigg was hanged sinks into nothing when compared with the conduct of the Roman who treated the public to a hundred pair of gladiators. Yet we should greatly wrong such a Roman if we supposed that his disposition was as cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. In our own country, a woman for- feits her place in society by what, in a man, is too commonly considered as an honorable distinction, and at worst as a venial error. The consequence is notorious. The moral principle of a woman is fre- quently more impaired by a single lapse from virtue than that of a man by twenty years of intrigues. Clas- sical antiquity would furnish us with instances stronger, if possible, than those to which we have referred. We must apply this principle to the case before us. Habits of dissimulation and falsehood, no doubt, mark a man of our age and country as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by no means follows that a simi- lar judgment would be just in the case of an Italian in the Middle Ages. On the contrary, we frequently find those faults which we are accustomed to consider as certain indications of a mind altogether depraved, in company with great and good qualities, with gener- osity, with benevolence, with disinterestedness. From such a state of society, Palamedes, in the admirable dialogue of Hume, might have drawn illustrations of his theory as striking as any of those with which MA CHI A VELLI. 8 3 Fourli furnished him. These are not, we well know, the lessons which historians are generally most care- ful to teach, or readers most willing to learn. But they are not therefore useless. How Philip disposed his troops at Choeronea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, whether Mary blew up Darnley, or Siquier shot Charles the Twelfth, and ten thousand other questions of the same description, are in themselves unimpor- tant. The inquiry may amuse us, but the decision leaves us no wiser. He alone reads history aright, who observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions of men, how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns to dis- tinguish what is accidental and transitory in human nature, from what is essential and immutable. In this respect, no history suggests more important reflections than that of the Tuscan and Lombard commonwealths. The character of the Italian states- man seems, at first sight, a collection of contradictions, a phantom as monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below. We see a man whose thoughts and words have no connection with each other, who never hesitates at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who never wants a pretext when he is inclined to betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, but from deep and cool meditation. His passions, like well- trained troops, are impetuous by rule, and in their most headstrong fury never forget 84 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. the discipline to which they have been accustomed. His wliole soul is occupied with vast and complicated schemes of ambition, yet his aspect and language exhibit nothing but philosophical moderation. Hatred and revenge eat into his heart ; yet every look is a cordial smile, every gesture a familiar caress. He never excites the suspicion of his adversaries by petty provocations. His purpose is disclosed, only when it is accomplished. His face is unruffled, his speech is courteous, till vigilance is laid asleep, till a vital point is exposed, till a sure aim is taken ; and then he strikes for the first and last time. Military courage, the boast of the sottish German, of the frivolous and prating Frenchman, of the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses nor values. He shuns danger, not because he is insensible to shame, but because, in the society in which he lives, timidity has ceased to be shameful. To do an injury openly is, in his estima- tion, as wicked as to do it secretly, and far less profit- able. With him the most honorable means are those which are the surest, the speediest, and the darkest. He cannot comprehend how a man should scruple to deceive those whom he does not scruple to destroy. He would think it madness to declare open hostilities against rivals whom he might stab in a friendly em- brace, or poison in a consecrated wafer. Yet this man, black with the vices which we con- sider as most loathsome, traitor, hypocrite, coward, assassin, was by no means destitute even of those virtues which we generally consider as indicating MACHIAVELLL 85 superior elevation of character. In civil courage, in perseverance, in presence of mind, those barbarous warriors, who were foremost in the battle or the breach, were far his inferiors. Even the dangers which he avoided with a caution almost pusillanimous never confused his perceptions, never paralyzed his inventive faculties, never wrung out one secret from his smooth tongue and his inscrutable brow. Though a dangerous enemy, and a still more dangerous accomplice, he could be a just and beneficent ruler. With so much unfairness in his policy, there was an extraordinary degree of fairness in his intellect. Indifferent to truth in the transactions of life, he was honestly devoted to truth in the researches of speculation. Wanton cruelty was not in his nature. On the contrary, where no political object was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane. The susceptibility of his nerves and the activity of his imagination inclined him to sympathize with the feelings of others, and to delight in the charities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually descending to actions which might seem to mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, he had never- theless an exquisite sensibility, both for the natural and the moral sublime, for every graceful and every lofty conception. Habits of petty intrigue and dis- simulation might have rendered him incapable of great general views, but that the expanding effect of his philosophical studies counteracted the narrowing ten- dency. He had the keenest enjoyment of wit, elo- quence, and poetry. The fine arts profited alike by Z6 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. the severity of his judgment, and by the liberahty of his patronage. The portraits of some of the remark- able Itahans of those times are perfectly in harmony with this description. Ample and majestic foreheads ; brows strong and dark, but not frowning ; eyes of wliich the calm, full gaze, while it expresses nothing, seems to discern every thing ; cheeks pale with thought and sedentary habits ; lips formed with feminine delicacy, but compressed with more than masculine decision, — mark out men at once enterprising and timid, men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of others, and in concealing their own, men who must have been formidable enemies and unsafe allies, but men, at the same time, whose tempers were mild and equable, and who possessed an amplitude and subtlety of intellect which would have rendered them eminent either in active or in contemplative life, and fitted them either to govern or to instruct mankind. Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the fashion of their morals, with the fashion of their hats and their coaches ; take some other kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors. Nor is this all. Posterity, that high court of appeal which is never tired of eulogizing its own justice and discernment, acts on such occasions like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Finding the delinquents too numer- MA CHI A VELLI. 8/ ous to be all punished, it selects some of them at hazard, to bear the whole penalty of an offence in which they are not more deeply implicated than those who escape. Whether decimation be a convenient mode of military execution, we know not; but we solemnly protest against the introduction of such a principle into the philosophy of history. In the present instance, the lot has fallen on Machi- avelH, a man whose public conduct was upright and honorable, whose views of morality, where they dif- fered from those of the persons around him, seemed to have differed for the better, and whose only fault was, that, having adopted some of the maxims then generally received, he arranged them more lumi- nously, and expressed them more forcibly, than any other writer. Having now, we hope, in some degree cleared the personal character of Machiavelli, we come to the consideration of his works. As a poet he is not enti- tled to a high place, but his comedies deserve atten- tion. The " Mandragola," in particular, is superior to the best of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best of Mo- liere. It is the work of a man who, if he had devoted himself to the drama, would probably have attained the highest eminence, and produced a permanent and salutary effect on the national taste. This we infer, not so much from the degree, as from the kind, of its excellence. There are compositions which indicate still greater talent, and which are perused with still 88 READINGS FROM MACAU LAY. greater delight, from which we should have drawn very different conclusions. Books quite worthless are quite harmless. The sure sign of the general decline of an art is the frequent occurrence, not of deformity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, Tragedy is cor- rupted by eloquence, and Comedy by wit. The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character. This, we conceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in local and temporary associations, like those canons which regulate the number of acts in a play, or of syllables in a line. To thfs funda- mental law every other regulation is subordinate. The situations which most signally develop character form the best plot. The mother tongue of the passions is the best style. This principle rightly understood, does not debar the poet from any grace of composition. There is no style in which some man may not, under some circum- stances, express himself. There is, therefore, no style which the drama rejects, none which it does not occa- sionally require. It is in the discernment of place, of time, and of person, that the inferior artists fail. The fantastic rhapsody of Mercutio, the elaborate declamation of Antony, are, where Shakspeare has placed- them, natural and pleasing. But Dryden would have made Mercutio challenge Tybalt in hyper- boles as fanciful as those in which he describes the chariot of Mab. Corneille would have represented Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleopatra with all the measured rhetoric of a funeral oration. MACHIAVELLL 89 No writers have injured the Comedy of England so deeply as Congreve and Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit and polished taste. Unhappily, they made all their characters in their own likeness. Their works bear the same relation to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a painting. There are no delicate touches, no hues imperceptibly fading into each other : the whole is lighted up with an universal glare. Outlines and tints are forgotten in the com- mon blaze which illuminates all. The flowers and fruits of the intellect abound ; but it is the abundance of a jungle, not of a garden, unwholesome, bewilder- ing, unprofitable from its very plenty, rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes. Tattle, Witwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouillet. To prove the whole system of this school erroneous, it is only necessary to apply the test which dissolved the enchanted Florimel, to place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast the most cele- brated characters which have been drawn by the writers of whom we speak with the Bastard in King John, or the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. It was not surely from want of wit that Shakspeare adopted so different a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw Mirabel and Millamant into the shade. All the good sayings of the facetious houses of Absolute and Sur- face might have been clipped from the single char- acter of Falstaff without being missed. It would have been easy for that fertile mind to have given 90 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Bardolph and Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to have made Dogberry and Verges retort on each other in sparkling epigrams. But he knew that such indiscriminate prodigality was, to use his o\mi admir- able language, " from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature." This digression will enable our readers to under- stand what we mean when we say, that, in the " Man- dragola," Machiavelli has proved that he completely understood the nature of the dramatic art, and pos- sessed talents which would have enabled him to excel in it. By the correct and vigorous delineation of human nature, it produces interest without a pleasing or skilful plot, and laughter without the least ambition of wit. The lover, not a very delicate or generous lover, and his adviser the parasite, are drawn with spirit. The hypocritical confessor is an admirable portrait. He is, if we mistake not, the original of Father Dominic, the best comic character of Dryden. But old Nicias is the glory of the piece. We cannot call to mind any thing that resembles him. The fol- lies which Moliere ridicules are those of affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs and pedants, not absolute simpletons, are his game. Shakspeare has indeed a vast assortment of fools ; but the precise species of which we speak is not, if we remember right, to be found there. Shallow is a fool. But his animal spirits supply, to a certain degree, the place of cleverness. His talk is to that of Sir John what soda- MA CHI A VELLl 9 1 water is to champagne. It has the effervescence, though not the body or the flavor. Slender and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are fools, troubled with an uneasy consciousness of their folly, which, in the latter, pro- duces meekness and docility, and in the former, awk- wardness, obstinacy, and confusion. Cloten is an arrogant fool, Osric a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool ; but Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a fool positive. His mind is occupied by no strong feeling : it takes every character, and retains none ; its aspect is diversified, not by passions, but by faint and transi- tory semblances of passion, a mock joy, a mock fear, a mock love, a mock pride, which chase each other like shadows over its surface, and vanish as soon as they appear. He is just idiot enough to be an object, not of pity or horror, but of ridicule. He bears some resemblance to poor Calandrino, whose mishaps, as re- counted by Boccaccio, have made all Europe merry for more than four centuries. He perhaps resembles still more closely Simon da Villa, to whom Bruno and Buf- falmacco promised the love of the Countess Civillari. Nicias is, like Simon, of a learned profession; and the dignity with which he wears the doctoral fur ren- ders his absurdities infinitely more grotesque. The old Tuscan is the very language for such a being. Its peculiar simplicity gives even to the most forcible reasoning and the most brilliant wit an infantine air, generally delightful, but to a foreign reader sometimes a little ludicrous. Heroes and statesmen seem to lisp when they use it. It becomes Nicias incomparably, and renders all his silliness infinitely more silly. 92 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. We may add, that the verses with which the " Man- dragola" is interspersed, appear to us to be the most spirited and correct of all that Machiavelh has written in metre. He seems to have entertained the same opinion, for he has introduced some of them in other places. The contemporaries of the author were not blind to the merits of this striking piece. It was acted at Florence with the greatest success. Leo the Tenth was among its admirers, and by his order it was repre- sented at Rome.' The "Clizia" is an imitation of the ''Casina" of Plautus, which is itself an imitation of the lost kXt/- povjxevoL of Diphilus. Plautus was, unquestionably, one of the best Latin writers; but the "Casina" is by no means one of his best plays, nor is it one which offers great facilities to an imitator. The story is as alien from modern habits of life as the manner in which it is developed from the modern fashion of composition. The lover remains in the country and the heroine in her chamber during the whole action, leaving their fate to be decided by a foolish father, a cunning mother, and two knavish servants. Machiavelh has executed his task with judgment and taste. He has accommo- dated the plot to a different state of society, and has very dexterously connected it with the history of his own times. The relation of the trick put on the doting ^ Nothing can be more evident than that Paulus Jovius designates the Mandragola under the name of the Nicias. We should not have noticed what is so perfectly obvious, were it not that this natural and palpable misnomer has led the sagacious and industrious Bayle into a gross error. MA CHI A VELL L 93 old lover is exquisitely humorous. It is far superior to the corresponding passage in the Latin comedy, and scarcely yields to the account which Falstaff gives of his ducking. Two other comedies without titles, the one in prose, the other in verse, appear among the works of Machia- velli. The former is very short, lively enough, but of no great value. The latter we can scarcely believe to be genuine. Neither its merits nor its defects remind us of the reputed author. It was first printed in 1 796, from a manuscript discovered in the celebrated library of the Strozzi. Its genuineness, if we have been rightly informed, is established solely by the compari- son of hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by the circumstance, that the same manuscript contained a description of the plague of 1527, which has also, in consequence, been added to the works of Machiavelli. Of this last composition, the strongest external evi- dence would scarcely induce us to believe him guilty. Nothing was ever written more detestable in matter and manner. The narrations, the reflections, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the very worst of their respective kinds, at once trite and affected, threadbare tinsel from the Rag Fairs and Monmouth Streets of literature. A foolish schoolboy might write such a piece, and, after he had written it, think it much finer than the incomparable introduction of " The Decam- eron." But that a shrewd statesman, whose earliest works are characterized by manliness of thought and language, should, at near sixty years of age, descend to such puerility, is utterly inconceivable. 94 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. The little novel of " Belphegor " is pleasantly con- ceived, and pleasantly told. But the extravagance of the satire in some measure injures its effect. Machia- velli was unhappily married ; and his wish to avenge his own cause, and that of his brethren in misfortune, carried him beyond even the license of fiction. Jon- son seems to have combined some hints taken from this tale, with others from Boccaccio, in the plot of "The Devil is an Ass," a play which, though not the most highly finished of his compositions, is perhaps that which exhibits the strongest proofs of genius. The political correspondence of Machiavelli, first published in 1767, is unquestionably genuine, and highly valuable. The unhappy circumstances in which his country was placed during the greater part of his public life gave extraordinary encouragement to diplo- matic talents. From the moment that Charles the Eighth descended from the Alps, the whole character of Italian politics was changed. The governments of the Peninsula ceased to form an independent system. Drawn from their old orbit by the attraction of the larger bodies which now approached them, they be- came mere satellites of France and Spain. All their disputes, internal and external, were decided by foreign influence. The contests of opposite factions were car- ried on, not as formerly in the senate-house or in the market-place, but in the antechambers of Louis and Ferdinand. Under these circumstances, the prosperity of the Italian States depended far more on the ability of their foreign agents, than on the conduct of those MACHIAVELLI. 95 who were intrusted with the domestic administration. The ambassador had to discharge functions far more deUcate than transmitting orders of knighthood, intro- ducing tourists, or presenting his brethren with the homage of his high consideration. He was an advo- cate to whose management the dearest interests of his cHents were intrusted, a spy clothed with an inviolable character. Instead of consulting, by a reserved man- ner and ambiguous style, the dignity of those whom he represented, he was to plunge into all the intrigues of the court at which he resided, to discover and flat- ter every weakness of the prince, and of the favorite who governed the prince, and of the lackey who governed the favorite. He was to compliment the mistress, and bribe the confessor, to panegyrize or sup- plicate, to laugh or weep, to accommodate himself to every caprice, to lull every suspicion, to treasure every hint, to be every thing, to observe every thing, to en- dure every thing. High as the art of political intrigue had been carried in Italy, these were times which required it all. On these arduous errands Machiavelli was frequently employed. He was sent to treat with the King of the Romans and with the Duke of Valentinois. He was twice ambassador at the Court of Rome, and thrice at that of France. In these missions, and in several others of inferior importance, he acquitted himself with great dexterity. His despatches form one of the most amusing and instructive collections extant. The narratives are clear and agreeably written, the remarks 96 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. on men and things clever and judicious. The conver- sations are reported in a spirited and characteristic manner. We find ourselves introduced into the pres- ence of the men who, during twenty eventful years, swayed the destinies of Europe, Their wit and their folly, their fretfulness and their merriment, are exposed to us. We are admitted to overhear their chat, and to watch their familiar gestures. It is interesting and curious to recognize, in circumstances which elude the notice of historians, the feeble violence and shallow cunning of Louis the Twelfth ; the bustling insignifi- cance of Maximilian, cursed with an impotent pruri- ency for renown, rash yet timid, obstinate yet fickle, always in a hurry, yet always too late ; the fierce and haughty energy which gave dignity to the eccentrici- ties of Julius ; the soft and graceful manners which masked the insatiable ambition and the implacable hatred of Caesar Borgia. We have mentioned Caesar Borgia. It is impossible not to pause for a moment on the name of a man in whom the political morality of Italy was so strongly personified, partially blended with the sterner linea- ments of the Spanish character. On two important occasions Machiavclli was admitted to his society, — once, at the moment when Caesar's splendid villany achieved its most signal triumph, when he caught in one snare, and crushed at one blow, all his most for- midable rivals ; and again when, exhausted by disease, and overwhelmed by misfortunes, which no human prudence could have averted, he was the prisoner of MACHIAVELLI. 9/ the deadliest enemy of his house. These interviews between the greatest speculative and the greatest prac- tical statesmen of the age are fully described in the " Correspondence," and form, perhaps, the most inter- esting part of it. From some passages in " The Prince," and perhaps also from some indistinct traditions, sev- eral writers have supposed a connection between those remarkable men much closer than ever existed. The Envoy has even been accused of prompting the crimes of the artful and merciless tyrant. But, from the offi- cial documents, it is clear that their intercourse, though ostensibly amicable, was in reahty hostile. It cannot be doubted, however, that the imagination of Machia- velli was strongly impressed, and his speculations on government colored, by the observations which he made on the singular character and equally singular fortunes of a man who, under such disadvantages, had achieved such exploits ; who, when sensuality, varied through innumerable forms, could no longer stimulate his sated mind, found a more powerful and durable excitement in the intense thirst of empire and revenge ; who emerged from the sloth and luxury of the Roman purple the first prince and general of the age ; who, trained in an unwarlike profession, formed a gallant army out of the dregs of an unwarlike people ; who, after acquiring sovereignty by destroying his enemies, acquired popularity by destroying his tools ; who had begun to employ for the most salutary ends the power which he had attained by the most atrocious means ; who tolerated within the sphere of his iron despotism 98 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. no plunderer or oppressor but himself; and who fell at last amidst the mingled curses and regrets of a peo- ple of whom his genius had been the wonder, and might have been the salvation. Some of those crimes of Borgia which to us appear the most odious, would not, from causes which we have already considered, have struck an Italian of the fifteenth century with equal horror. Patriotic feeling also might induce Machiavelli to look with some indulgence and regret on the memory of the only leader who could have defended the independence of Italy against the con- federate spoilers of Cambray. On this subject, Machiavelli felt most strongly. In- deed, the expulsion of the foreign tyrants, and the restoration of that golden age which had preceded the irruption of Charles the Eighth, were projects which, at that time, fascinated all the master-spirits of Italy. The magnificent vision delighted the great but ill- regulated mind of Julius. It divided with manuscripts and sauces, painters and falcons, the attention of the frivolous Leo. It prompted the generous treason of Morone. It imparted a transient energy to the feeble mind and body of the last Sforza. It excited for one moment an honest ambition in the false heart of Pes- cara. Ferocity and insolence were not among the vices of the national character. To the discriminating cruelties of politicians, committed for great ends on select victims, the moral code of the Italians was too indulgent. But, though they might have recourse to barbarity as an expedient, they did not require it as a MACHIAVELLL 99 Stimulant. They turned with loathing from the atro- city of the strangers who seemed to love blood for its own sake ; who, not content with subjugating, were impatient to destroy ; who found a fiendish pleasure in razing magnificent cities, cutting the throats of enemies who cried for quarter, or suffocating an unarmed popu- lation by thousands in the caverns to which it had fled for safety. Such were the cruelties which daily excited the terror and disgust of a people among whom, till lately, the worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched battle was the loss of his horse and the expense of his ransom. The swinish intemperance of Switzerland ; the wolfish avarice of Spain ; the gross licentiousness of the French, indulged in violation of hospitality, of de- cency, of love itself ; the wanton inhumanity which was common to all the invaders, — had made them objects of deadly hatred to the inhabitants of the Peninsula. The wealth which had been accumulated during cen- turies of prosperity and repose was rapidly melting away. The intellectual superiority of the oppressed people only rendered them more keenly sensible of their political degradation. Literature and taste, in- deed, still disguised with a flush of hectic loveliness and brilliancy the ravages of an incurable decay. The iron had not yet entered into the soul. The time was not yet come when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to be hoodwinked, when the harp of the poet was to be hung on the willows of Arno, and the right hand of the painter to forget its cunning. Yet a dis- cerning eye might even then have seen that genius and 100 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. learning would not long survive the state of things from which they had sprung, and that the great men whose talents gave lustre to that melancholy period had been formed under the influence of happier days, and would leave no successors behind them. The times which shine with the greatest splendor in literary his- tory are not always those to which the human mind is most indebted. Of this we may be convinced, by comparing the generation which follows them with that which had preceded them. The first fruits which are reaped under a bad system often spring from seed sown under a good one. Thus it was, in some meas- ure, with the Augustan age. Thus it was with the age of Raphael and Ariosto, of Aldus and Vida. Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes of his country, and clearly discerned the cause and the rem- edy. It was the mihtary system of the Italian people which had extinguished their valor and discipline, and left their wealth an easy prey to every foreign plun- derer. The secretary projected a scheme alike honor- able to his heart and to his intellect, for abolishing the use of mercenary troops, and for organizing a national militia. The exertions which he made to effect this great object ought alone to rescue his name from obloquy. Though his situation and his habits were pacific, he studied with intense assiduity the theory of war. He made himself master of all its details. The Florentine government entered into his views. A council of war was appointed. Levies were decreed. The indefati- MA CHI A VELLL I O I gable minister flew from place to place in order to su- perintend the execution of his design. The times were, in some respects, favorable to the experiment. The system of military tactics had undergone a great revolution. The cavalry was no longer considered as forming the strength of an army. The hours which a citizen could spare from his ordinary employments, though by no means sufficient to familiarize him with the exercise of a man-at-arms, might render him an useful foot-soldier. The dread of a foreign yoke, of plunder, massacre, and conflagration, might have con- quered that repugnance to military pursuits which both the industry and the idleness of great towns commonly generate. For a time the scheme promised well. The new troops acquitted themselves respectably in the field. MachiavelU looked with parental rapture on the success of his plan, and began to hope that the arms of Italy might once more be formidable to the barbarians of the Tagus and the Rhine. But the tide of misfortune came on before the barriers which should have withstood it were prepared. For a time, indeed, Florence might be considered as peculiarly fortunate. Famine and sword and pestilence had devastated the fertile plains and stately cities of the Po. All the curses denounced of old against Tyre seemed to have fallen on Venice. Her merchants already stood afar off, lamenting for their great city. The time seemed near when the sea-weed should overgrow her silent Rialto, and the fisherman wash his nets in her deserted arsenal Naples had been four times conquered and 102 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. reconquered by tyrants equally indifferent to its wel- fare, and equally greedy for its spoils. Florence, as yet, had only to endure degradation and extortion, to submit to the mandates of foreign powers, to buy over and over again, at an enormous price, what was already justly her own, to return thanks for being wronged, and to ask pardon for being in the right. She was at length deprived of the blessings, even of this infamous and servile repose. Her military and political institutions were swept away together. The Medici returned, in the train of foreign invaders, from their long exile. The policy of MachiaveUi was aban- doned ; and his public services were requited with poverty, imprisonment, and torture. The fallen statesman still clung to his project with unabated ardor. With the view of vindicating it from some popular objections, and of refuting some prevail- ing errors on the subject of military science, he wrote his " Seven Books on the Art of War." This excellent work is in the form of a dialogue. The opinions of the writer are put into the mouth of Fabrizio Colonna, a powerful nobleman of the Ecclesiastical State, and an officer of distinguished merit in the service of the King of Spain. Colonna visits Florence on his way from Lombardy to his own domains. He is invited to meet some friends at the house of Cosimo Rucellai, an amiable and accomplished young man, whose early death MachiaveUi feelingly deplores. After partaking of an elegant entertainment, they retire from the heat into the most shady recesses of the garden. Fabrizio MA CHI A VELLT. 1 03 is struck by the sight of some uncommon plants. Co- sirao says, that, though rare in modern days, they are frequently mentioned by the classical authors, and that his grandfather, hke many other Italians, amused him- self with practising the ancient methods of gardening. Fabrizio expresses his regret that those who, in later times, affected the manners of the old Romans, should select for imitation the most trifling pursuits. This leads to a conversation on the decline of military dis- cipline, and on the best means of restoring it. The institution of the Florentine mihtia is ably defended, and several improvements are suggested in the details. The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that time, regarded as the best soldiers in Europe. The Swiss battalion consisted of pikemen, and bore a close re- semblance to the Greek phalanx. The Spaniards, like the soldiers of Rome, were armed with the sword and the shield. The victories of Flamininus and i^milius over the Macedonian kings seem to prove the superi- ority of the weapons used by the legions. The same experiment had been recently tried with the same re- sult at the battle of Ravenna, one of those tremendous days into which human folly and wickedness compress the whole devastation of a famine or a plague. In that memorable conflict, the infantry of Aragon, the old companions of Gonsalvo, deserted by all their allies, hewed a passage through the thickest of the imperial pikes, and effected an unbroken retreat, in the face of the gendarmerie of De Foix, and the re- nowned artillery of Este. Fabrizio, or rather Machia- 104 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. velli, proposes to combine the two systems, to arm the foremost Unes with the pike for the purpose of repuls- ing cavalry, and those in the rear with the sword, as being a weapon better adapted for every other purpose. Throughout the work, the author expresses the highest admiration of the military science of the ancient Ro- mans, and the greatest contempt for the maxims which had been in vogue amongst the Italian commanders of the preceding generation. He prefers infantry to cavalry, and fortified camps to fortified towns. He is inclined to substitute rapid movements and decisive engagements for the languid and dilatory operations of his countrymen. He attaches very little importance to the invention of gunpowder. Indeed, he seems to think that it ought scarcely to produce any change in the mode of arming or of disposing troops. The gen- eral testimony of historians, it must be allowed, seems to prove that the ill-constructed and ill-ser\'ed artillery of those times, though useful in a siege, was of little value on the field of batde. Of the tactics of Machiavelli we will not venture to give an opinion, but we are certain that his book is most able and interesting. As a commentary on the history of his times, it is invaluable. The ingenuity, the grace, and the perspicuity of the style, and the eloquence and animation of particular passages, must give pleasure, even to readers who take no interest in the subject. " The Prince " and the " Discourses on Livy " were written after the fall of the Republican Government. MA CHI A VELLI. 1 05 The former was dedicated to the young Lorenzo de' Medici. This circumstance seems to have disgusted the contemporaries of the writer far more than the doctrines which have rendered the name of the work odious in later times. It was considered as an indica- tion of poHtical apostasy. The fact, however, seems to have been, that MachiavelU, despairing of the hberty of Florence, was incHned to support any government which might preserve her independence. The interval which separated a democracy and a despotism, Soderini and Lorenzo, seemed to vanish when compared with the difference between the former and the present state of Italy, between the security, the opulence, and the repose which she had enjoyed under its native rulers, and the misery in which she had been plunged since the fatal year in which the first foreign tyrant had de- scended from the Alps. The noble and pathetic ex- hortation with which " The Prince " concludes, shows how strongly the writer felt upon this subject. " The Prince " traces the progress of an ambitious man, the " Discourses " the progress of an ambitious people. The same principles on which, in the former work, the elevation of an individual is explained, are applied, in the latter, to the longer duration and more complex interest of a society. To a modern statesman, the form of the " Discourses " may appear to be pue- rile. In truth, Livy is not an historian on whom im- plicit reliance can be placed, even in cases where he must have possessed considerable means of informa- tion. And the first Decade, to which MachiavelH has I06 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. confined himself, is scarcely entitled to more credit than our Chronicle of British Kings who reigned before the Roman invasion. But the commentator is in- debted to Livy for little more than a few texts which he might as easily have extracted from the Vulgate or "The Decameron." The whole train of thought is original. On the peculiar immorality which has rendered " The Prince " unpopular, and which is almost equally discernible in the " Discourses," we have already given our opinion at length. We have attempted to show that it belonged rather to the age than to the man, that it was a partial taint, and by no means implied general depravity. We cannot, however, deny that it is a great blemish, and that it considerably diminishes the pleasure which, in other respects, those works must afford to every intelligent mind. It is, indeed, impossible to conceive a more health- ful and vigorous constitution of the understanding than that which these works indicate. The qualities of the active and the contemplative statesman appear to have been blended in the mind of the writer into a rare and exquisite harmony. His skill in the details of business had not been acquired at the expense of his general powers. It had not rendered his mind less compre- hensive ; but it had served to correct his speculations, and to impart to them that vivid and practical charac- ter which so widely distinguishes them from the vague theories of most political philosophers. Every man who ha^ seen the world, knows that MA CHI A VELLI. 1 0/ nothing is so useless as a general maxim. If it be very moral and very true, it may serve for a copy to a char- ity boy. If, like those of Rochefoucault, it be spar- kling and whimsical, it may make an excellent motto for an essay. But few indeed of the many wise apoph- thegms which have been uttered, from the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of Poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action. We give the highest and the most pecuHar praise to the precepts of Machia- velli when we say that they may frequently be of real use in regulating conduct, not so much because they are more just or more profound than those which might be culled from other authors, as because they can be more readily applied to the problems of real life. There are errors in these works. But they are errors which a writer, situated like Machiavelli, could scarcely avoid. They arise, for the most part, from a single defect which appears to us to pervade his whole system. In his political scheme, the means had been more deeply considered than the ends. The great principle, that societies and laws exist only for the purpose of increasing the sum of private happiness, is not recognized with sufficient clearness. The good of the body, distinct from the good of the members, and sometimes hardly compatible with the good of the members, seems to be the object which he proposes to himself. Of all political fallacies, this has perhaps had the widest and the most mischievous operation. The state of society in the little commonwealths of Greece, I08 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. the close connection and mutual dependence of the citizens, and the severity of the laws of war, tended to encourage an opinion which, under such circumstances, could hardly be called erroneous. The interests of every individual were inseparably bound up with those of "the state. An invasion destroyed his corn-fields and vineyards, drove him from his home, and com- pelled him to encounter all the hardships of a military life. A treaty of peace restored him to security and comfort. A victory doubled the number of his slaves. A defeat perhaps made him a slave himself. When Pericles, in the Peloponnesian war, told the Athenians, that, if their country triumphed, their private losses would speedily be repaired, but that, if their arms failed of success, every individual amongst them would probably be ruined, he spoke no more than the truth. He spoke to men whom the tribute of vanquished cities supplied with food and clothing, with the luxury of the bath and the amusements of the theatre, on whom the greatness of their country conferred rank, and before whom the members of less prosperous com- munities trembled ; to men who, in case of a change in the public fortunes, would, at least, be deprived of every comfort and every distinction which they en- joyed. To be butchered on the smoking ruins of their city, to be dragged in chains to a slave-market, to see one child torn from them to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to guard the harems of Persepolis, these were the frequent and probable consequences of national calamities. Hence, among the Greeks, patri- MA CHI A VEL LI. 1 09 otism became a governing principle, or rather an ungovernable passion. Their legislators and their phi- losophers took it for granted, that, in providing for the strength and greatness of the state, they sufficiently provided for the happiness of the people. The writers of the Roman empire lived under despots, into whose dominion a hundred nations were melted down, and whose gardens would have covered the little common- wealths of Phlius and Plataea. Yet they continued to employ the same language, and to cant about the duty of sacrificing every thing to a country to which they owed nothing. Causes similar to those which had influenced the disposition of the Greeks operated powerfully on the less vigorous and daring character of the Italians. The Italians, like the Greeks, were members of small communities. Every man was deeply interested in the welfare of the society to which he belonged, a partaker in its wealth and its poverty, in its glory and its shame. In the age of Machiavelli this was peculiarly the case. Public events had produced an immense sum of misery to private citizens. Tlie Northern invaders had brought want to their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was natural that a man who lived in times like these should over- rate the importance of those measures by which a nation is rendered formidable to its neighbors, and underv'alue those which make it prosperous within itself. Nothing is more remarkable in the political treatises I lO READINGS FROM MA CA ULA Y. of Machiavelli than the fairness of mind which they indicate. It appears where the author is in the wrong, almost as strongly as where he is in the right. He never advances a false opinion because it is new or splendid, because he can clothe it in a happy phrase, or defend it by an ingenious sophism. His errors are at once explained by a reference to the circumstances in which he was placed. They evidently were not sought out : they lay in his way, and could scarcely be avoided. Such mistakes must necessarily be commit- ted by early speculators in every science. In this respect, it is amusing to compare " The Prince " and the " Discourses " with " The Spirit of Laws." Montesquieu enjoys, perhaps, a wider celeb- rity than any political writer of modern Europe. Something he doubtless owes to his merit, but much more to his fortune. He had the good luck of a Val- entine. He caught the eye of the French nation at the moment when it was waking from the long sleep of political and religious bigotry ; and, in consequence, he became a favorite. The English, at that time, con- sidered a Frenchman who talked about constitutional checks and fundamental laws as a prodigy not less as- tonishing than the learned pig or the musical infant. Specious but shallow, studious of effect, indifferent to truth, eager to build a system, but careless of collect- ing those materials out of which alone a sound and durable system can be built, the lively president con- structed theories as rapidly and as slightly as card- houses, no sooner projected than completed, no sooner MA CHI A VELLL 1 1 1 completed than blown away, no sooner blo\^Ti away than forgotten. Machiavelli errs only because his ex- perience, acquired in a very peculiar state of society, could not always enable him to calculate the effect of institutions differing from those of which he had ob- served the operation. Montesquieu errs • because he has a fine thing to say, and is resolved to say it. If the phenomena which lie before him will not suit his purpose, all history must be ransacked. If nothing established by authentic testimony can be racked or chipped to suit his Procrustean hypothesis, he puts up with some monstrous fable about Siam or Bantam or Japan, told by writers compared with whom Lucian and Gulliver were veracious, liars by a double right, as travellers and as Jesuits. Propriety of thought, and propriety of diction, are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of ex- pression generally springs from confusion of ideas ; and the same wish to dazzle at any cost which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to pro- duce sophistry in his reasonings. The judicious and candid mind of Machiavelli shows itself in his lumi- nous, manly, and polished language. The style of Montesquieu, on the other hand, indicates in every page a lively and ingenious, but an unsound, mind. Every trick of expression, from the mysterious concise- ness of an oracle to the flippancy of a Parisian cox- comb, is employed to disguise the fallacy of some positions and the triteness of others. Absurdities are 1 1 2 READINGS FROM MA CA ULA V. brightened into epigrams : truisms are darkened into enigmas. It is with difhciihy that the strongest eye can sustain the glare with which some parts are illumi- nated, or penetrate the shade in which others are concealed. The political works of Machiavelli derive a pecul- iar interest from the mournful earnestness which he manifests whenever he touches on topics connected with the calamities of his native land. It is difficult to conceive any situation more painful than that of a great man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during the alter- nate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of vitality disap- pear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, dark- ness, and corruption. To this joyless and thankless duty was Machiavelli called. In the energetic lan- guage of the prophet, he was " mad for the sight of his eyes which he saw," — disunion in the council, ef- feminacy in the camp, liberty extinguished, commerce decaying, national honor sullied, an enlightened and flourishing people given over to the ferocity of igno- nant savages. Though his opinions had not escaped the contagion of that political immorality which was common among his countrymen, his natural disposi- tion seems to have been rather stern and impetuous than pliant and artful. When the misery and degra- dation of Florence, and the foul outrage which he had himself sustained, recur to his mind, the smooth craft of his profession and his nation is exchanged for the MA CHI A VEL LI. 1 1 3 honest bitterness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one sick of the calamitous times and abject people among whom his lot is cast. He pines for the strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the fasces of Brutus and the sword of Scipio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp of the triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be transported back to the days when eight hundred thousand Italian warriors sprung to arms at the nmior of a Gallic invasion. He breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty senators who forgot the dearest ties of nature in the claims of public duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the gold of Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered composure to the tremendous tidings of Cannae. Like an ancient temple deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later age, his character acquires an interest from the very circumstances which debase it. The original proportions are ren- dered more striking by the contrast which they pre- sent to the mean and incongruous additions. The influence of the sentiments which we have de- scribed was not apparent in his writings alone. His enthusiasm, barred from the career which it would have selected for itself, seems to have found a vent in desperate levity. He enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in outraging the opinions of a society which he despised. He became careless of the decencies which were ex- pected from a man so highly distinguished in the lit- erary and political world. The sarcastic bitterness of his conversation disgusted those who were more in- 1 14 READINGS FROM MAC A ULA V. clined to accuse his licentiousness than their own degeneracy, and who were unable to conceive the strength of those emotions which are concealed by the jests of the wretched, and by the follies of the wise. The historical works of Machiavelli still remain to be considered. The life of Castruccio Castracani will occupy us for a very short time, and would scarcely have demanded our notice had it not attracted a much greater share of public attention than it de- serves. Few books, indeed, could be more interesting than a careful and judicious account, from such a pen, of the illustrious Prince of Lucca, the most emi- nent of those Italian chiefs, who, like Pisistratus and Gelon, acquired a power felt rather than seen, and resting, not on law or on prescription, but on the public favor and on their great personal qualities. Such a work would exhibit to us the real nature of that species of sovereignty, so singular and so often misunderstood, which the Greeks denominated tyr- anny, and which, modified in some degree by the feudal system, re-appeared in the commonwealths of Lombardy and Tuscany. But this little composition of Machiavelli is in no sense a history. It has no pretensions to fidelity. It is a trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is scarcely more authentic than the novel of " Belphegor," and is very much duller. The last great work of this illustrious man was the history of his native city. It was written by command of the Pope, who, as chief of the house of Medici, MA CHI A VELLL 1 1 5 was at that time sovereign of Florence. The charac- ters of Cosmo, of Piero, and of Lorenzo, are, how- ever, treated with a freedom and impartiahty equaUy honorable to the writer and to the patron. The miseries and humiliations of dependence, the bread which is more bitter than every other food, the stairs which are more painful than every other ascent, had not broken the spirit of Machiavelli. The most cor- rupting post in a corrupting profession had not de- praved the generous heart of Clement. The history does not appear to be the fruit of much industry or research. It is unquestionably inaccurate. But it is elegant, lively, and picturesque, beyond any other in the Italian language. The reader, we be- lieve, carries away from it a more vivid and a more faithful impression of the national character and man- ners than from more correct accounts. The truth is, that the book belongs rather to ancient than to mod- em literature. It is in the style, not of Davila and Clarendon, but of Herodotus and Tacitus. The clas- sical histories may almost be called romances founded in fact. The relation is, no doubt, in all its principal points, strictly true. But the numerous little inci- dents v,-hich heighten the interest, the words, the gestures, the looks, are evidently furnished by the im- agination of the author. The fashion of later times is different. A more exact narratwe is given by the writer. It may be doubted whether more exact no- tions are conveyed to the reader. The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of Il6 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. caricature, and we are not certain that the best his- tories are not those in which a httle of the exaggera- tion of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy, but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected, but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind for- ever. The history terminates with the death of Lorenzo de' Medici. Machiavelli had, it seem.s, intended to continue his narrative to a later period. But his death prevented the execution of his design, and the melancholy task of recording the desolation and shame of Italy devolved on Guicciardini. Machiavelli lived long enough to see the com- mencement of the last stniggle for Florentine liberty. Soon after his death, monarchy was finally established, not such a monarchy as that of which Cosmo had laid the foundations deep in the institutions and feelings of his countrym.en, and which Lorenzo had embel- lished with the trophies of every science and every art, but a loathsome tyranny, proud and mean, cruel and feeble, bigoted and lascivious. The character of Machiavelli was hateful to the new masters of Italy, and those parts of his theory which were in strict accordance with their own daily practice afforded a pretext for blackening his memory. His works wer' misrepresented by the learned, misconstrued by th ignorant, censured by the Church, abused with all th rancor of simulated virtue by the tools of a base gov ernment and the priests of a baser superstition. Tl MA CHI A VELLL 1 1 / name of the man whose genius had illuminated all the dark places of policy, and to whose patriotic wisdom an oppressed people had owed their last chance of emancipation and revenge, passed into a proverb of infam.y. For more than two hundred years his bones lay undistinguished. At length an English nobleman paid the last honors to the greatest statesman of Flor- ence. In the Church of Santa Croce a monument was erected to his memory, which is contemplated with reverence by all who can distinguish the virtues of a great mind through the corruptions of a degen- erate age, and which will be approached with still deeper homage when the object to which his public life was devoted shall be attained, when the foreign yoke shall be broken, when a second Procida shall avenge the wrongs of Naples, when a happier Rienzi shall restore the good estate of Rome, when the streets of Florence and Bologna shall again resound with their ancient war-cry, Popolo; popolo; muoiano i tiranni ! LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. PREFACE. That what is called the history of the Kings and early Consuls of Rome, is to a great extent fabulous, few scholars have, since the time of Beaufort, ventured to deny. It is certain, that, more than three hundred and sixty years after the date ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city, the public records were, with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Gauls. It is certain that the oldest annals of the common- wealth were compiled more than a century and a half after this destruction of the records. It is certain, therefore, that the great Latin writers of the Augustan age did not possess those materials, without which a trustworthy account of the infancy of the republic could not possibly be framed. Those writers own, indeed, that the chronicles to which they had access, were filled with battles that were never fought, and consuls that were never inaugurated ; and we have abundant proof, that, in these chronicles, events of the greatest importance, such as the issue of the war with Porsena, and the issue of the war with Brennus, were grossly misrepresented. Under these circumstances a wise man will look with great suspicion on the legend 122 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. which has come down to us. He will, perhaps, be inclined to regard the princes who are said to have founded the civil and religious institutions of Rome, the son of Mars and the husband of Egeria, as mere mythological personages, of the same class with Per- seus and Ixion, As he draws nearer and nearer to the confines of authentic history, he will become less and less hard of belief. He will admit that the most important parts of the narrative have some foundation in truth. But he will distrust almost all the details, not only because they seldom rest on any solid evi- dence, but also because he will constantly detect in them, even when they are within the limits of physical possibility, that peculiar character, more easily under- stood than defined, which distinguishes the creations of the imagination from the realities of the world in which we live. The early history of Rome is indeed far more poetical than any thing else in Latin literature. The loves of the Vestal and tlfb God of War, the cradle laid among the reeds of Tiber, the fig-tree, the she- wolf, the shepherd's cabin, the recognition, the fratri- cide, the rape of the Sabines, the death of Tarpeia, the fall of Hostus Hostilius, the struggle of Mettus Curtius through the marsh, the women rushing with torn raiment and dishevelled hair between their fathers and their husbands, the nightly meetings of Numa and the Nymph by the well in the sacred grove, the fight of the three Romans and the three Albans, the purchase of the Sibylline books, the crime of Tullia, LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 23 the simulated madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs of Lucretia, the heroic actions of Horatius Codes, of Scaevola, and of Cloelia, the battle of Regillus won by the aid of Castor and Pollux, the defence of Cremera, the touching story of Coriolanus, the still more touch- ing story of Virginia, the wild legend about the drain- ing of the Alban lake, the combat between Valerius Corvus and the gigantic Gaul, are among the many instances which will at once suggest themselves to every reader. In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of fine imagination, these stories retain much of their genuine character. Nor could even the tasteless Dionysius distort and mutilate them into mere prose. The poetry shines, in spite of him, through the dreary pedantry of his eleven books. It is discernible in the most tedious and in the most superficial modern works on the early times of Rome. It enlivens the dulness of the "Universal History," and gives a charm to the most meagre abridgments of Goldsmith. Even in the age of Plutarch, there were discerning men who rejected the popular account of the founda- tion of Rome, because that account appeared to them to have the air, not of a history, but of a romance or a drama. Plutarch, who was displeased at their in- credulity, had nothing better to say in reply to their arguments than that chance sometimes turns poet, and produces trains of events not to be distinguished from the most elaborate plots which are constructed 124 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. by art.^ But though the existence of a poetical ele- ment in the early history of the Great City was de- tected so many years ago, the first critic who distinctly saw from what source that poetical element had been derived was James Perizonius, one of the most acute and learned antiquaries of the seventeenth century. His theory, which in his own days attracted little or no notice, was revived in the present generation by Niebuhr, a man who would have been the first writer of his time if his talent for communicating truths had borne any proportion to his talent for investigating them. That theory has been adopted by several emi- nent scholars of our own country, particularly by the Bishop of St. David's, by Professor Maiden, and by the lamented Arnold. It appears to be now generally received by men conversant with classical antiquity ; and indeed it rests on such strong proofs, both internal and external, that it will not be easily subverted. A popular exposition of this theory, and of the evidence by which it is supported, may not be without interest, even for readers who are unacquainted with the ancient languages. The Latin literature which has come down to us is 1 'Yttotttoi' \i.kv ivioL<; earl to SpaixaTLKov Koi TrAacr^iaTwSes" ov Set 8e aTTKTTelv, TT)i' Tvxrjv bpiop/3ois kol /Sou/coAois ioLKoreg, aW' o'lous dv Tt's a^tcicreie tous €/c ^ac^lAeto^' re (pvvTa<; yepov^, Kal anh Saifxovoiv CTTTopa? yeveaOat j-ojixi^o- ixewov;, oj? i:/ toI(; Trarpioi? vfj-yoLi; vtto 'Fiafxaiwi' en »cal vvi' (fSerai. — Diofi. Hal. i. 79. This passage has sometimes been cited as if Dionysius had been LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 3 1 Cato the Censor, who also Hved in the days of the Second Punic War, mentioned this lost literature in his lost work on the antiquities of his country. Many ages, he said, before his time, there were ballads in praise of illustrious men ; and these ballads it was the speaking in his own person, and had, Greek as he was, been so industrious or so fortunate as to discover some valuable remains of that early Latin poetry which the greatest Latin writers of his age regretted as hopelessly lost. Such a supposition is highly improbable; and, indeed, it seems clear from the con- text, that Dionysiiis,as Reiske and other editors evidently thought, was merely quoting from Fabius Pictor. The whole passage has the air of an extract from an ancient chronicle, and is introduced by the words, KoIctos ^iXv 4>aj8to?, 6 ni/cTwp Aey6jU£fos, TyjSe 7pd(/>et. Another argument may be urged which seems to deserve consideration. The author of the passage in question mentions a thatched hut, which, in his time, stood between the summit of Mount Palatine and the Circus. This hut, he says, was built by Romulus, and was constantly kept in repair at the public charge, but never in any respect embellished. Now, in the age of Dionysius, there certainly was at Rome a thatched hut, said to have been that of Romu- his. But this hut, as we learn from Vitruvius, stood, not near the-Circus, but in the Capitol. i^Vit. ii. i.) If, therefore, we understand Dionysius to speak in his own person, we can reconcile his statement with that of Vitruvius, only by supposing that there were at Rome, in the Augustan age, two thatched huts, both believed to have been built by Romulus, and both carefully repaired and held in high honor. The objections to such a supposition seem to be strong. Neither Dionysius nor Vitruvius speaks of more than one such hut. Dio Cassius informs us that twice, during the long administration of Augustus, the hut of Romulus caught fire, (xlviii. 43, liv. 29.) Had there been two such huts, would he not have told us of which he spoke? An English histo- rian would hardly give an account of a fire at Queen's College without saying whether it was at Queen's College, Oxford, or at Queen's College, Cambridge, Marcus Seneca, Macrobius, and Conon, a Greek writer from whom Photius has made large extracts, mention only one hut of Romulus, that in the Capitol. {M. Seneca, Contr. i. 6; Macrobius, Sat. i. 15; Phothis, Bill. 1S6.) Ovid, Livy, Petronius, Valerius Maximus, Lucius .Seneca, and St. Jerome, mention only one hut of Romulus, without specifying the site. {Ovid. Fasti, iii. 183; Liv. v. 53; Petronius Fragin. ; Val. Max. iv. 4; L. Seticca, Consolatio ad Helvian ; D. Hieron. ad Paidinianuin de Didymo.) The whole difficulty is removed, if we suppose that Dionysius was merely quoting Fabius Pictor, Nothing is more probable thau that the cabin, which 132 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. fashion for the guests at banquets to sing in turn while the piper played. " Would," exclaims Cicero, " that we still had the old ballads of which Cato speaks ! " ^ Valerius Maximus gives us exactly similar informa- tion, without mentioning his authority, and obser\^es that the ancient Roman ballads were probably of more benefit to the young than all the lectures of the Athe- nian schools, and that to the influence of the national poetry were to be ascribed the virtues of such men as Camillus and Fabricius.^ in tlie time of Fabius stood near the Circus, might, long before the age of Augustus, have been transported to the Capitol, as the place fittest, by reason both of its safety and of its sanctity, to contain so precious a relic. The language of Plutarch confirms this hypothesis. He describes, with great precision, the spot where Romulus dwelt, on the slope of Mount Pala- tine, leading to the Circus; but he says not a word implying that the dwelling was still to be seen there. Indeed, his expressions imply that it was no longer there The evidence of Solinus is still more to the point. He, like Plutarch, describes the spot where Romulus had resided, and says expressly that the hut had been there, but that in his time it ^vas there no longer. The site, it is certain, was well remembered, and probably retaiued its old name, as Charing Cross and the Haymarket have done. This is probably the explanation of the words, " casa Romuli," in Victor's description of the Tenth Region of Rome, under Valentinian. ^ Cicero refers t^vice to this important passage in Cato's Antiquities: " Gravissimus auctor in Originibus dixit Cato, morem apud majores hunc epularum fuisse, lit deinceps, qui accubarent, canerent ad tibiam clarorum virorum laudes atque virtutes. Ex quo perspicuum est, et cantus tum fuisse rescriptos vocum sonis, et carmina." — Tnsc. Qiicest. iv. 2. Again: " Uti- nam exstarent ilia carmina, qua;, multis saeculis ante suam setatem, in epulis esse cantitata a singulis convivis de clarorum virorum laudibus, in Originibus scriptum reliquit Cato." — Brnt7is, xix, 2 " Majores natu in conviviis ad tibias egregia superiorum opera carmine comprehensa pangebant, quo ad ea imitanda juventutem alacriorem redderent . Quas Athenas, quam scholam, quae alicnigena studia huic domesticae disciplinse praitulerim? Inde oriebantur Camilli, Scipiones, Fabricii, Mar- celli, Fabii." — Val. Max. ii. i. LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME, 1 33 Varro, whose authority on all questions connected with the antiquities of his country is entitled to the greatest respect, tells us that at banquets it was once the fashion for boys to sing, sometimes with and some- times without instrumental music, ancient ballads in praise of men of former times. These young per- formers, he observes, were of unblemished character, a circumstance which he probably mentioned because, among the Greeks, and indeed in his time among the Romans also, the morals of singing-boys were in no high repute.^ The testimony of Horace, though given incidentally, confirms the statements of Cato, Valerius Maximus, and Varro. The poet predicts, that, under the peace- ful administration of Augustus, the Romans will, over their full goblets, sing to the pipe, after the fashion of their fathers, the deeds of brave captains, and the ancient legends touching the origin of the city.^ The proposition, then, that Rome had ballad-poetry is not merely in itself highly probable, but is fully proved by direct evidence of the greatest weight. ^ " In conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in quibus laudes erant majorum, et assa voce, et cum tibicine." Nonius, Assa voce pro sola. 2 " Nosque et profestis lucibus et sacris. Inter jocosi munera Liberi, Cum prole matronisque nostris. Rite Deos prius apprecati, Virtute functos, more patrum, duces, Lydis remixto carmine tibiis, Trojamque, et Anchisen, et almae Progenieni Veneris canemus." Carm. iv, 15. 134 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. This proposition being established, it becomes easy to understand why the early history of the city is un- like almost every thing else in Latin literature, native where almost every thing else is borrowed, imagina- tive where almost every thing else is prosaic. We can scarcely hesitate to pronounce that the magnificent, pathetic, and truly national legends, which present so striking a contrast to all that surrounds them, are broken and defaced fragments of that early poetry which even in the age of Cato the Censor had be- come antiquated, and of which Tully had never heard a line. That this poetry should have been suffered to perish will not appear strange when we consider how com- plete was the triumph of the Greek genius over the public mind of Italy. It is probable, that, at an early period. Homer and Herodotus furnished some hints to the Latin minstrels : ^ but it was not till after the war with Pyrrhus that the poetry of Rome began to put off its old Ausonian character. The transforma- tion was soon consummated. The conquered, says Horace, led captive the conquerors. It was precisely at the time at which the Roman people rose to unri- valled political ascendency that they stooped to pass under the intellectual yoke. It was precisely at the time at which the sceptre departed from Greece, that the empire of her language and of her arts became universal and despotic. The revolution, indeed, was * See the preface to the lay of the Battle of Regillus. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 35 aot effected without a struggle. Naevius seems to have been the last of the ancient line of poets. Ennius was the founder of a new dynasty. Naevius celebrated the First Punic War in Saturnian verse, the old national verse of Italy.^ Ennius sang the Second Punic War ^ Cicero speaks highly in more than one place of this poem of Naevius: Ennius sneered at it, and stole from it. As to the Saturnian measure, see Hermann's Eletneiita Doctrince Me- tricce, iii. 9. The Saturnian line, according to the grammarians, consisted of two parts. The first was a catalectic dimeter iambic: the second was composed of three trochees. But the license taken by the early Latin poets seems to have been almost boundless. The most perfect Saturnian line which has been preserved was the work, not of a professional artist, but of an amateur: — " Dabunt malum Metelli Najvio poetse." There has been much difference of opinion among learned men respecting the history of this measure. That it is the same with a Greek measure used by Archilochus is indisputable. (^Bentlcy Phalaris, xi.) But in spite of the authority of Terentianus Maurus, and of the still higher authority of Bentley, we may venture to doubt whether the coincidence was not fortuitous. We constantly find the same rude and simple numbers in different countries, under circumstances which make it impossible to suspect that there has been imita- tion on either side. Bishop Heber heard the children of a village in Bengal singing *' Radha, Radha," to the tune of " My boy Billy." Neither the Cas- tilian nor the German minstrels of the Middle Ages owed any thing to Paros or to ancient Rome. Yet both the poem of the Cid and the poem of the Nibe- lungs contain many Saturnian verses; as, — " Estas nuevas a mio Cid eran venidas." " A mi lo dicen; a ti dan las orejadas." " Man mohte michel wunder von Sifride sagen." " Wa ich den Kiinic vinde daz sol man mir sagen." Indeed, there cannot be a more perfect Saturnian line than one which is sung in every English nursery, — " The queen was in her parlor, eating bread and honey; " yet the author of this line, we may be assured, borrowed nothing from either Naevius or Archilochus. On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that, two or three hun- dred years before the time of Ennius, some Latin minstrel may have visited 136 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. in numbers borrowed from the Iliad. The elder poet, in the epitaph which he wrote for himself, and which Sybaris or Crotona, may have heard some verses of Archilochus sung, may have been pleased with the metre, and may have introduced it at Rome. Thus much is certain, that the Saturnian measure, if not a native of Italy, was at least so early and so completely naturalized there, that its foreign origin was forgotten. Bentley says, indeed, that the Saturnian measure was first brought from Greece into Italy by Naevius. But this is merely obiter dictum, to use a phrase common in our courts of law, and would not have been deliberately maintained by that incomparable critic, whose memory is held in reverence by all lovers of learning. The arguments which might be brought against Bentley's assertion — for it is mere assertion, supported by no evidence — are innumerable. A few will suffice. 1. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Ennius. Ennius sneered at Nsevius for writing on the First Punic War in verses such as the old Italian bards used before Greek literature had been studied. Now, the poem of Nsevius was in Saturnian verse. Is it possible that Ennius ceuld have used such expressions if the Saturnian verse had been just imported from Greece for the first time ? 2. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Horace. " When Greece," says Horace, " introduced her arts into oui uncivilized country, those rugged Saturnian numbers passed away." Would Horace have said this if the Saturnian numbers had been imported from Greece just before the hexameter ? 3. Bendey's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Festus and of Aurelius Victor, both of whom positively say that the most ancient prophecies attributed to the Fauns were in Saturnian verse. 4. Bendey's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Terentianus Maurus, to whom he has himself appealed. Terentianus Maurus does indeed say that the Saturnian measure, though believed by the Romans from a very early period (" credidit vetustas") to be of Italian invention, was really borrowed from the Greeks. But Terentianus Maurus does not say that it was first borrowed by Nsevius. Nay, the expressions used by Terentianus Maurus clearly imply the contrary; for how could the Romans have believed, from a very early period, that this measure was the indigenous production of Latium, if it was really brought over from Greece in an age of intelligence and liberal curiosity, in the age which gave birth to Ennius, Plautus, Cato the Censor, and other distinguished writers? If Bentley's assertion were correct, there could have been no more doubt at Rome about the Greek ori.n:iii of the Satur- nian measure than about the Greek origin of hexameters or Sapphics. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 37 IS a fine specimen of the early Roman diction and ver- sification, plaintively boasted that the Latin language had died with him.' Thus what to Horace appeared to be the first faint dawn of Roman literature, appeared to Naevius to be its hopeless setting. In truth, one literature was setting, and another dawning. The victory of the foreign taste was decisive ; and, indeed, we can hardly blame the Romans for turning away with contempt from the rude lays which had de- lighted their fathers, and giving their whole admiration to the immortal productions of Greece. The national romances, neglected by the great and the refined whose education had been finished at Rhodes or Athens, continued, it may be supposed, during some generations to delight the vulgar. While Virgil, in hexameters of exquisite modulation, described the sports of rustics, those rustics were still singing their wild Saturnian ballads.^ It is not improbable, that, at the time when Cicero lamented the irreparable loss of the poems mentioned by Cato, a search among the nooks of the Apennines, as active as the search which wSir Walter Scott made among the descendants of the moss-troopers of Liddesdale, might have brought to light many fine remains of ancient minstrelsy. No such search was made. The Latin ballads perished forever. Yet discerning critics have thought th?ct they could still perceive in the early history of Rome nu- merous fragments of this lost poetry ; as the traveller 1 Aulas Gellius, Noctes Atlicse, i. 24. 2 See Seivius, in Georg. ii. 385. 138 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. on classic ground sometimes finds, built into the heavy wall of a fort or convent, a pillar rich with acanthus- leaves, or a frieze where the Amazons and Bacchanals seem to live. The theatres and temples of the Greek and the Roman were degraded into the quarries of the Turk and the Goth. Even so did the ancient Satur- nian poetry become the quarry in which a crowd of orators and annalists found the materials for their prose. It is not difficult to trace the process by which the old songs were transmuted into the form which they now wear. Funeral panegyric and chronicle appear to have been the intermediate links which connected the lost ballads with the histories now extant. From a very early period, it was the usage that an oration should be pronounced over the remains of a noble Roman. The orator, as we learn from Polybius, was expected, on such an occasion, to recapitulate all the services which the ancestors of the deceased had, from the earhest time, rendered to the commonwealth. There can be little doubt that the speaker on whom this duty was imposed would make use of all the stories suited to his purpose which were to be found in the popular lays. There can be as little doubt that the family of an eminent man would preserve a copy of the speech which had been pronounced over his corpse. The compilers of the early chronicles would have recourse to these speeches, and the great liisto- rians of a later period would have recourse to the chronicles. LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 39 It may be worth while to select a particular story, and to trace its probable progress through these stages. The description of the migration of the Fa- bian house to Cremera is one of the finest of the many fine passages which lie thick in the earlier books of Livy. The consul, clad in his military garb, stands in the vestibule of his house, marshalling his clan, three hundred and six fighting men, all of the same proud patrician blood, all worthy to be attended by the fasces, and to command the legions. A sad and anxious retinue of friends accompanies the adventurers through the streets, but the voice of lamentation is drowned by the shouts of admiring thousands. As the procession passes the Capitol, prayers and vows are poured forth, but in vain. The devoted band, leaving Janus on the right, marches to its doom, through the Gate of Evil Luck. After achieving high deeds of valor against overwhelming numbers, all perish save one child, the stock from which the great Fabian race was destined again to spring, for the safety and glory of the commonwealth. That this fine ro- mance, the details of which are so full of poetical truth, and so utterly destitute of all show of historical truth, came originally from some lay which had often been sung with great applause at banquets, is in the highest degree probable. Nor is it difficult to jmagine a mode in which the transmission might have taken place. The celebrated Quintus Fabius Maximus, who died about twenty years before the First Punic War, and more than forty years before Ennius was born, is I40 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. said to have been interred with extraordinary pomp. In the eulogy pronounced over his body, all the great exploits of his ancestors were doubtless recounted and exaggerated. If there were then extant songs which gave a vivid and touching description of an event, the saddest and the most glorious in the long history of the Fabian house, nothing could be more natural than that the panegyrist should borrow from such songs their finest touches, in order to adorn his speech. A few generations later, the songs would perhaps be for- gotten, or remembered only by shepherds and vine' dressers. But the speech would certainly be pre- served in the archives of the Fabian nobles. Fabius Pictor would be well acquainted with a document so interesting to his personal feelings, and would insert large extracts from it in his rude chronicle. That chronicle, as we know, was the oldest to which Livy had access. Livy would at a glance distinguish the bold strokes of the forgotten poet from the dull and feeble narrative by which they were surrounded, would retouch them with a delicate and powerful pencil, and would make them immortal. That this might happen at Rome can scarcely be ^ doubted ; for something very like this has happened in several countries, and, among others, in our own. Perhaps the theory of Perizonius cannot be better illustrated than by showing that what he supposes to have taken place in ancient times, has, beyond all doubt, taken place in modern times. I *' History," says Hume with the utmost gravity. LAVS OF AA'CTENT ROME. I4I "has preserved some instances of Edgar's amours, from which, as from a specimen, we may form a con- jecture of the rest." He then tells very agreeably the stories of Elfleda and Elfrida, two stories which have a most suspicious air of romance, and which, indeed, greatly resemble, in their general character, some of the legends of early Rome. He cites as his authority for these two tales, the chronicle of William of Malmesbury, who lived in the time of King Stephen. The great majority of readers suppose that the device by which Elfleda was substituted for her young mistress, the artifice by which Athelwold ob- tained the hand of Elfrida, the detection of that artifice, the hunting-party and the vengeance of the amorous king, are things about which there is no more doubt than about the execution of Anne Boleyn, or the slitting of Sir John Coventry's nose. But when we turn to William of Malmesbury, we find that Hume, in his eagerness to relate these pleasant fables, has overlooked one very important circumstance. Wil- liam does indeed tell both the stories ; but he gives us distinct notice that he does not warrant their truth, and that they rest on no better authority than that of ballads.^ Such is the way in which these two well-known tales have been handed down. They originally appeared in ' " Infamias quas post dicam magis respersenint cantilenae." Edgar ap- pears to have been most mercilessly treated in the Anglo-Saxon ballads. He was the favorite of the monks, and the monks and minstrels were at deadly- feud. 142 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. a poetical form. They found their way from ballads into an old chronicle. The ballads perished : the chronicle remained. A great historian, some centu- ries after the ballads had been altogether forgotten, consulted the chronicle. He was struck by the lively coloring of these ancient fictions ; he transferred them to his pages ; and thus we find inserted, as unques- tionable facts, in a narrative which is likely to last as long as the English tongue, the inventions of some minstrel whose works were probably never committed to writing, whose name is buried in oblivion, and whose dialect has become obsolete. It must, then, be admitted to be possible, or rather highly probable, that the stories of Romulus and Remus, and of the Horatii and Curiatii, may have had a similar origin. Castilian literature will furnish us with another par- allel case. Mariana, the classical historian of Spain, tells the story of the ill-starred marriage which the king Don Alonso brought about between the heirs of Carrion and the two daughters of the Cid. The Cid bestowed a princely dower on his sons-in-law. But the young men were base and proud, cowardly and cruel. They were tried in danger, and found wanting. They fled before the Moors ; and once, when a lion broke out of his den, they ran and crouched in an unseemly hiding-place. They knew that they were de- spised, and took counsel how they might be avenged. They parted from their father-in-law with many signs of love, and set forth on a journey with Dona Elvira and Doiia Sol. In a solitary place the bridegrooms LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 43 seized their brides, stripped them, scourged them, and departed, leaving them for dead. But one of the house of Bivar, suspecting foul play, had followed the travellers in disguise. The ladies were brought back safe to the house of their father. Complaint was made to the king. It was adjudged by the Cortes that the dower given by the Cid should be returned, and that the heirs of Carrion, together with one of their kindred, should do battle against three knights of the party of the Cid. The guilty youths would have declined the combat, but all their shifts were vain. They were vanquished in the lists, and forever dis- graced ; while their injured wives were s6ught in mar- riage by great princes.^ Some Spanish writers have labored to show, by an examination of dates and circumstances, that this story is untrue. Such confutation was surely not needed, for the narrative is on the face of it a romance. How it found its way into Mariana's history is quite clear. He acknowledges his obligations to the ancient chron- icles, and had doubtless before him the " Cronica del famoso Cavallero Cid Ruy Diez Campeador," which had been printed as early as the year 1552. He little suspected that all the most striking passages in this chronicle were copied from a poem of the twelfth cen- tury, — ■ a poem of which the language and versifica- tion had long been obsolete, but which glowed with no common portion of the fire of the Iliad. Yet such * Mariana, lib. x. cap. 4, 144 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. was the fact. More than a century and a half after the death of Mariana, this venerable ballad, of which one imperfect copy on parchment, four hundred years old, had been preserved at Bivar, was for the first time printed. Then it was found that every interesting cir- cumstance of the story of the heirs of Carrion was de- rived by the eloquent Jesuit from a song of which he had never heard, and which was composed by a min- strel whose very name had long been forgotten.' Such, or nearly such, appears to have been the pro- cess by which the lost ballad-poetry of Rome was transformed into history. To reverse that process, to transform some portions of early Roman history back into the poetry out of which they were made, is the object of this work. In the following poems the author speaks, not in his own person, but in the persons of ancient minstrels who know only what a Roman citizen, born three or four hundred years before the Christian era, may be supposed to have known, and who are in no wise above the passions and prejudices of their age and nation. To these imaginary poets must be ascribed some blun- ders which are so obvious that it is unnecessary to point them out. The real blunder would have been to represent these old poets as deeply versed in gen- eral history, and studious of chronological accuracy. ^ See the account which Sanchez gives of the Bivar manuscript in the first vokime of the Coleccio7i de Poesias Castellanas anteriores al Siglo XV. Part of the story of the lords of Carrion, in the poem of the Cid, has been translated by Mr. Frere in a manner above all praise. \j LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 45 To them must also be attributed the illiberal sneers at the Greeks, the furious party-spirit, the contempt for the arts of peace, the love of war for its own sake, the ungenerous exultation over the vanquished, which the reader will sometimes observe. To portray a Roman of the age of Camillus or Curius as superior to na- tional antipathies, as mourning over the devastation and slaughter by which empire and triumphs were to be won, as looking on human suffering with the sym- pathy of Howard, or as treating conquered enemies with the delicacy of the Black Prince, would be to violate all dramatic propriety. The old Romans had some great virtues, — fortitude, temperance, veracity, spirit to resist oppression, respect for legitimate au- thority, fidelity in the. observing of contracts, disinter- estedness, ardent patriotism ; but Christian charity and chivalrous generosity were alike unknown to them. It would have been obviously improper to mimic the manner of any particular age or country. Some- thing has been borrowed, however, from our own old 1 ballads, and more from Sir Walter Scott, the great re- ) storer of our ballad-poetry. To the Iliad still greater • obligations are due ; and those obligations have been ^ contracted with the less hesitation, because there is reason to believe that some of the old Latin minstrels ' really had recourse to that inexhaustible store of poet- ' ical images. It would have been easy to swell this little volume ' to a very considerable bulk, by appending notes filled ' with quotations : but to a learned reader such notes 146 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. are not necessary ; for an unlearned reader they would have little mterest : and the judgment passed both by the learned and by the unlearned on a work of the imagination will always depend much more on the gen- eral character and spirit of such a work than on minute details. i \ i LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. I47 HORATIUS. There can be little doubt that among those parts of early Roman history which had a poetical origin was the legend of Horatius Codes. We have several ver- sions of the story, and these versions differ from each other in points of no small importance. Polybius, there is reason to believe, heard the tale recited over the remains of some consul or praetor descended from the old Horatian patricians ; for he introduces it as a specimen of the narratives with which the Romans were in the habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It is remarkable, that, according to him, Horatius de- fended the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. According to the chronicles which Livy and Dionysius followed, Horatius had two companions, swam safe to shore, and was loaded with honors and rewards. These discrepancies are easily explained. Our own literature, indeed, will furnish an exact parallel to what may have taken place at Rome. It is highly probable that the memory of the war of Porsena was preserved i3y compositions much resembling the two ballads which stand first in the " Rehcs of Ancient English Poetry." In both those ballads, the English, commanded by the Percy, fight with the Scots, commanded by the Doug- 3 148 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. las. In one of the ballads, the Douglas is killed by a nameless English archer, and the Percy by a Scottish spearman : in the other, the Percy slays the Douglas in single combat, and is himself made prisoner. In the former, Sir Hugh Montgomery is shot through the heart by a Northumbrian bowman : in the latter he is taken, and exchanged for the Percy. Yet both the ballads relate to the same event, and that an event which probably took place within the memory of per- sons who were alive when both the ballads were made. One of the minstrels says, — "Old men that knowen the grounde well yenoughe Call it the battell of Otterburn : At Otterburn began this spurne Upon a monnyn day. Ther was the dougghte Doglas slean : The Perse never went away." The Other poet sums up the event in the following lines : — \ " Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne Bytwene the nyghte and the day : Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, And the Percy was lede away." j It is by no means unlikely that there were two ok Roman lays about the defence of the bridge ; and that while the story which Livy has transmitted to us waj preferred by the multitude, the other, which ascribec the whole glory to Horatius alone, may have been th' favorite with the Horatian house. k LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. I49 The following ballad is supposed to have been made about a hundred and twenty years after the war which it celebrates, and just before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. The author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud of the military glory of his country, sick of the disputes of factions, and much given to pining after good old times which had never really existed. The allusion, however, to the partial manner in which the public lands were allotted, could proceed only from a plebeian ; and the allusion to the fraudulent sale of spoils marks the date of the poem, and shows that the poet shared in the general discontent with which the proceedings of Camillus, after the taking of Veil, were regarded. The penultimate syllable of the name Porsena has been shortened in spite of the authority of Niebuhr, who pronounces, without assigning any ground for his opinion, that Martial was guilty of a decided blunder in the line, — " Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuit." It is not easy to understand how any modem scholar, whatever his attainments may be, — and those of Niebuhr were undoubtedly immense, — can venture to pronounce that Martial did not know the quantity of a word which he must have uttered, and heard uttered, a hundred times before he left school. Nie- buhr seems also to have forgotten that Martial has fellow-culprits to keep him in countenance. Horace 150 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. has committed the same decided blunder j for he gives us, as a pure iambic Une, — ** Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenae manus." Silius Itahcus has repeatedly offended in the same way, as when he says, — " Cernitur effugiens ardentem Porsena dextram : " and again, — " Clusinum valgus, cum, Porsena magne, jubebas." A modern writer may be content to err in such com- pany. Niebuhr's supposition that each of the three defend- ers of the bridge was the representative of one of the three patrician tribes is both ingenious and probable, and has been adopted in the following poem : — LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 5 1 HORATIUS. A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCDC. Lars Porsena of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it, And named a trysting day, And bade his messengers ride forth. East and west and south and north, To summon his array. n. East and west and south and north The messengers ride fast, And tower and town and cottage Have heard the trumpet's blast. Shame on the false Etruscan Who lingers in his home When Porsena of Clusium Is on the march for Rome ! 152 READINGS FROM MACAULAY, III. The horsemen and the footmen Are pouring in amain From many a stately market-place, From many a fruitful plain ; From many a lonely hamlet, Which, hid by beech and pine. Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine ; IV. From lordly Volaterrge, Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For godlike kings of old ; From seagirt Populonia, Whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops Fringing the southern sky ; From the proud mart of Pisae, Queen of the western waves, Where ride Massilia's triremes, Heavy with fair-haired slaves ; From where sweet Clanis wanders Through corn and vines and flowers ; From where Cortona lifts to heaven Her diadem of towers. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 53 VI. Tall are the oaks whose acorns Drop in dark Auser's rill ; Fat are the stags that champ the boughs Of the Ciminian hill ; Beyond all streams Clitumnus Is to the herdsman dear ; Best of all pools the fowler loves The great Volsinian mere. VII. But now no stroke of woodman Is heard by Auser's rill ; No hunter tracks the stag's green path Up the Ciminian hill ; Unwatched along Clitumnus Grazes the milk-white steer ; Unharmed the water-fowl may dip In the Volsinian mere. vin. The harvests of Arretium This year, old men shall reap ; This year, young boys in Umbro Shall plunge the struggling sheep ; And in the vats of Luna This year the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome. 154 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. rx. There be thirty chosen prophets, The wisest of the land, Who alway by Lars Porsena Both morn and evening stand : Evening and mom the Thirty Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on hnen white By mighty seers of yore. And with one voice the Thirty Have their glad answer given : " Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena, Go forth, beloved of Heaven 3 Go, and return in glory To Clusium's royal dome. And hang round Nurscia's altars The golden shields of Rome.'* XI. And now hath every city Sent up her tale of men : The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousands ten. Before the gates of Sutrium Is met the great array. A proud man was Lars Porsena Upon the trysting day. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 55 xn. For all the Etruscan armies Were ranged beneath his eye, And many a banished Roman, And many a stout ally j And with a mighty fojlowing To join the muster came The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name. xm. But by the yellow Tiber Was tumult and affright : From all the spacious champaign To Rome men took their flight. A mile around the city, The throng stopped up the ways : A fearful sight it was to see Through two long nights and days. XIV. For aged folks on crutches, And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled, And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves. And troops of sunburned husbandmen With reaping-hooks and staves, 156 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. XV. And droves of mules and asses Laden with skins of wine, And endless flocks of goats and sheep, And endless herds of kine, And endless trains of wagons That creaked beneath the weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, Choked every roaring gate. XVI. Now, from the rock Tarpeian, Could the wan burghers spy The line of blazing villages Red in the midnight sky. The Fathers of the city. They sat all night and day ; For every hour some horseman came With tidings of dismay. XVII. To eastward and to westward Have spread the Tuscan bands : Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote In Crustumerium stands. Verbenna dov/n to Ostia Hath wasted all the plain : Astur hath stormed Janiculum, And the stout guards are slain. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 157 XVIII. I wis, in all the Senate, There was no heart so bold, But sore it ached, and fast it beat, When that ill news was told. Forthwith up rose the Consul, Up rose the Fathers all : In haste they girded up their gowns. And hied them to the wall. XIX. They held a council, standing Before the River- Gate : Short time was there, ye well may guess, For musing or debate. Out spake the Consul roundly : " The bridge must straight go down ; For, since Janiculum is lost. Naught else can save the town." XX. Just then a scout came flying, All wild with haste and fear : '' To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul : Lars Porsena is here." On the low hills to westward The Consul fixed his eye, And saw the swarthy storm of dust Rise fast along the sky. 1 5 8 READINGS FROM MA CA ULA V. XXI. And nearer fast, and nearer, Doth the red whirlwind come ; And louder still, and still more loud, From underneath that rolling cloud, Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, The trampling and the hum. And plainly, and more plainly, Now through the gloom appears, Far to left, and far to right, In broken gleams of dark-blue light, The long array of helmets bright. The long array of spears. XXII. And plainly, and more plainly, Above that glimmering line, Now might ye see the banners Of twelve fair cities shine ; But the banner of proud Clusium Was highest of them all. The terror of the Umbrian, The terror of the Gaul. XXIII. And plainly, and more plainly, Now might the burghers know. By port and vest, by horse and crest, Each warlike Lucumo. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 59 There Cilnius of Arretium On his fleet roan was seen ; And Astur of the fourfold shield, Girt with the brand none else may wield ; Tolumnius with the belt of gold, And dark Verbenna from the hold By reedy Thrasymene. XXIV. Fast by the royal standard, O'erlooking all the war, Lars Porsena of Clusium Sat in his ivory car. By the right wheel rode Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name ; And by the left false Sextus, That wrought the deed of shame. XXV. But when the face of Sextus Was seen among the foes, A yell that rent the firmament From all the town arose. On the housetops was no woman But spat towards him, and hissed ; No child but screamed out curses, And shook its little fist. l60 READINGS FROM MACAULAY, XXVI. But the Consul's brow was sad, And the Consul's speech was low ; And darkly looked he at the wall, And darkly at the foe. " Their van will be upon us Before the bridge goes down ; And if they once may win the bridge, What hope to save the town?" xxvn. Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate : " To every man upon this earth. Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods, XXVIII. '* And for the tender mother Who dandled him to rest, And for the wife who nurses His baby at her breast, And for the holy maidens Who feed the eternal flame. To save them from false Sextus That wrought the deed of shame ? LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. l6l XXIX. " Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, With all the speed ye may : I, with two more to help me. Will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three. Now, who will stand on either hand. And keep the bridge with me? " XXX. Then out spake Spurius Lartius, — A Ramnian proud was he, — " Lo, I will stand at thy right hand. And keep the bridge with thee." And out spake strong Herminius, — Of Titian blood was he, — " I will abide on thy left side, And keep the bridge with thee." XXXI. '^ Horatius," quoth the Consul, " As thou sayest, so let it be." And straight against that great array Forth went the dauntless Three. For Romans in Rome's quarrel Spared neither land nor gold, Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, In the brave days of old. 1 62 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. XXXII. Then none was for a party ; Then all were for the State ; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great ; Then lands were fairly portioned ; Then spoils were fairly sold : The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old. XXXIII. Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe ; And the Tribunes beard the high, And the Fathers grind the low. As we wax hot in faction. In battle we wax cold ; Wherefore men fight not as they fought In the brave days of old. xxxrv. Now, while the Three were tightening Their harness on their backs, The Consul was the foremost man To take in hand an axe. And Fathers mixed with commons Seized hatchet, bar, and crow. And smote upon the planks above, And loosed the props below. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 1 63 XXXV. Meanwhile the Tuscan army, Right glorious to behold, Corne flashing back the noonday light. Rank behind rank, like surges bright Of a broad sea of gold. Four hundred trumpets sounded A peal of warlike glee. As that great host, with measured tread. And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, Rolled slowly towards the bridge's head, Where stood the dauntless Three. XXXVI. The Three stood calm and silent. And looked upon the foes. And a great shout of laughter From all the vanguard rose : And forth three chiefs came spurring Before that deep array ; To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, And lifted high their shields, and flew To win the narrow way. XXXVII. Annus from green Tifernum, Lord of the Hill of Vines ; And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves Sicken in Ilva's mines ; l64 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. And Picus, long to Clusium Vassal in peace and war, AVho led to fight his Umbrian powers From that gray crag where, girt with towers, The fortress of Nequinum lowers O'er the pale waves of Nar. xxxvm. Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus Into the stream beneath ; Herminius struck at Seius, And clove him to the teeth ; At Picus brave Hbratius Darted one fiery thrust, And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms Clashed in the bloody dust. XXXIX. Then Ocnus of Falerii Rushed on the Roman Three ; And Lausulus of Urgo, The rover of the sea ; And Aruns of Volsinium, Who slew the great wild boar, — The great wild boar that had his den Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen. And wasted fields, and slaughtered men, Along Albinia's shore. L^VS OF ANCIENT ROME. 165 XL. Herminius smote down Anms ; Lartius laid Ocnus low ; Right to the heart of Lausulus Horatius sent a blow. '' Lie there," he cried, " fell pirate ! No more, aghast and pale, From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark The track of thy destroying bark. No more Campania's hinds shall fly To woods and caverns when they spy Thy thrice accursed sail." XLI.' But now no sound of laughter Was heard among the foes. A wild and wrathful clamor From all the vanguard rose. Six spears' lengths from the entrance Halted that deep array, And for a space no man came forth To win the narrow way. XLII. But hark ! the cry is Astur ; And lo ! the ranks divide, And the great Lord of Luna Comes with his stately stride. 1 66 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Upon his ample shoulders Clangs loud the fourfold shield, And in his hand he shakes the brand Which none but he can wield. XLIII. He smiled on those bold Romans, A smile serene and high : He eyed the flinching Tuscans, And scorn was in his eye. Quoth he, " The she-wolf's litter Stand savagely at bay ; But will ye dare to follow If Astur clears the way?" XLIV. Then, whirling up his broadsword With both hands to the height, He rushed against Horatius, And smote with all his might. With shield and blade Horatius Right deftly turned the blow. The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh It missed its helm, but gashed his thigh. The Tuscans raised a joyful cry To see the red blood flow. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 6/ XLV. He reeled, and on Herminius He leaned one breathing-space, Then, like a wild-cat mad with wounds, Sprang right at Astur's face. Through teeth and skull and helmet, So fierce a thrust he sped. The good sword stood a hand- breadth out Behind the Tuscan's head. XLVI. And the great Lord of Luna Fell at that deadly stroke. As falls on Mount Alvernus A thunder-smitten oak. Far o'er the crashing forest The giant arms lie spread ; And the pale augurs, muttering low. Gaze on the blasted head. XLVII. On Astur's throat Horatius Right firmly pressed his heel, And thrice and four times tugged amain, Ere he wrenched out the steel. "And see," he cried, " the welcome, Fair guests, that waits you here ! What noble Lucumo comes next To taste our Roman cheer? " 1 68 READINGS FROM MACAULAY, XLVIII. But at his haughty challenge, A sullen muraiur ran, Mingled of wrath and shame and dread, Along that glittering van. There lacked not men of prowess. Nor men of lordly race \ For all Etruria's noblest Were round the fatal place. XLIX. But all Etruria's noblest Felt their hearts sink to see On the earth the bloody corpses, In the path the dauntless Three. And, from the ghastly entrance Where those bold Romans stood. All shrank, like boys who unaware, Ranging the woods to start a hare. Come to the mouth of the dark lair Where, growling low, a fierce old bear Lies amidst bones and blood. L. Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack ; But those behind cried " Forward ! And those before cried " Back ! " LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 69 And backward now, and forward, Wavers the deep array ; And on the tossing sea of steel, To and fro the standards reel ; And the victorious trumpet peal Dies fitfully away. LI. Yet one man for one moment Strode out before the crowd : Well known was he to all the Three, And they gave him greeting loud. " Now welcome, welcome, Sextus I Now welcome to thy home ! Why dost thou stay, and turn away ? Here Hes the road to Rome." LH. Thrice looked he at the city ; Thrice looked he at the dead ; And thrice came on in fury. And thrice turned back in dread, And, white with fear and hatred. Scowled at the narrow way, Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, The bravest Tuscans lay. I/O READINGS FROM MACAULAY, LIII. But meanwhile axe and lever Have manfully been plied ; And now the bridge hangs tottering Above the boiling tide. " Come back, come back, Horatius ! '* Loud cried the Fathers all. " Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius 1 Back, ere the ruin fall ! " LIV. Back darted Spurius Lartius ; Herminius darted back : And, as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack. But when they turned their faces, And on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, They would have crossed once more. LV. But with a crash like thunder Fell every loosened beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck Lay right athwart the stream : And a long shout of triumph Rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret- tops Was splashed the yellow foam. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. I /I LVI. And like a horse unbroken, When first he feels the rein, The furious river struggled hard. And tossed his tawny mane. And burst the curb, and bounded, Rejoicing to be free, And whirling down, in fierce career, Battlement and plank and pier, Rushed headlong to the sea. LVII. Alone stood brave Horatius, But constant still in mind ; Thrice thirty thousand foes before, And the broad flood behind. " Down with him ! " cried false Sextus, With a smile on his pale face. " Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, *' Now yield thee to our grace." LVIII. Round turned he, as not deigning Those craven ranks to see ; Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, To Sextus naught spake he ; But he saw on Palatinus The white porch of his home. And he spake to the noble river That rolls by the towers of Rome. 172 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. LIX. " O Tiber ! father Tiber ! To whom the Romans pray, A Roman's Hfe, a Roman's arms, Take thou in charge this day ! " So he spake, and, speaking, sheathed The good sword by his side. And with his harness on his back, Plunged headlong in the tide. LX. No sound of joy or sorrow Was heard from either bank : But friends and foes in dumb surprise, With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank ; And when above the surges, They saw his crest appear. All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer. LXI. But fiercely ran the current, Swollen high by months of rain : And fast his blood was flowing. And he was sore in pain. And heavy with his armor. And spent with changing blows ; And oft they thought him sinking, But still again he rose. LAFS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 73 LXII. Never, I ween, did swimmer. In such an evil case, Struggle through such a raging flood Safe to the landing-place ; But his limbs were borne up bravely By the brave heart within, And our good father Tiber Bare bravely up his chin.^ Lxm. "Curse on him ! " quoth false Sextus : " Will not the villain drown ? But for this stay, ere close of day We should have sacked the town ! " " Heaven help him ! " quoth Lars Porsena, " And bring him safe to shore ; For such a gallant feat of arms Was never seen before." Lxrv. And now he feels the bottom ; Now on dry earth he stands ; Now round him throng the Fathers, To press his gory hands ; I " Our ladye bare upp her chinne." Ballad of Childe Waters. " Never heavier man and horse Stemmed a midnight torrent's force; Yet, through good heart and our Lady's grace. At length he gained the landing place." Lay of the Last Minstrel^ /. 174 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY, And now, with shouts and clapping, And noise of weeping loud, He enters through the River-Gate, Borne by the joyous crowd. LXV. They gave him of the corn-land, That was of public right. As much as two strong oxen Could plough from morn till night. And they made a molten image, And set it up on high ; And there it stands unto this day, To witness if I lie. LXVI. It stands in the Comitium, Plain for all folk to see, — Horatius in his harness. Halting upon one knee ; And underneath is written, In letters all of gold. How valiantly he kept the bridge In the brave days of old. LXVII. And still his name sounds stirring Unto the men of Rome, As the trumpet-blast that cries to them To charge the Volscian home ; LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1/5 And wives still pray to Juno For boys with hearts as bold As his who kept the bridge so well In the brave days of old. LXVIII. And in the nights of winter, When the cold north winds blow, And the long howling of the wolves Is heard amidst the snow ; When round the lonely cottage Roars loud the tempest's din, And the good logs of Algidus Roar louder yet within ; LXIX. When the oldest cask is opened. And the largest lamp is lit ; When the chestnuts glow in the embers, And the kid turns on the spit ; When young and old in circle Around the firebrands close ; When the girls are weaving baskets. And the lads are shaping bows ; LXX. When the goodman mends his armor, And trims his helmet's plume ; When the goodwife's shuttle merrily Goes flashing through the loom, — 176 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the- bridge In the brave days of old. LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME, lyj THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. The following poem is supposed to have been pro- duced about ninet)^ years after the lay of " Horatius." Some persons mentioned in the lay of " Horatius " make their appearance again, and some appellations and epithets used in the lay of " Horatius " have been purposely repeated ; for, in an age of ballad-poetry, it scarcely ever fails to happen, that certain phrases come to be appropriated to certain men and things, and are regularly applied to those men and things by every rhinstrel. Thus we find, both in the Homeric poems and in Hesiod, Pi-q 'UpaKXrjarj, TreptKAvros 'AfxcfiLyvqei<;, 8iaKTO/30S 'Apyet^wrr;?, €7rra7n;Xo9 ^rj/^rjy 'EXcvrys hcK rjvKOfxoio. Thus, too, in our own national songs, Douglas is almost always the doughty Douglas ; England is merry England ; all the gold is red ; and all the ladies are gay. The principal distinction between the lay of " Hora- tius " and the lay of the " Lake Regillus " is that the former is meant to be purely Roman, while the latter, though national in its general spirit, has a slight tinc- ture of Greek learning and of Greek superstition. The story of the Tarquins, as it has come down to us, appears to have been compiled from the works of 178 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. several popular poets ; and one, at least, of those poets appears to have visited the Greek colonies in Italy, if not Greece itself, and to have had some ac- quaintance with the works of Homer and Herodotus. Many of the most striking adventures of the house of Tarquin, before Lucretia makes her appearance, have a Greek character. The Tarquins themselves are rep- resented as Corinthian nobles of the great house of the Bacchiadae, driven from their country by the tyr- anny of that Cypselus, the tale of whose strange escape Herodotus has related with incomparable simplicity and liveliness.' Livy and Dionysius tell us, that, when Tarquin the Proud was asked what was the best mode of governing a conquered city, he replied only by beating down with his staff all the tallest poppies in his garden.^ This is exactly what Herodotus, in the passage to which reference has already been made, relates of the counsel given to Periander, the son of Cypselus. The stratagem by which the town of Gabii is brought under the power of the Tarquins is, again, obviously copied from Herodotus.^ The embassy of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a story as would be told by a poet whose head was full of the Greek mythology ; and the ambiguous answer returned by Apollo is in the exact style of the prophecies which, according to Herodotus, lured Croesus to destruction. Then the character of the 1 Herodotus, v. 92. Livy, i. 34. Dionysius, iii. 46. 2 Livy, i. 54. Dionysius, iv. 56. 3 Herodotus, iii. 154. Livy, i. 53. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. I7g narrative changes. From the first mention of Lucretia to the retreat of Porsena, nothing seems to be bor- rowed from foreign sources. The villany of Sextus, the suicide of his victim, the revohition, the death of the sons of Brutus, the defence of the bridge, Mucius burning his hand,' Cloeha swimming through Tiber, seem, to be all strictly Roman. But when we have done with the Tuscan war, and enter upon the war with the Latines, we are again struck by the Greek air of the story. The battle of the Lake Regillus is in all respects a Homeric battle, except that the com- batants ride astride on their horses, instead of driving chariots. The mass of fighting-men is hardly men- tioned. The leaders single each other out, and engage hand to hand. The great object of the warriors on both sides is, as in the Iliad, to obtain possession of the spoils and bodies of the slain ; and several cir- cumstances are related which forcibly remind us of the great slaughter round the corpses of Sarpedon and Patroclus. But there is one circumstance which deserves espe- cial notice. Both the war of Troy and the war of Regillus were caused by the Hcentious passions of young princes, who were therefore peculiarly bound not to be sparing of their own persons in the day of battle. Now, the conduct of Sextus at Regillus, as ^ M. de PouIIly attempted, a hundred and twenty years ago, to prove that the story of Mucius was of Greek origin; but he was signally confuted by the Abbd Sallier. See the Me moires de VAcadeinie des Inscriptions, vi. 27, 66, l80 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. described by Livy, so exactly resembles that of Paris, as described at the beginning of the third book of the Iliad, that it is difficult to believe the resemblance accidental. Paris appears before the Trojan ranks, defying the bravest Greek to encounter him. TpwCTiv [ilv TTpofidxtCev 'A'Ai^avSpog deoeid^gj . . . 'Apyeiuv irponaTiL^ero navrag apiarovg, uvTL^Lov ixaxsoaadai kv alvy drjloTTjri, Livy introduces Sextus in a similar manner : " Ferocem juvenem Tarquinium, ostentantem se in prima exsulum acie." Menelaus rushes to meet Paris. A Roman noble, eager for vengeance, spurs his horse towards Sextus. Both the guilty princes are instantly terror- stricken : — Tbv (5' 6)g ovv hvorjaev 'Als^avSpor deoeti^g ev TTpof^axocai (bavevra, KaT£TT?.Tjy7j (pl/iov rjTop' lixp 6' erupcov dg edvog f,t;a^cro K7/p' aXsdvuv. " Tarquinius," says Livy, " retro in agmen suorum in- fenso cessit hosti." If this be a fortuitous coincidence, it is one of the most extraordinary in literature. In the following poem, therefore, images and inci- dents have been borrowed, not merely without scruple, but on principle, from the incomparable battle-pieces of Homer. The popular belief at Rome, from an early period, seems to have been that the event of the great day of Regillus was decided by supernatural agency. Cas- tor and Pollux, it was said, had fought, armed and ZAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. iSl mounted, at the head of the legions of the common- weahh, and had afterwards carried the news of the victory with incredible speed to the city. The well in the Forum at which they had alighted was pointed out. Near the well rose their ancient temple. A great festival was kept to their honor on the Ides of Quintilis, supposed to be the anniversary of the battle ; and on that day sumptuous sacrifices were offered to them at the public charge. One spot on the margin of Lake Regillus was regarded during many ages with superstitious awe. A mark, resembling in shape a horse's hoof, was discernible in the volcanic rock; and this mark was believed to have been made by one of the celestial chargers. How the legend originated cannot now be ascer- tained, but we may easily imagine several ways in which it might have originated ; nor is it at all ne- cessary to suppose, with Julius Frontinus, that two young men were dressed up by the Dictator to per- sonate the sons of Leda. It is probable that Livy is correct when he says that the Roman general, in the hour of peril, vowed a temple to Castor. If so, nothing could be more natural than that the multitude should ascribe the victory to the favor of the Twin Gods. When such was the prevailing sentiment, any man who chose to declare, that, in the midst of the confusion and slaughter, he had seen two godlike forms on white horses scattering the Latines, would find ready credence. We know, indeed, that, in mod- em times, a very similar story actually found credence 1 82 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. among a people much more civilized than the Romans of the fifth century before Christ. A chaplain of Cortes, writing about thirty years after the conquest of Mexico, in an age of printing-presses, libraries, universities, scholars, logicians, jurists, and statesmen, had the face to assert, that, in one engagement against the Indians, St. James had appeared on a gray horse at the head of the Castilian adventurers. Many of those adventurers were living when this lie was printed. One of them, honest Bernal Diaz, wrote an account of the expedition. He had the evidence of his own senses against the legend, but he seems to have dis- trusted even the evidence of his own senses. He says that he was in the battle, and that he saw a gray horse with a man on his back, but that the man was, to his thinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the ever-blessed apostle St. James. " Nevertheless," Ber- nal adds, "it may be that the person on the gray horse was the glorious apostle St. James, and that I, sinner that I am, was unworthy to see him." The Romans of the age of Cincinnatus were probably quite as credulous as the Spanish subjects of Charles the Fifth. It is therefore conceivable that the appear- ance of Castor and Pollux may have become an arti- cle of faith before the generation which had fought at Regillus had passed away. Nor could any thing be more natural than that the poets of the next age should embellish this story, and make the celestial horsemen bear the tidings of victory to Rome. Many years after the temple of the Twin Gods had LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 83 been built in the Fomm, an important addition was made to the ceremonial by which the State annually testified its gratitude for their protection. Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius were elected censors at a momentous crisis. It had become absolutely neces- sary that the classification of the citizens should be revised. On that classification depended the distribu- tion of political power. Party- spirit ran high, and the republic seemed to be in danger of falling under the dominion either of a narrow oligarchy or of an ignorant and headstrong rabble. Under such circum- stances, the most illustrious patrician and the most illustrious plebeian of the age were intrusted with the office of arbitrating between the angry factions ; and they performed their arduous task to the satisfaction of all honest and reasonable men. One of their reforms was a remodelling of the equestrian order; and, having effected this reform, they determined to give to their work a sanction derived from religion. In the chivalrous societies of modern times, societies which have much more than may at first sight appear in common with the eques- trian order of Rome, it has been usual to invoke the special protection of some saint, and to observe his day with peculiar solemnity. Thus, the Companions of the Garter wear the image of St. George depend- ing from their collars, and meet, on great occasions, in St. George's Chapel. Thus, when Lewis the Four- teenth instituted a new order of chivalry for the re- warding of military merit, he commended it to the 1 84 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. favor of his own glorified ancestor and patron, and decreed that all the members of the fraternity should meet at the royal palace on the feast of St. Lewis, should attend the king to chapel, should hear mass, and should subsequently hold their great annual assem- bly. There is a considerable resemblance between this rule of the order of St. Lewis and the rule which Fabius and Decius made respecting the Roman knights. It was ordained that a grand muster and inspection of the equestrian body should be part of the ceremonial performed, on the anniversary of the battle of Regillus, in honor of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian gods. All the knights, clad in purple, and crowned with olive, were to meet at a temple of Mars in the suburbs. Thence they were to ride in state to the Forum, where the temple of the Twins stood. This pageant was, during several centuries, considered as one of the most splendid sights of Rome. In the time of Dionysius, the cavalcade sometimes consisted of five thousand horsemen, all persons of fair repute and easy fortune.^ There can be no doubt that the censors who insti- tuted this august ceremony acted in concert with the pontiffs, to whom, by the constitution of Rome, the superintendence of the public worship belonged ; and it is probable that those high religious functionaries ^ See Livy, ix. 46. Val. Max. ii. 2. Aurel. Vict. De Viris Illustribus, 32. Dionysius, vi. 13. Plin. Hist. Nat. xv. 5, See also the singularly in- genious chapter in Niebuhr's posthumous volume, Die Censur des Q. Fabius iifid P. Decius. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 8$ were, as usual, fortunate enough to find in their books or traditions some warrant for the innovation. The following poem is supposed to have been made for this great occasion. Songs, we know, were chanted at the religious festivals of Rome from an early period ; indeed, from so early a period that some of the sacred verses were popularly ascribed to Numa, and were utterly unintelligible in the age of Augustus. In the Second Punic War a great feast was held in honor of Juno, and a song was sung in her praise. This song was extant when Livy wrote, and, though exceedingly rugged and uncouth, seemed to him not wholly desti- tute of merit.' A song, as we learn from Horace,^ was part of the established ritual at the great Secular Jubilee. It is therefore likely that the censors and pontiffs, when they had resolved to add a grand pro- cession of knights to the other solemnities annually performed on the Ides of Quintilis, would call in the aid of a poet. Such a poet would naturally take for his subject the battle of Regillus, the appearance of the Twin Gods, and the institution of their festival. He would find abundant materials in the ballads of his predecessors, and he would make free use of the scanty stock of Greek learning which he had himself acquired. He would probably introduce some wise and holy pontiff enjoining the magnificent ceremonial which, after a long interval, had at length been adopted. If the poem succeeded, many persons ^ Livy, xxvii. 37. 2 Hor. Carmen Seculare. 1 86 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. would commit it to memory. Parts of it would be sung to the pipe at banquets. It would be peculiarly interesting to the great Posthumian House, which num- bered among its many images that of the Dictator Aulus, the hero of Regillus. The orator who, in the following generation, pronounced the funeral pane- gyric over the remains of Lucius Posthumius Megel- lus, thrice consul, would borrow largely from the lay ; and thus some passages, much disfigured, would prob- ably find their way into the chronicles which were afterwards in the hands of Dionysius and Livy. Antiquaries differ widely as to the situation of the field of battle. The opinion of those who suppose that the armies met near Cornufelle, between Frascati and the Monte Porzio, is at least plausible, and has been followed in the poem. As to the details of the battle, it has not been thought desirable to adhere minutely to the accounts which have come down to us. Those accounts, in- deed, differ widely from each other, and in all proba- bility differ as widely from the ancient poem from which they were originally derived. It is unnecessary to point out the obvious imitations of the Iliad, which have been purposely introduced. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 8/ THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. A LAY SUNG AT THE FEAST OF CASTOR AND POLLUX ON THE IDES OF QUINTILIS, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLI. Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! Ho, lictors, clear the way ! The knights will ride, in all their pride, Along the streets to-day. To-day the doors and windows Are hung with garlands all, From Castor in the Forum, To Mars without the wall. Each knight is robed in purple, With olive each is crowned : A gallant war-horse under each Paws haughtily the ground. While flows the Yellow River, While stands the Sacred Hill, The proud Ides of Quintilis Shall have such honor still. Gay are the Martian Kalends ; December's Nones are gay ; 1 88 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. But tlie proud Ides, n^hen the squadron rides, Shall be Rome's \Uiitest day. IT. Unto the Great Twin Brethren We keep this solemn feast. Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren Came spurring from the east. They came o'er vnld Parthenius, Tossing in waves of pine. O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam, O'er purple .M»ennine, From where, witn flutes and dances. Their ancient mansion rings, In lordly Lace-daemon, The city of' two kings. To where, by,- Lake Regillus, Under the Porcian height, All in the lainds of Tusculum, Was foug/nt the glorious fight. \ [ III. Now on thq?. place of slaughter Are cots/ and sheepfolds seen. And rows (of vines, and fields of wheat. And ap^ple-orchards green : The swin'3 crush the big acorns That fall from Corne's oaks ; Upon th^e turf by the Fair Fount, The re.aper's pottage smokes. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 89 The fisher baits his angle ; The hunter twangs his bow ; Little they think on those strong Hmbs Tliat moulder deep below. Little they think how sternly That day the trumpets pealed ; How in the slippery swamp of blood Warrior and war-horse reeled ; How wolves came with fierce gallop, And crows on eager wings, To tear the flesh of captains, And peck the eyes of kings ; How thick the dead lay scattered Under the Porcian height ; How through the gates of Tusculum Raved the wild stream of flight ; And how the Lake Regillus Bubbled with crimson foam. What time the Thirty Cities Came forth to war with Rome. IV. But, Roman, when thou standest Upon that holy ground, Look thou with heed on the dark rock That girds the dark lake round. So shalt thou see a hoof-mark Stamped deep into the flint ; It was no hoof of mortal steed That made so strange a dint : 1 90 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. There to the Great Twin Brethren Vbw thou tliy vows, and pray That they, in tempest and in fight, Will keep thy head alway. V. Since last the Great Twin Brethren Of mortal eyes were seen, Have years gone by an hundred And fourscore and thirteen. That summer a Virginius Was consul first in place : The second was stout Aulus, Of the Posthumian race. The herald of the Latines From Gabii came in state ; The herald of the Latines Passed through Rome's Eastern Gate ; The herald of the Latines Did in our Forum stand, And there he did his ofSce, A sceptre in his hand. VI. " Hear, senators, and people Of the good town of Rome : The Thirty Cities charge you To bring the Tarquins home ; LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. IQI And if ye still be stubborn, To work the Tarquins wrong, The Thirty Cities warn you. Look that your walls be strong." VII. Then spake the Consul Aulus, He spake a bitter jest : " Once the jays sent a message Unto the eagle's nest, — Now yield thou up thy eyry Unto the carrion-kite. Or come forth valiantly, and face The jays in deadly fight. Forth looked in wrath the eagle : And carrion-kite and jay. Soon as they saw his beak and claw, Fled screaming far away." vm. The herald of the Latines Hath hied him back in state : The Fathers of the city Are met in high debate. Then spake the elder consul, An ancient man and wise : " Now hearken. Conscript Fathers, To that which I advise. 192 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y, In seasons of great peril, 'Tis good that one bear sway : Then choose we a Dictator, Whom all men shall obey. . Camerium knows how deeply The sword of Aulus bites, And all our city calls him The man of seventy fights. Then let him be Dictator For six months, and no m.ore. And have a Master of the Knights, And axes twenty- four." IX. So Aulus was Dictator, The man of seventy fights : He made ^butius Elva His Master of the Knights. On the third morn thereafter. At dawning of the day, Did Aulus and ^butius Set forth with their array. Sempronius Atratinus Was left in charge at home, W^ith boys, and with gray-headed men. To keep the walls of Rome. Hard by the Lake Regillus Our camp was pitched at night : Eastward a mile the Latines lay, Under the Porcian height. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 93 Far over hill and valley Their mighty host was spread, And with their thousand watch-fires The midnight sky was red. X. Up rose the golden morning Over the Porcian height, The proud Ides of Quintilis Marked evermore with white. Not without secret trouble Our bravest saw the foes ; For, girt by threescore thousand spears, The thirty standards rose. From every warlike city That boasts the Latian name. Foredoomed to dogs' and vultures, That gallant army came ; From Setia's purple vineyards ; From Norba's ancient wall ; From the white streets of Tusculum, The proudest town of all ; From where the Witch's Fortress O'erhangs the dark-blue seas ; From the still, glassy lake that sleeps Beneath Aricia's trees, — Those trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign, The priest who slew the slayer, And shall himself be slain j 194 READINGS FROM MACAULAV. From the drear banks of Ufens, Where flights of marsh-fowl play, And buffaloes lie wallowing Through the hot summer's day ; From the gigantic watch-towers, No work of earthly men, Whence Cora's sentinels o'erlook The never-ending fen ; From the Laurentian jungle, The wild hog's reedy home ; From the green steeps whence Anio leaps In floods of snow-white foam, XI. Aricia, Cora, Norba, Velitrae, with the might Of Setia and of Tusculum, Were marshalled on the right : The leader was Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name ; Upon his head a helmet Of red gold shone like flame ; High on a gallant charger Of dark-gray hue he rode ; Over his gilded armor, A vest of purple flowed, Woven in the land of sunrise By Syria's dark-browed daughters, And by the sails of Carthage brought Far o'er the southern waters. LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 95 xir. Lavinium and Laurentum Had on the left their post, With all the banners of the marsh, And banners of the coast. Their leader was false Sextus, That wrought the deed of shame ; With restless pace and haggard face To his last field he came. Men said he saw strange visions Which none beside might see. And that strange sounds were in his ears Which none might hear but he. A woman fair and stately. But pale as are the dead. Oft through the watches of the night Sat spinning by his bed. And as she plied the distaff. In a sweet voice, and low. She sang of great old houses, And fights fought long ago. So spun she, and so sang she, Until the east was gray. Then pointed to her bleeding breast, And shrieked, and fled away. XIII. But in the centre, thickest Were ranged the shields of foes ; 1 96 READINGS FROM MA CA ULA V. And from the centre, loudest The cry of battle rose. There Tibur marched and Pedum Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, And Ferentinum of the rock, And Gabii of the pool ; There rode the Volscian succors ; There, in a dark, stern ring. The Roman exiles gathered close Around the ancient king. Though white as Mount Soracte, When winter nights are long, His beard flowed down o'er mail and belt, His heart and hand were strong : Under his hoary eyebrows Still flashed forth quenchless rage. And, if the lance shook in his gripe, 'T was more with hate than age. Close at his side was Titus On an Apulian steed, — Titus, the youngest Tarquin, Too good for such a breed. xrv. Now on each side the leaders Gave signal for the charge ; And on each side the footmen Strode on with lance and targe ; And on each side the horsemen Struck their spurs deep in gore ; LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 97 And front to front the armies Met with a mighty roar : And under that great battle The earth with blood was red ; And, like the Pomptine fog at mom. The dust hung overhead ; And louder still, and louder. Rose from the darkened field The braying of the war-horns, The clang of sword and shield. The rush of squadrons sweeping Like whirlwinds o'er the plain, The shouting of the slayers, And screeching of the slain. XV. False Sextus rode out foremost : His look was high and bold ; His corselet was of bison's hide. Plated with steel and gold. As glares the famished eagle From the Digentian rock On a choice lamb that bounds alone Before Bandusia's flock, Herminius glared on Sextus, And came with eagle speed, Herminius on black Auster, Brave champion on brave steed ; In his right hand the broadsword That kept the bridge so well, 198 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. And on his helm the crown he won When proud Fidense fell. Woe to the maid whose lover Shall cross his path to-day ! False Sextus saw, and trembled, And turned, and fled away. As turns, as flies, the woodman In the Calabrian brake. When through the reeds gleams the round eye Of that fell speckled snake ; So turned, so fled, false Sextus, And hid him in the rear. Behind the dark Lavinian ranks. Bristling with crest and spear. XVI. But far to north ^butius. The Master of the Knights, Gave Tubero of Norba To feed the Porcian kites. Next under those red horse-hoofs Flaccus of Setia lay : Better had he been pruning Among his elms that day. Mamilius saw the slaughter. And tossed his golden crest. And towards the Master of the Knights Through the thick battle pressed, ^butius smote Mamilius So fiercely on the shield, LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 1 99 That the great lord of Tiisculum Well-nigh rolled on the field. Mamilius smote ^butius, With a good aim, and true, Just where the neck and shoulder join. And pierced him through and through ; And brave ^butius Elva Fell swooning to the ground, But a thick wall of bucklers Encompassed him around. His chents from the battle Bare him some little space, And filled a helm from the dark lake, And bathed his brow and face ; And when at last he opened His swimming eyes to light, Men say, the earliest words he spake Was, " Friends, how goes the fight ? " xvn. But meanwhile in the centre Great deeds of arms were wrought : There Aulus the Dictator, And there Valerius, fought. Aulus with his good broadsword A bloody passage cleared To where, amidst the thickest foes, He saw the long white beard. Flat lighted that good broadsword Upon proud Tarquin's head. 200 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. He dropped the lance ; he dropped the reins ; He fell as fall the dead. Down Aulus springs to slay him, With eyes like coals of fire ; But faster Titus hath sprung down, And hath bestrode his sire. Latian captains, Roman knights. Fast down to earth they spring. And hand to hand they fight on foot Around the ancient king. First Titus gave tall Caeso A death-wound in the face ; Tall Cseso was the bravest man Of the brave Fabian race : Aulus slew Rex of Gabii, The priest of Juno's shrine : Valerius smote down Julius, Of Rome's great Julian hne, — Julius, who left his mansion, High on the Velian hill. And through all turns of weal and woe Followed proud Tarquin still. Now right across proud Tarquin A corpse was Julius laid ; And Titus groaned with rage and grief, And at Valerius made. Valerius struck at Titus, And lopped off half his crest ; But Titus stabbed Valerius A span deep in the breast. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 201 Like a mast snapped by the tempest, Valerius reeled and fell. Ah ! woe is me for the good house That loves the people well ! Then shouted loud the Latines, And with one rush they bore The struggling Romans backward Three lances' length and more : And up they took proud Tarquin, And laid him on a shield ; And four strong yeomen bare him, Still senseless, from the field. XVIII. But fiercer grew the fighting Around Valerius dead ; For Titus dragged him by the foot, And Aulus by the head. " On, Latines, on ! " quoth Titus. " See how the rebels fly ! " " Romans, stand firm ! " quoth Aulus, " And win this fight, or die ! They must not give Valerius To raven and to kite ; For aye Valerius loathed the wrong. And aye upheld the right : And for j^our wives and babies In the front rank he fell. Now play the men for the good house That loves the people well ! " 202 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY, XIX. Then tenfold round the body The roar of battle rose, Like the roar of a burning forest When a strong north wind blows. Now backward, and now forward, Rocked furiously the fray. Till none could see Valerius, And none wist where he lay. For shivered arms and ensigns Were heaped there in a mound, And corpses stiff, and dying men That writhed, and gnawed the ground ; And wounded horses kicking, And snorting purple foam : Right well did such a couch befit A Consular of Rome. XX. But north looked the Dictator, North looked he long and hard, And spake to Caius Cossus, The Captain of his Guard, — " Caius, of all the Romans Thou hast the keenest sight : Say, what through yonder storm of dust Comes from the Latian right?" LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 203 XXI. Then answered Caius Cossus, — " I see an evil sight ; The banner of proud Tusculum Comes from the Latian right ; I see the plumed horsemen ; And far before the rest, I see the dark-gray charger, I see the purple vest ; I see the golden helmet That shines far off like flame ; So ever rides Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name." XXII. " Now hearken, Caius Cossus ; Spring on thy horse's back ; Ride as the wolves of Apennine Were all upon thy track ; Haste to our southward battle, And never draw thy rein Until thou find Herminius, And bid him come amain." XXIII. So Aulus spake, and turned him Again to that fierce strife ; And Caius Cossus mounted. And rode for death and life. 204 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Loud clanged beneath his horse -hoofs The helmets of the dead, And many a curdling pool of blood Splashed him from heel to head. So came he far to southward, Where fought the Roman host, Against the banners of the marsh, And banners of the coast. Like corn before the sickle The stout Lavinians fell, Beneath the edge of the true sword That kept the bridge so well. XXIV. " Herminius ! Aulus greets thee : He bids thee come with speed, To help our central battle ; For sore is there our need. There wars the youngest Tarquin, And there the Crest of Flame, The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name. Valerius hath fallen fighting In front of our array. And Aulus of the seventy fields Alone upholds the day." XXV. Herminius beat his bosom, But never a word he spake. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 205 He clapped his hand on Auster's mane : He gave the reins a shake. Away, away, went Auster, Like an arrow from the bow : Black Auster was the fleetest steed From Aufidus to Po. XXVI. Right glad were all the Romans, Who, in that hour of dread. Against great odds bare up the war Around Valerius dead, When from the south the cheering Rose with a mighty swell, — " Herminius comes, Herminius, Who kept the bridge so well ! " XXVII. Mamilius spied Herminius, And dashed across the way. " Herminius ! I have sought thee Through many a bloody day. One of us two, Herminius, Shall never more go home. I will lay on for Tusculum, And lay thou on for Rome ! " XXVIII. All round them paused the battle. While met in mortal fray 206 - READINGS FROM MACAU LAY, The Roman and the Tusculan, The horses black and gray. Herminius smote Mamihus Through breast-plate and through breast, And fast flowed out the purple blood Over the purple vest. Mamilius smote Herminius Through head-piece and through head, And side by side those chiefs of pride Together fell down dead. Down fell they dead together In a great lake of gore, And still stood all who saw them fall While men might count a score. XXIX. Fast, fast, with heels wild spuming, The dark-gray charger fled : He burst through ranks of fighting-men, He sprang o'er heaps of dead. His bridle far out-streaming, His flanks all blood and foam. He sought the southern mountains. The mountains of his home. The pass was steep and rugged. The wolves they howled and whined ; But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass, And he left the wolves behind. Through many a startled hamlet Thundered his flying feet ; LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 20/ He rushed through the gate of Tusculum, He rushed up the long white street ; He rushed by tower and temple, And paused not from his race Till he stood before his master's door In the stately market-place. And straightway round him gathered A pale and trembling crowd ; And when they knew him, cries of rage Brake forth, and wailing loud ; And women rent their tresses For their great prince's fall ; And old men girt on their old swords, And went to man the wall. XXX. But, like a graven image, Black Auster kept his place ; And ever wistfully he looked Into his master's face. The raven mane that daily, With pats and fond caresses, The young Herminia washed and combed. And twined in even tresses, And decked with colored ribbons From her own gay attire. Hung sadly o'er her father's corpse In carnage and in mire. Forth with a shout sprang Titus, And seized black Auster's rein. 208 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Then Aulus sware a fearful oath. And ran at him amain. "The furies of thy brother With me and mine abide, If one of your accursed house Upon black Auster ride ! " As on an Alpine watch-tower From heaven comes down the flame, Full on the neck of Titus The blade of Aulus came ; And out the red blood spouted. In a wide arch, and tall, As spouts a fountain in the court Of some rich Capuan's hall. The knees of all the Latines Were loosened with dismay, When dead, on dead Herminius, The bravest Tarquin lay. XXXI. And Aulus the Dictator Stroked Auster's raven mane : With heed he looked unto the girths, With heed unto the rein. " Now bear me well, black Auster, Into yon thick array ; And thou and I will have revenge For thy good lord this day." LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 209 XXXII. So spake he, and was buckling Tighter black Auster's band, When he was aware of a princely pair That rode at his right hand. So like they were, no mortal Might one from other know : White as snow their armor was, Their steeds were white as snow. Never on earthly anvil Did such rare armor gleam, And never did such gallant steeds Drink of an earthly stream. XXXIII. And all who saw them trembled, And pale grew every cheek ; And Aulus the Dictator Scarce gathered voice to speak. *' Say by what name men call you ? What city is your home ? And wherefore ride ye in such guise Before the ranks of Rome?" XXXIV. " By many names men call us ; In many lands we dwell ; Well Samothracia knows us j Cyrene knows us well. 2IO READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY, Our house in gay Tarentum Is hung each morn with flowers ; High o'er the masts of Syracuse Our marble portal towers ; But by the proud Eurotas Is our dear native home, And for the right we come to fight Before the ranks of Rome." XXXV. So answered those strange horsemen. And each couched low his spear ; And forthwith all the ranks of Rome Were bold, and of good cheer : And on the thirty armies Came wonder and affright ; And Ardea wavered on the left. And Cora on the right. " Rome to the charge ! " cried Aulus : " The foe begins to yield ! Charge for the hearth of Vesta 1 Charge for the Golden Shield ! Let no man stop to plunder, But slay, and slay, and slay : The gods who live forever Are on our side to-day." XXXVI. Then the fierce trumpet- flourish From earth to heaven arose ; LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 211 The kites know well the long, stem swell That bids the Romans close. Then the good sword of Aulus Was lifted up to slay : Then, like a crag down Apennine, Rushed Auster through the fray. But under those strange horsemen Still thicker lay the slain ; And after those strange horses, Black Auster toiled in vain. Behind them Rome's long battle Came rolling on the foe, Ensigns dancing wild above. Blades all in line below. So comes the Po in flood-time Upon the Celtic plain : So comes the squall, blacker than night. Upon the Adrian main. Now, by our Sire Quirinus, It was a goodly sight To see the thirty standards Swept down the tide of flight. So flies the spray of Adria When the black squall doth blow : So corn-sheaves in the flood-time Spin down the whirling Po. False Sextus to the mountains Turned first his horse's head ; And fast fled Ferentinum, And fast Lanuvium fled. 212 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. The horsemen of Nomentum Spurred hard out of the fray : The footmen of VeUtrae Threw shield and spear away. And underfoot was trampled, Amidst the mud and gore, The banner of proud Tusculum, That never stooped before : And down went Flavins Faustus, Who led his stately ranks From where the apple-blossoms wave On Anio's echoing banks ; And Tullus of Arpinum, Chief of the Volscian aids ; And Metius with the long fair curls, The love of Anxur's maids ; And the white head of Vulso, The great Arician seer ; And Nepos of Laurentum, The hunter of the deer : ' And in the back false Sextus Felt the good Roman steel, And wriggling in the dust he died. Like a worm beneath the wheel : And fliers and pursuers Were mingled in a mass, And far away the battle Went roaring through the pass LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 213 xxxvn. Sempronius Atratinus Sate in the Eastern Gate. Beside him were three Fathers, Each in his chair of state : Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons That day were in the field ; And Manhiis, eldest of the twelve Who keep the Golden Shield ; And Sergius, the High Pontiff, For wisdom far renowned ; In all Etruria's colleges Was no such pontiff found. And all around the portal, And high above the wall, Stood a great throng of people, But sad and silent all, -- Young lads, and stooping elders, That might not bear the mail ; Matrons with lips that quivered. And maids with faces pale. Since the first gleam of daylight, Sempronius had not ceased To listen for the rushing Of horse-hoofs from the east. The mist of eve was rising, The sun was hastening down. When he was aware of a princely pair Fast pricking towards the town. 214 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. So like they were, man never Saw twins so like before : Red with gore their armor was, Their steeds were red with gore. XXXVIII. " Hail to the great Asylum ! Hail to the hill-tops seven ! Hail to the fire that burns for aye, And the shield that fell from heaven ! This day, by Lake Regillus, Under the Porcian height. All in the lands of Tusculum, Was fought a glorious fight. To-morrow your Dictator Shall bring in triumph home The spoils of thirty cities To deck the shrines of Rome ! " XXXIX. Then burst from that great concourse A shout that shook the towers ; And some ran north, and some ran south, Crying, " The day is ours ! " But on rode these strange horsemen, With slow and lordly pace ; And none who saw their bearing Durst ask their name or race. On rode they to the Forum, While laurel-boughs and flowers, LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 21 5 From house-tops and from windows, Fell on their crests in showers. When they drew nigh to Vesta, They vaulted down amain, And washed their horses in the well That springs by Vesta's fane \ And straight again they mounted, And rode to Vesta's door ; Then, like a blast, away they passed, And no man saw them more. XL. And all the people trembled, And pale grew every cheek ; And Sergius the High Pontiff Alone found voice to speak. *' The gods who live forever Have fought for Rome to-day ! These be the great Twin Brethren To whom the Dorians pray. Back comes the Chief in triumph, Who, in the hour of fight. Hath seen the Great Twin Brethren In harness on his right. Safe comes the ship to haven. Through billows and through gales. If once the Great Twin Brethren Sit shining on the sails. Wherefore they washed their horses In Vesta's holy well. 2l6 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. Wherefore they rode to Vesta's door, I know, but may not tell. Here, hard by Vesta's temple, Build we a stately dome Unto the Great Twin Brethren Who fought so well for Rome. And when the months returning Bring back this day of fight, The proud Ides of Quintilis, Marked evermore with white, Unto the Great Twin Brethren Let all the people throng. With chaplets and with offerings. With music and with song ; And let the doors and windows Be hung with garlands all. And let the knights be summoned To Mars without the wall : Thence let them ride in purple With joyous trumpet-sound. Each mounted on his war-horse. And each with olive crowned, And pass in solemn order Before the sacred dome, Where dwell the Great Twin Brethren Who fought so well for Rome." LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 21/ VIRGINIA. A COLLECTION Consisting exclusively of war-songs would give an imperfect, or rather an erroneous, notion of the spirit of the old Latin ballads. The Patricians, during more than a century after the expulsion of the kings, held all the high military commands. A Ple- beian, even though, like Lucius Siccius, he were dis- tinguished by bis valor, and knowledge of war, could serve only in subordinate posts. A minstrel, there- fore, who wished to celebrate the early triumphs of his country, could hardly take any but Patricians for his heroes. The warriors who are mentioned in the two preceding lays, Horatius, Lartius, Herminius, Aulus Posthumius, yEbutius Elva, Sempronius Atratinus, Va- lerius Poplicola, were all members of the dominant order ; and a poet who was singing their praises, what- ever his own political opinions might be, would natu- rally abstain from insulting the class to which they belonged, and from reflecting on the system which had placed such men at the head of the legions of the commonwealth. But there was a class of compositions in which the great families were by no means so courteously treated. No parts of early Roman history are richer with poeti- 21 8 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. cal coloring than those which relate to the long contest between the privileged houses and the com- monalty. The population of Rome was, from a very- early period, divided into hereditary castes, which, in- deed, readily united to repel foreign enemies, but which regarded each other, during many years, with bitter animosity. Between those castes, there was a barrier hardly less strong than that which, at Venice, parted the members of the Great Council from their country- men. In some respects, indeed, the line which sep- arated an Icilius or a Duilius from a Posthumius or a Fabius was even more deeply marked than that which separated the rower of a gondola from a Contarini or a Morosini. At Venice the distinction was merely civil. At Rome it was both civil and religious. Among the grievances under which the Plebeians suffered, three were felt as peculiarly severe. They were excluded from the highest magistracies ; they were excluded from all share in the public lands ; and they were ground down to the dust by partial and barbar- ous legislation touching pecuniary contracts. The ruling class in Rome was a moneyed class, and it made and administered the laws with a view solely to its own interest. Thus the relation between lender and borrower was mixed up with the relation between sovereign and subject. The great men held a large portion of the community in dependence by means of advances at enormous usury. The law of debt, framed by creditors, and for the protection of creditors, was the most horrible that has ever been known among LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 219 men. The liberty, and even the life, of the insolvent were at the mercy of the Patrician money-lenders. Children often became slaves in consequence of the misfortunes of their parents. The debtor was impris- oned, not in a public jail under the care of impartial public functionaries, but in a private workhouse be- longing to the creditor. Frightful stories were told respecting these dungeons. It was said that torture and brutal violation were common ; that tight stocks, heavy chains, scanty measures of food, were used to punish wretches guilty of nothing but poverty; and that brave soldiers, whose breasts were covered vvith honorable scars, were often marked still more deeply on the back by the scourges of high-born usurers. The Plebeians were, however, not wholly without constitutional rights. From an early period they had been admitted to some share of political power. They were enrolled each in his century, and were allowed a share, considerable though not proportioned to their numerical strength, in the disposal of those high digni- ties from which they were themselves excluded. Thus their position bore some resemblance to that of the Irish Catholics during the interval between the year 1792 and the year 1829. The Plebeians had also the privilege of annually appointing officers, named trib- unes, who had no active share in the government of the commonwealth, but who, by degrees, acquired a power formidable even to the ablest and most resolute consuls and dictators. The person of the tribune was inviolable ; and, though he could directly effect little, he could obstruct every thing. 220 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. During more than a century after the institution of the tribuneship, the commons struggled manfully for the removal of the grievances under which they la- bored, and, in spite of many checks and reverses, succeeded in wringing concession after concession from the stubborn aristocracy. At length, in the year of the city 378, both parties mustered their whole strength for their last and most desperate conflict. The popular and active tribune, Caius Licinius, pro- posed the three memorable laws which are called by his name, and which were intended to redress the three great evils of which the Plebeians complained. He was supported, with eminent ability and firmness, by his colleague, Lucius Sextius. The struggle appears to have been the fiercest that ever in any community terminated without an appeal to arms. If such a con- test had raged in any Greek city, the streets would have run with blood. But, even in the paroxysms of faction, the Roman retained his gravity, his respect for law, and his tenderness for the lives of his fellow-citi- zfens. Year after year Licinius and Sextius were re- elected tribunes. Year after year, if the narrative which has come down to us is to be trusted, they continued to exert, to the full extent, their power of stopping the whole machine of government. No cu- rule magistrates could be chosen : no military muster could be held. We know too little of the state of Rome in those days to be able to conjecture how, dur- ing that long anarchy, the peace was kept, and ordi- nary justice administered between man and man. LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 221 The animosity of both parties rose to the greatest height. The excitement, we may well suppose, would have been peculiarly intense at the annual election of tribunes. , On such occasions, there can be little doubt that the great families did all that could be done, by threats and caresses, to break the union of the Ple- beians. That union, howevef, proved indissoluble. At length the good cause triumphed. The Licinian laws were carried. Lucius Sextius was the first Plebeian consul ; Caius Licinius, the third. The results of this great change were singularly happy and glorious. Two centuries of prosperity, har- mony, and victory followed the reconciliation of the orders. Men who remembered Rome engaged in waging petty wars almost within sight of the Capitol, lived to see her the mistress of Italy. While the dis- abilities of the Plebeians continued, she was scarcely able to maintain her ground against the Volscians and Hernicans. When those disabilities were removed, she rapidly became more than a match for Carthage and Macedon. During the great Licinian contest the Plebeian poets were, doubtless, not silent. Even in modern times songs have been by no means without influence on pubhc affairs ; and we may therefore infer, that in a society where printing was unknown, and where books were rare, a pathetic or humorous party-ballad must have produced effects such as we can but faintly con- ceive. It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who 222 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to ■ their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse. The lampoons of the city were, doubtless, of a higher order ; and their sting was early felt by the nobility. For in the Twelve Tables, long before the time of the Licinian laws, a severe pmiishment was denounced against the citizen who should compose or recite verses reflecting on another.^ Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets, whose works have come down to us, were not mere imitators of foreign models ; and it is, therefore, the only sort of composition in which they have never been rivalled. It was not, like their tragedy, their comedy, their epic and lyric poetry, a hot-house plant, which, in return for assiduous and skilful culture, gave only scanty and sickly fruits. It was hardy, and full of sap ; and in all the various juices which it yielded might be distinguished the flavor of the Ausonian soil. " Satire," said Quinctilian, with just pride, " is all our own." Satire sprang, in truth, naturally from the con- stitution of the Roman government and from the spidt of the Roman people, and, though at length subjected to metrical rules derived from Greece, retained to the last an essentially Roman character. Lucilius was the earUest satirist whose works were held in esteem under ^ Cicero justly infers from this law, that there had been early Latin poets whose works had been lost before his time. " Quamquam id quidem etiam xii tabulae declarant, condi jam turn solitum esse carmen, quod ne licere fieri ad alterius injuriam lege sanxerunt." — Tusc. iv. 2. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 223 • the Caesars. But, many years before Lucilius was born, Nzevius had been flung into a dungeon, and guarded there with circumstances of unusual rigor, on account of the bitter hnes in which he had attacked the great Csecihan family.^ The genius and spirit of the Roman satirists survived the hberty of their country, and were not extinguished by the cruel despotism of the Julian and Flavian Emperors. The great poet, who told the story of Domitian's turbot, was the legitimate suc- cessor of those forgotten minstrels whose songs ani- mated the factions of the infant Republic. Those minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, appear to have generally taken the popular side. We can hardly be mistaken in supposing, that, at the great crisis of the civil conflict, they employed themselves in versifying all the most powerful and virulent speeches of the tribunes, and in heaping abuse on the leaders of the aristocracy. Every personal defect, every do- mestic scandal, every tradition dishonorable to a noble house, would be sought out, brought into notice, and exaggerated. The illustrious head of the aristocratical party, Marcus Furius Camillus, might perhaps be, in some measure, protected by his venerable age, and by the memory of his great services to the State. But Appius Claudius Crassus enjoyed no such immunity. He was descended from a long line of ancestors dis- tinguished by their haughty demeanor, and by the inflexibility with which they had withstood all the ^ Plautus, Miles Gloriosus. Aulus Gellius, 111. 3, 224 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. demands of the Plebeian order. While the political conduct and the deportment of the Claudian nobles drew upon them the fiercest public hatred, they were accused of wanting, if any credit is due to the early history of Rome, a class of qualities which, in a mili- tary commonwealth, is sufficient to cover a multitude of offences. The chiefs of the family appear to have been eloquent, versed in civil business, and learned after the fashion of their age ; but in war they were not distinguished by skill or valor. Some of them, as if conscious where their weakness lay, had, when fill- ing the highest magistracies, taken internal administra- tion as their department of public business, and left the mihtary command to their colleagues.' One of them had been intrusted with an army, and had failed ignominiously.^ None of them had been honored with a triumph. None of them had achieved any martial exploit, such as those by which Lucius Quinc- tius Cincinnatus, Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, and, above all, the great Camillus, had extorted the reluctant esteem of the multitude. During the Licinian conflict, Appius Claudius Crassus signalized himself by the ability and severity with which he harangued against the two great agitators. He would naturally, therefore, be the favorite mark of the Plebeian satirists ; nor would they have been at a loss to find a point on which he was open to attack. 1 In the years of the city 260, 304, and 330. 2 In the year of the city 282. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 22$ His grandfather, called, like himself, Appius Clau- dius, had left a name as much detested as that of Sex- tus Tarquinius. This elder Appius had been consul more than seventy years before the introduction of the Licinian laws. By availing himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, he had obtained the consent of the commons to the abolition of the tribuneship, and had been the chief of that Council of Ten to which the whole direction of the State had been committed. In a few months his administration had become uni- versally odious. It had been swept away by an irre- sistible outbreak of popular fury, and its memory was still held in popular abhorrence by the whole city. The immediate cause of the downfall of this execrable government was said to have been an attempt made by Appius Claudius upon the chastity of a beautiful young girl of humble birth. The story ran, that the decemvir, unable to succeed by bribes and soUcita- tions, resorted to an outrageous act of tyranny. A vile dependent of the Claudian house laid claim to the damsel as his slave. The case was brought before the tribunal of Appius. The wicked magistrate, in defi- ance of the clearest proofs, gave judgment for the claimant. But the girl's father, a brave soldier, saved her from servitude and dishonor by stabbing her to the heart in the sight of the whole Forum. That blow was the signal for a general explosion. Camp and city rose at once ; the Ten were pulled down ; the trib- uneship was re-established ; and Appius escaped the hands of the executioner, only by a voluntary death. 226 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. It can hardly be doubted that a story so admirably adapted to the purposes both of the poet and of the demagogue would be eagerly seized upon by minstrels burning with hatred against the Patrician order, against the Claudian house, and especially against the grand- son and namesake of the infamous decemvir. In order that the reader may judge fairly of these fragments of the lay of Virginia, he must imagine himself a Plebeian who has just voted for the re-elec- tion of Sextius and Licinius. All the power of the Patricians has been exerted to throw out the two great champions of the commons. Every Posthumius, ^Emilius, and Cornelius has used his influence to the utmost. Debtors have been let out of the workhouses on condition of voting against the men of the people ; clients have been posted to hiss and interrupt the fa- vorite candidates ; Appius Claudius Crassus has spoken with more than his usual eloquence and asperity ; all has been in vain ; Licinius and Sextius have a fifth time carried all the tribes ; work is suspended ; the booths are closed ; the Plebeians bear on their shoul- ders the two champions of liberty through the Forum. Just at this moment it is announced that a popular poet, a zealous adherent of the tribunes, has made a new song, which will cut the Claudian nobles to the heart. The crowd gathers rou'nd him, and calls on him to recite it. He takes his stand on the spot, where, according to tradition, Virginia, more than sev- enty years ago, was seized by the pandar of Appius, and he begins his story. J LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 22/ VIRGINIA. FRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FORUINI ON THE DAY WHEREON LUCIUS SEXTIUS SEXTINUS LATERANUS AND CAIUS LICINIUS CAL\njS STOLO WERE ELECTED TRIBUNES OF THE COMMONS THE FIFTH TIME, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLXXXII. Ye good men of the Commons, with loving hearts and true, Who stand by the bold Tribunes that still have stood by you, Come, make a circle round me, and mark my tale with care, A tale of what Rome once hath borne, of what Rome yet may bear. This is no Grecian fable, of fountains running wine. Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors turned to swine. Here, in this very Forum, under the noonday sun. In sight of all the 'people, the bloody deed was done. Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful day. Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked Ten bare sway. Of all the wicked Ten, still the names are held accursed ; And of all the wicked Ten, Appius Claudius was the worst. 228 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. He stalked along the Forum like King Tarquin in his pride : Twelve axes waited on him, six marching on a side. The townsmen shrank to right and left, and eyed askance with fear His lowering brow, his curling mouth which always seemed to sneer ; That brow of hate, that mouth of scorn, marks all the kindred still ; For never was there Claudius yet but wished the Com- mons ill : Nor lacks he fit attendance ; for close behind his heels, With outstretched chin, and crouching pace, the client Marcus steals. His loins girt up to run with speed, be the errand what it may, , And the smile flickering on his cheek, for aught his lord may say. Such varlets pimp and jest for hire among the lying Greeks : Such varlets still are paid to hoot when brave Licinius speaks. Where'er ye shed the honey, the. buzzing flies will crowd ; Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is loud; Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye see ; And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still will be. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 229 Just then, as through one cloudless chmk m a black stormy sky Shines out the dewy morning-star, a fair young girl came by With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm, Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed of shame or harm ; And past those dreaded axes she innocently ran. With bright, frank brow that had not learned to blush at gaze of man ; And up the Sacred Street she turned; and, as she danced along, She warbled gayly to herself lines of the good old song. How for a sport the princes came spurring from the camp, And found Lucrece, combing the fleece, under the midnight lamp. The maiden sang as sings the lark, when up he darts his flight, From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the morning light ; And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw her sweet young face, And loved her with the accursed love of his accursed race. And all along the Forum, and up the Sacred Street, His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glan- cing feet. 230 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Over the Alban mountains the hght of morning broke ; From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin wreaths of smoke ; The city-gates were opened ; the Forum all alive, With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive ; Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was ringing, And blithely o'er her panniers the market-girl was singing, And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her home. Ah ! woe for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Rome ! With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm. Forth she went bounding to the school, nor dreamed of shame or harm. She crossed the Forum shining with stalls in alleys gay. And just had reached the very spot whereon I stand this day. When up the varlet Marcus came ; not such as when ere while He crouched behind his patron's heels with the true client smile : He came with lowering forehead, swollen features, and clinched fist. And strode across Virginia's path, and caught her by the wrist. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 23 1 Hard strove the frighted maiden, and screamed with look aghast ; And at her scream, from right and left the folk came running fast, — The money-changer Crispiis, with his thin silver hairs ; And Hanno from the stately booth glittering with Punic wares ; And the strong smith Muraena, grasping a half-forged brand ; And Volero the flesher, his cleaver in his hand. All came in wrath and wonder, for all knew that fair child ; And, as she passed them twice a day, all kissed their hands, and smiled : And the strong smith Muraena gave Marcus such a blow, The caitiff reeled three paces back, and let the maiden go. Yet glared he fiercely round him, and growled in harsh, fell tone, *^ She's mine, and I will have her : I seek but for mine own. She is my slave, born in my house, and stolen away, and sold. The year of the sore sickness, ere she was twelve hours old. 'Twas in the sad September, the month of wail and fright. Two augurs were borne forth that morn : the consul died ere night. 232 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY, I wait on Appius Claudius, I waited on his sire : Let him who works the cHent wrong beware the pa- tron's ire ! " So spake the varlet Marcus, and dread and silence came On all the people at the sound of the great Claudian name. For then there was no tribune to speak the word of might, Which makes the rich man tremble, and guards the poor man's right. There was no brave Licinius, no honest Sextius then ; But all the city, in great fear, obeyed the wicked Ten. Yet ere the varlet Marcus again might seize the maid, Who clung tight to Muraena's skirt, and sobbed, and shrieked for aid, Forth through the throng of gazers the young Icilius pressed, And stamped his foot, and rent his gown, and smote upon his breast, And sprang upon that column, by many a minstrel sung, Whereon three mouldering helmets, three rusting swords, are hung. And beckoned to the people, and in bold voice and clear Poured thick and fast the burning words which tyrants quake to hear. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 233 "Now, by your children's cradles, now, by your fathers' graves, Be men to-day, Quirites, or be forever slaves ! For this did Servius give us laws? For this did Lucrece bleed? For this was the great vengeance wrought on Tarquin's evil seed? For this did those false sons make red the axes of their sire? For this did Scaevola's right hand hiss in the Tuscan fire? Shall the vile fox-earth awe the race that stormed the lion's den? Shall we, who could not brook one lord, crouch to the wicked Ten ? Oh for that ancient spirit which curbed the Senate's will! Oh for the tents which in old time whitened the Sacred Hill ! In those brave days our fathers stood firmly side by side ; They faced the Marcian fury ; they tamed the Fabian pride ; They drove the fiercest Quinctius an outcast forth from Rome ; They sent the haughtiest Claudius with shivered fasces home. But what their care bequeathed us our madness flung away : All the ripe fruit of threescore years was blighted in a day. 234 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Exult, ye proud Patricians ! The hard- fought fight is o'er. We strove for honors — 'twas in vain ; for freedom — 'tis no more. No crier to the poUing summons the eager throng : No tribune breathes the word of might that guards the weak from wrong. Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down beneath your will. Riches and lands, and power and state — ye have them — keep them still. Still keep the holy fillets ; still keep the purple gown, The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel- crown. Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight is done. Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords have won. Still, like a spreading ulcer, which leech-craft may not cure, Let your foul usance eat away the substance of the poor. Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers bore; Still let your dens of torment be noisome as of yore ; No fire when Tiber freezes ; no air in dog-star heat ; And store of rods for free-born backs, and holes for free-born feet; Heap heavier still the fetters ; bar closer still the grate ; Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 235 But, by the Shades beneath us, and by the Gods above, Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel love ! Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless hneage springs From consuls, and high pontiffs, and ancient Alban kings,— Ladies, who deign not on our paths to set their tender feet. Who from their cars look down with scorn upon the wondering street. Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles be- hold, And breathe of Capuan odors, and shine with Spanish gold? Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to hfe, — The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife. The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul endures. The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours. Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with pride ; Still let the bridegroom's arms infold an unpolluted bride. Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame. That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame, 236 READINGS FROM MAC A UL AY. ■Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our de- spair, And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare." Straight^vay Virginius led the maid a little space aside, To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up with horn and hide, Close to yon low dark archway, where, in a crimson flood. Leaps down to the great sewer the gurgling stream of blood. Hard by, a flesher on a block had laid his whittle down : Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his gown. And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began to swell. And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, " Farewell, sweet chfld ! Farewell ! Oh ! how I love my darling ! Though stern I some- times be. To thee, thou know'st I was not so. A\Tio could be so to thee? And how my darling loved me ! How glad she was to hear My footstep on the threshold when I came back last year ! i LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 237 And how she danced with pleasure to see my civic crown, And took my sword, and hung it up, and brought me forth my gown ! Now all those things are over — yes, all thy pretty ways, Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays ; And none will grieve when I go forth, or smile when I return. Or watch beside the old man's bed, or weep upon his urn. The house that was the happiest within the Roman walls, The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's mar- ble halls. Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have eternal gloom. And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the tomb. The time is come. See how he points his eager hand this way ! See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's upon the prey ! With all his wit, he litde deems, that spumed, be- trayed,, bereft, Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left. He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save Thy genUe youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave ; 238 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow — Foul outrage which thou knowest not, whicli thou shalt never know. Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss ; And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this." With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side; And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she died. Then for a little moment, all people held their breath ; And through the crowded Forum was stillness as of death ; And in another moment brake forth from one and all A cry as if the Volscians were coming o'er the wall. Some with averted faces shrieking fled home amain ; Some ran to call a leech; and some ran to hft the slain ; Some felt her lips and Httle wrist, if Hfe might there be found ; And some tore up their garments fast, and strove to stanch the wound. In vain they ran, and felt, and stanched; for never truer blow That good right arm had dealt in fight against a Vol- scian foe. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 239 When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shuddered, and sank down, And hid his face some httle space with the corner of his gown. Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Virginius tottered nigh. And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the knife on high. " Oh ! dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain. By this dear blood I cry to you, do right between us twain ; And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt by me and mine. Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian line ! " So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and went his way ; But first he cast one haggard glance to where the body lay, And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan, and then, with steadfast feet. Strode right across the market-place unto the Sacred Street. Then up sprang Appius Claudius : " Stop him ! alive or dead ! Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head ! " He looked upon his clients, but none would work his will. He looked upon his lictors ; but they trembled, and stood still. 240 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. And, as Virginius through the press his way in silence cleft, Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left. And he hath passed in safety unto his woeful home, And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done in Rome. By this the flood of people was swollen from every side, And streets and porches round were filled with that o'erflowing tide ; And close around the body gathered a little train Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain. They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown ; And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down. The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl and sneer ; And in the Claudian note he cried, " What doth this rabble here? Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hitherward they stray? Ho, lictors ! clear the market-place, and fetch the corpse away ! " The voice of grief and fury till then had not been loud ; But a deep, sullen murmur wandered among the crowd, LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 24 1 Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirhvind on the deep, Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half aroused from sleep. But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all and strong, Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went do\Mi into the throng. Those old men say, w^ho saw that day of sorrow and of sin. That in the Roman Forum was never such a din. The w^ailing, hooting, cursing, the howls of grief and hate, Were heard beyond the Pincian Hill, beyond the Latin Gate. But close around the body, where stood the little train Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain, No cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers, and black frowns. And breaking up of benches, and girding up of gowns. 'Twas well the hctors might not pierce to where the maiden lay. Else surely had they been all twelve torn limb from limb that day. Right glad they were to struggle back, blood stream- ing from their heads, \Mth axes all in splinters, and raiment all in shreds. Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lij), and the blood left his cheek ; And thrice he Ijeckoned with his hand, and thrice he strove to speak : 242 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. And thrice the tossing Forum set up a frightful yell- " See, see, thou dog ! what thou hast done ; and hide thy shame in hell ! Thou that wouldst make our maidens slaves must first make slaves of men. Tribunes ! Hurrah for Tribunes ! Down with the wicked Ten ! " And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing through the air. Pebbles and bricks and potsherds, all round the curule chair ; And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trembling came, For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught but shame. Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do them right. That the great houses, all save one, have borne them well in fight. Still Caius of Corioli, his triumphs and his wrongs. His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs. Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and Tuscan bowed. And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom her- self is proud. But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, And changes color like a maid at sight of sword and shield. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 243 The Claudian triumphs all were won within the city towers : The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks but ours. A Cossus, like a wild-cat, springs ever at the face ; A Fabius rushes Hke a boar against the shouting chase ; But the vile Claudian litter, raging with currish spite, Still yelps and snaps at those who run, still runs from those who smite. So now 'twas seen of Appius. When stones began to fly, He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and smote upon his thigh. " Kind clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this fray ! Must I be torn in pieces ? Home, home, the nearest way ! " While yet he spake, and looked around with a bewil- dered stare, Four sturdy lictors put their necks beneath the curule chair ; And fourscore clients on the left, and fourscore on the right. Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and loins girt up for fight. But, though without or staff or sword, so furious was the throng. That scarce the train with might and main could bring their lord along. 244 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. Twelve times the crowd made at him ; five times they seized his gown ; Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got him down : And sharper came the pelting ; and evermore the yell, — "Tribunes! we will have Tribunes!" — rose with a louder swell ; And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered sail When raves the Adriatic beneath an eastern gale. When the Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of spume, And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil of inky gloom. One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the ear; And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with pain and fear. His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with pride, Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from side to side ; And when his stout retainers had brought him to his door, His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted gore. As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his grandson be! God send Rome one such other sight, and send me there to see ! LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME, 245 THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. It can hardly be necessary to remind any reader, that, according to the popular tradition, Romulus, after he had slain his granduncle Amulius, and restored his grandfather Numitor, determined to quit Alba, the hereditary domain of the Sylvian princes, and found a new city. The gods, it was added, vouchsafed the clearest signs of the favor with which they regarded the enterprise, and of the high destinies reserved for the young colony. This event was likely to be a favorite theme of the old Latin minstrels. They would naturally attribute the project of Romulus to some divine intimation of the power and prosperity which it was decreed that his city should attain. They would probably intro- duce seers foretelling the victories of unborn consuls and dictators, and the last great victory would gen- erally occupy the most conspicuous place in the pre- diction. There is nothing strange in the supposition that the poet who was employed to celebrate the first great triumph of the Romans over the Greeks might throw his song of exultation into this form. The occasion was one likely to excite the strongest feelings of national pride. A great outrage had been 246 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. followed by a great retribution. Seven years before this time, Lucius Posthumius Megellus, who sprang from one of the noblest houses of Rome, and had been thrice consul, was sent ambassador to Tarentum, with charge to demand reparation for grievous inju- ries. The Tarentines gave him audience in their theatre, where he addressed them in such Greek as he could command, which, we may well believe, was not exactly such as Cineas would have spoken. An ex- quisite sense of the ridiculous belonged to the Greek character, and closely connected with this faculty was a strong propensity to flippancy and impertinence. When Posthumius placed an accent wrong, his hear- ers burst into a laugh. When he remonstrated, they hooted him, and called him barbarian, and at length hissed him off the stage as if he had been a bad actor. As the grave Roman retired, a buffoon, who, from his constant drunkenness, was nicknamed the Pint-pot, came up with gestures of the grossest indecency, and bespattered the senatorial gown with filth. Posthu- mius turned round to the multitude, and held up the gown, as if appealing to the universal law of nations. The sight only increased the insolence of the Taren- tines. They clapped their hands, and set up a shout of laughter which shook the theatre. " Men of Tar- entum," said Posthumius, "it will take not a Httle blood to wash this gown." ' Rome, in consequence of this insult, declared war I Dion. Hal. De Legalionibus. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 24/ against the Tarentines. The Tarentines sought for aUies beyond the Ionian Sea. Pyrrhus, king of Epi- rus, came to their help with a large army ; and, for the first time, the two great nations of antiquity were fairly matched against each other. The fame of Greece in arms, as well as in arts, was then at the height. Half a century earlier, the career of Alexander had excited the admiration and terror of all nations from the Ganges to the pillars of Her- cules. Royal houses, founded by Macedonian cap- tains, still reigned at Antioch and Alexandria. That barbarian warriors, led by barbarian chiefs, should win a pitched battle against Greek valor guided by Greek science, seemed as incredible as it would now seem that the Burmese or the Siamese should, in the open plain, put to flight an equal number of the best Eng- lish troops. The Tarentines were convinced that their countrymen were irresistible in war, and this conviction had emboldened them to treat with the grossest indignity one whom they regarded as the rep- resentative of an inferior race. Of the Greek gen- erals then living, Pyrrhus was indisputably the first. Among the troops who were trained in the Greek discipline, his Epirotes ranked high. His expedition to Italy was a turning-point in the history of the world. He found there a people, who, far inferior to the Athenians and Corinthians in the fine arts, in the speculative sciences, and in all the refinements of life, were the best soldiers on the face of the earth. Their arms, their gradations of rank, their order of battle, 248 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. their method of intrenchment, were all of Latin ori- gin, and had all been gradually brought near to per- fection, not by the study of foreign models, but by the genius and experience of many generations of great native commanders. The first words which broke from the king, when his practised eye had sur- veyed the Roman encampment, were full of meaning : " These barbarians," he said, " have nothing barbarous in their military arrangements." He was at first vic- torious, for h;s own talents were superior to those of the captains who were opposed to him ; and the Romans were not prepared for the onset of the ele- phants of the East, which were then for the first time seen in Italy, — moving mountains, with long snakes for hands.' But the victories of the Epirotes were fiercely disputed, dearly purchased, and altogether unprofitable. At length, Manius Curius Dentatus, who had in his first consulship won two triumphs, was again placed at the head of the Roman common- wealth, and sent to encounter the invaders. A great battle was fought near Beneventum. Pyrrhus was completely defeated. He repassed the sea ; and the world learned, with amazement, that a people had been discovered, who, in fair fighting, were superior to the best troops that had been drilled on the system of Parmenio and Antigonus. The conquerors had a good right to exult in their success, for their glory was all their own. They had I Anguimanns is the old Latin epithet for an elephant. Lucretius, ii. 538 1302. LA YS OF ANCIENT 1^0 ME. 249 not learned from their enemy how to conquer him. It was with their own national arms, and in their own national battle-array, that they had overcome weaj^ons and tactics long believed to be invincible. The piliim and the broadsword had vanquished the Macedonian spear. The legion had broken the Macedonian pha- lanx. Even the elephants, when the surprise produced by their first appearance was over, could cause no disorder in the steady yet flexible battahons of Rome. It is said by Florus, and may easily be believed, that the triumph far surpassed in magnificence any that Rome had previously seen. The only spoils which Papirius Cursor and Fabius Maximus could exhibit were flocks and herds, wagons of rude structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. But now, for the first time, the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece adorned a Roman pageant. Plate, fine stuffs, costly furniture, rare animals, exquisite paintings and sculptures, formed part of the procession. At the banquet would be as- sembled a crowd of warriors and statesmen, among whom Manius Curius Dentatus would take the highest room. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, then, after two con- sulships and two triumphs, censor of the common- wealth, would, doubtless, occupy a place of honor at the board. In situations less conspicuous probably lay some of those who were, a few years later, the ter- ror of Carthage : Caius Duilius, the founder of the maritime greatness of his country; Marcus Atilius Regulus, who owed to defeat a renown far higher -than that which he had derived from his victories; and 250 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Caius Lutatius Catulus, who, while suffering from a grievous wound, fought the great battle of the Agates, and brought the First Punic War to a triumphant close. It is impossible to recount the names of these eminent citizens, without reflecting that they were all, without exception. Plebeians, and would, but for the ever- memorable struggle maintained by Caius Licinius and Lucius Sextius, have been doomed to hide in obscurity, or to waste in civil broils the capacity and energy which prevailed against Pyrrhus and Hamilcar. On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic enthusiasm of a Latin poet would vent itself in reiter- ated shouts of lo triumphe, such as were uttered by Horace on a far less exciting occasion, and in boasts resembling those which Virgil put into the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of some foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, in the lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with disdainful candor; but pre- eminence in all the qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern mankind would be claimed for the Romans. The following lay belongs to the latest age of Latin ballad-poetry. Naevius and Livius Andronicus were probably among the children whose mothers held them up to see the chariot of Curius go by. The minstrel who sang on that day might possibly have lived to read the first hexameters of Ennius, and to see the first comedies of Plautus. His poem, as might be expected, shows a much wider acquaintance with the geography, manners, and productions of remote LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 25 1 nations, than would have been found in compositions of the age of Camillus. But he troubles himself little about dates ; and having heard travellers talk with ad- miration of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the struc- tures and gardens with which the Macedonian kings of Syria had embellished their residence on the banks of the Orontes, he has never thought of inquiring whether these things existed in the age of Romulus. 252 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. A LAY SUNG AT THE BANQUET IN THE CAPITOL, ON THE DAY WHEREON MANIUS CURIUS DENTATUS, A SECOND TIME CONSUL, TRIUMPHED OVER KING PYRRHUS AND THE TARENTINES, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLXXIX. Now slain is King Amulius Of tlie great Sylvian line, Who reigned in Alba Longa, On the throne of Aventine. Slain is the Pontiff Gamers, Who spake the words of doom ; " The children to the Tiber ; The mother to the tomb." n. In Alba's lake no fisher His net to-day is flinging ; On the dark rind of Alba's oaks To-day no axe is ringing ; The yoke hangs o'er the manger ; The scythe lies in the hay ; Through all the Alban villages, No work is done to-day. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 253 III. And every Alban burgher Hath donned his whitest gown ; And every head in Alba Weareth a poplar crown ; And every Alban door-post With boughs and flowers is gay, For to-day the dead are living : The lost are found to-day. IV. They were doomed by a bloody king ; They were doomed by a lying priest ; They were cast on the raging flood ; They were tracked by the raging beast ; Paging beast and raging flood Alike have spared the prey, And to-day the dead are living : The lost are found to-day. The troubled river knew them. And smoothed his yellow foam, And gently rocked the cradle That bore the fate of Rome. The ravening she-wolf knew them. And licked them o'er and o'er, And gave them of her own fierce milk. Rich with raw flesh and gore. 254 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. Twenty winters, twenty springs, Since then have rolled away ; And to-day the dead are living : The lost are found to-day. VI. Blithe it was to see the twins, Right goodly youths, and tall, Marching from Alba Longa To their old grandsire's hall. Along their path fresh garlands Are hung from tree to tree : Before them stride the pipers, Piping a note of glee. vn. On the right goes Romulus, With arms to the elbows red. And in his hand a broadsword. And on the blade a head — A head in an iron helmet, With horse-hair hanging down ; A shaggy head, a swarthy head. Fixed in a ghastly frown ; The head of King Amulius Of the great Sylvian line. Who reigned in Alba Longa, On the throne of Aventine. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 2$$ VIII. On the left side goes Remus, With wrists and fingers red, And in his hand a boar-spear, And on the point a head — A \\Tinkled head and aged. With silver beard and hair. And holy fillets round it, Such as the pontiffs wear ; The head of ancient Gamers, Who spake the words of doom : " The children to the Tiber ; The mother to the tomb."' IX. Two and two behind the twins Their trusty comrades go. Four and forty valiant men, With club and axe and bow. On each side every hamlet Pours forth its joyous crowd. Shouting lads, and baying dogs, And children laughing loud. And old men weeping fondly As Rhea's boys go by, And maids who shriek to see the heads. Yet, shrieking, press more nigh. 256 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. X. So they marched along the lake : They marched by fold and stall, By cornfield and by vineyard, Unto the old man's hall. XI. In the hall-gate sate Capys, Capys, the .sightless seer : From head to foot he trembled As Romulus drew near. And up stood stiff his thin white hair, And his blind eyes flashed fire : "Hail ! foster-child of the wonderous nurse ! Hail ! son of the wonderous sire ! XII. " But thou — what dost thou here In the old man's peaceful hall? What doth the eagle in the coop, The bison in the stall? Our corn fills many a garner ; Our vines clasp many a tree ; Our flocks are white on many a hill, — But these are not for thee. XIII. " For thee no treasure ripens In the Tartessian mine ; LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 25/ For thee no ship brings precious bales Across the Libyan brine ; Thou shalt not drink from amber ; Thou shalt not rest on down ; Arabia shall not steep thy locks, Nor Sidon tinge thy gown. XIV. " Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, Rich table, and soft bed, To them who of man's seed are born. Whom woman's milk have fed. Thou wast not made for lucre, For pleasure, nor for rest ; Thou, that art sprung from the War-god's loins, And hast tugged at the she- wolf s breast. XV. " From sunrise unto sunset All earth shall hear thy fame : A glorious city thou shalt build. And name it by thy name ; And there, unquenched through ages. Like Vesta's sacred fire, Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, The spirit of thy sire. XVI. *'■ The ox toils through the furrow, Obedient to the goad ; 258. READINGS FROM MACAULAY, The patient ass, up flinty paths, Plods with his weary load ; With whine and bound, the spaniel His master's whistle hears ; And the sheep yields her patiently To the loud-clashing shears. XVII. " But thy nurse will hear no master ; Thy nurse will bear no load ; And woe to them that shear her, And woe to them that goad ! When all the pack, loud baying, Her bloody lair surrounds, She dies in silence, biting hard, Amidst the dying hounds. XVIII. " Pomona loves the orchard. And Liber loves the vine ; And Pales loves the straw-built shed Warm with the breath of kine ; And Venus loves the whispers Of plighted youth and maid, In April's ivory moonlight Beneath the chestnut shade. XIX. " But thy father loves the clashing Of broadsword and of shield ; LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 259 He loves to drink the steam that reeks From the fresh battle-field ; He smiles a smile more dreadful Than his own dreadful frown, When he sees the thick black cloud of smoke Go up from the conquered town. XX. " And such as is the War-god, The author of thy line, And such as she who suckled thee, Even such be thou and thine. Leave to the soft Campanian His baths and his perfumes ; Leave to the sordid race of Tyre Their dyeing-vats and looms ; Leave to the sons of Carthage The rudder and the oar ; Leave to the Greek his marble Nymphs, And scrolls of wordy lore. XXI. " Thine, Roman, is the pilum ; Roman, the sword is thine. The even trench, the bristling mound, The legion's ordered line ; And thine the wheels of triumph, Which with their laurelled train Move slowly up the shouting streets To Jove's eternal fane. 260 READINGS FROM MA CA ULA Y. XXII. " Beneath thy yoke the Volscian Shall veil his lofty brow ; Soft Capua's curled revellers Before thy chairs shall bow ; The Lucumoes of Arnus Shall quake thy rods to see ; And the proud Samnite's heart of steel Shall yield to only thee. XXIII. " The Gaul shall come against thee From the land of snow and night : Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies To the raven and the kite. XXIV. " The Greek shall come against thee, The conqueror of the East. Beside him stalks to battle The huge earth-shaking beast, — The beast on whom the castle With all its guards doth stand, The beast who hath between his eyes The serpent for a hand. First march the bold Epirotes, Wedged close with shield and spear; And the ranks of false Tarentum Are glittering in the rear. LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 26 1 XXV. '^ The ranks of false Tarentum Like hunted sheep shall fly : In vain the bold Epirotes Shall round their standards die. And Apennine's gray vultures Shall have a noble feast On the fat and the eyes Of the huge earth-shaking beast. XXVI. " Hurrah ! for the good weapons That keep the War-god's land. Hurrah ! for Rome's stout pilum In a stout Roman hand. Hurrah ! for Rome's short broadsword That through the thick array Of levelled spears and serried shields, Hews deep its gory way. XXVII. " Hurrah ! for the great triumph That stretches many a mile. Hurrah ! for the wan captives That pass in endless file. Ho ! bold Epirotes, whither Hath the Red King ta'en flight? Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, Is not the gown washed white ? 262 READINGS FROM MACAULAY. XXVIIT. " Hurrah ! for the great triumph That stretches many a mile. Hurrah ! for the rich dye of Tyre, And the fine web of Nile, The helmets gay with plumage Torn from the pheasant's wings, The belts set thick with starry gems That shone on Indian kings. The urns of massy silver, The goblets rough with gold, The many- colored tablets bright With loves and wars of old. The stone that breathes and struggles. The brass that seems to speak ; — Such cunning they who dwell on high Have given unto the Greek. XXIX. " Hurrah ! for Manius Curius, The bravest son of Rome, Thrice in utmost need sent forth. Thrice drawn in triumph home. Weave, weave, for Manius Curius The third embroidered gown ; Make ready the third lofty car. And twine the third green crown ; And yoke the steeds of Rosea With necks like a bended bow ; LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 26^ And deck the bull, Mevania's bull, The bull as white as snow. XXX. " Blest and thrice blest the Roman Who sees Rome's brightest day. Who sees that long victorious pomp Wind down the Sacred *Way, And through the bellowing Forum, And round the Suppliant's Grove, Up to the everlasting gates Of Capitolian Jove. XXXI. '^ Then where, o'er two bright havens, The towers of Corinth frown ; Where the gigantic King of Day On his own Rhodes looks down ; Where soft Orontes murmurs Beneath the laurel-shades ; Where Nile reflects the endless length Of dark red colonnades ; Where in the still deep water, Sheltered from waves and blasts, Bristles the dusky forest Of Byrsa's thousand masts ; Where fur-clad hunters wander Amidst the northern ice ; Where through the sand of morning-land The camel bears the spice ; 264 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY, Where Atlas flings his shadow Far o'er the Western foam, — Shall be great fear on all who hear The mighty name of Rome." LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME, 26$ POMPEII. A POEM WHICH OBTAINED THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL AT THE CAAIBRIDGE COMMENCEMENT, JULY, 1819. O land ! to Mem'ry and to Freedom dear. Land of the melting lyre and conqu'ring spear, Land of the vine-clad hill, the fragrant grove. Of arts and arms, of Genius and of Love, Hear, fairest Italy. Tho' now no more Thy glitt'ring eagles awe th' Atlantic shore, Nor at thy feet the gorgeous Orient flings The blood-bought treasures of her tawny Kings, Tho' vanish'd all that form'd thine old renown. The laurel garland, and the jewell'd crown, Th' avenging poniard, the victorious sword. Which rear'd thine empire, or thy rights restor'd, Yet still the constant Muses haunt thy shore, And love to linger where they dwelt of yore. If e'er of old they deign'd, with fav'ring smile. To tread the sea-girt shores of Albion's isle. To smooth with classic arts our rugged tongue. And warm with classic glow the British song, 266 READINGS FROM MA CAUL AY. Oh ! bid them snatch their silent harps which wave On the lone oak that shades thy Maro's grave/ And sweep with magic hand the slumb'ring strings, To fire the poet. — For thy chme he sings, Thy scenes of gay delight and wild despair. Thy vary'd forms of awful and of fair. How rich that climate's sweets, how wild its storms, What charms array it, and what rage deforms. Well have thy mould'ring walls, Pompeii, known, Deck'd in those charms, and by that rage o'erthrown. Sad City, gayly dawn'd thy latest day, And pour'd its radiance on a scene as gay. The leaves scarce rustled in the sighing breeze ; In azure dimples curl'd the sparkling seas, And, as the golden tide of light they quaff'd, Campania's sunny meads and vineyards laugh'd, While gleam'd each lichen'd oak and giant pine, On the far sides of swarthy Apennine. Then mirth and music thro' Pompeii rung ; Then verdant wreaths on all her portals hung ; Her sons with solemn rite and jocund lay Hail'd the glad splendors of that festal day. With fillets bound the hoary priests advance, And rosy virgins braid the choral dance. The rugged warrior here unbends a while His iron front, and deigns a transient smile. There, frantic with delight, the ruddy boy Scarce treads on earth, and bounds and laughs with joy. ^ See Eustace's description of the Tomb of Virgil, on the Neapolitan coast. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 26/ From ev'ry crowded altar, perfumes rise In billowy clouds of fragrance to the skies. The milk-white monarch of the herd they lead, With gilded horns, at yonder shrine to bleed ; And while the victim crops the broider'd plain, And frisks and gambols tow'rds the destin'd fane, They little deem that like himself they stray To death, unconscious, o'er a flow'ry way, Heedless, like him, th' impending stroke await, And sport and wanton on the brink of fate. What 'vails it that where yonder heights aspire, With ashes pil'd, and scath'd with rills of fire, Gigantic phantoms dimly seem'd to glide,^ In misty files, along the m^ountain's side, To view with threat'ning scowl your fated lands, And tow'rd your city point their shadowy hands ? In vain celestial omens prompted fear. And nature's signals spoke the ruin near. In vain thro' many a night ye view'd from far The meteor flag of elemental war Unroll its blazing folds from yonder height. In fearful sign of earth's intestine fight. In vain Vesuvius groan'd with wrath supprest. And mutter'd thunder in his burning breast. Long since the Eagle from that flaming peak Hath soar'd with screams a safer nest to seek. ^ Dio Cassius relates that figures of gigantic size appeared, for some time previous to the destruction of Pompeii, on the summits of Vesuvius. This appearance was probably occasioned by the fantastic forms which the smoke from the crater of the volcano assumed. 268 READINGS FROM MACAULAY, Aw'd by th' infernal beacon's fitful glare, The howling fox hath left his wonted lair ; Nor dares the browsing goat in vent'rous leap To spring as erst from dizzy steep to steep. — Man only mocks the peril. Man alone Defies the sulph'rous flame, the warning groan ; While instinct, humbler guardian, wakes and saves, Proud reason sleeps, nor knows the doom it braves. But see, the op'ning theatre invites The fated myriads to its gay delights. In, in, they swarm, tumultuous as the roar Of foaming breakers on a rocky shore. Th' enraptur'd throng in breathless transport views The gorgeous temple of the Tragic Muse. There, while her wand in shadowy pomp arrays Ideal scenes, and forms of other days, Fair as the hopes of youth, a radiant band. The sister arts around her footstool stand, To deck their Queen, and lend a milder grace To the stern beauty of that awful face. Far, far, around the ravish'd eye surveys The sculptur'd forms of Gods and Heroes blaze. Above, the echoing roofs the peal prolong Of lofty converse, or melodious song, While, as the tones of passion sink or swell. Admiring thousands own the moral spell. Melt with the melting strains of fancy'd woe, With terror sicken, or with transport glow. Oh ! for a voice like that which peal'd of old Thro' Salem's cedar courts and shrines of gold, LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 269 And in wild accents round the trembling dome Proclaim'd the havoc of avenging Rome, While ev'ry palmy arch and sculptur'd tow'r Shook with the footsteps of the parting pow'r. Such voice might check your tears, which idly stream For the vain phantoms of the poet's dream ; Might bid those terrors rise, those sorrows flow, For other perils, and for nearer woe. The hour is come. Ev'n now the sulph'rous cloud Involves the city in its fun'ral shroud, And far along Campania's azure sky Expands its dark and boundless canopy. The Sun, tho' thron'd on heav'n's meridian height, Burns red and rayless thro' that sickly night. Each bosom felt at once the shudd'ring thrill. At once the music stopp'd. The song was still. None in that cloud's portentous shade might trace The fearful changes of another's face, But thro' that horrid stillness each could hear His neighbor's throbbing heart beat high with fear. A moment's pause succeeds. Then wildly rise Griefs sobbing plaints, and terror's frantic cries. The gates recoil, and tow'rds the narrow pass In wild confusion rolls the living mass. Death, — when thy shadowy sceptre waves away From his sad couch the pris'ner of decay, Tho' friendship view the close with glist'ning eye, And love's fond lips imbibe the parting sigh. By torture rack'd, by kindness sooth'd in vain. The soul still clings to being and to pain ; 270 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. But when have wilder terrors cloth'd thy brow, Or keener torments edg'd thy dart than now, When with thy regal horrors vainly strove The laws of nature and the power of Love? On mothers babes in vain for mercy call : Beneath the feet of brothers, brothers fall. Behold the dying wretch in vain upraise Tow'rds yonder well-known face the accusing gaze See trampl'd to the earth th' expiring maid Clings round her lover's feet, and shrieks for aid. Vain is th' imploring glance, the frenzy'd cry : All, all is fear ; — To succor is to die. — Saw ye how wild, how red, how broad a light Burst on the darkness of that mid-day night, As fierce Vesuvius scatter'd o'er the vale His drifted flames and sheets of burning hail, Shook hell's wan light'nings from his blazing cone. And gilded heav'n with meteors not its own? The morn all blushing rose, but sought in vain The snowy villas and the flow'ry plain. The purple hills with marshall'd vineyards gay. The domes that sparkled in the sunny ray. Where art or nature late had deck'd the scene With blazing marble or with spangled green, There, streak'd by many a fiery torrent's bed, A boundless waste of hoary ashes spread. Along that dreary waste where lately rung The festal lay which smiling virgins sung. Where rapture echoed from the warbling lute, And the gay dance resounded, all is mute. — LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 2/1 Mute ! — Is it Fancy shapes that wailing sound Which faintly murmurs from the blasted ground? Or live there still, who, breathing in the tomb, Curse the dark refuge which delays their doom, In massive vaults, on which th' incumbent plain And ruin'd city heap their weight in vain? Oh ! who may sing that hour of mortal strife, When Nature calls on Death, yet clings to life ? Who paint the wretch that draws sepulchral breath, A living pris'ner in the house of Death ? Pale as the corpse which loads the fun'ral pile. With face convuls'd that writhes a ghastly smile, Behold him speechless move with hurry'd pace, Incessant, round his dungeon's caverned space, Now shriek in terror, and now groan in pain. Gnaw his white lips, and strike his burning brain, Till Fear o'erstrain'd in stupor dies away. And Madness wrests her victim from dismay. His arms sink down : his wild and stony eye Glares without sight on blackest vacancy. He feels not, sees not : wrapp'd in senseless trance, His soul is still and listless as his glance. One cheerless blank, one rayless mist, is there. Thoughts, senses, passions, live not with despair. Haste, Famine, haste, to urge the destin'd close, And lull the horrid scene to stern repose. Yet ere, dire Fiend, thy ling'ring tortures cease, And all be hush'd in still sepulchral peace. Those caves shall wilder, darker deeds behold Than e'er the voice of song or fable told, 2/2 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y, Whate'er dismay may prompt, or madness dare, Feasts of the grave, and banquets of despair. — Hide, hide, the scene ; and o'er the blasting sight Fling the dark veil of ages and of night. Go, seek Pompeii now : — with pensive tread Roam thro' the silent city of the dead. Explore each spot, where still, in ruin grand, Her shapeless piles and tott'ring columns stand, Where the pale ivy's clasping wreaths o'ershade The ruin'd temple's moss-clad colonnade, Or violets on the hearth's cold marble wave. And muse in silence on a people's grave. Fear not. — No sign of death thine eyes shall scare : No, all is beauty, verdure, fragrance there. A gentle slope includes the fatal ground With od'rous shrubs and tufted myrtles crown'd : Beneath, o'ergrown with grass, or wreath'd with flow'rs, Lie tombs and temples, columns, baths, and towers. As if in mock'ry. Nature seems to dress In all her charms the beauteous wilderness. And bids her gayest flow'rets twine and bloom In sweet profusion o'er a city's tomb. With roses here she decks th' untrodden path. With lilies fringes there the stately bath, Th' acanthus' spreading foliage here she weaves ^ Round the gay capital which mocks its leaves, ^ The capital of the Corinthian pillar is carved, as is well known, in imita- tion of the acanthus. Mons. de Chateaubriand, as I have found since this poem was written, has employed the same image in his Travels. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 273 There hangs the sides of ev'ry mould'ring room With tap'stry from her own fantastic loom, Wall-flow'rs and weeds, whose glowing hues supply With simple grace the purple's Tyrian dye. The ruin'd city sleeps in fragrant shade, Like the pale corpse of some Athenian maid,' Whose marble arms, cold brows, and snowy neck, The fairest flow'rs of fairest climates deck, Meet types of her whose form their wreaths array, Of radiant beauty, and of swift decay. Advance, and wander on thro' crumbling halls, Thro' prostrate gates, and ivy'd pedestals. Arches, whose echoes now no chariots rouse. Tombs, on whose summits goats undaunted browse. See, where yon ruin'd wall on earth reclines. Thro' weeds and moss the half-seen painting shines, Still vivid 'midst the dewy cowslips glows. Or blends its colors with the blushing rose. Thou lovely, ghastly scene of fair decay, In beauty awful, and 'midst horrors gay. Renown more wide, more' bright, shall gild thy name. Than thy wild charms or fearful doom could claim. Immortal spirits, in whose deathless song Latiurn and Athens yet their reign prolong. And from their thrones of fame and empire hurl'd, Still sway the sceptre of the mental world. You, in whose breasts the flames of Pindus beam'd. Whose copious lips with rich persuasion stream'd, ^ It is the custom of tha modern Greeks to adorn corpses profusely with flowers. 274 READINGS FROM MAC AULA Y. Whose minds unravell'd nature's mystic plan. Or trac'd the mazy labyrinth of man ; Bend, glorious spirits, from your blissful bow'rs, And broider'd couches of unfading flow'rs, While round your locks th' Elysian garlands blow, With sweeter odors, and with brighter glow. Once more, immortal shades, atoning Fame Repairs the honors of each glorious name. Behold Pompeii's op'ning vaults restore The long-lost treasures of your ancient lore, The vestal radiance of poetic fire, The stately buskin, and the tuneful lyre, The wand of eloquence, whose magic sway The sceptres and the swords of earth obey, And ev'ry mighty spell, whose strong control Could nerve or melt, could fire or soothe, the soul. And thou, sad city, raise thy drooping head, And share the honors of the glorious dead. Had Fate repriev'd thee till the frozen North Pour'd in wild swarms its hoarded millions forth, Till blazing cities mark'd where Albion trod. Or Europe quak'd beneath the scou7^ge of GoD,^ No lasting wreath had grac'd thy fun'ral pall, No fame redeem'd the horrors of thy fall. Now shall thy deathless mem'ry live entwin'd With all that conquers, rules, or charms the mind, Each lofty thought of Poet or of Sage, Each grace of Virgil's lyre, or Tully's page. ^ The well-known name of Attila. LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME, 275 Like theirs whose Genius consecrates thy tomb, Thy fame shall snatch from time a greener bloom, Shall spread where'er the Muse has rear'd her throne, And live renown'd in accents yet unknown : Earth's utmost bounds shall join the glad acclaim, And distant Camus bless Pompeii's name.