FROM THE AUTHOR, TO THE AMERICAN EDITOR
OF HIS WORKS.
[Published by JAMES R. OSGOOD & Co., successors to TICKNon AND FIELDS.]
THESE papers I am anxious to put into the hands of your
house, and, so far as regards the U. S., of your house exclusively; not with any view to further emolument, but as an
acknowledgcl ent of the services which you have already rendered me; namely, first, in having brought together so widely
scattered a collection, -a difficulty which in my own hands
by too painful an experience I had found from nervous depression to be absolutely insurmountable; secondly, in having made me a participator in the pecuniary profits of the
American edition, without solicitation or the shadow of any
expectation on my part, without any legal claim that I could
plead, or equitable warrant in established usage, solely and
merely upon your own spontaneous motion. Some of these
new papers, I hope, will not be without their value in the
eyes of those who have taken an interest in the original
series. But at all events, good or bad, they are now tendered to the appropriation of your individual house, the
MEssRS. TICKNOR AND FIELDS, according to the amplest
extent of any power to make such a transfer that I may be
found to possess by law or custom in America.
I wish this transfer were likely to be of more value. But
the veriest trifle, interpreted by the spirit in which I offer it,
may express my sense of the liberality manifested throughout
this transaction by your honorable house.
Ever believe me, my dear sir,
Your faithful and obliged,
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.




ZSe aluilce's  aod'is.
A UTHOOR'S LIBRARY EDITION.
THE C.ASARS,
AND
TH E AVENGER.
BY
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
I873.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Waurt of the District of Massachusetts.




THE C AESARS.








THE CIESARS.
THE condition of the Roman Emperors has never
yet been fully appreciated; nor has it been sufficiently
perceived in what respects it was absolutely unique.
There was but one Rome: no other city, as we are
satisfied by the collation of many facts, either of
ancient or modern times, has ever rivalled this astonishing metropolis in the grandeur of magnitude;
and not many —if we except the cities of Greece,
none at all- in the grandeur of architectural display. Speaking even of London, we ought in all
reason to say - the Nation of London, and not the
City of London; but of Rome in her palmy days,
nothing less could be said in the naked severity of
logic. A million and a half of souls - that population, apart from any other distinctions, is per se
for London, a justifying ground for such a classification; d fortiori, then, will it belong to a city which
counted from one horn to the other of its mighty
suburbs not less than four millions of inhabitants 1
at the very least, as we resolutely maintain after
reviewing all that has been written on thst much




10                THE CMSARS.
vexed theme, and very probably half as many more.
Republican Rome had her prerogative tribe; the earth
has its prerogative city; and that city was Rome.
As was the city, such was its prince - mysterious,
solitary, unique. Each was to the other an adequate
counterpart, each reciprocally that perfect mirror
which reflected as it were in alia materia, those incommunicable attributes of grandeur, that under the
same shape and denomination never upon this earth
were destined to be revived. Rome has not been repeated; neither has Caesar. Ubi Ccesar, ibi Roma,
was a maxim of Roman jurisprudence. And the
same maxim may be translated into a wider meaning; in which it becomes true also for our historical
experience. Caesar and Rome have flourished and
expired together. The illimitable attributes of the
Roman prince, boundless and comprehensive as the
universal air, —like that also bright and apprehensible to the most vagrant eye, yet in parts (and those
not far removed) unfathomable as outer darkness,
(for no chamber in a dungeon could shroud in more
impenetrable concealment a deed of murder than the
upper chambers of the air,) - these attributes, so
impressive to the imagination, and which all the
subtlety of the Roman2 wit could as little fathom as
the fleets of Caesar could traverse the Polar basin,
or unlock the gates of the Pacific, are best symbolized, and find their most appropriate exponent, in




THE CAESARS.                 11
the illimitable city itself - that Rome, whose centre,
the Capitol, was immovable as Teneriffe or Atlas,
but whose circumference was shadowy, uncertain,
restless, and advancing as the frontiers of her allconquering empire.  It is false to say, that with
Caesar came the destruction of Roman greatness.
Peace, hollow rhetoricians! Until Caesar came, Rome
was a minor; by him, she attained her majority, and
fulfilled her destiny.  Caius Julius, you say, deflowered the virgin purity of her civil liberties.
Doubtless, then,. Rome had risen immaculate from
The arms of Sylla and of Marius.  But, if it were
Caius Julius who deflowered Rome, if under him she
forfeited her dowery of civic purity, if to him she
first unloosed her maiden zone, then be it affirmed
boldly-that she reserved her greatest favors for
the noblest of her wooers, and we may plead the
justification of Falconbridge for his mother's transgressions with the lion-hearted king - such a sin was
self-ennobled. Did Julius deflower Rome? Then, by
that consummation, he caused her to fulfil the functions of her nature; he compelled her to exchange the
imperfect and inchoate condition of a mere feemina for
the perfections of a muZier.  And metaphor apart,
we maintain that Rome lost no liberties by the mighty
Julius. That which in tendency, and by the spirit of
her institutions; that which, by her very corruptions
and abuses co-operating with her laws, Rome promised




12                THIE CfESALES.
and involved in the germ; even that, and nothing
less or different, did Rome unfold and accomplish
under this Julian violence. The rape [if such it were]
of Caesar, her final Romulus, completed for Rome that
which the rape under Romulus, her earliest Caesar,
had prosperously begun. And thus by one godlike
man was a nation-city matured; and from the everlasting and nameless 3 city was a man produced —
capable of taming her indomitable nature, and of
forcing her to immolate her wild virginity to the state
best fitted for the destined' Mother of empires.'
Peace, then, rhetoricians, false threnodists of false
liberty! hollow chanters over the ashes of a hollow
republic! Without Caesar, we affirm a thousand times
that there would have been no perfect Rome; and,
but for Rome, there could have been no such man as
Caesar.
Both, then, were immortal; each worthy of each,
and the Cui viget nihil simile aut secundum of the
poet, was as true of one as of the other. For, if by
comparison with Rome other cities were but villages,
with even more propriety it may be asserted, that after
the Roman Caesars all modern kings, kesars, or emperors, are mere phantoms of royalty. The Caesar of
W;estern Rome —he only of all earthly potentates,
past or to come, could be said to reign as a monarch,
that is, as a solitary king.  He was not the greatest
(rf iprinces, simply because there was no other but him



THE CSARS.                  I 
self. There were doubtless a few outlying rulers, of
unknown names and titles upon the margins of his
empire, there were tributary lieutenants and barbarous
reguli, the obscure vassals of his sceptre, whose homage was offered on the lowest step of his throne, and
scarcely known to him but as objects of disdain. But
these feudatories could no more break the unity of his
empire, which embraced the whole -t~BE -;i -the total
habitable world as then known to geography, or recognized by the muse of History - than at this day the
British empire on the sea can be brought into question
or made conditional, because some chief of Owyhee
or Tongataboo should proclaim a momentary independence of the British trident, or should even offer a
transient outrage to her sovereign flag.  Such a tempestas in matuld might raise a brief uproar in his little
native archipelago, but too feeble to reach the shores
of Europe by an echo - or to ascend by so much as
an infantine susurrus to the ears of the British Neptune.
Parthia, it is true, might pretend to the dignity of an
empire. But her sovereigns, though sitting in the seat
of the great king, (6 aLXolzEvsg,) were no longer the rulers
of a vast and polished nation.  They were regarded as
barbarians -potent only by their standing army, not
upon the larger basis of civic strength; and, even under
this limitation, they were supposed to owe more to the
circumstances of their position - their climate, their
remoteness, and their inaccessibility except through




14                 THE COSIRS.
arid and sultry deserts- than to intrinsic resources.
such as could be permanently relied on in a serious
trial of strength between the two powers. The kings
of Parthia, therefore, were far enough from  being
regarded in the light of antagonistic forces to the
majesty of Rome. And, these withdrawn from the
comparison, who else was there - what prince, what
king, what potentate of any denomination, to break the
universal calm, that through centuries continued to
lave, as with the quiet undulations of summer lakes,
the sacred footsteps of the Cesarean throne? The
Byzantine court which, merely as the inheritor of
some fragments from that august throne, was drunk
with excess of pride, surrounded itself with elaborate
expressions of grandeur beyond what mortal eyes
were supposed able to sustain.
These fastidious, and sometimes fantastic ceremonies, originally devised as the very extremities of
anti-barbarism, were often themselves but too nearly
allied in spirit to the barbaresque in taste. In reality,
some parts of the Byzantine court ritual were arranged
in the same spirit as that of China or the Burman empire; or fashioned by anticipation, as one might think,
on the practice of that Oriental Cham, who daily
proclaims by sound of trumpet to the kings in the
four corners of the earth - that they, having dutifully
awaited the close of his dinner, may now  with his
royal license go to their own.




THE CASARS.                  1
From such vestiges of derivative grandeur, propagated to ages so remote from itself, and sustained by
manners so different from the spirit of her own, —
we may faintly measure the strength of the original
impulse given to the feelings of men by the sacred
majesty of the Roman throne. How potent must that
splendor have been, whose mere reflection shot rays
upon a distant crown, under another heaven, and
across the wilderness of fourteen centuries! Splendor, thus transmitted, thus sustained, and thus imperishable, argues a transcendent in the basis of radical
power. Broad and deep must those foundations have
been laid, which could support an' arch of empire'
rising to that giddy altitude — an altitude which sufo
ficed to bring it within the ken of posterity to the
sixtieth generation.
Power is measured by resistance. Upon such a
scale, if it were applied with skill, the relations of
greatness in Rome to the greatest of all that has gone
before her, and has yet come after her, would first be
adequately revealed. The youngest reader will know
that the grandest forms in which the collective might
of the human race has manifested itself, are the four
monarchies.  Four times have the distributive forces
of nations gathered themselves, under the strong compression of the sword, into mighty aggregates - denominated Universal Empires, or Monarchies.  These
are noticed in the Holy Scriptures; and it is upon




16                THIE CMSARS.
their warrant that men have supposed no fifth moun
archy or universal empire possible in an earthly sense;
but that, whenever such an empire arises, it will have
Christ for its head; in other words,. that no fifth
monarchia can take place until Christianity shall have
swallowed up all other forms of religion, and shall
have gathered the whole family of man into one fold
under one all-conquering Shepherd.  Hence4 the fanatics of 1650, who proclaimed Jesus for their king,
and who did sincerely anticipate his near advent in
great power, and under some personal manifestation,
were usually styled Fifth-Monarchists.
However, waiving the question (interesting enough
in itself) -Whether upon earthly principles a fifth
universal empire could by possibility arise in the
present condition of knowledge for man individually,
and of organization for man in general - this question
waived, and confining ourselves to the comparison of
those four monarchies which actually have existed,of the Assyrian or earliest, we may remark, that it
found men in no state of cohesion. This cause, which
came in aid of its first foundation, would probably continue; and would diminish the intensity of the power
in the same proportion as it promoted its extension.
This monarchy would be absolute only by the personal
presence of the monarch; elsewhere, from mere defect
of organization, it would and must betray the total
imperfections of an elementary state, and of a first




THE CASSARS.                 17
experiment.  Mofre by the weakness inherent in such
a constitution, than by its own strength, did the
Persian spear prevail against the Assyrian.  Two
centuries revolved, seven or eight generations, when
Alexander found himself in the same position as Cyrus
for building a third monarchy, and aided by the selfsame vices of luxurious effeminacy in his enemy, confronted with the self-same virtues of enterprise and
hardihood in his compatriot soldiers.  The native
Persians, in the earliest and very limited import of that
name, were a poor and hardy race of mountaineers.
So were the men of Macedon; and neither one tribe
nor the other found any adequate resistance in the
luxurious occupants of Babylonia. We may add with
respect to these two earliest monarchies, that the Assyrian was undefined with regard to space, and the
Persian fugitive with regard to time. But for the
third - the Grecian or Macedonian - we know that
the arts of civility, and of civil organization, had made
great progress before the Roman strength was measured
against it. In Macedon, in Achaia, in Syria, in Asia
Minor, in Egypt, -everywhere the members of this
Empire have begun to knit; the cohesion was far
closer, the development of their resources more complete; the resistance therefore by many hundred degrees more formidable: consequently, by the fairest
inference, the power in that proportion greater which
laid the foundation of this last great monarchy.  It is




18                 THE CAESARS.
probable, indeed, both d priori, and upon the evidence
of various facts which have survived, that each of the
four great empires successively triumphed over an
antagonist, barbarous in comparisoii of itself, and each
by and through that very superiority in the arts and
policy of civilization.
Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession,
and swallowed up the three great powers that had
seriatim cast the human race into one mould, and had
brought them under the unity of a single will, entered
by inheritance upon all that its predecessors in that
career had appropriated, but in a condition of far
ampler development. Estimated merely by longitude
and latitude, the territory of the Roman empire was
the finest by much that has ever fallen under a single
sceptre.  Amongst modern empires, doubtless, the
Spanish of the sixteenth century, and the British o,
the present, cannot but be admired as prodigious
growths out of so small a stem.  In that view they
will be endless monuments in attestation of the marvels which are lodged in civilization. But considered
in and for itself, and with no reference to the proportion of the creating forces, each of these empires has
the great defect of being disjointed, and even insusceptible of perfect union.  It is in fact no vinculum of
social organization which held them together, but the
ideal vinculum of a common fealty, and of submission
to the same sceptre.  This is not like the tie of man



THE CAESARS.                1 9
ners, operative even where it is not perceived, but like
the distinctions of geography - existing to-day, forgotten to-morrow —and abolished by a stroke of the
pen, or a trick of diplomacy. Russia, again, a mighty
empire as respects the simple grandeur of magnitude,
builds her power upon sterility, She has it in her
power to seduce an invading foe into vast circles ot
starvation, of which the radii measure a thousand
leagues.  Frost and snow  are confederates of her
strength.  She is strong by her very weakness. But
Rome laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a thousand miles in breadth; and within that zone she comprehended not only all the great cities of the ancient
world, but* so perfectly did she lay the garden of the
world in every climate, and for every mode of natural
wealth, within her own ring-fence, that since that era
no land, no part and parcel of the Roman empire, has
ever risen into strength and opulence, except where
unusual artificial industry has availed to counteract
the tendencies of nature. So entirely had Rome engrossed whatsoever was rich by the mere bounty of
native endowment.
Vast, therefore, unexampled, immeasurable, was the
basis of natural power upon which the Roman throne
reposed. The military force which put Rome in possession of this inordinate power, was certainly in some
respects artificial; but the power itself was natural,
and not subject to the ebbs and flows which attend the




20                 THE CMESAPS.
commercial empires of our days, (for all are in part
commercial.) The depression, the reverses, of Rome,
were confined to one shape — famine; terrific shape,
doubtless, but one which levius its penalty of suffering
not by elaborate processes that do not exhaust their
total cycle in less than long periods of years.  Fortunately for those who survive, no arrears of misery are
allowed by this scourge of ancient days; 5 the total
penalty is paid down at once. As respected the hand
of man, Rome slept for ages in absolute security. She
could suffer only by the wrath of Providence; and, so
long as she continued to be Rome, for many a generation she only of all the monarchies has feared no
mortal hand,6' God and his Son except,
Created thing naught valued she nor shunned.'
That the possessor and wielder of such enormous
power — power alike admirable for its extent, for its
intensity, and for its consecration from all counterforces which could restrain it, or endander it - should
be regarded as sharing in the attributes of supernatural
beings, is no more than might naturally be expected.
All other known power in human hands has either
been extensive, but wanting in intensity - or intense,
but wanting in extent - or, thirdly, liable to permanent control and hazard from some antagonist power
commensurate with itself. But the Roman power, in
its centuries of grandeur, involved every mode of




TIE Ci5SARS. 
strength, with absolute immunity from all kinds and
degrees of weakness. It ought not, therefore, to surprise
us that the emperor, as the depositary of this charmed
power, should have been looked upon as a sacred person, and the imperial family considered as a' divina
domus.'  It is an error to regard this as excess of
adulation, or as built originally upon hypocrisy.  Undoubtedly the expressions of this feeling are sometimes
gross and overcharged, as we find them in the very
greatest of the Roman poets: for example, it shocks
us to find a fine writer, in anticipating the future canonization of his patron, and his enstalment amongst
the heavenly hosts, begging him to keep his distance
warily from this or that constellation, and to be cautious of throwing his weight into either hemisphere,
until the scale of proportions were accurately adjusted.
These doubtless are passages degrading alike to the
poet and his subject.  But why?  Not because they
ascribe to the emperor a sanctity which he had not in
the minds of men universally, or which even to the
writer's feeling was exaggerated, but because it was expressed coarsely, and as a physical power: now, everything physical is measurable by weight, motion, and
resistance; and is therefore definite. But the very essence of whatsoever is supernatural lies in the indefinite.
That power, therefore, with which the minds of men
invested the emperor, was vulgarized by this coarse
translation into the region of physics. Else it is evi.




22                THE CAMSARS.
dent, that any power which, by standing above all
human control, occupies the next relation to superhuman modes of authority, must be invested by all
minds alike with some dim and undefined relation to
the sanctities of the next world. Thus, for instance,
the Pope, as the father of Catholic Christendom, could
not but be viewed with awe by any Christian of deep
feeling, as standing in some relation to the true and
unseen Father of the spiritual body. Nay, considering
that even false religions, as those of Pagan mythology,
have probably never been utterly stripped of all vestige of truth, but that every such mode of error has
perhaps been designed as a process, and adapted by
Providence to the case of those who were capable oI
admitting no more perfect shape of truth; even the
heads of such superstitions (the Dalai Lama, for instance) may not unreasonably be presumed as within
the cognizance and special protection of Heaven.
Much more may this be supposed of him to whose care
was confided the weightier part of the human race;
who had it in his power to promote or to suspend the
progress of human improvement; and of whom, and
the motions of whose will, the very prophets of Judea
took cognizance. No nation, and no king, was utterly
divorced from the councils of God. Palestine, as a
central chamber of God's administration, stood in
some relation to all. It has been remarked, as a mysterious and significant fact, that the founders of the




THE.XSARS                 23
great empires all had some connection, more or less,
with the temple of Jerusalem. Melancthon even observes it in his Sketch of Universal History, as worthy
of notice - that Pompey died, as it were, within sight
of that very temple which he had polluted. Let us
not suppose that Paganism, or Pagan nations, were
therefore excluded from the concern and tender interest of Heaven. They also had their place allowed.
And we may be sure that, amongst them, the Roman
emperor, as the great accountant for the happiness of
more men, and men more cultivated, than ever before
were intrusted to the motions of a single will, had a
special, singular, and mysterious relation to the secret
counsels of Heaven.
Even we, therefore, may lawfully attribute some
sanctity to the Roman emperor. That the Romans
did so with absolute sincerity is certain. The altars
of the emperor had a twofold consecration; to violate
them, was the double crime of treason and heresy. In
his appearances of state and ceremony, the fire, the
sacred fire 7SuotVEvs, was carried in ceremonial solemnity
before him; and every other circumstance of divine
worship attended the emperor in his lifetime.7
To this view of the imperial character and relations
must be added one single circumstance, which in some
measure altered the whole for the individual who
happened to fill the office. The emperor de facto
might be viewed under two aspects; there was the




24                TIHE CEASARS.
man, and there was the office. In his office he was
immortal and sacred: but as a question might still
be raised, by means of a mercenary army, as to the
claims of the particular individual who at any time
filled the office, the very sanctity and privilege of the
character with which he was clothed might actually be
turned against himself; and here it is, at this point,
that the character of Roman emperor became truly
and mysteriously awful. Gibbon has taken notice of
the extraordinary situation of a subject in the Roman
empire who should attempt to fly from the wrath of
the crown. Such was the ubiquity of the emperor
that this was absolutely hopeless. Except amongst
pathless deserts or barbarous nomads, it was impossible to find even a transient sanctuary from the imperial
pursuit. If he went down to the sea, there he met the
emperor: if he took the wings of the morning, and
fled to the uttermost parts of the earth, there also was
the emperor or his lieutenants. But the same omnipresence of imperial anger and retribution which withered the hopes of the poor humble prisoner, met and
confounded the emperor himself, when hurled from his
giddy elevation by some fortunate rival. All the kingdoms of the earth, to one in that situation, became but
so many wards of the same infinite prison.  Flight, if
it were even successful for the moment, did but a little
retard his inevitable doom. And so evident was this,
that hardly in one instance did the fallen prince attempt




THE C.ESARS.                 26
to fly, but passively met the death which was inevitable,
in the very spot where ruin had overtaken him. Neither was it possible even for a merciful conqueror to
show mercy; for, in the presence of an army so mercenary and factious, his own safety was but too deeply
involved in the extermination of rival pretenders to
the crown.
Such, amidst the sacred security and inviolability of
the office, was the hazardous tenure of the individual.
Nor did his dangers always arise from persons in the
rank of competitors and rivals. Sometimes it menaced
him in quarters which his eye had never penetrated,
and fiom enemies too obscure to have reached his ear.
By way of illustration we will cite a case from the life
of the Emperor Commodus, which is wild enough to
have furnished the plot of a romance - though as well
authenticated as any other passage in that reign. The
story is narrated by Herodian, and the circumstances
are these:- A slave of noble qualities, and of magnificent person, having liberated himself from the
degradations of bondage, determined to avenge his
own wrongs by inflicting continual terror upon the
town and neighborhood which had witnessed his humiliation. For this purpose he resorted to the woody
recesses of the province, (somewhere in the modern
Transylvania,) and, attracting to his wild encampment.
as many fugitives as he could, by degrees he succeeded
in forming and training a very formidable troop of free3




26                THE CASARS,
booters. Partly from the energy of his own nature,
and partly from the neglect and remissness of the provincial magistrates, the robber captain rose from less to
more, until he had formed a little army, equal to the
task of assaulting fortified cities. In this stage of his
adventures, he encountered and defeated several of
the imperial officers commanding large detachments of
troops; and at length grew of consequence sufficient to
draw upon himself the emperor's eye, and the honor of
his personal displeasure. In high wrath and disdain at
the insults offered to his eagles by this fugitive slave,
Commodus fulminated against him such an edict as left
him no hope of much longer escaping with impunity.
Public vengeance was now awakened; the imperial
troops were marching from every quarter upon the
same centre; and the slave became sensible that in a
very short space of time he must be surrounded and
destroyed. In this desperate situation he took a desperate resolution: he assembled his troops, laid before
them his plan, concerted the various steps for carrying
it into effect, and then dismissed them as independent
wanderers. So ends the first chapter of the tale.
The next opens in the passes of the Alps, whither
by various routes, of seven or eight hundred miles in
extent, these men had threaded their way in manifold
disguises through the very midst of the emperor's
camps. According to this man's gigantic enterprise,
in which the means were as audacious as the purpose,




TrE CSARx.                    27
the conspirators were to rendezvous, and first to recognize each other at the gates of Rome. From the Danube
to the Tiber did this band of robbers severally pursue
their perilous routes through all the difficulties of the
road and the jealousies of the military stations, sustained by the mere thirst of vengeance -  vengeance
against that mighty foe whom they knew only by his
proclamations against themselves.  Everything continued to prosper; the conspirators met under the walls
of Rome; the final details were arranged; and those
also would have'prospered but for a trifling accident.
The season was one of general carnival at Rome; and,
by the help of those disguises which the license of this
festal time allowed, the murderers were to have penetrated as maskers to the emperor's retirement, when a
casual word or two awoke the suspicions of a sentinel.
One of the conspirators was arrested; under the terror
and uncertainty of the moment he made much ampler
discoveries than were expected of him; the other
accomplices were secured: and Comnmodus was delivered from the uplifted daggers of those who had sought
him by months of patient wanderings, pursued through
all the depths of the Illyrian forests, and the difficulties
of the Alpine passes. It is not easy to find words commensurate to the energetic hardihood of a slave - who,
by way of answer and reprisal to an edict which con
signed him to persecution and death, determines to
cross Europe in quest of its author, though no less a




28                 THE CiESARS.
person than the master of the world - to seek him out
in the inner recesses of his capital city and his private
palace - and there to lodge a dagger in his heart, as
the adequate reply to the imper ial sentence of proscription against himself.
Such, amidst his superhum-n grandeur and consecrated powers of the Roman emperor's office, were the
extraordinary perils which menaced the individual, and
the peculiar frailties of his condition.  Nor is it possible that these circumstances of violent opposition can
be better illustrated than in this tale of Herodian.
Whilst the emperor's mighty arms were stretched out
to arrest some potentate in the heart of Asia, a poor
slave is silently and stealthily creeping round the base
of the Alps, with the purpose of winning his way as a
murderer to the imperial bedchamber; Caesar is watching some mighty rebel of the Orient, at a distance of
two thousand leagues, and he overlooks the dagger
which is at his own heart.  In short, all the heights
and the depths which belong to man as aspirers, all the
contrasts of glory and meanness, the extremities of
what is highest and lowest in human possibility, - all
met in the situation of the Roman Caesars, and have
combined to make them the most interesting studies
which history has furnished.
This, as a general proposition, will be readily admitted.  But meantime, it is remarkable that no field
has been less trodden than the private memorials of




THE CMESARS.                  29
those very Caesars; whilst at the same time it is equally
remarkable, in concurrence with that subject for wonder, that precisely with the first of the Caesars commences the first page of what in modern times we
understand by anecdotes.  Suetonius is the earliest
writer in that department of biography; so far as we
know, he may be held first to have devised it as a
mode of history. The six writers, whose sketches
are collected under the general title of the Augustan
History, followed in the same track. Though full of
entertainment, and of the most curious researches,
they are all of them entirely unknown, except to a
few elaborate scholars.  We purpose to collect from
these obscure but most interesting memorialists, a few
sketches and biographical portraits of these great
princes, whose public life is sometimes known, but
very rarely any part of their private and personal
history.  We must, of course, commence with the
mighty founder of the Caesars. In his case we cannot
expect so much of absolute novelty as in that of those
who succeed. But if, in this first instance, we are
forced to touch a little upon old things, we shall confine ourselves as much as possible to those which are
susceptible of new aspects. For the whole gallery of
those who follow, we can undertake that the memorials
which we shall bring forward, may be looked upon as
belonging pretty much to what has hitherto been a
sealed book.




SO                TIE  CAESARS.
CHAPTER I.
TnY, character of the first Causar has perhaps never
been worse appreciated than by him who in one sense
described it best - that is, with most force and eloquence wherever he really did comprehend it. This
was Lucan, who has nowhere exhibited more brilliant
rhetoric, nor wandered more from the truth, than in
the contrasted portraits of Coesar and Pompey. The
famous line,'Nil actum reputans si quid superesset
agendum,' is a fine feature of the real character, finely
expressed.  But if it had been Lucan's purpose (as
possibly, with a view to Pompey's benefit, in some
respects it was) utterly and extravagantly to falsify
the character of the great Dictator, by no single trait
could he more effectually have fulfilled that purpose,
nor in fewer words, than by this expressive passage,' Gaudensque viam fecisse ruind.'  Such a trait would
be almost extravagant applied even to Marius, who
(though in many respects a perfect model of Roman
grandeur, massy, columnar, imperturbable, and more
perhaps than any one man recorded in history capable
of justifying the bold illustration of that character in
Horace,' Sifractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient




TUE CXSARS.                  31
ruince,) had, however, a ferocity in his character, and a
touch of the devil in him, very rarely united with the
same tranquil intrepidity. But for Caesar, the allaccomplished statesman, the splendid orator, the man
of elegant habits and polished taste, the patron of the
fine arts in a degree transcending all examples of his
own or the previous age, and as a man of general
literature so much beyond his contemporaries, except
Cicero, that he looked down even upon the brilliant
Sylla as an illiterate person, -to class such a man
with the race of furious destroyers exulting in the
desolations they spread, is to err not by an individual
trait, but by the whole genus.  The Attilas and the
Tamerlanes, who rejoice in avowing themselves the
scourges of God, and the special instruments of his
wrath, have no one feature of affinity to the polished
and humane Caesar, and would as little have compre.
hended his character, as he could have respected theirs.
Even Cato, the unworthy hero of Lucan, might have
suggested to him a little more truth in this instance,
by a celebrated remark which he made on the characteristic distinction of Caesar, in comparison with other
revolutionary disturbers; for, whereas others had attempted the overthrow  of the state in a continued
paroxysm of fury, and in a state of mind resembling
the lunacy of intoxication, that Caesar, on the contrary,
among that whole class of civil disturbers, was the only
one who had come to the task in a temper of sobriety




32                 THE C.SAIRS.
and moderation, (unum accessisse sobrium ad rempubli.
cam delendam.)
In reality, Lucan did not think as he wrote. He
had a purpose to serve; and in an age when to act
like a freeman was no longer possible, he determined
at least to write in that character. It is probable,
also, that he wrote with a vindictive or malicious feeling towards Nero; and, as the single means he had for
gratifying that, resolved upon sacrificing the grandeur
of Caesar's character wherever it should be found possible. Meantime, in spite of himself, Lucan for ever
betrays his lurking consciousness of the truth. Nor
are there any testimonies to Caesar's vast superiority
more memorably pointed, than those which are indirectly and involuntarily extorted from this Catonic
poet, by the course of his narration. Never, for example, was there within the same compass of words, a
more emphatic expression of Caesar's essential and
inseparable grandeur of thought, which could not be
disguised or be laid aside for an instant, than is found
in the three casual words — Indocilis privata loqui.
The very mould, it seems, by Lucan's confession, of
his trivial conversation was regal; nor could he, even
to serve a purpose, abjure it for so much as a casual
purpose. The acts of Caesar speak also the same langua.ge; and as these are less susceptible of a false
coloring than the features of a general character, we
find this poet of liberty, in the midst of one continue




THE CIESARS.                  33
ous effort to distort the truth, and to dress up two
scenical heroes, forced by the mere necessities of history into a reluctant homage to Caesar's supremacy of
moral grandeur.
Of so great a man it must be interesting to know
all the well attested opinions which bear upon topics
of universal interest to human nature: as indeed no
others stood much chance of preservation, unless it
were fromas minute and curious a collector of anecdotage as Suetonius. And, first, it would be gratifying
to know the opinion of Caesar, if he had any peculiar
to himself, on the great theme of Religion.  It has
been held, indeed, that the constitution of his mind,
and the general cast of his character, indisposed him
to religious thoughts. Nay, it has been common to
class him amongst deliberate atheists; and some well
known anecdotes are current in books, which illustrate
his contempt for the vulgar class of auguries. In this,
however, he wvent no farther than Cicero, and other
great contemporaries, who assuredly were no atheists.
One mark perhaps of the wide interval which, in
Caesar's age, had begun to separate the Roman nobility
from the hungry and venal populace who were daily
put up to sale, and bought by the highest bidder,
manifested itself in the increasing disdain for the
tastes and ruling sympathies of the lowest vulgar.
No mob could be more abjectly servile than was that
of Rome to the superstition of portents, prodigies, and




34                THE Ci SARS.
omens. Thus far, in common with his order, and in
this sense, Julius Caesar was naturally a despiser of
superstition.  Mere strength of understanding would,
perhaps, have made him so in any age, and apart from
the circumstances of his personal history. This natural tendency in him  would  doubtless receive a
further bias in the same direction from the office of
Pontifex Maximus, which he held at an early stage of
his public career. This office, by letting him too much
behind the curtain, and exposing too entirely the base
machinery of ropes and pulleys, which sustained the
miserable jugglery played off upon the popular
credulity, impressed him  perhaps even unduly with
contempt for those who could be its dupes. And we
may add, that Caesar was constitutionally, as well as
by accident of position, too much a man of the world,
had too powerful a leaning to the virtues of active life,
was governed by too partial a sympathy with the
whole class of active forces in human nature, as contradistinguished firom  those which tend to contemplative purposes, under any circumstances, to have
become a profound believer, or a steadfast reposer of
his fears and anxieties, in religious influences. A mal,
of the world is but another designation for a man
indisposed to religious awe or contemplative enthusiasm.  Still it is a doctrine which we cherish- that
grandeur of mind in any one department whatsoever,
supposing only that it exists in excess, disposes a man




THE C SARS.                    35
to some degree of sympathy with all other grandeur,
however alien in its quality or different in its form.
And upon this ground we presume the great Dictator
to have had an interest in religious themes by mere
compulsion of his own  extraordinary elevation of
mind, after making the fullest allowance for the special quality of that mind, which did certainly, to the
whole extent of its characteristics, tend entirely to
estrange him  from  such themes.  We find, accordingly, that though sincerely a despiser of superstition,
and with a frankness which must sometimes have been
hazardous in that age, Caesar was himself also superstitious. No man could have been otherwise who lived
and conversed with that generation of people. But if
superstitious, he was so after a mode of his own. In
his very infirmities Caesar manifested his greatness:
his very littlenesses were noble.' Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre.'
That he placed some confidence in dreams, for instance, is certain: because, had he slighted them
unreservedly, he would not have dwelt upon them
afterwards, or have troubled himself to recall their
circumstances.  Here we trace his human weakness.
Yet again we are reminded that it was the weakness of
Caesar; for the dreams were noble in their imagery,
and Caeearean (so to speak) in their tone of moral
feeling. Thus, for example, the night before he was
assassinated, he dreamt at intervals that he was soar



36                THE CASARS.
ing above the clouds on wings, and that he placed hiL
hand within the right hand of Jove. It would seem
that perhaps some obscure and half-formed image
floated in his mind, of the eagle, as the king of birds;
secondly, as the tutelary emblem under which his
conquering legions had so often obeyed his voice; and,
thirdly, as the bird of Jove. To this triple relation of
the bird his dream covertly appears to point. And a
singular coincidence appears between this dream and
a little anecdote brought down to us, as having actually occurred in Rome about twenty-four hours
before his death. A little bird, which by some is represented as a very small kind of sparrow, but which,
both to the Greeks and the Romans, was known by a
name implying a regal station (probably from the ambitious courage which at times prompted it to attack
the eagle), was observed to direct its flight towards
the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst a
crowd of other birds were seen to hang upon its flight
in close pursuit. What might be the object of the
chase, whether the little king himself, or a sprig of
laurel which he bore in his mouth, could not be determined. The whole train, pursuers and pursued, continued their flight towards Pompey's hall.  Flight
and pursuit were there alike arrested; the little king
was overtaken by his enemies, who fell upon him
as so many conspirators, and tore him limb from
limb.




TH.E CmESARS.                37
If this anecdote were reported to Caesar, which is
not at all improb,.nble, considering the earnestness with
which his friends labored to dissuade him from his
purpose of meeting the senate on the approaching
Ides of March, it is very little to be doubted that it
had a considerable effect upon his feelings, and that,
in fact, his own dream grew out of the impression
which it had made. This way of linking the two
anecdotes as cause and effect, would also bring a
third anecdote under the same nexus. We are told
that Calpurnia, the last wife of Caesar, dreamed on the
same night, and to the same ominous result. The
circumstances of her dream are less striking, because
less figurative; but on that account its import was less
open to doubt: she dreamed, in fact, that after the
roof of their mansion had fallen in, her husband was
stabbed in her bosom. Laying all these omens together, Caesar would have been more or less than
human had he continued utterly undepressed by them.
And if so much superstition as even this implies, must
be taken to argue some little weakness, on the other
hand let it not be forgotten, that this very weakness
does but the more illustrate the unusual force of mind,
and the heroic will, which obstinately laid aside these
concurring prefigurations of impending destruction;
concurring, we say, amongst themselves - and concurring also with a prophecy of older date, which
was totally independent of them all.




38                 THE C2ESARS.
There is another and somewhat sublime story of the
same class, which belongs to the most interesting
moment of Caesar's life; and those who are disposed
to explain all such tales upon physiological principles,
will find an easy solution of this, in particular, in the
exhaustion of body, and the intense anxiety which
must have debilitated even Caesar under the whole
circumstances of the case.  On the ever memorable
night, when he had resolved to take the first step (and
in such a case the first step, as regarded the power of
retreating, was also the final step) which placed him
in arms against the state, it happened that his headquarters were at some distance from the little river
Rubicon, which formed the boundary of his province.
With his usual caution, that no news of his motions
might run before himself, on this night Caesar gave an
entertainment to his friends, in the midst of which he
slipped away unobserved, and with' a small retinue
proceeded through the woods to the point of the river
at which he designed to cross. The night8 was stormy,
and by the violence of the wind all the torches of his
escort were blown out, so that the whole party lost
their road, having probably at first intentionally deviated from the main route, and wandered about through
the whole night, until the early dawn enabled them to
recover their true course. The light was still gray and
uncertain, as Cmsar and his retinue rode down upon
the banks of the fatal river- to -cross which with arms




THE COESARS.                 39
in his hands, since the further bank lay within the territory of the Republic, ipso facto, proclaimed any
Roman a rebel and a traitor.  No man, the firmest or
the most obtuse, could be otherwise than deeply agitated, when looking down upon this little brook -so
insignificant in itself, but invested by law with a sanctity so awful, and so dire a consecration. The whole
course of future history, and the fate of every nation,
would necessarily be determined by the irretrievable
act of the next half hour.
In these moments, and with this spectacle before
him, and contemplating these immeasurable consequences consciously for the last time that could allow
him a retreat, - impressed also by the solemnity and
deep tranquillity of the silent dawn, whilst the exhaustion of his night wanderings predisposed him  to
nervous irritation, - Caesar, we may be sure, was
profoundly agitated.  The whole elements of the
scene were almost scenically disposed; the law of
antagonism having perhaps never been employed with
so much effect: the little quiet brook presenting a
direct antithesis to its grand political character; and
the innocent dawn, with its pure, untroubled repose,
contrasting potently, to a man of any intellectual sensibility, with the long chaos of bloodshed, darkness
and anarchy, which was to take its rise from  the
apparently trifling acts of this one morning.  So prepared, we need not much wonder at what followed




40                TIE CAESARS.
Cesar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when
suddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an
apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a flute. This phantom
was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human,
so far as its lineaments could be traced in the early
dawn. What is singular, however, in the story, on
any hypothesis which would explain it out of Caesar's
individual condition, is, that others saw it as well as he;
both pastoral laborers, (who were present, probably in
the character of guides,) and some of the sentinels
stationed at the passage of the river.  These men
fancied even that a strain of music issued from this
aerial flute. And some, both of the shepherds and
the Roman soldiers, who were bolder than the rest,
advanced towards the figure. Amongst this party, it
happened that there were a few Roman trumpeters.
From one of these, the phantom, rising as they advanced nearer, suddenly caught a trumpet, and blowing through it a blast of superhuman strength, plunged
into the Rubicon, passed to the other bank, and disappeared in the dusky twilight of the dawn. Upon
which Cmesar exclaimed: - It is finished - the die is
east - let us follow whither the guiding portents from
Heaven, and the malice of our enemy, alike summon
us to go.' So saying, he crossed the river with impetuosity; and, in a sudden rapture of passionate and
vindictive ambition, placed himself and his retinue




THE CiESARS.                 41
upon the Italian soil; and, as if by inspiration from
Heaven, in one moment involved himself and his followers in treason, raised the standard of revolt, put
his foot upon the neck of the invincible republic which
had humbled all the kings of the earth, and founded
an empire which was to last for a thousand and hal'
a thousand years. In what manner this spectral appearance was managed - whether Czesar were its
author, or its dupe- will remain unknown for ever.
But undoubtedly this was the first time that the
advanced guard of a victorious army was headed by
an apparition; and we may conjecture that it will
be the last.9
In the mingled yarn of human life, tragedy is never
far asunder from farce; and it is amusing to retrace in
immediate succession to this incident of epic dignity,
which has its only parallel by the way in the case of
Vasco de Gama, (according to the narrative of Camoens,) when met and confronted by a sea phantom
whilst attempting to double the Cape of Storms,
(Cape of Good Hope,) a ludicrous passage, in which
one felicitous blunder did Casar a better service than
all the truths which Greece and Rome could have
furnished.  In our own experience, we once witnessed
a blunder about as gross. The present Chancellor, in
his first electioneering contest with the Lowthers, upon
some occasion where he was recriminating upon the
other party, and complaining that stratagems, which
4




42                THE C-CSARS.
they might practise with impunity, were denied to him
and his, happened to point the moral of his complaint,
by alleging the old adage, that one man might steal
a horse with more hope of indulgence than another
could look over the hedge. W5hereupon, by benefit
of the universal mis-hearing in the outermost ring
of the audience, it became generally reported that
Lord Lowther had once been engaged in an affair of
horse stealing; and that he, Henry tBrougham, could
(had he pleased) have lodged an information against
him, seeing that he was then looking over the hedge.
And this charge naturally won the more credit, because it was notorious and past denying that his
lordship was a capital horseman, fond of horses, and
much connected with the turf. To this hour, therefore, amongst some worthy shepherds and others, it is
a received article of their creed, and (as they justly
observe in northern pronunciation) a shlamful thing
to be told, that Lord Lowther was once a horse
stealer, and that he escaped lagging by reason of
Harry Brougham's pity for his tender years and hopeful looks. Not less was the blunder, which, on the
banks of the Rubicon, befriended Casar.  Immediately after crossing, he harangued the troops whom
ne had sent forward, and others who there met him
from the neighboring garrison of Ariminium.  The
tribunes of the people, those great officers of the
democracy, corresponding by some of their functions




THE C2ESARS.                 43
to our House of Commons, men personally, and by
their position in the state, entirely in his interest,
and who, for his sake, had fled from  home, there
and then he produced to the soldiery; thus identified
his cause, and that of the soldiers, with the cause of
the people of Rome and of Roman liberty; and perhaps with needless rhetoric attempted to conciliate
those who were by a thousand ties and by claims
innumerable, his own already; for never vet has it
been found, that with the soldier, who, from youth
upwards, passes his life in camps, could the duties or
the interests of citizens survive those stronger and
more personal relations connecting him with his
military superior. In the course of this harangue,
Caesar often raised his left hand with Demosthenic
action,. and once or twice he drew off the ring, which
every Roman gentleman - simply as such - wore as
the inseparable adjunct and symbol of his rank. By
this action lie wished to give emphasis to the accompanying words, in which he protested, that, sooner
than fail in satisfying and doing justice to any the
least of those who heard him and followed his fortunes, he would be content to part with his own
birthright, and to forego his dearest claims. This
was what he really said; but the outermost circles
of his auditors, who rather saw his gestures than
distinctly heard his words, carried off the notion,
(which they were careful everywhere to  disperse




44                 THE CcESARS.
amongst the legions afterwards associated with them
in the same camps,) that Caesar had vowed never to
lay down his arms until he had obtained for every
man, the very meanest of those who heard him, the
rank, privileges and appointments of a Roman knight
Here was a piece of sovereign good luck. Had he
really made such a promise, Ceesar might have found
that he had laid himself under very embarrassing
obligations; but, as the case stood, he had, through
all his following campaigns, the total benefit of such a
promise, and yet could always absolve himself from
the penalties of responsibility which it imposed, by
appealing to the evidence of those who happened to
stand in the first ranks of his audience. The blunder
was gross and palpable; and yet, with the unreflecting
and dull-witted soldier, it did him service greater than
all the subtilties of all the schools could have accomplished, and a service which subsisted to the end of
the war.
Great as Caesar was by the benefit of his original
nature, there can be no doubt that he, like others,
owed something to circumstances; and, perhaps,
amongst those which were most favorable to the premature  development of great self-dependence, we
must reckon the early death of his father.  It is, o2
it is not, according to the nature of men, an advantage to be orphaned at an early age. Perhaps utter
orphanage is rarely or never such: but to lose a father




THE C0ESARS.                  45
betimes profits a strong mind greatly.  To Caesar it
was a prodigious benefit that he lost his father when
not much more than fifteen.  Perhaps it was an advantage also to his father that he died thus early.
Had he stayed a year longer, he would have seen
nimself despised, baffled, and made ridiculous. For
where, let us ask, in any age, was the father capable
of adequately sustaining that relation to the unique
Caius Julius —to him, in the appropriate language
of Shakspeare,' The foremost man of all this world?'
And, in this fine and Caesarean line,'this world' is
to be understood not of the order of co-existences
merely, but also of the order of successions; he was
the foremost man not only of his contemporaries, but
also of men generally - of all that ever should come
after him, or should sit on thrones under the denominations of Czars, Kesars, or Caesars of the Bosphorus
and the Danube; of all in every age that should
inherit his supremacy of mind, or should subject to
themselves the generations of ordinary men by qualities analogous to his. Of this infinite superiority
some part must be ascribed to his early emancipation
from paternal control.  There are very many cases in
which, simply from  considerations of sex, a female
cannot stand forward as the head of a family, or as its
suitable representative.  If there are even ladies paramount, and in situations of command, they are also




46                 THE CAESARS.
women. The staff of authority does not annihilate
their sex; and scruples of female delicacy interfere
fox ever to unnerve and emasculate in their hands the,~ceptre however otherwise potent.  Hence we see, in
noble families, the merest boys put forward to repre.
sent the family dignity, as fitter supporters of that
burden than their mature mothers.  And of Caesar's
mother, though little is recorded, and that little incidentally, this much, at least, we learn - that, if she
looked down upon him with maternal pride and delight, she looked up to him with female ambition as
the re-edifier of her husband's honors, with reverence
as to a column of the Roman grandeur, and with fear
and feminine anxieties as to one whose aspiring spirit
carried him but too prematurely into the fields of
adventurous honor. One slight and evanescent sketch
of the relations which subsisted between Caesar and
his mother, caught from the wrecks of time, is preserved both by Plutarch and Suetonius. WTe see in
the early dawn the young patrician standing upon the
steps of his paternal portico, his mother with her arms
wreathed about his neck, looking up to his noble
countenance, sometimes drawing auguries of hope
from features so fitted for command, sometimes boding
an early blight to promises so prematurely magnificent. That she had something of her son's aspiring
character, or that he presumed so much in a mother
of his, we learn from the few words which survive of




THEE CESARS.                 47
their conversation.  He addressed to her no language
that could tranquillize her fears.  On the contrary, to
any but a Roman mother his valedictory words, taken
in connection with the known determination of his
character, were of a nature to consummate her depression, as they tended to confirm the very worst of
her fears.  He was then going to stand his chance in
a popular election for an office of dignity, and to
launch himself upon the storms of the Campus Martius. At that period, besides other and more ordinary
dangers, the bands of gladiators, kept in the pay of
the more ambitious amongst the Roman nobles, gave
a popular tone of ferocity and of personal risk to the
course of such contests; and either to forestall the
victory of an antagonist, or to avenge their own defeat,
it was not at all impossible that a body of incensed
competitors might intercept his final triumph by assassination. For this danger, however, he had no leisure
in his thoughts of consolation; the sole danger which
he contemplated, or supposed his mother to contemplate, was the danger of defeat, and for that he reserved his consolations.  He bade her fear nothing;
for that without doubt he would return with victory,
and with the ensigns of the dignity he sought, or
would return a corpse.
Early, indeed, did Caesar's trials commence; and it
is probable, that, had not the death of his father,
by throwing him prematurely upon his own resources,




48                THE CaSARS.
prematurely developed the masculine features of his
character, forcing him whilst yet a boy under the
discipline of civil conflict and the yoke of practical life,
even his energies would have been insufficient to
sustain them. His age is not exactly ascertained,
but it is past a doubt that he had not reached his
twentieth year when he had the hardihood to engage
in a struggle with Sylla, then Dictator, and exercising
the immoderate powers of that office with the license
and the severity which history has made so memorable.
He had neither any distinct grounds of hope, nor any
eminent example at that time, to countenance him
in this struggle - which yet he pushed on in the most
uncompromising style, and to the utmost verge of
defiance. The subject of the contrast gives it a further interest. It was the youthful wife of the youthful
Cmesar who stood under the shadow of the great
Dictator's displeasure; not personally, but politically,
on account of her connections; and her it was, Cornelia, the daughter of a man who had been four times
consul, that Caesar was required to divorce; but he
spurned the haughty mandate, and carried his determination to a triumphant issue, notwithstanding his
life was at stake, and at one time saved only by
shifting his place of concealment every night; and
this young lady it was who afterwards became the
mother of his only daughter.  Both mother and
daughter, it is remarkable, perished prematurely, and




THE CESARS.                49
at critical periods of Caesar's life; for it is probable
enough that these irreparable wounds to Cmsar's domestic affections threw him with more exclusiveness
of devotion upon the fascinations of glory and ambition
than might have happened under a happier condition
of his private life. That Caesar should have escaped
destruction in this unequal contest with an enemy then
wielding the whole thunders of the state, is somewhat
surprising; and historians have sought their solution
of the mystery in the powerful intercessions of the
vestal virgins, and several others of high rank amongst
the connections of his great house. These may have
done something; but it is due to Sylla, who had
a sympathy with everything truly noble, to suppose
him struck with powerful admiration for the audacity
of the young patrician, standing out in such severe
solitude among so many examples of timid concession;
and that to this magnanimous feeling in the Dictator,
much of his indulgence was due. In fact, according
to some accounts, it was not Sylla, but the creatures of
Sylla (adjutores), who pursued Caesar. AWe know,
at all events, that Sylla formed a right estimate of
Caesar's character, and that, from the complexion of
his conduct in this one instance, he drew his famous
prophecy of his future destiny; bidding his friends
beware of that slipshod boy,'for that in him lay
couchant many a Marius.' A grander testimony to
the awe which Caesar inspired, or from one who knew
5




50                THE CZESARS.
better the qualities of that man by whom he measured
him, cannot be imagined.
It is not our intention, or consistent with our plan,
to pursue this great man through the whole circumstances of his romantic career; though it is certain
that many parts of his life require investigation much
keener than has ever been applied to them, and that
many might easily be placed in a new light. Indeed,
the whole of this most momentous section of ancient
history ought to be recomposed with the critical scepticism  of a Niebuhr, and the same  comprehensive
collation of authorities. In reality it is the hinge upon
which turned the future destiny of the whole earth;
and having therefore a common relation to all modern
nations whatsoever, should naturally have been cultivated with the zeal which belongs to a personal concern. In general, the anecdotes which express most
vividly the splendid character of the first Cmesar, are
those which illustrate his defiance of danger in extremity; the prodigious energy and rapidity of his
decisions and motions in the field; the skill with
which he penetrated the designs of his enemies, and
the exemplary speed with which he provided a remedy
for disasters; the extraordinary presence of mind
which he showed in turning, adverse omens to his own
advantage, as when, upon stumbling in coming on
shore, (which was esteemed a capital omen of evil,)
he transfigured as it were in one instant its whole




TIHE CIESARS.                61
meaning by exclaiming,'Thus do I take possession of thee, oh Africa!' in that way giving to an
accident the semblance of a symbolic purpose; the
grandeur of fortitude with which he faced the whole
extent of a calamity when palliation could do no good,' non negando, minuendove, sed insuper amplificando,
ementiendoque;' as when, upon finding his soldiery
alarmed at the approach of Juba, with forces really
great, but exaggerated by their terrors, he addressed
them in a military harangue to the following effect:'Know that within a few days the king will come up
with us, bringing with him sixty thousand legionaries,
thirty thousand cavalry, one hundred thousand light
troops, besides three hundred elephants. Such being
the case, let me hear no more of conjectures and
opinions, for you have now my warrant for the fact,
whose information is past doubting. Therefore, be
satisfied; otherwise, I will put every man of you on
board some crazy old fleet, and whistle you down the
tide - no matter under what winds, no matter towards
what shore.' Finally, we might seek for the characteristic anecdotes of Cresar in his unexampled liberalities and contempt of money.10
Upon  this last topic it is the just remark of
Casaubon, that some instances of Caesar's munificence
have been thought apocryphal, or to rest upon false
readings, simply from ignorance of the heroic scale
upon which the Roman splendors of that age pro



52                THE CmESARS.
ceeded. A forum which Caesar built out of the products of his last campaign, by way of a present to the
Roman people, cost him -for the ground merely on
which it stood — nearly  eight hundred thousand
pounds. To the citizens of Rome (perhaps 300,000
persons) he presented, in one congiary, about two
guineas and a half a head. To his army, in one
donation, upon the termination of the civil war, he
gave a sum which allowed about two hundred pounds
a man to the infantry, and four hundred to the cavalry.
It is true that the legionary troops were then much
reduced by the sword of the enemy, and by the
tremendous hardships of their last campaigns. In this,
however, he did perhaps no more than repay a debt.
For it is an instance of military attachment, beyond all
that Wallenstein or any commander, the m-)st beloved
amongst his troops, has ever experienced, that, on the
breaking out of the civil war, not only did the centurions of every legion severally maintain a horse
soldier, but even the privates volunteered to serve
without pay - and (what might seem impossible) without their daily rations. This was accomplished by
subscriptions amongst themselves, the more opulent
undertaking for the maintenance of the needy. Their
disinterested love for Caesar appeared in another and
more difficult illustration; it was a traditionary anecdote in Rome, that the majority of those amongst
Csesar's troops, who had the misfortune to fall into the




THE CESARS.                   53
enemy's hlands, refused to accept their lives under the
condition of serving against him.
In connection with this subject of his extraordinary
munificence, there is one aspect of Caesar's life which
has suffered much from the misrepresentations of historians, and that is -the vast pecuniary embarrassments under which he labored, until the profits of war
had turned the scale even more prodigiously in his
favor. At one time of his life, when appointed to a
foreign office, so numerous and so clamorous were his
creditors, that he could not have left Rome on his
public duties, had not Crassus come forward with
assistance in money, or by promises, to the amount of
nearly two hundred thousand pounds. And at another,
he was accustomed to amuse himself with computing
how much money it would require to make him worth
exactly nothing (i. e. simply to clear him of debts);
this, by one account, amounted to upwards of twe
millions sterling. Now the error of historians has
been - to represent these debts as the original ground
of his ambition and his revolutionary projects, as though
the desperate condition of his private affairs had suggested a civil war to his calculations as the best or
only mode of redressing it. But, on the contrary, his
debts were the product of his ambition, and contracted
from first to last in the service of his political intrigues,
for raising and maintai-ning a powerful body of partisls, both in Rome and elsewhere.  Whosoever,




54                 THE CfStARS.
indeed, will take the trouble to investigate the progress
of Cuesar's ambition, from such materials as even yet
remain, may satisfy himself that the scheme of revolutionizing the Republic, and placing himself at its
head, was no growth of accident or circumstances;
above all, that it did not arise upon any so petty and
indirect an occasion as that of his debts; but that
his debts were in their very first origin purely ministerial to his ambition; and that his revolutionary
plans were at all periods of his life a direct and foremost object.  In this there was in reality no want of
patriotism; it had become evident to every-body that
Rome, under its present constitution, must fall; and
the sole question was - by whom? Even Pompey,
not by nature of an aspiring turn, and prompted to his
ambitious course undoubtedly by circumstances and
the friends who besieged him, was in the habit of saying,' Sylla potuit, ego non potero?' And the fact
was, that if, from the death of Sylla, Rome recovered
some transient show of constitutional integrity, that
happened not by any lingering virtue that remained in
her republican forms, but entirely through the equilibrium and mechanical counterpoise of rival factions.
In a case, therefore, where no benefit of choice was
allowed to Rome as to the thing, but only as to the
person - where a revolution was certain, and the point
left open to doubt simply by whom that revolution
should be accomplished - Caesar had (to say the least)




THE CESARS.                  55
the sanme right to enter the arena in the character of
candidate as could belong to any one of his rivals,
And that he did enter that arena constructively, and
by secret design, from his very earliest manhood, may
be gathered from this - that he suffered no openings
towards a revolution, provided they had any hope
in them, to escape his participation. It is familiarly
known that he was engaged pretty deeply in the conspiracy of Catiline,ll and that he incurred considerable
risk on that occasion; but it is less known, and has
indeed escaped the notice of historians generally, that
ne was a party to at least two other conspiracies.
There was even a fourth meditated by Crassus, which
Caesar so far encouraged as to undertake a journey to
Rome from a very distant quarter, merely with a view
to such chances as it might offer to him; but as it did
not, upon examination, seem to him a very promising
scheme, he judged it best to look coldly upon it, or not
to embark in it by any personal co-operation. Upon
these and other facts we build our inference- that the
scheme of a revolution was the one great purpose of
Caesar, from his first entrance upon public life. Nor
does it appear that he cared much by whom it was
undertaken, provided only there seemed to be any
sufficient resources for carr'ying it through, and for
sustaining the first collision with the regular forces of
the existing government. He relied, it seems, on his
own personal superiority for raising him to the head of




56                THE C2ESARS.
affairs eventually, let who would take the nominal lead
at first. To the same result, it will be found, tended
the vast stream  of Caesar's liberalities.  From  the
senator downwards to the lowest fax Romuli, he had
a hired body of dependents, both in and out of Rome,
equal in numbers to a nation. In the provinces, and
in distant kingdoms, he pursued the same schemes.
Everywhere he had a body of mercenary partisans;
kings are known to have taken his pay. And it is
remarkable that even in his character of commander-inchief, where the number of legions allowed to him for
the accomplishment of his mission raised him for a
number of years above all fear of coercion or control,
he persevered steadily in the same plan of providing
for the day when he might need assistance, not from
the state, but against the state. For amongst the
private anecdotes which came to light under the researches made into his history after his death, was
this - that, soon after his first entrance upon his government in Gaul, he had raised, equipped, disciplined,
and maintained from his own private funds, a legion
amounting, perhaps, to six or seven thousand men,
who were bound by no sacrament of military obedience
to the state, nor owed fealty to any auspices except
those of Caesar. This legion, from the fashion of their
crested helmets, which resembled the crested heads of
a small bird of the lark species, received the popular
name of the Alauda (or Lark) legion.  And very sin



THE C.MSARS.                 67
gular it was that Cato, or Marcellus, or some amongst
those enemies of Caesar, who watched his conduct
during the period of his Gaulish command with the
vigilance of rancorous malice, should not have come to
the knowledge of this fact; in which case we may be
sure that it would have been denounced to the senate.
Such, then, for its purpose and its uniform motive,
was the sagacious munificence of Caesar. Apart from
this motive, and considered in and for itself, and simply with a reference to the splendid forms which it
often assumed, this munificence would furnish the
materials for a volume. The public entertainments of
Caesar, his spectacles and shows, his naumachiae, and
the pomps of his unrivalled triumphs, (the closing triumphs of the Republic,) were severally the finest of
their kind which had then been brought forward.
Sea-fights were exhibited upon the grandest scale, according to every known variety of nautical equipment
and mode of conflict, upon a vast lake formed artificially for that express purpose. Mimic land-fights were
conducted, in which all the circumstances of real war
were so faithfully rehearsed, that even elephants' indorsed with towers,' twenty on each side, took part in
the combat. Dramas were represented in every known
language, (per pomnium linguarum  histriones.) And
hence [that is, from the conciliatory feeling thus expressed towards the various tribes of foreigners resident in Rome] some have derived an explanation of




58                THE CEiSARS.
what is else a mysterious circumstance amonlgst the
ceremonial observances at Cesar's funeral -that all
people of foreign nations then residing at Rome, dlistinguished themselves by the conspicuous share which
they took in the public mourning; and that, beyond
all other foreigners, the Jews for night after night kept
watch and ward about the emperor's grave. Never
before, according to traditions which lasted through
several generations in Rome, had there been so vast a
conflux of the human race congregated to any one
centre, on any one attraction of business or of pleasure,
as to Rome on occasion of these spectacles exhibited
by Caesar.
In our days, the greatest occasional gatherings of
the human race are in India, especially at the great
fair of the HIurdwar, in the northern part of Hindostan; a confluence of many millions is sometimes seen
at that spot, brought together under the mixed influences of devotion and commercial business, and dispersed as rapidly as they had been convoked. Some
such spectacle of nations crowding upon nations, and
some such Babylonian confusion of dresses, complexions, languages, and jargons, was then witnessed at
Rome.  Accommodations within doors, and under
roofs of houses, or of temples, was altogether impossible.  Myriads encamped along the streets, and along
the high-roads in the vicinity of Rome.  Myriads of
myriads lay stretched on the ground, without even the




THE C]ESARS.                  59
slight protection of tents, in a vast circuit about the
city.  Multitudes of men, even senators, and others
of the highest rank, were trampled to death in the
crowds. And the whole family of man seemed at that
time gathered together at the bidding of the great
Dictator. But these, or any other themes connected
with the public life of Caesar, we notice only in those
circumstances which have been overlooked, or partially
represented by historians. Let us now, in conclusion,
bring forward, from the obscurity in which they have
hitherto lurked, the anecdotes which  describe the
habits of his private life, his tastes, and personal
peculiarities.
In person, he was tall, fair, and of limbs distinguished for their elegant proportions and gracility.
His eyes were black and piercing. These circumstances continued to be long remembered, and no
doubt were constantly recalled to the eyes of all persons in the imperial palaces, by pictures, busts, and
statues; for we find the same description of his personal appearance three centuries afterwards, in a work
of the Emperor,Yulian's. He was a most accomplished
horseman, and a master (peritissimus) in the use of
arms.  But rotwithstanding his skill and horsemanship, it seems that, when he accompanied his army on
marches, he walked oftener than he rode; no doubt,
with a view to the benefit of his example, and to
express that sympathy with his soldiers which gained




60-               THE CfSARS.
him their hearts so entirely. On other occasions,
when travelling apart from  his army, he seems more
frequently to have rode in a carriage than on horseback. His purpose, in making this preference, must
have been with a view to the transport of luggage.
The carriage which he generally used was a rheda, a
sort of gig, or rather curricle, for it was a four-wheeled
carriage, and adapted (as we find from the imperial
regulations for the public carriages, &c.) to the conveyance of about half a ton.  The mere personal
baggage which Csesar carried with him, was probably
considerable, for he was a man of the most elegant
habits, and in all parts of his life sedulously attentive
to elegance of personal appearance. The length of
journeys which he accomplished within a given time,
appears even to us at this day, and might well therefore appear to his contemporaries, truly astonishing.
A distance of one hundred miles was no extraordinary
day's journey for him  in a rheda, such as we have
described it. So elegant were his habits, and so constant his demand for the luxurious accommodations of
polished life, as it then existed in Rome, that he is
said to have carried with him, as indispensable parts of
his personal baggage, the little lozenges and squares
of ivory, and other costly materials, which were wanted for the tessellated flooring of his tent. Habits such
as these will easily account for his travelling in a carriage rather than on horseback.




THJE  CSARxS.                 61
The courtesy and obliging disposition of Caesar were
notorious, and both were illustrated in some anecdotes
which survived for generations in Rome. Dining on
one occasion at a table, where the servants had inadvertently, for salad-oil, turnished some sort of coarse
lamp-oil, Caesar would not allow the rest of the company to point out the mistake to their host, for fear of
shocking him too much by exposing the mistake. At
another time, whilst halting at a little cabaret, when
one of his retinue was suddenly taken ill, Caesar
resigned to his use the sole bed which the house
afforded.  Incidents as trifling as these, express the
urbanity of Caesar's nature; and, hence, one is more
surprised to find the alienation of the senate charged,
in no trifling:degree, upon a failure in point of courtesy.  Cwesar neglected to rise from his seat on their
approaching him in a body with an address of congratulation.  It is said, and we can believe it, that he gave
deeper offence by this one defect in a matter of ceremonial observance, than by all his substantial attacks
upon their privileges.  WVhat we find it difficult to
believe, however, is not that result from  the offence,
but the possibility of the offence itself, from one so
little arrogant as Caesar, and so entirely a man of the
world.  He was told of the disoust which he had
given, and we are bound to believe his apology, in
which he charged it upon sickness, which would not
at the moment allow him to maintain a standing atti



62                THE C.MSARS.
tude.  Certainly the whole tenor of his life was not
courteous only, but kind; and, to his enemies, merciful in a degree which implied so much more magnanimity than men in general could understand, that by
many it was put down to the account of weakness.
Weakness, however, there was none in Caius Cesar:
and, that there might be none, it was fortunate that
conspiracy should have cut him off in the full vigor of
his faculties, in the very meridian of his glory, and on
the brink of completing a series of gigantic achievements.  Amongst these are numbered — a digest of
the entire body of the laws, even then become unwieldy and oppressive; the establishment of vast and
comprehensive public libraries, Greek as well as Latin;
the chastisement of Dacia; the conquest of Parthia;
and the cutting a ship canal through the Isthmus of
Corinth. The reformation of the calendar he had
already accomplished. And of all his projects it may
be said that they were equally patriotic in their purpose, and colossal in their proportions.
As an orator, Caesar's merit was so eminent, that,
according to the general belief, had he found time tc
cultivate this department of civil exertion, the precise
supremacy of Cicero would have been made questionable, or the honors would have been divided.  Cicero
himself was of that opinion; and on different occasions
applied the epithet Splendidus to Coesar, as though in
some exclusive sense, or with a peculiar emphasis, dio




THnE CsAR8s.                  63
to him. His taste was much simpler, chaster, and
disinclined to the florid and ornamental, than that of
Cicero.  So far he would, in that condition of the
Roman culture and feeling, have been less acceptable
to the public; but, on the other hand, he would have
compensated this disadvantage by much more of natural and.Demosthenic fervor.
In literature, the merits of Caesar are familiar to
most readers.  Under the modest title of Commentaries, he meant to offer the records of his Gallic and
British campaigns, simply as notes, or memoranda,
afterwards to be worked up by regular historians; but,
as Cicero observes, their merit was such in the eyes of
the discerning, that all judicious writers shrank from
the attempt to alter them. In another instance of his
literary labors, he showed a very just sense of true
dignity.  Rightly conceiving that everything patriotic
was dignified, and that to illustrate or polish his native
language, was a service of real patriotism, he composed
a work on the grammar and orthoepy of the Latin
language. Cicero and himself were the only Romans
of distinction in that age, who applied themselves with
true patriotism to the task of purifying and ennobling
their mother tongue. Both were aware of the transcendent quality of the Grecian literature; but that
splendor did not depress their hopes of raising theii
own to something of the same level. As respected
the natural wealth of the two languages, it was the




64                 THE CMESARS.
private opinion of Cicero, that the Latin had the advantage; and if Caesar did not accompany him to that
length, he yet felt that it was but the more necessary
to draw forth any single advantage which it really
had. 12
Was Caesar, upon the whole, the greatest of men?
Dr. Beattie once observed, that if that question were
left to be collected from the suffrages already expressed in books, and scattered throughout the literature
of all nations, the scale would be found to have turned
prodigiously in Caesar's favor, as against any single
competitor; and there is no doubt whatsoever, that
even amongst his own countrymen, and his own contemporaries, the same verlict would have been returned, had it been collected upon the famous principle
of Themistocles, that he should be reputed the first,
whom the greatest number of rival voices had pronounced the second.




THE CESARS.                  65
CHAPTER  II.
THE situation of the Second Caesar, at the crisis of
the great Dictator's assassination, was so hazardous
and delicate, as to confer interest upon a character
not otherwise attractive. To many we know it was
positively repulsive, and in the very highest degree.
In particular, it is recorded of Sir William- Jones, that
he regarded this emperor with feelings of abhorrence
so personal and deadly, as to refuse him his customary
titular honors whenever he had occasion to mention
him by name. Yet it was the whole Roman people
that conferred upon him his title of Augustus. But
Sir William, ascribing no force to the acts of a people
who had sunk so low as to exult in their chains, and
to decorate with honors the very instruments of their
own vassalage, would not recognize this popular creation, and spoke of him always by his family name
of Octavius. The flattery of the populace, by the
way, must, in this instance, have been doubly acceptable to the emperor, first, for what it gave, and
secondly, for what it concealed. Of his grand-uncle
the first Caesar, a tradition survives - that of all the
distinctions created in his favor, either by the senate
or the people, he put most value upon the laurel
6




66                 THE CMSARS.
crown which was voted to him after his last campaigns
- a beautiful and conspicuous memorial to every eye
of his great public acts, and at the same time an
overshadowing veil of his one sole personal defect.
This laurel diadem at once proclaimed his civic grandeur, and concealed his baldness, a defect which was
more mortifying to a IRoman than it would be to
ourselves from the peculiar theory which then prevailed as to its probable origin. A gratitude of the
same mixed quality must naturally have been felt by
the Second Caesar for his title of Augustus, which,
whilst it illustrated his public character by the highest
expression of majesty, set apart and sequestrated to
public functions, had also the agreeable effect of withdrawing from the general remembrance his obscure
descent. For the Octavian house [gens] had in
neither of its branches risen to any great splendor
of civic distinction, and in his own, to little or none.
The same titular decoration, therefore, so offensive to
the celebrated Whig, was, in the eyes of Augustus, at
once a trophy of public merit, a monument of public
gratitude, and an effectual obliteration of his own natal
obscurity.
But, if merely odious to men of Sir WVilliam's principles, to others the character of Augustus, in relation
to the circumstances which surrounded him, was not
without its appropriate interest. He was summoned
in early youth, and without warning, to face a crisis




THE CESARS.                  67
of tremendous hazard, being at the same time himself
a man of no very great constitutional courage; perhaps
he was even a coward.  And this we say without
meaning to adopt as gospel truths all the party reproaches of Anthony. Certainly he was utterly unfurnished by nature with those endowments which seemzed
to be indispensable in a successor to the power of the
great Dictator.  But exactly in these deficiencies, and
in certain accidents unfavorable to his ambition, lay
his security.  He had been adopted by his granduncle, Julius.  That adoption made him, to all intents
and purposes of law, the son of his great patron; and
doubtless, in a short time, this adoption would have
been applied to more extensive uses, and as a station
of vantage for introducing him to the public favor.
From the inheritance of the Julian estates and family
honors, he would have been trained to mount, as fronm
a stepping-stone, to the inheritance of the Julian
power and political station; and the Roman people
would have been familiarized to regard him in that
character.  But, luckily for himself, the finishing, or
ceremonial acts, were yet wanting in this process —
the political heirship was inchoate and imperfect.
Tacitly understood, indeed, it was; but had it been
formally proposed and ratified, there cannot be a doubt
that the young Octavius would have been pointed out
to the vengeance of the patriots, and included in the
scheme of the conspirators, as a fellow-victim with his




68                 THE CihSARS.
nominal father; and would have been cut off too suddenly to benefit by that re-action of popular feeling
which saved the partisans of the Dictator, by separating the conspirators, and obliging them, without loss
of time, to look to their own safety.  It was by this
fortunate accident that the young heir and adopted son
of the first Caesar not only escaped assassination, but
was enabled to postpone indefinitely the final and
military struggle for the vacant seat of empire, and
in the meantime to maintain a coequal rank with the
leaders in the state, by those arts and resources in
which he was superior to his competitors.  His place
in the favor of Caius Julius was of power sufficient to
give him a share in any triumvirate which could be
formed; but, wanting the formality of a regular introduction to the people, and the ratification of their
acceptance, that place was not sufficient to raise him
permanently into the perilous and invidious station of
absolute supremacy which  he afterwards occupied.
The felicity of Augustus was often vaunted by antiiquity, (with whom success was not so much a test
of merit as itself a merit of the highest quality,) and
in no instance was this felicity more conspicuous than
in the first act of his entrance upon the political scene.
No doubt his friends and enemies alike thought o.
him, at the moment of Caesar's assassination, as we
now think of a young man heir-elect to sonie person
of immense wealth, cut off by a sudden death before




THIE CSAES.                 69
he has nad time to ratify a will in execution of his
purposes. Yet in fact the case was far otherwise.
Brought forward distinctly as the successor of Caesar's
power, had he even, by some favorable accident of
absence from Rome, or otherwise, escaped being involved in that great man's fate, he would at all events
have been thrown upon the instant necessity of defending his supreme station by arms. To have left it
unasserted, when once solemnly created in his favor
by a reversionary title, would have been deliberately
to resign it. This would have been a confession of
weakness liable to no disguise, and ruinous to any
subsequent pretensions. Yet, without preparation of
means, with no development of resources nor growth
of circumstances, an appeal to arms would, in his case,
have been of very doubtful issue. His true weapons,
for a long period, were the arts of vigilance and dissimulation. Cultivating these, he was enabled to prepare for a contest which, undertaken prematurely, must
have ruined him, and to raise himself to a station of
even military preeminence to those who naturally, and
by circumstances, were originally every way superior
to himself.
The qualities in which he really excelled, the gifts
of intrigue, patience, long suffering, dissimulation, and
tortuous fraud, were thus brought into play, and
allowed their full value.  Such qualities had every
chance of prevailing in the long run, against the noble




70                TUE COESARS.
carelessness and the impetuosity of the passionate
Anthony-and they did prevail.  Always on the
wnatch to lay hold of those opportunities which the
generous negligence of his rival was but too frequently
throwing in his way — unless by the sudden reverses
of war and the accidents of battle, which as much as
possible, and as long as possible, he declined — there
could be little question in any man's mind, that
eventually he would win his way to a solitary throne,
by a policy so full of caution and subtlety. He was
sure to risk nothing which could be had on easier
terms; and nothing unless for a great overbalance of
gain in prospect; to lose nothing which he had once
gained; and in no case to miss an advantage, or sacrifice an opportunity, by any consideration of generosity. No modern insurance office but would have
guaranteed an event depending upon the final success
of Augustus, on terms far below those which they
must, in prudence have exacted from the fiery and
adventurous Anthony. Each was an ideal in his own
class. But Augustus, having finally triumphed, has
met with more than justice from succeeding ages.
Even Lord Bacon says, that, by comparison with
Julius Caesar, he was'non tam iimpar quamn dispar,'
surely a most extravagant encomium, applied to -whomsoever.  On the other hand, Anthony, amongst the
most signal misfortunes of his life, might number it,
that Cicero, the great dispenser of immortality, in




TIHE CESARS.                 71
whose hands (more perhaps than in any one man's of
any age) were the vials of good and evil fame, should
happen to have been his bitter and persevering enemy.
It is, however, some balance to this, that Shakspeare
had a just conception of the original grandeur which
lay beneath that wild tempestuous nature presented by
Anthony to the eye of the undiscriminating world. It
is to the honor of Shakspeare that he should have been
able to discern the true coloring of this most original
character under the smoke and tarnish of antiquity.
It is no less to the honor of the great triumvir, that a
strength of coloring should survive in his character,
capable of baffling the wrongs and ravages of time.
Neither is it to be thought strange that a character
should have been misunderstood and falsely appreciated
for nearly two thousand years. It happens not uncommonly, especially amongst an unimaginative people,
like the Iomans, that the characters of men  are
ciphers and enigmas to their own age, and are first
read and interpreted by a far distant posterity.  Stars
are supposed to exist, whose light has been travelling
for many thousands of years without having yet
reached our system; and the eyes are yet unborn
upon which their earliest rays will fall.  Men like
Mark Anthony, with minds of chaotic composition -
light conflicting with darkness, proportions of colossal
grandeur disfigured by unsymmetrical arrangement,
the angelic in close neighborhood with the brutal- are




72                THE CAESARS.
first read in their true meaning by an age learned in
the philosophy of the human heart. Of this philosophy
the Romans had, by the necessities of education and
domestic discipline, not less than by original constitution of mind, the very narrowest visual range. In no
literature whatsoever are so few tolerable notices to be
found of any great truths in Psychology.  Nor could
this have been otherwise amongst a people who tried
everything by the standard of social value; never
seeking for a canon of excellence, in man considered
abstractedly in and for himself, and as having an
independent value- but always and exclusively in
man as a gregarious being, and designed for social uses
and functions.  Not man in his own peculiar nature,
but man in his relations to other men, was the station
from which the Roman speculators took up their
philosophy of human nature. Tried by such standard,
Mark Anthony would be found wanting. As a citizen,
he was irretrievably licentious, and therefore there
needed not the bitter personal feud, which circumstances had generated between them, to account for
the achzarnement with which Cicero pursued him. Had
Anthony been his friend even, or his near kinsman,
Cicero must still have been his public enremy. And
not merely for his vices; for even the grander features
of his character, his towering ambition, his magnanimity, and the fascinations of his popular qualities,were all, in the circumstances of those times, and in
his position, of a tenlde-n-cy dangerously uncivic.




THE CMSARS.                    73
So remarkable was the opposition, at all points, bebetween the second Cmesar and his rival, that whereas,
Anthony even in his virtues seemed dangerous to the
state, Octaviais gave a civic coloring to his most indifferent actions, and, with a Machiavelian policy, observed
a scrupulous regard to the forms of the Republic, after
every fragment of the republican institutions, the privileges of the republican magistrates, and the functions
of the great popular officers, had been absorbed into
his own autocracy.  Even  in the most prosperous
days of the Roman State, when the democratic forces
balanced, and were balanced by, those of the aristocracy, it was far from being a general or common
praise, that a man was of a civic turn of mind, animo
civili.  Yet this praise did Augustus affect, and in
reality attain, at a time when the very object of all
civic feeling was absolutely extinct; so much are men
governed by words. Suetonius assures us, that many
evidences were current even to his times of this popular disposition (civilitas) in the emperor; and that it
survived every experience of servile adulation in the
Roman populace, and all the effects of long familiarity
with irresponsible power in himself. Such a moderation of feeling, we are almost obliged to consider as a
genuine and unaffected expression of his real nature;
for, as an artifice of policy, it had soon lost itsuses.
And it is worthy of notice, that with the army he laid
aside those popular manners as soon as possible,
7




74                 THE CIESARS.
addressing them as milites, not (according to his ear.
lier practice) as commnilitones.  It concerned his own
security, to be jealous of encroachments on his power.
But of his rank, and the honors which accompanied it,
he seems to have been uniformly careless. Thus, he
would never leave a town or enter it by daylight,
unless some higher rule of policy obliged him to do so;
by which means he evaded a ceremonial of public
honor which was burdensome to all the parties concerned in it.  Sometimes, however, we find that men,
careless of honors in their own persons, are glad to
see them settling upon their family and immediate
connections. But here again Augustus showed the
sincerity of his moderation. For upon one occasion,
when the whole audience in the Roman theatre had
risen upon the entrance of his two adopted sons,
at that time not seventeen years old, he was highly
displeased, and even thought it necessary to publish
his displeasure in a separate edict.  It is another, and
a striking illustration of his humility, that he willingly
accepted of public appointments, and sedulously discharged the duties attached to them, in conjunction
with colleagues who had been chosen with little regard
to his personal partialities.  In the debates of the
senate, he showed the same equanimity; suffering
himself patiently to be contradicted, and even with
circumstances of studied incivility.  In the public
elections, he gave his vote like any private citizen;




THE CIESARS.                T7
and, when he happened to be a candidate himself, he
canvassed the electors with the same earnestness of
personal application, as any other candidate with the
least possible title to public favor from present power
or past services. But, perhaps by no expressions of
his civic spirit did Augustus so much conciliate men's
minds, as by the readiness with which he participated
in their social pleasures, and by the uniform severity
with which he refused to apply his influence in any way
which could disturb the pure administration of justice.
The Roman juries (judices they were called), were
very corrupt; and easily swayed to an unconscientious
verdict, by the appearance in court of any great man
on behalf of one of the parties interested; nor was
such an interference with the course of private justice
any ways injurious to the great man's character.  The
wrong which he promoted did but the more forcibly
proclaim the warmth and fidelity of his friendships.
So much the more generally was the uprightness of
the emperor appreciated, who would neither tamper
with justice himself nor countenance any motion in
that direction, though it were to serve his very dearest
friend, either by his personal presence, or by the use
of his name. And, as if it had been a trifle merely to
forbear, and to show his regard to justice in this negative way, he even allowed himself to be summoned as
a witness on trials, and showed no anger when his own
evidence was overborne by stronger on the other side,




76                TlE CSAARS
This disinterested love of justice, and an integrity, so
rare in the great men of Rome, could not but command the reverence of the people. But their affection,
doubtless, was more conciliated by the freedom with
which the emperor accepted invitations from all quarters, and shared continually in the festal pleasures of
his subjects. This practice, however, he discontinued,
or narrowed, as he advanced in years. Suetonius,
who, as a true anecdote-monger, would solve every
thing, and account for every change by some definite
incident, charges this alteration in the emperor's condescensions upon one particular party at a wedding
feast, where the crowd incommoded him much by their
pressure and heat. But, doubtless, it happened to
Augustus as to other men; his spirits failed, and his
powers of supporting fatigue or bustle, as years stole
upon him. Changes, coming by insensible steps, and
not willingly acknowledged, for some time escape
notice; until some sudden shock reminds a man forcibly to do that which he has long meditated in an
irresolute way. The marriage banquet may have been
the particular occasion from which Augustus stepped
into the habits of old age, but certainly not the cause
of so entire a revolution in his mode of living.
It might seem to throw some doubt, if not upon the
fact, yet at least upon the sincerity, of his civisml, that
undoubtedly Augustus cultivated his kingly connections with considerable anxiety. It may have been




TIHE CSESARS.                77
upon motives merely political that he kept at Rome th6
children of nearly all the kings then known as allies or
vassals of the Roman power: a curious fact, and not
generally known.  In his own palace were reared a
number of youthful princes; and they were educated
jointly with his own children. It is also upon record,
that in many instances the fathers of these princes
spontaneously repaired to Rome, and there assuming
the Roman dress - as an expression of reverence to
the majesty of the omnipotent State - did personal' suit and service' (more clientum) to Augustus.  It is
an anecdote of not less curiosity, that a whole' college'
of kings subscribed money for a temple at Athens, to
be dedicated in the name of Augustus.  Throughout
his life, indeed, this emperor paid a marked attention
to all royal houses then known to Rome, as occupying the thrones upon the vast margin of the empire.
It is true that in part this attention might be interpreted
as given politically to so many lieutenants, wielding a
remote or inaccessible power for the benefit of Rome.
And the children of these kings might be regarded as
hostages, ostensibly entertained for the sake of education, but really as pledges for their parents' fidelity,
and also with a view to the large reversionary advantages which might be expected to arise upon the basis
of so early and affectionate a connection. But it is not
the less true, that, at one period of his life, Augustus
did certainly meditate some closer personal connection




78                  THE C2ESARS.
with the royal families of the earth. He speculated,
undoubtedly, on a marriage for himself with some
barbarous princess, and at one time designed his daugh
ter Julia as a wife for Cotiso, the king of the Getwe.
Superstition perhaps disturbed the one scheme, and
policy the other.  He married, as is well known, for
his final wife, and the partner of his life through its
whole triumphant stage, Livia Drusilla; compelling her
husband, Tiberius Nero, to divorce her, notwithstanding she was then six months advanced in pregnancy.'With this lady, who was distinguished for her beauty,
it is certain that he was deeply in love; and that might
be sufficient to account for the marriage. It is equally
certain, however, upon the concurring evidence of independent writers, that this connection had an oracular sanction - not to say suggestion; a circumstance
which was long remembered, and was afterwards noticed
by the Christian poet Prudentius:
c Idque Defm sortes et Apollinis antra dederunt
Consilium: nunquam meliils nam csedere tsedas
Responsum est, qu'm cum prsegnans nova nupta jugatur.'
His daughter Julia had been promised by turns, and
always upon reasons of state, to a whole muster-roll
of suitors; first of all, to a son of Mark Anthony;
secondly, to the barbarous king; thirdly, to her first
cousin - that Marcellus, the son of Octavia, only sister
to Augustus, whose early death, in the midst of great
expectations, Virgil has so beautifully introduced into




THE C2ESARS.                 19
the vrsion of Roman grandeurs as yet unborn, which.zEneas beholds in the shades; fourthly, she was promised (and this time the promise was kept) to the
fortunate soldier, Agrippa, whose low birth was not
permitted to obscure his military merits. By him she
had a family of children, upon whom, if upon any in
this world the wrath of Providence seems to have
rested; for, excepting one, and in spite of all the
favors that earth and heaven could unite to shower
upon them, all came to an early, a violent, and an
infamous end.  Fifthly, upon the death of Agrippa,
and again upon motives of policy, and in atrocious
contempt of all the ties that nature and the human
heart and human laws have hallowed, she was promised, (if that word may be applied to the violent
obtrusion upon a man's bed of one who was doubly a
curse — first, for what she brought, and, secondly, for
what she took away,) and given to Tiberius, the future
emperor.  Upon the whole, as far as we can at this
day make out the connection of a man's acts and
purposes, which, even to his own age, were never
entirely cleared up, it is probable that, so long as the
triumvirate survived, and so long as the condition of
Roman power or intrigues, and the distribution of Roman influence, were such as to leave a possibility that
any new triumvirate should arise - so long Augustus
was secretly meditating a retreat for himself at some
barbarous court, against any sudden reverse of fortune




80                THE C2ESAJBS,
by means of a domestic connection, which should give
him the claim of a kinsman. Such a court, however
unable to make head against the collective power of
Rome, might yet present a front of resistance to any
single partisan who should happen to acquire a brief
ascendancy; or, at the worst, as a merely defensive
power, might offer a retreat, secure in distance, and
difficult of access; or might be available as a means
of delay for recovering from some else fatal defeat. It
is certain that Augustus viewed Egypt with jealousy
as a province, which might be turned to account in
some such way by any inspiring insurgent. And it
must have often struck him as a remarkable circumstance, which by good luck had turned out entirely
to the advantage of his own family, but which might
as readily have had an opposite result, that the three
decisive battles of Pharsalia, of Thaps~us, and of
Munda, in which the empire of the world was three
times over staked as the prize, had severally brought
upon the defeated leaders a ruin which was total,
absolute, and final. One hour had seen the whole
fabric of their aspiring fortunes demolished; and nc
resource was left to them but either in suicide, (which,
accordingly even Caesar had meditated at one stage
of the battle of Munda, when it seemed to be going
against him,) or in the mercy of the victor.
That a victor in a hundred fights should in his
hundred-and-first,13 as in his first, risk the loss of that




THE CtESARS.                 8A
particular battle, is inseparable from the condition of
mlan, and the uncertainty of human means; but that
the loss of this one battle should be equally fatal and
irrecoverable with the loss of his first, that it should
-eave him  with means no more cemented, and resources no better matured for retarding his fall, and
throwing a long succession of hindrances in the way
of his conqueror, argues some essential defect of system.  Under our modern policy, military power —
though it may be the growth of one man's life - soon
takes root; a succession of campaigns is required for
its extirpation; and it revolves backwards to its final
extinction through all the stages by which originally
it grew.  On the Roman system  this was mainly
impossible from the solitariness of the Roman power;
co-rival nations who might balance  the victorious
party, there were absolutely none; and all the underlings hastened to make their peace, whilst peace was
yet open to them, on the known terms of absolute
treachery to their former master, and instant surrender
to the victor of the hour.  For this capital defect in
the tenure of Roman power, no matter in whose hands
deposited, there was no absolute remedy. Many a
sleepless night, during the perilous game which he
played with Anthony, must have familiarized Octavius
with that view of the risk, which to some extent was
inseparable from his position as the leader in such',
struggle carried on in such an empire. In this di



82                 T HE C ESARS-.
lemma, struck with the extreme necessity of applying
some palliation to the case, we have no doubt that
Augustus would devise the scheme of laying some
distant king under such obligations to fidelity as would
suffice to stand the first shock of misfortune. Such a
person would have power enough of a direct rmilitaly
kind, to face the storm  at its outbreak.  He would
have power of another kind in his distance. He would
be sustained by the courage of hope, as a kinsman
having a contingent interest in a kinsman's prosperity.
And, finally, he would be sustained by the courage of
despair, as one who never could expect to be trusted
by the opposite party. In the worst case, such a
prince would always offer a breathing time and a
respite to his friends, were it only by his remoteness,
and if not the means of rallying, yet at least the tinze
for rallying, more especially as the escape to his frontier would be easy to one who had long forecast it.
%We can hardly doubt that Augustus meditated such
schemes; that he laid them aside only as his power
began to cement and to knit together after the battle
of Actium; and that the memory and the prudential
tradition of this plan survived in the imperial family so
long as itself survived. Amongst other anecdotes of
the same tendency, two are recorded of Nero, the
emperor in whom  expired the line of the original.
Csesars, which strengthen us in a belief of what is
otherwise in itself so probable. Nero, in his first




THE CJSARS.                 83
distractions, upon receiving the fatal tidings of the
revolt in Gaul, when reviewing all possible plans of
escape from the impending danger, thought at intervals
of throwing himself on the protection of the barbarous
King Vologesus. And twenty years afterwards, when
the Pseudo-Nero appeared, he found a strenuous champion and protector in the King of the Parthians. Possibly, had an opportunity offered for searching the
Parthian chancery, some treaty would have been found
binding the kings of Parthia, from the age of Augustus
through some generations downwards, in requital of
services there specified, or of treasures lodged, to
secure a perpetual asylum  to the prosperity of the
Julian family.
The cruelties of Augustus were perhaps equal in
atrocity to any which are recorded; and the equivocal
apology for those acts (one which might as well be
used to aggravate as to palliate the case) is, that they
were not prompted by a ferocious nature, but by calculating policy. He once actually slaughtered upon
an altar a large body of his prisoners; and such was
the contempt with which he was regarded by some of
that number, that, when led out to death, they saluted
their other proscriber, Anthony, with military honors,
acknowledging merit even in an enemy, but Augustus
they passed with scornful silence, or with loud reproaches. Too certainly no man has ever contended
for empire with unsullied conscience, or laid pure




84                THE CESARS.
hands upon the ark of so magnificent a prize. Every
friend to Augustus must have wished that the twelve
years of his struggle might for ever be blotted out from
human remembrance. During the forty-two years of
his prosperity and his triumph, being above fear, be
showed the natural lenity of his temper.
That prosperity, in a public sense, has been rarely
equalled; but far different was his fate, and memorable
was the contrast, within the circuit of his own family.
This lord of the universe groaned as often as the ladies
of his house, his daughter and grand-daughter, were
mentioned. The shame which he felt on their account,
led him even to unnatural designs, and to wishes not
less so; for at one time he entertained a plan for
putting the elder Julia to death - and at another, upon
hearing that Phoebe (one of the female slaves in his
household) had hanged herself, he exclaimed audibly,
-' Would that I had been the father of Phebe!' It
must, however, be granted, that in this miserable affair
he behaved with very little of his usual discretion. In
the first paroxysms of his rage, on discovering his
daughter's criminal conduct, he made a communication
of the whole to the senate. That body could do nothing in such a matter, either by act or by suggestion;
and in a short time, as every-body could have foreseen,
he himself repented of his own want of self-command.
Upon the whole, it cannot be denied, that, according
to the remark of Jeremy Taylor, of all the men signally




THE C&SARS.'
decorated by history, Augustus Caesar is that one who
exemplifies, in the most emphatic terms, the mixed
tenor of human life, and the equitable distribution,
even on this earth, of good and evil fortune. He made
himself master of the world, and against the most formidable competitors; his power was absolute, from the
rising to the setting sun; and yet in his own house,
where the peasant who does the humblest chares,
claims an undisputed authority, he was baffled, dishonored, and made ridiculous. He was loved by nobody;
and if, at the moment of his death, he desired his
friends to dismiss him from this world by the common
expression of scenical applause, (vos plaudite!) in that
valedictory injunction he expressed inadvertently the
true value of his own long life, which, in strict candor,
may be pronounced one continued series of histrionic
efforts, and of excellent acting, adapted to selfisl
ends.




THE C(SESARS.
CHAPTER III.
THE next three emperors, Caligula, Claudius, and
Nero, were the last princes who had any connection
by blood 14 with the Julian house. In Nero, the sixth
emperor, expired the last of the Caesars, who was such
in reality. These three were also the first in that long
line of monsters, who, at different times, under the title
of Cesars, dishonored humanity more memorably, than
was possible, except in the cases of those (if any such
can be named) who have abused the same enormous
powers in times of the same civility, and in defiance of
the same general illumination. But for them it is a
fact, that some crimes, which now stain the page of
history, would have been accounted fabulous dreams
of impure romancers, taxing their extravagant imaginations to create combinations of wickedness more
hideous than civilized men would tolerate, and more
unnatural than *he human heart could conceive. Let
us, by way of example, take a short chapter from the
diabolical life of Caligula: - In what way did he treat
his nearest and tenderest female connections?  His
mother had been tortured and murdered by another
tyrant almost as fiendish as himself. She was happily
removed from his cruelty. Disdaining, however, to




THE CsESAR.                 87
acknowledge any connection with the blood of so obscure a man as Agrippa, he publicly gave out that his
mother was indeed the daughter of Julia, but by an
incestuous commerce with her father Augustus.  His
three sisters he debauched.  One died, and her he
canonized; the other two he prostituted to the basest
of his own attendants. Of his wives, it would be hard
to say whether they were first sought and won with
more circumstances of injury and outrage, or dismissed
with more insult and levity. The one whom he treated best, and with most profession of love, and who
commonly rode by his side, equipped with spear and
shield, to his military inspections and reviews of the
soldiery, though not particularly beautiful, was exhibited to his friends at banquets in a state of absolute
nudity.  His motive for treating her with so much
kindness, was, probably that she brought him  a
daughter; and her'he acknowledged as his own child,
from the early brutality with which she attacked the
eyes and cheeks of other infants who were presented
to her as play-fellows.  Hence it would appear that
he was aware of his own ferocity, and treated it as a
jest. The levity, indeed, which he mingled with his
worst and most inhuman acts, and the slightness of
the occasions upon which he delighted to hang his most
memorable atrocities, aggravated their impression at
the time, and must have contributed greatly to sharpen
the sword of vengeance.  His palace happened to *be




88                THE C.SARS.
contiguous to the circus.  Some seats, it secms, were
open indiscriminately to the public; consequently, the
only way in, which they could be appropriated, was by
taking possession of them as early as the midnight preceding any great exhibitions. Once, when it happened
that his sleep was disturbed by such an occasion, he
sent in soldiers to eject them; and with orders so rigorous, as it appeared by the event, that in this singular
tumult, twenty Roman knights, and as many mothers
of families, were cudgelled to death upon the spot, to
say nothing of what the reporter calls'innumeram
turbam ceteramn.'
But this is a trifle to another anecdote reported by
the same authority:- On some occasion it happened
that a dearth prevailed, either generally of cattle, or of
such cattle as were used for feeding the wild beasts
reserved for the bloody exhibitions of the amphitheatre.
Food could be had, and perhaps at no very exorbitant
price, but on terms somewhat higher than the ordinary
market price. A slight excuse served with Caligula
for acts the most monstrous. Instantly repairing to
the public jails, and causing all the prisoners to pass in
review before him (custodiarumn seriem recognoscens),
he pointed to two bald-headed men, and ordered that
the whole file of intermediate persons should be
marched off to the dens of the wild beasts:'Tell
them off,' said he,'from the bald man to the bald
man.' Yet these were prisoners committed, not for




THE CMSARS.                  89
punishment, but trial. Nor, had it been otherwisej
were the charges against them equal, but running
through every gradation of guilt. But the elogia, or
records of their commitment, he would not so much as
look at. With such inordinate capacities for cruelty,
we cannot wonder that he should in his common conversation have deplored the tameness and insipidity of
his own times and reign, as likely to be marked by no
wide-spreading calamity.'Augustus,' said he,'was
happy; for in his reign occurred the slaughter of
Varus and his legions. Tiberius was happy; for in his
occurred that glorious fall of the great amphitheatre
at Fidenee.  But for me - alas! alas!' And then he
would pray earnestly for fire or slaughter - pestilence
or famine. Famine indeed was to some extent in his
own power; and accordingly, as far as his courage
would carry him, he did occasionally try that mode of
tragedy upon the people of Rome, by shutting up the
public granaries against them. As he blended his
mirth and a truculent sense of the humorous with his
cruelties, we cannot wonder that he should soon blend
his cruelties with his ordinary festivities, and that his
daily banquets would soon become insipid without them.
Hence he required a daily supply of executions in his
own halls and banqueting rooms; nor was a dinner
held to be complete without such a dessert. Artists
were sought out who had dexterity and strength enough
to do what Lucan somewhere calls ensem rotare, that
8




90                THE C2nSARS.
is, to cut off a human head with one whirl of the
sword. Even this became insipid, as wanting one
main element of misery to the sufferer, and an indispensable condiment to the jaded palate of the connoisseur, viz., a lingering duration. As a pleasant
variety, therefore, the tormentors were introduced with
their various instruments of torture; and many a
dismal tragedy in that mode of human suffering was
conducted in the sacred presence during the emperor's
hours of amiable relaxation.
The result of these horrid indulgences was exactly
what we might suppose, that even such scenes ceased
to irritate the languid appetite, and yet that without
them life was not endurable.  Jaded and exhausted as
the sense of pleasure had become in Caligula, still it
could be roused into any activity by nothing short of
these murderous luxuries. Hence, it seems, that he
was continually tampering and dallying with the
thought of murder; and like the old Parisian jeweller
Cardillac, in Louis XIV.'s time, who was stung with
a perpetual lust for murdering the possessors of fine
diamonds - not so much for the value of the prize (of
which he never hoped to make any use), as from an
unconquerable desire of precipitating himself into the
difficulties and hazards of the murder, - Caligula
never failed to experience (and sometimes even to
acknowledge) a secret temptation to any murder which
seemed either more than usually abominable, or more




THE C.ESARS.                 9.1
than usually difficult. Thus, when the two consuls
were seated at his table, he burst out into sudden and
profuse laughter; and upon their courteously requesting to know what witty and admirable conceit might
be the occasion of the imperial mirth, he frankly
owned to them, and doubtless he did not improve their
appetites by this confession, that in fact he was laughing, and that he could not hut laugh, (and then the
monster laughed immoderately again,) at the pleasant
thought of seeing them both headless, and that with so
little trouble to himself, (uno suo nuto,) he could have
both their throats cut. No doubt he was continually
balancing the arguments for and against such little
escapades; nor had any person a reason for security
in the extraordinary obligations, whether of hospitality
or of religious vows, which seemed to lay him under
some peculiar restraints in that case above all others;
for such circumstances of peculiarity, by which the
murder would be stamped with unusual atrocity, were
but the more likely to make its fascinations irresistible.
Hence he dallied with the thoughts of murdering her
whom he loved best, and indeed exclusively - his wife
Cesonia; and whilst fondling her, and toying playfully
with her polished throat, he was distracted (as he half
insinuated to her) between the desire of caressing it,
which might be often repeated, and that of cutting it,
dnrich could be gratified but once.
Nero (for as to Claudius, he came too late to the




92                 THE C2ESARS.
throne to indulge any propensities of this nature with
so little discretion.) was but a variety of the same
species.  He also was an amateur, and an enthusiastic
amateur of murder.  But as this taste, in the most
ingenious hands, is limited and monotonous in its modes
of manifestation, it would be tedious to run through the
long Suetonian roll-call of his peccadilloes in this way
One only we shall cite, to illustrate the amorous delight
with which he pursued any murder which happened to
be seasoned highly to his taste by enormous atrocity,
and by almost unconquerable difficulty.  It would
really be pleasant, were it not for the revolting consideration of the persons. concerned, and their relation to
each other, to watch the tortuous pursuit of the hunter,
and the doubles of the game, in this obstinate chase.
For certain reasons of state, as Nero attempted to
persuade himself, but in reality because no other crime
had the same attractions of unnatural horror about it,
he resolved to murder his mother Agrippina.  This
being settled, the next thing was to arrange the mode
and the tools. Naturally enough, according to the
custom then prevalent in Rome, he first attempted the
thing by poison. The poison failed; for Agrippina,
anticipating tricks of this kind, had armed her constitution against them, like Mithridates; and daily took
potent antidotes and prophylactics. Or else (which is
more probable) the emperor's agent in such purposes,
fearing his sudden repentance and remorse on first




THE CASARS.                  93
hearing of his mother's death, or possibly even witnessing her agonies, had composed a poison of inferiorstrength. This had certainly occurred in the case of
Britannicus, who had thrown off with ease the first
dose administered to him by Nero. Upon which he
had summoned to his presence the woman employed
in the affair, and compelling her by threats to mingle a
more powerful potion in his own presence, had tried it
successively upon different animals, until he was satisfied with its effects; after which, immediately inviting
Britannicus to a banquet, he had finally dispatched
him. On Agrippina, however, no changes in the
poison, whether of kind or strength, had any effect:
so that, after various trials, this mode of murder was
abandoned, and the emperor addressed himself to other
plans. The first of these was some curious mechanical
device, by which a false ceiling was to have been suspended by bolts above her bed; and in the middle of
the night, the bolt being suddenly drawn, a vast weight
would have descended with a ruinous destruction to all
below. This scheme, however, taking air from the
indiscretion of some amongst the accomplices, reached
the ears of Agrippina; upon which the old lady looked
about her too sharply to leave much hope in that
scheme: so that also was abandoned.  Next, he conceived the idea of an artificial ship, which, at the touch
of a few springs, might fall to pieces in deep water.
Such a ship was prepared, and stationed at a suitable




94                THE CAMSARS.
point. But the main difficulty remained, which was to
persuade the old lady to go on board. Not that she
knew in this case who had been the ship-builder, for
that would have ruined all; but it seems that she took
it ill to be hunted in this murderous spirit; and was
out of humor with her son; besides, that any proposal
coming from him, though previously indifferent to her,
would have instantly become suspected.  To meet this
difficulty a sort of reconciliation was proposed, and a
very affectionate message sent, which had the effect of
throwing Agrippina off her guard, and seduced her to
Baiae for the purpose of joining the emperor's party at
a great banquet held in commemoration of a solemn
festival. She came by water in a sort of light frigate,
and was to return in the same way. Meantime Nero
tampered with the commander of her vessel, and prevailed upon him to wreck it.  What was to be done?
The great lady was anxious to return to Rome, and no
proper conveyance was at hand.  Suddenly it was
suggested, as if by chance, that a ship of the emperor's, new and properly equipped, was moored at a
neighboring station. This was readily accepted by
Agrippina: the emperor accompanied her to the place
oe embarkation, took a most tender leave of her, and
saw her set sail.  It was necessary that the vessel
should get into deep water before the experiment could
be made; and with the utmost agitation this pious son
awaited news of the result. Suddenly a messenger




THE CMESARS.                 9b
rushed breathless into his presence, and horrified hirn
by the joyful information that his august mother had
met witb an alarming accident; but, by the blessing of
Heaven, had escaped safe and sound, and was now on
her road to mingle congratulations with her affectionate
sen,  The ship, it seems, had done its office; the
mechanism had played admirably; but who can provide for everything? The old lady, it turned out,
could swim like a duck; and the whole result had been
i:o refresh her with a little sea-bathing.  Here was
worshipful intelligence.  Could any man's temper be
expected to stand such continued sieges? Money, and
trouble, and infinite contrivance, wasted upon one old
woman, whEo abolutely would not, upon any terms, be
murdered! Provoking it certainly was; and of a man
like Nero it could not be expected that he should any
longer dissemble his disgust, or put up with such
epeet e..ld affronts. He rushed upon his simple con
gratulating friend, swore that he had come to murder
him, and as nobody could have suborned him but
AgriDDina, he ordered her off to instant execution
And, unquestionably, if people will not be murdered
quietly and in a civil way, they must expect that such
forbearance is not to continue for ever; and obviously
have thelelv's  nly tin blame, for any harshness or
violence which they may have rendered necessary.
It is singular, and shocking at the same time, toc
mention, that, for this atrocity, Nero did absolutely




96                THE CIESARS.
receive solemn congratulations from all orders of men.
Width such evidences of base servility in the public
mind, and of -the utter corruption which they had sustained in the'ir elementary feelings, it is the less astonishing that he should have made other experiments
upon the public patience, which seem  expressly designned to try how much it -would support.  Whether
kbe.wee really the author of the desolating fire which
consumed Rome for six days 15.and seven nights, and
dro-ve.the mass of the people into the tombs and sepulchres for shelter, is yet a matter of some doubt.
But one great presumption against it, founded on its
desperate imprudence, as.attacking the people in their
primary comforts, is considerably weakened by the
enormous servility. of the Romans in'the case just
stated: they who could volunteer congratulations to a
son for butchering his mother, (no matter -on what
pretended suspicions,) might reasonably be supposed
incapable of.any,resistance which required courage
even in a case.of self-defence, or of just revenge.
The direct reasons, however, for implicating him in
this affair, seem at present insufficient.  He was displeased, it seems, with the irregularity and unsightl.ness of the antique buildings, and also with the streets,
as too narrow  and winding, (angustiis Jexurisque
vicorum.) But in this he did but express what was no
doubt the common judgment of all his contemporaries,
who had seen the beautiful cities of Greece and Asia




THE CiESARS.                 97
Minor. The Rome of that time was in many parts
built of wood; and there is much probability that it
must have been a picturesque city, and in parts almost
grotesque.  But it is remarkable, and a fact which we
have nowhere seen noticed, that the ancients, whether
Greeks or Romans, had no eye for the picturesque;
nay, that it was a sense utterly unawakened amongst
them; and that the very conception of the picturesque,
as of a thing distinct from the beautiful, is not once
alluded to through the whole course of ancient literature, nor would it have been intelligible to any
ancient critic; so that, whatever attraction for the eye
might exist in the Rome of that day, there is little
doubt that it was of a kind to be felt only by modern
spectators. Mere dissatisfaction with its external appearance, which must have been a pretty general
sentiment, argued, therefore, no necessary purpose of
destroying it. Certainly it would be weightier ground
of suspicion, if it were really true that some of his
agents were detected on the premises of different
senators in the act of applying combustibles to their
mansions. But this story wears a very fabulous air.
For why resort to the private dwellings of great men,
where any intruder was sure of attracting notice, when
the same effect and with the same deadly results,
might have been attained quietly and secretly in so
many of the humble Roman ccnacula?
The great loss on this memorable occasion was in
9




98                 THE CESiARS.
the heraldic and ancestral honors of the l3ity.  Historic Rome then event to wreck for ever. Then perished the do.?zus priscorum  ducum  hzostilibus adhluc
spoliis adornatrc; the' rostral' palace; the mansion of
the Pompeys; the Blenheims and the Strathfieldsays
of the Scipios, the Marcelli, the Paulli, and the Coesars;
then perished the aged trophies from  Carthage and
from  Gaul; and, in short, as the historian sums up
the lamentable desolation,' quidquid visendumn atque
memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat.'  And  this of
itself might lead one to suspect the emperor's hand
as the original agent; for by no one act was it possible
so entirely and so suddenly to wean the people from
their old republican recollections, and in one week to
obliterate the memorials of their popular forces, and
the trophies of many ages. The old people of Rome
were gone; their characteristic dress even was gone;
for already in the time of Augustus they had laid aside
the toga, and assumed the cheaper and scantier
pcenula, so that the eye sought in vain for Virgil's' Romanus rerum dominos gentemque togatam.'
Why then, after all the constituents of Roman
grandeur had passed away, should their historical
trophies survive, recalling to them the scenes of
departed heroism, in which they had no personal
property, and suggesting to them  vain hopes, which
for them were never to be other than chimeras?
Even in that sense, therefore, and as a great deposit




THE CWSARS.                  99
tory of heart-stirring historical remembrances, Rome
was profitably destroyed; and in any other sense,
whether for health or for the conveniences of polished
life, or for architectural magnificence, there never
was a doubt that the Roman people gained infinitely
by this conflagration. For, like London, it arose from
its ashes with a splendor proportioned to its vast expansion of wealth and population; and marble took the
place of wood.  For the moment, however, this event
must have been felt by the people as an overwhelming
calamity. And it serves to illustrate the passive endurance and timidity of the popular temper, and to
what extent it might be provoked with impunity, that
in this state of general irritation and effervescence,
Nero absolutely forbade them  to meddle with the
ruins of their own dwellings -taking that charge upon
himself, with a view to the vast wealth which he anticipated from sifting the rubbish. And, as if that mode
of plunder were not sufficient, he exacted compulsory
contributions to the rebuilding of the city so indis.
criminately, as to press heavily upon all men's finances; and thus, in the public account which universally
imputed the fire to him, he was viewed as a twofold
robber, who sought to heal one calamity by the infliction of another and a greater.
The monotony of wickedness and outrage becomes
at length fatiguing to the coarsest and most callous
senses; and the historian, even, who caters professedly




100               THE CESAhRS.
for the taste which feeds upon the monstrous and the
hyperbolical, is glad at length to escape from the long
evolution of his insane atrocities, to the striking and
truly scenical catastrophe of retribution which overtook
them, and avenged the wrongs of an insulted world.
Perhaps history contains no more impressive scenes
than those in which the justice of Providence at length
arrested the monstrous career of Nero.
It was at Naples, and by a remarkable fatality, on
the very anniversary of his mother's murder, that he
received the first intelligence of the revolt in Gaul
under the Propraetor Vindex. This news for about a
week he treated with levity; and, like Henry VII. of
England, who was nettled, not so much at being proclaimed a rebel, as because he was described under
the slighting denomination of'one Henry Tidder or
Tudor,' he complained bitterly that Vindex had mentioned himn by his family name of 2Enobarbus, rather
than his assumed one of Nero. But much. more keenly
he resented the insulting description of himself as a'miserable harper,' appealing to all about him whether
they had ever known a better, and offering to stake
the truth of all the other charges against himself upon
the accuracy of this in particular.  So little even in
this instance was he alive to the true point of the
insult; not thinking it any disgrace that a Roman
emperor should be chiefly known to the world in the
character of a harper, bat only if he should happen




THE CffSARS.                101
to be a bad one. Even in those days, however, imperfect as were the means of travelling, rebellion
moved somewhat too rapidly to allow any long interval of security so light-minded as this. One courieir
followed upon the heels of another, until he felt the
necessity for leaving Naples; and he returned to
Rome, as the historian says, prcetrepidus; by which
word, however, according to its genuine classical
acceptation, we apprehend is not meant that he was
highly alarmed, but only that he was in a great hurry.
That he was not yet under any real alarm (for he
trusted in certain prophecies, which, like those made.
to the Scottish tyrant'kept the promise to the ear,
but broke it to the sense,') is pretty evident from his
conduct on reaching the capitol. For, without any
appeal to the senate or the people, but sending out a
few summonses to some men of rank, he held a hasty
council, which he speedily dismissed, and occupied
the rest of the day with experiments on certain musical instruments of recent invention, in which the
keys were moved by hydraulic contrivances. He had
come to Rome, it appeared, merely from a sense of
decorum.
Suddenly, however, arrived news, which fell upon
him with the force of a thunderbolt, that the revolt
had extended to the Spanish provinces, and was headed by Galba. HTe fainted upon hearing this; and
falling to the ground, lay for a long time lifeless, as




102                THE CSESARS.
it seemed, and speechless.  Upon coming to himself
again, he tore his robe, struck his forehead, and ex.
claimed aloud - that for him  all was over. In this
agony of mind, it strikes across the utter darkness of
the scene with the sense of a sudden and cheering
flash, recalling to us the possible goodness and fidelity
of human nature - when we read that one humble
creature adhered to him, and, according to her slender
means, gave him consolation during these trying moments; this was the woman who had tended his infant
years; and she now recalled to his remembrance such
instances of former princes in adversity, as appeared
fitted to sustain his drooping spirits. It seems, however, that, according to the general course of violent
emotions, the rebound of high spirits was in proportion
to his first despondency. He omitted nothing of his
usual luxury or self-indulgence, and he even found
spirits for going incognito to the theatre, where he took
sufficient interest in the public performances, to send
a message to a favorite actor. At times, even in this
hopeless situation, his native ferocity returned upon
him, and he was believed to have framed plans for
removing all his enemies at once - the leaders of the
rebellion, by appointing successors to their offices,
and secretly sending assassins to dispatch their persons; the seniate, by poison at a,great banquet; the
Gaulish provinces, by delivering them  up for pillage
}o the army; the city, by again setting it on fire




THE Cr SARS.               103
whilst, at the same time, a vast number of wild beasts
was to have been turned loose upon the unarmed
populace - for the double purpose of destroying them,
and of distracting their attention from the fire. But,
as the mood of his frenzy changed, these sanguinary
schemes were abandoned, (not, however, under any
feelings of remorse, but from mere despair of effecting
them,) and on the same day, but after a luxurious dinner, the imperial monster grew bland and pathetic in
his ideas; he would proceed to the rebellious army;
he would present himself unarmed to their view; and
would recall them to their duty by the mere spectacle
of his tears. Upon the pathos with which he would
weep he was resolved to rely entirely. And having
received the guilty to his mercy without distinction,
upon the following day he would unite his joy with
their joy, and would chant hymns of victory (epinicia)
-' which by the way,' said he, suddenly, breaking
off to his favorite pursuits,' it is necessary that I
should immediately compose.' This caprice vanished
like the rest; and he made an effort to enlist the
slaves and citizens into his service, and to raise by
extortion a large military chest. But in the midst of
these vascillating purposes fresh tidings surprised him
— other armies had revolted, and the rebellion was
spreading contagiously. This consummation of his
alarms reached him at dinner; and the expressions of
his angry fears took even a scenical air; he tore the




104               THE CMESARS.
dispatches, upset the table, and dashed to pieces upon
the ground two crystal beakers - which had a high
value as works of art, even in the Aurea Domus, from
the sculptures which adorned them.
He now prepared for flight; and sending forward
commissioners to prepare the fleet at Ostia for his
reception, he tampered with such officers of the army
as were at hand, to prevail upon them to accompany
his retreat. But all showed themselves indisposed to
such schemes, and some flatly refused. Upon which
he turned to other counsels; sometimes meditating a
flight to the King of Parthia, or even to throw himself
on the mercy of Galba; sometimes inclining rather
to the plan of venturing into the forum in mourning
apparel, begging pardon for his past offences, and, as
a last resource, entreating that he might receive the
appointment of Egyptian prefect. This plan, however,
he hesitated to adopt, from some apprehension that
he should be torn to pieces in his road to the forum;
and, at all events, he concluded to postpone it to the
following day. Meantime events were now hurrying
to their catastrophe, which for ever anticipated that
intention. His hours were numbered, and the closing
scene was at hand.
In the middle of the night he was aroused from
slumber with the intelligence that the military guard,
who did duty at the palace, had all quitted their posts,
Upon this the unhappy prince leaped from his couch,




T fE iCOSARS.              105
never again to taste the luxury of sleep, and dispatched
messengers to his friends. No answers were returned;
and upon that he went personally with a small retinue
to their hotels.  But he found their doors everywhere
closed; and all his importunities could not avail to
extort an answer. Sadly and slowly he returned to
his own bedchamber; but there again he found fresh
instances of desertion, which had occurred during his
short absence; the pages of his bedchamber had fled,
carrying with them the coverlids of the imperial bed,
which were probably inwrought with gold, and even a
golden box, in which Nero had on the preceding day
deposited poison prepared against the last extremity.
Wounded to the heart by this general desertion, and
perhaps by some special case of ingratitude, such as
would probably enough be signalized in the flight of
his personal favorites, he called for a gladiator of the
household to come and dispatch him. But none appearing -' What!' said he,' have I neither friend nor
foe?' And so saying, he ran towards the Tiber, with
the purpose of drowning himself. But that paroxysm,
like all the rest, proved transient; and he expressed a
wish for some hiding-place, or momentary asylum,
in which he might collect his unsettled spirits, and
fortify his wandering resolution.  Such a retreat was
offered him by his libertus Phaon, in his own rural
villa, about four miles distant from Rome.  The offer
was accepted; and the emperor, without further -rne



106                THE C2ESAR.S
paration than that of throwing over his person a,short
mantle of a dusky hue, and enveloping his head and
face in a handkerchief, mounted his horse, and left
Rome with four attendants.  It was still night, but
probably verging towards the early dawn; and even
at that hour the imperial party met some travellers
on their way to Rome (coming up no doubt,16 on law
business) - who said, as they passed,' These men are
certainly in chase of Nero.' Two other incidents, of
an interesting nature, are recorded of this short but
memorable ride: at one point of the road the shouts
of the soldiery assailed their ears from the neighboring encampment of Galba. They were probably then
getting under arms for their final march to take possession of the palace. At another point, an accident
occurred of a more unfortunate kind, but so natural
and so well circumstantiated, that it serves to verify
the whole narrative; a dead body was lying on the
load, at which the emperor's horse started so violently
as nearly to dismount his rider, and under the diffi.
culty of the moment compelled him to withdraw the
hand which held up the handkerchief, and suddenly to
expose his features. Precisely at this critical momen
it happened that an old half-pay.officer passed, recog.
nized the emperor, and saluted him. Perhaps it was
with some purpose of applying a remedy to this unfortunate rencontre, that the party dismounted at a point
where several roads met, and turned their horses adrift




THE C.5SARS.                107
to graze at will amongst the furze and brambles.
Their own purpose was, to make their way to the back
of the villa; but, to accomplish that, it was necessary
that they should first cross a plantation of reeds, from
the peculiar state of which they found themselves
obliged to cover successively each space upon which
they trode with parts of their dress, in order to gain
any supportable footing.  In this-way, and contending
with such hardships, they reached at length the postern
side of the villa. Here we must suppose that there
was no regular ingress; for, after waiting until an
entrance was pierced, it seems that the emperor could
avail himself of it in no more dignified posture, than
by creeping through the hole on his hands and feet,
(quadrupes per angustias receptus.)
Now, then, after such anxiety, alarm, and hardship,
Nero had reached a quiet rural asylum.  But for the
unfortunate occurrence of his horse's alarm with the
passing of the soldier, he might perhaps have counted
on a respite of a day or two in this noiseless and
obscure abode.  But what a habitation for him who
was yet ruler of the world in the eye of law, and
even de facto was so, had any fatal accident befallen
his aged competitor! The room in which (as the one
most removed from  notice and  suspicion) he had
secreted himself, was a cella, or little sleeping closet
of a slave, furnished only with a miserable pallet and
a coarse rug. Here lay the founder and possessor of




108               THE CESARS.
the Golden House, too happy if he might hope for the
peaceable possession even of this miserable crypt,
But that, he knew too well, was impossible. A rival
pretender to the empire was like the plague of fire - as
dangerous in the shape of a single spark left unextinguished, as in that of a prosperous conflagration, But
a few brief sands yet remained to run in the emperor's
hour-glass; much variety of degradation or suffering
seemed scarcely within the possibilities of his situation,
or within the compass of the time. Yet, as though
Providence had decreed that his humiliation should
pass through every shape, and speak by every expression
which came home to his understanding, or was intelligible to his senses, even in these few moments he was
attacked by hunger and thirst. No other bread could
be obtained (or, perhaps, if the emperor's presence
were concealed from the household, it was not safe to
raise suspicion by calling for better) than that which
was ordinarily given to slaves, coarse, black, and, to a
palate so luxurious, doubtless disgusting. This accordingly he rejected; but a litle tepid water he drank.
After which, with the haste of one who fears that he
may be prematurely interrupted, but otherwise, with
all the reluctance which we may imagine, and which
his streaming tears proclaimed, he addressed himself
to the last labor in which he supposed himself to have
any interest on this earth —that of digging a grave.
Pleasuring a space adjusted to the proportions of his




THE CMESARS.                109
person, he inquired anxiously for any loose fragments
of marble, such as might suffice to line it.  He requested also to be furnished with wood and water, as
the materials for the last sepulchral rites. And these
labors were accompanied, or continually interrupted by
tears and lamentations, or by passionate ejaculations on
the blindness of fortune, in suffering so divine'an artist
to be thus violently snatched away, and on the calamitous fate of musical science, which then stood on the
brink of so dire an eclipse. In these moments he was
most truly in an agony, according to the original meaning of that word; for the conflict was great between
two master principles of his nature: on the one hand,
he clung with the weakness of a girl to life, even in
that miserable shape to which it had now sunk; and
like the poor malefactor, with whose last struggles
Prior has so atrociously amused himself,' he often took
leave, but was loath to depart.' Yet, on the other
hand, to resign his life very speedily, seemed his only
chance for escaping the contumelies, perhaps the
tortures of his enemies; and, above all other considerations, for making sure of a burial, and possibly of
burial rites; to want which, in the judgment of the
ancients, was the last consummation of misery. Thus
occupied, and thus distracted - sternly attracted to the
grave by his creed, hideously repelled by infirmity of
nature - ho was suddenly interrupted by a courier
with letters for the master of the house; letters, and




110                THE CmXSARS.
from  Rome! What was their import?   That' as
soon told — briefly that Nero was adjudged to be a
public enemy by the senate, and that official orders
were issued for apprehending him, in order that lihe
might be brought to condign punishment according to
the method of ancient precedent.  Ancient precedent 
more majorem!  And how  was that?  eagerly demanded the emperor.  He was answered —that the
state criminal in such cases was first stripped naked,
then impaled as it were between the prongs of a pitchfork, and in that condition scourged to death. Horrorstruck with this account, he drew forth two poniards,
or short swords, tried their edges, and then, in utter
imbecility of purpose, returned them to their scabbards,
alleging that the destined moment had not yet arrived.
Then he called upon Sporus, the imfamous partner in
his former excesses, to commence the funeral anthem.
Others, again, he besought to lead the way in dying,
and to sustain him by the spectacle of their example.
But this purpose also he dismissed in the very moment
of utterance; and turning away despairingly, he apostrophized himself in words reproachful or animating,
now taxing his nature with infirmity of purpose, now
calling on himself by name, with adjurations to remember his dignity, and to act worthy of his supreme
station: o0? 7i)ruEL tN~Qwvt, cried he, ov' tn Ert    *  (p7lYvJ dEt~ i)
o  cotov'rot Og' &ye, ysoEE eUavTOV — i. e.'Fie, fie, then,
Nero! such a season calls for perfect self-possession
IUp, then, and rouse thyself to action.'




TIE CIESARS.               I1 1
Thus, and in similar efforts to master the weakness
of his reluctant nature - weakness which would extort pity from the severest minds, were it not from the
odious connection which in him it had with cruelty the
most merciless - did this unhappy prince, jam non
salutis spem sed exitii solatium qucerens, consume the
flying moments, until at length his ears caught the
fatal sounds or echoes from a body of horsemen riding
up to the villa. These were the officers charged with
his arrest; and if he should fall into their hands alive,
he knew that his last chance was over for liberating
himself, by a Roman death, from the burthen of ignominious life, and from a lingering torture. He paused
from his restless motions, listened attentively, then
repeated a line from Homer -'17rzzv t' w;vnodoJwv CaLqL X2tvOv 8oaTra plac2Et 
(The resounding tread of swift-footed horses reverberates upon my ears);- then under some momentary
impulse of courage, gained perhaps by figuring to himself the bloody populace rioting upon his mangled
body, yet even then needing the auxiliary hand and
vicarious courage of his private secretary, the feeblehearted prince stabbed himself in the throat.  The
wound, however, was not such as to cause instant
death.  He was still breathing, and not quite speechless, when the centurion who commanded the party
entered the closet; and to this officer who uttered a
few hollow words of encouragement, he was still able




12               THE C ASARS.
to make a brief reply. But in the very effort of
speaking he expired, and with an expression of horror
impressed upon his stiffened features, which communicated a sympathetic horror to all beholders.
Such was the too memorable tragedy which closed
for ever the brilliant line of the Julian family, and
translated the august title of Caesar from its original
purpose as a proper name to that of an official designation. It is the most striking instance upon record
of a dramatic and extreme vengeance overtaking extreme guilt: for, as Nero had exhausted the utmost
possibilities of crime, so it may be affirmed that he
drank off the cup of suffering to the very extremity
of what his peculiar nature allowed. And in no life
of so short a duration, have there ever been crowded
equal extremities of gorgeous prosperity and abject
infamy. It may be added, as another striking illustration of the rapid mutability and revolutionary excesses
which belonged to what has been properly called the
Roman stratocracy then disposing of the world, that
within no very great succession of weeks that same
victorious rebel, the Emperor Galba, at whose feet
Nero had been self-immolated, was laid a murdered
corpse in the same identical cell which had witnessed
the lingering agonies of his unhappy victim.  This
was the act of an emancipated slave, anxious, by a
vindictive insult to the remains of one prince, to place
An record his gratitude to another.' So runs the




TIHE CASIRS.                 113
world away!' And in this striking way is retribution sometimes dispensed.
In the sixth Caesar terminated the Julian line. Tlhe
three next princes in the succession were personally
uninteresting; and with a slight reserve in favor of
Otho, whose motives for committing suicide (if truly
-eportedc)  argue great nobility of mind,17 were even
orutal in the tenor of their lives and monstrous;
besides that the extreme brevity of their several reigns
(all three, taken conjunctly, having held the supreme
power for no more than twelve months and twenty
days) dismisses them from all effectual station or right
to a separate notice in the line of Caesars.  Coming
to the tenth in the succession, Vespasian, and his two
sons, Titus and Domitian, who make up the list of
the twelve Ctesars, as they are usually called, we find
matter for deeper political meditation and subjects of
curious research.  But these emperors would be more
properly classed with the five who succeeded them -
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines; after
whom comes the young ruffian, Commodus, another
Caligula or Nero, from whose short and infamous
reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the
empire. And this classification would probably have
prevailed, had not the very curious work of Suetonius,
whose own life and period of observation determined
the series and cycle of his subjects, led to a different
distribution.  But as it is evident that, in the suce
10




114                 THE CLSARS.
cession of the first twelve Cesars, the six latter have
no connection whatever by descent, collaterally, or
otherwise, with the six first, it would be a more
logical distribution to combine them according to the
fortunes of the state itself, and the succession of its
prosperity through the several stages of splendor,
declension, revival, and final decay.  Under this arrangement, the first seventeen would belong to the
first stage; Commodus would  open the  second;
Aurelian down to Constantine or Julian would fill the
third; and Jovian to Augustulus would bring up the
melancholy rear.  Meantime it will be proper, after
thus briefly throwing our eyes over the monstrous
atrocities of the early Caesars, to spend a few lines in
examining their origin, and the circumstances which
favored their growth.  For a mere hunter after hidden
or forgotten singularities; a lover on their own account of all strange perversities and freaks of nature,
whether in action, taste, or opinion; for a collector
and amateur of misgrowths and abortions; for a Suetonius, in short, it may be quite enough to state and
to arrange his cabinet of specimens from the marvellous in human nature. But certainly in modern times,
any historian, however little affecting the praise of a
philosophic investigator, would feel himself called
upon to remove a little the taint of the miraculous
and preternatural which adheres to such anecdotes,
by entering into the psychological grounds of their




possibility; whether lying in any peculiarly vicious
education, early familiarity with bad models, cqrrupting associations, or other plausible key to effects, which,
taken separately, and out of their natural connection
with their explanatory causes, are apt rather to startle
and revolt the feelings of sober thinkers. Except,
perhaps, in some chapters of Italian history, as, for
example, among the most profligate of the Papal
houses, and amongst some of the Florentine princes,
we find hardly any parallel to the atrocities of Caligula and Nero; nor indeed was Tiberius much (if at
all) behind them, though otherwise so wary and cautious in his conduct. The same tenor of licentiousness
beyond the needs of the individual, the same craving
after the marvellous and the stupendous in guilt, is
continually emerging in succeeding emperors — in
Vitellius, in Domitian, in Commodus, in Caracalla —
everywhere, in short, where it was not overruled by
one of two causes, either by original goodness of
nature too powerful to be mastered by ordinary seductions, (and in some cases removed from their influence
by an early apprenticeship to camps,) or by the terrors
of an exemplary ruin immediately preceding.  For
such a determinate tendency to the enormous and the
anomalous, sufficient causes must exist.  What were
they?
In the first place, we may observe that the people
of Rome in that age were generally more corrupt by




116                THE CMSARS.
many degrees than has been usually supposed possi.
ble. The effect of revolutionary times, to relax all
modes of moral obligation, and to unsettle the moral
sense, has been well and philosophically stated by Mr.
Coleridge; but that would hardly account for the utter
licentiousness and depravity of Imperial Rome. Looking back to Republican Rome, and considering the
state of public morals but fifty years before the emperors, we can with difficulty believe that the descendants of a people so severe in their habits could thus
rapidly degenerate, and that a populace, once so hardy
and masculine, should assume the manners which we
might expect in the debauchees of Daphne (the infamous suburb of Antioc'.) or of Canopus, into which
settled the very lees and dregs of the vicious Alexandria.  Such extreme changes would falsify all that we
know of human nature; we might, a priori, pronounce
them impossible; and in fact, upon searching history,
we find other modes of solving the difficulty.  In
reality, the citizens of Rome were at this time a new
race, brought together from every quarter of the world,
but especially from Asia. So vast a proportion of
the ancient citizens had been cut off by the sword,
and partly to conceal this waste of population, but
much more by way of cheaply requiting services, or
of showing favor, or.of acquiring influence, slaves
had been emancipated in such great multitudes, and
afterwards invested with all the rights of citizens,




TIHE CESARs.                 117
that, in a single generation, Rome became almost
transmuted into a baser metal; the progeny of those
whom the last generation had purchased from the
slave merchants. These people derived their stock
chiefly from Cappadocia, Pontus, &c., and the other
populous regions of Asia Minor; and hence the taint
of Asiatic luxury and depravity, which was so conspicuous to all the Romans of the old republican
severity. Juvenal is to be understood more literally
than is sometimes supposed, when he complains that
long before his time the Orontes (that river which
washed the infamous capital of Syria) had mingled
its impure waters with those of the Tiber. And a
little before him, Lucan speaks with mere historic
gravity when he says-----'Vivant Galataeque Syrique
Cappadoces, Gallique, extremique orbis Iberi,
Armenii, Cilices: nam post civilia bella
Hlic Populus lRomanus erit.' 18
Probably in the time of Nero, not one man in six
was of pure Roman descent.19 And the consequences
were suitable. Scarcely a family has come down to
our knowledge that could not in one generation enumerate a long catalogue of divorces within its own
contracted circle. Every man had married a series
of wives; every woman a series of husbands.  Even
in the palace of Augustus, who wished to be viewed
as an exemplar or ideal model of domestic purity,




118                THE CA SARS.
every principal member of his family was tainted in
that way; himself in a manner and a degree infamous
even at that time.20  For the first 400 years of Rome,
not one divorce had been granted or asked, although
the statute which allowed of this indulgence had
always been in force. But in the age succeeding to
the civil wars, men and women' married,' says one
author,' with a view to divorce, and divorced in order
to marry. Many of these changes happened within
the year, especially if the lady had a large fortune,
which always went with her and procured her choice
of transient husbands.'  And,'can one imagine,'
asks the same writer,' that the fair one who changed
her husband every quarter, strictly kept her matrimonial faith all the three months?' Thus the very
fountain of all the'household charities' and household virtues was polluted.  And after that we need
little wonder at the assassinations, poisonings, and
forging of wills, which then laid waste the domestic
life of the Romans.
2. A second source of the universal depravity was
the growing inefficacy of the public religion; and this
arose from its disproportion and inadequacy to the
intellectual advances of the nation.  Religion, in its
very etymology, has been held to imply a religatio,
that is, a reiterated or secondary obligation of morals;
a sanction supplementary to that of the conscience.
Now, for a rude and uncultivated people, the Pagan




THE COESARs.                119
mythology might not be too gross to discharge the
main functions of a useful religion.  So long as the
understanding could submit to the fables of the Pagan
creed, so long it was possible that the hopes and fears
built upon that creed might be practically efficient on
men's lives and intentions.  But when the foundation
gave way, the whole superstructure of necessity fell
to the ground. Those who were obliged to reject the
ridiculous legends which invested the whole of their
Pantheon, together with the fabulous adjudgers of
future punishments, could not but dismiss the punishments, which were, in fact, as laughable, and as
obviously the fictions of human ingenuity, as their
dispensers. In short, the civilized part of the world
in those days lay in this dreadful condition; their
intellect had far outgrown their religion; the disproportions between the two were at length become monstrous; and as yet no purer or more elevated faith
was prepared for their acceptance. The case was as
shocking as if, with our present intellectual needs,
we should be unhappy enough to have no creed on
which to rest the burden of our final hopes and fears,
of our moral obligations, and of our consolations in
misery, except the fairy mythology of our nurses. The
condition of a people so situated, of a people under
the calamity of having outgrown its religious faith,
has never been sufficiently considered.  It is probable
that such a condition has never existed before or since




120               THE C.JSARS.
that era of the world.  The consequences to Rome
were -  that the reasoning and disputatious part of
her population took refuge from the painful state of
doubt in Atheism; amongst the thoughtless and irreflective the consequences were chiefly felt in their
morals, which were thus sapped in their foundation.
3. A third cause, which from the first had exercised
a most baleful influence upon the arts and upon literature in Rome, had by this time matured its disastrous
tendencies towards the extinction of the moral sensibilities. This was the circus, and the whole machinery,
form and substance, of the Circensian shows. Why
had tragedy no existence as a part of the Roman
literature?  Because - and that was a reason which
would have sufficed to stifle all the dramatic genius
of Greece and England - there was too much tragedy
in the shape of gross reality, almost daily before their
eyes.  The amphitheatre extinguished the theatre.
How was it possible that the fine and intellectual
griefs of the drama should win their way to hearts
seared and rendered callous by the continual exhibition of scenes the most hideous, in which human
blood was poured out like water, and a human life
sacrificed at any moment either to caprice in the
populace, or to a strife of rivalry between the ayes
and the noes, or as the penalty for any trifling instance
of awkwardness in the performer himself?  Even the
more innocent exhibitions, in which brutes only were




THE CRSARS.                 121
the sufferers, could not but be mortal to all the finer
sensibilities. Five thousand wild animals, torn from
their native abodes in the wilderness or forest, were
often turned out to be hunted, or for mutual slaughter,
in the course of a single exhibition of this nature;
and it sometimes happened, (a fact which of itself
proclaims the course of the public propensities,) that
the person at whose expense the shows were exhibited,
by way of paying special court to the people and
meriting their favor, in the way most conspicuously
open to him, issued orders that all, without a solitary
exception, should be slaughtered..He made it known,
as the very highest gratification which the case allowed,
that (in the language of our modern auctioneers) the
whole,'without reserve,' should perish before their
eyes. Even such spectacles must have hardened the
heart and blunted the more delicate sensibilities; but
these would soon cease to stimulate the pampered
and exhausted sense. From the combats of tigers or
leopards, in which the passions could only be gathered
indirectly, and by way of inference from the motions,
the transition must have been almost inevitable to
those of men, whose nobler and more varied passions
spoke directly, and by the intelligible language of the
eye, to human spectators; and from the frequent contemplation of these authorized murders, in which a
whole people, women 21 as much as men, and children
intermingled with both, looked on with leisurely indif11




122                THE CEARsS.
ference, with anxious expectation, or with rapturous
delight, whilst below them were passing the direct
sufferings of humanity, and not seldom its dying
pangs, it was impossible to expect a result different
from  that which did in fact take place,- universal
hardness of heart, obdurate depravity, and a twofold
degradation of human nature, which acted simultaneously upon the two pillars of morality, (which are
otherwise not often assailed together,) of natural sensibility in the first place, and in the second, of conscientious principle.
4. But these were circumstances which applied to
the whole population indiscriminately.  Superadded
to these, in the case of the emperor, and affecting
him exclusively, was this prodigious disadvantage -
that ancient reverence for the immediate witnesses
of his actions, and for the people and senate who
would under other circumstances have exercised the
old functions of the censor, was, as to the emperor,
pretty nearly obliterated. The very title of imperator,
from  which we have derived our modern one of
emperor, proclaims the nature of the government, and
the tenure of that office. It was purely a government
by the sword, or permanent stratocracy, having a
movable head. Never was there a people who inquired
so impertinently as the Romans into the domestic
conduct of each private citizen. No rank escaped
this jealous vigilance; and private liberty, even in the




THE CmsARs.                  123
most indifferent circumstances of taste or expense,
was sacrificed to this inquisitorial rigor of surveillance,
exercised on behalf of the state, sometimes by erroneous patriotism, too often by malice in disguise. To
this spirit the highest public officers were obliged to
bow; the consuls, not less than others. And even
the occasional dictator, if by law irresponsible, acted
nevertheless as one who knew that any change which
depressed his party might eventually abrogate his
privilege. For the first time in the person of an
imperator was seen a supreme autocrat, who had virtually and effectively all the irresponsibility which the
law assigned, and the origin of his office presumed.
Satisfied to know that he possessed such power, Augustus, as much from natural taste as policy, was glad
to dissemble it, and by every means to withdraw  it
from public notice. But he had passed his youth as
citizen of a republic; and in the state of transition to
autocracy, in his office of triumvir, had experimentally
known the perils of rivalship, and the pains of foreign
control, too feelingly to provoke unnecessarily any
sleeping embers of the republican spirit. Tiberius,
though familiar from his infancy with the servile
homage of a court, was yet modified by the popular
temper of Augustus; and he came late to the throne.
Caligula was the first prince on whom the entire effect
of his political situation was allowed to operate; and
the natural results -were seen - he was the first abso



124               THE CJESARS.
lute monster. He must early have seen the realities of his position, and from what quarter it was that
any cloud could arise to menace his security.  To
the senate or people any respoct which he might think
proper to pay, must have been imputed by all parties
to the lingering superstitions of custom, to involuntary
habit, to court dissimulation, or to the decencies of
external form, and the prescriptive reverence of ancient
names. But neither senate nor people could enforce
their claims, whatever they might happen to be.
Their sanction and ratifying vote might be worth
having, as consecrating what was already secure, and
conciliating the scruples of the weak to the absolute
decision of the strong.  But their resistance, as an
original movement, was so wholly without hope, that
they were never weak enough to threaten it.
The army was the true successor to their places,
being the ultimate depository of power. Yet, as the
army was necessarily subdivided, as the shifting circumstances upon  every  frontier were  continually
varying the strength of the several divisions as to
numbers and state of discipline, one part might be
balanced against the other by an imperator standing
in the centre of the whole. The rigor of the military
sacramentum, or oath of allegiance, made it dangerous
to offer the first overtures to rebellion; and the money,
which the soldiers were continually depositing in the
bank, placed at the foot of their military standards, if




THE CsEARS.                125
sometimes turned against the  emperor, was also
liable to be sequestrated in his favor.  There were
then, in fact, two great forces in the government
acting in and by each other —the Stratocracy, and
the Autocracy.  Each needed the other; each stood
in awe of each.  But, as regarded all other forces
in the empire, constitutional or irregular, popular or
senatorial, neither had anything to fear. Under any
ordinary  circumstances, therefore,  considering  the
hazards of a rebellion, the emperor was substantially
liberated from all control. Vexations or outrages
upon the populace were not such to the army. It
was but rarely that the soldier. participated in the
emotions of the citizen. And thus, being effectually
without check, the most vicious of the Cuesars went
on without fear, presuming upon the weakness of one
part of his subjects, and the indifference of the other,
until he was tempted onwards to atrocities, which
armed against him the common feelings of human
nature, and all mankind, as it were, rose in a body
with one voice, and apparently with one heart, united
by mere force of indignant sympathy, to put him
down, and' abate' him as a monster. But, until he
brought matters to this extremity, Coesar had no cause
to fear. Nor was it at all certain, in any one
instance, where this exemplary chastisement overtook
him, that the apparent unanimity of the actors went
further than the practical conclusion of'abatinfg'




126               THt{ CAZSARS.
the imperial nuisance, or that their indignation had
settled upon the same offences. In general, the army
measured the guilt by the public scandal, rather than
by its moral atrocity; and Cmsar suffered perhaps in
every case, not so much because he had violated his
duties, as because he had dishonored his office.
It is, therefore, in the total absence of the checks
which have almost universally existed to control other
despots, under some indirect shape, even where none
was provided by the laws, that we must seek for the
main peculiarity affecting the condition of the Roman
Caesar, which peculiarity it was, superadded to the
other three, that finally made those three operative in
their fullest extent.  It is in the perfection of the
stratocracy that we must look for the key to  the
excesses of the autocrat. Even in the bloody despotisms of the Barbary States, there has always
existed in the religious prejudices of the people, which
could not be violated with safety, one check more
upon the caprices of the despot than was found at
Rome. Upon the whole, therefore, what affects us
on the first reading as a prodigy or anomaly in the
frantic outrages of the early Csesars- falls within the
natural bounds of intelligible human nature, when
we state the case considerately.  Surrounded by a
population which had not only gone through a most
vicious and corrupting discipline, and had been utterly
ruined by the license of revolutionary times, and the




TE CjESARS.                 127
bloodiest proscriptions, but had even been extensively
changed in its very elements, and from the descendants of Romulus had been transmuted into an Asiatic
mob:- starting from this point, and considering as
the second feature of the case, that this transfigured
people, morally so degenerate, were carried, however,
by the progress of civilization, to a certain intellectual
altitude, which the popular religion had not strength
to ascend - but from inherent disproportion remained
at the base of the general civilization, incapable of
accompanying the other elements in their advance;- -
thirdly, that this polished condition of society, which
should naturally with the evils of a luxurious repose
have counted upon its pacific benefits, had yet, by
means of its circus and its gladiatorial contests, applied
a constant irritation, and a system of provocations to
the appetites for blood, such as in all other nations are
connected with the rudest stages of society, and with
the most barbarous modes of warfare, nor even in such
circumstances, without many palliatives wanting to
the spectators of the circus; -combining these considerations, we have already a key to the enormities
and hideous excesses of the Roman Imperator. The
hot blood which excites, and the adventurous courage
which accompanies, the excesses of sanguinary warfare,
presuppose a condition of the moral nature not to be
compared for malignity and baleful tendency to the
cool and cowardly spirit of amateurship, in which the




128                THE C0SxARS.
Roman (perhaps an effeminate Asiatic) sat looking
down upon the bravest of men, (Thracians or other
Europeans,) mangling each other for his recreation.
Wrhen, lastly, from such a population, and thus disciplined from his nursery days, we suppose the case of
one individual selected, privileged, and raised to a
conscious irresponsibility, except at the bar of one
extra-judicial tribunal, not easily irritated, and notoriously to be propitiated by other means than those of
upright or impartial conduct, we lay together the
elements of a situation too trying for poor human
nature, and fitted only to the faculties of an angel or
a demon; of an angel, if we suppose him to resist its
full temptations; of a demon, if we suppose him to use
its total opportunities. Thus interpreted and solved,
Caligula and Nero become ordinary men.
But, finally, what if, after all, the worst of the
Caesars, and those in particular, were entitled to the
benefit of a still shorter and more conclusive apology?
What if, in a true medical sense, they were insane?
It is certain that a vein of madness ran in the family;
and anecdotes are recorded of the three worst, which
go far to establish it as a fact, and others which would
imply it as symptoms - preceding or accompanying.
As belonging to the former class, take the following
story: At midnight an elderly gentleman suddenly
sends round a message to a select party of noblemen,
rouses them out of bed, and summons them instantly




THEc C&eSARS.               129
to his palace. Trembling for their lives from the
suddenness of the summons, and from the unseasonable hour, and scarcely doubting that by some
anonymous delator they have been implicated as
parties to a conspiracy, they hurry to the palace —
are received in portentous silence by the ushers and
pages in attendance —are conducted to a saloon,
where (as in everywhere else) the silence of night
prevails, united with the silence of fear and whispering
expectation. All are seated- all look at each other
in ominous anxiety. Which is accuser?  Which is
the accused? On whom shall their suspicions settle
-on whom  their pity?  All are silent- almost
speechless - and even the current of their thoughts is
frost-bound by fear. Suddenly the sound of a fiddle
or a viol is caught from a distance - it swells upon
the ear — steps approach — and in another moment
in rushes the elderly gentleman, grave and gloomy
as his audience, but capering about in a fienzy of
excitement. For half an hour he continues to perform
all possible evolutions of caprioles, pirouettes, and
other extravagant feats of activity, accompanying
himself on the fiddle; and, at length, not having
once looked at his guests, the elderly gentleman
whirls out of the room  in the same transport of
emotion with which he entered it; the panic-struck
visitors are requested by a slave to consider themselves
as dismissed: they retire; resume their couches: —




130                THE CfS5ARS.
the nocturnal pageant has' dislimned' and vanished;
and on the following morning, were it not for their
concurring testimonies, all would be disposed to take
this interruption of their sleep for one of its most
fantastic dreams.  The elderly gentleman who figured in this delirious pas seul — who was he?  He
was Tiberius Caesar, king of kings, and lord of the
terraqueous globe. Would a British jury demand
better evidence than this of a disturbed intellect in
any formal process de lunatico  inquirendo?   For
Caligula, again, the evidence of symptoms is still
plainer.  He knew  his own defect; and proposed
going through a course of hellebore. Sleeplessness,
one of the commonest indications of lunacy, haunted
him in an excess rarely recorded.22 The same, or
similar facts, might be brought forward on behalf of
Nero.  And thus these unfortunate princes, who have
so long (and with so little investigation of their cases)
passed for monsters or for demoniac counterfeits of
men, would at length be brought back within the fold
of humanity, as objects rather of pity than of abhorrence, would be reconciled to our indulgent feelings,
and, at the same time, made intelligible to our understandings.




THE C2ESARS.                 131
CHAPTER IV.
THE five Caesars who succeeded immediately to the
first twelve, were, in as high a sense as their office
allowed, patriots. Hadrian is perhaps the first of all
whom  circumstances permitted to show his patiotism
without fear.  It illustrates at one and the same
moment a trait in this emperor's character, and in the
Roman habits, that he acquired much reputation for
hardiness by walking bareheaded.'Never, on any
occasion,' says one of his memorialists (Dio),' neither
in summer heat nor in winter's cold, did he cover his
head; but, as well in the Celtic snows as, in Egyptian
heats, he went about bareheaded.'  This anecdote
could not fail to win the especial admiration of Isaac
Casaubon, who lived in an age when men believed a
hat no less indispensable to the head, even within
doors, than shoes or stockings to the feet. His astonishment on the occasion is thus expressed:'Tantumn
est ij'cax1aLg: -' such and so mighty is the force of habit
and daily use. And then he goes on to ask -' Quis
hodie nudum caput radiis solis, aut omnia perurenti
frigori, ausit exponere?' Yet we ourselves and our
illustrious friend, Christopher North, have walked for
twenty years amongst our British lakes and mountains




132               THE CIESARS.
hatless, and amidst both snow and rain, such as Ro.
mans did not often experience.  We were naked, and
yet not ashamedl. Nor in this are we altogether singular. But, says Casaubon, the Romans went farther;
for they walked about the streets of Rome23 bareheaded, and never assumed a hat or a cap, a petasus or
a galerus, a Macedonian causia, or a pileus, whether
Thessalian, Arcadian or Laconic, unless when they
enltered upon a journey. Nay, some there were, as
Masinissa and Julius Caesar, who declined even on
such an occasion to cover their heads. Perhaps in
imitation of these celebrated leaders, Hadrian adopted
the same practice, but not with the same result; for to
him, either from age or constitution, this very custom
proved the original occasion of his last illness.
Imitation, indeed, was a general principle of action
with Hadrian, and the key to much of his public
conduct; and allowably enough, considering the exemplary lives (in a public sense) of some who had
preceded him, and the singular anxiety with which he
distinguished between the lights and shadows of their
examples. He imitated the great Dictator, Julius, in
his vigilance of inspection into the civil, not less than
the martial police of his times, shaping his new regulations to meet abuses as they arose, and strenuously
maintaining the old ones in vigorous operation. As
respected the army, this was matter of peculiar praise,
because peculiarly disinterested; for his foreign policy




TIHE CESARS.               133
wias pacific;24 he made no new conquests: and he
retired from the old ones of Trojan, where they could
not have been maintained without disproportionate
bloodshed, or a jealousy beyond the value of the stake.
In this point of his administration he took Augustus
for his model; as again in his care of the army, in his
occasional bounties, and in his paternal solicitude for
their comforts, he looked rather to the example of Julius.
Him also he imitated in his affability and in his ambitious courtesies; one instance of which, as blending
an artifice of political subtlety and simulation with a
remarkable exertion of memory, it may be well to
mention. The custom was, in canvassing the citizens
of Rome, that the candidate should address every voter
by his name; it was a fiction of republican etiquette,
that every man participating in the political privileges
of the State must be personally known to public aspirants.  But, as this was supposed to be, in a literal
sense, impossible to all men with the ordinary endowments of memory, in order to reconcile the pretensions
of republican hauteur with the necessities of human
weakness, a custom had grown up of relying upon
a class of men called nomenclators, whose express
business and profession it was to make themselves
acquainted with the person and name of every citizen.
One of these people accompanied every candidate, and
quietly whispered into his ear the name of each voter
as he came in sight. Few, indeed, were they who




134                THE CESARS.
could dispense with the services of such an assessor;
for the office imposed a twofold memory, that of
names and of persons; and to estimate the immensity
of the effort, we must recollect that the number of
voters often far exceed one quarter of a million.
The very same trial of memory he undertook with
respect to his own army, in this instance recalling the
well known feat of Mithridates.  And throughout his
life he did not once forget the face or name of any
veteran soldier whom he had ever occasion to notice,
no matter under what remote climate, or under what
difference of circumstances.  Wonderful is the effect
upon soldiers of such enduring and separate remembrance, which operates always as the most touching
kind of personal flattery, and which, in every age of
the world, since the social sensibilities of men have
been much developed, military commanders are found
to have played upon as the most effectual chord in the
great system which they modulated; some few, by a
rare endowment of nature; others, as Napoleon Bonaparte, by elaborate mimicries of pantomimic art.25
Other modes he had of winning affection from the
army; in particular that, so often practised before and
since. of accommodating himself to the strictest ritual
of martial discipline and castrensian life.  He slept in
the open air, or, if he used a tent (papilio), it was
open at the sides.  He ate the ordinary rations of
cheese, bacon, &c.; he used no other drink than that




THE CIESARS.                 135
composition of vinegar and water, known by the name
of posca, which formed the sole beverage allowed in the
Roman camps.  Ie joined personally in the periodical
exercises of the army - those even which were trying
to the most vigorous youth and health: marching, for
example, on stated occasions, twenty English miles
without intermission, in full armor and completely
accoutred. Luxury of every kind he not only interdicted to the soldier by severe ordinances, himself
enforcing their execution, but discountenanced it
(though elsewhere splendid and even gorgeous in his
personal habits) by his own continual example. In
dress, for instance, he sternly banished the purple and
gold embroideries, the jewelled arms, and the floating
draperies, so little in accordance with the severe character of' war in procinct.' 26  Hardly would he allow
himself an ivory hilt to his sabre. The same severe
proscription he extended to every sort of furniture, or
decorations of art, which sheltered even in the bosom
of camps those habits of effeminate luxury - so apt in
all great empires to steal by imperceptible steps from
the voluptuous palace to the soldier's tent - following
in the equipage of great leading officers, or of subalterns highly connected. There was at that time a
practice prevailing, in the great standing camps on the
several frontiers and at all the military stations, of renewing as much as possible the image of distant Rome
by the erection of long colonnades and piazzas




136                T HE CESAXS.
single, double, or triple; of crypts, or subterranean27
saloons, (and sometimes subterranean galleries and
corridors,) for evading the sultry noontides of July and
August; of verdant cloisters or arcades, with roofs
high over-arched, constructed entirely out of flexile
shrubs, box-myrtle, and others, trained and trimmed in
regular forms; besides endless other applications of the
topiary 28 art, which in those days (like the needlework
of Miss Linwood in ours), though no more than a
mechanic craft, in some measure realized the effects of
a fine art by the perfect skill of its execution. All
these modes of luxury, with a policy that had the more
merit as it thwarted his own private inclinations, did
Hadrian peremptorily abolish; perhaps amongst other
more obvious purposes, seeking to intercept the earliest
buddings of those local attachments which are as injurious to the martial character and the proper pursuits
of men whose vocation obliges them to consider themselves eternally under marching orders, as they are
propitious to all the best interests of society in connection with the feelings of civic life.
We dwell upon this prince not without reason in
this particular; for, amongst the Cuesars, Hadrian
stands forward in high relief as a reformer of the army.
Well and truly might it be said of him - that, post
Ccesarem  Octavianum  labantem  disciplinam, incurid
superiorum  principum, ipse retinuit.  Not content
with the cleansing and purgations we have mentioned,




THE CfSAcRS.                 137
he placed upon a new footing the whole tenure, duties,
and pledges of military offices.29 It cannot much surprise us that this department of the public service
should gradually have gone to ruin or decay. Under
the senate and people, under the auspices of those
awful symbols - letters more significant and ominous
than ever before had troubled the eyes of man, except
upon Belshazzar's wall - S. P. Q. R., the officers of
the Roman army had been kept true to their duties,
and vigilant by emulation and a healthy ambition.
But, when the ripeness of corruption had by dissolving
the body of the State brought out of its ashes a new
mode of life, and had recast the aristocratic republic,
by aid of its democratic elements then suddenly victorious, into a pure autocracy - whatever might, be
the advantages in other respects of this great change,
in one point it had certainly injured the public service,
by throwing the higher military appointments, all in
fact which conferred any authority, into the channels
of court favor - and by consequence into a mercenary
disposal. Each successive emperor had been too
anxious for his own immediate security, to find leisure
for the remoter interests of the empire: all looked to
the army, as it were, for their own immediate security
against competitors, without venturing to tamper with
its constitution, to risk popularity by reforming abuses,
to balance present interest against a remote one, or to
cultivate the public welfare at the hazard of their own:
12




188               THE COASARS.
contented with obtaining that, they left the internal
arrangements of so formidable a body in the state to
which circumstances had brought it, and to which
naturally the views of all existing beneficiaries had
gradually adjusted themselves. W~hat these might be,
and to what further results they might tend, was a
matter of moment doubtless to the empire..  But the
empire was strong; if its motive energy was decaying,
its vis inertice was for ages enormous, and could stand
up against assaults repeated for many ages: whilst the
emperor was in the beginning of his authority weak,
and pledged by instant interest, no less than by express
promises, to the support of that body whose favor had
substantially supported himself. Hadrian was the first
who turned his attention effectually in that direction;
whether it were that he first was struck with the
tendency of the abuses, or that he valued the hazard
less which he incurred in correcting them, or that
having no successor of his own blood, he had a less
personal and affecting interest at stake in setting this
hazard at defiance.  Hitherto, the highest regimental
rank, that of tribune, had been disposed of in two
ways, either civilly upon popular favor and election, or
upon the express recommendation of the soldiery. This
custom had prevailed under the republic, and the force
of habit had availed to propagate that practice under a
new mode of government. But now were introduced
new regulations: the tribune was selected for his mili,




TRlE C.ESARS.                 139
tary qualities and experience: none was appointed to
this important office,'nisi barbd plenc.'  The centurion's truncheon,30 again, was given to no man,'nisi robusto et bonce fame.'  The arms and military
appointments (supeZlectilis) were revised; the register
of names was duly called over; and none suffered to
remain in the camps who was either above or below
the military age. The same vigilance and jealousy
were extended to the great stationary stores and repositories of biscuit, vinegar, and other equipments for the
soldiery.  All things were in constant readiness in the
capital and the provinces, in the garrisons and camps,
abroad and at home, to meet the outbreak of a foreign
war or a domestic sedition.  Whatever were the service, it could by no possibility find Hadrian unprepared.
And he first, in fact, of all the Caesars, restored to its
ancient republican standard, as reformed and perfected
by Narius, the old martial discipline of the Scipios and
the Paulli - that discipline, to which, more than to any
physical superiority of her soldiery, Rome had been
indebted for her conquest of the earth; and which had
inevitably decayed in the long series of wars growing
out of personal ambition.  From the days of Marius,
every great leader had sacrificed to the necessities of
courting favor from the troops, as much as was possible
of the hardships incident to actual service, and as much
as he dared of the once rigorous discipline. Hadrian
first found himself in circumstances, or was the first




140                THE C SARRwho had courage enough to decline a momentary
interest in favor of a greater in reversion; and a personal object which was transient, in favor of a State
one continually revolving.
For a prince, with no children of his own, it is in
any case a task of peculiar delicacy to select a successor. In the Roman empire the difficulties were
much aggravated. The interests of the State were, in
the first place, to be consulted; for a mighty burthen
of responsibility rested upon the emperor in the most
personal sense. Duties of every kind fell to his station,
which, from the peculiar constitution of the government, and from circumstances rooted in the very origin
of the imperatorial office, could not be devolved upon
a council.  Council there was none, nor could be
recognized as such in the State machinery.  The emperor, himself a sacred and sequestered creature, might
be supposed to enjoy the secret tutelage of the Supreme
Deity; but a council, composed of subordinate and
responsible agents, could not. Again, the auspices of
the emperor, and his edicts, apart even from any celestial or supernatural inspiration, simply as emanations
of his own divine character, had a value and a consecration which could never belong to those of a
council -  or to those even which had been sullied by
the breath of any less august reviser. The emperor,
therefore, or —as with a view to his solitary and
unique character we ought to call him - in the original




THE C:SARS.                141
irrepresentable term, the imperator, could not delegate
his duties, or execute them in any avowed form by
proxies or representatives. He was himself the great
fountain of law - of honor - of preferment - of civil
and political regulations. He was the fountain also of
good and evil fame. He was the great chancellor, or
supreme dispenser of equity to all climates, nations,
languages, of his mighty dominions, which connected
the turbaned races of the Orient, and those who sat
in the gates of the rising sun, with the islands of the
West, and the unfathomed depths of the mysterious
Scandinavia. He was the universal guardian of the
public and private interests which composed the great
edifice of the social system as then existing amongst
his subjects. Above all, and out of his own private
purse, he supported the heraldries of his dominions —
the peerage, senatorial or praetorian, and the great
gentry or chivalry of the Equites. These were classes
who would have been dishonored by the censorship
of a less august comptroller. And for the classes
below these, — by how much they were lower and
more remote from his ocular superintendence, — by
so much the more were they linked to him in a
connection of absolute dependence. Caesar it was who
provided their daily food, Caesar who provided their
pleasures and relaxations.  He chartered the fleets
which brought grain to the Tiber —he bespoke the
Sardinian granaries while yet unformed -and the




142               THE COSARS.
harvests of the Nile while yet unsown. Not the con.
nection between a mother and her unborn infant is
more intimate and vital, than that which subsisted
between the mighty populace of the Roman capitol
and their paternal emperor. They drew their nutriment from him; they lived and were happy by sympathy with the motions of his will; to him also the
arts, the knowledge, and the literature of the empire
looked for support. To him the armies looked for
their laurels, and the eagles in every clime turned
their aspiring eyes, waiting to bend their flight according to the signal of his Jovian nod. And all these
vast functions and ministrations arose partly as a
natural effect, but partly also they were a cause of
the emperor's own divinity.  He was capable of services so exalted, because he also was held a god, and
had his own altars, his own incense, his own worship
and priests. And that was the cause, and that was the
result of his bearing, on his own shoulders, a burthen
so mighty and Atlantean.
Yet, if in this view it was needful to have a man
of talent, on the other hand there was reason to dread
a man of talents too adventurous, too aspiring, or
too intriguing.  His situation, as Caesar, or Crown
Prince, flung into his hands a power of fomenting
conspiracies, and of concealing them until the very
moment of explosion, which made him an object of
almost exclusive terror to his principal, the Caesar




THE CfSARS.                14.3
Augustus. His situation again, as an heir voluntarily
adopted, made him the proper object of public affection
and caresses, which became peculiarly embarrassing to
one who had, perhaps, soon found reasons for suspect,
ing, fearing, and hating him beyond all other men.
The young nobleman, whom  Hadrian adopted by
his earliest choice, was Lucius Aurelius Verus, the son
of Cejonius Commodus. These names were borne
also by the son; but, after his adoption into the ZElian
family, he was generally known by the appellation of
MElius Verus. The scandal of those times imputed his
adoption to the worst motives.' Adriano,' says one
author,'(ut malevoli loquuntur) acceptior formad quam
moribus.' And thus much undoubtedly there is to
countenance so shocking an insinuation, that very little
is recorded of the young prince but such anecdotes as
illustrate his excessive luxury and effeminate dedication to pleasure.  Still it is our private opinion, that
Hadrian's real motives have been misrepresented; that
he sought in the young man's extraordinary beauty -
[for he was, says Spartian, pulchritudinis regice] - a
plausible pretext that should be sufficient to explain
and to countenance his preference, whilst under his
provisional adoption he was enabled to postpone the
definitive choice of' an imperator elect, until his own
more advanced age might diminish the motives for
intriguing against himself.  It was, therefore, a mere
ad interim adoption; for it is certain, bowever wa




144               THE CIESARS.
may choose to explain that fact, that Hadrian foresaw
and calculated on the early death of JElius.  This
prophetic knowledge may have been grounded on a
private familiarity with some constitutional infirmity
affecting his daily health, or with some habits of life
incompatible with longevity, or with both combined.
It is pretended that this distinguished mark of favor
was conferred in fulfilment of a direct contract on the
emperor's part, as the price of favors, such as the
Latin reader will easily understand from the strong
expression of Spartian above cited.  But it is far
more probable that Hadrian relied on this admirable
beauty, and allowed it so much weight, as the readiest
and most intelligible justification to the multitude, of a
choice which thus offered to their homage a public
favorite - and to the nobility, of so invidious a preference, which placed one of their own number far above
the level of his natural rivals.  The necessities of the
moment were thus satisfied without present or future
danger; - as respected the future, he knew or believed
that Verus was marked out for early death; and would
often say, in a strain of compliment somewhat dispro-,ortionate, applying to him the Virgilian lines on the
hopeful and lamented Marcellus,'Ostendent terris hune tantum fata, neque ultra
Esse sinent.'
And, at the same time, to countenance the belief that
he had been disappointed, he would affect to sigh,




THE CSARS.                   145
exclaiming -'Ah! that I should thus fruitlessly have
squandered a sum of three 31 millions sterling' for so
much had been distributed in largesses to the people
and the army on the occasion of his inauguration.
Meantime, as respected the present, the qualities of the
young man were amply fitted to sustain a Roman popularity; for, in addition to his extreme and statuesque
beauty of person, he was (in the report of one who did
not wish to color his character advantageously)'m emor
familice suce, comptus, decorus, oris venerandi, eloquentice celsioris, versu facilis, in republicd etiam  non
inutilis.'  Even as a military officer, he had a respectable 32 character; as an orator he was more than
respectable; and in other qualifications less interesting
to the populace, he had that happy mediocrity of merit
which was best fitted for his delicate and difficult
situation -sufficient to do credit to the emperor's
preference - sufficient to sustain the popular regard,
but not brilliant enough to throw his patron into the
shade. For the rest his vices were of a nature not
greatly or necessarily to interfere with his public
duties, and emphatically such as met with the readiest
indulgence from the Roman laxity of morals. Some
few instances, indeed, are noticed of cruelty; but there
is reason to think that it was merely by accident, and
as an indirect result of other purposes, that he ever
allowed himself in such manifestations of irresponsible
power —not as gratifying any harsh impulses of his
13




146               THE C'SiARS.
native character.  The most remarkable neglect of
humanity with which he has been taxed, occurred in
the treatment of his couriers; these were the bearers
of news and official dispatches, at that time fulfilling
the functions of the modern post; and it must be
remembered that as yet they were not slaves, (as afterwards by the reformation of Alexander Severus,) but
free citizens. They had been already dressed in a
particular livery or uniform, and possibly they might
wear some symbolical badges of their profession; but
the new Caesar chose to dress them altogether in
character as winged Cupids, affixing literal wings to
their shoulders, and facetiously distinguishing them
by the names of the four cardinal winds, (Boreas,
Aquilo, Notus, &c.) and others as levanters or hurricanes, (Circius, &c.) Thus far he did no more than
indulge a blameless fancy; but in his anxiety that his
runners should emulate their patron winds, and do
credit to the names which he had assigned them, he is
said to have exacted a degree of speed inconsistent
with any merciful regard for their bodily powers.33
But these were, after all, perhaps, mere improvements
of malice upon some solitary incident. The true stain
upon his memory, and one which is open to no doubt
whatever, is excessive and extravagant luxury —excessive in degree, extravagant and even ludicrous in
its forms. For example, he constructed a sort of bed
or sofa — protected from insects by an awning of net-.




THE CJESARS.                 147
work composed of lilies, delicately fabricated into the
proper meshes, &c., and the couches composed wholly
of rose-leaves; and even of' these, not without an exquisite preparation; for the white parts of the leaves,
as coarser and harsher to the touch, (possibly, also, as
less odorous,) were scrupulously rejected.  Here he
lay indolently stretched amongst favorite ladies,' And like a naked Indian slept himself away.'
ie had also tables composed of the same delicate
material - prepared and purified in the same elaborate
way - and to these were adapted seats in the fashion
of sofas (accubationes), corresponding in their materials, and in their mode of preparation. He was also
an expert performer, and even an original inventor, in
the art of cookery; and one dish of his discovery,
which, from  its four component parts, obtained the
name of tetrapharmacum, was so far from owing its
celebrity to its royal birth, that it maintained its place
on Hadrian's table to the time of his death. These,
however, were mere fopperies or pardonable extravagances in one so young and so exalted;'quae, etsi
non decora,' as the historian observes,'non tamen ad
perniciem publicam prompta sunt.' A graver mode
of licentiousness appeared in his connections with
women. He made no secret of his lawless amours;
and to his own wife, on her expostulating with him on
his aberrations in this respect, he replied - that' wife'
wvas a designation of rank and official dignity, not of




148                THE CSA.iRS.
tenderness and affection, or implying any claim of lov 
on either side; upon which distinction he begged that
she would mind her own affairs, and leave him to pursue such as he might himself be involved in by his
sensibility to female charms.
However, he and all his errors, his'regal beauty,'
his princely pomps, and his authorized hopes, were
suddenly swallowed up by the inexorable grave; and
he would have passed away like an exhalation, ancd
leaving no remembrance of himself more durable than
his own beds of rose-leaves, and his reticulated canopies of lilies, had it not been that Hadrian filled the
world with images of his perfect fawn-like beauty in
the shape of colossal statues, and raised temples even
to his memory in various cities. This Caesar, therefore,
dying thus prematurely, never tasted of empire; and
his name would hare had but a doubtful title to a place
in the imperatorial roll, had it not been recalled to a
second chance for the sacred honors in the person of his
son - whom it was the pleasure of Hadrian, by way of
testifying his affection for the father, to associate in the
order of succession with the philosophic Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.  This fact, and the certainty that to
the second _Elius Verus he gave his own daughter in
marriage, rather than to his associate Caesar Marcus
Aurelius, make it evident that his regret for the elder
Verus was unaffected andi deep; and they overthrow
effectually the common r.lport of historians - that he




THE CESARS.                   149t
repented of his earliest choice, as of one that had been
disappointed not by the decrees of fate, but by the
violent defect of merit in its object.  On the contrary,
he prefaced his inauguration of this junior Caesar by
the following tender words -- Let us confound the
rapine of the grave, and let the empire possess amongst
her rulers a second 2Elius Veius.'Diis aZliter visum  est:' the blood of the 2Elian
family was not privileged to ascend or aspire: it gravitated violently to extinction; and this junior Verus
is supposed to have been as much indebted to his assessor on the throne for shielding his obscure vices, and
drawing over his defects the ample draperies of the
imperatorial robe, as he was to Hadrian, his grandfather by fiction of law, for his adoption into the
reigning family, and his consecration as one of the
Caesars. He, says one historian, shed no ray of light
or illustration upon the imperial house, except by one
solitary quality. This bears a harsh sound; but it has
the effect of a sudden redemption for his memory,
when we learn -  that this solitary quality, in virtue of
which he claimed a natural affinity to the sacred house,
and challenged a natural interest in the purple, was the
very princely one of — a merciful disposition.
The two Antonines fix an erain the imperial history;
for they were both eminent models of wise and good
rulers; and some would say, that they fixed a crisis;
for with their successor commenced, in the popular




1 50 sTHE CJESARS.
belief, the decline of the empire.  That at least is the
doctrine of Gibbon; but perhaps it would not be found
altogether able to sustain itself against a closer and
philosophic examination of the true elements involvedt
in the idea of declension as applied to political bodies.
Be that as it may, however, and waiving any interest
which might happen to invest the Antonines as the last
princes who kept up the empire to its original level,
both of them had enough of merit to challenge a
separate notice in their personal characters, and apart
from the accidents of their position.
The elder of the two, who is usually distinguished
by the title of Pius, is thus described by one of his
biographers: -' He  was externally of remarkable
beauty; eminent for his moral character, full of benign
dispositions, noble, with a countenance of a most gentle
expression, intellectually of singular endowments, possessing an elegant style of eloquence, distinguished for
his literature, generally temperate, an earnest lover of
agricultural pursuits, mild in his deportment, bountiful
in the use of his own, but a stern respecter of the rights
of others; and, finally, he was all this without ostentation, and with a constant regard to the proportions
of cases, and to the demands of time and place.' His
bounty displayed itself in a way, which may be worth
mentioning, as at once illustrating the age, and the
prudence with which he controlled the most generous
of his impulses:-' Fc- nus trientarium,' says the




THE CJESARS.                  lb
bistorian,' hoc est minimis usuris exercuit, ut patrimonio suo plurimos adjuvaret.'  The  meaning of
which is this: - In Rome, the customary interest for
money was what was called centesimce usurce; that is,
the hundredth part, or one per cent. But, as this
expressed not the annual, but the monthly interest, the
true rate was, in fact, twelve per cent.; and that is the
meaning of centesimce usurce. Nor could money be
obtained anywhere on better terms than these; and,
moreover, this one per cent. was exacted rigorously as
the monthly day came round, no arrears being suffered
to lie over. Under these circumstances, it was a prodigious service to lend money at a diminished rate, and
one which furnished many men with the means of
saving themselves from ruin. Pius, then, by way of
extending his aid as far as possible, reduced the
monthly rate of his loans to one-third per cent., which
made the annual interest the very moderate one of four
per cent. The channels, which public spirit had as
yet opened to the beneficence of the opulent, were few
indeed: charity and munificence languished, or they
were abused, or they were inefficiently directed, simply
through defects in the structure of society.  Social
organization, for its large development, demanded the
agency of newspapers, (together with many other forms
of assistance from the press,) of banks, of public carriages on an extensive scale, besides infinite other
inventions or establishments not yet created - which




152                THE C&SARS.
support and powerfully re-act upon that same progresa
of society which originally gave birth to themselves.
All things considered, in the Rome of that day, where
all munificence confined itself to the direct largesses of
a few leading necessaries of life,- a great step was
taken, and the best step, in this lending of money at
a low interest, towards a more refined and beneficial
mode of charity.
In his public character, he was perhaps the most
patriotic of Roman emperors, and the purest from all
taint of corrupt or indirect ends. Peculation, embezzlement or misapplication of the public funds, were
universally corrected; provincial oppressors were exposed and defeated: the taxes and tributes were diminished; and the public expenses were thrown as much
as possible upon the public estates, and in some instances upon his own private estates. So far, indeed,
did Pius stretch his sympathy with the poorer classes
of his subjects, that on this account chiefly he resided
permanently in the capital - alleging in excuse, partly
that he thus stationed himself in the very centre of his
mighty empire, to which all couriers could come by
the shortest radii, but chiefly that he thus spared the
provincialists those burdens which must else have
alighted upon them;'for,' said he,' even the slenderest retinue of a Roman emperor is burthensome to
the whole line of its progress.' His tenderness and
consideration, indeed, were extended to all classes, and




TIRt C('SARS.                 153
all relations of his subjects; even to those who stood
in the shadow of his public displeasure as State delin
quents, or as the most atrocious criminals.  To the
children of great treasury defaulters, he returned the
confiscated estates of their fathers, deducting only what
might repair the public loss. And so resolutely did
he refuse to shed the blood of any in the senatorial
order, to whom he conceived himself more especially
bound in paternal ties, that even a parricide, whom the
laws would not suffer to live, was simply exposed upon
a desert island.
Little, indeed, did Pius want of being a perfect
Christian, in heart and in practice. Yet all this display
of goodness and merciful indulgence, nay, all his
munificence, would have availed him  little with the
people at large, had he neglected to furnish shows
and exhibitions in the arena of suitable magnificence.
Luckily for his reputation, he exceeded the general
standard of imperial splendor not less as the patron of
the amphitheatre than in his more important functions.
It is recorded of him - that in one missio he sent forward on the arena a hundred lions.  Nor was he less
distinguished by the rarity of the wild animals which he
exhibited than by their number. There were elephants,
there were crocodiles, there were hippopotami at one
time upon the stage: there was also the rhinoceros, and
the still rarer crocuta or corocotta, with a few strepsikerotes. Some of these were matched in duels, some in




154               THE C~iSARS.
general battles with tigers; in fact, there was no species
of wild animal throughout the deserts and sandy Zaarras
of Africa, the infinite steppes of Asia, or the lawn-i
recesses and dim forests of then sylvan Europe,34 no
species known to natural history, (and some even of
which naturalists have lost sight,) which the Emperor
Pius did not produce to his Roman subjects on his ceremonious pomps. And in another point he carried his
splendors to a point which set the seal to his liberality.
In the phrase of modern auctioneers, he gave up the
wild beasts to slaughter' without reserve.' It was the
custom, in ordinary cases, so far to consider the enormous cost of these far-fetched rarities as to preserve
for future occasions those which escaped the arrows of
the populace, or survived the bloody combats in which
they were engaged. Thus, out of the overflowings of
one great exhibition, would be found materials for
another. But Pius would not allow of these reservations.  All were given up unreservedly to the savage
purposes of the spectators; land and sea were ransacked; the sanctuaries of the torrid zone were violated; columns of the army were put in motion — and
all for the transient effect of crowning an extra hour
with hecatombs of forest blood, each separate minute
of which had cost a king's ransom.
Yet these displays were alien to the nature of Pius;
and even through the tyranny of custom, he had been
so little changed, that to the last he continued to turn




THE CXSARS.                 155
aside, as often as the public ritual of his duty allowed
him, fromr these fierce spectacles to the gentler amusements of fishing and hunting.  His taste and his affections naturally carried him to all domestic pleasures
of a quiet nature. A walk in a shrubbery or along a
piazza, enlivened with the conversation of a friend or
two, pleased him better than all the court festivals;
and among festivals or anniversary celebrations, he
preferred those which, like the harvest-home or feast
of the vintagers, whilst they sanctioned a total carelessness and dismissal of public anxieties, were at the
same time colored by the innocent gayety which belongs to rural and to primitive manners. In person,
this emperor was tall and dignified (staturd elevatd
decorus); but latterly he stooped; to remedy which
defect, that he might discharge his public part with
the more decorum, he wore stays.35  Of his other personal habits little is recorded, except that, early in the
morning and just before receiving the compliments of
his friends and dependents (salutatores), or what in
modern phrase would be called his Zevee, he took a
little plain bread (panemn siccum  comedit), that is,
bread without condiments or accompaniments of any
kind, by way of breakfast. In no meal has luxury
advanced more upon the model of the ancients than
in this; the dinners (ccence) of the Romans were even
more luxurious, and a thousand times more costly,
than our own; but their breakfasts were scandalously




156               THE CESAR.S.
meagre, and, with many men, breakfast was no professed meal at all. Galen tells us that a little bread,
and at most a little seasoning of oil, honey, or diied
fruits, was the utmost breakfast which men generally
allowed themselves: some indeed drank wine after it,
but this was far from being a common practice.36
The Emperor Pius died in his seventieth year. The
immediate occasion of his death was - not breakfast
nor cwena, but something of the kind. He had received
a present of Alpine cheese, and he ordered some for
supper. The trap for his life was baited with toasted
cheese.  There is no reason to think that he ate immoderately; but that night he was ceased with indigestion. Delirium followed; during which it is singular
that his mind teemed with a class of imagery and of passions the most remote (as it might have been thought)
from the voluntary occupations of his thoughts.  He
raved about the State, and about those kings with
whom he was displeased; nor were his thoughts one
moment removed from the public service. Yet he was
the least ambitious of princes, and his reign was emphatically said to be bloodless. Finding his fever
increase, he became sensible that he was dying; and he
ordered the golden statue of Prosperity, a household
symbol of empire, to be transferred from his own bedroom to that of his successor. Once again, however,
for the last time, he gave the word to the officer of the
guard; and, soon after, turning away his face to the




THEI  CMSA.RS.                157
wall against which his bed was placed, he passed out
of life in the very gentlest sleep,'quasi dormiret,
spiritum reddidit;' or, as a Greek author expresses it,
ate s t~ax U:n T,,axazlaTco.  He was one of those few
Roman emperors whom posterity truly honored with
the title of a&vatpTog (or bloodless); solusque omnium
prope principum prorsus sine civili sanguine et hostili
vixit. In the whole tenor of his life and character he
was thought to resemble Numa. And Pausanias, after
remarking on his title of EvrEPh;z (or Pius), upon the
meaning and origin of which there are several different
hypotheses, closes with this memorable tribute to his
paternal qualities o- ll oi, 1 4al, A  o I vo;ta To Ts KvQ8
yEQOZTO CV -TC 7Q-eOTFvaEQ, fajQ aOQW7,)t7, xYaovps.Evo: but, in
my opinion, he should also bear the name of Cyrus the
elder - being hailed as Father of the Human Race.
A thoughtful Roman would have been apt to exclaim, This is too good to last, upon finding so
admirable a ruler succeeded by one still more admirable in the person of Marcus Aurelius. From the first
dawn of his infancy, this prince indicated, by his grave
deportment, the philosophic character of his mind; and
at eleven years of age he professed himself a formal
devotee of philosophy in its strictest form, - assuming
the garb, and submitting to its most ascetic ordinances.
In particular, he slept upon the ground, and in other
respects he practised a style of living the most simple
and remote from the habits of rich men [or, in his




15t8                THE CMSARS.
own words, -o Alul.v xazTa <;CV;c~tTavv, at1 zroo fro,; nm,. 
a;xiis wyoyg]; though it is true that he himself ascribes
this simplicity of life to the influence of his mother
and not to the premature assumption of the stoical
character. He pushed his austerities indeed to excess;
for Dio mentions that in his boyish days he was reduced to great weakness by exercises too severe, and a
diet of too little nutriment. In fact, his whole heart
was set upon philosophic attainments, and perhaps upon
philosophic glory. All the great philosophers of his
own time, whether Stoic or Peripatetic, and amongst
them Sextus of Cheronea, a nephew of Plutarch, were
retained as his instructors. There was none whom he
did not enrich; and as many as were fitted by birth
and manners to fill important situations, he raised to
the highest offices in the State. Philosophy, however,
did not so much absorb his affections, but that he found
time to cultivate the fine arts (painting he both studied
and practised), and such gymnastic exercises as he
held consistent with his public dignity. Wrestling,
hunting, fowling, playing at cricket (pila), he admired
and patronized by personal participation. He tried his
powers even as a runner. But with these tasks, and
entering so critically, both as a connoisseur and as a
practising amateur, into such trials of skill, so little did
he relish the very same spectacles when connected
with the cruel exhibitions of the circus and amphitheatre, that it was not without some friendly violence on




THIE CESA.RS.                159
the part of tLose who could venture on such a liberty,
nor even thus, perhaps, without the necessities of his
official station, that he would be persuaded to visit either
one or the other.37  In this he meditated no reflection
upon his father by adoption, the Emperor Pius (who
also, for aught we know, might secretly revolt from a
species of amusement which, as the prescriptive test of
munificence in the popular estimate, it was necessary
to support); on the contrary, he obeyed him with
the punctiliousness of a Roman obedience; he watched
the very motions of his countenance; and he waited so
continually upon his pleasure, that for three-and-twenty
years which they lived together, he is recorded to have
slept out of his father's palace only for two nights.
This rigor of filial duty illustrates a feature of Roman
life; for such was the sanctity of law, that a father
created by legal fiction was in all respects treated with
the same veneration and affection, as a father who
claimed upon the most unquestioned footing of natural
right. Such, however, is the universal baseness of
courts, that even this scrupulous and minute attention
to his duties, did not protect Marcus from the injurious
insinuations of whisperers.  There were not wanting
persons who endeavored to turn to account the general
circumstances in the situation of the Cmesar, which
pointed him out to the jealousy of the emperor. But,
these being no more than what adhere necessarily to
the case of every heir as such, and meeting fortunately




160               THE CAESARS5
with no more proneness to suspicion in the temper of
the Augustus than they did with countenance in the
conduct of the Caesar, made so little impression, that at
length these malicious efforts died away, from mere
defect of encouragement.
The most interesting political crisis in the reign of
Marcus was the war in Germany with the Marcomanni,
concurrently with pestilence in Rome. The agitation
of the public mind was intense; and prophets arose, as
since under corresponding circumstances in Christian
countries, who announced the approaching dissolution
of the world. The purse of Marcus was open, as usual,
to the distresses of his subjects. But it was chiefly for
the expense of funierals that his aid was claimed. In
this way he alleviated the domestic calamities of his
capital, or expressed his sympathy with the sufferers,
where alleviation was beyond his power; whilst, by the
energy of his movements and his personal presence on
the Danube, he soon dissipated those anxieties of Rome
which pointed in a foreign direction. The war, however, had been a dreadful one, and had excited such
just fears in the most experienced heads of the State,
that, happening in its outbreak to coincide with a Parthian war, it was skilfully protracted until the entire
thunders of Rome, and the undivided energies of her
supreme captains, could be concentrated upon this
single point.  Both38 emperors left Rome, and crossed
the Alps; the war was thrown back upon its native




THE CESARS.                161
seats -- Austria and the modern Hungary: great
battles were fought and won; and peace, with conse:quent relief and restoration to liberty, was reconquered
for many friendly nations, who had suffered under the
ravages of the Marcomanni, the Sarmatians, the Quadi,
and the Vandals; whilst some of the hostile people
were nearly obliterated from the map, and their names
blotted out from the memory of men.
Since the days of Gaul as an independent power, no
war had so much alarmed the people of Rome; and
their fear was justified by the difficulties and prodigious
efforts which accompanied its suppression. The public
treasury was exhausted; loans were an engine of fiscal
policy, not then understood or perhaps practicable; and
great distress was at hand for the State. In these
circumstances, Marcus adopted a wise (though it was
then esteemed a violent or desperate) remedy. Time
and excessive luxury had accumulated in the imperial
palaces and villas vast repositories of apparel, furniture,
jewels, pictures, and household utensils, valuable alike
for the materials and the workmanship. Many of these
articles were consecrated, by color or otherwise, to the
use of the sacred household; and to have been found
in possession of them, or with the materials for making
them, would have entailed the penalties of treason.
All these stores were now brought out to open day, and
put up to public sale by auction, free license being first
granted to the bidders, whoever they might be, to use:
14




162               THE CESiARS.
or otherwise to exercise the fullest rights of property
upon all they bought.  The auction lasted for two
months. Every man was guaranteed in the peaceable
ownership of his purchases. And afterwards, when
the public distress had passed over, a still further indulgence was extended to the purchasers.  Notice was
given — that all who were dissatisfied with their purchases, or who for other means might wish to recover
their cost, would receive back the purchase money,
upon returning the articles. Dinner services of gold
and crystal, murrhine vases, and even his wife's wardrobe of silken robes interwoven with gold, all these,
and countless other articles, were accordingly returned,
and the full auction prices paid back; or were not
returned, and no displeasure shown to those who publicly displayed them as their own. Having gone so
far, overruled by the necessities of the public service,
in breaking down those legal barriers by which a peculiar dress, furniture, equipage, &c., were appropriated
to the imperial house, as distinguished from the very
highest of the noble houses, Marcus had a sufficient
pretext for extending indefinitely the effect of the
dispensation then granted. Articles purchased at the
auction bore no characteristic marks to distinguish
them from others of the same form and texture: so
that a license to use any one article of the sacred
pattern, became necessarily a general license for all
others which resembled them.  And thus, without




THE C.ESARS.                  163
abrogating the prejudices which protected the imperial
precedency, a body of sumptuary laws — the most
ruinous to the progress of manufacturing skill,39 which
has ever been devised —were silently suspended. One
or two aspiring families might be offended by these
innovations, which meantime gave the pleasures of
enjoyment to thousands, and of hope to millions.
But these, though very noticeable relaxations of the
existing prerogative, were, as respected the temper
which dictated them, no more than every-day manifestations of the emperor's perpetual benignity. Fortunately for Marcus, the indestructible privilege of the
divina domus exalted it so unapproachably beyond all
competition, that no possible remissions of aulic rigor
could ever be misinterpreted; fear there could be
none, lest such paternal indulgences should lose their
effect and acceptation as pure condescensions. They
could neither injure their author, who was otherwise
charmed and consecrated, from disrespect; nor could
they suffer injury themselves by misconstruction, or
seem other than sincere, coming from a prince whose
entire life was one long series of acts expressing the
same affable spirit.  Such, indeed, -was the effect of
this uninterrupted benevolence in the emperor, that at
length all men, according to their several ages, hailed
him  as their father, son, or brother.  And when he
died, in the sixty-first year of his life (the 18th of his
reign), he was lamented with a corresponding pe.




164                THE CAiSARS.
culiarity in the public ceremonial, such, for instance,
as the studied interfusion of the senatorial body with
the populace, expressive of the levelling power of a
true and comprehensive grief; a peculiarity for which
no precedent was found, and which never afterwards
became a precedent for similar honors to the best of
his successors.
But malice has the divine privilege of ubiquity;
and therefore it was that even this great model of'
private and public virtue did not escape the foulest
libels: he was twice accused of murder; once on the
person of a gladiator, with whom the empress is said
to have fallen in love; and again, upon his associate
in the empire, who died in reality of an apopletic
seizure, on his return from the German campaign.
Neither of these atrocious fictions ever gained the
least hold of the public attention, so entirely were
they put down by the primd facie evidence of facts,
and of the emperor's notorious character. In fact his
faults, if he had any in his public life, were entirely
those of too much indulgence. In a few cases of
enormous guilt, it is recorded that he showed himself
inexorable.  But, generally speaking, he  was far
otherwise; and, in particular, he carried his indulgence to his wife's vices to an access which drew upon
him the satirical notice of the stage.
The gladiators, and still more the sailors of that age,
were constantly to be seen plying naked, and Faustina




THE COSAARS.                 165
was shameless enough to take her station in places
which gav-e her the advantages of a leisurely review;
and she actually selected favorites from both classes
on the ground of a personal inspection. With others
of greater rank she is said even to have been surprised
by her husband; in particular with one called Tertullus, at dinner.40 But to all remonstrances on this subject, Marcus is reported to have replied,' Si uxorem
dimittimus, reddamus et dotem;' meaniug that, having
received his right of succession to the empire simply
by his adoption into the family of Pius, his wife's
father, gratitude and filial duty obliged him to view any
dishonors emanating from his wife's conduct as joint
legacies with the splendors inherited from their common father; in short, that he was not at liberty to
separate the rose from its thorns. However, the facts
are not sufficiently known to warrant us in criticizing
very severely his behavior on so trying an occasion.
It would be too much for human frailty, that absolutely
no stain should remain upon his memory. Possibly
the best use which can be made of such a fact is, in
the way of consolation to any unhappy man, whom his
wife may too liberally have endowed with honors of
this kind, by reminding him  that he shares this distinction with the great philosophic emperor. The reflection upon this story by one of his biographers is
this —' Such is the force of daily life in a good ruler,
so great the power of his sanctity, gentleness, and




166                THE CESARiS.
piety, that no breath of slander or invidious suggestion
from an acquaintance can avail to sully his memory.
In short, to Antonine, immutable as the heavens in
the tenor of his own life, and in the manifestations of
his own moral temper, and who was not by possibility
liable to any impulse or " shadow of turning" from
another man's suggestion, it was not eventually ain
injury that he was dishonored by some of his connections; on him, invulnerable in his own character,
neither a harlot for his wife, nor a gladiator for his
son, could inflict a wound. Then as now, oh sacred
lord Dioclesian, he was reputed a God; not as others
are reputed, but specially and in a peculiar sense, and
with a privilege to such worship from all men as you
yourself addressed to him - who often breathe a wish
to Heaven, that you were or could be such in life and
merciful disposition as was Marcus Aurelius.'
What this encomiast says in a rhetorical tone was
literally true.  Marcus was raised to divine honors, or
canonized 41 (as in Christian phrase we might express
it). That was a matter of course; and, considering
with whom he shared such honors, they are of little
account in expressing the grief and veneration which
followed him. A circumstance more characteristic,
in'he record of those observances which attested the
public feeling, is this - that he who at that time had
no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus in his house, was
looked upon as a profane and irreligious man. Finally,




THE CA;SARS.                 167
to do him horor not by testimonies of men's opinions
in his favor, but by facts of his own life and conduct,
one memorable trophy there is amongst the moral distinctions of the philosophic Cwesar, utterly unnoticed
hitherto by historians, but which will hereafter obtain
a conspicuous place in any perfect record of the steps
by which civilization has advanced, and human nature
has been exalted. It is this: Marcus Aurelius was the
first great military leader (and his civil office as supreme interpreter and creator of law consecrated his
example) who allowed rights indefeasible - rights uncancelled by his misfortune in the field, to the prisoner
of war. Others had been merciful and variously indulgent, upon their own discretion, and upon a random
impulse to some, or possibly to all of their prisoners;
but this was either in submission to the usage of that
particular war, or to special self-interest, or at most to
individual good feeling. None had allowed a prisoner
to challenge any forbearance as of right.  But Marcus
Aurelius first resolutely maintained that certain indestructible rights adhered to every soldier, simply as a
man, which rights, capture by the sword, or any other
accident of war, could do nothing to shake or diminish. 5We have noticed other instances in which Marcus
Aurelius labored, at the risk of his popularity, to elevate the condition of human  nature.  But those,
though equally expressing the goodness and loftiness
of his nature, were by accident directed to a perishable




168                THE C0.SARS.
institution, which time has swept away, and along with
it therefore his reformations.  Here, however, is ax
immortal act of goodness built upon an immortal basis;
for so long as armies congregate, and the sword is the
arbiter of international quarrels, so long it will deserve
to be had in remembrance, that the first man who set
limits to the empire of wrong, and first translated
within the jurisdiction of man's moral nature that
state of war which had heretofore been consigned, by
principle no less than by practice, to anarchy, animal
violence, and brute force, was also the first philosopher
who sat upon a throne.
In this, as in his universal spirit of forgiveness, we
cannot but acknowledge a Christian by anticipation;
nor can we hesitate to believe, that through one or
other of his many philosophic friends,42 whose attention
Christianity was by that time powerful to attract, some
reflex images of Christian doctrines - some half-conscious perception of its perfect beauty - had flashed
upon his mind.  And when we view him  from  this
distant age, as heading that shining array, the Howards and the WVilberforces, who have since then in a
practical sense hearkened to the sighs of' all prisoners
and captives' - we are ready to suppose him addressed
by the great Founder of Christianity, in the words of
Scripture,' Verily, I say unto thee, Thou art not far
fr'om the kingdom of heaven.'
As a supplement. to the reign of Marcus Aurelius,




THE C-ESARS.               169
we ought to notice the rise of one great rebel, the sole
civil disturber of his time, in Syria. This was Avidius
Cassius, whose descent from Cassius (the noted conspirator against the great Dictator, Julius) seems to
have suggested to him a wandering idea, and at length
a formal purpose of restoring the ancient republic.
Avidius was the commander-in-chief of the Oriental
army, whose head-quarters were then fixed at Antioch.
His native disposition, which inclined him to cruelty,
and his political views, made him, from his first
entrance upon office, a severe disciplinarian. The well
known enormities of the neighboring Daphne gave
him ample opportunities for the exercise of his harsh
propensities in reforming the dissolute soldiery. He
amputated heads, arms, feet, and hams: he turned out
his mutilated victims, as walking spectacles of warning; he burned them; he smoked them to death; and,
in one instance, he crucified a detachment of his army,
together with their centurions, for having, unauthorized, gained a splendid victory, and captured a large
booty on the Danube. Upon this the soldiers mutinied
against him, in mere indignation at his tyranny.
However, he prosecuted his purpose, and prevailed, by
his bold contempt of the danger which menaced him.
From the abuses in the army, he proceeded to attack
the abuses of the civil administration. But as these
were protected by the example of the great proconsular lieutenants and  provincial governors, policy
15




170                THE CZESARS.
obliged him to confine himself to verbal expressions of
anger; until at length sensible that this impotent railing did but expose him to contempt, he resolved to arm
himself with the powers of radical reform, by open
rebellion. His ultimate purpose was the restoration of
the ancient republic, or, (as he himself expresses it in
an interesting letter which yet survives,)'ut in antiquum statum publica forma reddatur;' i. e. that the
constitution should be restored to its original condition.
And this must be effected by military violence and the
aid of the executioner — or, in his own words, multis
gladiis, multis elogiis, (by innumerable sabres, by
innumerable records of condemnation.) Against this
man Marcus was warned by his imperial colleague
Lucius Verus, in a very remarkable letter. After
expressing his suspicions of him generally, the writer
goes on to say —'I would you had him closely
watched. For he is a general disliker of us and of our
doings; he is gathering together an enormous treasure,
and he makes an open jest of our literary pursuits.
You, for instance, he calls a philosophizing old woman,
and me a dissolute buffoon and scamp. Consider what
you would have done. For my part, I bear the fellow
no ill will; but again I say, take care that he does not
do a mischief to yourself, or your children.'
The answer of Marcus is noble and characteristic;'I have read your letter, and I will confess to you 1
think it more scrupulously timid than becomes an




THE CiESARS.               171
emperor, and timid in a way unsuited to the spirit of
our times. Consider this -if the empire is destined
to Cassius by the decrees of Providence, in that case it
will not be in our power to put him to death, however
much we may desire to do so. You know your greatgrandfather's saying, — No prince ever killed his own
heir - no man, that is, ever yet prevailed against one
whom Providence had marked out as his successor.
On the other hand, if providence opposes him, then,
without any cruelty on our part, he will spontaneously
fall into some snare spread for him by destiny. Besides, we cann.ot treat a man as under impeachment
whom  nobody impeaches, and whom, by your own
confession, the soldiers love. Then again, in cases of
high treason, even those criminals who are convicted
upon the clearest evidence, yet, as friendless and
deserted persons contending against the powerful, and
matched against those who are armed with the whole
authority of the State, seems to suffer some wrong.
You remember what your grandfather said: Wretched,
indeed, is the fate of princes, who then first obtain
credit in any charges of conspiracy which they allege -
when they happen to seal the validity of their charges
against the plotters, by falling martyrs to the plot.
Domitian it was, in fact, who first uttered this truth;
but I choose rather to place it under the authority of
Hadrian, because the sayings of tyrants, even when
they are true and happy, carry less weight with them




172                 THE cJAsA~Rt.
than naturally they ought. For Cassius, then, let him
keep his present tempe. and inclinations; and the more
so - being (as he is) a good General - austere in his
discipline, brave, and one whomi the State cannot afford
to lose, For as to what you insinuate - that I ought
to provide for my children's interests, by putting this
man judicially out of the way, very frankly I say to
you-Perish my children, if Avidius shall deserve
more attachment than they, and if it shall prove salutary to the State that Cassius should live rather than
the children of Marcus.'
This letter affords a singular illustration of fatalism,
such certainly as we might expect in a Stoic, but carried even to a Turkish excess; and not theoretically
professed only, but practically acted upon in a case of
capital hazard.  That no prince ever killed his own
successor, i. e. that it was in vain for a prince to put
conspirators to death, because, by the very possibility
of doing so, a demonstration is obtained that such
conspirators had never been destined to prosper, is as
condensed and striking an expression of fatalism as
ever hay been devised.  The rest of the letter is truly
noble, and breathes the very soul of careless magnanimity reposing upon conscious innocence.  Meantime
Cassius increased in power and influence: his army
had become a most formidable engine of his ambition
through its restored discipline; aind his own authority
was sevenfold greater, because he had himself created




TIE CIESARS.                173
that discipline in the face of unequalled temptations
luhourly renewed and rooted in the very centre of his
head-quarters.'Daphne, by Orontes,' a suburb of
Antioch, was infamous for its seductions: and Daphnic
luxury had become proverbial for expressing an excess
of voluptuousness, such as other places could not rival
by mere defect of means, and preparations elaborate
enough to sustain it in all its varieties of mode, or to
conceal it from public notice. In the very purlieus
of this great nest, or sty of sensuality, within sight and
touch of its pollutions, did he keep his army fiercely
reined up, daring and defying them, as it were, to taste
of t'he banquet whose very odor they inhaled.
Thus provided with the means, and improved instruments, for executing his purposes, he broke out into
open rebellion; and, though hostile to the principatus,
or personal supremacy of one man, he did not feel his
republican purism at all wounded by the style and title
of Imperator,- that being a military term, and a mere
titular honor, which had co-existed with the se-v-i:est
forms of republicanism.  Imperator, then, he was
saluted and proclaimed; and doubtless the writer of
the warning letter from Syria would now declare that
the sequel had justified the fears which Marcus had
thought so unbecoming to a Roman emperor. But
again Marcus would have said,' Let us wait for the
sequel of the sequel,' and that would have justified
him. It is often found by experience that men, who




174                THE CJESARS.
have learned to reverence a person in authority chiefli
by his offices of correction applied to their own aberrations, - who have known and feared him, in short, in
his character of reformer, - will be more than usually
inclined to desert him on his first movement in the
direction of wrong. Their obedience being founded
on fear, and fear being never wholly disconnected from
hatred, they naturally seize with eagerness upon the
first lawful pretext for disobedience: the luxury of
revenge is, in such a case, too potent, - a meritorious
disobedience too novel a temptation, - to have a
chance of being rejected. Never, indeed, does erring
human nature look more abject than in the person of
a severe exactor of duty, who has immolated thousands
to the wrath of offended law, suddenly himself becoming a capital offender, a glozing tempter in search of
accomplices, and in that character at once standing
before the meanest of his own dependents as a selfdeposed officer, liable to any man's arrest, and, ipso
facto, a suppliant for his own mercy. The stern and
haughty Cassius, who had so often tightened the cords
of discipline until they threatened to snap asunder,
now found, experimentally, the bitterness of tlese
obvious truths. The trembling sentinel now looked
insolently in his face; the cowering legionary, with
whom' to hear was to obey,' now mused or even
bandied words upon his orders; the great lieutenants
of his office, who stood next to his own person in




TIHE C.ESARS.               175
authority, were preparing for revolt, open or secret,
as circumstances should prescribe; not the accuser
only, but the very avenger, was upon his steps; Nemesis, that Nemesis who once so closely adhered to the
name and fortunes of the lawful Csesar, turning against
every one of his assassins the edge of his own assassinating  sword, was already at his heels; and in the
midst of a sudden prosperity, and its accompanying
shouts of gratulation, he heard the sullen knells of
approaching death. Antioch, it was true, the great Roman capital of the Orient, bore him, for certain motives
of self-interest, peculiar good-will. But there was no
city of the world in which the Roman Caesar did not
reckon many liege-men and partisans. And the very
hands, which dressed his altars and crowned his Praetorian pavilion, might not improbably in that same hour
put an edge upon the sabre which was to avenge the
injuries of the too indulgent and long suffering Antoninus. Meantime, to give a color of patriotism to his
treason, Cassius alleged public motives; in a letter,
which he wrote after asuming the purple, he says:
6 Wretched empire, miserable state, which endures
these hungry blood-suckers battening on her vitals!A worthy man, doubtless, is Marcus; who, in his eagerness to be reputed clement, suffers those to live whose
ccnduct he himself abhors.  Where is that L. Cassius,
whose name I vainly inherit? Where is that Marcus,
— not Aurelius, mark you, but Cato Censorius?




176               THE C.ESARS.
Where the good old discipline of ancestral times, long
since indeed disused, but now not so much as looked
after in our aspirations?  Marcus Antoninus is a
scholar; he enacts the philosopher; and'he tries conclusions upon the four elements, and upon the nature
of the soul; and he discourses most learnedly upon the
Ilonestunm; and concerning the Summum Bonuin he is
unanswerable. Meanwhile, is he learned in the interests of the State? Can he argue a point upon the public
economy? You see what a host of sabres is required,
what a host of impeachments, sentences, executions,
before the commonwealth can reassume its ancient
integrity!  What! shall I esteem as proconsuls, as
governors, those who for that end only deem themselves
invested with lieutenancies or great senatorial appointments, that they may gorge themselves with the provincial luxuries and wealth?  No doubt you heard in
what way our friend the philosopher gave the place of
prietorian prefect to one who but three days before
was a bankrupt,- insolvent, by G-, and a beggar.
Be not you content: that same gentlemen is now as
rich as a prefect should be; and has been so, I tell
you, any time these three days. And how, I pray you,
how - how, my good sir? How, but out of the bowels
of th.e provinces, and the marrow of their bones? But
no matter, let them be rich; let them be blood-suckers;
so much, God willing, shall they regorge into the
treasury of the empire. Let but Heaven smile upon




THE C1TSARS.                 177
our party, and the Cassiani shall return to the republic
its old impersonal supremacy.'
But Heaven did not smile; nor did man.  Rome
neard with bitter indignation of this old traitor's ingratitude, and his false mask of republican civism.
Excepting Marcus Aurelius himself, not one man but
thirsted for revenge. And that was soon obtained.
He and all his supporters, one after the other, rapidly
fell (as Marcus had predicted) into snares laid by the
officers who continued true to their allegiance. Except
the family and household of Cassius, there remained in
a short time none for the vengeance of the Senate, or
for the mercy of the Emperor. In them centred the
last arrears of hope and fear, of chastisement or pardon, depending upon this memorable revolt.  And
about the disposal of their persons arose the final
question to which the case gave birth. The letters yet
remain in which the several parties interested gave
utterance to the passions which possessed them. Faustina, the Empress, urged her husband with feminine
violence to adopt against his prisoners comprehensive
acts of vengeance.' Noli parcere hominibus,' says
sne,' qui tibi non pepercerunt; et nec mihi nec filiis
nostris parcerent, si vicissent.' And elsewhere she
irritates his wrath against the army as accomplices for
the time, and as a body of men'qui, nisi opprimuntur,
opprimunt.' We may be. sure of the result.  After
commending her zeal for her own family, he says,




178                 THE CME;SARS.'Ego vero et ejus liberis parcam, et genero, et uxori;
et ad senatumn scribamn ne aut proscriptio gravior sit,
aut plena crudelior;' adding that, had his counsels
prevailed, not even Cassius himself should have perished.  As to his relatives,'IWhy,' he asks,'should
I speak of pardon to them, who indeed have done no
wrong, and are blameless even in purpose?' Accordingly, his letter of intercession to the Senate protests,
that, so far from asking for further victims to the crime
of Avidius Cassius, would to God he could call back
from the dead many of those who had fallen!  With
immense applause, and with turbulent acclamations,
the Senate granted all his requests' in consideration of
his philosophy, of his long-suffering, of his learning
and accomplishments, of his nobility, of his innocence.'
And until a monster arose who delighted in the blood
of the guiltless, it is recorded that the posterity of
Avidius Cassius lived in security, and were admitted
to honors and public distinctions by favor of him,
whose life and empire that memorable traitor had
sought to undermine under the favor of his guileles
master's too confiding magnanimity.




THE CESARS.               1'79
CHAPTER V.
THE Roman empire, and the Roman emperors, it
might naturally be supposed by one who had not as
yet traversed that tremendous chapter in the history
of man, would be likely to present a separate and
almost equal interest. The empire, in the first place,
as the most magnificent monument of human power
which our planet has beheld, must for that single
reason, even though its records were otherwise of little
interest, fix upon itself the very keenest gaze from all
succeeding ages to the end of time. To trace the
fortunes and revolution of that unrivalled monarchy
over which the Roman eagle brooded, to follow the
dilapidations of that a6rial arch, which silently and
steadily through seven centuries ascended under the
colossal architecture of the children of Romulus, to
watch the unweaving of the golden arras, and step by
step to see paralysis stealing over the once perfect
cohesion of the republican creations, - cannot but insure a severe, though melancholy delight. On its own
separate account, the decline of this throne-shattering
power must and will engage the foremost place
amongst all historical reviewers. The'dislimning'
and unmoulding of some mighty pageantry in the




180                THE CIESARS.
heavens has its own appropriate grandeurs, no less
than the gathering of its cloudy pomps.  The going
down of the sun is contemplated with no less awe
than his rising. Nor is any thing portentous in its
growth, which is not also portentous in the steps and' moments' of its decay.  Hence, in the second place,
we might presume a commensurate interest in the
characters and fortunes of the successive emperors. If
the empire challenged our first survey, the next would
seem due to the Caesars who guided its course; to the
great ones who retarded, and to the bad ones who
precipitated, its ruin.
Such might be the natural expectation of an inexperienced reader.  But it is not so.  The Caesars,
throughout their long line, are not interesting, neither
personally in themselves, nor derivatively from the
tragic events to which their history is attached. Their
whole interest lies in their situation —in the unapproachable altitude of their thrones. But considered
with a reference to their human qualities, scarcely one
in the whole series can be viewed with a human
interest apart from the circumstances of his position.
Pass like shadows, so depart!'  The reason for this
defect of all personal variety of interest in these enor.
mous potentates, must be sought in the constitution of
their power and the very necessities of their office.
Even the greatest among them, those who by way of
distinction were called the Great, as Constantine and




THE C2ESARS.               181
Theodosius, were not great, for they were not magnanimous; nor could they be so under their tenure of
power, which made it a duty to be suspicious, and, by
fastening upon all varieties of original temper one dire
necessity of bloodshed, extinguished under this monotonous cloud of cruel jealousy and everlasting panic
every characteristic feature of genial human nature,
that would else have emerged through so long a train
of princes. There is a remarkable story told of Aprippina, that, upon some occasions, when a wizard announced to her, as truths which he had read in the
heavens, the two fatal necessities impending over her
son, -one that he should ascend to empire, the other
that he should murder' herself, she replied in these
stern and memorable words - Occidat dum imperet.
Upon which a continental writer comments thus:' Never before or since have three such words issued
from the lips of woman; and in truth, one knows not
which most to abominate or admire- the aspiring
princess, or the loving mother. Meantime, in these
few words lies naked to the day, in its whole hideous
deformity, the very essence of Romanism and the
imperatorial power, and one might here consider the
mother of Nero as the impersonation of that monstrous
condition.'
This is true:  Occidat dum imperet, was the watchword and very cognizance of the Roman imperator.
But almost equally it was his watchword - Occidatur




182               THE CXSARS.
dum  imperet.  Doing or suffering, the Caesars were
almost equally involved in bloodshed; very few that
were not murderers, and nearly all were themselves
murdered.
The empire, then, must be regarded as the primary
object of our interest; and it is in this way only that
any secondary interest arises for the emperors.  Now,
with respect to the empire, the first question which
presents itself is, - Whence, that is, from what causes
and from what era, we are to date its decline?  Gibbon, as we all know, dates it from the reign of Commodus; but certainly upon no sufficient, or even
plausible grounds. Our own opinion we shall state
boldly: the empire itself, from the very era of its
establishment, was one long decline of the Roman
power. A vast monarchy had been created and consolidated by the all-conquering instincts of a republiccradled and nursed in wars, and essentially warlike by
means of all its institutions 43 and by the habits of the
people.  This monarchy had been of too slow a growth
too gradual, and too much according to the regular
stages of nature herself in its development, to have any
chance of being other than well cemented: the cohesion of its parts was intense; seven centuries of growth
demand one or two at least for palpable decay; and it
is only for harlequin empires like that of Napoleon,
run up with the rapidity of pantomime, to fall asunder
under the instant re-action of a few false moves in




THE CASAEs.                 183
politics, or a single unfortunate campaign. Hence it
was, and from the prudence of Augustus acting through
a very long reign, sustained at no very distant interval
by the personal inspection and revisions of Hadrian,
that for some time the Roman power seemed to be
stationary.  WVhat else could be expected?  The mere
strength of the impetus derived from the republican
institutions could not but propagate itself, and cause
even a motion in advance, for some time after those
institutions had themselves given way. And, besides,
the military institutions survived all others; and the
army continued very much the same in its discipline
and composition, long after Rome and all its civic institutions had bent before an utter revolution.  It was
very possible even that emperors should have arisen
with martial propensities, and talents capable of masking, for many years, by specious but transitory conquests, the causes that were silently sapping the foundations of Roman supremacy; and thus by accidents of
personal character and taste, an empire might even
have expanded itself in appearance, which, by all its
permanent and real tendencies, was even then shrinking within narrower limits, and travelling downwards
to dissolution. In reality one such emperor there was.
Trajan, whether by martial inclinations, or (as is
supposed by some) by dissatisfaction with his own
position at Rome, when brought into more immediate
connection with the senate, was driven into needless




184                THE COMSARS.
war; and he achieved conquests in the direction of
Dacia as well as Parthia. But that these conquests
were not substantial, - that they were connected by
no true cement of cohesion with the existing empire, is
evident from the rapidity with which they were abandoned. In the next reign, the empire had already
roeoiled within its former limits; and in two reigns
further on, under Marcus Antoninus, though a prince
of elevated character and warlike in his policy, we find
suchconcessions of territory made to the Marcomanni
and others, as indicate too plainly the shrinking energies of a waning empire. In reality, if we consider
the polar opposition, in point of interest and situation,
between the great officers of the republic and the
Augustus or Caesar of the empire, we cannot fail to see
the immense effect which that difference must have
had upon the permanent spirit of conquest. Caesar was
either adopted or elected to a situation of infinite luxury
and enjoyment. He had no interests to secure by
fighting in person; and he had a powerful interest in
preventing others from fighting; since in that way only
he could raise up competitors to himself, and dangerous
seducers of the army. A consul, on the other hand,
or great lieutenant of the senate, had nothing to enjo3
or to hope for, when his term of office should have
expired, unless according to his success in creating
military  fame  and  influence  for himself.  Those
Csesars who fought whilst the empire was or seemed tc




THE COSARS.                  185
be stationary, as Trajan, did so from personal taste.
Those who fought in after centuries, when the decay
became apparent, and dangers drew nearer, as Aurelian, did so from the necessities of fear; and under
neither impulse were they likely to make durable
conquests.  The spirit of conquest having therefore
departed at the very time when conquest would have
become more difficult even to the republican energies,
both from remoteness of ground and from the martial
character of the chief nations which stood beyond the
frontier, - it was a matter of necessity that with the
republican institutions should expire the whole principle
of territorial aggrandizement; and that, if the empire
seemed to be stationary for some time after its establishment by Julius, and its final settlement by Augustus,
this was through no strength of its own, or inherent in
its own constitution, but through the continued action
of that strength which it had inherited from the republic.  In a philosophical sense, therefore, it may be
affirmed, that the empire of the Cwesars was always in
decline; ceasing to go forward, it could not do other
than retrograde; and even the first appearances of decline can, with no propriety, be referred to the reign of
Commodus. His vices exposed him to public contempt
and assassination; but neither one nor the other had
any effect upon the strength of the empire. Here,
therefore, is one just subject of complaint against
Gibbon, that he has dated the declension of the Roman
16




186               THE CLSARS.
power from a commencement arbitrarily assumed;
another, and a heavier, is, that he has failed to notice
the steps and separate indications of decline as they
arose, -the moments (to speak in the language of
dynamics) through which the decline travelled onwards
to its consummation. It is also a grievous offence as
regards the true purposes of history, - and one which,
in a complete exposition of the imperial history, we
should have a right to insist on, - that Gibbon brings
forward only such facts as allow of a scenical treatment,
and seems everywhere, by the glancing style of his
allusions, to presuppose an acquaintance with that very
history which he undertakes to deliver. Our immediate purpose, however, is simply to characterize the
office of emperor, and to notice such events and changes
as operated for evil, and for a final effect of decay, upon
the Cmesars or their empire. As the best means of
realizing it, we shall rapidly review the history of both,
premising that we confine ourselves to the true Csesars,
and the true empire of the West.
The first overt act of weakness - the first expression of conscious declension, as regarded the foreign
enemies of Rome, occurred in the reign of Hadrian;
for it is a very different thing to forbear making conquests, and to renounce them  when made. It is
possible, however, that the cession then made of
Mesopotamia and Armenia, however sure to be interpreted into the language of fear by the enemy, did




THE COESAIBS.                187
aot imply any such principle in this emperor.  He
was of a civic and paternal spirit, and anxious for
the substantial welfare of the empire rather than its
ostentatious glory. The internal administration of
affairs had very much gone into neglect since the
times of Augustus; and Hadrian was perhaps right in
supposing that he could effect more public good by an
extensive progress through the empire, and by a personal correction of abuses, than by any military enterprise.  It is, besides, asserted, that he received an
indemnity in money for the provinces beyond the
Euphrates.  But still it remains true, that in his reign
the God Terminus made his first retrograde motion;
and this emperor became naturally an object of public
obloquy at Rome, and his name fell under the superstitious ban of a fatal tradition connected with the
foundation of the capital. The two Antonines, Titus
and Marcus, who came next in succession, were truly
good and patriotic princes; perhaps the only princes in
the whole series who combined the virtues of private
and of public life. In their reigns the frontier line was
maintained in its integrity, and at the expense of some
severe fighting under Marcus, who was a strenuous
general at the same time that he was a severe student.
It is, however, true, as we observed above, that, by
allowing a settlement within the Roman frontier to a
barbarous people, Marcus Aurelius raised the first
ominous precedent in favor of those Gothic, Vandal,




188               THE C dSARS.
and Frankish hives, who were as yet hidden behind a
cloud of years. Homes had been obtained by TransDanubian barbarians upon the sacred territory of Rome
and Caesar: that fact remained upon tradition: whilst
the terms upon which they had been obtained, how
much or how little connected with fear, necessarily
became liable to doubt and to oblivion. Here we pause
to remark, that the first twelve Caesars, together with
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and  the two Antonines,
making seventeen emperors, compose the first of four
nearly equal groups, who occupied the throne in succession until the extinction of the Western Empire.
And at this point be it observed, -that is, at the
termination of the first group, - we take leave of all
genuine virtue. In no one of the succeeding princes,
if we except Alexander Severus, do we meet with any
goodness of heart, or even amiableness of manners.
The best of the future emperors, in a public sense,
were harsh and repulsive in private character.
The second group, as we have classed them, terminating with Philip the Arab, commences with Commodus. This unworthy prince, although the son of the
excellent Marcus Antoninus, turned out a monster of
debauchery.  At the moment of his father's death, he
was present in person at the head-quarters of the army
on the Danube, and of necessity partook in many of
their hardships. This it was which furnished his evil
aounsellors with their sole argument for urging his




THtE CIESARS.                189
departure to the capital.  A council having been convened, the faction of court sycophants pressed upon
his attention the inclemency of the climate, contrasting
it with the genial skies and sunny fields of Italy; and
the season, which happened to be winter, gave strength
to their representations. What! would the emperor
be content for ever to hew out the frozen water with an
axe before he could assuage his thirst? And, again,
the total want of fruit-trees- did that recommend their
present station as a fit one for the imperial court?
Commodus, ashamed to found his objections to the
station upon grounds so unsoldierly as these, affected
to be moved by political reasons: some great senatorial
house might take advantage of his distance from home,
- might seize the palace, fortify it, and raise levies in
Italy capable of sustaining its pretensions to the throne.
These arguments were combated by Pompeianus, who,
besides his personal weight as an officer, had married
the eldest sister of the young emperor. Shame prevailed for the present with Commodus, and he dismissed the council with an assurance that he would
think farther of it. The sequel was easy to foresee.
Orders were soon issued for the departure of the court
to Rome, and the task of managing the barbarians of
IDacia was delegated to lieutenants. The system upon
which these officers executed their commission was a
mixed one of terror and persuasion. Some they defeated in battle; and these were the majority; for Herodian




190               THE CESARS.
says,  ilt   -riv  ao{cuOwV`r'oilS  ele6vCaro o; others they
bribed into peace by large sums of money. And
no doubt this last article in the policy of Commodus
was that which led Gibbon to assign to this reign the
first rudiments of the Roman declension. But it should
be remembered, that, virtually, this policy was but the
further prosecution of that which had already been
adopted by Marcus Aurelius. Concessions and temperaments of any sort or degree showed that the Pannonian
frontier was in too formidable a condition to be treated
with uncompromising rigor. To 2;eQtiLvvov  COVoVyvog, purchasing an immunity from all further anxiety, Commodus (as the historian expresses it) vr~c~a.d28 T- cLrota1va'
- conceded all demands whatever. His journey to
Rome was one continued festival: and the whole
population of Rome turned out to welcome him.  At
this period he was undoubtedly the darling of the
people: his personal beauty was splendid; and he was
connected by blood with some of the greatest nobility.
Over this flattering scene of hope and triumph clouds
soon gathered; with the mob, indeed, there is reason
to think that he continued a favorite to the last; but
the respectable part of the citizens were speedily
disgusted with his self-degradation, and came to hate
him even more than ever or by any class he had been
loved. The Roman pride never shows itself more
conspicuously throughout all history, than in the alienation of heart which inevitably followed any great and




TIHE CSESARS.               191
continued outrages upon his own majesty, committed
by their emperor. Cruelties the most atrocious, acts of
vengeance the most bloody, fatricide, parricide, all were
viewed with more toleration than oblivion of his own
inviolable sanctity.  Hence we imagine the wrath with
which Rome would behold Commodus, under the eyes
of four hundred thousand spectators, making himself
a party to the contests of gladiators.  In his earlier
exhibition as an archer, it is possible that his matchless
dexterity, and his unerring eye, would avail to mitigate
the censures: but when the Roman Imperator actually
descended to the arena in the garb and equipments of
a servile prize-fighter, and personally engaged in combat with such antagonists, having previously submitted
to their training and discipline - the public indignation rose to a height, which spoke aloud the language
of encouragement to conspiracy and treason. These
were not wanting; three memorable plots against his
life were defeated; one of them (that of Maternaus, the
robber) accompanied with romantic circumstances,44
which we have narrated in an earlier paper of this
series.  Another was set on foot by his eldest sister,
Lucilla; nor did her close relationship protect her from
capital punishment. In that instance, the immediate
agent of her purposes, Quintianus, a young man, of
signal resolution and daring, who had attempted to stab
the emperor at, the entrance of the amphitheatre, though
baffled in his purpose, uttered a word which rang cori




192               THE CaESARS.
tinually in the ears of Commodus, and poisoned his
peace of mind for ever. His vengeance, perhaps, was
thus more effectually accomplished than if he had at
once dismissed his victim from life.'T'Ihe senate,' he
had said,' send thee this through me:' and henceforward the senate was the object of unslumbering
suspicions to the emperor. Yet the public suspicions
settled upon a different quarter; and a very memorable
scene must have pointed his own in the same direction,
supposing that he had been previously blind to his
danger.
On a day of great solemnity, when Rome had assembled her myriads in the amphitheatre, just at the
very moment when the nobles, the magistrates, the
priests, all, in short, that was venerable or consecrated in the State, with the Imperator in their centre,
had taken their seats, and were waiting for the opening
of the shows, a stranger, in the robe of a philosopher,
bearing a staff in his hand, (which also was the professional ensign45 of a philosopher,) stepped forward,
and, by the waving of his hand, challenged the attention of Commodus. Deep silence ensued: upon which,
in a few words, ominous to the ear as the handwriting
on the wall to the eye of Belshazzar, the stranger
unfolded to Commodus the instant peril which menaced
both his life and his throne, from his great servant Perennius. What personal purpose of benefit to himself
this stranger might hare connected with his public




THE CtESARS.               193
warning, or by whom he might have been suborned,
was never discovered; for he was instantly arrested
by the agents of the great officer whom he had denounced, dragged away to punishment, and put to a
cruel death. Commodus dissembled his panic for the
present; but soon after, having received undeniable
proofs (as is alleged) of the treason imputed to Perennius, in the shape of a coin which had been struck by
his son, he caused the father to be assassinated; and,
on the same day, by means of forged letters, before
this news could reach the son, who commanded the
Illyrian armies, he lured him also to destruction, under
the belief that he was obeying the summons of his
father to a private interview on the Italian frontier.
So perished, those enemies, if enemies they really
were. But to these tragedies succeeded others far
more comprehensive in their mischief, and in more
continuous succession than is recorded upon any other
page of universal history. Rome was ravaged by a
pestilence - by a famine — by riots amounting to a
civil war - by a dreadful massacre of the unarmed
mob - by shocks of earthquake - and, finally, by a
fire which consumed the national bank,46 and the most
sumptuous buildings of the city.  To these horrors,
with a rapidity characteristic of the Roman depravity,
and possibly only under the most extensive demoralization of the public mind, succeeded festivals of gorgeous pomp, and amphitheatrical exhibitions, upon a
17




194               THIE C1SARS.
scale of grandeur absolutely unparalleled by all formet
attempts. Then were beheld, and familiarized to the
eyes of the Roman mob - to children - and to women,
animals as yet known to us, says Herodian, only in
pictures.  Whatever strange or rare animal could be
drawn from the depths of India, from Siam and Pegu,
or from the unvisited nooks of Ethiopia, were now
brought together as subjects for the archery of the
universal lord.47 Invitations (and the invitations of
kings are commands) had been scattered on this occasion profusely; not, as heretofore, to individuals or to
families — but, as was in proportion to the occasion
where an emperor was the chief performer, to nations.
People were summoned by circles of longitude and
latitude to come and see [Eqa,(tvot r a   O~ETOV I?,TE
wecqLGa,,zaV'tl xjxoEtloav —things that eye had not
seen nor ear heard of] the specious miracles of nature
brought together from arctic and from tropic deserts,
putting forth their strength, their speed, or their beauty,
and glorifying by their deaths the matchless hand of
the Roman king.  There was beheld the lion from
Bilidulgerid, and the leopard from  Hindostan -the
rein-deer from polar latitudes - the antelope from the
Zaara- and the leigh, or gigantic stag, from Britain.
Thither came the buffalo and the bison, the white bull
of Northumberland and Galloway, the unicorn from
the regions of Nepaul or Thibet, the rhinoceros and
the river-horse from Senegal, with the elephant of




THE COSARS.                  195
Ceylon or Siam. The ostrich and the cameleopard,'
the wild ass and the zebra, the chamois and the ibex
of Angora, - all brought their tributes of beauty or
deformity to these vast aceldamas of Rome: their
savage voices ascended in tumultuous uproar to the
chambers of the capitol: a million of spectators sat
round them: standing in the centre was a single statuesque figure - the imperial sagittary, beautiful as an
Antinous, and majestic as a Jupiter, whose hand was
so steady and whose eye so true, that he was never
known to miss, and who, in this accomplishment at
least, was so absolute in his excellence, that, as we are
assured by a writer not disposed to flatter him, the
very foremost of the Parthian archers and of the Mauritanian lancers [rIaqevatv of roitZxLv &.Q tregs, xat1 Maveatowv of &axotot-tL aQot] were not able to contend with
him. Juvenal, in a well known passage upon the disproportionate endings of illustrious careers, drawing
one of his examples from Marius, says, that he ought,
for his own glory, and to make his end correspondent
to his life, to have died at the moment when he descended from his triumphal chariot at the portals of
the capitol. And of Commodus, in like manner, it
may be affirmed, that, had he died in the exercise of
his peculiar art, with a hecatomb of victims rendering
homage to his miraculous skill, by the regularity of
the files which they presented, as they lay stretched
out dying or dead upon the arena, - he would have




196               THE CffSARS.
left a splendid and characteristic impression of himself u]on that nation of spectators who had witnessed
his performance. He was the noblest artist in his
own profession that the worlnl had seen - in archery
he was the Robin Hood of Rome; he was in the very
meridian of his youth; and h3 was the most beautiful
man of his own times [~wv ZaI' Savrov &avewzwv xac2Et
ivneQrEcarzoS]. He would therefore have looked the
part admirably of the dying gladiator; and he would
have died in his natural vocation. But it was ordered
otherwise; his death was destined to private malice,
and to an ignoble hand. And much obscurity still
rests upon the motives of the assassins, though its circumnstances are reported with unusual minuteness of
detail. One thing is evident, that the public and
patriotic motives assigned by the perpetrators as the
remote causes of their conspiracy, cannot have been
the true ones.
The grave historian may sum up his character of
Commodus by saying that, however richly endowed
With natural gifts, he abused them all to bad purposes;
that he derogated from his noble ancestors, and disavowed the obligations of his illustrious name; and,
as the climax of his offences, that he dishonored the
purple - cadoQotg xoF  Irlievy,(,v - by the baseness of his
pursuits. All that is true, and more than that. But
these considerations were not of a nature to affect his
parasitical attendants very nearly or keenly. Yet the




THE CAESARS.               197
story rins - that Marcia, his privileged mistress, deeply
affected by the anticipation of some further outrages
upon his high dignity which he was then meditating,
had carried the importunity of her deprecations too far;
that the irritated emperor had consequently inscribed
her name, in company with others, (whom he had
reason to tax with the same offence, or whom he suspected of similar sentiments,) in his little black book,
or pocket souvenir of death; that this book, being left
under the cushion of a sofa, had been conveyed into
the hands of Marcia by a little pet boy, called PhiloCommodus, who was caressed equally by the emperor
and by Marcia; that she had immediately called to her
aid, and to the participation of her plot, those who
participated in her danger; and that the proximity of
their own intended fate had prescribed to them an
immediate attempt; the circumstances of which were
these. At mid-day the emperor was accustomed to
bathe, and at the same time to take refreshments. On
this occasion, Marcia, agreeably to her custom, presented him with a goblet of wine medicated with
poison. Of this winG, having just returned from the
fatigues of the chase, Commodus drank freely, and
almost immediately fell into heavy slumbers; from
which, however, he was soon aroused by deadly sickness. That was a case which the conspirators had not
taken into their calculations; and they now began to
fear that the violent vomiting which succeeded might




198               THE C2ESARS.
throw off the poison. There was no time to be lost'
and the barbarous Marcia, who had so often slept in
the arms of the young emperor, was the person to
propose that he should now be strangled. A young
gladiator, named Narcissus, was therefore introduced
into the room; what passed is not known circumstantially: but, as the emperor was young and athletic,
though off his guard at the moment, and under the
disadvantage of sickness, and as he had himself been
regularly trained in the gladiatorial discipline, there
can be little doubt that the vile assassin would meet
with a desperate resistance. And thus, after all, there
is good reason to think that the emperor resigned his
life in the character of a dying gladiator.48
So perished the eldest and sole surviving son of the
great Marcus Antoninus; and the crown passed into
the momentary possession of two old men, who reigned
in succession each for a few weeks.  The first of these
was Pertinax, an upright man, a good officer, and an
unseasonable reformer; unseasonable for those times,
but more so for himself.  Laetus, the ringleader in the
assassination of Commodus, had been at that time the
proetorian prefect - an office which a German writer
considers as best represented to modern ideas by the
Turkish post of grand vizier. Needing a protector at
this moment, he naturally fixed his eyes upon Pertinax
- as then holding the powerful command of city pre.
fect (or governor of Rome). Him therefore he recom



THE CESARS.                199
mended to the soldiery - that is, to the praetorian
cohorts. The soldiery had no particular objection to
the old general, if he and they could agree upon
terms; his age being doubtless appreciated as a firstrate recommendation, in a case where it insured a
speedy renewal of the lucrative bargain.
The only demur arose with Pertinax himself: he
had been leader of the troops in Britain, then superintendent of the police in Rome, thirdly proconsul in
Africa, and finally consul and governor of Rome. In
these great official stations he stood near enough to the
throne to observe the dangers with which it was surrounded; and it is asserted that he declined the offered
dignity. But it is added, that, finding the choice
allowed him lay between immediate death49 and acceptance, he closed with the proposals of the proetorian
cohorts, at the rate of about ninety-six pounds per
man; which largess he paid by bringing to sale the
rich furniture of the last emperor. The danger which
usually threatened a Roman Caesar in such cases was
-lest he should not be able to fulfil his contract.
But in the case of Pertinax the danger began from the
moment when he had fulfilled it.  Conceiving himself
to be now released from  his dependency, he commenced his reforms, civil as well as military, with a
zeal which alarmed all those who had an interest in
maintaining the old abuses. To two great factions he
thus made himself especially obnoxious -to the prm




200               THE CMSARS.
torian cohorts, and to the courtiers under the last
reign. The connecting link between these two parties
was L'etus, who belonged personally to the last, and
still retained his influence with the first. Possibly his
fears were alarmed; but, at all events, his cupidity
was not satisfied. He conceived himself to have been
ill rewarded; and, immediately resorting to the same
weapons which he had used against Commodus, he
stimulated the prsetorian guards to murder the emperor. Three hundred of them pressed into the palace:
Pertinax attempted to harangue them, and to vindicate
himself; but not being able to obtain a hearing, he
folded his robe about his head, called upon Jove the
Avenger, and was immediately dispatched.
The throne was again empty after a reign of about
eighty days; and now came the memorable scandal of
putting up the empire to auction. There were two
bidders, Sulpicianus and Didius Julianus. The first,
however, at that time governor of Rome, lay under a
weight of suspicion, being the father-in-law of Pertinax, and likely enough to exact vengeance for his
murder. He was besides outbid by Julianus. Sulpician offered about one hundred and sixty pounds a
man to the guards; his rival offered two hundred, and
assured them besides of immediate payment;' for,'
said he,'I have the money at home, without needing to raise it from the possessions of the crown.'
Upon this the empire was knocked down to the




THE  CiESARS.               201
highest bidder. So shocking, however, was this arrangement to the Roman pride, that the guards durst
not leave their new creation without military protection. The resentment of an unarmed mob, however,
soon ceased to be of foremost importance; this resentment extended rapidly to all the frontiers of the empire, where the armies felt that the praetorian cohorts
had no exclusive title to give away the throne, and
their leaders felt, that, in a contest of this nature, their
own claims were incomparably superior to those of the
present occupant. Three great candidates therefore
started forward - Septimius Severus, who commanded
the armies in Illyria, Pescennius Niger in Syria, and
Albinus in Britain. Severus, as the nearest to Rome,
marched and possessed himself of that city.  Vengeance followed upon all parties concerned in the late
murder. Julianus, unable to complete his bargain, had
already been put to death, as a deprecatory offering
to the approaching army. Severus himself inflicted
death upon Laetus, and dismissed the praetorian cohorts.
Thence marching against his Syrian rival, Niger, who
had formerly been his friend, and who was not wanting in military skill, he overthrew him in three great
battles. Niger fled to Antioch, the seat of his late
government, and was there decapitated. Meantime
Albinus, the British commander-in-chief, had already
been won over by the title of Caesar, or adopted heir
to the new Augustus. But the hollowness of this bribe




202                THE CASARS.
soon becamer apparent, and the two competitors met
to decide their pretensions at Lyons.  In  the great
battle which followed, Severus fell from his horse, and
was at first supposed to be dead. But recovering, he
defeated his rival, who immediately committed suicide.
Severus displayed his ferocious temper sufficiently by
sending the head of Albinus to Rome. Other expressions of his natural character soon followed: he suspected strongly that Albinus had been favored by the
senate; forty of that body, with their wives and children, were immediately sacrificed to his wrath: but
he never forgave the rest, nor endured to live upon
terms of amity amongst them. Quitting Rome in disgust, he employed himself first in making war upon the
Parthians, who had naturally, from situation, befriended
his Syrian rival. Their capital cities he overthrew;
and afterwards, by way of employing his armies, made
war in Britain. At the city of York he died; and to
his two sons, Geta and Caracalla, he bequeathed, as
his dying advice, a maxim of policy, which sufficiently
indicates the situation of the empire at that period; it
was this -' To enrich the soldiery at any price, and
to regard the rest of their subjects as so many ciphers.'
But, as a critical historian remarks, this was a shortsighted and self-destroying policy; since in no way is
the subsistence of the soldier made more insecure,
than by diminishing the general security of rights and
property to those who are not soldiers, from whom,




THE CESARS.                 203
after all, the funds must be sought, by which the
soldier himself is to be paid and nourished.  The
two s5)ns of Severus, whose bitter enmity is so memorably put on record by their actions, travelled simultaneously to Rome; but so mistrustful of each other,
that at every stage the two princes took up their
quarters at different houses.  Geta has obtained the
sympathy of historians, because he happened to be
the victim; but there is reason to think, that each of
the brothers was conspiring against the other. The
weak credulity, rather than the conscious innocence,
of Geta, led to the catastrophe; he presented himself
at a meeting with his brother in the presence of their
common mother, and was murdered by Caracalla in
his mother's arms. He was, however, avenged; the
horrors of that tragedy, and remorse for the twenty
thousand murders which had followed, never forsook
the guilty Caracalla. Quitting Rome, but pursued into
every region by the bloody image of his brother, the
emperor henceforward led a wandering life at the
head of his legions; but never was there a better illustration of the poet's maxim that'Remorse is as the mind in which it grows:
If that be gentle,' &c.
For the remorse of Caracalla put on no shape of
repentance.  On the contrary, he carried anger and
oppression wherever he moved; and protected himself from plots only by living in the very centre of a




204               THE CfcSARS.
nomadic camp.  Six years had passed away in this
manner, when a mere accident led to his assassination.
For the sake of security, the office of pretorian prefect
had been divided between two commissioners, one for
military affairs, the other for civil. The latter of these
two officers was Opilius Macrinus. This man has, by
some historians, been supposed to have harbored no
bad intentions; but, unfortunately, an astrologer had
foretold that he was destined to the throne.  The
prophet was laid in irons at Rome, and letters were
dispatched to Caracalla, apprising him of the case.
These letters, as yet unopened, were transferred by
the emperor, then occupied in witnessing a race, to
Macrinus, who thus became acquainted with the whole
grounds of suspicion against himself, - grounds which,
to the jealousy of the emperor, he well knew would
appear substantial proofs. Upon this he resolved to
anticipate the emperor in the work of murder. The
head-quarters were then at Edessa; and upon his
instigation, a disappointed centurion, named Martialis,
animated also by revenge for the death of his brother,
undertook to assassinate Caracalla. An opportunity
soon offered, on a visit which the prince made to the
celebrated temple of the moon at Carrhre. The attempt
was successful: the emperor perished; but Martialis
paid the penalty of his crime in the same hour, being
shot by a Scythian archer of the body-guard.
Macrinus, after three days' interregnum, being




THE CAESARS.               205
elected emperor, began his reign by purchasing a
peace from the Parthians'What the empire chiefly
needed at this moment, is evident from the next step
taken by this emperor. He labored to restore the
ancient discipline of the armies in all its rigor. He
was aware of the risk he ran in this attempt; and that
he was so, is the best evidence of the strong necessity
which existed for reform. Perhaps, however, he might
have surmounted his difficulties and dangers, had he
met with no competitor round whose person the military
malcontents could rally. But such a competitor soon
arose; and, to the astonishment of all the world, in the
person of a Syrian. The Emperor Severus, on losing
his first wife, had resolved to strengthen the pretensions
of his family by a second marriage with some lady
having a regal'genesis,' that is, whose horoscope
promised a regal destiny. Julia Domna, a native of
Syria, offered him this dowry, and she became the
mother of Geta. A sister of this Julia, called Mcesa,
had, through two different daughters, two grandsons -
Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus. The mutineers
of the army rallied around the first of these; a battle
was fought; and Macrinus, with his son Diadumenianus, whom he had adopted to the succession, were
captured and put to death. Heliogabalus succeeded,
and reigned in the monstrous manner which has rendered his name infamous in history. In what way,
however, he lost the affections of the army, has never




206               THE CESARS.
been explained. His mother, Socemias, the eldest
daughter of Mcesa, had represented herself as the
concubine of Caracalla; and Heliogabalus, being thus
accredited as the son of that emperor, whose memory
was dear to the soldiery, had enjoyed the full benefit
of that descent, nor can it be readily explained how he
came to lose it.
Here, in fact, we meet with an instance of that
dilemma which is so constantly occurring in the history
of the Caesars. If a prince is by temperament disposed to severity of manners, and naturally seeks to
impress his own spirit upon the composition and discipline of the army, we are sure to find that he was cut
off in his attempts by private assassination or by public
rebellion. On the other hand, if he wallows in sensuality, and is careless about all discipline, civil or
military, we then find as commonly that he loses the
esteem and affections of the army to some rival of
severer habits. And in the midst of such oscillations,
and with examples of such contradictory interpretation,
we cannot wonder that the Roman princes did not
oftener take warning by the misfortunes of their predecessors. In the present instance, Alexander, the
cousin of Heliogabalus, without intrigues of his own,
and simply (as it appears) by the purity and sobriety
of his conduct, had alienated the affections of the army
from the reigning prince. Either jealousy or prudence
had led Heliogabalus to make an attempt upon his




THEE CfSARS.               207
rival's life; and this attempt had nearly cost him his
own through the mutiny which it caused. In a second
uproar, produced by some fresh intrigues of the emperor against his cousin, the soldiers became unmanageable, and they refused to pause until they had
massacred Heliogabalus, together with his mother, and
raised his cousin Alexander to the throne.
The reforms of this prince, who reigned under the
name of Alexander Severus, were extensive and searching; not only in his court, which he purged of all
notorious abuses, but throughout the economy of the
army. He cashiered, upon one occasion, an entire
legion; he restored, as far as he was able, the ancient
discipline; and, above all, he liberated the provinces
from military spoliation.'Let the soldier,' said he,'be contented with his pay; and whatever more he
wants, let him obtain it by victory from the enemy,
not by pillage from his fellow-subject.'  But whatever
might be the value or extent of his reforms in the
marching regiments, Alexander could not succeed in
binding the praetorian guards to his yoke. Under the
guardianship of his mother Mammaea, the conduct of
state affairs had been submitted to a council of sixteen
persons, at the head of which stood the celebrated
Ulpian. To this minister the prsetorians imputed the
reforms, and perhaps the whole spirit of reform; for
they pursued him with a vengeance which is else hardly
to be explained. Many days was Ulpian protected by




208                THE CMESARS.
the citizens of Rome, until the whole city was threatened with conflagration; he then fled to the palace of
the young emperor, who in vain attempted to save him
frcmn his pursuers under the shelter of the imperial
purple. Ulpian was murdered before his eyes; nor
was it found possible to punish the ringleader in this
foul conspiracy, until he had been removed by something like treachery to a remote government.
Meantime, a great revolution and change of dynasty
had been effected in Parthia; the line of the Arsacidee
was terminated; the Parthian empire was at an end;
and the sceptre of Persia was restored under the new
race of the Sassanides.  Artaxerxes, the first prince
of this race, sent an embassy of four hundred select
knights, enjoining the Roman emperor to content himself with Europe, and to leave Asia to the Persians.
In the event of a refusal, the ambassadors were instructed to offer a defiance to the Roman prince. Upon
such an insult, Alexander could not do less, with either
safety or dignity, than to prepare for war. It is probable, indeed, that, by this expedition, which drew off
the minds of the soldiery from brooding upon the reforms which offended them, the life of Alexander was
prolonged. But the expedition itself was mismanaged,
or was unfortunate. This result, however, does not
seem chargeable upon Alexander. All the preparations
were admirable on the march, and up to the enemy's
frontier, The invasion it was, which, in a strategic




THE C.SARS.                 209
sense, seems to have been ill combined. Three armies
were to have entered Persia simultaneously: one of
these, which was destined to act on a flank of the
general line, entangled itself in the marshy grounds
near Babylon, and was cut off by the archery of an
enemy whom it could not reach. The other wing,
acting upon ground impracticable for the manceuvres
of the Persian cavalry, and supported by Chosroes the
king of Armenia, gave great trouble to Artaxerxes,
and, with adequate support from the other armies,
would doubtless have been victorious. But the central
army, under the conduct of Alexander in person,
discouraged by the destruction of one entire wing,
remained stationary in Mesopotamia throughout the
summer, and, at the close of the campaign, was with.
drawn to Antioch, re infectad. It has been observed
that great mystery hangs over the operations and issue
of this short war. Thus much, however, is evident,
that nothing but the previous exhaustion of the Persian
king saved the Roman armies from signal discomfiture;
and even thus there is no ground for claiming a victory (as most historians do) to the Roman arms. Any;ermination of the Persian war, however, whether
glorious or not, was likely to be personally injurious
to Alexander, by allowing leisure to the soldiery for
recurring to their grievances. Sensible, no doubt, of
this, Alexander was gratified by the occasion which
then arose for repressing the hostile movements of the
19




210               THE CmSARS.
Germans. He led his army off upon this expedition,
but their temper was gloomy and threatening; and at
length, after reaching the seat of war, at Mentz, an
open mutiny broke out under the guidance of Maximin,
which terminated in the murder of the emperor and
his mother. By Herodian the discontents of the army
are referred to the ill management of the Persian
campaign, and the unpromising commencement of the
new war in Germany. But it seems probable that a
dissolute and wicked army, like that of Alexander, had
not murmured under the too little, but the too much
of military service; not the buying a truce with gold
seems to have offended them, but the having led them
at all upon an enterprise of danger and hardship.
Maximin succeeded, whose feats of strength, when
he first courted the notice of the Emperor Severus,
have been described by Gibbon. He was at that
period a Thracian peasant; since then he had risen
gradually to high offices; but, according to historians,
he retained his Thracian brutality to the last. That
may have been true; but one remark must be made
upon this occasion; Maximin was especially opposed
to the senate; and, wherever that was the case, no
justice was done to an emperor. Why it was that
Maximin would not ask for the confirmation of his
election from the senate, has never been explained; it
is said that he anticipated a rejection. But, on the
other hand, it seems probable that the senate supposed




THE CMESARS.               211
its sanction to be despised. Nothing, apparently, but
this reciprocal reserve in making approaches to each
other, was the cause of all the bloodshed which followed. The two Gordians, who commanded in Africa,
were set up by the senate against the new emperor;
and the consternation of that body must have been
great, when these champions were immediately overthrown and killed. They did not, however, despair:
substituting the two governors of Rome, Pupienus and
Balbinus, and associating to them the younger Gordian, they resolved to make a stand; for the severities
of Maximin had by this time manifested that it was a
contest of extermination.  Meantime, Maximin had
broken up from Sirmium, the capital of Pannonia, and
had advanced to Aquileia, - that famous fortress,
which in every invasion of Italy was the first object of
attack. The senate had set a price upon his head;
but there was every probability that he would have
triumphed, had he not disgusted his army by immoderate severities. It was, however, but reasonable that
those, who would not support the strict but equitable
discipline of the mild Alexander, should suffer under
the barbarous and capricious rigor of Maximin. That
rigor was his ruin: sunk and degraded as the senate
was, and now but the shadow of a mighty name, it
was found on this occasion to have long arms when
supported by the frenzy of its opponent. WThatever
might be the real weakness of this body, the rude




212               THE CSARS.E.
soldiers yet felt a blind traditionary veneration for its
sanction, when prompting them as patriots to an act
which their own multiplied provocations had but too
much recommended to their passions. A party entered
the tent of Maximin, and dispatched him with the same
unpitying haste which he had shown under similar
circumstances to the gentle-minded Alexander. Aquileia opened her gates immediately, and thus made it
evident that the war had been personal to Maximin.
A scene followed within a short time which is in
the highest degree interesting. The senate, in creating
two emperors at once (for the boy Gordian was probably associated to them only by way of masking their
experiment), had made it evident that their purpose
was to restore the republic and its two consuls. This
was their meaning; and the experiment had now been
twice repeated. The army saw through it; as to the
double number of emperors, that was of little consequence, farther than as it expressed their intention, viz.
by bringing back the consular government, to restore
the power of the senate, and to abrogate that of the
army.  The pratorian troops, who were the most
deeply interested in preventing this revolution, watched
their opportunity, and attacked the two emperors in
the palace.  The deadly feud, which had already
arisen between them, led each to suppose himself under
assault from the other. The mistake was not of long
duration.  Carried into the streets of Rome, they were




THE CESARS.                213
both put to death, and treated with monstrous indigni.
ties. The young Gordian was adopted by the soldiery.
It seems odd that even thus far the guards should
sanction the choice of the senate, having the purposes
which they had; but perhaps Gordian had recommended himself to their favor in a degree which might
outweigh what they considered the original vice of his
appointment, and his youth promised them an immediate impunity. This prince, however, like so many
of his predecessors soon came to an unhappy end.
Under the guardianship of the upright Misitheus, for
a time he prospered; and preparations were made
upon a great scale for the energetic administration of
a Persian war. But Misitheus died, perhaps by poison,
in the course of the campaign; and to him succeeded,
as prEetorian prefect, an Arabian officer, called Philip.
The innocent boy, left without friends, was soon removed by murder; and a monument was afterwards
erected to his memory, at the junction of the Aboras
and the Euphrates. Great obscurity, however, clouds
this part of history; nor is it so much as known in
what way the Persian war was conducted or terminated.
Philip, having made himself emperor, celebrated,
upon his arrival in Rome, the secular games, in the
year 247 of the Christian era - that being the completion of a thousand years from the foundation of Rome.
But Nemesis was already on his steps. An insurree



214                TRE CaMSARS.
tion had broken out amongst the legions stationed in
Mcesia; and they had raised to the purple some officei
of low rank. Philip, having occasion to notice this
affair in the senate, received for answer from Decius,
that probably, the pseudo-imperator would prove a
mere evanescent phantom. This conjecture was confirmed; and Philip in consequence conceived a high
opinion of Decius, whom (as the insurrection still continued) he judged to be the fittest man for appeasing
it. Decius accordingly went, armed with the proper
authority. But on -his arrival, he found himself
compelled by the insurgent army to choose between
empire and death. Thus constrained, he yielded to
the wishes of the troops; and then hastening with a
vereran army into Italy, he fought the battle of
Verona, where Philip was defeated and killed, whilst
the son of Philip was murdered at Rome by the proetorian guards.
With Philip, ends, according to our distribution,
the second series of the Cesars, comprehending
Commodus, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Septimius,
Severus, Caracalla and Geta, Macrinus, Heliogabalus,
Alexander Severus, Maximin, the two Gordians,
Pupienus and Balbinus, the third Gordian, and Philip
the Arab.
In looking back at this series of Caesars, we are
horror-struck at the blood-stained picture. Well might
a foreign writer, in reviewing the same succession,




THE CESARS.                  215
declare, that it is like passing into a new world when
the transition is made from this chapter of the human
history to that of modern Europe. From Comnmodus
to Decius are sixteen names, which, spread through
a space of fifty-nine years, assign to each Ceesar a
reign of less than four years. And Casaubcn remarks,
that, in one period of 160 years, there were seventy
persons who assumed the Roman purple; which gives
to each not much more than two years. On the other
hand, in the history of France, we find that, through
a period of 1200 years, there have been no more than
sixty-four kings: upon an average, therefore, each
king appears to have enjoyed a reign of nearly nineteen years. This vast difference in security is due to
two great principles, - that of primogeniture as between son and son, and of hereditary succession as
between a son and every other pretender. Well may
we hail the principle of hereditary right as realizing
the praise of Burke applied to chivalry, viz., that it is'the cheap defence of nations;' for the security which
is thus obtained, be it recollected, does not regard a
a small succession of princes, but the whole rights and
interests of social man: since the contests for the
rights of belligerent rivals do not respect themselves
only, but very often spread ruin and proscription
amongst all orders of men. The principle of hereditary succession, says one writer, had it been a discovery of any one individual, would deserve to be




216                THE C.ESARS.
considered as the very greatest ever made; and he
adds acutely, in answer to the obvious, but shallow
objection to it (viz., its apparent assumption of equal
ability for reigning in father and son for ever), that it
is like the Copernican system of the heavenly bodies,
- contradictory to our sense and first impressions, but
true notwithstanding.




TRE CESARS.               217
CHAPTER VI.
To return, however, to our sketch of the Cmsars.
At the head of the third series we place Decius. He
came to the throne at a moment of great public embarrassment. The Goths were now beginning to press
southwards upon the empire. Dacia they had ravaged
for some time;' and here,' says a German writer,' observe the short-sightedness of the Emperor Trajan.
Had he left the Dacians in possession of their independence, they would, under their native kings, have
made head against the Goths. But, being compelled
to assume the character of Roman citizens, they had
lost their warlike qualities.' From Dacia the Goths
had descended upon Mcnsia; and, passing the Danube,
they laid siege to Marcianopolis, a city built by Trajan
in honor of his sister. The inhabitants paid a heavy
ransom for their town; and the Goths were persuaded
for the present to return home. But sooner than was
expected, they returned to Mcesia, under their king,
Kniva; and they were already engaged in the siege of
Nicopolis, when Decius came in sight at the head of
the Roman army. The Goths retired, but it was to
Thrace; and, in the conquest of Philippopolis, they
found an ample indemnity for their forced retreat and




218                THE C.ASARS.
disappointment.  Decius pursued, but the king of the
Goths turned suddenly upon him; the emperor was
obliged to fly; the Roman camp was plundered;
Philippopolis was taken by storm; and its whole
population, reputed at more than a hundred thousand
souls, destroyed.
Such was the first great irruption of the barbarians
into the Roman territory: and panic was diffused on
the wings of the wind over the whole empire. Decius,
however, was firm, and made prodigious efforts to
restore the balance of power to its ancient condition.
For the moment he had some partial successes. He
cut off several detachments of Goths, on their road to
reinforce the enemy; and he strengthened the fortresses and garrisons of the Danube.  But his last
success was the means of his total ruin. He came up
with the Goths at Forum Terebronii, and, having surrounded their position, their destruction seemed inevitable. A great battle ensued, and a mighty victory to
the Goths. Nothing is now known of the circumstances, except that the third line of the Romans was
entangled inextricably in a morass (as had happened
in the Persian  expedition of Alexander).  Decius
perished on this occasion - nor was it possible to find
his dead body. This great defeat naturally raised the
authority of the senate, in the same proportion as it
depressed that of the army; and by the will of that
body, Hestilianus, a son of Decius, was raised to the




THE CESARS.                219
empire; and ostensibly on account of his youth, but
really with a view to their standing policy of restoring
the consulate, and the whole machinery of the republic,
Gallus, an experienced commander, was associated in
the empire. But no skill or experience could avail to
retrieve the sinking power of Rome upon the Illyrian
frontier. The Roman army was disorganized, panicstricken, reduced to skeleton battalions.  Without an
army, what could be done? And thus it may really
have been no blame to Gallus, that he made a treaty
with the Goths more degrading than any previous act
in the long annals of Rome. By the terms of this
infamous bargain, they were allowed to carry off an
immense booty, amongst which was a long roll of
distinguished prisoners; and Caesar himself it was -
not any lieutenant or agent that might have been afterwards disavowed-  who volunteered to purchase their
future absence by an annual tribute. The very army
which had brought their emperor into the necessity of
submitting to such abject concessions, were the first to
be offended with this natural result of their own failures.
Gallus was already ruined in public opinion, when further accumulations arose to his disgrace.  It was now
supposed to have been discovered, that the late dreadful defeat of Forum Terebronii was due to his bad
advice; and, as the young Hostilianus happened to die
about this time of a contagious disorder, Gallus was
charged  with his murder. Even a ray of prosperity




220                THE C SARS.
which just now gleamed upon the Roman arms, aggravated the disgrace of Gallus, and was instantly made
the handle of his ruin.  zEmilianus, the governor of
MIcsia and Pannonia, inflict li some check or defeat
upon the Goths; and in the enthusiasm  of sudden
pride, upon an occasion whih contrasted so advantageously for himself with the military conduct of
Decius and Gallus, the soldiers of his own legion raised
2Emilianus to the purple.  No time was to be losto
Summoned by the troops, Emilianus marched into
Italy; and no sooner had he made his appearance
there, than the prsetorian guards murdered the Emperor
Gallus and his son Volusianus, by way of confirming
the election of 2Emilianus. The new emperor offered
to secure the frontiers, both in the east and on the
Danube, from the incursions of the barbarians. This
offer may be regarded as thrown out for the conciliation
of all classes in the empire. But to the senate in particular he addressed a message, which forcibly illustrates the political position of that body in those times.
_Emilianus proposed to resign the whole civil administration into the hands of the senate, reserving to himseli
the only unlenviable burthen of the military interests.
His hope was, that in this way making himself in part
the creation of the senate, he might strengthen his title
against competitors at Rome, whilst the entire military
administration going on under his own eyes, exc iusively
directed to that one object, would give him some clhance




THE COESARs.                221
of defeating the hasty and tumultuary competitions sc
apt to arise amongst the legions upon the frontier. We
notice the transaction chiefly as indicating the anomalous situation of the senate. Without power in a
proper sense, or no more, however, than the indirect
power of wealth, that ancient body retained an immense
auctoritas —that is, an influence built upon ancient
reputation, which, in their case, had the strength of a
religious superstition in all Italian minds. This influence the senators exerted with effect, whenever the
course of events had happened to reduce the power of
the army. And never did they make a more continuous and sustained effort for retrieving their ancient
power and place, together with the whole system of
the republic, than during the period at which we are
now arrived.  From  the time of Maximin, in fact, to
the accession of Aurelian, the senate perpetually interposed their credit and authority, like some Deus ex
machind in the dramatic art. And if this one fact were
all that had survived of the public annals at this period,
we might sufficiently collect the situation of the two
other parties in the empire - the army and the imperator; the weakness and precarious tenure of the one,
and the anarchy of the other. And hence it is that
we can explain the hatred borne to the senate by
vigorous emperors, such as Aurelian, succeeding to a
long course of weak and troubled reigns. Such an
emperor presumed in the senate, and not without




222                THE C SARS.
reason, Ihe same spirit of domineering interference as
ready to manifest itself, upon any opportunity offered,
against himself, which, in his earlier days, he had
witnessed so repeatedly in successful operation upon
the fates and prospects of others.
The situation indeed of the world -that is to say, of
that great centre of civilization, which, running round
the Mediterranean in one continuous belt of great
breadth, still composed the Roman Empire, was at this
time most profoundly interesting. The crisis had
arrived.  In the East, a new dynasty (the Sassanides)
had remoulded ancient elements into a new form, and
breathed a new life into an empire, which else was
gradually becoming crazy of age, and which, at any
rate, by losing its unity, must have lost its vigor as an
offensive power.  Parthia was languishing and drooping as an anti-Roman state, when the last of the Arsacidae expired.  A perfect FPaingenesis was wrought
by the restorer of the Persian empire, which pretty
nearly re-occupied (and gloried in re-occupying) the
very area that had once composed the empire of Cyrus.
Even this Falingenesis might have terminated in a
divided empire: vigor might have been restored, but
in the shape of a polyarchy (such as the Saxons established in England), rather than a monarchy; and in
reality, at one moment that appeared to be a probable
event.  Now, had this been the course of the revolution, an alliance with one of these kingdoms would




THE C3ESARS.                22 U
have tended to balance the hostility of another (as was
in fact the case when Alexander Severus saved himself
from the Persian power by a momentary alliance with
Armenia). But all the elements of disorder had in
that quarter re-combined themselves into severe unity:
and thus was Rome, upon her eastern frontier, laid
open to a new power of juvenile activity and vigor,
just at the period when the languor of the decaying
Parthian had allowed the Roman discipline to fall into
a corresponding declension. Such was the condition of
Rome upon her oriental frontier.50  On the northern,
it was much worse. Precisely at the crisis of a great
revolution in Asia, which demanded in that quarter
more than the total strength of the empire, and threatened to demand it for ages to come, did the Goths,
under their earliest denomination of Getce, with many
other associate tribes, begin to push with their horns
against the northern gates of the empire; the whole
line of the Danube, and, pretty nearly about the
same time, of the Rhine, (upon which the tribes
frem  Swabia, Bavaria, and Franconia, were beginning
to descend,) now became insecure; and these two
rivers ceased in effect to be the barriers of Rome.
Taking a middle point of time between the Parthian
revolution and the fatal overthrow of Forum Terebronii, we may fix upon the reign of Philip the Arab
[who naturalized himself in Rome by the appellation
of Marcus Julius] as the epoch from which the Roman




224               THE CSsARS.
empire, already sapped and undermined by changes
from within, began to give way, and to dilapidate from
without.  And this reign dates itself in the series by
those ever-memorable secular or jubilee games, which
celebrated the completion of the thousandth year from
the foundation of Rome.51
Resuming our sketch of the Imperial history, we
may remark the natural embarrassment lwhich must
have possessed the senate, when two candidates for
the purple were equally earnest in appealing to them,
and their deliberate choice, as the best foundation for
a valid election. Scarcely had the ground been cleared
folr AEmilianus by the murder of Gallus and his son,
when Valerian, a Roman senator, of such eminent
merit, and confessedly so much the foremost noble in
all the qualities essential to the very delicate and comprehensive functions of a Censor,52 that Decius had
revived that office expressly in his behalf, entered Italy
at the head of the army from Gaul.  He had been
summoned to his aid by the late emperor, Gallus; but
arriving too late for his support, he determined to
avenge him. Both 2Emilianus and Valerian recognized
the authority of the senate, and professed to act under
that sanction; but it was the soldiery who cut the knot,
as usual, by the sword. _Emilianus was encamped at
Spoleto; but as the enemy drew near, his soldiers,
shrinking no doubt from a contest with veteran troops,
made their peace by murdering the new emperor, and




T'1 rE C SARS.             225
Valerian was elected in his stead. The prince was
already an old man at the time of his election; but he
lived long enough to look back upon the day of his
inauguration as the blackest in his life. Memorable
were the calamities which fell upon himself, and upon
the empire, during his reign. He began by associating
to himself his son Gallienus; partly, perhaps, for his
own relief, party to indulge the senate in their steady
plan of dividing the imperial authority. The two
emperors undertook the military defence of the empire,
Gallienus proceeding to the German frontier, Valerian
to the eastern. Under Gallienus, the Franks began
first to make themselves heard of. Breaking into Gaul,
they passed through that country and Spain; captured
Tarragona in their route; crossed over to Africa, and
conquered Mauritania.  At the same time, the Alemanni, who had been in motion since the time of Caracalla, broke into Lombardy, across the Rhcetian Alps.
The senate, left without aid from either emperors, were
obliged to make preparations for the common defence
against this host of barbarians.  Luckily, the very
magnitude of the enemy's success, by overloading him
with booty, made it his interest to retire without fighting; and the degraded senate, hanging upon the traces
of their retiring footsteps, without fighting, or daring
to fight, claimed the honors of a victory. Even then,
however, they did more than was agreeable to the
jealousies of Gallienus, who, by an edict, publicly




226                THE CSAiRS.
rebuked their presumption, and forbade them in future
to appear amongst the legions, or to exercise any
military functions.  He himself, meanwhile, cGuld
devise no better way of providing for the public security, than by marrying the daughter of his chief
enemy, the king of the Marcomanni.  On this side of
Europe, the barbarians were thus quieted for the present; but the Goths of the Ukraine, in three marauding
expeditions of unprecedented violence, ravaged the
wealthy regions of Asia Minor, as well as the islands
of the Archipelago: and at length, under the guidance
of deserters, landed in the port of the Pyraeus. Advancing from this point, after sacking Athens and the
chief cities of Greece, they marched upon Epirus, and
began to threaten Italy. But the defection at this crisis
of a conspicuous chieftain, and the burden of their
booty, made these wild marauders anxious to provide
for a safe retreat; the imperial commanders in Mcesia
listened eagerly to their offers: and it set the seal to
the dishonors of the State, that, after having traversed
so vast a range of territory almost without resistance,
these blood-stained brigands were now suffered to retire under the very guardianship of those whom they
had just visited with military e;:ecution.
Such were the terms upon  which the Emperor
Gallienus purchased a brief respite from his haughty
enemies. For the moment, however, he did enjoy
security. Far otherwise was the destiny of his un



THE CESAlRS.                227
happy father. Sapor now ruled in Persia; the throne
of Armenia had vainly striven to maintain its independency against his armies, and the daggers of his
hired assassins. This revolution, which so much en,
feebled the Roman means of war, exactly in that
proportion increased the necessity for it. War, and
that instantly, seemed to offer the only chance for
maintaining the Roman name or existence in Asia.
Carrhae and Nisibis, the two potent fortresses in Mesopotamia, had fallen; and the Persian arms were now
triumphant on both banks of the Euphrates. Valerian
was not of a character to look with indifference upon
such a scene, terminated by such a prospect; prudence
and temerity, fear and confidence, all spoke a common
language in this great emergency; and Valerian
marched towards the Euphrates with a fixed purpose
of driving the enemy beyond that river. By whose
mismanagement the records of history do not enable
us to say, some think of Macrianus, the prsetorian
prefect, some of Valerian himself, but doubtless by the
treachery of guides co-operating with errors in the
general, the Roman army was entangled in marshy
grounds; partial actions followed and skirmishes of
cavalry, in which the Romans became direfully aware
of their situation; retreat was cut off, to advance was
impossible; and to fight was now found to be without
hope. In these circumstances, they offered to capitulate. But the haughty Sapor would hear of nothing




228               THE CESARS.
but Unconditional surrender; and to that course the
unhappy emperor submitted.  Various traditions 53
have been preserved by history concerning the fate of
Yalerian; all agree that he died in misery and captivity; but some have circumstantiated this general statement by features of excessive misery and degradation,
which possibly were added afterwards by scenical romancers, in order to heighten the interest of the tale, or
by ethical writers, in order to point and strengthen the
moral. Gallienus now ruled alone, except as regarded
the restless efforts of insurgents, thirty of whom are
said to have arisen in his single reign. This, however,
is probably an exaggeration. Nineteen such rebels
are mentioned by name: of whom the chief were Calpurnius Piso, a Roman senator; Tetricus, a man of
rank who claimed a descent from Pompey, Crassus,
and even from Numa Pompilius, and maintained himself some time in Gaul and Spain; Trebellianus, who
founded a republic of robbers in Isauria which survived
himself by centuries; and Odenathus, the Syrian.
Others were mere Terrce fiii, or adventurers, who
flourished and decayed in a few days or weeks, of
whom the most remarkable was a working armorer
named Marius.  Not one of the whole number eventually prospered, except Odenathus; and he, though
originally a rebel, yet, in consideration of services
performed against Persia, was suffered to retain his
power, and to transmit his kingdom of Palmyra to his




THrrE CIS ALS.              229
widow Zenobia.  He was even complimented with the
title of Augustus. All the rest perished. Their rise,
however, and local prosperity at so many different
points of the empire, showed the distracted condition
of the State, and its internal weakness. That again
proclaimed its external peril. No other cause had
called forth this diffusive spirit of insurrection than
the general consciousness, so fatally warranted, of the
debility which had emasculated the government, and
its incompetency to deal vigorously with the public
enemies.54 The very granaries of Rome, Sicily and
Egypt, were the seats of continued.distractions; in
Alexandria, the second city of the empire, there was
even a civil war which lasted for twelve years. Weakness, dissension and misery, were spread like a cloud
over the whole face of the empire.
The last of the rebels who directed his rebellion
personally against Gallienus was Aureolus. Passing
the Rhaetian Alps, this leader sought out and defied the
emperor. He was defeated, and retreated upon Milan;
but Gallienus, in pursuing him, was lured into an ambuscade, and perished from the wound inflicted by an
archer. With his dying breath he is said to have
recommended Claudius to the favor of the senate; and
at all events Claudius it was who succeeded. Scarcely
was the new emperor installed, before he was summoned to a trial not only arduous in itself, but terrific
by the very name of the enemy. The Goths of the




230               THE CMSARS.
Ukraine, in a new armament of six thousand vessels,
had again descended by the Bosphorus into the south,
and had sat down before Thessalonica, the capital of
Macedonia.  Claudius marched against them with the
determination to vindicate the Roman name and honor:' Know,' said he, writing to the senate,' that 320,000
Goths have set foot upon the Roman soil.  Should I
conquer them, your gratitude will be my reward.
Should I fall, do not forget who it is that I have succeeded; and that the republic is exhausted.' No sooner
did the Goths hear of his approach, than, with transports of ferocious joy, they gave up the siege, and
hurried to annihilate the last pillar of the empire. The
mighty battle which ensued, neither party seeking to
evade it, took place at Naissus. At one time the
legions were giving way, when suddenly, by some
happy manceuvre of the emperor, a Roman corps found
its way to the rear of the enemy. The Goths gave
way, and their defeat was total. According to most
accounts they left 50,000 dead upon the field.  The
campaign still lingered, however, at other points, until
at last the emperor succeeded in driving back the relics
of the Gothic host into the fastnesses of the Balkan;
and there the greater part of them died of hunger and
pestilence. These great services performed, within
two years from his accession to the throne, by the
rarest of fates, the Emperor Claudius died in his bed
at Sirmium, tile capital of Pannonia.  His brother




THE cESARS.                231
Quintilius, who had a great command at Aquileia, immediately resumed the purple; but his usurpation lasted
only seventeen days, for the last emperor, with a single
eye to the public good, had recommended Aurelian as
his successor, guided by his personal knowledge of that
general's strategic qualities. The army of the Danube
confirmed the appointment; and Quintilius committed
suicide. Aurelian was of the same harsh and forbidding character as the Emperor Severus: he had, however, the qualities demanded by the times; energetic
and not amiable princes were required by the exigencies of the state. The hydra-headed Goths were
again in the field on the Illyrian quarter: Italy itself
was invaded by the Alemanni; and Tetricus, the rebel,
still survived as a monument of the weakness of Gallienus. All these enemies were speedily repressed,
or vanquished, by Aurelian. But it marks the real
declension of the empire, a declension which no personal vigor in the emperor was now sufficient to disguise, that, even in the midst of victory, Aurelian
found it necessary to make a formal surrender, by
treaty, of that Dacia which Trajan had united with so
much ostentation to the empire.  Europe was now
again in repose; and Aurelian found himself at liberty
to apply his powers as a re-organizer and restorer to
the East. In that quarter of th-, world a marvellous
revolution had occurred. The little oasis of Palmyra,
fiom  a Roman colony, had grown into the leading




232               THE CASARS.
province of a great empire. This island of the desert,
together with Syria and Egypt, formed an independent
monarchy under the sceptre of Zenobia.55  After two
battles lost in Syria, Zenobia retreated to Palmyra.
pWith great difficulty Aurelian pursued her; and with
still greater difficulty he pressed the siege of Palmyra.
Zenobia looked for relief from Persia; but at that
moment Sapor died, and the Queen of Palmyra fled
upon a dromedary, but was pursued and captured.
Palmyra surrendered and was spared; but unfortunately, with a folly which marks the haughty spirit of
the place unfitted to brook submission, scarcely had
the conquering army retired when a tumult arose, and
the Roman garrison was slaughtered. Little knowledge
could those have had of Aurelian's character, who
tempted him to acts but too welcome to his cruel
nature by such an outrage as this. The news overtook the emperor on the Hellespont. Instantly, without
pause,'like Ate hot from hell,' Aurelian retraced
his steps - reached the guilty city - and consigned it,
with all its population, to that utter destruction from
which it has never since risen. The energetic administration of Aurelian had now restored the empire -
not to its lost vigor, that was impossible —but to a
condition of repose. That was a condition more agreeable to the empire than to the emperor. Peace was
hateful to Aurelian; and he sought for war, where it
could seldom be sought in vain, upon the Persian




THE C2ESARS.                233
frontier. But he was not destined to reach the Euphrates; and it is worthy of notice, as a providential
ordinance, that his own unmerciful nature was the
ultimate cause of his fate. Anticipating the emperor's
severity in punishing some errors of his own, Mucassor,
a general officer, in whom  Aurelian placed especial
confidence, assassinated him between Byzantium and
Heraclea. An interregnum of eight months succeeded,
during which there occurred a contest of a memorable
nature.  Some historians have described it as strange
and surprising.  To us, on the contrary, it seems that
no contest could be more natural.  Heretofore the
great strife had been in what way to secure the reversion or possession of that great dignity; whereas
now the rivalship lay in declining it. But surely such
a competition had in it, under the circumstances of
the empire, little that can justly surprise us.  Always
a post of danger, and so regularly closed by assassination, that in a course of two centuries there are hardly
to be found three or four cases of exception, the imperatorial dignity had now  become burdened with
a public responsibility which exacted great military
talents, and imposed a perpetual and personal activity.
Formerly, if the emperor knew himself to be surrounded with assassins, he might at least make his
throne, so long as he enjoyed it, the couch of a
voluptuary.  The' ave  iznperator!' was then the
summons, if to the supremacy in passive danger, so
20




234                THE  CAS iRS.
also to the  supremacy in power, and honor, and
enjoyment.  But now it was a sunmmons. to never-,
ending tumults and alarms; an injunction to that sorO
of vigilance without intermission, which, even from
the poor sentinel, is exacted only when on duty.  Not
Rome, but the frontier; not the aurea domus, but a
camp, was the imperial residence. Power and rank,
whilst in that residence, could be had in no larger
measure by Caesar as Caesar, than by the same individual as a military commander-in-chief; and, as to
enjoyment, that for the Roman imperator was now
extinct. Rest there could be none for him. Battle
was the tenure by which he held his office; and beyond the range of his trumpet's blare, his sceptre was
a broken reed. The office of Caesar at this time resembled the situation (as it is sometimes described in
romances) of a knight who had achieved the favor of
some capricious lady, with the present possession of
her castle and ample domains, but which he holds
under the known and accepted condition of meeting
all challenges whatsoever offered at the gate by wandering strangers, and also of jousting at any moment
with each and all amongst the inmates of the castle,
as often as a wish may arise to benefit by the chances
in disputing his supremacy.
It is a circumstance, moreover, to be noticed in the
aspect of the Roman monarchy at this period, that the
pressure of the evils we are now considering, applied




'SHE C.SARS.                 23 5
to this particular age of the empire beyond all others,
as being an age of transition from a greater to an
inferior power.  Had the power been either greater or
conspicuously less, in that proportion would the pressure have been easier, or none at all.  Being greater,
for example, the danger would have been repelled to
a distance so great that mere remoteness would have
disarmed its terrors, or otherwise it would have been
violently overawed.  Being less, on the other hand,
and less in an eminent degree, it would have disposed
all parties, as it did at an after period, to regular and
formal compromises in the shape of fixed annual tributes.  At present the policy of the barbarians along
the vast line of the northern frontier, was, to tease and
irritate the provinces which they were not entirely
able, or prudentially unwilling, to dismember. Yet, as
the almost annual irruptions were at every instant
ready to be converted into coup-de-mains upon Aquileia
- upon Verona - or even upon Rome itself, unless
vigorously curbed at the outset, - each emperor at this
period found himself under the necessity of standing in
the attitude of a champion or propugnator on the frontier line of his territory - ready for all comers - and
with a pretty certain, prospect of having one pitched
battle at the least to fight in every successive summer.
There were nations abroad at this epoch in Europe
who did not migrate occasionally, or occasionally project themselves upon the civilized portion of the globe,




236                THE CISARSA.
but who made it their steady regular occupation to do
so, and lived for no other purpose. For seven hundred
years the Roman Republic might be styled a republic
militant; for about one century further it was an
empire triumphant; and now, long retrograde, it had
reached that point at which again, but in a different
sense, it might be styled an empire militant. Originally
it had militated for glory and power; now its militancy
was for mere existence. War was again the trade of
Rome, as it had been once before; but in that earlier
period war had been its highest glory; now it was its
dire necessity.
Under this analysis of the Roman condition, reed we
wonder, with the crowd of unreflecting histeorians, that
the senate, at the era of Aurelian's death, should dispute amongst each other — not as once, for the possession of the sacred purple, but for the luxury and
safety of declining it? The sad pre-eminence was
finally imposed upon Tacitus, a senator who traced
his descent from the historian of that name, who had
reached an age of seventy-five years, and who possessed a fortune of three millions sterling. Vainly did
the agitated old senator open his lips to decline the
perilous honor; five hundred voices insisted upon the
necessity of his compliance; and thus, as a foreign
writer observes, was the descendant of him, whose
glory it had been to signalize himself as the hater of
despotism, under the absolute necessity of becoming
in his own person, a despot.




TEHE CESARS.                237
The aged senator then was compelled to be emperor,
and forced, in spite of his vehement reluctance, to quit
the comforts of a palace, which he was never to revisit,
for the hardships of a distant camp.  His first act was
strikingly illustrative of the Roman condition, as we
have just described it. Aurelian had attempted to
disarm one set of enemies by turning the current of
their fury upon another. The Alani were in search
of plunder, and strongly disposed to obtain it from
Roman provinces.' But no,' said Aurelian;' if you
do that I shall unchain my legions upon you. Be
better advised: keep those excellent dispositions of
mind, and that admirable taste for plunder, until you
come whither I will conduct you.  Then discharge
your fury and welcome; besides which, I will pay
you wages for your immediate abstinence; and on the
other side the Euphrates you shall pay yourselves.'
Such was the outline of the contract; and the Alani
had accordingly held themselves in readiness to accompany Aurelian from Europe to his meditated Persian
campaign.  Meantime, that emperor had perished by
treason; and the Alani were still waiting for his successor on the throne to complete his engagements with
themselves, as being of necessity the successor also
to his wars and to his responsibilities.  It happened,
from the state of the empire, as we have sketched it
above, that Tacitus really did succeed to the milimary
-lans of Aurelian. The Persian expedition was or



238                THE CESARS.
dained to go forward; and Tacitus began, as a pre.
liminary step in that expedition, to look about for his
good allies the barbarians. WVhere might they be, and
how employed? Naturally, they had long been weary
of waiting.  The Persian booty might be good after
its kind; but it was far away; and, en attendant,
Roman booty was doubtless good after its kind. And
so, throughout the provinces of Cappadocia, Pontus,
&c., as far as the eye could stretch, nothing was to be
seen but cities and villages in flames.  The Roman
army hungered and thirsted to be unmuzzled and
slipped upon these false friends. But this, for the
present, Tacitus would not allow. He began by punctually fulfilling all the terms of Aurelian's contract, -
a measure which barbarians inevitably construed into
the language of fear. But then came the retribution.
Having satisfied public justice, the emperor now
thought of vengeance; he unchained his legions: a
brief space of time sufficed for a long course of vengeance: and through every outlet of Asia Minor the
Alani fled from the wrath of the Roman soldier. Here,
however, terminated the military labors of Tacitus:
he died at Tyana in Cappadocia, as some say, from
the effects of the climate of the Caucasus, co-operating
with irritations from the insolence of the soldiery: but,
as Zosimus and Zonoras expressly assure us, under the
murderous hands of his own troops.  His brother
Florianus at first usurped the purple, by the aid of the




THE C2ESARS.                  239
Illyrian army; but the choice of other armies, afterwards confirmed by the senate, settled upon Probus,
a general already celebrated under Aurelian.  The
two competitors drew near to each other for the usual
decision by the sword, when the dastardly supporters
of Florian offered up their chosen prince as a sacrifice
to his antagonist. Probus, settled in his seat, addressed
himself to the regular business of those times, - to the
reduction of insurgent provinces, and the. liberation
of others from hostile molestations. Isauria and Egypt
he visited in the character of a conqueror, Gaul in the
character of a deliverer.  From the Gaulish provinces
he chased in succession the Franks, the Burgundians,
and the Lygians. He pursued the intruders far into
their German thickets; and nine of the native German
princes came spontaneously into his camp, subscribed
such conditions as he thought fit to dictate, and complied with his requisitions of tribute in horses and provisions. This, however, is a delusive gleam of Roman
energy, little corresponding with the true condition of
the Roman power, and entirely due to the personal
qualities of Probus. Probus himself showed his sense
of the true state of affairs, by carrying a stone wall,
of considerable height, from the Danube to the Neckar~
Hie made various attempts also to effect a better dis-tribution of barbarous tribes, by dislocating their settlements; and making extensive translations of their clans,
according to the circumstances of those times. These




240                THE C2ESARS.
arrangements, however, suggested often by shortsighted views, and carried into effect by mere violence,
were sometimes defeated visibly at the time, and,
doubtless, in very few cases accomplished the ends
proposed. In one instance, where a party of Franks
had been transported into the Asiatic province of Pontus, as a column of defence against the intrusive Alani,
being determined to revisit their own country, they
swam  the Hellespont, landed on the coasts of Asia
Minor and of Greece, plundered Syracuse, steered for
the Straits of Gibraltar, sailed along the shores of Spain
and Gaul, passing finally through the English Channel
and the German Ocean, right onwards to the Frisic
and Batavian coasts, where they exultingly rejoined
their exulting friends. Meantime, all the energy and
military skill of Probus could not save him from the
competition of various rivals. Indeed, it must then
have been felt, as by us who look back on those times
it is now felt, that, amidst so continued a series of brief
reigns, interrupted by murders, scarcely an idea
could arise answering to our modern ideas of treason
and usurpation. For the ideas of fealty and allegiance,
as to a sacred and anointed monarch, could have no
time to take root. Candidates for the purple must
have been viewed rather as military rivals than as
traitors to the reigning Caesar. And hence the reason
for the right resistance which was often experienced
by the seducers of armies. Probus, however, as acci



TIHE CASARS.               241
dent in his case ordered it, subdued all his personal
opponents, — Saturninus in the East, Proculus and
Bonoses in Gaul. For these victories he triumphed in
the year 281. But his last hour was even then at
hand. One point of his military discipline, which he
brought back from elder days, was, to suffer no idleness in his camps.  He it was who, by military labor,
transferred to Gaul and to Hungary the Italian vine, to
the great indignation of the Italian monopolist. The
culture of vineyards, the laying of military roads, the
draining of marshes, and similar labors, perpetually
employed the hands of his stubborn and contumacious
troops. On some work of this nature the army happened to be employed near Sirmium, and Probus was
looking on from a tower, when a sudden frenzy of
disobedience seized upon the men: a party of the
mutineers ran up to the emperor, and with a hundred
wounds laid him instantly dead. WVe are told by some
writers that the army was immediately seized with remorse for its own act; which, if truly reported, rather
tends to confirm the image, otherwise impressed upon us
of the relations between the army and Cesar, as pretty
closely corresponding with those between some fierce
wild beast and its keeper; the keeper, if not uniformly
vigilant as an argus, is continually liable to fall a
sacrifice to the wild instincts of the brute, mastering
at intervals the reverence and fear under which it has
been habitually trained. In this case, both the murder.
21




242                THE CcESARS.
ing impulse and the remorse seem alike the effects of
a brute instinct, and to have arisen under no guidance
of rational purpose or reflection. The person who
profited by this murder was Carus, the captain of the
guard, a man of advanced years, and a soldier, both
by experience and by his propensities. He was proclaimed emperor by the army; and on this occasion
there was no further reference to the senate, than by
a dry statement of the facts for its information. Troubling himself little about the approbation of a body
not likely in any way to affect his purposes (which
were purely martial, and adapted to the tumultuous
state of the empire), Carus made immediate preparations for pursuing the Persian expedition, - so long
promised, and so often interrupted.  Having provided
for the security of the Illyrian.frontier by a bloody
victory over the Sarmatians, of whom  we now hear
for the first time, Carus advanced towards the Euphrates; and from the summit of a mountain he pointed the eyes of his eager army upon the rich provinces
of the Persian empire.  Varanes, the successor of
Artaxerxes, vainly endeavored to negotiate a peace.
From  some unknown cause, the Persian armies were
not at this juncture disposable against Carus: it has
been conjectured by some writers that they were
engagedin an Indian war.  Carus, it is certain, met
with little resistance. He insisted on having the Rtoman
supremacy acknowledged  as a preliminary f(  any




THE CESAtRS.                243
treaty; and, having threatened to make Persia as bare
as his own skull, he is supposed to have kept his word
with regard to Mesopotamia.  The great cities of
Ctesiphon and Seleucia he took; and vast expectations
were formed at Rome of the events which stood next
in succession, when, on Christmas day, 283, a sudden
and mysterious end overtook Carus and his victorious
advance.  The story transmitted to Rome was, that
a great storm, and a sudden darkness, had surprised
the camp of Carus; that the emperor, previously ill,
and reposing in his tent, was obscured from sight; that
at length a cry had arisen,-' The emperor is dead!'
and that, at the same moment, the imperial tent had
taken fire. The fire was traced to the confusion of
his attendants; and this confusion was imputed by
themselves to grief for their master's death.  In all
this it is easy to read pretty circumstantially a murder
committed on the emperor by corrupted servants, and
an attempt afterwards to conceal the indications of
murder by the ravages of fire.  The report propagated
through the army, and at that time received with credit,
was, that Carus had been struck by lightning: and that
omen, according to the Roman interpretation, implied
a necessity of retiring from the expedition.  So that,
apparently, the whole was a bloody intrigue, set on
foot for the purpose of counteracting the emperor's
resolution to prosecute the war.  His son Numerian
succeeded to the rank of emperor by the choice of the




244               THE CSARIS.
army. But the mysterious faction of murderers were
still at work.  After eight months' march from the
Tigris to the, Thracian Bosphorus, the army halted at
Chalcedon. At this point of time a report arose suddenly, that the Emperor Numerian was dead.  The
impatience of the soldiery wol!1d brook no uncertainty;
they rushed to the spot; satisfied themselves of the
fact; and, loudly denouncing as the murderer Aper,
the captain of the guard, committed him to custody,
and assigned to Dioclesian, whom at the same time
they invested with the supreme power, the duty of
investigating the case. I)ioclesian acquitted himself
of this task in a very summary way, by passing his
sword through the captain before he could say a word
in his defence. It seems that Dioclesian, having been
promised the empire by a prophetess as soon as he
should have killed a wild boar [Aper], was anxious to
realize the omen. The whole proceeding has been
taxed with injustice so manifest, as not even to seek
a disguise. Meantime, it should be remembered that,
first, Aper, as the captain of the guard, was answerable for the emperor's safety; secondly, that his
anxiety to profit by the emperor's murder was a sure
sign that he had participated in that act; and, thirdly
that the assent of the soldiery to the open and public
act of Dioclesian, implies a conviction on their part
of Aper's guilt. iHere let us pause, having  now
arrived at the fourth and last group of the Csesars, to




THE C.ASARS.               245
notice the changes which had been wrought by time,
co-operating with political events, in the very nature
and constitution of the imperial office.
If it should unfortunately happen, that the palace of
the Vatican, with its thirteen thousand 56 chambers,
were to take fire —for a considerable space of time
the fire would be retarded by the mere enormity of
extent which it would have to traverse. But there
would come at length a critical moment, at which the
maximum of the retarding effect having been attained,
the bulk and volume of the flaming mass would thenceforward assist the flames in the rapidity of their progress.  Such was the effect upon the declension of the
Roman empire from the vast extent of its territory.
For a very long period that very extent, which finally
became the overwhelming cause of its ruin, served to
retard and to disguise it. A small encroachment,
made at any one point upon the integrity of the empire was neither much regarded at Rome, nor perhaps'n and for itself much deserved to be regarded. But a
very narrow belt of enchroachments, made upon almost
every part of so enormous a circumference, was sufficient of itself to compose something of an antagonist
force. And to these external dilapidations, we must
add the far more important dilapidations from within,
affecting all the institutions of the State, and all the
forces, whether moral or political, which had originally
raised it or maintained it. Causes which had been




-46               THE C~SARS.
latent in the public arrangements ever since the time
of Augustus, and had been silently preying upon its
vitals, had now reached a height which would no longer
brook concealment. The fire which had smouldered
through generations had broken out at length into an
open conflagration. Uproar and disorder, and the
anarchy of a superannuated empire, strong only to
punish and impotent to defend, were at this time convulsing the provinces in every point of the compass.
Rome herself had been menaced repeatedly. And a
still more awful indication of the coming storm had
been felt far to the south of Rome. One long wave
of the great German deluge had stretched beyond the
Pyrenees and the Pillars of Hercules, to the very
soil of Ancient Carthage. Victorious banners were
already floating on the margin of the Great Desert,
and they were not the banners of Caesar. Some vigorous hand was demanded at this moment, or else the
funeral knell of Rome was on the point of sounding.
Indeed, there is every reason to believe that, had the
imbecile Carinus (the brother of Numerian) succeeded to the command of the Roman armies at this
time, or any other than Dioclesian, the Empire of the
West would have fallen to pieces within the next ten
years.
IDioclesian was doubtless that man of iron whom
the times demanded; and a foreign writer has gone so
far as to class him amongst the greatest of men, if he




THE CIESARS.                247
were not even himself the greatest.  But the position
of Dioclesian was remarkable beyond all precedent,
and was alone sufficient to prevent his being the
greatest of men, by making it necessary that he should
be the most selfish. For the case stood thus: If Rome
were in danger, much more so was Caesar. If the
condition of the empire were such that hardly any
energy or any foresight was adequate to its defence,
for the emperor, on the other hand, there was scarcely
a possibility that he should escape destruction. The
chances were in an overbalance against the empire;
but for the emperor there was no chance at all.  He
shared in all the hazards of the empire; and had
others so peculiarly pointed at himself, that his assassination was now become as much a matter of certain
calculation, as seed time or harvest, summer or winter,
)r any other revolution of the seasons. The problem,
therefore, for Dioclesian was a double one, - so to
provide for the defence and maintenance of the empire, as simultaneously (and, if possible, through the
very same institution) to provide for the personal
security of Csesar.  This problem he solved, in some
imperfect degree, by the only expedient perhaps open
to him in that despotism, and in those times. But it is
remarkable, that, by the revolution which he effected,
the office of Roman Imperator was completely altered,
and Cmsar became henceforwards an Oriental Sultan
or Padishah. Augustus, when moulding for his future




248               THE CASARS.
purposes the form and constitution of that supremacy
which he had obtained by inheritance and by arms,
proceeded with so much caution and prudence, that
even the style and title of his office was discussed in
council as a matter of the first moment. The principle
of his policy was to absorb into his own functions all
those high offices which conferred any real power to balance or to control his own. For this reason he appropriated the tribunitian power; because that was a
popular and representative office, which, as occasions
arose, would have given some opening to democratic
influences. But the consular office he left untouched;
because all its power was transferred to the imperator,
by the entire command of the army, and by the new
organization of the provincial governments.57 And in
all the rest of his arrangements, Augustus had proceeded on the principle of leaving as many openings
to civic influences, and impressing upon all his institutions as much of the old Roman character, as was
compatible with the real and substantial supremacy
established in the person of the emperor. Neither is
it at all certain, as regarded even this aspect of the
imperatorial office, that Augustus had the purpose, or
so much as the wish, to annihilate all collateral power,
and to invest the chief magistrate with absolute irresponsibility. For himself, as called upon to restore a
shattered government, and out of the anarchy of civil
wars to recombine the elements of power into some




THE CmSMARS.                249
shape better fitted for duration (and, by consequence,
for insuring peace and protection to the world) than
the extinct republic, it might be reasonable to seek
such an irresponsibility. But, as regarded his successors, considering the great pains he took to discourage
all manifestations of princely arrogance, and to develope, by education and example, the civic virtues of
patriotism and affability in their whole bearing towards
the people of Rome, there is reason to presume that he
wished to remove them from popular control, without,
therefore, removing them from popular influence.
Hence it was, and from this original precedent of
Augustus, aided by the constitution which he had given
to the office of imperator, that up to the era of Dioclesian, no prince had dared utterly to neglect the senate,
or the people of Rome. He might hate the senate,
like Severus, or Aurelian; he might even meditate
their extermination, like the brutal Maximin. But this
arose from any cause rather than from contempt.  He
hated them precisely because he feared them, or because he paid them an involuntary tribute of superstitious reverence, or because the malice of a tyrant
interpreted into a sort of treason the rival influence of
the senate over the minds of men. But, before Dioclesian, the undervaluing of the senate, or the harshest
treatment of that body, had arisen from views which
were personal to the individual Caesar.  It was now
made to arise from the very constitution of the office




250                THE C.ESARS.
and the mode of the appointment.  To defend the
empire, it was the opinion of Dioclesian that a. single
emperor was not sufficient.  And it struck him, at the
same time, that by the very institution of a plurality of
emperors, which was now destined to secure the integrity of the empire, ample provision might be made for
the personal security of each emperor. He carried his
plan into immediate execution, by appointing an associate to his own rank of Augustus in the person of
Maximian - an experienced general; whilst each of
them in effect multiplied his own office still farther by
severally appointing a Caesar, or hereditary prince.
And thus the very same partition of the public authority, by means of a duality of emperors, to which the
senate had often resorted of late, as the best means of
restoring their own republican aristocracy, was now
adopted by Dioclesian as the simplest engine for overthrowing finally the power of either senate or army to
interfere with the elective privilege.  This he endeavored to centre in the existing emperors; and, at the
same moment, to discourage treason or usurpation
generally, whether in the party choosing or the party
chosen, by securing to each emperor, in the case of
his own assassination, an avenger in the person of his
surviving associate, as also in the persons of the two
Csesars, or adopted heirs and lieutenants.  The associate emperor, Maximian, together with the two Csesars
Galerius appointed  by himself, and Constantius




THE CSARS.                  251
Chlorus by Maximian - were all bound to himself by,
ties of gratitude; all owing their stations ultimately
to his own favor. And these ties he endeavored to
strengthen by other ties of affinity; each of the
Augusti having given his daughter in marriage to his
own adopted Cesar.  And thus it seemed scarcely
possible that an usurpation should be successful against
so firm a league of friends and relations.
The direct purposes of Dioclesian were but imperfectly attained; the internal peace of the empire lasted
only during his own reign; and with his abdication of
the empire commenced the bloodiest civil wars which
has desolated the world since the contests of the great
triumvirate.  But the collateral blow, which he meditated against the authority of the senate, was entirely
successful. Never again had the senate any real influence on the fate of the world. And with the power
of the senate expired concurrently the weight and
influence of Rome. Dioclesian is supposed never to
have seen Rome, except on the single occasion when
he entered it for the ceremonial purpose of a triumph.
Even for that purpose it ceased to be a city of resort;
for Dioclesian's was the final triumph. And, lastly,
even as the chief city of the empire for business or
for pleasure, it ceased to claim the homage of mankind; the Csesar was already born whose destiny it
was to cashier the metropolis of the world, and to
appoint her successor. This also may be regarded in




252                THE CmSARS.
effect as the ordinance of Dioclesian; for he, by his
long residence at Nicomedia, expressed his opinion
pretty plainly, that Rome was not central enough to
perform the functions of a capital to so vast an empire;
that this was one cause of the declension now become
so visible in the forces of the State; and that some
city, not very far from the Hellespont or the ZEgean
Sea, would be a capital better adapted by position to
the-exigencies of the times.
But the revolutions effected by Dioclesian did not
stop here. The simplicity of its republican origin had
so far affected the external character and expression
of the imperial office, that in the midst of luxury the
most unbounded, and spite of all other corruptions, a
majestic plainness of manners, deportment, and dress,
had still continued from generation to generation, characteristic of the Roman imperator in his intercourse
with his subjects. All this was now changed; and
for the Roman was substituted the Persian dress, the
Persian style of household, a Persian court, and Persian manners. A diadem, or tiara beset with pearls,
now encircled the temples of the Roman Augustus;
his sandals were studded with pearls, as in the Persian
court; and the other parts of his dress were in hary
mony with these. The prince was instructed no longer
to make himself familiar to the eyes of men. He
sequestered himself from his subjects in the recesses
of his palace.  None, who sought him, could any




TIlE CASARS.                 253
longer gain easy admission to his presence. It was a
point of his new duties to be difficult of access; and
they who were at length admitted to an audience,
found him surrounded by eunuchs, and were expected
to make their approaches by genuflexions, by servile'adorations,' and by real acts of worship as to a visible
god.
It is strange that a ritual of court ceremonies, so
elaborate and artificial as this, should first have been
introduced by a soldier, and a warlike soldier like
Dioclesian.  This, however, is in part explained by his
education and long residence in Eastern countries.
But the same eastern training fell to the lot of Constantine, who was in effect his successor; 58 and the
Oriental tone and standard established by these two
emperors, though disturbed a little by the plain and
military bearing of Julian, and one or two more emperors of the same breeding, finally re-established itself
with undisputed sway in the Byzantine court.
Meantime the institutions of Dioclesian, if they had
destroyed Rome and the senate as influences upon the
course of public affairs, and if they had destroyed the
Roman features of the Caesars, do, notwithstanding,
appear to have attained one of their purposes, in
limiting the extent of imperial murders. Travelling
through the brief list of the remaining Caesars, we
perceive a little more security for life; and hence the
successions are less rapid.  Ccnstantine, who (like




254                THE CES5ARS.
Aaron's rod) had swallowed up all his competitors
seriatim, left the empire to his three sons; and the
last of these most unwillingly to Julian. That prince's
Persian expedition, so much resembling in rashness
and presumption the Russian campaign of Napoleon,
though so much below it in the scale of its tragic
results, led to the short reign of Jovian (or Jovinian),
which lasted only seven months.  Upon his death
succeeded the house of Valentinian,59 in whose descendant, of the third generation, the empire, properly
speaking, expired. For the seven shadows who succeeded, from Avitus and Majorian to Julius Nepos and
Romulus Augustulus, were in no proper sense Roman
emperors, - they were not even emperors of the West,
— but had a limited kingdom in the Italian peninsula.
Valentinian the Third was, as we have said, the last
emperor of the West.
But, in a fuller and ampler sense, recurring to what
we have said of Dioclesian and the tenor of his great
revolutions, we may affirm that Probus and Carus were
the final representatives of the majesty of Rome: for
they reigned over the whole empire, not yet incapable
of sustaining its own unity; and in them were still
preserved, not yet obliterated by oriental effeminacy
those majestic features which  reflected  republican
consuls, and, through them, the senate and people of
Rome. That, which had offended Dioclesian in the
condition of the Roman emperors, was the grandest




THE CiESARS.                255
feature of their dignity.  It is true that the peril of
the office had become intolerable; each Caesar submitted to his sad inauguration with a certainty, liable
even to hardly any disguise from the delusions of
youthful hope, that for him, within the boundless empire which he governed, there was no coast of safety,
no shelter from the storm, no retreat, except the grave,
from the dagger of the assassin. Gibbon has described
the hopeless condition of one who should attempt to
fly from the wrath of the almost omnipresent emperor.
But this dire impossibility of escape was in the end
dreadfully retaliated upon the emperor; persecutors
and traitors were found everywhere: and the vindictive or the ambitious subject found himself as omnipresent as the jealous or the offended emperor.
The crown of the Caesars was therefore a crown of
thorns; and it must be admitted, that never in this
world have rank and power been purchased at so
awful a cost in tranquillity and peace of mind. The
steps of Coesar's throne were absulutely saturated with
the blood of those who had possessed it: and so inexorable was that murderous fate which overhung that
gloomy eminence, that at length it demanded the spirit
of martyrdom in him who ventured to ascend it. In
these circumstances, some change was imperatively
demanded.  Human nature was no longer equal to
the terrors which it was summoned to face.  But the
changes of Dioclesian transmuted that golden sceptre




256               THE, CISARtS.
into a base oriental alloy. They left nothing behind
of what had so much challenged the veneration of
man: for it was in the union of republican simplicity
with the irresponsibility of illimitable power — it was
in the antagonism between the merely human and approachable condition of Caesar as a man, and his divine
supremacy as a potentate and king of kings —that
the secret lay of his unrivalled grandeur. This perished utterly under the reforming hands of Dioclesian.
Caesar only it was that could be permitted to extinguish
Caesar: and a Roman imperator it was who, by remodelling, did in affect abolish, by exorcising from its
foul terrors, did in effect disenchant of its sanctity, that
imperatorial dignity, which having once perished, could
have no second existence, and which was undoubtedly
the sublimest incarnation of power, and a monument
the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which
upon this planet has been suffered to appear.




N OTES.
NOTE 1. Page 9.
CONCFRNING this question - once so fervidly debated, yet so
unprofitably for the final adjudication, and in some respects, we
may add, so erroneously - on a future occasion.
NOTE 2. Page 10.
Or even of modern wit; witness the vain attempt of so many
eminent JCTI, and illustrious.ditecessors, to explain in self-consistency the differing functions of the Roman Cwesar, and in what
sense he was legibtzcs solutus. The origin of this difficulty we
shall soon understand.
NOTE 3. Page 12.' Jnamneless city.' - The true name of Rome it was a point of
religion to conceal; and, in fact, it was never revealed.
NoT. 4. Page 16.
This we mention, because a great error has been sometimes
committed in exposing their error, that consisted, not in supposing that for a fifth time men were to be gathered under one
sceptre, and that sceptre wielded by Jesus Christ, but in supposing that this great era had then arrived, or that with no
deeper moral revolution men could be fitted for that yoke.
NOTE 5. Page 20.' Of ancient days.' -For it is remarkable, and it serves to
mark an indubitable progress of mankind, that, before the Christian era, famines were of frequent occurrence in countries the
most civilized; afterwards they became rare, and latterly have
entirely altered their character into occasional dearths.
22                                [257]




258                       NOTES.
NOTE 6. Page 20.
Unless that hand were her own armed against herself; upon
which topic there is a burst of noble eloquence in one of the an.
cient Panegyrici, when haranguing the Emperor Theodosius: —' Thou, Rome! that, having once suffered by the madness of Cinna,
and of the cruel Marius raging from banishment, and of Sylla,
that won his wreath of prosperity from thy disasters, and of
Coesar, compassionate to the dead, didst shudder at every blast of
the trumpet filled by the breath of civil commotion, - thou, that,
besides the wreck of thy soldiery perishing on either side, didst
bewail, amongst thy spectacles of domestic woe, the luminaries of
thy senate extinguished, the heads of thy consuls fixed upon a
halberd, weeping for ages over thy self-slaughtered Catos, thy
headless Ciceros (trun'cosque Cicerones), and unburied Pompeys;
- to whom the party madness of thy own children had wrought
in every age heavier woe than the Carthaginian thundering at thy
gates, or the Gaul admitted within thy walls; on whom (Emathia,
more fatal than the day of Allia, - Collina, more dismal than
Canne, - had inflicted such deep memorials of wounds, that,
from bitter experience of thy own valor, no enemy was to thee so
formidable as thyself; - thou, Rome! didst now for the first time
behold a civil war issuing in a hallowed prosperity, a soldiery
appeased, recovered Italy, and for thyself liberty established.
Now first in thy long annals thou didst rest from  a civil war in
such a peace, that righteously, and with maternal tenderness,
thou mightst claim for it the honors of a civic triumph.9
NoTE 7. Page 23.
The fact is, that the emperor was more of a sacred and divine
creature in his lifetime than after his death. His consecrated
character as a living ruler was a truth; his canonization, a
fiction of tenderness to his memory.
NOTE 8. Page 38.
It is an interesting circumstance in the habits of the ancient
Romans, that their journeys were pursued very much in the
night-time, and by torch-light. Cicero, in one of his letters,
speaks of passing through the towns of Italy by night, as a ser



NOTES.                         25 9
viceable scheme for some political purpose, either of avoiding too
much to publish his motions, or of evading the necessity (else
perhaps not avoidable), of drawing out the party sentiments of
the magistrates in the circumstances of honor or neglect wvith
which they might choose to receive him. His words, however,
imply that the practice was by no means an uncommon one.
And, indeed, from some passages in writers of the Augustan era,
it would seem that this custom was not confined to people of distinction, but was familiar to a class of travellers so low in rank
as to be capable of abusing their opportunities of concealment for
the infliction of wanton injury upon the woods and fences which
bounded the margin of the high-road.  Under the cloud of night
a.nd solitude, the mischief-loving traveller was often in the habit
of applying his torch to the withered boughs of woods, or to artificial hedges; and extensive ravages by fire, such as now happen
not unfrequently in the American woods, (but generally from
carelessness in scattering the glowing embers of a fire, or even
the ashes of a pipe,) were then occasionally the result of mere
wantonness of mischief. Ovid accordingly notices, as one amongst
the familiar images of daybreak, the half-burnt torch of the traveller; and, apparently, from  the position which it holds in his
description, where it is ranked with the most familiar of all circumstances in all countries, - that of the rural laborer going out
to his morning tasks, - it must have been common indeed:'Semiustamque facem vigilatal nocte viator
Ponet; et ad solitum rusticus ibit opus.'
This occurs in the Fasti;- elsewhere he notices it for its
danger:' Ut facibus sepes ardent, cum forte viator
Vel nimis admovit, vel jam sub luce reliquit.'
He, however, we see, good-naturedly ascribes the danger to mere
carelessness, in bringing the torch too near to the hedge, or tossing
it away at daybreak. But Varro, a more matter-of-fact observer,
does not disgulse the plain truth, that these disasters wvere often
the product of pure malicious frolic.  For instance, in recommending a certain kind of quickset fence, he insists upon it, as
one of its advantages, that it will not readily ignite under the




26(                        NOTES.
torch of the mischievous wayfarer;' Naturale sepimentum,' says
he,' quod obseri solet dirhgultis aut spinis, praetereuritis lascivi
non mettctf/acsem.' It is not easy to see the origin or advantage
of this practice of nocturnnal travelling (which must have considerably increased the hazards of a journey), excepting only in the
heats of summer.  It is probable, however, that men of high
rank and public station may have introduced the practice by way
of releasing corporate bodies in large towns from the burdensome
caremonies of public receptions; thus making a compromise
between their own dignity and the convenience of the provincial
public.  Once introduced, and the arrangements upon the road
for meeting the wants of travellers once adapted to such a practice, it would easily become universal.  It is, however, very possible that mere horror of the heats of day-time may have been the
original ground for it. The ancients appear to have shrunk from
no hardship so trying and insufferable as that of heat.  And in
relation to that subject, it is interesting to observe the way in
which the ordinary use of language has accommodated itself to
that feeling. Our northern way of expressing effeminacy is derived chiefly from the hardships of cold. He that shrinks from
the trials and rough experience of real life in any department, is
described by the contemptuous prefix of chimnney-corner, as if
shrinking from the cold which he would meet on coming out into
the open air amongst his fellow-men.  Thus, a chimney-corner
politician, for a mere speculator or unpractical dreamer.  But
the very same indolent habit of aerial speculation, which courts
no test of real life and practice, is described by the ancients under
the term mumbracticus, or seeking the cool shade, and shrinking
from the heat.  Thus, an umbracticus doctor is one who has no
practical solidity in his teaching. The fatigue and hardship of
real life, in short, is represented by the ancients under the uniform image of heat, and by the moderns under that of cold.
NOTE 9. Page 41.
According to Suetonius, the circumstances of this memorable
night were as follows:   As soon as the decisive intelligence was
received, that the intrigues of his enemies had prevailed at Rome,
and that the interposition of the popular magistrates (the tribunes) was set aside, Caesar  sent forward the troops, who were




NOTES.                       261
then at his head-quarters, but in as private a manner as possible.
He himself, by way of masque (per dissimulationem), attended
a public spectacle, gave an audience to an architect who wished
to lay before him a plan for a school of gladiators which Caesar
designed to build, and finally presented himself at a banquet,
which was very numerously attended. From this, about sunset,
he set forward in a carriage, drawn by mules, and with a small
escort (mnodico comitatue). Losing his road, which was the most
private he could find (occultissimum), he quitted his carriage
and proceeded on foot. At dawn he met with a guide; after
which followed the above incidents.
NOTE 10. Page 51.
Middleton's Life of Cicero, which still continues to be the most
readable digest of these affairs, is feeble and contradictory. He
discovers that Caesar was no general! And the single merit
which his work was supposed to possess, viz. the better and more
critical arrangement of Cicero's Letters, in respect to their
chronology, has of late years been detected as a robbery from the
celebrated Bellendlen, of James the First's time.
NOTE 11. Page 55.
Suetonius, speaking of this conspiracy, says, that Caesar was
nominates inter socios Catilince, which has been erroneously
understood to mean that he was talked of as an accomplice; but
in fact, as Casaubon first pointed out, nominatus is a technical
term of the Roman jurisprudence, and means that he was formally denounced.
NOTE 12. Page 64.
Caesar had the merit of being the first person to propose the
daily publication of the acts and votes of the senate. In the form
of public and official despatches, he made also some useful innovations; and it may be mentioned, for the curiosity of the incident,
that the cipher which he used in his correspondence, was the
following very simple one:- For every letter of the alphabet he
substituted that which stood fourth removed from it in the order
of succession. Thus, for A, he used D; for D, G, and so on.




262                       NOTES..NOTE 13. Page 80.'The painful warrior, famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honor razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.'
Shakcspeare's Sornets.
NOTE 14. Page 86.
And this was entirely by the female side. The family descent
of the first six Cmsars is so intricate, that it is rarely understood
accurately; so that it may be well to state it briefly. Augustus
was grand nephew to Julius Cesar, being the son of his sister's
daughter.  He was also, by adoption, the son of Julius. He
himself had one child only, viz. the infamous Julia, who was
brought him by his second wife Scribonia; and through this Julia
it was that the three princes, who succeeded to Tiberius, claimed
relationship to Augustus.  On that emperor's last marriage with
Livia, he adopted the two sons whom she had borne to her divorced husband.  These two noblemen, who stood in no degree
of consanguinity whatever to Augustus, were Tiberius and Drusus.
Tiberius left no children; but Drusus, the younger of the two
brothers, by his marriage with the younger Antonia (daughter
of Mark Anthony), had the celebrated Germanicus, and Claudius
(afterwards emperor). Germanicus, though adopted by his
uncle Tiberius, and destined to the empire, died prematurely.
But, like Banquo, though he wore no crown, he left descendants
who did.  For, by his marriage with Agrippina,  a daughter of
Julia's by Agrippa (and therefore grandcl-cdaughter of Augustus),
he had a large family, of whom one son became the Eirlperor
Caligula; and one of the daughters, Agrippina the younger, by
her marriage with a Roman nobleman, became the mother of the
Emperor Nero. Hence it appears that Tiberius was uncle to
Claudius, Claudius was uncle to Caligula, Caligula was uncle to
Nero. But it is observable, that Nero and Caligula stood in
another degree of consanguinity to each other through their
grandmothers, who were both daughters of Mark Anthony the
triumvir; for the elder Antonia married the grandfather of Nero;
the younger Antonia (as we have stated above) married Drusus,




NOTES.                        263
the grandfather of Caligula; and again, by these two ladies, they
were connected not only with each other, but also with the Julian
house, for the two Antonias were daughters of Mark Anthony by
Octavia, sister to Augustus.
NoTE 15. Page 96.
But a memorial stone, in its inscription, makes the time longer'' Quando urbs per novem dies arsit Neronianis temporibus.'
NOTE 16. Page 106.
At this early hour, witnesses, sureties, &c., and all concerned
in the law courts, came up to Rome fri'om villas, country towns,
&c. But no ordinary call existed to summon travellers in the
opposite direction; which accounts for the comment of the travellers on the errand of Nero and his attendants.
NOTE 17. Page 113.
We may add that the unexampled public grief which followed
the death of Otho,'exceeding even that which followed the death
of Germanicus, and causing several officers to commit suicide,
implies some remarkable goodness in this Prince, and a very
unusual power of conciliating attachment.
NOTE 18. Page 117.
Blackwell, in his Court of Augustus, v ol. i. p. 982, when noticing these lines, upon occasion of the murder of Cicero, in the
final proscription under the last triumvirate, comments thuss:' Those of the greatest and truly Roman spirit hlad been murdered
in the field by Julius Csesar: the rest were now massacred in the
city by his son and successors; in their room came Syrians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, and other enfranchised slaves from the
conquered nations;'' these in half a century had sunk so low,
that Tiberius pronounced her very senators to be honmzies ad
servitatecm natos, men born to be slaves.'
NOTE 19. Page 117.
Suetonius indeed pretends that Augustus, personally at least,
struggled against this ruinous practice -- thinking it a matter of
the highest moment,' Sincerum atque ab omni colluvione pere



264                      NOTES.
grini et servilis sanguinis incorruptum servare populum.' And
Horace is ready with his flatteries on the same topic, lib. 3, Od. 6.
But the facts are against them; for the question is not what
Augustus did in his own person, (which at most could not operate
very widely except by the example,) but what he permitted
to be done. Now there was a practice familiar to those times'
that when a congiary or any other popular liberality was announced, multitudes were enfranchised by avaricious masters in
order to make them capable of the bounty (as citizens), and yet
under the condition of transferring to their emancipators whatsoever they should receive;,,au rov i S   OtooEug'oo' 7vZoV o,..e -
P1V'OVTEC XaTar  ltu u- (PEQwolt -roI  Y EM'Loat TiV 2E V E(IlV, says
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in order that after receiving the corn
given publicly in every month, they might carry it to those who
had bestowed upon them their freedom. In a case, then, where
an extensive practice of this kind was exposed to Augustus, and
publicly reproved by him, how did he proceed? Did he refect
the new-made citizens? No; he contented himself with diminishing the proportion originally destined for eac]h, so that the same
absolute sum being distributed among a number increased by the
whole amount of the new enrolments, of necessity the relative
sum for each separately was so much less. But this was a remedy applied only to the pecuniary fraud as it would have affected
himself. The permanent mischief to the state went unredressed.
NOTE 20. Page 118.
Part of the story is well known, but not the whole. Tiberius
Nero, a promising young nobleman, had recently married a very
splendid beauty. Unfortunately for him, at the marriage of
Octavia (sister to Augustus) with Mark Anthony, he allowed his
young wife, then about eighteen, to attend upon the bride. Augustus was deeply and suddenly fascinated by her charms, and
without further scruple sent a message to Nero - intimating that
he was in love with his wife, and would thank him to resign her.
The other, thinking it vain, in those days of lawless proscription,
to contest a point of this nature with one who commanded twelve
legions, obeyed the requisition. Upon some motive, now unknown, he was persuaded even to degrade himself farther; for he
actually officiated at the marriage in character of father, and




NOTES.                       265
gave away the young beauty to his rival, although at that time
six months advanced in pregnancy by himself. These humiliating concessions were extorted from him, and yielded (probably
at the instigation of friends) in order to save his life. In the
sequel they had the very opposite result; for he died soon after,
and it is reasonably supposed of grief and mortification. At the
marriage feast, an incident occurred which threw the whole company into confusion: A little boy, roving from couch to couch
among the guests, came at length to that in which Livia (the
bride) was lying by the side of Augustus, on which he cried out
aloud, -' Lady, what are you doing here? You are mistaken -
this is not your husband - he is there,' (pointing to Tiberius,)'go, go -rise, lady, and recline beside him.'
NOTE 21. Page 121.
Augustus, indeed, strove to exclude the women from one part
of the circension spectacles; and what was that? Simply from
the sight of the Jthletce, as being naked.  But that they should
witness the pangs of the dying gladiators, he deemed quite allowable. The smooth barbarian considered, that a license of the
first sort offended against decorum, whilst the other violated only
the sanctities of the human heart, and the whole sexual character
of women. It is our opinion, that to the brutalizing effect of
these exhibitions we are to ascribe, not only the early extinction
of the Roman drama, but generally the inferiority of Rome to
Greece in every department of the fine arts. The fine temper of
Roman sensibility, which no culture could have brought to the
level of the Grecian, was thus dulled for every application.
NoTr 22. Page 130.
No fiction of romance presents so awful a picture of the ideal
tyrant as that of Caligula by Suetonius. His palace - radiant
with purple and gold, but murder everywhere lurking beneath
flowers; his smiles and echoing laughter - masking (yet hardly
meant to mask) his foul treachery of heart; his hideous and tumultuous dreams - his baffled sleep - and his sleepless nights -
compose the picture of an ~Eschylus. What a master's sketch
lies in these few lines:'Incitabatur insomnio maxime; neque
enim plus tribus horis nocturnis quiescebat; ac ne his placida
23




266                        NOTES.
quiete, at pavid' miris rerum  imaginibus; ut qui inter ceteras
pelagi quondam  speciem  colloquentem  secum  videre visus sit.
Ideoque magna parte noctis, vigilx  cubandique tiedio, nunc toro
residens, nunc per longissimas porticus vagus, invocare identidem atque exspectare lucem consueverat.:'- i. e.' But, above
all, he was tormented with nervous irritation, by sleeplessness;
for he enjoyed not more than three hours of nocturnal repose;
nor these even in pure untroubled rest, but agitated by phantasmata of portentous augury; as, for example, upon one occasion
he fancied that he saw the sea, under some definite impersonation, conversing with himself.  Hence it was, and from this incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness of lying awake, that he
had fallen into habits of ranging all the night long through the
palace, sometimes throwing himself on a couch, sometimes wandering along the vast corridors, watching for the earliest dawn,
and anxiously invoking its approach.
NOTE 23. Page 132
And hence we may the better estimate the trial to a Roman's
feelings in the personal deformity of baldness, connected with the
Roman theory of its cause, for the exposure of it was perpetual.
NOTE 24. Page 133.'Expeditiones sub eo,' says Spartian,' graves nulloe fuerunt.
Bella etiam silentio pene transacta.'  But he does not the less
add,' A militibus, propter curam exerciths nimiam, multum
amatus est.'
NoTE 25. Page 134.
In the true spirit of Parisian mummery, Bonaparte caused
letters to be written from  the War-office, in his own name, to
particular soldiers of high military reputation in every brigade,
(whose private history he had previously caused to be investigated,) alluding circumstantially to the leading facts in their
personal or family career; a furlough accompanied this letter,
and they were requested to repair to Paris, where the emperor
anxiously desired to see them. Thus was the paternal interest
expressed, which their leader took in each man's fortunes; and




NOTES.                         267
the eftect of every such letter, it was not doubtel, would diffuse
itself through ten thousand other men.
NOTE 26. Page 135.' War in procinct'- a phrase of Milton's in Paradise Regained, which strikingly illustrates his love of Latin phraseology;
for unless to a scholar, previously acquainted with the Latin
phrase of in procinctn, it is so absolutely unintelligible as to
interrupt the current of the feeling.
NOTE 27. Page 130.
Crypts'-these, which Spartian, in his life of Hadrian,
denominates simply cryptac, are the same which, in the Roman
jurisprudence, and in the architectural works of the Romans,
yet surviving, are termed hypogtaa deambulationes, i. e. subterranean parades.  Vitruvius treats of this luxurious class of
apartments in connection with the.potheca, and other repositories or store-rooms, which were also in many cases underground, (for the same reason as our ice-houses, wine-cellars, &c.
He (and from him Pliny and Apollonaris Sidonius) calls them
crypto-porticus  (cloistral colonnades); and Ulpian calls them
refugia (sanctuaries, or places of refuge); St. Ambrose notices
them under the name of hypogcea and umbrosa peetralia, as the
resorts of voluptuaries: Luxuriosorum  est, says he, hypogcea
querere - captantium frigus cestivunm; and again he speaks of
desidiosi qui ignava sub terris agant otia.
NOTE, 28. Page 136.'The topiary art' - so called, as Salmasius thinks, from
o76retov, a rope; because the process of construction was conducted chiefly by means of cords and strings. This art was
much practised in the 17 th century; and Casaubon describes one,
which existed in his early days somewhere in the suburbs of
Paris, on so elaborate a scale, that it represented Troy besieged,
with the two hosts, their several leaders, and all other objects in
their full proportion.




268                      N'OTES.
NOTE 29. Page 137.
Very remarkable it is, and a fact which speaks volumes as to
the democratic constitution of the Roman army, in the m dst of
that aristocracy which enveloped its parent state in a civil sense,
that although there was a name for a common soldier (or sentinel, as he was termed by our ancestors)- viz. miles gregearius,
or miles manipularis - there was none for an officer; that is to
say, each several rank of officers lA td a name; but there was no
generalization to express the idea of an officer abstracted from
its several species or classes.
NOTE 30. Page 139.
Vitis: and it deserves to be mentioned, that this staff, or
cudgel, which was the official engine and cognizance of the Cen.
turion's dignity, was meant expressly to be used in caning or
cudgelling the inferior soldiers:    Propterea vitis in manum
data,' says Salmasius,' verberando scilicet militi qusi deliquisset.'
We are no patrons of corporal chastisement, which, on the contrary, as the vilest of degradations, we abominate. The soldier,
who does not feel himself dishonored by it, is already dishonored
beyond hope or redemption. But still let this degradation not
be imputed to the English army exclusively.
NOTE 31. Page 145.
In the original ter millies, which is not much above two mil.
lions and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling; but
it must be remembered that one third as much, in addition to
this popular largess, had been given to the army.
NOTE 32. Page 145.
--—' nam bene gesti rebus, vel potius feliciter, etsi non
summi - medii tamen obtinuit ducis famam.'
NOTE 33. Page 146.
This, however, is a point in which royal personages claim an
old prescriptive right to be unveasonable in their exactions; and
some, even amongst the most humane of Christian princes, have
erred as flagrantly as 2Elius Verus.  George IV. we have under..




NOTES.                       269
stood, was generally escorted from Dalkeith to Holyrood at a
rate of twenty-two miles an hour. And of his father, the truly
kind and paternal king, it is recorded by Miss Hawkins, (daugh,
ter of Sir J. Hawkins, the biographer of Johnson, &c.) that
families who happen.ed to have a son, brother, lover, &c. in the
particular regiment of cavalry which furnished the escort for the
day, used to suffer as much anxiety for the result as on the eve
of a great battle.
NOTE 34. Page 154.
And not impossibly of America; for it must be remembered
that, when we speak of this quarter of the earth as yet undiscovered, we mean- to ourselves of the western climates; since as
respects the eastern quarters of Asia, doubtless America was
known there familiarly enough; and the high bounties of imperial
Rome on rare animals, would sometimes perhaps propagate their
influence even to those regions.
NOTE 35. Page 155.
In default of whalebone, one is curious to know of what they
were made: - thin tablets of the linden-tree, it appears, were
the best materials which the Augustus of that day could command.
NOTE 36. Page 156.
There is, however, a good deal of delusion prevalent on such
subjects. In some English cavalry regiments, the custom is for
the privates to take only one meal a day, which of course is dinner; and by some curious experiments it has appeared that such
a mode of life is the healthiest. But at the same time we have
ascertained that the quantity of porter or substantial ale drunk
in these regiments does virtually allow many meals, by comparison with the washy tea breakfasts of most Englishmen.
NOTE 37. Page 159.
So much improvement had Christianity already accomplished
in the feelings of men since the time of Augustus. That prince,
in whose reign the Founder of this ennobling religion was born,
had delighted so much and indulged so freely in the spectacles




270                       NOTES.
of the amphitheatre, that Moecenas summoned him reproachfully
to leave them, saying,' Surge tandem, carnifex.'
It is the remark of Capitoline, that' gladiatoria spectacula
omnifariam temperavit; temperavit etiam scenicas donationes;'
— he controlled in every possible way the gladiatorial spectacles; he controlled also the rates of allowance to the stage performers. In these latter reforms, which simply restrained the
exorbitant salaries of a class dedicated to the public pleasures,
and unprofitable to the State, Marcus may have had no farther
view than that which is usually connected with sumptuary laws.
But in the restraints upon the gladiators, it is impossible to
believe that his highest purpose was not that of elevating human
nature, and preparing the way for still higher regulations. As
little can it be believed that this lofty conception, and the sense
of a degradation entailed upon human nature itself, in the spectacle of human beings matched against each other like brute
beasts, and pouring out their blood upon the arena as a libation
to the caprices of a mob, could have been derived from any other
source than the contagion of Christian standards and Christian
sentiments, then beginning to pervade and ventilate the
atmosphere of society in its higher and philosophic regions.
Christianity, without expressly affirming, everywhere indirectly
supposes and presumes the infinite value and dignity of man as a
creature, exclusively concerned in a vast and mysterious economy
of restoration to a state of moral beauty and power in some
former age mysteriously forfeited. Equally interested in its benefits, joint heirs of its promises, all men, of every color, language,
and rank, Gentile or Jew, were here first represented as in one
sense (and that the most important) equal; in the eye of this
religion, they were, by necessity of logic, equal, as equal participators in the ruin and the restoration.  Here first, in any available sense, was communicated to the standard of human nature
a -vast and sudden elevation; and reasonable enough it is to
suppose, that some obscure sense of this, some sympathy with the
great changes for man then beginning to operate, would first of
all reach the inquisitive students of philosophy, and chiefly those
in high stations, who cultivated an intercourse with all the men
of original genius throughout the civilized world. The Emperor
HIadrian had already taken a solitary step in the improvement




NOTLE.                        271
of human nature; and not, we may believe, without some sub.
conscious influence received directly or indirectly from Christianity.  So again, with respect to Marcus, it is hardly conceivable
that he, a prince so indulgent and popular, could have thwarted,
and violently gainsaid, a primary impulse of the Roman populace,
without some adequate motive; and none could be adequate
which was not built upon some new and exalted views of human
nature, with which these gladiatorial sacrifices were altogether
at war. The reforms which Marcus introduced into these'crudelissima spectacula,' all having the common purpose of limiting
their extent, were three. First, he set bounds to the extreme
cost of these exhibitions; and this restriction of the cost covertly
operated as a restriction of the practice. Secondly, - and this
ordinance took effect whenever he was personally present, if not
oftener, -he commanded, on great occasions, that these displays
should be bloodless. Dion Cassius notices this fact in the following words:-' The Emperor Marcus was so far from taking
delight in spectacles of bloodshed, that even the gladiators in
Rome could not obtain his inspection of their contests, unless,
like the wrestlers, they contended without imminent risk; for he
never allowed them the use of sharpened weapons, but universally they fought before him with weapons previously blunted.'
Thirdly, he repealed the old and uniform regulation, which
secured to the gladiators a perpetual immunity from military
service. This necessarily diminished their available amount.
Being now liable to serve their country usefully in the field of
battle, whilst the concurrent limitation of the expenses in this
direction prevented any proportionate increase of their numbers,
they were so much the less disposable in aid of the public luxury.
His fatherly care of all classes, and the universal benignity with
which he attempted to raise the abject estimate and condition of
even the lowest Pariahs in his vast empire, appears in another
little anecdote, relating to a class of men equally with the gladiators given up to the service of luxury in a haughty and cruel
populace. Attending one day at an exhibition of rope-dancing,
one of the performers (a boy) fell and hurt himself; from which
time the paternal emperor would never allow the rope-dancers to
perform without mattresses or feather-beds spread below, to
mitigate the violence of their falls.




272                       NOTES.
NOTE 88. Page 160.
Marcus had been associated, as Cm sar, and as emperor, with
the son of the late beautiful Verus, who is usually mentioned by
the same name.
NOTE 39. Page 163.
Because the most effectual extinguishers of all ambition applied
in that direction; since the very excellence of any particular
fabric was the surest pledge of its virtual suppression by means
of its legal restriction (which followed inevitably) to the use of
the imperial house.
NOTE 40. Page 165.
Upon which some mimographus built an occasional notice of
the scandal then floating on the public breath in the following
terms: One of the actors having asked' Who was the adulterous
paramour?' receives for answer, Tullus.  Who?  he asks
again; and again for three times running he is answered,
Tullus.  But asking a fourth time, the rejoinder is, Jam  din
ter Tullus.
NOTE 41. Page 166.
In reality, if by divus and divine honors we understand a saint
or spiritualized being having a right of intercession with the Supreme Deity, and by his temple, &c., if we understand a shrine
attended by a priest to direct the prayers of his devotees, there
is no such wide chasm between this pagan superstition and the
adoration of saints in the Romish church. as at first sight appears. The fault is purely in the names: divus and templum are
words too undistinguishing and generic.
NOTE 42. Page 168.
Not long after this Alexander Severus meditated a temple te
Christ; upon which design Lampridius observes, - Quod et
Iladriazus cogitasse fertur; and, as Lampridius was himself a
pagan, we believe him to have been right in his report, in spite
of all which has been written by Casaubon and others, who
maintain that these imperfect temples of Hadrian were left void




NOTES.                        273
of all images or idols, - not in respect to the Christian practice,
but because he designed them eventually to be dedicated to himself:  However, be this os it may, thus much appears on the face
of the story, - that Christ and Christianity had by that time
begun to challenge the imperial attention; and of this there is
an indirect indication, as it has been interpreted, even in the
memoir of Marcus himself. The passage is this:'Fama fuit
sand quod sub philosophorum specie quidam rempublicam vexarent et privatos.' The philosophi, here mentioned by Capitoline,
are by some supposed to be the Christians; and for many reasons
we believe it; and we understand the molestations of the public
services and of private individuals, here charged upon them, as
a very natural reference to the Christian doctrines falsely understood.  There is, by the way, a fine remark upon Christianity,
made by an infidel philosopher of Germany, which suggests a
remarkable feature in the merits of Marcus Aurelius.  There
were, as this German philospher used to observe, two schemes
of thinking amongst the ancients, which severally fulfilled the
two functions of a sound philosophy as respected the moral nature
of man. One of these schemes presented us with a just ideal of
moral excellence, a standard sufficiently exalted; this was the
Stoic philosophy; and thus far its pretensions were unexceptionable and perfect.  But unfortunately, whilst contemplating thi:
pure ideal of man as he ought to be, the Stoic totally forgot the
frail nature of man as he is; and by refusing all compromises
and all condescensions to human infirmity, this philosophy of the
Porch presented to us a brilliant prize and object for our efforts,
but placed on an inaccessible height.
On the other hand, there was a very different philosophy at
the very antagonist pole,- not blinding itself by abstractions too
elevated, submitting to what it finds, bending to the absolute
facts and realities of man's nature, and affably adapting itself to
human imperfections.  There was the philosophy of Epicurus;
and undoubtedly, as a beginning, and for the elementary purpose of conciliating the affections of the pupil, it was well devised;
but here the misfortune wavs, that the ideal, or nmaxi7isum per.
fectionis, attainable by human nature, was pitched so low, that
the humility of its condescensions and the excellence of its means
were all to no purpose, as leading to nothing further. One




274                       NOTES.
mode presented a splendid end, but insulated, and with no means
fitted to a human aspirant for communicating with its splendors;
the other, an excellent road, but leading to no worthy or propoltionate end. Yet these, as regarded morals, were the best and
ultimate achievements of the pagan world. Now Christianity,
said he, is the synthesis of whatever is separately excellent in
either. It will abate as little as the haughtiest Stoicism of the
ideal which it contemplates as the first postulate of true morality; the absolute holiness and purity which it demands are as
much raised above the poor performances of actual man, as the
absolute wisdom and impeccability of the Stoic. Yet, unlike the
Stoic scheme, Christianity is aware of the necessity, and provides
for it, that the means of appropriating this ideal perfection
should be such as are consistent with the -nature of a most erring
and imperfect creature.  Its motion is towards the divine, but
by and through the human. In fact, it offers the Stoic humanized in his scheme of means, and the Epicurean exalted in his
final objects.  Nor is it possible to conceive a practicable scheme
of morals which should not rest upon such a synthesis of the two
elements as the Christian scheme presents; nor any other mode
of fulfilling that demand than such a one as is there first brought
forward, viz., a double or Janus nature, which stands in an
equivocal relation, — to the divine nature by his actual perfections, to the human nature by his participation in the same
animal frailties and capacities of fleshly temptation. No other
vinculum could bind the two postulates together, of an absolute
perfection in the end proposed, and yet of utter imperfection in
the means for attaining it.
Such was the outline of this famous tribute by an unbelieving
philosopher to the merits of Christianity as a scheme of moral
discipline.  Now, it must be remembered that Marcus Aurelius
was by profession a Stoic; and that generally, as a theoretical
philosopher, but still more as a Stoic philosopher, he might be
supposed incapable of descending from these airy altitudes of
speculation to the true needs, infirmities, and capacities of human nature. Yet strange it is, that he, of all the good emperors,
was the most thoroughly human and practical. In evidence of
which, one body of records is amply sufficient, which is, the very
extensive and wise reforms which he, beyond all the Cwsars,




NOTES.                        275
executed in the existing laws. To all the exigencies of the times,
and to all the new necessities developed by the progress of
society, he adjusted the old laws, or supplied new ones. The
same praise, therefore, belongs to him, which the German philosopher conceded to Christianity, of reconciling the austerest
ideal with the practical; and hence another argument for presuming him half baptized into the new faith.
NOTE 43. Page 182.
Amongst these institutions, none appear to us so remarkable,
Ar fitted to accomplish so prodigious a circle of purposes belonging to the highest state policy, as the Roman method of colonization. Colonies were, in effect, the great engine of Roman conquest; and the following are among a few of the great ends to
which they were applied. First of all, how came it that the
early armies of Rome served, and served cheerfully, without
pay? Simply because all who were victorious knew that they
would receive their arrears in the fullest and amplest form upon
their final discharge, viz., in the shape of a colonial estate —
large enough to rear a family in comfort, and seated in the midst
of similar allotments, distributed to their old comrades in arms.
These lands mere already, perhaps, in high cultivation, being
often taken from conquered tribes; but, if not, the new occupants could rely for aid oq every sort, for social intercourse, and
for all the offices of good neighborhood upon the surrounding
proprietors - who were sure to be persons in the same circumstances as themselves, and draughted from  the same legion.
For be it remembered, that in the primitive ages of Rome, concerning which it is that we are now speaking, entire legions -
privates and officers — were transferred in one body to the new
colony.' Antiquitus,' says the learned Goesius,' deducebantur
integrse legiones, quibus parta victoria.' Neither was there
much waiting for this honorary gift. In later ages, it is true,
when such resources were less plentiful, and when regular pay
was given to the soldiery, it was the veteran only who obtained
this splendid provision; but in the earlier times, a single fortunate campaign not seldom dismissed the young recruit to a lif
of ease and honor.' Multis legionibus,' says Hyginus,; contigi4
bellum feliciter transigere, et ad laboriosam agriculturae requiem




276                        NOTES.
pri~mc 4yrocinii gradl  purvenire.  Nam cum signis et aquil. et
primis ordinibus et tribunis deducebantur.' Tacitus also notices
this organization of the early colonies, and adds the reason of it,
and its happy effect, when contrasting it with the vicious ar.
rangemernts of' the colonizing system  in his own days.' Olim,'
says he,' univerese legiones deducebantur cum tribunis et centolrionibus, et sui cujusque ordlirnis militibus, ut consenzsu et
chaiitqete republicam ejficerenzt.'  Secondly, not only were the
troops in this way at a time when the public purse was unequal
to the expenditure of war -but this pay, being contingent on
the successful issue of the war, added the strength of self-interest
to that of patriotism in stimulating the soldier to extraordinary
efforts.  Thirdly, not only did the soldier in this way reap his
pay, but also he reaped a reward (and that besides a trophy and
perpetual monument of his public services), so munificent as to
constitute a permanent provision for a family; and accordingly
he was now encouraged, nay, enjoined, to marry.  For here was
an hereditary landed estate equal to the liberal maintenance of
a family.  And thus did a simple people, obeying its instinct of
conquest, not only discover, in its earliest days, the subtle principle of Machiavel - Let war support war; but (which is far
more than Machiavel's view) they made each present war support many future wars - by making it support a new offset from
the population, bound to the mother city by indissoluble ties of
privilege and civic duties; and in many other ways they made
every war, by and through the colonizing system  to which it
gave occasion, serviceable to future aggrandizement.  War, managed in this way, and with these results, became to Rome what
commerce or rural industry is to other countries, viz., the only
hopeful and general way for making a fortune.  Fourthly, by
means of colonies it was that Rome delivered herself from her
surplus population.  Prosperous and well-governed, the Roman
citizens of each generation outnumbered those of the generation
precedilg.  But the colonies provided outlets for these continual
a.ccessiovns of people, and absorbed them  faster than they could,-rise.*  And thus the great original sill of modern States, that
A no in this way we must explain the fact - that, in the:nany successive numerations of the people continually noticed by




A OTES.                       277
heel of Achilles in which they are all vulnerable, and which
(generally speaking) becomes more oppressive to the public prosperity as that prosperity happens to be greater, (for in poor
States and under despotic governments, this evil does not exist,)
that flagrant infirmity of our own country, for which no statesman has devised any commensurate remedy, was to ancient Rome
a perpetual foundation and well-head of public strength and enlarged resources.  With us of modern times, when population
greatly outruns the demand for labor, whether it be under the
stimulus of upright government, and just laws justly administeled, in combination with the manufacturing system  (as in
England), or (as in Ireland) under the stimulus of idle habits,
cheap subsistence, and a low standard of comfort —.we think it
much if we can keep down insurrection by the bayonet and the
sabre.  Lucro ponamus is our cry, if we can effect even thus
much; whereas Rome, in her simplest and pastoral days, converted this menacing danger and standing opprobrium of modern
statesmanship to her own immense benefit. Not satisfied merely
to have neutralized it, she drew from it the vital resources of her
martial aggrandizement.  For, Fifthly, these colonies were in
two ways msade the corner-stones of her martial policy: 1st,
They were looked to as nurseries of their armies; during one
generation the original  colonists, already trained to military
habits, were themselves disposable for this purpose on any great
emergency; these men transmitted heroic traditions to their posterity; and, at all events, a more robust population was always
at hand in agricultural colonies than could be had in the metropolis.  Cato the elder, and all the early writers, notice the quality
of such levies as being far superior to those drawn from a population of sedentary habits. 2dly, The Italian colonies, one and
all, performed the functions which in our day are assigned to
garrisoned towns and fiontier fortresses.  In the earliest times
they discharged a still more critical service, by sometimes enLivy and others, we do not find that sort of multiplication which
we might have looked for in a State so ably governed. The
truth is, that the continual surpluses had been carried off by the
colonizing drain, before they could become noticeable or trouble.
some.




.278                      NoTES.
tirely displacing a hostile population, and more often by dividing
it, and breaking its unity.  In cases of desperate resistance to
the Roman arms, marked by frequent infraction of treaties, it
was usual to remove the offending population to a safer situation, separated from Rome by the Tiber; sometimes entirely to
disperse and scatter it.  But, where these extremities were not
called for by expediency or the Roman maxims of justice, it was
judged sufficient to interpolate, as it were, the hostile people by
colonizations from Rome, which were completely organized * for
mutual aid, having officers of all ranks dispersed amongst them,
and for overawing the growth of insurrectionary movements
amongst their neighbors. Acting on this system, the Roman
colonies in some measure resembled the English Pale, as existing at one era in Ireland. This mode of service, it is true, became obsolete in process of time, concurrently with the dangers
which it was shaped to meet; for the whole of Italy proper,
together with that part of Italy called Cisalpine Gaul, was at
length reduced to unity and obedience by the almighty republic.
But in forwarding that great end, and indispensable condition
towards all foreign warfare, no one military engine in the whole
armory of Rome availed so much as her Italian colonies. The
other use of these colonies, as frontier garrisons, or, at any rate,
as interposing between a foreign enemy and the gates of Rome,
they continued to perform  long after their earlier uses had
passed away; and Cicero himself notices their value in this view.
IColonias,' says he [Orat. in BRulluln], I sic idoneis in locis
contra suspicionem  periculi collacarunt, ut esse non oppida
Italioa sed piropeug'nacula imperii'viderentur.' Finally, the
colonies were the best means of promoting tillage, and the culture of vineyards.  And though this service, as regarded the
Italian colonies, was greatly defeated in succeeding times by the
ruinous largesses of corn [ frumnentationes], and other vices of the
Roman policy after the vast revolution effected by universal
~ That is indeed involved in the technical term of Deductio;
for unless the ceremonies, religious and political, of inauguration
and organization, were duly complied with, the colony was not
entitled to be considered as deducta - that is, solemnly and ceremonially transplanted from the metropolis.




NOTES.                        279
fuxury, it is not the less true that, left to themselves and their
natural tendency, the Roman colonies would have yielded this
last benefit as certainly as any other. Large volumes exist,
illustrated by the learning of Rigaltius, Salmasius, and Goesius,
upon the mere technical arrangements of the Roman colonies;
and whole libraries might be written on these same colonies,
considered as engines of exquisite state policy.
NOTE 44. Page 191.
On this occasion we may notice that the final execution of the
vengeance projected by Maternus, was reserved for a public festival, exactly corresponding to the modern carnival; and from
an expression used by Herodian, it is plain that masquerading
had been an ancient practice in Rome.
NoTE 45. Page 192.
See Casaubon's notes upon Theophrastus.
NOTE 46. Page 193.
Viz. the Temple of Peace; at that time the most magnificent
edifice in Rome. Temples, it is well known, were the places used
in ancient times as banks of deposit. For this function they
were admirably fitted by their inviolable sanctity.
NOTE 47. Page 194.
What a prodigious opportunity for the zoologist! — And considering that these shows prevailed for five hundred years, during
all which period the amphitheatre gave bounties, as it were, to
the hunter and the fowler of every climate, and that, by means
of a stimulus so constantly applied, scarcely any animal, the
shyest, rarest, fiercest, escaped the demands of the arena, - noe
one fact so much illustrates the inertia of the public mind in
those days, and the indifference to all scientific pursuits, as that
no annotator should have risen to Pliny the elder -no rival to
the immortal tutor of Alexander.




280                       NOTES.
NOTE 48. Page 198.
It is worthy of notice, that, under any suspension of the im.
peratorial power or office, the senate was the body to whom the
Roman mind even yet continued to turn. In this case, both to
color their crime with a show of public motives, and to interest
this great body in their own favor by associating them in their
own dangers, the conspirators pretended to have found a long
roll of senatorial names included in the same page of condemnation with their own. A manifest fabrication.
NOTE 49. Page 199.
Historians have failed to remark the contradiction between
this statement and the allegation that Lsetus selected Pertinax
for the throne on a consideration of his ability to protect the
assassins of Commodus.
NOTE 50. Page 223.
And it is a striking illustration of the extent to which the revolution had gone, that, previously to the Persian expedition of
the last Gordian, Antioch, the Roman capital of Syria, had been
occupied by the enemy.
NOTE 51. Page 224.
This Arab emperor reigned about five years; and the jubilee
celebration occurred in his second year. Another circumstance
gives importance to the Arabian, that, according to one tradition,
he was the first Christian emperor. If so, it is singular that one
of the bitterest persecutors of Christianity should have been his
immediate successor - Decius.
NOTE 52. Page 224.
It has proved a most difficult problem, in the hands of all
speculators upon the imperial history, to fathom  the purposes,
or throw any light upon the purposes, of the Emperor Decius, in
attempting the revival of the ancient but necessarily obsolete
office of a public censorship. Either it was an act of pure verbal




NOTES.                        281
pedantry, or a mere titular decoration of honor, (as if a modern
prince should create a person Arch-Grand-Elector, with no objects assigned to his electing faculty,) or else, if it really meant
to revive the old duties of the censorship, and to assign the very
same field for the exercise of those duties, it must be viewed as
the very grossest practical anachronism that has ever been committed. We mean by an anachronism, in common usage, that
sort of blunder when a man ascribes to one age the habits, customs, or generally the characteristics of another. This, however,
may be a mere lapse of memory, as to a matter of fact, and
implying nothing at all discreditable to the understanding, but
only that a man has shifted the boundaries of chronology a little
this way or that; as if, for example, a writer should speak of
printed books as existing at the day of Agincourt, or of artillery
as existing in the first Crusade, here would be an error, but a
venial one. A far worse kind of anachronism, though rarely
noticed as such, is where a writer ascribes sentiments and modes
of thought incapable of co-existing with the sort or the degree of
civilization then attained, or otherwise incompatible with the
structure of society in the age or the country assigned. For instance, in Southey's Don Roderick there is a cast of sentiment in
the Gothic king's remorse and contrition of heart, which has
struck many readers as utterly unsuitable to the social and moral
development of that age, and redolent of modern methodism.
This, however, we mention only as an illustration, without wishing to hazard an opinion upon the justice of that criticism. But
even such an anachronism is less startling and extravagant
when it is confined to an ideal representation of things, than
where it is practically embodied and brought into play amongst
the realities of life. What would be thought of a man who
should attempt, in 1833, to revive the ancient office of Fool, as it
existed down to the reign, suppose, of our Henry VIII. in England? Yet the error of the Emperor Decius was far greater, if he
did in sincerity and good faith believe that the Rome of his times
was amenable to that license of unlimited correction, and of interference with private affairs, which republican freedom and simplicity had once conceded to the censor. In reality, the ancient
censor, in some parts of his office, was neither more nor less than
a compendious legislator. Acts of attainder, divorce bills, &c.,
24




;282                      NOTES.
illustrates the case in England; they are cases of law, modified
to meet the case of an individual; and the censor, having a sort
of equity jurisdiction, was intrusted with discretionary powers for
reviewing, revising, and amending, prb re nata, whatever in the
private life of a Roman citizen seemed, to his experienced eye,
alien to the simplicity of an austere republic; whatever seemed
vicious or capable of becoming vicious, according to their rude
notions of political economy; and, generally, whatever touched
the interests of the commonwealth, though not falling within the
general province of legislation, either because it might appear
undignified in its circumstances, or too narrow in its range of
operation for a public anxiety, or because considerations of delicacy and prudence might render it unfit for a public scrutiny.
Take one case, drawn from actual experience, as an illustration:
A Roman nobleman, under one of the early emperors, had
thought fit, by way of increasing his income, to retire into rural
lodgings, or into some small villa, whilst his splendid mansion
in Rome was let to a rich tenant. That a man who wore the
lacticlave, (which in practical effect of splendor we may consider
equal to the ribbon and star of a modern order,) should descend
to such a degrading method of raising money, was felt as a scandal to the whole nobility.*  Yet what could be done? To have
* This feeling still exists in France.' One winter,' says the
author of The English 2trmy in France, vol. ii. p. 106-7,' our commanding officer's wife formed the project of hiring the
chateau during the absence of the owner; but a more profound
insult could not have been offered to a Chevalier de St. Louis.
Hire his house! What could these people take him for? A
sordid wretch who would stoop to make money by such means?
They ought to be ashamed of themselves. He could never respect
an Englishman again.'' And yet,' adds the writer,'this gentleman (had an officer been billeted there) would have sold him
a bottle of wine out of his cellar, or a billet of wood from his
stack, or an egg from his hen-house, at a profit of fifty per cent.,
not only without scruple, but upon no other terms.  It was as
common as ordering wine at a tavern, to call the servant of any
man's establishment where we happened to be quartered, and




NO''ES.                       283
interfered with his conduct by an express law, would be tinfringe the sacred rights of property, and to say, in effect, that
a man should not do what he would with his own. This would
have been a remedy far worse than the evil to which it was
applied; nor could it have been possible so to shape the principle
of a law, as not to make it far more comprehensible than was
desired.  The senator's trespass was in a matter of decorum,
but the law would have trespassed on the first principles of
justice. Here, then, was a case within the proper jurisdiction
of the censor; he took notice, in his public report, of the senator's error; or probably, before coming to that extremity, he
admonished him privately on the subject.  Just as, in England,
had there been such an officer, he would have reproved those
men of rank who mounted the coach-box, who extended a public
patronage to the'fancy,' or who rode their own horses at a
race. Such a reproof, however, unless it were made practically
operative, and were powerfully supported by the whole body of
the aristocracy, would recoil upon its author as a piece of impertinence, and would soon be resented as an unwarrantable liberty
taken with private life; the censor would be kicked or challenged
to private combat, according to the taste of the parties aggrieved.
The office is clearly in this dilemma: if the censor is supported
demand an account of his cellar, as well as the price of the wine
we selected!' This feeling existed, and perhaps to the same
extent, two centuries ago, in England.  Not only did the aristocracy think it a degradation to act the part of landlord with
respect to their own houses, but also, except in select cases, to
act that of tenant.  Thus, the first Lord Brooke (the famous
Fulke Greville), writing to inform his next neighbor, a woman
of rank, that the house she occupied had been purchased by a
London citizen, confesses his fears that he shall in consequence
lose so valuable a neighbor; for, doubtless, he adds, your ladlyship will not remain as tenant to' such a fellow.' And yet the
man had notoriously held the office of Lord Mayor, which made
him, for the time, Right Honorable.  The Italians of this;lay
make no scruple to let off the whole, or even part, of their fiun
mansions to strangers.




284                       NOTES.
by the State, then he combines in his own person both legislative
and executive functions, and possesses a power which is fright.
fully irresponsible; if, on the other hand, he is left to such support as he can find in the prevailing spirit of manners, and the
old traditionary veneration for his sacred character, he stands
very much in the situation of a priesthood, which has great
power or none at all, according to the condition of a country in
moral and religious feeling, coupled with the more or less primitive state of manners. How, then, with any rational prospect
of success, could Decius attempt the revival of an office depending so entirely on moral supports, in an age when all those supports were withdrawn? The prevailing spirit of manners was
hardly fitted to sustain even a toleration of such an office; and
as to the traditionary veneration for the sacred character, from
long disuse of its practical functions, that probably was altogether
extinct. If these considerations are plain and intelligible even
to us, by the men of that day they must have been felt with a
degree of force that could leave no room for doubt or speculation
on the matter. How was it, then, that the emperor only should
have been blind to such general light?
In the absence of all other, even plausible, solutions of this
difficulty, we shall state our own theory of the matter. Decius,
as is evident from his fierce persecution of the Christians, was
not disposed to treat Christianity with indifference, under any
form which it might assume, or however masked. Yet there
were quarters in which it lurked not liable to the ordinary
modes of attack. Christianity was creeping up with inaudible
steps into high places - nay, into the very highest. The immediate predecessor of Decius upon the throne, Philip the Arab,
was known to be a disciple of the new faith; and amongst the
nobles of Rome, through the females and the slaves, that faith
had spread its roots in every direction.  Some secrecy, however,
attached to the profession of a religion so often proscribed.
Who should presume to tear away the mask which prudence or
timidity had taken up? A delator, or professional informer,
was an infamous character. To deal with the noble and illustrious, the descendants of the Marcelli and the Gracchi, there
must be nothing less than a great state officer, supported by tho
censor and the senate, having an unlimited privilege of scrutiny




NOTES.                        285
and censure, authorized to inflict the brand of infamy for offences
not challenged by express law, and yet emanating from an elder
institution, familiar to the days of reputed liberty. Such an
officer was the censor; and such were the antichristian purposes
of Decius in his revival.
NOTE 53. Page 228.
Some of these traditions have been preserved, which represent Sapor as using his imperial captive for his stepping-stone,
or anabathrunm, in mounting his horse.  Others go farther, and
pretend that Sapor actually flayed his unhappy prisoner while
yet alive. The temptation to these stories was perhaps found
in the craving for the marvellous, and in the desire to make
the contrast more striking between the two extremes in Valerian's life.
NOTE 54. Page 229.
And this incompetency was permanently increased by rebellions that were brief and fugitive: for each insurgent almost
necessarily maintained himself for the moment by spoliations
and robberies which left lasting effects behind them; and too
often he was tempted to ally himself with some foreign enemy
amongst the barbarians; and perhaps to introduce him into the
heart of the empire.
NOTE 55. Page 232.
Zenobia is complimented by all historians for her magnanimity; but with no foundation in truth. Her first salutation
to Aurelian was a specimen of abject flattery; and her last
public words were evidences of the basest treachery in giving up
her generals, and her chief counsellor Longinus, to the vengeance
of the ungenerous enemy.
NOTE 56. Page 245.' Thirteen thousand chambers.'-The number of the chambers
in this prodigious palace is usually estimated at that amount. But
Lady Miller, who made particular inquiries on this suiject,




286                       NOTEs.
ascertained that the total amount, including cellars and closets.
capable of receiving a bed, was fifteen thousand.
NOTE 57. Page 248.
In no point of his policy was the cunning or the sagacity of
Augustus so much displayed, as in his treaty of partition with
the senate, which settled the distribution of the provinces, and
their future administration. Seeming to take upon himself all
the trouble and hazard, he did in effect appropriate all the
power, and left to the senate little more than trophies of show
and ornament.  As a first step, all the greater provinces, as
Spain and Gaul, were subdivided into many smaller ones. This
done, Augustus proposed that the senate should preside over the
administration of those amongst them which were peaceably
settled, and which paid a regular tribute; whilst all those which
were the seats of danger, - either as being exposed to hostile
inroads, or to internal commotions, - all, therefore, in fact,
which could justify the keeping up of a military force, he
assigned to himself. In virtue of this arrangement, the senate
possessed in Africa those provinces which had been formed out
of Carthage, Cyrene, and the kingdom  of Numidia; in Europe,
the richest and most quiet part of Spain (Hispania Batica,)
with the large islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Crete,
and some districts of Greece; in Asia, the kingdoms of Pontus
and Bithynia, with that part of Asia Minor technically called
Asia; whilst, for his own share, Augustus retained Gaul, Syria,
the chief part of Spain, and Egypt, the granary of Rome;
finally, all the military posts on the Euphrates, on the Danube,
or the Rhine.
Yet even the showy concessions here made to the senate were
defeated by another political institution, settled at the same time.
It had been agreed that the governors of provinces should be
appointed by the emperor and the senate jointly. But within
the senatorial jurisdiction, these governors, with the title of
Proconsuls, were to have no military power whatsoever; and
the appointments were good only for a single year. Whereas, in
the imperatorial provinces, where the governor bore the title of
Proprcetor, there was provision made for a military establishment; and as to duration, the office was regulated entirely by




NOTES.                        287
the emperor's pleasure. One other ordinance, on the same
head, riveted the vassalage of the senate. Hitherto, a great
source of the senate's power had been found in the uncontrolled
management of the provincial revenues; but at this time,
Augustus so arranged that branch of the administration, that,
throughout the senatorian or proconsular provinces, all taxes
were immediately paid into the erarium, or treasury of the State;
whilst the whole revenues of the proprsetorian (or imperatorial)
provinces, from this time forward, flowed into the fiscus, or
private treasure of the individual emperor.
NOTE 58. Page 253.
On the abdication of Dioclesian and of Maximian, Galerius and
Constantius succeeded as the new Augusti. But Galerius, as
the more immediate representative of Dioclesian, thought himg
self entitled to appoint both Csesars, - the Daza (or Maximus)
in Syria, Severus in Italy.  Meantime, Constantine, the son of
Constantius, with difficulty obtaining permission from Galerius.
paid a visit to his father; upon whose death, which followed
soon after; Constantine came forward as a Csesar, under the
appointment of his father. Galerius submitted with a bad
grace; but MIaxentius, a reputed son of Maximian, was roused
by emulation with Constantine to assume the purple; and being
joined by his father, they jointly attacked and destroyed
Severus. Galerius, to revenge the death of his own Caesar,
advanced towards Rome; but being compelled to a disastrous
retreat, he resorted to the measure of associating another emperor with himself, as a balance to his new enemies. This was
Licinius; and thus, at one time, there were six emperors, either
as Augusti or as Csesars. Galerius, however, dying, all the rest
were in succession destroyed by Constantine.
NOTE 59. Page 254.
Valentinian the First, who admitted his brother Valens to a
partnership in the empire, had, by his first wife, an elder son,
Gratian, who reigned and associated with himself Theodosius,
commonly called the Great.  By his second wife he had Valentinian the Second, who, upon the death of his brother Gratian,




288                       NOTES.
was allowed to share the empire by Theodosius. Theodosius, by
his first wife, had two sons, - Arcadius, who afterwards reigned
in the east, and Honorius, whose western reign was so much
illustrated by Stilicho. By a second wife, daughter to Valentinian the First, Theodosius had a daughter, (half-sister, thero
fore, to Honorius,) whose son was Valentinian the Thihd.




[THE AVENGER,
A NARRA TIVE;
AND OTHER PAPERS.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
TICKN OR AND FIELDSI
^3a the Clerk's Office of the District C(ourt of the District of Massachl Eeta




CONTENTS.
Page
THE AVENGER,...........  9
ADDITIONS TO TO THE CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUmI-EATER,.. 83
DE QUINCEY,.................. o o       83
BARBARA LEWTRWAITE,.. o... e...... 89
THE DAUGHTER OF LEBANON,.*.........  97
THE ESSENES - SUPPLE MENTARY,............107
AELIUS LAMIA..................  131
CHIN.............e..........143
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS,.... ao e. a a..   0.o.65








THE AVENGER.
"Why callest thou me murderer, and not rather the wrath of God burnInS
after the steps of the oppressor, and cleansing the earth when it is wet with
blood? "
THAT series of terrific events by which our quiet
city and university in the north-eastern quarter of
Germany were convulsed during the year 1816, has
in itself, and considered merely as a blind movement
of human tiger-passion ranging unchained amongst
men, something too memorable to be forgotten or
left without its own separate record; but the moral
lesson impressed by these events is yet more memorable, and deserves the deep attention of coming
generations in their struggle after human improvement, not merely in its own limited field of interest
directly awakened, but in all analogous fields of interest; as in fact already, and more than once, in
connection with these very events, this lesson has
obtained the effectual attention of Christian kings
and princes assembled in congress. No tragedy,
indeed, amongst all the sad ones by which the charities of the human heart or of the fireside have ever
been outraged, can better merit a separate chapter
in the private history of German manners or social
life than this unparalleled case. And, on the other
(9)




10                THE AVENGER.
hand, no one can put in a better claim to be the his.
torian than myself.
I was at the time, and still am, a professor in that
city and university which had the melancholy distinction of being its theatre.  I knew familiarly all
the parties who were concerned in it, either as sufferers or as agents. I was present from first to last,
and watched the whole course of the mysterious
storm which fell upon our devoted city in a strength
like that of a West Indian hurricane, and which did
seriously threaten at one time to depopulate our
university, through the dark suspicions which settled
upon its members, and the natural reaiction of generous indignation in repelling them; whilst the city
in its more stationary and native classes would very
soon have manifested their awful sense of things, of
the hideous insecurity for life, and of the unfathomable dangers which had undermined their hearths
below their very feet, by sacrificing, whenever circumstances allowed them, their houses and beautiful
gardens in exchange for days uncursed by panic, and
nights unpolluted by blood.  Nothing, I can take
upon myself to assert, was left undone of all that
human foresight could suggest, or human ingenuity
could accomplish. But observe the melancholy result: the more certain did these arrangements strike
people as remedies for the evil, so much the more
effectually did they aid the terror, but, above all, the
awe, the sense of mystery, when ten cases of total
extermination, applied to separate households, had
occurred, in every one of which these precautionary
aids had failed to yield the slightest assistance. The




THE AVENGER.               11
horror, the perfect frenzy of fear, which seized upon
the town after that experience, baffles all attempt at
description. Iiad these various contrivances failed
merely in some human and intelligible way, as by
bringing.the aid too tardily -still, in such cases,
though the danger would no less have been evidently
deepened, nobody would have felt any further mystery than what, fromi the very first, rested upon the
persons and the motives of the murderers. But, as
it was, when, in ten separate cases of exterminating
carnage, the astounded police, after an examination
the most searching, pursued from day to day, and
almost exhausting the patience by the minuteness of
the investigation, had finally pronounced that no
attempt apparently had been made to benefit by any
of the signals preconcerted, that no footstep apparently had moved in that direction - then, and after
that result, a blind misery of fear fell upon the population, so much the worse than any anguish of a
beleaguered city that is awaiting the storming fury
of a victorious enemy, by how much the shadowy,
the uncertain, the infinite, is at all times more
potent in mastering the mind than a danger that is
known, measurable, palpable, and human. The very
police, instead of offering protection or encouragement, were seized with terror for themselves. And
the general feeling, as it was described to me by a
grave citizen whom I met in a morning walk (for
the overmastering sense of a public calamity broke
down every barrier of reserve, and all men talked
freely to all men in the streets, as they would have
done during the rockings of an earthquake), was,




12               THE' AVENGER.
even amongst the boldest, like that which sometimes
takes possession of the mind in dreams -when one
feels one's self sleeping alone, utterly divided from all
call or hearing of friends, doors open that should be
shut, or unlocked that should be triply secured, the
very walls gone, barriers swallowed up by unknown
abysses, nothing around one but frail curtains, and a
world of illimitable night, whisperings at a distance,
correspondence going on between darkness and darkness, like one deep calling to another, and the
dreamer's own heart the centre from which the whole
network of this unimaginable chaos radiates, by
means of which the blank privations of silence and
darkness become powers the most positive and awful.
Agencies of fear, as of any other passion, and,
above all, of passion felt in communion with thousands, and in which the heart beats in conscious
sympathy with an entire city, through all its regions
of high and low, young and old, strong and weak;
such agencies avail to raise and transfigure the
natures of men; mean minds become elevated; dull
men become eloquent; and when matters came to
this crisis, the public feeling, as made known by
voice, gesture, manner, or words, was such that no
stranger could represent it to his fancy. In that
respect, therefore, I had an advantage, being upon
the spot through the whole course of the affair, for
giving a faithful narrative; as I had still more eminently, from the sort of central station.which I occupied, with respect to all the movements of the case.
I may add that I had another advantage, not possessed, or not in the same degree, by any other




THE AVENGER.               13
inhabitant of the town. I was personally acquainted
with every family of the slightest account belonging
to the' resident population; whether amongst the
old local gentry, or the new settlers whom the late
wars had driven to take refuge within our walls.
It was in September, 1815, that I received a letter
from the chief secretary to the Prince of MI, a
nobleman connected with the diplomacy of Russia,
from which I quote an extract: " I wish, in short, to
recommend to your attentions, and in terms stronger
than I know how to devise, a young man on whose
behalf the czar himself is privately known to have
expressed the very strongest interest. He was at
the battle of Waterloo as an aide-de-camp to a Dutch
general officer, and is decorated with distinctions won
upon that awful day. However, though serving in
that instance under English orders, and although an
Englishman of rank, he does not belong to the
English military service. He has served, young as
he is, under various banners, and under ours, in particular, in the cavalry of our imperial guard. He is
English by birth, nephew to the Earl of E., and heir
presumptive to his immense estates. There is a wild
story current, that his mother was a gypsy of transcendent beauty, which may account for his somewhat Moorish complexion, though, after all, that is
not of a deeper tinge than I have seen amongst many
an Englishman. He is himself one of the noblest
looking of God's creatures. Both father and mother,
however, are now dead. Since then he has become
the favorite of his uncle, who detained him in
England after the emperor had departed - and, as this
2




14               THE AVENGER.
uncle is now in the last stage of infirmity, Mr. Wynd~
ham's succession to the vast family estates is inevitable, and probably near at hand. 1Meantime, he is
anxious for some assistance in his studies. Intellectually he stands in the very first rank of men, as I am
sure you will not be slow to discover; but his long
military service, and the unparalleled tumult of our
European history since 1805, have interfered (as you
may suppose) with the cultivation of his mind; for
he entered the cavalry service of a German power
when a mere boy, and shifted about from service to
service as the hurricane of war blew from this point
or from that. During the French anabasis to MIoscow he entered our service, made himself a prodigious favorite with the whole imperial family, and
even now is only in his twenty-second year. As to
his accomplishments, they will speak for themselves;
they are infinite, and applicable to every situation of
life. Greek is what he wants from you; — never ask
about terms. He will acknowledge any trouble he
may give you, as he acknowledges all trouble, en
prince. And ten years hence you will look back
with pride upon having contributed your part to the
formation of one whom all here at St. Petersburg,
not soldiers only, but we diplomnates, look upon as
certain to prove a great man, and a leader amongst
the intellects of Christendom."
Two or three other letters followed; and at length
it was arranged that MBr. MlIaximilian Wyndham
should take up his residence at my monastic abode
for one year. IIe was to keep a table, and an establishment of servants, at his own cost; was to have




THE AVENGER.                i
an apartment of some dozen or so of rooms; the
unrestricted use of the library; with some other
public privileges willingly conceded by the magistracy of the town; in return for all which he was to
pay me a thousand guineas; and already beforehand,
by way of acknowledgment for the public civilities
of the town, he sent, through my hands, a contribution of three hundred guineas to the various local
institutions for education of the poor, or for charity.
The Russian secretary had latterly corresponded
with me from a little German town, not more than
ninety miles distant; and, as he had special couriers
at his service, the negotiation advanced so rapidly
that all was closed before the end of September.
And, when once that consummation was attained, I,
that previously had breathed no syllable of what was
stirring, now gave loose to the interesting tidings,
and suffered them to spread through the whole compass of the town. It will be easily imagined that
such a story, already romantic enough in its first
outline, would lose nothing in the telling. An Englishman to begin with, which name of itself, and at
all times, is a passport into German favor, but much
more since the late memorable wars that but for
Englishmen would have drooped into disconnected
efforts —next, an Englishman of rank and of the
haute noblesse - then a soldier covered with brilliant
distinctions, and in the most brilliant arm of the service; young, moreover, and yet a veteran by his
experience -fresh from  the most awful battle of
this planet since the day of Pharsalia, -radiant with




16               THE AVENGER.
the favor of courts and of imperial ladies; finally
(which alone would have given him an interest in all
female hearts), an Antinous of faultless beauty, a
Grecian statue, as it were, into which the breath of
life had been breathed by some modern Pygmalion;such a pomp of gifts and endowments settling upon
one man's head, should not have required for its
effect the vulgar consummation (and yet to many it
was the consummation and crest of the whole) that
he was reputed to be rich beyond the dreams of
romance or the necessities of a fairy tale. Unparalleled was the impression made upon our stagnant
society; every tongue was busy in discussing the
marvellous young Englishman from morning to night;
every female fancy was busy in depicting the personal appearance of this gay apparition.
On his arrival at my house, I became sensible of a
truth which I had observed some years before. The
commonplace maxim is, that it is dangerous to
raise expectations too high. This, which is thus
generally expressed, and without limitation, is true
only conditionally; it is true then and there only
where there is but little merit to sustain and justify
the expectation. But in any case where the merit is
transcendent of its kind, it is always useful to rack
the expectation up to the highest point. In anything
which partakes of the infinite, the most unlimited
expectations will find ample room for gratification;
whilst it is certain that ordinary observers, possessing little sensibility, unless where they have been
warned to expect, will often fail to see what exists
in the most conspicuous splendor. In this instance




THE AVENGER.               17
it certainly did no harm to the subject of expectation
that I had been warned to look for so much. The
warning, at any rate, put me on the lookout for
whatever eminence there might be of grandeur in
his personal appearance: whilst, on the other hand,
this existed in such excess, so far transcending anything I had ever met with in my experience, that no
expectation which it is in words to raise could have
been disappointed.
These thoughts travelled with the rapidity of light
through my brain, as at one glance my eye took in
the supremacy of beauty and power which seemed to
nave alighted from the clouds before me. Power,
and the contemplation of power, in any absolute
incarnation of grandeur or excess, necessarily have
the instantaneous effect of quelling all perturbation.
[My composure was restored in a moment. I looked
steadily at him. We both bowed. And, at the moment when he raised his head from that inclination,
I caught the glance of his eye; an eye such as might
have been looked for in a face of such noble lineaments -
" Blending the nature of the star
With that of summer skies;"
and, therefore, meant by nature for the residence and
organ of serene and gentle emotions; but it surprised,
and at the same time filled me more almost with consternation than with pity, to observe that in those
eyes a light of sadness had settled more profound
than seemed possible for youth, or almost commensurate to a human sorrow; a sadness that might
2*                    2




18                THE AVENGER.
have become a Jewish prophet, when laden with in.
spirations of woe.
Two months had now passed away since the arrival
of -Mr. WVyndham. lie had been universally introduced to the superior society of the place; and, as I
need hardly say, universally received with favor and
distinction.  In reality, his wealth and importance,
his military honors, and the dignity of his character,
as expressed in his manners and deportment, were
too eminent to allow of his being treated with less
than the highest attention in any society whatever.
But the effect of these various advantages, enforced
and recommended as they were by a personal beauty
so rare, was somewhat too potent for the comfort
and self-possession of ordinary people; and really
exceeded in a painful degree the standard of pretensions under which such people could feel themselves
at their ease. Hle was not naturally of a reserved
turn; far from it. His disposition had been open,
frank, and confiding, originally; and his roving, adventurous life, of which considerably more than one
half had been passed in camps, had communicated to
his manners a more than military frankness.  Bui
the profound melancholy which possessed him, from
whatever cause it arose, necessarily chilled the native
freedom of his demeanor, unless when it was revivec
by strength of friendship or of love. The effect was
awkward and embarrassing to all parties.  Every
voice paused or faltered when he entered a roomdead silence ensued - not an eye but was directed
upon him, or else, sunk in timidity, settled upon the
floor; and young ladies seriously lost the power, foi




THE AVENGER.               19
a time, of doing more than murmuring a few confused,
half-inarticulate syllables, or half-inarticulate sounds.
The solemnity, in fact, of a first presentation, and
the utter impossibility of soon recovering a free,
unembarrassed movement of conversation, made such
scenes really distressing to all who participated in
them, either as actors or spectators. Certainly this
result was not a pure effect of manly beauty, however heroic, and in whatever excess; it arose in part
from the many and extraordinary endowments which
had centred in his person, not less from fortune than
from nature; in part also, as I have said, from the
profound sadness and fireezing gravity of Mr. Wyndham's manner; but still more from the perplexing
mystery which surrounded that sadness.
WVere there, then, no exceptions to this condition
of awe-struck admiration? Yes; one at least there
was in whose bosom the spell of all-conquering passion soon thawed every trace of icy reserve. Whilst
the rest of the world retained a dim sentiment of awe
towards M1r. Wyndham, Margaret Liebenheim only
heard of such a feeling to wonder that it could exist
towards him. Never was there so victorious a conquest interchanged between two youthful hearts -
never before such a rapture of instantaneous sympathy. I did not witness the first meeting of this mysterious Maximilian and this magnificent Margaret,
and do not know whether Margaret manifested that
trepidation and embarrassment which distressed so
many of her youthful co-rivals; but, if she did, it
must have fled before the first glance of the young
man's eye, which would interpret, past all misunder



20               THE AVENGER.
standing, the homage of his soul and the surrender
of his heart. Their third meeting I did see; and
there all shadow of embarrassment had vanished,
except, indeed, of that delicate embarrassment which
clings to impassioned admiration. On the part of
Margaret, it seemed as if a new world had dawned
upon her that she had not so much as suspected
amongst the capacities of human experience. Like
some bird she seemed, with powers unexercised for
soaring and flying, not understood even as yet, and
that never until now had found an element of air capable of sustaining her wings, or tempting her to put
forth her buoyant instincts. He, on the other hand,
now first found the realization of his dreams, and for
a mere possibility which he had long too deeply contemplated, fearing, however, that in his own case it
might prove a chimera, or that he might never meet
a woman answering the demands of his heart, he now
found a corresponding reality that left nothing to
seek.
Here, then, and thus far, nothing but happiness
had resulted from the new arrangement. But, if this
had been little anticipated by many, far less had I,
for my part, anticipated the unhappy revolution
which was wrought in the whole nature of Ferdinand
von Harrelstein. He was the son of a German baron;
a man of good family, but of small estate, who had
been pretty nearly a soldier of fortune in the Prussian
service, and had, late in life, won sufficient favor
with the king and other military superiors, to have
an early prospect of obtaining a commission, under
flattering auspices, for this only son -a son endeared




THE AVENGER.               21
to him as the companion of unprosperous years, and
as a dutifully affectionate child. Ferdinand had yet
another hold upon his father's affections: his features
preserved to the baron's unclouded remembrance a
most faithful and living memorial of that angelic wife
who had died in giving birth to this third child-the
only one who had long survived her. Anxious that
his son should go through a regular course of mathemnatical instruction, now becoming annually more
important in all the artillery services throughout
Europe, and that he should receive a tincture of
other liberal studies which he had painfully missed
in his own military career, the baron chose to keep
his son for the last seven years at our college, until
he was now entering upon his twenty-third year.
For the four last he had lived with me as the sole
pupil whom I had, or meant to have, had not the
brilliant proposals of the young Russian guardsman
persuaded me to break my resolution. Ferdinand
von Harrelstein had good talents, not dazzling but
respectable; and so amiable were his temper and
manners that I had introduced him everywhere, and
everywhere he was a favorite; and everywhere, indeed, except exactly there where only in this world
he cared for favor.  M[argaret Liebenheim, she it
was whom he loved, and had loved for years, with the
whole ardor of his ardent soul; she it was for whom,
or at whose command, he would willingly have died.
Early he had felt that in her hands lay his destiny;
that she it was who must be his good or his evil
genius.
At first, and perhaps to the last, I pitied him




22                THE AVENGER.
exceedingly. But my pity soon ceased to be mingled
with respect.  Befbre the arrival of AMr. WVyndham he
had shown himself generous, indeed magnanimous.
But never was there so painful an overthrow of a
noble nature as manifested itself in him. I believe
that he had not himself suspected the strength of his
passion; and the sole resource for him, as I said
often, was to quit the city - to engage in active pursuits of enterprise, of ambition, or of science. But he
heard me as a somnambulist might have heard me -
dreaming with his eyes open. Sometimes he had fits
of reverie, starting, fearful, agitated; sometimes he
broke out into maniacal movements of wrath, invoking some absent person, praying, beseeching, menacing some air-wove phantom; sometimes he slunk
into solitary corners, muttering to himself, and with
gestures sorrowfully significant, or with tones and
fragments of expostulation that moved the most callous to compassion. Still he turned a deaf ear to
the only practical counsel that had a chance for
reaching his ears. Like a bird under the fascination
of a rattlesnake, he would not summon up the energies of his nature to make an effort at flying away.
" Begone, whilst it is time! " said others, as well as
myself; for more than I saw enough to fear some
fearful catastrophe. "Lead us not into temptation!"'
said his confessor to him in my hearing (for, though
Prussians, the Von llarrelsteins were Roman Catholies), " lead us not into temptation! -that is our daily
prayer to God. Then, my son, being led into temptation, do not you persist in courting, nay, almost
tempting temptation. Try the effects of absence,




THE AVENGER.               23
though but for a month." The good father even
made an overture towards imposing a penance upon
him, that would have involved an absence of some
duration. But he was obliged to desist; for he saw
that, without effecting any good, he would merely
add spiritual disobedience to the other offences of
the young man. Ferdinand himself drew his attention to this; for he said: " Reverend father! do
not you, with the purpose of removing me firom
temptation, be yourself the instrument for tempting
me into a rebellion against the church. Do not you
weave snares about my steps; snares there are
already, and but too many." The old man sighed,
and desisted.
Then came - But enough! From pity, from sympathy, from counsel, and from consolation, and from
scorn -from each of these alike the poor stricken
deer "recoiled into the wilderness;" he fled for
days together into solitary parts of the forest; fled,
as I still hoped and prayed, in good earnest and for
a long farewell; but, alas! no: still he returned to
the haunts of his ruined happiness and his buried
hopes, at each return looking more like the wreck
of his former self; and once I heard a penetrating
monk observe, whose convent stood near the city
gates: "There goes one ready equally for doing or
suffering, and of whom we shall soon hear that he is
involved in some great catastrophe — it may be of
deep calamity- it may be of memorable guilt."
So stood matters amongst us. January was drawing to its close; the weather was growing more and
more winterly; high winds, piercingly cold, were




24:-             THE AVENGER.
raving through our narrow streets; and still the
spirit of social festivity bade defiance to the storms
which sang through our ancient forests. From the
accident of our magistracy being selected from the
tradesmen of the city, the hospitalities of the place
were far more extensive than would otherwise have
happened; for every membler of the corporation
gave two annual entertainments in his official character. And such was the rivalship which prevailed,
that often one quarter of the year's income was
spent upon these galas.  Nor was any ridicule
thus incurred; for the costliness of the entertainment was understood to be an expression of official
pride, done in honor of the city, not as an effort of
personal display. It followed, from  the spirit in
which these half-yearly dances originated, that,
being given on the part of the city, every stranger
of rank was marked out as a privileged guest, and
the hospitality of the community would have been
equally affronted by failing to offer or by failing to
accept the invitation.
Hence it had happened that the Russian guardsman
had been introduced into many a family which otherwise could not have hoped for such a distinction.
Upon the evening at which I am now arrived, the
twenty-second of January, 1816, the whole city, in its
wealthier classes, was assembled beneath the roof
of a tradesman who had the heart of a prince. In
every point our entertainment was superb; and I
remarked that the music was the finest I had heard
for years. Our host was in joyous spirits; proud to
survey the splendid company he had gathered under




THE AVENGER.               25
his roof; happy to witness their happiness; elated
in their elation. Joyous was the dance —joyous
were all faces that I saw —-up to midnight, very
soon after which time supper was announced; and
that also, I think, was the most joyous of all the
banquets I ever witnessed.  The accomplished
guardsman outshone himself in brilliancy; even
his melancholy relaxed. In fact, how could it be
otherwise? near to him sat Margaret Liebenheimn
- hanging upon his words- more lustrous and
bewitching than ever I had beheld her. There she
had been placed by the host; and everybody knew
why. That is one of the luxuries attached to love;
all men cede their places with pleasure; women
make way. Even she herself knew, though not
obliged to know, why she was seated in that neighborhood; and took her place, if with a rosy suffusion upon her cheeks, yet with fulness of happiness at her heart.
The guardsman pressed forward to claim 3MIiss
Liebenheim's hand for the next dance; a movement
which she was quick to favor, by retreating behind
one or two parties from a person who seemed coming towards her. The music again began to pour
its voluptuous tides through the bounding pulses
of the youthful company; again the flying feet of
the dancers began to respond to the measures;
again the mounting spirit of delight began to fill the
sails of the hurrying night with steady inspiration.
All went happily. Already had one dance finished;
some were pacing up and down, leaning on the arms
of their partners; some were reposing from their
3




26               THE AVENGER.
exertions; when —O   heavens I what a shrieki
what a gathering tumult!
Every eye was bent towards the doors — every
eye strained forwards to discover what was passing.
But there, every moment, less and less could be
seen, for the gathering crowd more and more intercepted the view;- so much the more was the ear at
leisure for the shrieks redoubled upon shrieks. Miss
Liebenheim  had moved downwards to the crowd.
From her superior height she overlooked all the
ladies at the point where she stood. In the centre
stood a rustic girl, whose features had been familiar
to her for some months. She had recently come
into the city, and had lived with her uncle, a tradesman, not ten doors from Margaret's own residence,
partly on the terms of a kinswoman, partly as a servant on trial. At this moment she was exhausted
with excitement, and the nature of the shock she
had sustained. iMere panic seemed to have mastered her; and she was leaning, unconscious and
weeping, upon the shoulder of some gentleman, who
was endeavoring to soothe her. A silence of horror
seemed to possess the company, most of whom were
still unacquainted with the cause of the alarming
interruption. A few, however, who had heard her
first agitated words, finding that they waited in vain
for a fuller explanation, now rushed tumultuously
out of the ball-room to satisfy themselves on the
spot. The distance was not great; and within five
minutes several persons returned hastily, and cried
out to the crowd of ladies that all was true which
the young girl hbad said.  "WVhat was true?




THE AVENGER.               27
That her uncle Mr. Weishaupt's family had been
murdered; that not one member of the family had
been spared-namely, MWIr. Weishaupt himself and
his wife, neither of them much above sixty, but both
infirm beyond their years; two maiden sisters of
Mr. Weishaupt, from forty to forty-six years of age,
and an elderly female domestic.
An incident happened during the recital of these
horrors, and of the details which followed, that furnished matter for conversation even in these hours
when so thrilling an interest had possession of all
minds. Many ladies fainted; amongst them Miss
Liebenheim - and she would have fallen to the
ground but for Maximilian, who sprang forward and
caught her in his arms. She was long of returning
to herself; and, during the agony of his suspense, he
stooped and kissed her pallid lips. That sight was
more than could be borne by one who stood a little
behind the group. Ile rushed forward, with eyes
glaring like a tiger's, and levelled, a blow at Maximilian. It was poor, maniacal Von H-Iarrelstein, who
had been absent in the forest for a week. Many
people stepped forward and checked his arm,
uplifted for a repetition of this outrage. One orL
two had some influence with him, and led him away
from the spot; whilst as to Maximilian, so absorbed
was he that he had not so much as perceived the
affront offered to himself.  Margaret, on reviving,
was confounded at finding herself so situated amidst
a great crowd; and yet the prudes complained that
there was a look of love exchanged between herself
and Maximilian, that ought not to have escaped her




28               THE AVENGER.
in such a situation. If they meant by such a situation, one so public, it must be also recollected that
it was a situation of excessive agitation; but, if they
alluded to the horrors of the moment, no situation
more naturally opens the heart to affection and confiding love than the recoil from scenes of exquisite
terror.
An examination went on that night before the
magistrates, but all was dark; although suspicion
attached to a negro named Aaron, who had occasionally been employed in menial services by the
family, and had been in the house immediately
before the murder. The circumstances were such
as to leave every man in utter perplexity as to the
presumption for and against him.  His mode of
defending himself, and his general deportment, were
marked by the coolest, nay, the most sneering indifference. The first thing he did, on being acquainted
with the suspicions against himself, was to laugh
ferociously, and to all appearance most cordially
and unaffectedly. Ile demanded whether a poor
man like himself would have left so much wealth as
lay scattered abroad in that house- gold repeaters,
massy plate, gold snuff-boxes'- untouched? That
argument certainly weighed much in his favor.
And yet again it was turned against him; for a
magistrate asked him how he happened to know
already that nothing had been touched.  True it
was, and a fact which had puzzled no less than it
had awed the magistrates, that, upon their examination of the premises, many rich articles of bijouterie,
jewellery, and personal ornaments, had been found




THE AVENiER.                29
lying underanged, and apparently in their usual
situations; articles so portable that in the very
hastiest flight some might have been carried off. In
particular, there was a crucifix of gold, enriched
with jewels so large and rare, that of itself it would
have constituted a prize of great magnitude. Yet
this w-as left untouched, though suspended in a little
oratory that had been magnificently adorned by the
elder of the maiden sisters. There was an altar, in
itself a splendid object, furnished with every article
of the most costly material and workmanship, for
the private celebration of mass. This crucifix, as
well as everything else in the little closet, must have
been seen by one at least of the murderous party;
for hither had one of the ladies fled; hither had one
of the murderers pursued.  She had clasped the
golden  pillars which  supported  the altar-had
turned perhaps her dying looks upon the crucifix;
for there, with one arm still wreathed about the altarfoot, though in her agony she had turned round
upon her face, did the elder sister lie when the magistrates first broke open the street-door. And upon'the beautiful parquet, or inlaid floor which ran ro.und
the room, were still impressed the footsteps of the
murderer. These, it was hoped, might furnish a
clue to the discovery of one at least among the murderous band. They were rather difficult to trace
accurately; those parts of the traces whichll lay
upon the black tessellce being less distinct in tlAe outline than the others upon the white or colored.
Most unquestionably, so far as this went, it furnished a negative circumstance  in favor of the
3*




80                THE AVENGER.
negro, for the footsteps were very lifferent in outline from his, and smaller, for Aaron was a man of
colossal build.  And as to his knowledge of the
state in which the premises had been found, and his
having so familiarly relied upon the fact of no robbery having taken place as an argument on his own
behalf, he contended that he had himself been
amongst the crowd that pushed into the house along
with the magistrates; that, from  his previous a::quaintance with the rooms and their ordinary condition, a glance of the eye had been sufficient for
him to ascertain the undisturbed condition of all the
valuable property most obvious to the grasp of a
robber; that, in fact, he had seen enough for his
argument before he and the rest of the mob had
been ejected by the magistrates; but, finally, that
independently of all this, he had heard both the officers, as they conducted him, and all the tumultuous
gatherings of people in the street, arguing for the
mysteriousness of the bloody transaction upon that
very circumstance of so much gold, silver, and jewels, being left behind untouched.
In six weeks or less from the date of this terrific.
event, the negro was set at liberty by a majority of
voices amongst the magistrates.  In that short
interval other events had occurred no less terrific
and mysterious. In this first murder, though the
motive was dark and unintelligible, yet the agency
was not so; ordinary assassins apparently, and with
ordinary means, had assailed a helpless and unprepared family; had separated them; attacked them
singly in flight (for in this first case all but one of




THE AVENGER.               31
the murdered persons appeared to have been making
for the street-door); and in all this there was no
subject for wonder, except the original one as to the
motive. But now came a series of cases destined
to fling this earliest murder into the shade. Nobody
could now be unprepared; and yet the tragedies,
henceforwards, which passed before us, one by one,
in sad, leisurely, or in terrific groups, seemed to
argue a lethargy like that of apoplexy in the victinms, one and all. The very midnight of mysterious awe fell upon all minds.
Three weeks had passed since the murder at MIr.
Weishaupt's -three weeks the most agitated that had
been known in this sequestered city. We felt ourselves solitary, and thrown upon our own resources;
all combination with other towns being unavailing
from their great distance. Our situation was no
ordinary one. Had there been some mysterious
robbers amongst us, the chances of a visit, divided
amongst so many, would have been too small to distress the most timid; whilst to young and highspirited people, with courage to spare for ordinary
trials, such a state of expectation would have sent
pulses of pleasurable anxiety amongst the nerves.
But murderers I exterminating murderers! - clothed
in mystery and utter darkness - these were objects
too terrific for any family to contemplate with fortitude. Had these very murderers added to their
functions those of robbery, they would have become
less terrific; nine out of every ten would have
found themselves discharged, as it were, from the
roll of those who were liable to a visit while such




32               THE AVENGER.
as knew themselves liable would have had warning
of their danger in the fact of being rich; and would,
from the very riches which constituted that danger,
have derived the means of repelling it. But, as
things were, no man could guess what it was that
must make him obnoxious to the murderers. Imagination exhausted itself in vina guesses at the causes
which could by possibility have made the poor Weishaupts objects of such hatred to any man. True,
they were bigoted in a degree which indicated feebleness of intellect; but that wounded no man in
particular, whilst to many it recommended them.
True, their charity was narrow and exclusive, but to
those of their own religious body it expanded munificently; and, being rich beyond their wants, or any
means of employing wealth which their gloomy
asceticism allowed, they had the power of doing a
great deal of good amongst the indigent papists of
the suburbs. As to the old gentleman and his wife,
their infirmities confined them to the house. Nobody remembered to have seen them abroad for
years. How, therefore, or when could they have
made an enemy? And, with respect to the maiden
sisters of Mr. Weishaupt, they were simply weakminded persons, now and then too censorious, but
not placed in a situation to incur serious anger from
any quarter, and too little heard of in society to
occupy much of anybody's attention.
Conceive, then, that three weeks have passed
away, that the poor WeVihaupts have been laid in
that narrow sanctuary which no murderer's voice
will ever violate. Quiet has not returned to us, but




THE AVENGER.               33
the first flutterings of panic have subsided. People
are beginning to respire freely again; and such
another space of time would have cicatrized our
wounds —when, hark! a church-bell rings out a
loud alarm;- the night is starlight and frosty - the
iron notes are heard clear, solemn, but agitated.
What could this mean? I hurried to a room over
the porter's lodge, and, opening the window, I cried
out to a man passing hastily below, "What, in
God's name, is the meaning of this? " It was a
watchman belonging to our district. I knew his
voice, he knew mine, and he replied in great agitation:
" It is another murder, sir, at the old town councillor's, Albernass; and this time they have made a
clear house of it."
"God preserve us!  Has a curse been pronounced  upon  this city?  What can be done?
What are the magistrates going to do?"
"I don't know, sir. I have orders to run to the
Black Friars, where another meeting is gathering.
Shall I say you will attend, sir? "
" Yes - no - stop a little. No matter, you may
go on; I'11 follow immediately."
I went instantly to Maximilian's room. He was
lying asleep on a sofa, at which I was not surprised,
for there had been a severe stag-chase in the morning. Even at this moment I found myself arrested
by two objects, and I paused to survey them. One
was Maximilian himself. A person so mysterious
took precedency of other interests even at a time
like this; and especially by his features, which, com3




34,              THE AVENGER.
posed in profound sleep, as sometimes happens,
assumed a new expression, which arrested me
chiefly by awaking some confused remembrance of
the same features seen under other circumstances
and in times long past; but where? This was what
I could not recollect, though once before a thought
of the same sort had crossed my mind. The other
object of my interest was a miniature, which Maximilian was holding in his hand. HIe had gone to
sleep apparently looking at this picture; and the
hand which held it had slipped down upon the sofa,
so that it was in danger of falling. I released the
miniature from his hand, and surveyed it attentively.
It represented a lady of sunny, oriental complexion,
and features the most noble that it is possible to
conceive. One might have imagined such a lady,
with her raven locks and imperial eyes, to be the
favorite sultana of some Amurath or Mohammed.
What was she to Maximilian, or what had she been?
For, by the tear which I had once seen him drop
upon this miniature when he believed himself unobserved, I conjectured that her dark tresses were
already laid low, and her name among the list of
vanished things. Probably she was his mother, for
the dress was rich with pearls, and evidently that
of a person in the highest rank of court beauties. I
sighed as I thought of the stern melancholy of her
son, if Maximilian were he, as connected, probably,
with the fate and fortunes of this majestic beauty;
somewhat haughty, perhaps, in the expression of
her fine features, but still noble - generous - confiding. Laying the picture on the table, I awoke




THE AVENGER.               35
Maximilian, and told him of the dreadful news. He
listened attentively, made no remark, but proposed
that we should go together to the meeting of our
quarter at the Black Friars.  He colored upon
observing the miniature on the table; and, there
fore, I frankly told him in what situation I had found
it, and that I had taken the liberty of admiring it for
a few moments. He pressed it tenderly to his lips,
sighed heavily, and we walked away together.
I pass over the frenzied state of feeling in which
we found the meeting. Fear, or rather horror, did
not promote harmony; many quarrelled with each
other in discussing the suggestions brought forward,
and Maximilian was the only person attended to. He
proposed a nightly mounted patrol for every district.
And in particular he offered, as being himself a member of the university, that the students should form
themselves into a guard, and go out by rotation to keep
watch and ward from sunset to sunrise. Arrangements were made towards that object by the few
people who retained possession of their senses, and
for the present we separated.
Never, in fact, did any events so keenly try the
difference between man and man. Some started up
into heroes under the excitement. Some, alas for
the dignity of man! drooped into helpless imbecility.
Women, in some cases, rose superior to men, but
yet not so often as might have happened under a less
mysterious danger. A woman is not unwomanly
because she confronts danger boldly. But I have
remarked, with respect to female courage, that it
requires, more than that of men, to be sustained by




36               THE AVENGER.
hope; and that it droops more certainly in the presence of a mysterious danger. The fancy of women
is more active, if not stronger, and it influences
more directly the physical nature. In this case few
were the women who made even a show of defying
the danger. On the contrary, with them fear took
the form of sadness, while with many of the men it
took that of wrath.
And how did the Russian guardsman conduct himself amidst this panic? MIany were surprised at his
behavior; some complained of it; I did neither. He
took a reasonable interest in each separate case, listened to the details with attention, and, in the examination of persons able to furnish evidence, never
failed to suggest judicious questions. But still he
manifested a coolness almost amounting to carelessness, which to many appeared revolting. But these
people I desired to notice that all the other military
students, who had been long in the army, felt exactly
in the same way. In fact, the military service of
Christendom, for the last ten years, had been anything but a parade service; and to those, therefore,
who were familiar with every form of horrid butchery, the mere outside horrors of death had lost much
of their terror. In the recent murder there had not
been much to call forth sympathy. The family consisted of two old bachelors, two sisters, and one
grand niece. The niece was absent on a visit, and
the two old men were cynical misers, to whom little
personal interest attached. Still, in this case as in
that of the Weishaupts, the same twofold mystery
confounded the public mind - the mystery of the how,




THE AVENGER.               37
and the profounder mystery of the why. Hero, again,
no atom of property was taken, though both the
misers had hordes of ducats and English guineas in
the very room where they died. Their bias, again,
though of an unpopular character, had rather availed
to make them unknown than to make them hateful.
In one point this case differed memorably from the
other- that, instead of falling helpless, or flying victims (as the Weishaupts had done), these old men,
strong, resolute, and not so much taken by surprise,
left proofs that they had made a desperate defence.
The furniture was partly smashed to pieces, and the
other details furnished evidence still more revolting
of the acharnement with which the struggle had been
maintained. In fact, with them a surprise must have
been impracticable, as they admitted nobody into
their house on visiting terms. It was thought singular that from each of these domestic tragedies a
benefit of the same sort should result to young persons standing in nearly the same relation. The girl
who gave the alarm at the ball, with two little si'sters,
and a little orphan nephew, their cousin, divided the
very large inheritance of the Weishaupts; and in
this latter case the accumulated savings of two
long lives all vested in the person of the amiable
grand niece.
But now, as if in mockery of all our anxious consultations and elaborate devices, three fresh murders
took place on the two consecutive nights succeeding
these new arrangements.  And in one case, as nearly
as time could be noted, the mounted patrol must
have been within call at the very moment when the
4




38                THE AVENGER.
awful work was going on. I shall not dwell mucn
upon them; but a few circumstances are too interesting to be passed over. The earliest case on the
first of the two nights was that of a currier. He was
fifty years old; not rich, but well off. His first wife
was dead, and his daughters by her were married
away from their father's house. I-e had married a
second wife, but, having no children by her, and
keeping no servants, it is probable that, but for an
accident, no third person would have been in the
house at the time when the murderers got admittance. About seven o'clock, a wayfaring man, a
journeyman currier, who, according to our German
system, was now in his wanderjahre, entered the city
from the forest. At the gate he made some inquiries
about the curriers and tanners of our town; and,
agreeably to the information he received, made his
way to this Mr. Heinberg. Mr. Heinberg refused to
admit him, until he mentioned his errand, and pushed
below the door a letter of recommendation from a
Silesian correspondent, describing him as an excellent and steady workman. Wanting such a man,
and satisfied by the answers returned that he was
what he represented himself, Mr. Heinberg unbolted
his door and admitted him.  Then, after slipping the
bolt into its place, he bade him sit to the fire,
brought him a glass of beer, conversed with him for
ten minutes, and said: " You had better stay here
to-night; I'll tell you why afterwards; but now I'11l
step up stairs, and ask my wife whether she can make
up a bed for you; and do you mind the door whilst
I'm away."  So saying, he went out of the room.




THE AVENGER.              39
Not one minute had he been gone when there came a
gentle knock at the door. It was raining heavily,
and, being a stranger to the city, not dreaming that
in any crowded town such a state of things could
exist as really did in this, the young man, without
hesitation, admitted the person knocking. He has
declared since - but, perhaps, confounding the feelings gained from better knowledge with the feelings of the moment-that from the moment he
drew the bolt he had a misgiving that he had done
wrong. A man entered in a horseman's cloak, and
so muffled up that the journeyman could discover
none of his features. In a low tone the stranger said,
"Where's Heinberg? " —" Up  stairs." — " Call
him down, then." The journeyman went to the door
by which Mr. Heinberg had left him, and called,
" Mr. HIeinberg, here's one wanting you i"   r.
lHeinberg heard him, for the man could distinctly
catch these words: " God bless me! has the man
opened the door? 0, the traitor! I see it." Upon
this he felt more and more consternation, though
not knowing why. Just then he heard a sound of
feet behind him. On turning round, he beheld three
more men in the room; one was fastening the outer
door; one was drawing some arms from a cupboard,
and two others were whispering together. He himsedf was disturbed and perplexed, and felt that all
was not right. Such was his confusion, that either
all the men's faces must have been muffled up, or
at least he remembered nothing distinctly but one
fie;ce pair of eyes glaring upon him. Then, before
he could look round, came a man from behind and




40               THE AVENGER.
threw a sack over his head, which was drawn tight
about his waist, so as to confine his arms, as well as
to impede his hearing in part, and his voice altogether. He was then pushed into a room; but previously he had heard a rush up stairs, and words like
those of a person exulting, and then a door closed,
Once it opened, and he could distinguish the words,
in one voice, "And for that!" to which another
voice replied, in tones that made his heart quake,
" Ay, for that, sir." And then the same voice went
on rapidly to say, " 0, dog! could you hope " - at
which word the door closed again. Once he thought
that he heard a scuffle, and he was sure that he heard
the sound of feet, as if rushing from one corner of a
room to another. But then all was hushed and still for
about six or seven minutes, until a voice close to his
ear said, " Now, wait quietly till some persons come
in to release you. This will happen within half an
hour." Accordingly, in less than-that time, he again
heard the sound of feet within the house, his own
bandages were liberated, and he was brought to tell
his story at the police-office. Mr. Heinberg was
found in his bedroom. He had died by strangulation, and the cord was still tightened about his neck.
During the whole dreadful scene his youthful wife
had been locked into a closet, where she heard or saw
nothing.
In the second case, the object of vengeance was
again an elderly man. Of the ordinary family, all
were absent at a country-house, except the master
and a female servant. She was a woman of courage,
and blessed with the firmest nerves; so that she




THE AVENGER.               41
might have been relied on for reporting accurately
everything seen or heard. But things took another
course. The first warning that she had of the murderers' presence was from their steps and voices
already in the hall. She heard her master run hastily into the hall, crying out, " Lord Jesus!-Mary,
Mary, save me! "  The servant resolved to give
what aid she could, seized a large poker, and was
hurrying to his assistance, when she found that they
had nailed up the door of communication at the head
of the stairs. What passed after this she could not
tell; for, when the impulse of intrepid fidelity had
been balked, and she found that her own safety
was provided for by means which made it impossible to aid a poor fellow-creatu-re who had just invoked
her name, the generous-hearted creature was overcome by anguish of mind, and sank down on the
stair, where she lay, unconscious of all that succeeded,
until she found herself raised in the arms of a mob
who had entered the house. And how came they to
have entered? In a way characteristically dreadful.
The night was star-lit; the patrols had perambulated the street without noticing anything suspicious, when two foot-passengers, who were following
in their rear, observed a dark-colored stream traversing the causeway. One of them, at the same instant
tracing the stream backwards with his eyes, observed
that it flowed from under the door of Mr. Munzer,
and, dipping his finger in the trickling fluid, he held
it up to the lamp-light, yelling out at the moment,
" Why, this is blood!"  It was so, indeed, and it
was yet warm. The other saw, heard, and like an
4*




42                THE AVENGER.
arrow flew after the horse-patrol, then in the act of
turning the corner. One cry, full of meaning, was
sufficient for ears full of expectation. The horsemen
pulled up, wheeled, and in another moment reined
up at Mr. Munzer's door. The crowd, gathering
like the drifting of snow, supplied implements which
soon forced the chains of the door and all other
obstacles. But the murderous party had escaped,
and all traces of their persons had vanished, as
usual.
Rarely did any case occur without some peculiarity more or less interesting. In that which happened
on the following night, making the fifth in the series,
an impressive incident varied the monotony of horrors. In this case the parties aimed at were two
elderly ladies, who conducted a female boardingschool. None of the pupils had as yet returned to
school from their vacation; but two sisters, young
girls of thirteen and sixteen, coming from a distance,
had staid at school throughout the Christmas holidays. It was the youngest of these who gave the
only evidence of any value, and one which added a
new feature of alarm to the existing panic. Thus it
was that her testimony was given: On the day befobre the murder, she and her sister were sitting with
the old ladies in a room fronting to the street; the
elder ladies were reading, the younger ones drawing.
Louisa, the youngest, never had her ear inattentive
to the slightest sound, and once it struck her that
she heard the creaking of a foot upon the stairs.
She said nothing, but, slipping out of the room, she
ascertained that the two female servants were in the




TIHE AVENGER.              43
kitchen, and could not have been absent; that all
the doors and windows, by which ingress was possible, were not only locked, but bolted and barred —
a fact which excluded all possibility of invasion by
means of false keys. Still she felt persuaded that
she had heard the sound of a heavy foot upon the
stairs. It was, however, daylight, and this gave her
confidence; so that, without communicating her
alarm to anybody, she found courage to traverse
the house in every direction; and, as nothing was
either seen or heard, she concluded that her ears had
been too sensitively awake. Yet that night, as she
lay in bed, dim terrors assailed her, especially because
she considered that, in so large a house, some closet
or other might have been overlooked, and, in particular, she did not remember to have examined one or
two chests, in which a man could have lain concealed.
Through the greater part of the night she lay awake;
but as one of the town clocks struck four, she dismissed her anxieties, and fell asleep. The next day,
wearied with this unusual watching, she proposed to
her sister that they should go to bed earlier than
usual. This they did; and, on their way up stairs,
Louisa happened to think suddenly of a heavy cloak,
which would improve the coverings of her bed against
the severity of the night. The cloak was hanging
up in a closet within a closet, both leading off from a
large room used as the young ladies' dancing-school.
These closets she had examined on the previous day,
and therefore she felt no particular alarm at this moment. The cloak was the first article which met her
sight; it was suspended from a hook in the wall, and




t44              TRE AVENGER.
close to the door. She took it down, but, in doing
so, exposed part of the wall and of the floor, which
its folds had previously concealed. Turning away
hastily, the chances were that she had gone without
making any discovery. In the act of turning, however, her light fell brightly on a man's foot and leg.
Matchless was her presence of mind; having previously been humming an air, she continued to do so.
But now came the trial; her sister was bending her
steps to the same closet. If she suffered her to do
so, Lottchen would stumble on the same discovery,
and expire of fright. On the other hand, if she gave
her a hint, Lottchen would either fail to understand
her, or, gaining but a glimpse of her meaning, would
shriek aloud, or by some equally decisive expression
convey the fatal news to the assassin that he had
been discovered. In this torturing dilemma fear
prompted an expedient, which to Lottchen appeared
madness, and to Louisa herself the act of a sibyl
instinct with blind inspiration. " Here," said she,
" is our dancing-room.  When shall we all meet and
dance again together?"  Saying which, she commenced a wild dance, whirling her candle round her
head until the motion extinguished it; then, eddying
round her sister in narrowing circles, she seized
Lottchen's candle also, blew it out, and then interrupted her own singing to attempt a laugh. But
the laugh was hysterical. The darkness, however,
favored her; and, seizing her sister's arm, she forced
her along, whispering, " Come, come, come! " Lottchen could not be so dull as entirely to misunderstand
ner. She suffered herself to be led up the first flight




THE AVENGER.               45
of stairs, at the head of which was a room looking
into the street. In this they would have gained an
asylum, for the door had a strong bolt. But, as they
were on the last steps of the landing, they could
hear the hard breathing and long strides of the murderer ascending behind them.  Hte had watched
them through a crevice, and had been satisfied by
the hysterical laugh of Louisa that she had seen
him. In the darkness he could not follow fast, from
ignorance of the localities, until he found himself
upon the stairs. Louisa, dragging her sister along,
felt strong as with the strength of lunacy, but Lottchen hung like a weight of lead upon her. She
rushed into the room, but at the very entrance Lottchen fell. At that moment the assassin exchanged
his stealthy pace for a loud clattering ascent.
Already he was on the topmost stair; already he
was throwing himself at a bound against the door,
when Louisa, having dragged her sister into the
room, closed the door and sent the bolt home in the
very instant that the murderer's hand came into contact with the handle. Then, from the violence of her
emotions, she fell down in a fit, with her arm around
the sister whom she had saved.
How long they lay in this state neither ever knew.
The two old ladies had rushed up stairs on hearing
the tumult. Other persons had been concealed in
other parts of the house. The servants found themselves suddenly locked in, and were not sorry to be
saved from a collision which involved so awful a
danger. The old ladies had rushed, side by side,
into the very centre of those who were seeking them.




46               THE AVENGER.
Retreat was impossible; two persons at least were
heard following them up stairs. Something like a
shrieking expostulation and counter-expostulation
went on between the ladies and the murderers; then
came louder voices - then one heart-piercing shriek,
and then another- and then a slow moaning and a
dead silence. Shortly afterwards was heard the first
crashing of the door inwards by the mob; but the
murderers had fled upon the first alarm, and, to the
astonishment of the servants, had fled upwards.
Examination, however, explained this: from a window in the roof they had passed to an adjoining
house recently left empty; and here, as in other
cases, we had proof how apt people are, in the midst
of elaborate provisions against remote dangers, to
neglect those which are obvious.
The reign of terror, it may be supposed, had now
reached its acmnz. The two old ladies were both
lying dead at different points on the staircase, and,
as usual, no conjecture could be made as to the
nature of the offence which they had given;- but that
the murder was a vindictive one, the usual evidence
remained behind, in the proofs that no robbery had
been attempted. Two new features, however, were
now brought forward in this system of horrors, one
of which riveted the sense of their insecurity to all
families occupying extensive houses, and the other
raised ill blood between the city and the university,
such as required years to allay. The first arose out
of the experience, now first obtained, that these
assassins pursued the plan of secreting themselves
within the house where they meditated a murder.




THE AVENGER.               47
All the care, therefore, previously directed to the
securing of doors and windows after nightfall
appeared nugatory. The other feature brought to
light on this occasion was vouched for by one of the
servants, who declared that, the moment before the
door of the kitchen was fastened upon herself and
fellow-servant, she saw two men in the hall, one on
the point of ascending the stairs, the other making
towards the kitchen; that she could not distinguish
the faces of either, but that both were dressed in the
academic costume belonging to the students of the
university. The consequences of such a declaration
need scarcely be mentioned. Suspicion settled upon
the students, who were more numerous since the general peace, in a much larger proportion military, and
less select or respectable than heretofore. Still, no
part of the mystery was cleared up by this discovery.
Many of the students were poor enough to feel the
temptation that might be offered by any lucrative
system of outrage. Jealous and painful collusions
were, in the mean time, produced; and, during the
latter two months of this winter, it may be said that
our city exhibited the very anarchy of evil passions.
This condition of things lasted until the dawning of
another spring.
It will be supposed that communications were
made to the supreme government of the land as soon
as the murders in our city were understood to be no
casual occurrences, but links in a systematic series.
Perhaps it might happen from some other business,
of a higher kind, just then engaging the attention of
our governors, that our representations did not make




48               THE AVENGER.
the impression we had expected. We could not,
indeed, complain of absolute neglect from the government. They sent down one or two of their most
accomplished police-officers, and they suggested some
counsels, especially that we should examine more
strictly into the quality of the miscellaneous population who occupied our large suburb. But they
more than hinted that no necessity was seen either
for quartering troops upon us, or for arming our local
magistracy with ampler powers.
This correspondence with the central government
occupied the month of March, and, before that time,
the bloody system had ceased as abruptly as it began.
The new police-officer flattered himself that the terror of his name had wrought this effect; but judicious people thought otherwise. All, however, was
quiet* until the depth of summer, when, by way of
hinting to us, perhaps, that the dreadful power which
clothed itself with darkness had not expired, but
was only reposing from its labors, all at once the
chief jailer of the city was missing. He had been
in the habit of taking long rides in the forest, his
present situation being much of a sinecure. It was
on the first of July that he was missed. In riding
through the city gates that morning, he had mentioned the direction which he meant to pursue; and
the last time he was seen alive was in one of the
forest avenues, about eight miles from the city, leading towards the point he had indicated. This jailer
was not a man to be regretted on his own account;
his life had been a tissue of cruelty and brutal abuse
of his powers, in which he had been too much sup



THE AVENGER.               49
ported by the magistrates, partly on the plea that it
was their duty to back their own officers against all
complainers, partly also from the necessities created
by the turbulent times for a more summary exercise
of their magisterial authority. No man, therefore,
on his own separate account, could more willingly
have been spared than this brutal jailer; and it was
a general remark that, had the murderous band within
our walls swept away this man only, they would have
merited the public gratitude as purifiers from a public
nuisance. But was it certain that the jailer had died
by the same hands as had so deeply afflicted the
peace of our city during the winter - or, indeed, that
he had been murdered at all? The forest was too
extensive to be searched; and it was possible that
he might have met with some fatal accident. His
horse had returned to the city gates in the night, and
was found there in the morning. Nobody, however,
for months could give information about his rider;
and it seemed probable that he would not be discovered until the autumn and the winter should again
carry the sportsman into every thicket and dingle of
this sylvan tract. One person only seemed to have
more knowledge on this subject than others, and that
was poor Ferdinand von Harrelstein. He was now
a mere ruin of what he had once been, both as to
intellect and moral feeling; and I observed him
frequently smile when the jailer was mentioned.
"Wait," he would say, "till the leaves begin to
drop; then you will see what fine fruit our forest
bears." I did not repeat these expressions to anybody except one friend, who agreed with me that the
6                      4




5C               THE AVENGER.
jailer had probably been hanged in some recess- of
the forest, which summer veiled with its luxuriant
umbrage; and that Ferdinand, constantly wandering
in the forest, had discovered the body; but we both
acquitted him of having been an accomplice in the
murder,
Meantime the marriage between Margaret Liebenheim and Maximilian was understood to be drawing
near. Yet one thing struck everybody with astonishment. As far as the young people were concerned, nobody could doubt that all was arranged;
for never was happiness more perfect than that which
seemed to unite them. Margaret was the impersonation of May-time and youthful rapture; even Maximilian in her presence seemed to forget his gloom,
and the worm which gnawed at his heart was
charmed asleep by the music of her voice, and the
paradise of her smiles. But, until the autumn came,
Margaret's grandfather had never ceased to frown
upon this connection, and to support the pretensions
of Ferdinand. The dislike, indeed, seemed reciprocal between him and M/aximilian. Each avoided
the other's company; and as to the old man, he went
so far as to speak sneeringly of Maximilian. Maximilian despised him too heartily to speak of him at
all. When he could not avoid meeting him, he
treated him with a stern courtesy, which distressed
Margaret as often as she witnessed it. She felt that
her grandfather had been the aggressor; and she felt
also that he did injustice to the merits of her lover.
But she had a filial tenderness for the old man, as the
father of her sainted mother, and on his own account




THE AVENGER.               51
continually making more claims on her pity, as the
decay of his memory, and a childish fretfulness
growing upon him from day to day, marked his increasing imbecility.
Equally mysterious it seemed, that about this
time Miss Liebenheim began to receive anonymous
letters, written in the darkest and most menacing
terms. Some of them she showed to me. I could
not guess at their drift. Evidently they glanced at
Maximilian, and bade her beware of connection with
him; and dreadful things were insinuated about him.
Could these letters be written by Ferdinand? Written they were not, but could they be dictated by
him? Much I feared that they were; and the more
so for one reason.
All at once, and most inexplicably, Margaret's
grandfather showed a total change of opinion in
his views as to her marriage. Instead of favoring
Harrelstein's pretensions, as he had hitherto done,
he now threw the feeble weight of his encouragement into Maximilian's scale; though, from the situation of all the parties, nobody attached anypractical importance to the change in Mr. Liebenheim's
way of thinking. Nobody? Is tnat true? No; one
person did attach the greatest weight to the change
-poor, ruined Ferdinand. tie, so long as there was
one person to take his part, so long as the grandfather of Margaret showed countenance to himself,
had still felt his situation not utterly desperate.
Thus were things situated, when in November, all
the leaves daily blowing off from the woods, and
leaving bare the most secret haunts of the thickets,




52               THE AVENGER.
the body of the jailer was left exposed in the foiest:
but not, as I and my friend had conjectured, hanged.
No; he had died apparently by a more horrid death —
by that of crucifixion. The tree, a remarkable one,
bore upon a part of its trunk this brief but savage
inscription: — "T. H., jailer at.~; Crucified July
1, 1816."
A great deal of talk went on throughout the city
upon this discovery; nobody uttered one word of
regret on account of the wretched jailer; on the
contrary, the voice of vengeance, rising up in many
a cottage, reached my ears in every direction as I
walked abroad. The hatred in itself seemed horrid
and unchristian, and still more so after the man's
death; but, though horrid and fiendish for itself, it
was much more impressive, considered as the measure and exponent of the damnable oppression which
must have existed to produce it.
At first, when the absence of the jailer was a
recent occurrence, and the presence of the murderers
amongst us was, in consequence, revived to our anxious thoughts, it was an event which few alluded
to without fear. But matters were changed now;
the jailer had been dead for months, and this interval, during which the murderer's hand had slept,
encouraged everybody to hope that the storm had
passed over our city; that peace had returned to our
hearths; and that henceforth weakness might sleep
in safety, and innocence without anxiety.  Once
more we had peace within our walls, and tranquillity
by our firesides. Again the child went to bed in
cheerfulness, and the old man said his prayers in




THE ATENGER.               53
serenity. Confidence was restored; peace was reestablished; and once again the sanctity of human
life became the rule and the principle for all human
hands amongst us. Great was the joy; the happiness was universal.
0, heavens I by what a thunderbolt were we
awakened from our security I On the night of the
twenty-seventh of December, half an hour, it might
be, after twelve o'clock, an alarm was given that all
was not right in the house of Mr. Liebenheim. Vast
was the crowd which soon collected in breathless
agitation. In two minutes a man who had gone
round by the back of the house was heard unbarring
Mr. Liebenheim's door: he was incapable of uttering
a word; but his gestures, as he threw the door open
and beckoned to the crowd, were quite enough. In
the hall, at the further extremity, and as if arrested
in the act of making for the back door, lay the bodies
of old Mr. Liebenheim and one of his sisters, an aged
widow; on the stair lay another sister, younger and
unmarried, but upwards of sixty. The hall and lower
flight of stairs were floating with blood. Where,
then, was Miss Liebenheim, the grand-daughter?
That was the universal cry; for she was beloved as
generally as she was admired. Had the infernal
murderers been devilish enough to break into that
temple of innocent and happy life?  Every one
asked the question, and every one held his breath to
listen; but for a few moments no one dared to advance; for the silence of the house was ominous.
At length some one cried out that Miss Liebenheim
had that day gone upon a visit to a friend, whose
-       5~~6




654              THE AVENGER.
house was forty miles distant in the forest.  " Ay,"
replied another, " she had settled to go; but I heard
that something had stopped her." The suspense was
now at its height, and the crowd passed from room
to room, but found no traces of Miss Liebenheirn. At
length they ascended the stair, and in the very first
room, a small closet, or boudoir, lay Margaret, with
her dress soiled hideously with blood. The first
impression was that she also had been murdered;
but, on a nearer approach, she appeared to be unwounded, and was manifestly alive. Life had not
departed, for her breath sent a haze over a mirror,
but it was suspended, and she was laboring in some
kind of fit. The first act of the crowd was to carry
her into the house of a friend on the opposite side of
the street, by which time medical assistance had
crowded to the spot. Their attentions to Miss Liebenheim had naturally deranged the condition of
things in the little room, but not befbre many people
found time to remark that one of the murderers must
have carried her with his bloody hands to the sofa on
which she lay, for water had been sprinkled profusely
over her face and throat, and water was even placed
ready to her hand, when she might happen to
recover, upon a low footstool by the side of the sofa.
On the following morning, Maximilian, who had
been upon a hunting party in the forest, returned to
the city, and immediately learned the news. I did
not see him for some hours after, but he then
appeared to me thoroughly agitated, for the first
time I had known him to be so. In the evening
another perplexing piece of intelligence transpired




THE AVENGER.                55
with  regard to Miss Liebenheim, which at first
afflicted every friend of that young lady. It was
that she had been seized with the pains of childbirth, and delivered of a son, who, however, being
born prematurely, did not live many hours. Scandal, however, was not allowed long to batten upon
this imaginary triumph, for within two hours after
the circulation of this first rumor, followed a second,
authenticated, announcing that Maximilian had appeared with the confessor of the Liebenheim family,
at the residence of the chief magistrate, and there
produced satisfactory proofs of his marriage with
Miss Liebenheim, which had been duly celebrated,
though with great secrecy, nearly eight months
before. In our city, as in all the cities of our country, clandestine marriages, witnessed, perhaps, by
two friends only of the parties, besides the officiating
priest, are exceedingly common. In the mere fact,
therefore, taken separately, there was nothing to
surprise us, but, taken in connection with the general position of the parties, it did surprise us all;
nor could we conjecture the reason for a step apparently so needless. For, that Maximilian could have
thought it any point of prudence or necessity to
secure the hand of Margaret Liebenheim by a private
marriage, against the final opposition of her grandfather, nobody who knew the parties, who knew the
perfect love which possessed Miss Liebenheim, the
growing imbecility of her grandfather, or the utter
contempt with which Maximilian regarded him, could
for a moment believe. Altogether, the matter was one
of profound mystery.




56               THE AVENGER.
Meantime, it rejoiced me that poor Margaret's
name had been thus rescued from the fangs of the
scandal-mongers. These harpies had their prey torn
from them at the very moment when they were sitting down to the unhallowed banquet. For this I
rejoiced, but else there was little subject for rejoicing in anything which concerned poor Margaret.
Long she lay in deep insensibility, taking no notice
of anything, rarely opening her eyes, and apparently
unconscious of the revolutions, as they succeeded,
of morning or evening, light or darkness, yesterday
or to-day. Great was the agitation which convulsed
the heart of Maximilian during this period; he
walked up and down in the cathedral nearly all day
long, and the ravages which anxiety was working in
his physical system might be read in his face.
People felt it an intrusion upon the sanctity of his
grief to look at him too narrowly, and the whole
town sympathized with his situation.
At length a change took place in Margaret, but
one which the medical men announced to Maximilian as boding ill for her recovery. The wanderings of her mind did not depart, but they altered
their character. She became more agitated; she
would start up suddenly, and strain her eyesight
after some figure which she seemed to see; then
she would apostrophize some person in the most piteous terms, beseeching him, with streaming eyes, to
spare her old grandfather.  "Look, look," she
would cry out, " look at,is gray hairs I 0, sir! he
is but a child; he does net know what he says; and
he will soon be out of the way and in his grave;




THE AVENGER.               57
and very soon, sir, he will give you no more
trouble."  Then, again, she would mutter indistinctly for hours together; sometimes she would cry
out frantically, and say things which terrified the
bystanders, and which the physicians would solemnly caution them how they repeated; then she
would weep, and invoke Maximilian to come and aid
her. But seldom, indeed, did that name pass her
lips that she did not again begin to strain her eyeballs, and start up in bed to watch some phantom
of her poor, fevered heart, as if it seemed vanishing
into some mighty distance.
After nearly seven weeks passed in this agitating
state, suddenly, on one morning, the earliest and the
loveliest of dawning spring, a change was announced
to us all as having taken place in Margaret; but
it was a change, alas! that ushered in the last
great change of all. The conflict, which had for so
long a period raged within her, and overthrown her
reason, was at an end; the strife was over, and
nature was settling into an everlasting rest. In the
course of the night she had recovered her senses.
When the morning light penetrated through her curtain, she recognized her attendants, made inquiries
as to the month and the day of the month, and then,
sensible that she could not outlive the day, she requested that her confessor might be summoned.
About an hour and a half the confessor remained
alone with her. At the end of that time he came
out, and hastily summoned the attendants, for Margaret, he said, was sinking into a fainting fit. The
confessor himself might have passed through many




58               THE AVENGER.
a fit, so much was he changed by the results of this
interview. I crossed him coming out of the house.
I spoke to him —I called to him; but he heard me
not — he saw me not. He saw nobody. Onwards he
strode to the cathedral, where Maximilian was sure
to be found, pacing about upon the graves. Him he
seized by the arm; whispered something into his ear,
and then both retired into one of the many sequestered chapels in which lights are continually burning.
There they had some conversation, but not very long,
for within five minutes Maximilian strode away to
the house in which his young wife was dying. One
step seemed to carry him up stairs. The attendants,
according to the directions they had received from
the physicians, mustered at the head of the stairs to
oppose him. But that was idle: before the rights
which he held as a lover and a husband -before the
still more sacred rights of grief, which he carried in
his countenance, all opposition fled like a dream.
There was, besides, a fury in his eye. A motion
of his hand waved them off like summer flies; he
entered the room, and once again, for the last time,
he was in company with his beloved.
What passed who could pretend to guess? Something more than two hours had elapsed, during which
Margaret had been able to talk occasionally, which
was known, because at times the attendants heard
the sound of Maximilian's voice evidently in tones
of reply to something which she had said. At the
end of that time, a little bell, placed near the bed.
side, was rung hastily. A fainting fit had seized Mar.
garet; but she recovered almost before her women




TEE AVENGER.               59
applied the usual remedies.  They lingered, however, a little, looking at the youthful couple with an
interest which no restraints availed to check. Their
hands were locked together, and in Margaret's eyes
there gleamed a farewell light of love, which settled
upon Maximilian, and seemed to indicate that she
was becoming speechless. Just at this moment she
made a feeble effort to draw Maximilian towards her;
he bent forward and kissed her with an anguish that
made the most callous weep, and then he whispered
something into her ear, upon which the attendants
retired, taking this as a proof that their presence was
a hindrance to a free communication. But they heard
no more talking, and in less than ten minutes they returned. Maximilian and Margaret still retained their
former position. Their hands were fast locked together; the same parting ray of affection, the same
farewell light of love, was in the eye of Margaret, and
still it settled upon Maximilian. But her eyes were
beginning to grow dim; mists were rapidly stealing
over them. Maximilian, who sat stupefied and like one
not in his right mind, now, at the gentle request of
the women, resigned his seat, for the hand which had
clasped his had already relaxed its hold; the farewell
gleam of love had departed. One of the women closed
her eyelids; and there fell asleep forever the loveliest
flower that our city had reared for generations.
The funeral took place on the fourth day after her
death.  In the morning of that day, from strong
affection —having known her from  an infant- I
begged permission to see the corpse. She was in her
coffin; snow-drops and crocuses were laid upon her




60               THE AVENGER.
innocent bosom, and roses, of that sort which the
season allowed, over her person. These and other
lovely symbols of youth, of spring-time, and of resurrection, caught my eye for the first moment; but
in the next it fell upon her face. Mighty God! what
a change I what a transfiguration!  Still, indeed,
there was the same innocent sweetness; still there
was something of the same loveliness; the expression still remained; but for the features — all trace
of flesh seemed to have vanished; mere outline of
bony structure remained; mere pencillings and
shadowings of what she once had been. This is, indeed, I exclaimed, "dust to dust —ashes to ashes! "
Maximilian, to the astonishment of everybody,
attended the funeral.  It was celebrated in the
cathedral. All made way for him, and at times he
seemed collected; at times he reeled like one who
was drunk. He heard as one who hears not; he
saw as one in a dream. The whole ceremony went
on by torchlight, and towards the close he stood
like a pillar, motionless, torpid, frozen.  But the
great burst of the choir, and the mighty blare ascending from our vast organ at the closing of the
grave, recalled him to himself, and he strode rapidly
homewards. Half an hour after I returned, I was
summoned to his bed-room. He was in bed, calm
and collected. What he said to me I remember as
if it had been yesterday, and the very tone with
which he said it, although more than twenty years
have passed since then. He began thus: " I have
not long to live; " and when he saw me start, suddenly awakened into a consciousness that perhaps




THE AVENGER.               61
he had taken poison, and meant to intimate as much
he continued: "You fancy I have taken poison; --
no matter whether I have or not; if I have, the
poison is such that no antidote will now avail; or,
if they would, you well know that some griefs are
of a kind which leave no opening to any hope.
What difference, therefore, can it make whether I
leave this earth to-day, to-morrow, or the next day?
Be assured of this-that whatever I have determined
to do is past all power of being affected by a human
opposition. Occupy yourself not with any fruitless
attempts, but calmly listen to me, else I know what
to do." Seeing a suppressed fury in his eye, notwithstanding I saw also some change stealing over
his features as if from some subtle poison beginning
to work upon his frame, awe-struck I consented to
listen, and sat still. "It is well that you do so,
for my time is short. Here is my will, legally
drawn up, and you will see that I have committed
-an immense property to your discretion.  HIere,
again, is a paper still more important in my eyes;
it is also testamentary, and binds you to duties
which may not be so easy to execute as the disposal
of my property. But now listen to something else,
which concerns neither of these papers. Promise me,
in the first place, solemnly, that whenever I die you
will see me buried in the same grave as my wife, from
whose funeral we are just returned. Promise."I promised.-" Swear." —I swore.-"Finally, prom.
ise me that, when you read this second paper which
I have put into your hands, whatsoever you may
think of it, you will say nothing -publish nothing




62               THE AVENGER.
to the world until three years shall have passed." --
I promised. — " And now farewell for three hours.
Come to me again about ten o'clock, and take a glass
of wine in memory of old times." This he said laughingly; but even then a dark spasm crossed his face.
Yet, thinking that this might be the mere working
of mental anguish within ]him, I complied with his
desire, and retired. Feeling, however, but little at
ease, I devised an excuse for looking in upon him
about one hour and a half after I had left him. I
knocked gently at his door; there was no answer. I
knocked louder; still no answer. I went in. The light
of day was gone, and I could see nothing. But I was
alarmed by the utter stillness of the room.. I listened
earnestly, but not a breath could be heard. I rushed
back hastily into the hall for a lamp; I returned; I
looked in upon this marvel of manly beauty, and
the first glance informed me that he and all his
splendid endowments had departed forever.  Ile
had died, probably, soon after I left him, and had
dismissed me from some growing instinct which informed him that his last agonies were at hand.
I took up his two testamentary documents; both
were addressed in the shape of letters to myself.
The first was a rapid though distinct appropriation
of his enormous property. General rules were laid
down, upon which the property was to be distributed,
but the details were left to my discretion, and to the
guidance of circumstances as they should happen
to emerge from the various inquiries which it would
become necessary to set on foot. This first document I soon laid aside, both because I found that its




THE AVENGER.               63
provisions were dependent for their meaning upon
the second, and because to this second document I
looked with confidence for a solution of many mysteries; -of the profound sadness which had, from the
first of my acquaintance with him, possessed a man
so gorgeously endowed as the favorite of nature and
fortune; of his motives for huddling up, in a clandestine manner, that connection which formed the
glory of his life; and possibly (but then I hesitated)
of the late unintelligible murders, which still lay
under as profound a cloud as ever. Much of this
would be unveiled —all might be: and there and
then, with the corpse lying beside me of the gifted
and mysterious writer, I seated myself, and read the
fbllowing statement:
"MARCH 26, 1817.
"My trial is finished; my conscience, my duty,
my honor, are liberated; my' warfare is accomplished.' Margaret, my innocent young wife, I have
seen for the last time. Her, the crown that might
have been of my earthly felicity -her, the one temptation to put aside the bitter cup which awaited me
-her, sole seductress (0, innocent seductress!)
from the stern duties which my fate had imposed
upon me -her, even her, I have sacrificed.
" Before I go, partly lest the innocent should be
brought into question for acts almost exclusively
mine, but still more lest the lesson and the warning
which God, by my hand, has written in blood upon
your guilty walls, should perish for want of its
authentic exposition, hear my last dying avowal,




64               THE AVENGER.
that tile murders which have desolated so many
families within your walls, and made the household
hearth no sanctuary, age no charter of protection,
are all due originally to my head, if not always to
my hand, as the minister of a dreadful retribution.
" That account of my history, and my prospects,
which you received from the Russian diplomatist,
among some errors of little importance, is essentially
correct. My father was not so immediately connected with English blood as is there represented.
Eowever, it is true that he claimed descent fiom an
English family of even higher distinction than that
which is assigned in the Russian statement. He
was proud of this English descent, and the more so
as the war with revolutionary France brought out
more prominently than ever the moral and civil
grandeur of England. This pride was generous, but
it was imprudent in his situation. His immediate
progenitors had been settled in Italy - at Rome first,
but latterly at Milan; and his whole property, large
and scattered, came, by the progress of the revolution, to stand under French domination.  Many
spoliations he suffered; but still he was too rich to
be seriously injured. But he foresaw, in the progress
of events, still greater perils menacing his most capital resources. Many of the states or princes in Italy
were deeply in his debt; and, in the great convulsions which threatened his country, he saw that both
the contending parties would find a colorable excuse
for absolving themselves from engagements which
pressed unpleasantly upon their finances. In this
embarrassment he formed an intimacy with a French




THE AVENGER.               65
officer of high rank and high principle. My father's
friend saw his danger, and advised him to enter the
French service. In his younger days, my father had
served extensively under many princes, and had found
in every other military service a spirit of honor governing the conduct of the officers. Here only, and for
the first time, he found ruffian manners and universal
rapacity. He could not draw his sword in company
with such men, nor in such a cause. But at length,
under the pressure of necessity, he accepted (or
rather bought with an immense bribe) the place of a
commissary to the French forces in Italy. WVith this
one resource, eventually he succeeded in making
good the whole of his public claims upon the Italian
states. These vast sums he remitted, through various channels, to England, where he became proprietor
in the funds to an immense amount. Incautiously,
however, something of this transpired, and the result
was doubly unfortunate; for, while his intentions
were thus made known as finally pointing to England,
which of itself made him an object of hatred and
suspicion, it also diminished his means of bribery.
These considerations, along with another, made some
French officers of high rank and influence the bitter
enemies of my father. My mother, whom he had
married when holding a brigadier-general's commission in the Austrian service, was, by birth and by
religion, a Jewess. She was of exquisite beauty,
and had been sought in Morganatic marriage by an
archduke of the Austrian family; but she had relied
upon this plea, that hers was the purest and noblest
6*                  6




66               THE AVENGER.
blood amongst all Jewish families - that her family
traced themselves, by tradition and a vast series of
attestations under the hands of the Jewish highpriests, to the Maccabees, and to the royal houses
of Judea; and that for her it would be a degradation
to accept even of a sovereign prince on the terms
of such marriage. This was no vain pretension of
ostentatious vanity. It was one which had been
admitted as valid for time immemorial in Transylvania and adjacent countries, where my mother's family
were rich and honored, and took their seat amongst
the dignitaries of the land. The French officers I
have alluded to, without capacity for anything so
dignified as a deep passion, but merely in pursuit of
a vagrant fancy that would, on the next day, have
given place to another equally fleeting, had dared to
insult my mother with proposals the most licentious
- proposals as much below her rank and birth, as,
at any rate, they would have been below her dignity
of mind and her purity. These she had communicated to my father, who bitterly resented the chains
of subordination which tied up his hands from avenging his injuries. Still his eye told a tale which his
superiors could brook as little as they could the disdainful neglect of his wife. More than one had been
concerned in the injuries to my father and mother;
more than one were interested in obtaining revenge.
Things could be done in German towns, and by
favor of old German laws or usages, which even in
France could not have been tolerated. This my
father's enemies well knew, but this my father also
knew; and he endeavored to lay down his office of




THE AVENGER.              67
commissary. That, however, was a favor which he
could not obtain. Hie was compelled to serve on the
German campaign then commencing, and on the subsequent one of Friedland and Eylau. Here he was
caught in some one of the snares laid for him; first
trepanned into an act which violated some rule of
the service; and then provoked into a breach of discipline against the general officer who had thus tre
panned him. Now was the long-sought opportunity
gained, and in that very quarter of Germany best
fitted for improving it. My father was thrown into
prison in your city, subjected to the atrocious
oppression of your jailer, and the more detestable
oppression of your local laws. The charges against
him were thought even to affect his life, and he was
humbled into suing for permission to send for his
wife and children. Already, to his proud spirit, it
was punishment enough that he should be reduced
to sue for favor to one of his bitterest foes. But it
was no part of their plan to refuse that. By way of
expediting my mother's arrival, a military courier,
with every facility for the journey, was forwarded to
her without delay. My mother, her two daughters,
and myself, were then residing in Venice. I had,
through the aid of my father's connections in Austria,
been appointed in the imperial service, and held a
high commission for my age. But, on my father's
marching northwards with the French army, I had
been recalled as an indispensable support to my
mother. Not that my years could have made me
such, for I had barely accomplished my twelfth year;
but my premature growth, and my military station,




68               THE AVENGER.
had given me considerable knowledge of the world
and presence of mind.
"Our journey I pass over; but as I approach your
city, that sepulchre of honor and happiness to my
poor family, my heart beats with frantic emotions.
Never do I see that venerable dome of your minster
from the forest, but I curse its form, which reminds
me of what we then surveyed for many a mile as we
traversed the forest. For leagues before we approached the city, this object lay before us in relief
upon the frosty blues sky; and still it seemed never
to increase. Such was the complaint of my little
sister Mariamne. Most innocent child! would that
it never had increased for thy eyes, but remained forever at a distance i! That same hour began the series
of monstrous indignities which terminated the career
of my ill-fated family. As we drew up to the city
gates, the officer who inspected the passports, finding
my mother and sisters described as Jewesses, which in
my mother's ears (reared in a region where Jews are
not dishonored) always sounded a title of distinction,
summoned a subordinate agent, who in coarse terms
demanded his toll. We presumed this to be a roadtax for the carriage and horses, but we were quickly
undeceived; a small sum was demanded for each of
my sisters and my mother, as for so many head of
cattle.. I, fancying some mistake, spoke to the man
temperately, and, to do him justice, he did not seem
desirous of insulting us; but he produced a printed
board, on which, along with the vilest animals, Jews
and Jewesses were rated at so much a head. Whilst
we were debating the point, the officers of the gate




THE AVENGER.               69
wore a sneering smile upon their faces - the postilions were laughing together; and this, too, in the
presence of three creatures whose exquisite beauty,
in different styles, agreeably to their different ages,
would have caused noblemen to have fallen down
and worshipped. My mother, who had never yet
met with any flagrant insult on account of her national distinctions, was too much shocked to be capable of speaking. I whispered to her a few words,
recalling her to her native dignity of mind, paid the
money, and we drove to the prison. But the hour
was past at which we could be admitted, and, as
Jewesses, my mother and sisters could not be allowed
to stay in the city; they were to go into the Jewish
quarter, a part of the suburb set apart for Jews, in
which it was scarcely possible to obtain a lodging
tolerably clean. My father, on the next day, we
found, to our horror, at the point of death. To my
mother he did not tell the worst of what he had endured.  To me he told that,, driven to madness by
the insults offered to him, he had upbraided the
court-martial with their corrupt propensities, and had
even mentioned that overtures had been made to him
for quashing the proceedings in return for a sum of
two millions of francs; and that his sole reason for
not entertaining the proposal was his distrust of
those who made it.'They would have taken my
money,' said he,' and then found a pretext for putting me to death, that I might tell no secrets.'
This was too near the truth to be tolerated; in concert with the local authorities, the military enemies
of my father conspired against him - witnesses were




0o               THE AVENGER.
suborned; and, finally, under some antiquated law
of the place, he was subjected, in secret, to a mode
of torture which still lingers in the east of Europe.
"He sank under the torture and the degradation.
I, too, thoughtlessly, but by a natural movement of
filial indignation, suffered the truth to escape me in
conversing with my mother. And she; but I
will preserve the regular succession of things. IMy
father died; but he had taken such measures, in
concert with me, that his enemies should never benefit by his property. Meantime my mother and sisters had closed my father's eyes; had attended his
remains to the grave; and in every act connected
with this last sad rite had met with insults and
degradations too mighty for human patience. My
mother, now become incapable of self-command, in
the fury of her righteous grief, publicly and in court
denounced the conduct of the magistracy — taxed
some of them with the vilest proposals to herself —
taxed them as a body with having used instruments
of torture upon my father; and, finally, accused them
of collusion with the French military oppressors of
the district. This last was a charge under which
they quailed; for by that time the French had made
themselves odious to all who retained a spark of
patriotic feeling. My heart sank within me when I
looked up at the bench, this tribunal of tyrants, all
purple or livid with rage; when I looked at them
alternately and at my noble mother with her weeping daughters - these so powerless, those so basely
vindictive, and locally so omnipotent. Willingly I
would have sacrificed all my wealth for a simple per



THE AVENGER.               71
mission to quit this infernal city with my poor female
relations safe and undishonored. But far other were
the intentions of that incensed magistracy.  VMy
mother was arrested, charged with some offence
equal to petty treason, or scandalumn  magnalum, or
the sowing of sedition; and, though what she said
was true, where, alas! was she to look for evidence?
Here was seen the want of gentlemen. Gentlemen,
had they been even equally tyrannical, would have
recoiled with shame from taking vengeance on a
woman.  And what a vengeance!  0, heavenly
powers! that I should live to mention such a thing I
Man that is born of woman, to inflict upon woman
personal scourging on the bare back, and through
the streets at noonday! Even for Christian women
the punishment was severe which the laws assigned
to the offence in question. But for Jewesses, by
one of the ancient laws against that persecuted
people, far heavier and more degrading punishments
were annexed to almost every offence. What else
could be looked for in a city which welcomed its
Jewish guests by valuing them at its gates as brute
beasts? Sentence was passed, and the punishment
was to be inflicted on two separate days, with an
interval between each — doubtless to prolong the
tortures of mind, but under a vile pretence of alleviating the physical torture. Three days after would
come the first day of punishment.  lIy mother spent
the time in reading her native Scriptures; she spent
it in prayer and in musing; whilst her daughters
clung and wept around her day and night - grovelling o;i the ground at the feet of any people in author



172              THE AVENGER.
ity that entered their mother's cell. That same
interval - how was it passed by me? Now mark,
my friend. Every man in office, or that could be presumed to bear the slightest influence, every wife,
mother, sister, daughter of such men, I besieged
morning, noon, and night. I wearied them with my
supplications. I humbled myself to the dust; I, the
haughtiest of God's creatures, knelt and prayed to
them for the sake of my mother. I besought them
that I might undergo the punishment ten times over
in her stead.' And once or twice I did obtain the
encouragement of a few natural tears - given more,
however, as I was told, to my piety than to my
mother's deserts. But rarely was I heard out with
patience; and from some houses repelled with personal indignities. The day came: I saw my mother
half undressed by the base officials; I heard the
prison gates expand; I heard the trumpets of the
magistracy sound. She had warned me what to do;
I had warned myself. Would I sacrifice a retribution sacred and comprehensive, for the momentary
triumph over an individual? If not, let me forbear
to look out of doors; for I felt that in the self-same
moment in which I saw the dog of an executioner
raise his accursed hand against my mother, swifter
than the lightning would my dagger search his heart.
When I heard the roar of the cruel mob, I paused -
endured -forbore. I stole out by by-lanes of the
city from my poor exhausted sisters, whom I left
sleeping in each other's innocent, arms, into the
forest. There I listened to the shouting populace;
there even I fancied that I could trace my poor




THE AVENGER.               73
mother's route by the course of the triumphant cries.
There, even then, even then, I made -0, silent
forest! thou heardst me when I made - a vow that I
have kept too faithfully. 3Mother, thou art avenged:
sleep, daughter of Jerusalem! for at length the
oppressor sleeps with thee. And thy poor son has
paid, in discharge of his vow, the forfeit of his own
happiness, of a paradise opening upon earth, of a
heart as innocent as thine, and a face as fair.
" I returned, and found my mother returned. She
slept by starts, but she was feverish and agitated;
and when she awoke and first saw me, she blushed,
as if I could think that real degradation had settled
upon her. Then it was that I told her of my vow.
Her eyes were lambent with fierce light for a moment; but, when I went on more eagerly to speak
of my hopes and projects, she called me to herkissed me, and whispered:' 0, not so, my son! think
not of me-think not of vengeance- think only of
poor Berenice and lMariamne.' Ay, that thought was
startling. Yet this magnanimous and forbearing
mother, as I knew by the report of our one faithful
female servant, had, in the morning, during her bitter
trial, behaved as might have become a daughter of
Judas MIaccabaus: she had looked serenely upon the
vile mob, and awed even them by her serenity; she
had disdained to utter a shriek when the cruel lash
fell upon her fair skin. There is a point that makes
the triumph over natural feelings of pain easy or not
easy -the degree in which we count upon the sympathy of the bystanders. liMy mother had it not in
the beginning; but, long before the end, her celestial
7




to:              THE AVENGER.
beauty, the divinity of injured innocence, the plead.
ing of common womanhood in the minds of the
lowest class, and the reaction of manly feeling in
the men, had worked a great change in the mob.
Some began now to threaten those who had been
active in insulting her. The silence of awe and respect succeeded to noise and uproar; and feelings
which they scarcely understood, mastered the rude
rabble as they witnessed more and more the patient
fortitude of the sufferer.  Menaces began to rise
towards the executioner.  Things wore such an
aspect that the magistrates put a sudden end to the
scene.
"That day we received permission to go home
to our poor house in the Jewish quarter. I know
not whether you are learned enough in Jewish
usages to be aware that in every Jewish house,
where old traditions are kept up, there is one room
consecrated to confusion; a room always locked up
and sequestered from vulgar use, except on occasions of memorable affliction, where everything is
purposely in disorder - broken - shattered - mutilated: to typify, by symbols appalling to the eye,
that desolation which has so long trampled on Jerusalem, and the ravages of the boar within the vineyards of Judea. My mother, as a Hebrew princess,
maintained all traditional customs. Even in this
wretched suburb she had her'chamber of desolation.' There it was that I and my sisters heard her
last words. The rest of her sentence was to be carried into effect within a week. She, mean time, had
disdained to utter any word of fear; but that




THE AVENGER,               7 5
energy of self-control had made the suffering but
the more bitter. Fever and dreadful agitation had
succeeded. HTer dreams showed sufficiently to us,
who watched her couch, that terror for the future
mingled with the sense of degradation for the past.
Nature asserted her rights.  But the more she
shrank from the suffering, the more did she proclaim how severe it had been, and consequently how
noble the self-conquest.  Yet, as her weakness
increased, so did her terror; until I besought her to
take comfort, assuring her that, in case any attempt
should be made to force her out again to public
exposure, I would kill the man who came to execute
the order - that we would all die together - and
there would be a common end to her injuries and her
fears. She was reassured by what I told her of my
belief that no future attempt would be made upon
her.  She slept more tranquilly - but her fevei
increased; and slowly she slept away into the everlasting sleep which knows of no to-morrow.
" Here came a crisis in my fate. Should I stay
and attempt to protect my sisters?  But, alas J
what power had I to do so amongst our enemies?
Rachael and I consulted; and many a scheme wQ
planned. Even whilst we consulted, and the very
night after my mother had been committed to the
Jewish burying-ground, came an officer, bearing an
order for me to repair to Vienna. Some officer in
the French army, having watched the transaction
respecting my parents, was filled with shame and
grief. lHe wrote a statement of the whole to an
Austrian officer of rank, my father's friend, who




'76              THE AVENGER
obtained fiom the emperor an order, claiming me as
a page of his own, and an officer in the household
service.  0, heavens! what a neglect that it did
not include my sisters!  However, the next best
thing was that I should use my influence at the
imperial court to get them passed to Vienna. This
I did, to the utmost of my power. But seven
months elapsed before I saw the emperor. If my
applications ever met his eye he might readily suppose that your city, my friend, was as safe a place
as another for my sisters. Nor did I myself know
all its dangers. At length, with the emperor's leave
of absence, I returned.  And what did I find?
Eight months had passed, and the faithful Rachael
had died. The poor sisters, clinging together, but
now utterly bereft of friends, knew not which way
to turn. In this abandonment they fell into the
insidious hands of the ruffian jailer. My eldest sister, Berenice, the stateliest and noblest of beauties,
had attracted this ruffian's admiration while she was
in the  prison with  her mother.  And  when I
returned to your city, armed with the imperial
passports for all, I found that Berenice had died in
the villain's custody; nor could I obtain anything
beyond a legal certificate of her death. And, finally,
the blooming, laughing Mariamne, she also had died
- and of affliction for the loss of her sister. You,
my friend, had been absent upon your travels during
the calamitous history i have recited. You had
seen neither my father nor my mother. But you
came in 4ime to take under your protection, from the
abhorred wretch the jailer, my little broken-hearted




THE AVENGER.               7 
Mariamne. And when sometimes you fancied that you
had seen me under other circumstances, in her it was,
my dear friend, and in her features that you saw mine.
"Now was the world a desert to me. I cared
little, in the way of love, which way I turned. But
in the way of hatred I cared everything. I transferred myself to the Russian service, with the view
of gaining some appointment on the Polish frontier,
which might put it in my power to execute my vow
of destroying all the magistrates of your city
War, however, raged, and carried me into far other
regions. It ceased, and there was little prospect
that another generation would see it relighted; for
the disturber of peace was a prisoner forever, and
all nations were exhausted. Now, then, it became
necessary that I should adopt some new mode for
executing my vengeance; and the more so, because
annually some were dying of those whom it was my
mission to punish. A voice ascended to me, day
and night, from the graves of my father and mother,
calling for vengeance before it should be too late.
I took my measures thus: ~Many Jews were present
at Waterloo.  From  amongst these, all irritated
against Napoleon for the expectations he had raised,
only to disappoint, by his great assembly of Jews
at Paris, I selected eight, whom I knew familiarly
as men hardened by military experience against the
movements of pity. With these as my beagles, I
hunted for some time in your forest before opening
my regular campaign; and I am. surprised that you
did not hear of the death which met the executioner
- him I mean who dared to lift his hand against my
7*




78               THE AVENGER.
mother  This man I met by accident in the forest;
and I slew him. I talked with the wretch, as a
stranger at first, upon the memorable case of the
Jewish lady. Had he relented, had he expressed
compunction, I might have relented. But far otherwise: the dog, not dreaming to whom he spoke,
exulted; he    -  But why repeat the villain's
words? I cut him to pieces. Next I did this: My
agents I caused to matriculate separately at the college. They assumed the college dress. And now
mark the solution of that mystery which caused
such perplexity. Simply as students we all had an
unsuspected admission at any house. Just then
there was a common practice, as you will remember,
amongst the younger students, of going out a masking —that is, of entering houses in the academic
dress, and with the face masked. This practice
subsisted even during the most intense alarm from
the murderers; for the dress of the students was
supposed to bring protection along with it. But,
even after suspicion had connected itself with this
dress, it was sufficient that I should appear
unmasked at the head of the maskers, to insure
them a friendly reception. Hence the facility with
which death was inflicted, and that unaccountable
absence of any motion towards an alarm. I took
hold of my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security. Our weapons were hid under our
academic robes; and even when we drew them out,
and at the moment of applying them to the throat,
they still supposed our gestures to be part of the
pantomime we were performing. Did I relish this




THE AVENGER.               79
abuse of personal confidence in myself? No - I
loathed it, and I grieved for its necessity; but my
mother, a phantom not seen with bodily eyes, but
ever present to my mind, continually ascended
before me; and. still I shouted aloud to my
astounded victim,'This comes from the Jewess I
HIound of hounds! Do you remember the Jewess
whom you dishonored, and the oaths which you
broke in order that you might dishonor her, and the
righteous law which you violated, and the cry of
anguish from her son which you scoffed at?'  Who
I was, what I avenged, and whom, I made every
man aware, and every woman, before I punished
them. The details of the cases I need not repeat.
One or two I was obliged, at the beginning, to commit to my Jews. The suspicion was thus, from the
first, turned aside by the notoriety of my presence
elsewhere; but I took care that none suffered who
had not either been upon the guilty list of magistrates who condemned the mother, or of those who
turned away with mockery from the supplication of
the son.
"It pleased God, however, to place a mighty
temptation in my path, which might have persuaded
me to forego all thoughts of vengeance, to forget
my vow, to forget the voices which invoked me
firom the grave.  This was rMargaret Liebenheim.
Ah I how terrific appeared my duty of bloody retribution, after her angel's face and angel's voice had
calmed me.  With respect to her grandfather,
strange it is to mention, that never did my innocent wife appear so lovely as precisely in the rela.




80               THE AVENGER.
tion of grand-daughter. So beautiful was her good
ness to the old man, and so divine was the childlike
innocence on her part, contrasted with the guilty
recollections associated with  him-for he was
amongst the guiltiest towards my mother — still I
delayed his punishment to the last; and, for his
child's sake, I would have pardoned him — nay, I
had resolved to do so, when a fierce Jew, who had
a deep malignity towards this man, swore that he
would accomplish his vengeance at all events, and
perhaps might be obliged to include Margaret in
the ruin, unless I adhered to the original scheme'Then I yielded; for circumstances armed this man
with momentary power. But the night fixed on was
one in which I had reason to know that my wife
would be absent; for so I had myself arranged with
her, and the unhappy counter-arrangement I do not
yet understand. Let me add, that the sole purpose
of my clandestine marriage was to sting her grandfather's mind with the belief that his family had
been dishonored, even as he had dishonored mine.
He learned, as I took care that he should, that his
grand-daughter carried about with her the promises
of a mother, and did not know that she had the
sanction of a wife. This discovery made him, in
one day, become eager for the marriage he had previously opposed; and this discovery also embittered
the misery of his death. At that moment I
attempted to think only of my mother's wrongs;
but, in spite of all I could do, this old man appeared
to me in the light of Margaret's grandfather -and,
had I been left to myself, he would have been saved.




THE AVENGER.               81
As it was, never was horror equal to mine when I
met her flying to his succor. I had relied upon her
absence; and the misery of that moment, when her
eye fell upon me in the very act of seizing her
grandfather, far transcended all else that I have
suffered in these terrific scenes. She fainted in my
arms, and I and another carried her up stairs and
procured water. Meantime her grandfather had been
murdered, even whilst Margaret fainted. I had,
however, under the fear of discovery, though never
anticipating a rencontre with herself, forestalled the
explanation requisite in such a case to make my
conduct intelligible. I had told her, under feigned
names, the story of my mother and my sisters. She
knew their wrongs: she had heard me contend for
the right of vengeance. Consequently, in our parting interview, one word only was required to place
myself in a new position to her thoughts. I needed
only to say I was that son; that unhappy mother,
so miserably degraded and outraged, was mine.
"As to the jailer, he was met by a party of us.
Not suspecting that any of us could be connected
with the family, he was led to talk of the most hideous details with regard to my poor Berenice. The
child had not, as:cd been insinuated, aided her own
degradation, but had nobly sustained the dignity of
her sex and her family. Such advantages as the
monster pretended to have gained over her - sick,
desolate, and latterly delirious-were, by his own
confession, not obtained without violence.  This
was too mach. Forty thousand lives, had he pessessed they,n, could not have gratified my thirst for
6




82               THE AVENGER.
revenge.  Yet, had he but showed courage, he
should have died the death of a soldier. But the
wretch showed cowardice the most abject, and
but you know his fate.
"Now, then, all is finished, and human nature is
avenged. Yet, if you complain of the bloodshed
and the terror, th'nk of the wrongs which created
my rights; think of the sacrifice by which I gave a
tenfold strength to those rights; think of the necessity for a dreadful concussion and shock to society,
in order to carry my lesson into the councils of
princes.
" This will now have been effected. And ye, victims of dishonor, will be. glorified in your deaths;
ye will not have suffered in vain, nor died without a
monument.  Sleep, therefore, sister Berenice -
sleep, gentle Ilariamne, in peace. And thou, noble
mother, let the outrages sown in thy dishonor, rise
again and blossom in wide harvests of honor for the
women of thy afflicted race. Sleep, daughters of
Jerusalem, in the sanctity of your sufferings. And
thou, if it be possible, even more beloved daughter
of a Christian fold, whose company was too soon
denied to him in life, open thy grave to receive him,
who, in the hour of death, wishes to remember no
title which he wore on earth but that of thy chosen
and adoring lover,
" MAXIMILIAN." 




ADDITIONS
TO THE "CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUIM-EATER."
DE QUINCEY.
THIS family, which split (or, as a grammatical purist
lately said to me, in a tone of expostulation, sllat)
into three national divisions, - English, French, and
American, - originally was Norwegian; and in the
year of our Christian era one thou-sand spoke (I believe) the most undeniable Norse. Throughout the
eleventh century, the heads of this family (in common with all the ruffians and martial vagabonds of
Europe, that had Venetian sequins enough disposable for such a trip) held themselves in readiness to
join any likely leader; and did join William the Norman. Very few, indeed, or probably none, of his
brigands were Frenchmen, or native Neustrians;
Normans being notoriously a name not derivedfromn
any French province, but imported into that province
by trans-Baltic, and in a smaller proportion by cisBaltic aliens.  This Norwegian family, having assumed a territorial denomination from the district or
village of Quincy, in the province now called Normandy, transplanted themselves to England; where,
(83)




84             ADDITIONS TO THE
and subsequently by marriage in Scotland, they ascended to the highest rank in both kingdoms, and
held the highest offices open to a subject. A late
distinguished writer, Mr. Moir, of Musselburgh, the
Delta of " Blackwood's Magazine," took the trouble
(which must have been considerable) of tracing their
aspiring movements in Scotland, through a period
when Normans transferred themselves from England
to Scotland in considerable numbers, and with great
advantages. This elaborate paper, published many
years ago in "Blackwood's Magazine," first made
known the leading facts of their career in Scotland.
Meantime in England they continued to flourish
through nine or ten generations; took a distinguished part in one, at least, of the Crusades; and
a still more perilous share in the Barons' Wars,
under Henry III. No family drank more deeply or
more frequently from the cup of treason, which in
those days was not always a very grave offence in
people who having much territorial influence had
also much money. But, happening to drink once
too often, or taking too long a "pull" at the cup,
the Earls of Winchester suddenly came to grief.
Amongst the romances of astronomy, there is one,
I believe, which has endeavored to account for the
little asteroids of our system, by supposing them
fragments of some great planet that had, under
internal convulsion or external collision, at some
period suddenly exploded. In our own planet Tellus,
such a county as York, under a similar catastrophe,
would make a very pretty little asteroid. And, with
some miniature resemblance to such a case, some



CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.         85
times benefiting by the indulgence of the crown,
sometimes by legal devices, sometimes by aid of
matrimonial alliances, numerous descendants, confessedly innocent, from the guilty earl, projected
themselves by successive efforts, patiently watching
their opportunities, from  the smoking ruins of the
great feudal house; stealthily through two generations creeping out of their lurking holes; timidly,
when the great shadows from the threatening throne
had passed over, reassuming the family name.  Concurrently with these personal fragments projected
from  the ancient house, flew  off random  splinters
and fragments from  the great planetary disk of the
Winchester estates, little asteroids that formed ample
inheritances for the wants of this or that provincial
squire, of this or that tame villatic squireen.*
The kingly old oak, that had been the leader of the
forest, was thus suddenly (in the technical language
of wood-craft) cut down into a " pollard." This mutilation forever prevented it from  aspiring cloudwards
by means of some mighty stem, such as grows upon
Norwegian hills, fit to be the mast of "some great
ammiral." Nevertheless, we see daily amongst the
realities of nature, that a tree, after passing through
such a process of degradation, yet manifests the
great arrears of vindictive life lurking within it, by
throwing out a huge radiation of slender boughs and
* This last variety of the rustic regulus is of Hibernian origin;
and, as regards the name, was unknown to us in England until
Miss Edgeworth had extended the horizon of our social experience.
Yet, without the name, I presume that the thing must have been
known occasionally even in England.
8




86              ADDITIONS TO THE
miniature shoots, small but many, so that we are
forced exactly to invert the fine words of Lucan,
saying no longer, trunco, con friondibus efficit um braen,
but, on the contrary, nonz trunco sed frondibus elflicit
umbraem.  This great cabbage-head of this ancient
human tree threw a broad massy umbrage over more
villages than one; sometimes yielding representatives moody and mutinous, sometimes vivacious and
inventive, sometimes dull and lethargic, until at last,
one fine morning, on rubbing their eyes, they found
themselves actually in the sixteenth century abreast
of Henry VIII. and his fiery children. Ah, what a
century was that! Sculptured as only Froude can
sculpture those that fight across the chasms of eternity; grouped as only Froude can group the mighty
factions, acting or suffering, arraigning before chanceries of man, or protesting before chanceries of God
-what vast arrays of marble gladiators fighting for
truth, real or imagined, throng the arenas in each
generation of that and the succeeding century! And
how ennobling a distinction of modern humanity,
that in Pagan antiquity no truth as yet existed, none
had been revealed, none emblazoned, on behalf of
which man could have fought! As Lord Bacon remarks, - though strangely, indeed, publishing in the
very terms of this remark his own blindness to the
causes and consequences,- religious wars were unknown to antiquity. Personal interests, and those
only, did or could furnish a subject of conflict. But
throughout the sixteenth century, whether in England, in France, or in Germany, it was a spiritual
interest, shadowy and aerial, which embattled armies




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUAM-EATER.     81
against armies. Simply the nobility of this interest
it was, simply the grandeur of a cause moving by
springs transcendent to all vulgar and mercenary
collisions of prince with prince, or family with family,
that arrayed man against man, not upon petty combinations of personal intrigue, but upon questions of
everlasting concern - this majestic principle of the
strife it was that constituted for the noblest minds its
secret magnetism. Early in the seventeenth century,
when it seemed likely that the interests of a particular family would be entangled with the principles at
issue, multitudes became anxious to evade-the strife
by retiring to the asylum of forests. Amongst these
was one branch of the De Quinceys. Enamored of
democracy, this family, laying aside the aristocratic
De attached to their name, settled in New England,
where they subsequently rose, through long public
services, to the highest moral rank -as measured
by all possible expressions of public esteem that are
consistent with the simplicities of the great republic.
Arl- Josiah Quincy, as head of this distinguished family, is appealed to as one who takes rank by age and
large political experience with the founders of the
American Union. Another branch of the same family had, at a much earlier period, settled in France.
Finally, the squires and squireens — that is, those
who benefited in any degree by those "asteroids"
which I have explained as exploded from the ruins
of the Winchester estates —naturally remained in
England. The last of them who enjoyed any relics
whatever of that ancient territorial domain, was an
elder kinsman of my father. I never had the honor




88                ADDITIONS TO THE
of seeing him; in fact, it was impossible that I should
have such an honor, since he died during the American war, which war had closed, although it had not
paid its bills, some time before my birth. Ile enacted
the part of squireen, I have been told, creditably
enough in a village belonging either to the county
of Leicester, Nottingham, or Rutland. Sir Andrew
Aguecheek observes, as one of his sentimental remembrances, that he also at one period of his life had
been "adored."  "I was adored once," says the
knight, seeming to acknowledge that he was not
adored then. But the squireen was " adored " in a
limited way to the last. This fading representative
of a crusading house declined gradually into the
oracle of the bar at the Red Lion; and was adored
by two persons at the least (not counting himself),
namely, the landlord, and occasionally the waiter.
Mortgages had eaten up the last vestiges of the old
territorial wrecks; and, with his death, a new  era
commenced for this historical fanmily, which now (as
if expressly to irritate its ambition) finds itself distributed  amongst three mighty nations, -France,
America, and England, - and precisely those three
that are usually regarded as the leaders of civilization.*
* The omission of the De, as an addition looking better at a tournament than as an endorsement on a bill of exchange, began, as
to many hundreds of English names, full three hundred years ago.
Many English families have disused this affix simply from indolence. As to the terminal variations, cy, cie, cey, those belong, as
natural and inevitable exponents of a transitional condition, to the
unsettled spelling that characterizes the early stages of literature in
all countries alike.




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUMI-EATER.       89
BARBARA LEWTHWAITE.*
THIS girl was a person of some poetic distinction,
being (unconsciously to herself) the chief speaker in
a little pastoral poem of Wordsworth's.  That she
was really beautiful, and not merely so described by
me for the sake of improving the picturesque effect,
the reader will judge from this line in the poem, written, perhaps, tell years earlier, when Barbara might
be six years old:
",'T was little Barbara Lewthwaite, a child of beauty rare!'
This, coming from William Wordsworth, both a fastidious judge and a truth-speaker of the severest
literality, argues some real pretensions to beauty, or
real at that time. But it is notorious that, in the
anthologies of earth through all her zones, one flower
beyond every other is liable to change, which flower
is the countenance of woman.  Whether in his fine
stanzas upon " Mutability," where the most pathetic
instances of this earthly doom are solemnly arrayed,
Spenser has dwelt sufficiently upon this the saddest
of all, I do not remember.
Already Barbara Lewthwaite had contributed to
the composition of two impressive pictures —first,
in her infancy, with her pet lamb, under the evening
shadows of the mighty Fairfield; secondly, in her
girlhood, with the turbaned Malay, and the little
cottage child.  But, subsequently, when a young
woman, she entered unconsciously into the composition of another picture even more rememberable,
Referred to in the "Confessions," page 93, as a beautiful
English girl.
8*




90              ADDITIONS TO THE
suggesting great names, connected with the greatest
of themes; the names being those of Plato, and, in
this instance, at least, of a mightier than Plato,
namely, William Wordsworth; and the theme concerned being that problem which, measured by its
interest to man, by its dependencies, by the infinite
jewel staked upon the verdict, we should all confess to be the most solemn and heart-shaking that
is hung out by golden chains from the heaven of
heavens to human investigation, namely — Is the
spirit of man numbered amongst things naturally
perishable? The doctrine of our own Dodwell (a
most orthodox man), was, that naturally and per se
it was perishable, but that by supernatural endowment it was made immortal. Apparently the ancient
oracles of the Hebrew literature had all and everywhere assumed the soul's natural mortality.  The
single passage in Job, that seemed to look in the
counter direction, has long since received an interpretation painfully alien from such a meaning; not
to mention that the same objection would apply to
this passage, if read into a Christian sense, as applies
to the ridiculous interpolation in Josephus describing
Christ's personal appearance, namely - Once suppose it genuine, and why were there not myriads of
other passages in the same key? Imagine, for a
moment, the writer so penetrated with premature
Christian views, by what inexplicable rigor of abstinence had he forborne to meet ten thousand calls, at
other turns of his work, for similar utterances of
Christian sentiment? It must not be supposed that
the objections to this Christian interpretation of Job




CONFESSIONS OF'AN OPIUM-EATER.    91
rest solely with German scholars. Coleridge, one
of the most devout and evangelical amongst modern
theologians, took the same view; and has expressed
it with decision. But Job is of slight importance in
comparison with Moses. Now, Warburton, in his
well-known argument, held, not only that Moses
did (as a fact) assume the mortality of the soul, but
that, as a necessity, he did so, since upon this assumption rests the weightiest argument for his own divine
mission. That Moses could dispense with a support
which Warburton fancied all other legislators had
needed and postulated, argued, in the bishop's opinion, a vicarious support —a secret and divine support. This extreme view will be rejected, perhaps,
by most people. But, in the mean time, the very
existence of such a sect as the Sadducees proves
sufficiently that no positive affirmation of the soul's
immortality could have been accredited amongst the
Hebrew nation as a Mosaic doctrine. The rise of a
counter sect, the Pharisees, occurred in later days,
clearly under a principle of " development " applied
to old traditions current among the Jews. It was
not alleged as a Mosaic doctrine, but as something
deducible from traditions countenanced by Moses.
From Hebrew literature, therefore, no help is to
be looked for on this great question. Pagan literature first of all furnishes any response upon it favorable to human yearnings. But, unhappily, the main
argument upon which the sophist in the Phcedo relies,
is a pure scholastic conundrum, baseless and puerile.
The homogeneity of human consciousness, upon which
is made to rest its indestructibility, is not established




92               ADDITIONS TO THE
or made probable by any plausible logic. If we
should figure to ourselves somne mighty angel mounting guard upon human interests twenty-three centuries ago, this tutelary spirit would have smiled derisively upon the advent and the departure of Plato.
At length, once again, after many centuries, was
heard the clarion of immortality - not as of any preternatural gift, but as a natural prerogative of the
human spirit. This time the angel would have paused
and hearkened. The auguries fbr immortality, which
Wordsworth drew from indications running along
the line of daily human experience, were two.  The
first was involved in the exquisite little poem of
" Wre are Seven." That authentic voice, said Wordsworth, which affirmed life as a necessity inalienable
from man's consciousness, was a revelation through
the lips of childhood. Life in its torrent fulness -
that is, life in its earliest stage —affirmed itself;
whereas the voice which whispered doubts was an
adventitious and secondary voice consequent upon
an earthly experience. The child in this little poem
is unable to admit the thought of death, though, in
compliance with custom, she uses the word.
" The first that died was little Jane;
In bed she moaning lay;
Till God released her from her pain,
And then she went away."
The graves of her brother and sister she is so far
from regarding as any argument of their having died,
that she supposes the stranger simply to doubt her
statement, and she reiterates her assertion of their




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-]ATER.         93
graves as lying in the churchyard, in order to prove
that they were living:
"'Their graves are green, they may be seen,'
The little maid replied,'Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
And they are side by side.
And often after sunset, sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.
My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon their graves I sit -
I sit, and sing to them.' "
The other argument was developed in the sublime
"Ode upon the Intimations of Immortality," &c.
Man in his infancy stood nearest (so much was matter of fact) to the unseen world of the Infinite. What
voices he heard most frequently, murmuring through
the cells of his infantine brain, were echoes of the
great realities which, as a new-born infant, he had
just quitted. Hanging upon his mother's breast, he
heard dim prolongations of a music which belonged
to a life ever more and more receding into a distance
buried in clouds and vapors.  Man's orient, in which
lie the fountains of the dawn, must be sought for in
that Eden of infancy which first received him a4 a
traveller emerging from a world now daily becoming
more distant. And it is a great argument of the
divine splendor investing man's natural home, that
the heavenly lights which burned in his morning
grow fainter and fainter as he "travels further from
the East."




ADDITIONS TO THE
The little Carnarvonshire child in "W Ve are Seven,"
who is represented as repelling the idea of death
under an absolute inability to receive it, had coLapleted her eighth year. But this might be an ambitious exaggeration, such as aspiring female children
are generally disposed to practise. It is more probable that she might be in the currency of her eighth
year.  Naturally we must not exact from  Wordsworth any pedantic rigor of accuracy in such a case;
but assuredly we have a right to presume that his
principle, if tenable at all, must apply to all children
below the age of five. However, I will say four.
In that case the following anecdote seems to impeach
the philosophic truth of this doctrine.   I give the
memorandum as it was drawn up by myself at the
time:
My second child, but eldest daughter, little Mis between two and three weeks less than two years
old; and from the day of her birth she has been uniformly attended by Barbara Lewthwaite. We are
now in the first days of June; but, about three weeks
since, consequently in the earlier half of May, some
one of our neighbors gave to M     a little bird.  I
am no great ornithologist. " Perhaps only a tenthrate one," says some too flattering reader.  0 dear,
no, nothing near it; I fear, no more than a five hundred and tenth rater. Consequently, I cannot ornithologically describe or classify the bird.  But I
believe that it belonged to the family of finches
either a goldfinch, bullfinch, or at least something
ending in inch. The present was less splendid than at
first it seemed. For the bird was wounded; though




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.          95
not in a way that made the wound apparent; and
too sensibly as the evening wore away it drooped.
None of us knew what medical treatment to suggest;
and all that occurred was to place it with free access
to bird-seed and water.  At length sunset arrived,
which was the signal for MI's departure to bed.
She came, therefore, as usual to me, threw her arms
round my neck, and went through her ordinary routine of prayers; namely, first, the Lord's Prayer, and,
finally, the four following lines (a Roman Catholic
bequest to the children of Northern England):
"Holy * Jesus, meek and mild,
Look on me, a little child;
Pity my simplicity;
Grant that I may come to thee."
M-_, as she was moving off to bed, whispered to
me that I was to "mend " the bird with "yoddonumn."  Having always seen me taking laudanum,
and for the purpose (as she was told) of growing
better in health, reasonably it struck her that the
little bird would improve under the same regimen.
For her satisfaction, I placed a little diluted laudanum near to the bird; and she then departed to bed,
though with uneasy looks reverting to her sick little
pet. Occupied with some point of study, it happened that I sat up through the whole night; and
~ " Holy Jesus: " - This was a very judicious correction introduced by Wordsworth. Originally the traditional line had stood,
" Gentle Jesus, meek and mild."  But Wordsworth, offended by
the idle iteration of one idea in the words, gentle, meek, mild,
corrected the text into Holy.




96              ADDITIONS TO THE
long before seven o'clock in the morning she had
summoned Barbara to dress her, and soon I heard
the impatient little foot descending the stairs to my
study. I had such a Jesuitical bulletin ready, by
way of a report upon the bird's health, as might not
seem absolutely despairing, though not too dangerously sanguine. And, as the morning was one of
heavenly splendor, I proposed that we should improve the bird's chances by taking it out-of-doors
into the little orchard at the foot of Fairfield- our
loftiest Grasmere mountain. Thither moved at once
Barbara Lewthwaite, little M, myself, and the
poor languishing bird. By that time in MIay, in any
far southern county, perhaps the birds would be
ceasing to sing; but not so with us dilatory people
in Westmoreland. Suddenly, as we all stood around
the little perch on which the bird rested, one thrilling song, louder than the rest, arose from a neighboring hedge. Immediately the bird's eye, previously dull, kindled into momentary fire; the bird
rose on its perch, struggled for an instant, seemed
to be expanding its wings, made one aspiring moveinent upwards, in doing so fell back, and in another
moment was dead. Too certainly and apparently all
these transitions symbolically interpreted themselves,
and to all of us alike; the proof of which was- that
man, woman, and child spontaneously shed tears; a
weakness, perhaps, but more natural under the regular processional evolution of the scenical stages, than
when simply read as a narrative; for too evident it
was, to one and all of us, without needing to communicate by words, what vision had revealed itself




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.              97
to all alike -to the child under two years old, not
less than to the adults; too evident it was, that, on
this magnificent May morning, there had been exhibited, as on the stage of a theatre -there had passed
before the eyes of us all —passed, and was finished -
the everlasting mystery of death!  It seemed to me
that little M, by her sudden burst of tears, must
have read this saddest of truths -must have felt
that the bird's fate was sealed —not less clearly
than Barbara or myself.
THE DAUGHTER OF LEBANON.
AN OPIUM DREAM.
PREFATORY NOTE. — By accident, a considerable part of the
Confessions (all, in short, except the Dreams) had originally
been written hastily; and, from various causes, had never received
any strict revision, or, virtually, so much as an ordinary verbal
correction. But a great deal more was wanted than this. The
main narrative should naturally have moved through a succession
of secondary incidents; and, with leisure for recalling these, it
might have been greatly inspirited. Wanting all opportunity for
such advantages, this narrative had been needlessly impoverished.
And thus it had happened that not so properly correction and
retrenchment were called for, as integration of what had been left
imperfect, or amplification of what, from the first, had been insufficiently expanded. *  *  *  *  I had relied upon a crowning
grace, which I had reserved for the final pages of this volume, in
a succession of some twenty or twenty-five dreams and noon-day
visions, which had arisen under the latter stages of opium influence. These have disappeared: some under circumstances which
allow me a reasonable prospect of recovering them; some unaccountably; and some dishonorably. Five or six, I believe, were
9                            7




98                  ADDITIONS TO THE
burned in a sudden conflagration which arose from the spark of a
candle falling unobserved amongst a very large pile of papers in
a bedroom, when I was alone and reading. Falling not on, but
amongst and within the papers, the fire would soon have been
ahead of conflict; and, by communicating with the slight wood-work
and draperies of a bed, it would have immediately enveloped the
laths of a ceiling overhead, and thus the house, far from fire-engines,
would have been burned down in half-an-hour. My attention was
first drawn by a sudden light upon my book; and the whole difference between a total destruction of the premises and a trivial
loss (from books charred) of five guineas, was due to a large Spanish cloak. This, thrown over, and then drawn down tightly, by
the aid of one sole person, somewhat agitated, but retaining her
presence of mind, effectually extinguished the fire. Amongst the
papers burned partially, but not so burned as to be absolutely
irretrievable, was the " Daughter of Lebanon.;" and this I have
printed, and have intentionally placed it at the end, as appropriately closing a record in which the case of poor Ann the Outcast
formed not only the most memorable and the most suggestively
pathetic incident, but also that which, more than any other, colored-or (more  truly I should say) shaped, moulded  and
remoulded, composed and decomposed — the great body of opium
dreams. The search after the lost features of Ann, which I spoke
of as pursued in the crowds of London, was in a more proper
sense pursued through many a year in dreams. The general idea
of a search and a chase reproduced itself in many shapes. The
person, the rank, the age, the scenical position, all varied themselves forever; but the same leading traits more or less faintly
remained of a lost Pariah woman, and of some shadowy malice
which withdrew her, or attempted to withdraw her, from restoration and from hope. Such is the explanation which I offer why
that particular addition, which some of my friends had been
authorized to look for, has not in the main been given, nor for the
present could be given; and, secondly, why that part which is
given has been placed in the conspicuous situation (as a closing
passage) which it now occupies.




COWNFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.           99
DAMASCUS, first-born of cities, Om el Denia,* mother
of generations, that wast before Abraham, that wast
before the Pyramids! what sounds are those that,
from  a postern gate, looking eastwards over secret
paths that wind away to the far distant desert, break
the solemn silence of all oriental night?  Whose
voice is that which calls upon the spearmen, keeping
watch forever in the turret surmounting the gate,
to receive him back into his Syrian home? Thou
knowest him, Damascus, and hast known him in
seasons of trouble as one learned in the afflictions of
man; wise alike to  take  counsel for the suffering
spirit or for the suffering body. The voice that
breaks upon the night is the voice of a great evangelist-one of the four; and he is also a great
physician.  This do the watchmen at the gate thankfully acknowledge, and joyfully they give him entrance. His sandals are white with dust; for he
has been roaming for weeks beyond the desert, under
the guidance of Arabs, on missions of hopeful benignity to Palmyra; t and in spirit he is weary of all
" Omn el Denia:" -Mother of the World is the Arabic title
of Damascus. That it was before Abraham - that is, alreadv an old
establishment much more than a thousand years before,he siege
of Troy, and than two thousand years before our Christian era -
may be inferred from Gen. xv. 2; and, by the general consent of
all eastern races, Damascus is accredited as taking precedency in
age of all cities to the west of the Indus.
t Palmyra had not yet reached its meridian splendor of Grecian
development, as afterwards near the age of Aurelian, but it was
already a noble city.




100             ADDITIONS TO THE
things, except faithfulness to God, and burning love
to man.
Eastern cities are asleep betimes; and sounds few
or none fretted the quiet of, all around him, as the
evangelist paced onward to the market-place; but
there another scene awaited him. On the right hand,
in an upper chamber, with lattices widely expanded,
sat a festal company of youths, revelling under a
noonday blaze of light, from cressets and friom bright
tripods that burned fragrant woods - all joining in
choral songs, all crowned with odorous wreaths from
Daphne and the banks of the Orontes. Them the
evangelist heeded not; but far away upon the left,
close upon a sheltered nook, lighted up by a solitary
vase of iron fretwork filled with cedar boughs, and
hoisted high upon a spear, bhehold there sat a woman
of loveliness so transcendent, that, when suddenly
revealed, as now, out of deepest darkness, she
appalled men as a mockery, or a birth of the air.
Was she born of woman?  Was it perhaps the
angel - so the evangelist argued with himself — that
met him in the desert after sunset, and strengthened
him by secret talk? The evangelist went up, and
touched her forehead; and when he found that she
was indeed human, and guessed, from the station
which she had chosen, that she waited for some one
amongst this dissolute crew as her companion, he
groaned heavily in spirit, and said, half to himself,
but half to her, " Wert thou, poor, ruined flower,
adornel so divinely at thy birth —glorified in such
excess, that not Solomon in all his pomp, no, nor
even the lilies of the field, can approach thy gifts -




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.          10i
orly that thou shouldest grieve the Holy Spirit of
God? " The woman trembled exceedingly, and said,
"Rabbi, what should I do?  For behold! all men
forsake me." The evangelist mused a little, and
then secretly to himself he said, " Now will I search
this woman's heart, whether in very truth it
inclineth itself to God, and hath strayed only before
fiery compulsion." Turning therefore to the woman,
the Prophet * said, " Listen: I am the messenger of
Him whom thou hast not known; of Him  that made
Lebanon, and the cedars of Lebanon; that made the
sea, and the heavens, and the host of the stars; that
made the light; that made the darkness; that blew
the spirit of life into the nostrils of man.  His messenger I am: and from Him all power is given me to
bind and to loose, to build and to pull down. Ask,
therefore, whatsoever thou wilt — great or small —
and through me thou shalt receive it from God. But,
my child, ask not amiss. For God is able out of thy
own evil asking to weave snares for thy footing.
*" The Prophet: "- Though a Prophet was not therefore and
in virtue of that character an Evangelist, yet every Evangelist
was necessarily in the scriptural sense a Prophet. For let it be
remembered that a Prophet did not mean a Predicter or Foreshower of events, except derivatively and inferentially. What
was a Prophet in the uniform scriptural sense?  He was a man,
who drew aside the curtain from the secret counsels of Heaven.
He declared, or made public, the previously hidden truths of God:
and because future events might chance to involve divine truth,
therefore a revealer of future events might happen so far to be a
Prophet. Yet still small was that part of a Prophet's functions
which concerned the foreshowing of events; and not necessarily
any part.




102             ADDITIONS TO THE
And oftentimes to the lambs whom he loves he gives
by seeming to refuse; gives in some better sense,
or " (and his voice swelled into the power of anthems)
"in some far happier world. Now, therefore, my
daughter, be wise on thy own behalf, and say what
it is that I shall ask for thee from God." But the
Daughter of Lebanon needed not his caution; for
immediately dropping on one knee to God's ambassador, whilst the full radiance from the cedar torch
fell upon the glory of a penitential eye, she raised
her clasped hands in supplication, and said, in answer
to the evangelist asking for a second time what gift
he should call down upon her from Heaven, "Lord,
that thou wouldest put me back into my father's
house." And the evangelist, because he was human,
dropped a tear as he stooped to kiss her forehead,
saying, " Daughter, thy prayer is heard in heaven;
and I tell thee that the daylight shall not come and
go for thirty times, not for the thirtieth time shall
the sun drop behind Lebanon, before I will put thee
back into thy father's house."
Thus the lovely lady came into the guardianship
of the evangelist.  She sought not to varnish her
history, or to palliate her own transgressions.  In so
far as she had offended at all, her case was that of
millions in every generation.  Her father was a
prince in Lebanon, proud, unforgiving, austere. The
wrongs done to his daughter by her dishonorable
lover, because done under favor of opportunities
created by her confidence in his integrity, her father
persisted in resenting as wrongs done by this injured
daughter herself; and, refusing to her all protection,




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.     103
drove her, whilst yet confessedly innocent, into criminal compliances under sudden necessities of seeking
daily bread from her own uninstructed efforts. Great
was the wrong she suffered both from father and
lover; great was the retribution. She lost a churlish father and a wicked lover; she gained an apostolic guardian. She lost a princely station in Lebanon; she gained an early heritage in heaven. For
this heritage is hers within thirty days, if she will
not defeat it herself.  And, whilst the stealthy
motion of time travelled towards this thirtieth day,
behold! a burning fever desolated Damascus, which
also laid its arrest upon the Daughter of Lebanon,
yet gently, and so that hardly for an hour did it
withdraw  her fi'om the heavenly teachings of the
evangelist. And thus daily the doubt was strengthened, would the holy apostle suddenly touch her
with his hand, and say, " Woman, be thou whole! "
or would he present her on the thirtieth day as a
pure bride to Christ? But perfect fieedom belongs
to Christian service, and she only must make the
election.
Up rose the sun on the thirtieth morning in all his
pomp, but suddenly was darkened by driving storms.
Not until noon was the heavenly orb again revealed;
then the glorious light was again unmasked, and
again the Syrian valleys rejoiced. This was the hour
already appointed for the baptism of the new Christian daughter. Heaven and earth shed gratulation
on the happy festival; and, when all was finished,
under an awning raised above the level roof of her
dwelling-house, the regenerate daughter of Lebanon,




104             ADDITIONS TO THE
looking over the rose-gardens of Damascus, with
amplest prospect of her native hills, lay, in blissful
trance, making proclamation, by her white baptismal
robes, of recovered innocence and of reconciliation
with God. And, when the sun was declining to the
west, the evangelist, who had sat from noon by the
bedside of his spiritual daugiter, rose solemnly, and
said, " Lady of Lebanon, the day is already come,
and the hour is coming, in which my covenant must
be fulfilled with thee.  WVilt thou, therefore, being
now wiser in thy thoughts, suffer God, thy new
Father, to give by seeming to refuse; to give in
some better sense, or in some far happier world? "
But the Daughter of Lebanon sorrowed at these
words; she yearned after her native hills; not for
themselves, but because there it was that she had
left that sweet twin-born sister, with whom from
infant days hand-in-hand she had wandered amongst
the everlasting cedars. Andi1 again the evangelist
sat down by her bedside; whilst she by intervals
communed with him, and by intervals slept gently under the oppression of' her fever.  But as
evening drew nearer, and it wanted now but a brief
space to the going down of the sun, once again, and
with deeper solemnity, the evangelist rose to his
feet, and said, " 0 daughter! this is the thirtieth
day, and the sun is drawing near to his rest; brief,
therefore, is the time within which I must fulfil the
word that God spoke to thee by me."  Then, because
light clouds of delirium w re playing about her brain,
he raised his pastoral sta i, and, pointing it to her
temples, rebuked the clouds, and bade that no more




CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.    105
they should trouble her vision, or stand between her
and the forests of Lebanon. And the delirious clouds
parted asunder, breaking away to the right and to
the left. But upon the forests of Lebanon there
hung a mighty mass of overshadowing  vapors,
bequeathed by the morning's storm. And a second
time the evangelist raised his pastoral staff, and,
pointing it to the gloomy vapors, rebuked them,
and bade that no more they should stand between
his daughter and her father's house. And immediately the dark vapors broke away from Lebanon
to the right and to the left; and the farewell radiance
of the sun lighted up all the paths that ran between
the everlasting cedars and her father's palace. But
vainly the lady of Lebanon searched every path with
her eyes for memorials of her sister. And the evangelist, pitying her sorrow, turned away her eyes to
the clear blue sky, which the departing vapors had
exposed. And he showed her the peace which was
there. And then he said, "0 daughter! this also is
but a mask." And immediately for the third time
he raised his pastoral staff, and, pointing it to the
fair blue sky, he rebuked it, and bade that no more
it should stand between her and the vision of God.
Immediately the blue sky parted to the right and to
the left, laying bare the infinite revelations that can
be made visible only to dying eyes. And the Daughter of Lebanon said to the evangelist, " 0 father 
what armies are these that I see mustering within
the infinite chasm?"  And the evangelist replied,
"These are the armies of Christ, and they are mustering to receive some dear human blossom, some




106 ADDITIONS TO CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.
first-fruits of Christian faith, that shall rise this night
to Christ from Damascus." Suddenly, as thus the
child of Lebanon gazed upon the mighty vision, she
saw bending forward from the heavenly host, as if in
gratulation to herself, the one countenance for which
she hungered and thirsted. The twin-sister, that
should have waited for her in Lebanon, had died of
grief, and was waiting for her in Paradise. Immediately in rapture she soared upwards from her couch;
immediately in weakness she fell back; and, being
caught by the evangelist, she flung her arms around
his neck, whilst he breathed into her ear his final
whisper, "WTilt thou now suffer that God should
give by seeming to refuse?" —"O yes-yesyes! " was the fervent answer from the Daughter of
Lebanon. Immediately the evangelist gave the signal to the heavens, and the heavens gave the signal
to the sun; and in one minute after the Daughter of
Lebanon had fallen back a marble corpse amongst
her white baptismal robes; the solar orb dropped
behind Lebanon; and the evangelist, with eyes
glorified by mortal and immortal tears, rendered
thanks to God that had thus accomplished the word
which he spoke through himself to the Mlagdalen of Lebanon - that not for the thirtieth time
should the sun go down behind her native hills,
before he had put her back into her Father's house.




T HlE   ESSE NES.*
SUPPLEMENTARY.
AT this point, reader, we have come to a sudden
close. The paper, or (according to the phraseology
of modern journals) the article, has reached its terminus.  And a very abrupt terminus it seems.
Such even to myself it seems; much more, therefore, in all probability, to the reader. But I believe
that we must look for the true cause of this abruptness, and the natural remedy of the anger, incident
to so unexpected a disappointment, in the records
of my own literary movements some twenty-five or
thirty years back - at which time this little paper
was written. It is possible that I may, concurrently (or nearly so) with  this "article," have
written some other "article " expressly and separately on the Essenes -leaving, therefore, to that
the elucidation of any obscurities as to them which
may have gathered in this paper on " Secret Societies." And, now I think of it, my belief begins to
* Written in 1858, as a note to the reprint of an article on
"Secret Societies." See "Historical and Critical Essays," voL
n, p. 285.
(107)




108   SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES
boil up fervently that I did so. "How?  Possible
that I may have written such an article? Don't I
know?"  Candidly, I do not.  " In that case, who
does?"  Why, perhaps one of the three following
New England States - Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or Rhode Island. If anybody, insular or continental, is likely to know anything whatever in the
concern, it is one of these illustrious communities.
But such is the extent of my geographical ignorance, that I am profoundly ignorant in which of the
three states it is proper to look for the city of
Boston, though I know to a nicety in which of the
three it is not. Rhode Island, I am positive, does
not grow any huge city, unless, like Jonah's gourd,
it has rushed into life by one night's growth. So
that I have eliminated one quantity at least from the
algebraic problem, which must, therefore, be in a
very hopeful state towards solution. Boston, meantime, it is, wheresoever that Boston may ultimately
be found, which (or more civilly, perhaps, who)
keeps all my accounts of papers and "paperasses"
(to borrow  a very useful French word), all my
BMSS., finished books - past, present, or to come -
tried at the public bar, or to be tried; condemned, or
only condemnable.  It is astonishing how  much
more Boston knows of my literary acts and purposes than I do myself. Were it not indeed through
Boston, hardly the sixth part of my literary under-,
takings, hurried or deliberate, sound, rotting, or rotten, would ever have reached posterity: which, be
it known to thee, most sarcastic of future censors,
already most of them have reached. For surely to




SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   109
an " article" composed in 1821, a corpulent reader
of 1858 is posterity in a most substantial sense.
Everything, in short, relating to myself is in the
keeping of Boston: and, were it not that the kindness of society in Boston is as notorious to us in
England as her intellectual distinction and her high
literary rank among cities, I should fear at times
that if on any dark December morning, say forty or
fifty years ago, I might have committed a forgery
(as the best of men will do occasionally), Boston
could array against me all the documentary evidence
of my peccadillo (such it is now esteemed) before I
could have time to abscond. But, if such a forgery
exists, I rely on her indulgent sympathy with literary men for allowing me six hours' lawv (as we of
old England call it). This little arrangement, however, is private business, not meant for public ears.
Returning to general concerns, I am sure that
Boston will know whether anywhere or anywhen I'
have or have not written a separate " article " on
the Essenes.  Meantime, as the magnetic cable is
not yet laid down across the flooring of the Atlantic, and that an exchange of question and answer
between myself and my friends Messrs.Ticknor and
Fields will require an extra month of time (of
" irreparabile tempus " ), I will suppose myself not
to have written such a paper; and in that case of so
faulty an omission, will hold myself debtor, and will
on the spot discharge my debt, for a few preliminary
explanations that ought to have been made already
upon a problem which very few men of letters have
had any special motive for investigating. Let me
10




110    SUPPLEMIENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENESo
quicken the reader's interest in the question  at
issue, by warning him of two important facts,
namely:
First, that the Church of Rome, in the persons of
some amongst her greatest scholars, has repeatedly
made known her dissatisfaction with the romance of
Josephus.  It is dimly apparent, that, so far as she
had been able to see her way, this most learned
church had found cause to adopt the same conclusion practically as myself - namely, that under
some course of masquerading, hard to decipher,
the Essenes were neither more nor less than early
Christians.
But, secondly, although evidently aware that the
account of the Essenes by Josephus was, and must
have been, an intolerable romance, she had failed to
detect the fraudulent motive of Josephus underlying that elaborate fiction; or the fraudulent tactics
by which, throughout that fiction, he had conducted
his warfare against the Christians; or the counter
system of tactics by which, were it only for immediate safety, but also with a separate view to selfpropagation and continual proselytism, the infant
Christian church must have fought under a mask
against Josephus and his army of partisans in Jerusalem, It is inexplicable to me how the Church of
Rome could for one moment overlook the fierce
internecine hostility borne by the Jewish national
faction to the Christians, and doubtless most of all
to the Judaizing Christians; of whom, as we know,
there were some eminent champions amongst the
Christian apostles themselves.  Good reason the




SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   111
Jew bigot really had for hating, persecuting and
calumniating the Christian revolutionist more rancorously even than the Roman avowed enemy. How
stood the separate purposes of these two embattled
antagonists —first, Rome Imperial; secondly, the
new-born sect of Christians? Of these two armies,
by far the deadliest was the last. Rome fought
against the Jewish nation simply as a little faction,
mad with arrogance, that would not by any milder
chastisement be taught to know its own place; and
the captives, netted in the great haul at Jerusalem,
being looked upon not as honorable prisoners of
war, but as rebels —obstinate and incorrigible -
were consigned to the stone-quarries of Upper
Egypt: a sort of dungeons in which a threefold
advantage was gained to the Roman, -namely, 1,
that the unhappy captives were held up to the
nations as monuments of the ruin consequent on
resistance to Rome; 2, were made profitable to the
general exchequer; 3, were watched and guarded at
a cost unusually trivial. But Rome, though stern
and harsh, was uniform in her policy; never capricious; and habitually too magnanimous to be vindictive. Even amongst these criminals, though so
nearly withdrawn from notice, it was not quite
impossible that select victims might still will their
way back to the regions of hope and light. But,
setting these aside, through Rome it was -in Rome
and by Rome - that vast stratifications of this most
headstrong and turbulent of eastern tribes cropped
out upon many a western soil; nor was any memorial of the past allowed to speak or to whisper




112   SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.
against them, if only (as children express it) " they
would be good."  Rome was singularly wise in that
matter; and knew that obstinate rebellion, though
inconvenient and needing sharp coercion, argued a
strong  and aspiring  nature.  Even now, even
already, when as yet the vast wounds were raw
and uncicatrized, Rome, the mighty mother, sat in
genial incubation upon generations of the old
H-ebrew blood, destined to reappear up and down
distant centuries in Poland and Russia, in Spain and
Portugal; in the Barbary States and other western
lands, not to speak of their Asiatic settlements as
far east as China.  Rome, therefore, was no ultimate or uncompromising enemy to the tribe of
Judah.
But the rising sect of Christians brought simple
destruction to the name and pretensions of the Jew.
The Temple and sacrificial service of the Temple
had become an abomination, and the one capital
obstacle to the progress of the true religion; and
Rome, in destroying this Temple, had been unconsciously doing the work of Christianity. Jews and
Jewish usages, and Judaic bigotry, would continue
(it is true) to maintain themselves for thousands of
years; Jewish fanaticism would even reveal itself
again in formidable rebellions. But the combination of power and a national name with the Jewish
religion and principles had disappeared from the
earth forever with the final destruction of El IKoda.
And the hostility of the Christians was even more
absolute than that of Rome; since Christianity
denied the whole pretensions and visionary pros



SUPPLEMENTARY N-OTE ON THE ESSENES.   113
pects upon which Judaism founded any title to a
separate name or nationality.  Even without that
bitter exasperation of the feuld, the quarrels of
brothers are almost proverbially the deadliest as
regards the chance of reconciliation or compromise;
and in the infancy of the Christian faith nearly all
the proselytes were naturally Jews; so that for a
long period the Christians were known in Rome and
foreign quarters simply as a variety of provinrcital
Jews, - namely, Nazarenes, or Galileans. In these
circumstances the siege of Jerusalem must thus far
have widened the schism, that everywhere the
enlightened Christian would doubtless have seceded
from  the faction of those who stood forward as
champions of the Jewish independence. This is an
aspect of the general history which has not received
any special investigation.  But there can be no
doubt that, for the Christians generally, all narrow
and too manifestly hopeless calls of patriotism would
be regarded as swallowed up in the transcendent
duties of their militant religion. Christian captives
may have been found amongst the convicts of the
stone-quarries; but they must have been few, and
those only whom some casual separation from their
own Christian fraternity had thrown in a state of
ignorant perplexity upon their own blind guidance.
This consequence, therefore, must have arisen from
the siege of Jerusalem, that the Jewish acharnement
against the Christians, henceforth regarded as political and anti-national enemies, would be inflamed to
a frantic excess. And Josephus, suddenly exalted
by an act of the vilest adulation to Vespasian (who
10o                   8




114    SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES,
was in effect, through his success in Palestine, and
through his popularity with the army, already the
Imperator elect), instead of visiting the Egyptian
quarries as a felon, most unmeritoriously found himself in one hour translated into the meridian sunshine of court favor; and equally through that
romantic revolution, and through his own previous
dedication to literature, qualified beyond any contemporary for giving effect to his party malice. IIe
would be aware that in the circumstantial accidents
of Christianity there was a good deal to attract
favor at Rome.  Their moral system, and  their
eleemosynary system of vigilant aid to all their paupers, would inevitably conciliate regard. Even the
Jewish theological system was every way fitted to
challenge veneration and awe, except in so far as it
was associated with the unparalleled and hateful
arrogance of Judaism.  Now, here for the first time,
by the new-born sect of Christians, this grandeur of
theologic speculation was exhibited in a state of
insulation from that repulsive arrogance.  The Jews
talked as if the earth existed only for them; and as if
God took notice only of Jewish service as having any
value or meaning.  But here were the Christians
opening their gates, and proclaiming a welcome to
all the children of man. These things were in their
favor. And the malignant faction of mere Jewish
bigots felt a call to preoccupy the Roman mind with
some bold fictions that should forever stop the
mouth of the Christian, whensoever or ifsoever any
opening dawned for uttering a gleam of truth.
Josephus, followed and supported by Alexandrian




SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   115
Jews, was evidently the man for this enterprise;
not so much, or not so exclusively, by his literary
talent (for, doubtless, many in Alexandria, and some
in Rome, could have matched him); but he was the
man born with the golden spoon in his mouth; he
was the second Joseph that should be carried captive fiom Palestine to Egypt; and on the banks of
that ancient Nile should find a Pharaoh, calling himself Caesar Vespasian, that, upon hearing Joe's
interpretation of a dream, should bid him rise up
from his prostration as a despairing felon fresh from
bearing arms against S. P. Q. R., and take his seat
amongst the men whom the king delighted to honor.
Seated there, Joe was equal to a world of mischief; and he was not the man to let his talent lie
idle. In what way he would be likely to use his
experience, gained amongst the secret society of
the Essenes, we may guess.  But, to move by
orderly steps, let us ask after Mr. Joe's own
account of that mysterious body. Iow and when
does he represent the Essenes as arising? I have
no book, no vouchers, as generally happens to me;
and, moreover, Joseph is not strong in chronology.
But I rely on my memory as enabling me to guar.
antee this general fact —that, at the date of the
Josephan record, our shy friends, the Essenes, must,
by Joe's reckoning, have existed at least seventy
years since Christ's nativity.  The reader knows
already that I, who make these Essenes the product
of Christianity under its earliest storms, cannot possibly submit to such a registration.  But for the
present assume it as true. Under such an assump



116    SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENED
tion, it must have been, that many writers, in giving
an account of the Jewish philosophic sects, have
numbered them  as three,-namely, 1, the Phari
sees; 2, the Sadducees; 3, the Essenes.  And in my
childhood there was an authorized Bible, -and it must
have been a common one, because I remember it as
belonging to a female servant, and bearing a written memorandum that it was a gift from her father, --
which boldly ranked the Essenes as assessors of the
undeniable Pharisees and Sadducees, on that prefatory leaf which assigns the value of a shekel, the
measures of capacity, of weight, of distance, &c.
Now, then, I would demand of Josephus why it was
that Christ, who took such reiterated notice of the
elder sects, never once by word or act recognized
the Essenes even as existing.  Considering their
pretensions to a higher purity, or the pretensions in
this direction ascribed to them, is it conceivable that
Christ should not by one word have countersigned
these pretensions if sound, or exposed them if hollow? Or, again, if Ile for any reason had neglected
them, would not some of his disciples, or of his
many occasional visitors, have drawn his attention
to their code of rules and their reputed habits - to
what they professed, and what they were said to
have accomplished? Or, finally, if all these chances
had failed to secure an evangelical record, can we
suppose it possible that no solitary member of
that large monastic body, counting (I think, by
the report of Josephus) eight thousand  brethren, should have been moved sufficiently by the
rumors gathering like a cloud up and down Pales



SUPePLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   117
tin6 through three consecutive years, about the
steps of Christ and his followers, to present himself
for a personal interview - so as to form a judgment
of Christ, if Christ were even careless of him and
his brotherhood?  We know that Christ was not
without interest in the two elder sects —though
absolutely sold to worldly interests and intrigues.
He himself pointed out a strong argument for allowing weight and consideration to the Pharisees,namely, that they, so long as the Mosaic economy
lasted, were to be regarded with respect as the
depositaries of his authority, and the representatives of his system. And it is remarkable enough
that here, as elsewhere, at the very moment of
heavily blaming the Pharisees, not the less he exacts
for them - as a legal due - the popular respect;
and this, though perfectly aware that they and the
ancient system to which they were attached (a system fifteen hundred years old) would simultaneously
receive their doom from that great revolution which
he was himself destined to accomplish. The blame
which he imputes to them in this place is, that they
required others to carry burdens which they themselves would not touch.  That was a vice of habit
and self-indulgence, more venial as a natural concession to selfishness that might have grown upon
them imperceptibly; but, in the second case, the
blame strikes deeper, for it respects a defect of
principle, that must have been conscious and wilful.
MIoses, we are told, had laid down express laws for
the regulation of special emergencies; and these
laws, when affecting their own separate interests,




118    SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.
the Pharisees were in the habit of evading under
some plea of traditional immunity or professional
privilege secured to themselves.
Now, let the reader sternly note down this state
of Christ's relations to the great leading sect of the
Pharisees.  He had high matter of impeachment
against them; and yet, for all that, so profound was
his loyalty to the Mosaic system, as a divine revelation, so long as it was not divinely superseded, that
he would not lend his sanction to any failure of
respect towards the representatives of this system
in the fickle populace. On the contrary, he bade
them hearken to their instructions, because in doing
that they were hearkening to the words of Moses,
which were the words of God. The words of the
Pharisees were consecrated, but not their deeds;
those furnished a false and perilous rule of conduct.
Next, as to the Sadducees. This sect, bearing far less
of a national and representative character, is less
conspicuously brought forward in the New Testament. But it is probable that Christ, though having
no motive for the same interest in them as in the
Pharisees, who might be regarded as heraldic supporters on one side of the national armorial shield,
nevertheless maintained a friendly or fiaternal intercourse with their leading men as men who laid
open one avenue to the central circles of the more
aristocratic society in Jerusalem. But had not Christ
a special reason for recoiling from the Sadducees, as
from those who " say that there is no resurrection
of the dead "? If they really said any such thing,
he would have had one reason more than we are cer



SUPPLEIENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   119
tain of his having had, for calling upon them to make
open profession of their presumed faith, and the
unknown grounds of that faith. If the Sadducees,
as a sect, really did hold the doctrine ascribed to
them, it would have been very easy to silence them
(that is, in a partial sense to refute them), by
forcing them to the conclusion that they had no
grounds for holding the negative upon the problem
of Resurrection, beyond what corresponded to the
counter weakness on the side of the affirmative. On
either side there was confessedly an absolute blank
as regarded even the show of reasonable grounds for
taking a single step in advance.  Guess you might;
but as to any durable conquest of ground, forward or
backward - to the right or the left —" to the shield
or to the spear "- nobody could contradict you, but
then (though uncontradicted) you did not entirely
believe yourself. So that, at the worst, the Sadducees could not plausibly have denied the Resurrection,
though they might have chosen to favor those who
doubted it.  Mieantime, is it at all certain that the
Sadducees did hold the imputed opinion? 1, for my
part, exceedingly hesitate in believing this; and for
the following reasons: First, it is most annoying to
a man of delicate feelings, that he should find himself pledged to a speculative thesis, and engaged inl
honor to undertake its defence against all comers,
when there happens to be no argument whatsoever
on its behalf- not even an absurd one. Secondly,
I doubt much whether it would have been safe to
avow this doctrine in Judea. And, thirdly, whether
in any circles at Jerusalem, even such as might secure




120    SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.
it a toleration, this doctrine would not have been
most unwelcome. For whose favor, therefore, or
towards what final object, should such a speculation
originally have been introduced, or subsequently
have maintained itself?  We are told, indeed, that
it won no favor, and courted none, fronl those working classes amongst whom lay the strength of the
nationality. This is a clear case. Active support, of
co-urse, it could not find amongst those who, in mny
opinion, would have been vainly invoked for a passi've
acquiescence or gloomy toleration. But in this case
there seems to have been too precipitate a conclusion. Because the natural favorers of scepticism and
an irreligious philosophy will be found (if at all)
exclusively almost in aristocratic circles, it does not
follow that, inversely, aristocratic circles will be found
generally to be tainted with such a philosophy. Infidels may belong chiefly to the aristocracy, but not
the aristocracy to infidels.  It is true that in the
luxurious  capitals of great kingdoms there are
usually found all shapes of licentious speculation;
yet, even in the most latitudinarian habits of thinking, such excesses tend in many ways to limit themselves. And in Judea, at that period, the state of
society and of social intercourse had not, apparently,
travelled beyond the boundaries of a semi-barbarous
simplicity. A craving for bold thinking supervenes
naturally upon a high civilization, but not upon the
elementary civilization of the JJews.  A man whc
should have professed openly so audacious a creed
as that ascribed to the Sadducees must have been
prepared for lapidation.  That tumultuary court- a




SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   121
Jewish mob, always ready for action, always rich in
munitions of war, so long as paving-stones were
reasonable in price - made it dangerous for any man
in Judea, Jew or Gentile, to wade out of his depth
in theologic waters. But how, then, did the Sadducees come by their ugly reputation? I understand
it thus: what the scandalous part of the public
charged against them was, not openly and defyingly that they held such an irreligious creed, but
that such a creed would naturally flow as a consequence from their materialistic tendencies, however
much the Sadducees might disavow that consequence.
Whatever might be said, fancied, or proved by Bishop
Warburton, it is certain that the dominant body of
the nation, at the era of Christ, believed in a Resurrection as preliminary to a Final Judgment. And
so intense was the Jewish bigotry, since their return
from captivity, that assuredly they would have
handled any freethinker on such questions very
roughly. But, in fact, the counter sect of Pharisees
hold up a mirror for showing us by reflection the true
popular estimate of the Sadducees. The Pharisees
were denounced by Christ, and no doubt were privately condemned in the judgment of all the pious
amongst their countrymen, as making void (virtually
cancelling) much in the institutions of Moses by
their own peculiar (sometimes pretended) traditions:
this was their secret character among the devout and
the sternly orthodox. But do we imagine that the
Pharisees openly accepted such a character? By no
means: that would have been to court an open feud
and schism with the great body of the people. And,
11




122    SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.
in like manner, the Sadducees had their dark side,
from which an answering character was abstracted
by their enemies; but doubtless they themselves
treated this character as an odious calumny.
These things premised, the reader is prepared to
understand that the reproach of Christ fastened
itself upon the offence, not upon the offenders in
any single generation, far less upon the individual
offenders, who, separately and personally, often times
were unconscious parties to a trespass, which, deep
though it were as the hidden fountains of life, yet
also was ancient and hereditary as the stings of
death. The quarrel of Christ, as regarded the unholy
frauds of Phariseeism, had no bearing upon those
individually whom education and elaborate discipline
had conducted to the vestibule of' that learned college by whom alone, at the distance of a millennium
and of half a millennium, the Law and the Prophets
were still kept alive in the understanding and in the
reverence of the unlettered multitude.
Apart from their old hereditary crime of relaxing
and favoring the relaxation of the Mosaic law, the
Pharisees especially, but in some degree both sects,
were depositaries of all tile erudition - archeologic,
historic, and philologic — by which a hidden clue
~.ould be sought, or a lost clue could be recovered,
through the mazes of the ancient prophecies, in times
which drew near, by all likelihood, to their gradual
accomplishment and consummation. Supposing that
the one sect was even truly and not calumniously
reproached with undervaluing the spiritual Future,
can we imagine them so superfluously to have courted




SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   123
popular odium, as by carrying before them a proclamration of the gloomy creed, which must for any purpose be useless? The answer is found precisely in
the parallel case of the counter sect. Because Christ
reproached them with virtually neutralizing the
whole rigor of the law by their private traditions,
are we to suppose the Pharisees to have sent before
them a banner, making proclamation that "We are
the sect who make void the Law of Moses by human
devices of false, counterfeit traditions "? So far
from this, even the undeniable abuses and corruptions had  probably grown up and strengthened
through successive ages of negligence and accumulated contributions of unintentional error. The special
authors of the corruptions and dangerous innovations
were doubtless generations, and not individuals. The
individual members of both sects must have embodied
the whole available learning of the nation. They
jointly were for the Hebrew race what the Brahmins
were, and locally are, for the IHindoos; what the
childish " literati "' of China are to the childish race
of the Chinese; what the three learned professions
of Law, Medicine, and the Church, are in Christian
lands. For many purposes, the Pharisees and Sadducees were indispensable associates; and, according to their personal merits of integrity, sincerity,
and goodness of heart, there can be little doubt that
Christ honored multitudes amongst them with marks
of his personal regard.
Now, then, under such circumstances, can we suppose it pcssible that a sect, approaching by traits of
resemblance far deeper and more conspicuous to the




124:   SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES,
coming sect of Christians which Christ was laboring
to build up, should have gone unnoticed by Him, or
should thenmselves have left Christ unnoticed and
unapproached?  Chronology of itself overwhelmingly confounds Josephus. According to him, a
sect, whose origin is altogether unaccounted for,
suddenly walks forward out of darkness; and when
called upon to unfold the characteristics of this sect,
which nobody had ever named before himself, he
presents you with such a coarse travesty of the
Christians as to usages and doctrines, - whom, doubtless, he knew by having helped to persecute them, -
that we read at once the full-blown knavery of a
scoundrel who had motives more than one or two for
suborning, as the anticipators of every feature that
could fascinate men in Christianity, a secret society
really of Christians, but to him and other members,
not trustworthy, masking itself as a society of Jews.
It would too much lengthen a note already too long,
if I were to expose circumstantially the false coloring impressed upon the Christian scheme by one who
was too unprincipled and worldly even to comprehend the Christian elements.  Enough, however,
remains of the archetype in the report of Josephus,
to reveal, as lurking beneath the disguise, and gleaming through it, an undeniable Christian original; so
that here, as I have said previously, we are faced
suddenly by a Christianity before Christ, and a Christianity without Christ.*
* O, no, will be the reply of some critics; not without Christ
But I answer - if before Christ, then necessarily without Christ




SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE JN THE ESSENES.    125
In conclusion, I will confess to the reader, in the
foolish excess of my candor, that amongst those who
have most inclined to express dissatisfaction  (yet as
a final, not as an initiatory feeling) with my hypothesis accounting for the Essenes, are several of my
own oldest friends - men distinguished (for one
moment I wish they were not) by searching judg..
ment and by extensive learning. Does n't the reader
think that perhaps much learning may have  made
them  mad?  Certainly  they  demand  unreasonable
proofs, considering that time (not to mention other
agencies) upon many a topic has made us all bankAnd besides the profound objection from the whole flagrant plagiarism of the moral scheme, the other capital objection remains:
How did these men, if chronologically anterior to Christ, miss an
interview with Christ; or, if not a personal interview, at least
a judgment of Christ sealing their pretensions, or a judgment of
Christ sealing their condemnation?.My Essenes escaped this personal interview and this judgment approving or condemning,
simply because, chronologically, they were not contemporaries
of Christ, but by twenty or twenty-five years younger than the
Crucifixion. They were, in fact, a masquerading body of Christians - an offshoot of Christians that happened to be resident in
Judea at a crisis of fiery persecution. Fortunately for themn, one
great advantage befell them, which in subsequent Roman persecutions they wanted, namely, that they and their persecutors occupied common ground in much of their several creeds, which
facilitated the deep disguise. Both alike adopted the Jewish
Prophets into the basis of their faith; both alike held the truth
of all the other Scriptures —for instance, of the Law itself,
though differing as to its practical validity for the future.
Hence, by confining themselves to those parts of the Old Testament which both adopted, the Christians, masked as Essenes,
were able to deceive and evade the most cruel of their enemies.
11*




126   SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.
rupt in satisfactory argument, MIr. Joe, I presume,
not at all less than myself.  A little daughter of
mine, when about two years old, used sometimes to
say at the dinner-table, " Please give me too much."
Mly learned friends, it sometimes strikes me, are
borrowing her sentiment, and, -with no less gravity
than hers, are insisting on having "too much" of
certainty in this delicate case-too much, in fact, and
too complex evidence for the why and the how, for
the where and the when, of a masonic brotherhood,
that was, by the very tenure and primary motive of
its existence, confessedly a secret brotherhood. In
the spirit of honest Sancho's Andalusian proverb, it
seems to me that my too learned friends are seeking
for " better bread than is made of wheat."  Since,
really, when you subpcena a witness out of the great
deeps of time, divided from yourself by fifty-five
generations, you are obliged to humor him, and
to show  him  special indulgence; else he grows
" crusty " on your hands, and keeps back even that
whiclh by gentler solicitation might have been won
from him.
Meantime, I have retouched the evidence a little,
so that he who was restive formerly may now be
tractable; and have attempted to coax the witnesses
in a way which is but fair, as no more than balancing
and corresponding to those gross tamperings practised (we may be sure) by the Jew courtier.  MIr.
Joe, we may rely upon it, when packing the jury,
did his best. I may have an equal right to do my
worst. It happens that my theory and MIr. Joe's
are involved alternatively in each other. If you




SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES,   127
reject Joe's, - a thing that I suppose inevitable, --
this throws you by rebound upon mine; if you are
inclined to reject mine,- a case that is supportable
by human fortitude,- then you find yourself pitched
violently into Mr. Joe's; a case that is not supportable by any fortitude, armed with any philosophy. In taking leave, I add, as an extra argument
against the possibility that Essenism could have been
contemporary with the birth of Christianity, this
ugly objection.  We may suppose that a Jew, in
maintaining the historic truth of Essenism, would
endeavor to  evade the arguments so  naturally
emerging from the internal relations of this secret
sect to those of the avowed sect called Christians,
and at the same time to ignore the vast improbability
that two sects wearing features so sisterly should
have sailed past each other silently, and exchanging
no salutes, no questions of reciprocal interest, no
mutual recognitions, no interchange of gratulation
in the midst of departing storms, or of solemnn valediction amongst perilous mists that were slowly
gathering. The Jew might argue, in explanation,
that the Essenes, under the form of ascetic moralists,
would from this single element of their system
derive a prejudice against the founder of Christianity,
as one who in his own person had deemed it advisable, for the attainment of social influence in the
Judea of that day, and for the readier propagation
of truth, to adopt a more liberal and genial mode of
living. For the stern ascetic may win reverence,
but never wins confidence, so that the heart of his
nearer is still for him under a mask.  My argument




1 28    SUPPL,EMENTAI  NOTE ON THE ESSENES.
being- that the Essenes could not have been contemporary with the great moral teacher (in fact, the
revolutionary teacher) of their own century, without
seeking Him, or His seekingl them -we may suppose the Jew taking his stanid plausibly enough on
a primal alienation of the Essenes, through incarngruities of social habits, si;ch (let us suppose, by
way of illustration) as would naturally repel Quakers
or Moravians in our own day from any great moral
teacher wearing a brilliant exterior, and familiar with
courts and princes. Such an estrangement would
be matter of regret to all the wise and liberal even
of those two sects, but it would be natural; and it
would sufficiently explain the non-intercourse objected, without any call for resorting to the plea of
anachronism, as the true bar of separation.
Answer:-It is true that any deep schism  in
social habits would tend to divide the two parties -
the great moral teacher on the one side, from the
great monastic fraternity on the other, that stood
aloof from the world, and the temptations of the
world. Pro tanto, such a schlism would pull in that
direction; though I am of opinion that the least
magnanimous of dissenting' bodies would allow a
transcendent weight (adequate to the crushing of
any conceivable resistance) to the conspicuous orig.
inality and searching pathos of Christ's moral doctrine. Four great cases, or memorable cartoons, in the
series of Christ's doctrina, "shows" (to borrow the
Eleusinian term), in 1839 —40, powerfully affected the
Mahometan Affghan Sird:irs, -nalnely, 1, the model




SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.   129
of prayer which he first and last, among all teachers,
left as a guiding legacy to infinite generations; 2,
the model of purity which he raised aloft in the little
infant suddenly made the centre of his moral system
as the normal form of innocence and simplicity of
heart; 3, the Sermon on the BMount, which, by one
sudden illumination, opened a new world in man's
secret heart; 4, the translation of moral tests from
the old and gross one of palpable acts to thoughts,
and the most aerial of purposes, as laid down in the
passage, "HIe that looketh upon a woman," &c.
These four revelations of the Christian Founder
being once reported to the pretended monastic body,
must have caught the affections, and have prompted
an insurmountable craving for personal intercourse
with such a " Prophet; " that is, in the lIebrew
sense of Prophet, such a revealer out of darkness. In
Affghanistan, amongst blind, prejudiced, sometimes
fanatical, Mahometans, these extraordinary moral
revelations had power deeply to shake and move;
could they have had less in Judea? But, finally,
suppose they had, and that an ascetic brotherhood
refused all intercourse with a teacher not ascetic, so
much the more zealously would they have courted
such intercourse with a teacher memorably and in
an ultimate degree'ascetic. Such a teacher was John
the Baptist. Hiere, then, stands the case: in an age
which Josephus would have us believe to have been
the flourishing age of the Essenes, there arise two
great revolutionary powers, who are also great
teachers and legislators in the world of ethics. The
9




130     SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE ESSENES.
first, by a short space of time, was the Baptist;s
the  second  was  Christ.   The  one  was uniquely
ascetic, declining  not only  the  luxuries, but the
slenderest physical appliances against the wrath of
the elements, or the changes of the seasons.   The
other described himself as one who came eating and
drinking, in conformity to the common usages of
men. With neither of these great authorities is
there any record of the Essenes having had the most
trivial intercourse.  Is that reconcilable  with their
alleged existence on a large scale in an age of deep
agitation and fervent inquiry?
* That John the Baptist was a moral teacher, as well as a
herald of coming changes, may be inferred from the fact (noticed
by the Evangelists), that the military body applied to him for
moral instruction, which appeal must have grown out of the general invitation to do so involved in the ordinary course of his
ministrations, and in the terms of his public preaching. In what
sense he was to be held the harbinger of Christ, over and above
his avowed mission for announcing the fast approaching advent
of the Messiah, I have elsewhere suggested, in a short comment
on the word,,pTuao'a; which word, as I contend, cannot properly
be translated repentance; for it would have been pure cant to
suppose that age, or any age, as more under a summons to
repentance than any other assignable. I understand by!mEyrotcc
a revolution of thought — a great intellectual change- in the
accepting a new centre for all moral truth from Christ; which
centre it was that subsequently caused all the offence of Chris.
tianitv to the Roman people.




AELIUS LAMIA.*
Fou a period of centuries there has existed an
enigma, dark and insoluble as that of the Sphinx, in
the text of Suetonius.  Isaac Casanbon, as modest
as he was learned, had vainly besieged it; then, in
a mood of revolting  arrogance, Joseph  Scaliger;
Ernesti; Gronovius; many others; and all without a
gleam of success. Had the tread-mill been awarded
(as might have been wished) to failure of attempts
at solution, under the construction of having traded
in false hopes -in smoke-selling, as the Roman law
entitled it - one and all of these big-wigs must have
mounted that aspiring machine of Tantalus, nolentes
volentes.
* In this case I acknowledge no shadow of doubt. I have a
list of conjectural decipherings applied by classical doctors to
desperate lesions and abscesses in the text of famous classic
authors; and I am really ashamed to say that my own emendation stands facile porinceps among them  all. I must repeat,
however, that this piredminence is only that of luck; and I must
remind the critic, that, in judging of this case, he must not do
as one writer did on the first publication of this little papernamely, entirely lose sight of the main incident in the legend
of Orpheus and Eurydice. Never perhaps on this earth was so
threatening a whisper, a whisper so portentously significant,
uttered between man and man in a single word, as in that secret
suggestion of an Orpheutic voice where a wife was concerned.
(131)




132                  AELIUS LAMIA.
The passage in Suetonius which so excruciatingly
(but so unprofitably) has tormented the wits of such
scholars as have sat in judgment upon it through a
period of three hundred and fifty years, arises in the
tenth section of his lDomitian. That prince, it seems,
lad displayed in his outset considerable promise of
moral excellence; in particular, neither rapacity nor
cruelty was then apparently any feature in his character. Both qualities, however, found a pretty large
and early development in his advancing career, but
cruelty the largest and earliest. By way of illustration, Suetonius rehearses a list of distinguished men,
clothed with senatorian or even consular rank, whom
he had put to death upon allegations the most fiivolous; amongst them, Aelius Lamia, a nobleman
whose wife he had torn from him by open and insulting violence. It may be as well to cite the
exact words of Suetonius: * "Aelium  Lamiam (interemit) ob suspiciosos quidem, verum et veteres et innoxios jocos; quod post abductam  uxorem  laudanti
vocem suam - dixerat, Heu taceo; quodque Tito
hortanti se ad  alterum  matrimonium, responderat
{t.1 nt;    yua  7ayfcua  OtLS;" A Angliic, Aelius Lamia
he put to death on account of certain jests; jests
* The original Latin seems singularly careless. Every (ever
though inattentive) reader says — Innoxios, harmless? But it
these jests were harmless, how could he call them suslpiciosos
calculated to rouse suspicion?  The way to justify the drift of
Suetonius in reconcilement with his precise words is thus -— on
account of certain repartees which undeniably had borne a sense
justifying some uneasiness and jealousy at the time of utterance,
but which the eavent had shown to be practically harmless, what.
ever had been the intention, and which were now obsolete.




AELIUS LAMIA.              133
liable to some jealousy, but, on the other hand, of
old standing, and that had in fact proved harmless
as regarded practical consequences — namely, that
to one who praised his voice as a singer he had
replied, lieu taceo; and that, on another occasion,
in reply to the Emperor Titus, when urging him to
a second marriage, he had said, " What now, I suppose you are looking out for a wife? "
The latter jest is intelligible enough, stinging, and
in a high degree witty. As if the young men of the
Flavian family could fancy no wives but such as they
had won by violence fiom other men, lhe affects in a
bitter sarcasm  to take for granted that Titus, in
counselling his friends to marry, was simply contemplating the first step towards creating a fund of
eligible wives.  The primal qualification of any lady
as a consort being, in Flavian eyes, that she had been
torn away violently froml a friend, it became evident
that the preliminary step towards a Flavian wedding
was, to persuade some incautious friend into marrying, and thuls putting himself into a capacity of
being robbed.  Such, at least in the stinging jest of
Lamia, was the Flavian rule of conduct.  And his
friend Titus, therefore, simply as the brother of
Doinitian, simply as a Flavian, he affected to regard
as indirectly and provisionally extending his own
conjugal fund, whenever he prevailed on a friend to
select a wife.
The latter jest, therefore, when once apprehended,
speaks broadly and bitingly for itself.  But the
other, - what can it possibly mean? For centuries
has that question been reiterated; and hitherto with12




134               AELIUS LAMIA.
out advancing by one step nearer to solution. Isaac
Casaubon, who about two hundred and fifty years
since was the leading oracle in this field of literature,
writing an elaborate and continuous commentary
upon Suetonius, found himself unable to suggest any
real aids for dispersing the thick darkness overhanging the passage. What he says is this: "Parum satisfaciunt mihi interpretes in explicatione hujus Lami'e
dicti.  Nam quod putant Heeu taceo suspirium  esse
ejus- indicem doloris ob abductam uxorem magni sed
latentis, nobis non ita videtur; sed notatam potius
fuisse tyrannidelll principis, qui omnia in suo genere
pulchra et excellentia possessoribus eriperet, unde
necessitas incumbebat sua bona dissimulandi celandique." In English thus: Not at all satisfactory to
me are the commentators in the explanation of the
dictum  (here equivalent to  dicteriuzm) of Lamia.
For, whereas they imagine feu taceo to be a sigh of
his, — the record and indication of a sorrow, great
though concealed, on behalf of the wife that had
been violently torn away from him, -me, I confess,
the case does not strike in that light; but rather
that a satiric blow was aimed at the despotism  of
the sovereign prince, who tore away fliom their possessors all objects whatsoever marked by beauty or
distinguished  merit in their own peculiar class'
whence arose a pressure of necessity for dissembling
and hiding their own advantages.  " Sic esse expoenzdum," that such is the true interpretation (continues Casaubon,) " docent illa verba [LAUDANTI VOCEM
SUAM]" (we are instructed by these words), [to one
who praised his singing voice, &c.3




AELIUS LAMIA.             135
This commentary was obscure enough, and did no
particular honor to the native good sense of Isaac
Casaubon, usually so conspicuous. For, whilst proclaiming a settlement, in reality it settled nothing.
Naturally, it made but a feeble impression upon the
scholars of the day; and not long after the publication of the book, Casaubon received from Joseph
Scaliger a friendly but gasconading letter, in which
that great scholar brought forward a new readingnamely, EVTIrUXJ, to which he assigned a profound
technical value as a musical term. No person even
affected to understand Scaliger. Casaubon himself,
while treating so celebrated a man with kind and
considerate deference, yet frankly owned that, in all
his vast reading, he had never met with this Greek
word in such a sense. But, without entering into
any dispute upon that verbal question, and conceding to Scaliger the word and his own interpretation
of the word, no man could understand in what way
this new resource was meant to affect the ultimate
question at issue —namely, the extrication of the
passage from that thick darkness which overshadowed it.
"' As you were " (to speak in the phraseology of
military drill), was in effect the word of command.
All things reverted to their original condition; and
two centuries of darkness again enveloped this unsolved or insoluble perplexity of Roman literature.
The darkness had for a few moments seemed t: be
unsettling itself in preparation for flight; but immediately it rolled back again; and through seven generations of men this darkness was heavier, because




136              AELIUS LAMIA.
now loaded with disappointment, and in that degree
less hopeful than before.
At length then, I believe, all things are ready for
the explosion of a catastrophe: " Which catastrophe," I hear some malicious reader whispering,;' is doubtless destined to glorify himself" (meaning
the unworthy writer of this little paper). I cannot
deny it. A truth is a truth. And, since no medal,
nor ribbon, nor cross of any known order, is disposable for the most brilliant successes in dealing with
desperate (or what may be called condemned) passages in pagan literature, - mere sloughs of despond
that yawn across the pages of many a heathen dog,
poet and orator, that I could mention, - so much the
more reasonable it is that a large allowance should
be served out of boasting and self-glorification to all
those whose merits upon this field national governments have neglected to proclaim. The Scaligers,
both father and son, I believe, acted upon this doctrine; and drew largely by anticipation upon that
reversionary bank which they conceived to be answerable for such drafts. Joseph Scaliger, it strikes
me, was drunk when he wrote his letter on the present occasion, and in that way failed to see (what
Casaubon saw clearly enough) that he had commenced shouting before he was out of the wood.
For my own part, if I go- so far as to say that the
result promises, in the Frenchman's phrase, "to
cover me with glory," I beg the reader to remember
that the idea of " covering " is of most variable extent. The glory may envelop one in a voluminous
robe, a princely mantle that may require a long suite




AELTUS LAMIA.                  137
of train-bearers, or may pinch and vice one's arms
into that succinct garment (now superannuated)
which some eighty years ago drew its name from the
distinguished Whig family in England of Spencer.
All being now ready, and the arena being cleared
of competitors (for I suppose it is fully understood
that everybody but myself has retired firom the contest), let it be clearly understood what it is that the
contest turns upon.  Supposing that one had been
called, like (Edipus of old, td a turn-up with that
venerable girl the Sphinx, most essential it would
have been that the clerk of the course (or however
you designate the judge, the umpire, &c.) should
have read the riddle propounded; how else judge of
the solution? At present the elements of the case
to be decided stand thus:
A Roman noble, a man in fact of senatorial rank,
has been robbed, robbed with violence, and with
cruel scorn, of a lovely young wife, to whom he was
most tenderly attached. But by whom? the indignant reader demands.  By a younger son* of the
* But holding what rank, and what precise station, at the time
of the outrage?  At this point I acknowledge a difficulty.  The
criminal was in this case Domitian, the younger son of the tenth
Cestar, namely, of Vespasian; 2cdly, younger brother of Titus,
the eleventh Cesar; and himself, 3dly, under the name of Domitian, the twelfth of the Cmsars. Now, the difficulty lies here,
which yet. I have never seen noticed in any book: was this violence
perpetrated before or after Domitian's assumption of the purple?
i1' after, how, then, could the injured husband have received that
advice from Titus (as to repa.iring, his loss by a second marriage),
which suggested the earliest bon-mot between Titus and Lami~a
l28




138                   AELIUS LAMIA.
Roman Emperor Vespasian.  For some years the
wrong has been borne in silence.  The sufferer knew
himself to be powerless as against such an oppressor; and that to show symptoms of impotent hatred
was but to  call down thunderbolts upon his own
head.  Generally, therefore, prudence  had  guided
him.  Patience had been the word; silence, and below all, the deep, deep word, watch and wait!  It is,
however, an awful aggravation of such afflictions,
that the lady herself might have cooperated in the
later stages of the tragedy with the purposes of the
imperial ruffian. Lamia had been suffered to live,
because, as a living man, he yielded up into the hands
of his tormentor his whole capacity of suffering; no
part of it escaped the hellish range of his enemy's
eye.  But this advantage for the torturer had also
Yet, again, if not after but before, how was it that Lamia had not
invoked the protection of Vespasian, or of Titus - the latter of
whom enjoyed a theatrically fine reputation for equity and moderation? By the way, another bon-m7nt arose out of this brutal
Domitian's evil reputation. He had a taste for petty cruelties;
especially upon the common house-fly, which, in the Syrian mythology, enjoys the condescending patronage of the god Belzebub.
Flies did Caesar massacre, in spite of Belzebub, by bushels; and
the carnage was the greater, because this Apollyon of flies was
always armed; since the metallic stylus, with which the Roman
ploughed his waxen tablets in writing memoranda, was the best
of weapons in a pitched battle with a fly; in fact, Cmesar had an
unfair advantage. Meantime this habit of his had become notorious; and one day a man, wishing for a private audience, inquired in the antechambers if Cmsar were alone?  Quite alone,
was the reply. " Are you sure?  Is nobody with him?'  Alo..
body: not so much as a fly (ne musca quidan).




AELIUS LAMIA.             139
its weak and doubtful side. Use and monotony
might secretly be wearing away the edge of the
organs on and through which the corrosion of the
inner heart proceeded. And when that point was
reached- a callousness which neutralized the further
powers of the tormentor-it then became the true
policy of such a fiend (as being his one sole unexhausted resource) to inflict death. On the whole,
therefore, putting together the facts of the case, it
seems to have been resolved that he should die; but
previously that he should drink off a final cup of anguish, the bitterest that had yet been offered. The
lady herself, again, had she also suffered in sympathy
with her martyred husband? That must have been
known to a certainty in the outset of the case by him
that knew too profoundly on what terms of love they
had lived. Possibly to resist indefinitely might have
menaced herself with ruin, whilst offering no benefit
to her husband. There is besides this dreadful fact,
placed ten thousand times on record, that the very
goodness of the human heart in such a case ministers
fuel to the moral degradation of a female combatant.
Any woman, and exactly in proportion to the moral
sensibility of her nature, finds it painful to live in
the same house with a man not odiously repulsive in
manners or in person on terms of eternal hostility.
What it was circumstantially that passed, long since
has been overtaken and swallowed up by the vast
oblivions of time.  This only survives — namely,
that what Lamia had said gave signal offence in the
highest quarter, was not forgotten, and that his death
followed eventually. But what was it that he did




1.40              AELIUS LAMIA.
say? That is precisely the question, and the whole
question whichl we have to answer.  At present we
know, and we do not know, what it was that he said.'We find bequeathed to us by history the munificent
legacy of two words —involving eight letterswlhich in their present form, with submission to cer
tainl grandees of classic literature, more particularly
to the scoundrel Joe Scaliger (son of tile old original
ruffian, J. C. Scaliger), mean exactly nothing.  These
two words must be regarded as the raw material
upon which we have to work; and out of these we
are required to turn out a rational, but also, be it
observed, a memorably caustic saying for Aelius
Lamia, under the following five conditions: First, it
must allude to his wife, as one that is lost to him
irrecoverably; secondly, it must glance at a gloomy
tyrant who bars him from rejoining her; thirdly, it
must reply to the compliment which had been paid
to the sweetness of his own voice; fourthly, it should
in strictness contain some allusion calculated not
only to irritate, but even to alarm or threaten his
jealous and vigilant enemy, else how was it suspicious? fifthly, doing all these things, it ought also
to absorb, as its own main elements, the eight letters
contained in the present senseless words — " Heu
laceo."
IHere is a monstrous quantity of work to throw
upon any two words in any possible language.
Even Shakspeare's clown,* when challenged to furnish a catholic answer applicable to all conceivable
* See.ll's Well that Ends W'ell, Act ii., Scene 2.




AELIUS LAMiI.               141l
occasions, cannot do it in less than nine letters,
namely, 0 lord, sitr!  I, for my part, satisfied that
the existing form  of HetC laceo was mere indictable and punishable nonsense, but yet that this nonsense must enter as chief element into the stinging
sense of Lamia, gazed for I cannot tell how many
weeks (weeks, indeed! say years) at these impregnable letters, viewing them sometimes as a fortress that I was called upon to escalade, sometimes
as an anagram  that I was called upon, to redrganize
into the life which it had lost through some dislocation of arrangement.  One day I looked at it through
a microscope  next day I looked at it from a distance through a telescope.  T}hen I reconnoitred it
downwards from the top round of a ladder; then
upwards, in partnership withi Truth, from the bottom
of a well.  Finally, the result in which I landed,
and which fulfilled all the conditions laid down, was
this: Let me premise, however-, what at any rate the
existing darkness attests, that some disturbance of
the text must in some way have arisen, whether
frorn the gnawing of a rat, or the spilling of some
obliterating fluid at this point of some unique iMS.
It is sufficient for us that the vital word has survived.  I suppose, therefore, that Larnia had replied
to the fiiend who praised the sweetness of his voice,
" Sweet, is it? Ah, would to Heaven it might prove.so sweet as to be even Orpheutic!"  Ominous in
this case would be the word Orpheutic to the ears
of Domitian; for every schoolboy knows that this
means a wife-re'voking voice.  Let me remark that
there is such a legitimate word as Orpheutaceavm,




142               AELIUS LAMIA.
and in that case the Latin repartee of Lamia would
stand thus: Suavem dixisti? Quam. vellemr el Orpheutacearm. But, perhaps, reader, you fail to recognize
in this form our old friend Het, taceo.  But here he is
to a certainty, in spite of the rat; and in a different
form of letters the compositor will show him up to
you, as vellerm et Orp  [IHEU TACEAM].  Here,
then, shines out at once, (1) Eurydice the lovely
wife; (2) detained by the gloomy tyrant Pluto; (3)
who, however, is forced into surrendering her to her
husband, whose voice (the sweetest ever known)
drew stocks and stones to follow him, and finally his
wife; (4) the word Orpheutic involves, therefore, an
alarming threat, showing that the hope of recovering
the lady still survived; (5) we now find involved
in the restoration all the eight, or perhaps nine, letters of the erroneous (and for so long a time unintel
ligible) form.




CHINA.
[1857.]
PRELIMINARY NOTE.
WIHAT is the justifying purpose of this pamphlet 1 at this moment?  Its purpose is to diffuse amongst those of the middle
classes, whose daily occupations leave them small leisure for
direct personal inquiries, some sufficient materials for appreciating the justice of our British pretensions and attitude in our
coming war with China.  It is a question firequently raised
amongst public journalists, whether we British are entitled to
that exalted distinction which sometimes we claim for ourselves,
and which sometimes is claimed on our behalf, by neutral observers, in the national practice of morality. There is no call in
this place for so large a discussion; but, most undoubtedly, in
one feature of so grand a distinction, in one reasonable presumption for inferring a profounder national conscientiousness, as dift
fused among the British people, stncds upon record, in the pages
of history, this memorable fact, that always at the opening (and
at intervals throughout the progress) of any wvar, there has been
much and angry discussion amongst us British as to the equity
of its origin, and the moral reasonableness of its objects.  Whereas, on the Continent, no man ever heard of a question being
raised, or a fiction being embattled, upon any demur (great or
small) as to the moral grounds of a war.  To be able to face the
trials of a war- that was its justification; and to win victories
— that was its ratification for the conscience.
The dispute at Shanghai, in 1848, equally as regards the origin
(143)




144                         CHINA.
of that dispute, and.as regards the Chinese mode of conducting
it, will give the reader a key to the Chinese character and the
Chinese policy. To begin by making the most arrogant resistance to the simplest demands of justice, to end by cringing in the
lowliest fashion before the guns of a little war-brig, there we have,
in a representative abstract, the Chinese system of law and gospel. The equities of the present war are briefly summed up in
this one question: What is it that our brutal enemy wants from
us? Is it some concession in a point of international law, or of
commercial rights, or of local privilege, or of traditional usage,
that the Chinese would exact?  Nothing of the kind.  It is
simply a license, guaranteed by ourselves, to call us in all proclamations by scurrilous names; and, secondly, with our own consent, to inflict upon us, in the face of universal China., one signal
humiliation. Amongst the total household of Christians, who is
he that is most pointedly insulted and trampled under foot?  It
is the Cagot of the Pyrenees. Amongst Christian nations, again,
which is the most fanatically arrogant?  It is the Spanish.  Yet
this fitnatic Spaniard does not inflict upon this downtrodden
Cagot an insult so deep as that which is insisted on by the Chinese towards us. The Spaniard never disputed the Cagot's parti(ipation in Christian hopes; never meditated the exclusion of the
poor outcast from his palrish church; he contented himself with
framing a separate door for the Cagot, so low that he could not
pass underneath its architrave, unless by assuming a cringing
and supplicating attitude. But us - the freemen of the earth by
emphatic precedency -us, the leaders of civilization, would this
putrescent 2 tribe of hole-and-corner assassins take upon themselves, not, to force into entering Canton by an ignoble gate, but
to exclude from it altogether, and forever. Briefly, then, for this
licensed scurrility, in the first place; and, in the second, for this
foul indignity of a spiteful exclusion from  a right four times
secured by treaty, it is that the Chinese are facing the unhappy
issues of war.  And if any apologist for the Chinese, such as Mr.
Cobden, denies this view of the case, let him  be challenged to
name that Chinese object which has been here overlooked. Simply
this one statement, if it cannot be contradicted, settles all quess
tions as to the justice (on our side) of the coming war.




CHINA.                  145
PREFACE.
THE Chinese question is that which, at this mo.
ment [April 5, 1857], possesses the public mind,
almost to the exclusion of all others, and is likely
to (ldo so for the next six months.3 This paramount
importance of the two-headed Chinese question is
now speaking'through organs that, in the most eminent sense, are nationally representative. China it is
that has moulded, with a decision liable to no misinterpretation, the character of the new Parliament.
Suddenly, summarily, without notice or warning,
five leading members of the last Parliament, Messrs.
Cobden, Bright, Gibson, Miall, and Fox, all charmed
against any ordinary assault by the strength of their
personal claims, having not only great services to
plead, but talents of the quality peculiarly fitted for
senatorial duties, have been thrown out and rejected, with the force of a volcanic explosion, by
distinguished electoral bodies, on the sole ground
of their ruinous and unpatriotic votes with respect
to China.
Not one of these gentlemen would seem to have
at all expected his doom. And this strengthens the
inference, which other indications favor, that they
have not studied Chinese politics, or in any reasonable degree acquainted themselves with the Chinese
character. Blind to these main elements in the question, Messrs. Cobden, &c., were unavoidably blind
also to the value likely to be put upon those elements by constituents who were not blind. This
18                       10




146                  CHINA.
ignorance about China manifests itself everywhere,
In the Upper I-louse of' Parliament the most eminent
statesmen, Lords Derby, Grey, Malmesbury, and
others, betrayed inexcusable ignorance. Not that
China is naturally entitled to any very large proportion of attention from  our public men, -the que.tions raised by China being generally too few and
simple to require it,- but in the agitation of a sudden crisis, throwing deep shadows of uncertainty
over the immediate prospects of our far-distant
brethren, and calling for strong measures on our
part, most undoubtedly no man should have come
forward to advise without earnest study of the case;
much less to flatter with encouragement, from the
bosom  of our Senate, the infamous policy of our
Cantonese enemies. Even profounder ignorance of
everything Chinese is exhibited by Mr. Roebuck.
Would it have been credible, one month back,
that an upright, high-minded, public servant like
Mr. Roebuck, sometimes giving way to an irritable
temperament too much fbor his own dignity, but
always under the control of just intentions, would,
upon any possible temptation from partisanship,
have allowed himself' to speak in a complimentary
tone of the ruffian, larcinous, poisoning Canton?
Mr. Roebuck, by way of describing and appraising
this Chinese city, tells the manly and honorable
people of Sheffield that it is very much like their
own town; that its main characteristic is, to have a
strong will of its own, and to be bold in expressing
it. And he leaves it altogether doubtful whether
the compliment, in this comparison of the two cities,




CHINA.                  14U
is meant for Canton or for Sheffield.  Sheffield, like
many towns whose population is chiefly composed
of ingenious and self-dependent artisans, I have
long known and admired as a stubborn, headstrong,
sometimes, perhaps, turbulent community, but always moving under the impulse of noble objects.
The Sheffield that I have known never had its
streets incrusted with layers of blood from unoffending foreigners, never offered bribes for wholesale
murder, never gave occasion to its chief magistrate
for alleging that, in tempting men to poison unknown strangers, he had simply yielded to the
coercion of the town mob. Canton has risen on
foundations laid by British money. As a city distinguished firom its port, Canton was nothing until
reared and cherished by English gold.  And the
vile population of the place, which has furnished a
by-word of horror to all European residents in the
Chinese seas, has been fed and supported in every
stage of its growth by our British demand for tea.
The sorters, the packers, the porters, the boatmen,
and multitudes beside in ministerial trades, live and
flourish upon what virtually are English wages.
And it is these English, above all other foreigners,
but else in default of English any foreigners whatsoever, that the indigenous murderer of Canton cuts
to pieces as often as he finds him alone in the lanes
of Canton, or feebly accompanied. Such a roll-call
of murders as pollutes the annals of Canton is not
natched by any other city, ancient or modern. And
yet Mr. Roebuck assured Sheffield, from the bustings, that she was favorably distinguished among




148                   CHINA.
cities by her resemblance to Canton.  And in the
midst of all this, whilst ignoring the testimony of
our able and experienced countrymen resident on
the spot, and locally familiar with every foot of the
ground, and with every popular rumor that blows,
never once had Mir. Roebuck the candor to acknowledge, for the arrest of judgment among his auditors,
that every Frenchman, Belgian, American, and men
of most other European nations, had abetted us, had
joined us in warfare, when the circumstances had
allowed (as the Americans,4 for instance, thoughunot
with all the success that might have been expected);
and finally, whether joining our arms or not (which,
in fact, until equally insulted with ourselves, they
could not do), all the official representatives of France
-- consul, superintendent, and naval officer - had
subscribed the most cordial certificates of our intolerable provocations, of our forbearance in calling for
reparation, all~, of our continued moderation in exacting that reparation when it could no longer be hoped
for from  the offenders.  Is Mr. Roebuck himself
aware that the two great leaders of civilization in
Western Christendom  have joined in justifying our
conduct in the Canton waters? If he is, how came
it that, in fair dealing, he did not mention this at
Sheffield? If not aware of it, how came he to think
himself qualified for discussing this Chinese question?
It is but a trifle, after this flagrant body of misrepresentation, to cite the errors of Lord Dalkeith, when
speaking from  the county hustings in Edinburgll
(Tuesday, March 31).  It does honor to his con



CHINA.                 149
stiuntiousness that, whilst erroneously supposing the
Arrow to be confessedly no British vessel, from the
premature letter of Sir John Bowring to Consul
Parkes, he gave his vote in that way which seemed
best to mark his sense of what then appeared to be
our British injustice;' and it does honor to his candor
that, on having since seen reason to distrust the
impression which originally governed him, he now
declares from the hustings that the case is doubtful.
" I will not give my opinion," says the earl, " as to
whether we were right or wrong in the question of
the lorcha: it was argued both ways by the most
eminent lawyers in both houses of Parliament."
Yes; but being argued, with whatever legal skill,
upon a false report of the facts, thus far the whole
debate goes for nothing. But Lord Dalkeith adds a
sentence (I quote from the " Scotsman's " report)
which must have perplexed his hearers and readers:
" It was argued," he says, " that, in dealing with a
barbarous people like the Chinese, - for, though they
are a people learned in mathematics, and in some of
the erudite sciences, they yet are a barbarous people,
- we ought," &c. As to the barbarism, nobody
will contradict his lordship there; but as to the mathematics and erudite sciences, this is the first time
they were ever heard of; and I cannot but suppose
that the error may be owing to some equivocal
phrases in the "Lettres Edifiantes," or other works
of that early date. No native Chinese, educated at
a native school, ever advanced, I have good reason
for believing, to the Fourth Book of "Euclid."
When the Roman Catholic Missionaries, about 1640O




150                  crImA.
and especially the Jesuits, to wvhom all Europe is so
much indebted for the diffusion of education, and,
above all, of mathematics (for by Jesuits it was that
the "l-'rincipia"  of the heretic Newton were first
popularized by a commentary), the Chinese were in
too abject a state to calculate a lunar eclipse, and
many times the astronomer-royal was bambooed in
punishment of his miscalculations. But what did
these horrid savages want with mathematics? It is
perfectly impossible that any insulated love of speculative truth can ever arise. One mode of abstract
truth leads into another, and collectively they flourish from reciprocal support. Mathematics! - how
could those men have, who had nlo navigation, no
science of projectiles, no engineering, no land-surveying, no natural philosophy, nor any practical
discipline that depends upon  mathematics?  To
determine "the fortunate hour" 5 fbr any inaugural
act, that was the ultimate object of " science " contemplated in China. Anything more than this was
left to the Jesuits. In fact, a lively picture of the.
temporary light spread by the Jesuits might be drawn
from  the relations of Prospero to Caliban.  The
mighty wizard first taught the carnal dog to distinguish the greater and the lesser light —-in fact, to
understand the cause of day and night. But beyond
a certain point he could not go: all teaching was
thrown away upon one who could not be taught to
wove knowledge.  Caliban, however, was at least
made tractable to discipline —he understood the
meaning of a kick. But the Chinese Caliban,




CHINA.                  151
"Abhorred slave,
That any print of goodness would not take,"
was visited by successions of Prosperos, and persecuted them all whenever the casual caprice that
protected them for the hour had burned itself out.
Erroneous praise given to such vile burlesques of
intellectual humanity forces a man to lodge his protest. Had the Chinese ever been inoculated with
any true science, they would have learned to appreciate those who have more. Once let them, in any
one pursuit, manifest a sense or a love of anything
really intellectual, and we shall then have a hank
over them - then first they will rise out of that
monkey tribe, capable of mimicry, but of no original
creative act, to which they now belong.
Impressed with this general want of knowledge as
to China and its habits of feeling, which is due to
mere want of study applied to that subject, I have
allowed myself to suppose that it might be serviceable to abstract, and to make accessible for the mass
of readers, the Parliamentary Blue Books, which are
constantly filled with instructive details, but are
seldom effectually published so as to reach readers
not wealthy, nor having much time to seek after
works lying out of the ordinary track. As one mode
of doing this, I have here reprinted a paper of my
own from TITAN, which embodies a good deal of circumstantial knowledge originally drawn, in great
part, from Blue Books of several years back. To
this I have prefixed what will be found a seasonable
account of an angry dispute with China in the year




152                  CHINA.
1848, drawn from the ample report made officially to
government. At a moment when the subject of
China is sure to be universally discussed, no case
can possibly present more instructive features; for
it was conducted, from first to last, by a man of
unrivalled energy and resolution, the Consul Rutherford Alcock; and it serves, in every stage, for a
representative picture of the Chinese policy in dealing with foreigners. It has also this separate value,
that it rehearses and anticipates, as in a mirror, the
main features of our present dispute, some nine years
younger, with Yeh and the "literati" (as we absurdly call the poisoning knaves) of Canton. Here
we find the same insolent disposition to offer insults,
the same extravagant obstinacy in refusing all real
redress, and the same silly attempt to cheat us with
a sham redress. Here, also, we find anticipated the
late monstrous doctrine put forward in Parliament -
namely, that no retaliatory measures must be undertaken by the delegated officers - consul or plenipotentiary — until the whole case has been submitted
to the home government.  On such extravagant
terms, no outrage, however atrocious, could be redressed; the opportunity would have lapsed; the
sense of injury would have faded away, and the sense
of justice in the reprisals would be blunted, long before. Lord Dalkeith, indeed, most aristocratically
suggests that the disqualification of Sir J. Bowring
for instant retaliation arose out of his station: he
was not of rank sufficient to undertake hostilities
War demanded a baron at the least.  If that were so,
then government had be.n greatly to blame in not




CMNA.                   153
originally appointing a man of adequate rank to fill
the situation. The public service suffers, danger is
allowed to ripen, the reparable becomes irreparable,
under such a doctrine as this. To what excess would
our interests have been damaged in Burmah, in
Scinde, in Affghanistan, and many other places, had
such a doctrine operated! Let us hear, on this subject, two men of the most appropriate experience.
First, in 1848, on March 31, thus writes Consul
Alcock on the supposed propriety of his seeking
instructions from Hong-Kong (a thousand miles off)
before he was at liberty to move: " Too distant to
refer for instructions, I have been compelled, without
delay or hesitation, to do all that seemed possible
with the means at my disposal. If fear of responsibility had deterred me, I conscientiously believe that,
long before your Excellency's better judgment could
have been brought to bear upon the circumstances, our
position would have been materially deteriorated,
and our security would have been seriously endangered." And this, he adds, is the opinion also of
all the foreigners, of the naval officer on the station,
and all other men of any experience.
Secondly, on March 29, 1848, thus write the consular representatives of foreign powers, addressing our admirable British Consul, Mr. Rutherford
Alcock: " Il1 est certain que si vous eussiez tarde
d'un seul jour a exiger et obtenir la punition exemplaire des miserables qui s'etoient rendus coupables,
&c., la vie et les proprite's de tous les 6trangers
etoient serieusement compromises." A single day's
delay would, it seems, have been dangerous, might




154:                 CHINA.
have been ruinous; and yet people would have lifeand-death arrangements to wait for communication
between Shanghai and London!
Shanghai, as is well known to those few persons
who have made themselves acquainted with our
Chinese treaties, is one of the five ports laid open
to our commercial shipping — that is, extorted from
the terrors of China by our ten thousand expostulating
bayonets; and next after Canton it is the most
important. Here we British had, upon the whole,
lived very much unmolested; for a thousand miles,
laid between us and the murdering ruffians of Canton, had availed to cleanse the air from the reeking
fumes of human shambles. Early, however, in the
spring of 1848, six years after our drums and trumpets were heard no more, this happy calm was interrupted by a ferocious outrage, which is of the last
importance for reasons of permanent diplomatic value.
The reader must not understand that, in its immediate features of violence and wantonness, this case
transcended many others in or near Canton. On the
contrary, by an accident no life was lost on this
occasion; whereas in Canton as many as six of our
countrymen have been murdered outright in one and
the same minute. But the Shanghai case moved
regularly through all the stages of judicial inquest
under the most resolute, vigilant and prudent of
public officers. The consul at Shanghai, Mr. Rutherford Alcock, fortunately for the interests of'justice
on this particular occasion,- yet that was a trifle by
comparison with the interests of our general position
in China,- -followed up the criminal inquest, hunted




CHINA.                 15.
l Wok upon the traces of the ruffians with the energy
oW some Hebrew avenger of blood.
OJn Wednesday, the 8th of March, 1848, three
lBe-tish missionaries - Medhurst, Lockhart, and Muirhea — made an excursion into the country from
Shanghai, for the purpose of distributing Protestant
tracts,- a purpose quite unintelligible to the Celestial intellect. The furthest point of their journey
was Tsing-poo, distant about ninety-six le [that is,
according to the usual valuation, 9L_ English miles.] B
The exact distance became a question of importance,
since naturally it must everywhere be desirable for
sustaining a complaint against wrong-doers, that
the plaintiff should not himself be found trespassing
upon any regulation of law. Now, the treaty limited our journeys to a day's extent. But on this
point there seems to be no room for demur, since the
consul (whose authority is here unimpeachable)
exonerates the missionaries from having at all
exceeded the privileged distance. On leaving Tsingpoo, the missionaries were hustled by a mob -not,
perhaps, ill-disposed in any serious extent, but rough
and violent. Yet this moderation might be merely
politic; for thus far the mob was under the eye of
the town and its police. But, on leaving the town,
another mob was seen coming after them —apparently, by its angry and menacing gestures, of a more
dangerous character. Two of the missionaries, Medhurst and Lockhart, being able to converse fluently
in Chinese, thought it best to expostulate with this
mob; and, accordingly, to await their coming up.




156                 CHINA.
Any expression of courage was likely to do service,
but in this case it failed.
It is not necessary to repeat minutely the circum,
stances of the outrage.  The missionaries were
knocked down, trampled on, robbed of their watches
and all other personal effects, and then dragged back
to Tsing-poo, with the avowed intention of either
forcing them severally to pay a ransom of one thousand dollars, or else (which, on the whole, they preferred) of striking off their heads on reaching the
other side of the city.
Who were these wretches, thus capable of meditating the last violence against a party of inoffensive
strangers, that had come to Tsing-poo on a mission
unintelligible, it is true, to them, but still wearing on
its face a purpose of disinterested kindness? A few
words will explain their position with regard to the
government, and the danger which attached to their
enmity. The tributes of rice, sent to Peking by the
southern provinces, had usually been conveyed to
Peking by way of the grand canal. This method,
as compared with the conveyance by sea, was costly,
but had been forced upon the government as the one
sole resource in their hands for employing a turbulent body of junk-men. At this crisis, however, an
extraordinary shallowness 7 affected the grand canal,
and the grain was put on board ships. The boatmen,
amounting to thirteen thousand, but by some accounts
to twenty thousand, were thus thrown out of employ.
IHow were they to live, or to support their families?
The wicked government (which Mr. Roebuck treats as
specially paternal) allowed them to understand that




CHINA.                 157
they must live at free quarters, as privileged maraudfers, upon the surrounding district; to which distric"
they had accordingly become a terrific abomination.
On March 9, the day immediately following the
outrage, the proper steps were taken for obtaining
satisfaction by the consul resident at Shanghai. A
demand was instantly lodged with the Ta-oo-tae, or
sheriff, for the arrest of the persons criminally implicated in the attack, for their trial, for their punishment,
and for the restoration of the stolen property. Very
soon it became evident that the magistrate had not the
remotest intention of attending to any one of these
demands. " With a singular inaptitude," says the
consul, "he wasted time so precious to him in mere
subterfuges, and miserable attempts at trick and evasion. And the arrests, which were prevented at
first only by his want of will, would soon pass out
of his power." Once convinced that nothing was
to be hoped for from the voluntary aid of the Ta-ootae, the consul sat down to calculate his means of
compulsion. These lay chiefly in such coercion or
restraint as might be found applicable to a vast fleet
of junks " on the eve of departure for Peking, and
at that moment lying ready laden in the anchorage
above H.M.S. Childers. Of these junks there were
more than a thousand. Of all that vast number, not
one," said the consul, "shall pass the Childers,"
until satisfaction shall have been given as to the
arrest of the Tsing-poo criminals.
This embargo had been maintained for several
days, when the Ta-oo-tae attempted to intimidate the
consul by suborning two deputy officers to suggest
14




158                  CHINA.
the probability of an attack from a Shanghai mob.
This suggestion was made by way of letter, and the
men asked for a personal interview, at which they
would have attempted to enforce their alarms more
effectually. But the consul contemptuously refused
to see them. "I have," said he, "a wife and family
living in the very centre of Shanghai. They and I
are at your mercy; but that will not frighten me from
my duty."
On March 12, the consul writes to say, "That,
up to yesterday evening, three days since the outrage had elapsed without result. All the parties
implicated had been seen by hundreds, must be
known to the policemen who assisted in the release
of the British so cruelly maltreated; and, finally,
that all the junk-men are in the employ of the
Chinese government.  The consul is bound to
inform the Ta-oo-tae that, under these circumstances,
any hesitation or any delay amounts to a denial of
justice."
On the day following, namely, March 13, the consul writes again: " The ringleaders in the late murderous attack upon British subjects have not yet been
seized. It is now, therefore, the consul's duty to
inform the chief magistrate, that between nation
and nation, in all countries not thoroughly barbarous,
it is a recognized law, when an injury is inflicted for
which reparation is refused, the nation aggrieved
may do itself justice, when justice cannot otherwise
be obtained." The consul then shows, that for him
the dilemma has arisen, either to see the highest inter.




CHINA.                 159
ests of his nation sacrificed by the impunity granted
to these criminals; or
And then he states distinctly the other horn of
the dilemma in these following terms:
" If, within forty-eight hours reckoned from noon
of this present day, ten of the ringleaders are not
in Shanghai for trial and punishment, the consul
will, in that case, take other steps to obtain that
reparation which the honorable Ta-oo-tae must then
be understood solemnly to have refused."
But was justice to linger through these forty-eight
hours? By no means: provisional steps were to be
taken instantly -- namely, these two:
First, "No duties for British ships can be paid
over to the custom-house; "
Secondly, "Nor can it be permitted that the
grain junks now in the river shall leave the port;
and I trust that you, the honorable Ta-oo-tae, may
see the prudence of forbidding them to make the
attempt."
The consul then wisely reminds the magistrate,
whose doing it is virtually that these resolute measures are adopted; let him — let the dispenser of
justice - cease to cherish murderers, and all will
return to its natural channels. Indispensable is this
continued moral memento; for else the knave would
toc surely forget that anybody was accountable for
the pressure on the Chinese finances except Her
Britannic Majesty's representative.
The consul winds up by these two paragraphs,
that must have carried with them the poison of scorpions ~




160                  CHINA.
First, with regard to the evasion attempted of
late more and more by the Chinese authorities, and
which, with their usual silliness, they fancy to be a
knockdown blow to the British, such as cannot be
parried,- namely, that they, the Chinese, find themselves in a mere inability to control their own mob,
and that nobody can justly be summoned to the
performance of impossibilities, - the consul simply
requests the Ta-oo-tae to observe that in that case
the treaty lapses, and becomes so much waste paper.
It had then, confessedly, been the crime of the
Peking government, in an earlier stage of the intercourse with Britain, to undertake that which, if now
aware, then and always it must have been aware, of
inability to perform. If this inability is not to be
regarded as a sharper's trick, then the British re6nter
upon those rights of self-indemnification which, upon
mendacious pretences, they had consented to withdraw; and the Chinese re6nter upon those evils from
which, under a fraudulent representation, we consented to deliver them. Nothing was exacted from
Peking except the withdrawal of patronage from
murder.
The closing paragraph, ominous in Chinese ears as
the bell of St. Sepulchre in past times to the poor
Newgate convict, ran thus: " I entreat you, whilst
it is yet time, to put an end to this untoward state
of affairs BY PRODUCING THE CRIMINALS;" [there lay
the sum of our demand;] "but, if this be not done,
it remains for me to announce my determination to
redress the injury inflicted."  The consul then




CmHIN'A.               -161
announces the arrival of ll.M.S. Childers, and the
immediate approach of her comrade, the Espiegle.
" And should further insult, molestation, or injury
be offered to British subjects, I will summon every
British ship within reach to the anchorage; and the
consequences will rest on your Excellency's head,
whose acts will have been the cause of all that may
follow."
Let us pause a moment to review the ease so far
as it has even yet travelled. I have noticed in
another part of this pamphlet the inhuman obstinacy
of the Chinese, quite unparalleled in human annals,
agreeably to which experience it is a common remark
of Europeans in China, that no good ever comes of
reasoning with a Chinaman; for what he says at
first, though by mere accident, that he fancies it a
point of nobility to insist on at the last. But at what
price? Let this be judged by the present case.
This dog, now playing his antics before us in. a style
to make the angels weep, is pretending to think it a
meritorious distinction in his public history, that he
has screened, and will.continue to screen, from justice
a gang of bloody criminals. Why? On what allegation? Allow him  even the benefit of what is
essential to the comfort of a Chinese, namely, falsehood, upon what mendacious pretence does he build
his patronage of these thieves? Is it that he takes
some separate and eccentric view of their murderous
acts? Is it as a hair-splitting casuist that he comes
forward? Not at all; he admits the very worst of
what is alleged against them by ourselves. Is it
14*                    a1




162                   CHINA.
then simply that he shrinks from the tr1ouble that may
chance to be connected with the arrest of the accused?
But as yet he has not made an attempt to arrest
them; and already, even at this early stage of the
case, it has become evident enough that trouble
incalculably greater will attend the refusal to arrest.
Is it then that he has been bribed by, or on behalf
of, the wrong-doers?  Neither case is possible.
There is nobody who takes any interest in the ruffians; and they, individually, are paupers. The sole
reason which governs the Ta-oo-tae is derived from
the impulse of demoniac obstinacy. From the first
he had sworn to himself that the consul should not
obtain his demand. And, in fact, it will not be
obtained through this officer, though it is daily
becoming clearer that it will be obtained in spite of
this officer, to the signal injury of this officer, and
(unless he should have the fiend's luck as well as his
own), probably, to his ruin. Yet all this plain summons of common sense is overthrown by the single
impulse of Chinese currish restiveness.
Considered as a morbid phenomenon in the history
of human nature, the case [that is, not the individual
case, but the Chinese case generally] is interesting;
and it is worth while arraying before the reader that
series of mortifications which had already followed
out of the Ta-oo-taed obstinacy, and was likely every
week to thicken its gloomy shadows:
First, he had been baffled — and, which was still
more mortifying, he had been exposed as a baffled
agent -— in a little intrigue for undermining the official rights and dignity of the consul, Rutherford




CHINA.                 163
Alcock. The Ta.oo-tae had written privately to Mr.
Medhurst, with a view to some secret hole-and-cor
ner settlement of the case, such as might evade the
call for the criminals, and supersede, as a resjudicata,
the official interference of the consul.  WTith summary decision, the consul showed him that his
manceuvres were known to him, and were too frivolous (as being founded in total ignorance of international diplomacy) to cause him any serious concern.
Secondly, he had hoped that this refusal of the
Tsing-poo delinquents would operate most prejudicially to the British interests, in so far as they d-epended upon public opinion. And this result really
would have followed, but for the powerful counteraction effected by the consul. He was fully aware
of the intense interest in this affair taken by the
whole population between Shanghai and Tsing-poo.
The Chinese in this province, previously perplexed
in extremity by the counter indications of British
character, had been impressed profoundly by reports
to the disadvantage of our power and credit from
Canton; they were generally in a state of suspense
upon the true tendencies of our influence and weight
with the supreme government; and this contest with
the local government, tending (as apparently it did)
to an open rupture, was naturally watched by the
whole population over an area s8 of a thousand square
miles (that is, over all the interjacent country connecting Shanghai and Tsing-poo, and round each of
these neighboring cities as a centre).  But this
vigilant interest was trained into currents favorable




164                 C hIN A.
to the British name by placards (in the Chinese language for the native population, in the English language for the European population), emanating from
the judicious pen of the consul.  These placards
were, in one special feature, most skilfully framed ---
that so far from arrogantly or ostentatiously array.
ing before their readers the vast British resources,
on the contrary, they sought to apologize for the
painful necessity of employing them. Nevertheless,
in the very act of thus apologizing, unavoidably they
rehearsed and marshalled those terrors which they
deprecated. How painful to summon this eightyfour-gun ship! How disagreeable to call up that
dreadful Nemesis steamer, which revives so many
angry memorials! Yet in deprecating he records
them.
It was not that the consul really felt the confidence, or not all the confidence, which patriotically
he simulated. But he knew that it would be ruinous
to manifest any fears; upon the least encouragement
in that way a Chinese populace becomes unmanageable, for the Chinese is a natural connoisseur in
c owardice; by sympathetic instinct he understands
and appreciates every movement of fear.  The consul, therefore, suffered the ladies of his family to
traverse the city every day at high noon, and in
every direction, not hiding from himself or them,
meantime, that upon any hostile demonstration from
the mob of Shanghai, he and they were lost; for
their dwelling was in the very centre of the city,
from which no escape was possible. Let the reader,
meantime, in estimating this attempt to work upon




IIrNA.                 I65
the consul's fears for his family, transfer the situation in his imagination to London, and figure to himself our own sheriffs of London and Middlesex, under
instructions from the Foreign Office, and from the
Privy Council, striving to terrify a Chinese envoy
from his duty, by suggesting dangerous mobs.
This dodge having failed, the Ta-oo-tae (whom for
sake of brevity, permit me henceforward to call9 by
the well-known name of Mr. Toots) tried another.
He had pledged his word at ten A.M., that in return
for notorious forbearances on the part of the consul,
he would himself abstain from all underhand intrigues
with the rice-junks. At eleven A. M. on the same day
he issued secret orders that these junks should drop
down, and try to slip out by threes and fours, hoping
thus to distract the little Childers. This ruse, also,
having failed, next he practised others more and more
childish. He caused, for instance, bricks to be piled
elaborately above the rice. But Jack, on board the
Childers, found prime larking in watching and baffling
all these wiles. The little Childers proved herself
a brick " in maintaining the consul's embargo;
and upon the whole it was certain that the merest
trifle, if any at all, of the rice had slipped through.
An interdict having simultaneously been put upon
the payment of the usual British dues to the customhouse, those who sat at the receipt of custom began to hold a sinecure office. Fine holiday times
there were now in Shanghai, which made the Chinese:Mr. Toots very popular at that port; but, on the
other hand, at Peking, and all around the Imperial
Exchequer, which showed all the symptoms of gal



166                 CHINA.
lopping consumption, he would have been cursed by
bell, book, and candle, had it been known distinctly
who caused the stoppage. Toots, therefore, fancied
that he would try his hand at a new swindle, which
could cost him only two dollars and a lie. So, one
fine morning, he said to the consul, What is it you
want?- Cons. What is it? Why, I should think
you knew pretty well by this time: what I want
is, the Tsing-poo knaves.- Toots. Well, I've got'em. - Cons. How many?- Toots. Two; but, as
they were the ringleaders, that ought to do. - Cons.
No. It's too little, by eight. HIowever, as a payment to account, I'11 take it. We'11 call it a first
instalment. But let's have a look at the men; are
you sure they are genuine?- Toots. 0, quite. -
Cons. Well, I'11 send for the missionaries. These,
on arriving, were introduced, together with the consul, to the supposed ruffians; but the whole pretence
was instantaneously detected as a hoax.  Neither
of the men could be recognized by any of the missionaries; and, by an ingenious artifice of the consul, they were conclusively exposed as swindlers.
Concerting his plan with the missionaries, the consul challenged both the knaves to answer him this
question, — one most rememberable incident in the
course of the outrage, - Had it happened at the east
(otherwise the Shanghai) gate, or at the north gate?
After an embarrassed pause, both men said, At the
north gate. Now, in fact, it had happened at neither,
but in the very centre of the town, two miles removed from any gate. This dodge, therefore, would
not work, any more than the brick-masked rice. The




CHINA.                  167
two scoundrels were exploded from the stage with
peals of laughter,"' whilst Mr. Toots walked off re
infecta, saying, It's of no consequence, not of the very
least consequence, not the slightest in the world.
But nobody could say that of the next move in the
game. The consul had by this time become weary
of the fool's play, which, because it was childish and
girlish beyond all belief to European minds, was not
on that account the less knavish or the less dangerous. He was therefore now prepared to play his last
and capital card. Neither the rice embargo nor the
customs' interdict was of a nature to be long continued-the pressure, growing every hour more
severe, would have found a vent in riots, such as
neither prudence nor conscience, on our British side,
was likely to contemplate steadfastly.  The last
resource, therefore, in a case where the subordinate
magistrates showed no signs of yielding, must be an
armed appeal to the higher. This was tried: it was
tried instantly; instantly it met with the amplest
acquiescence; instantly satisfaction was awarded on
each several article of our complaint; and to all
appearance (though such appearances are hard to
spell in trick-trick-tricking China) the celestial pigtail curled up wrathfully against Mr. Toots, and
frowns mantled on the celestial countenance, th ughl
M1r. Toots persisted in saying that it was of no consequence-not the least; no, I assure you, not of
the slightest conceivable consequence. The arch
little gypsy, the saucy Espiegle, thought otherwise,
She and Mr. Toots differed in opinion. For she it
was that worked the whole revolution; she it was




168                  CHINA.
that carried a certain letter from the consul,' and
also the consul's compliments, into the great river
Yang-tse-Keang; and from pure forgetfulness (which
I can allow for, being myself subject to frequent
absence of mind), she carried at the same time her
whole armament of guns. This little ship, finding
herself in this huge river, danced a few cotillons up
and down; but, at last, night coming on, she settled
down to business; ran up to Nanking; asked if the
viceroy lived there; and, finding he did, Jack handed
in his papers, saying that the viceroy would find a
writ inside for himself. It is inconceivable what a
fright and what a termashaw were caused by this little Espiegle. For hundreds of miles on both banks
of the river were seen men peering into honeycombed
guns, like magpies into a marrow-bone, cleaning
muskets, sharpening swords, drying damp gunpowder. Some reason there was for all this alarm, since
the Espiegle had her guns with her; she showed her
teeth; and the last time that the "Son of the
Ocean" 1 or any of his children could have seen such
teeth had been sixteen years ago: at which date
results had followed never to be forgotten by China;
for, beyond all doubt, the great social swell, the restlessness, and the billowy state of insurrectionary
uproars, that have agitated China ever since their
war with us, owe their origin to that war. They
trace not only their time origin, but their causal origin to that war. That war pierced as with Ithuriel's
spear the great bloated carcass of China, and what
followed? The old Miltonic Ithuriel dislodged the
mighty form of a leading warrior angel from what




CHINA.                 169
had seemed to be a bloated toad; but Great Britain,
the Ithuriel of 1842, simply reversed this process;
and that which, under old traditional superstitions,
had masqueraded as a warrior angel, collapsed, at
one touch of the mighty spear, into a bloated toad.
The blindness of China prompted him to come (and
needlessly to come) into collision with a power the
mightiest upon earth; or, under any estimate,
mightiest of those that speak from a double centre
of land and sea. The title of leader among terraqueous potentates, no rival (however jealous) will
refuse to Great Britain; and exactly such a power it
was that China should have shunned: because the
great nations that are strong only in armies cannot,
from the cost and other causes, transfer one-fortieth
part of their forces to regions so remote as China.
Even St. Petersburg is above six thousand miles distant (and therefore Moscow not five hundred miles
less) from the very nearest (that is, the northernmost) of the Chinese capitals — namely, Peking;
consequently much more from the southern capitals
of China; and, meantime, all the populous and
most available part of Russia is divided firom China
by vast (often fountainless) deserts, and by vast
(often pathless) steppes. No potentate, therefore,
on whom the sun looks down was more to be feared
by China as her evil genius than Great Britain: none
ever showed so much forbearance; none so much
forgot her own majesty in desire to conciliate this
brutal megatherium. Yet upon folly that is doomed
all advantages are thrown away. And Britain —that asked nothing from China, but, 1, not; to
15




170                  CHINA.
swindle by means of a Commissioner Lin; 2,
not to patronize murder; 3, to keep a better
tongue in her head —could not obtain these most
reasonable demands in return for vast commercial
benefits. At length that Britain, which China so
insolently rejected as a friend, was made the instrument of her chastisement. Not meaning to do more
than to repress her insolence, which at length had
become an active and contagious nuisance, we probed
and exposed her military weakness to an extent that
is now irrevocable. Seeking only to defend our own
interests, unavoidably we laid bare to the whole
world, and therefore to her own mutinous children,
the condition of helpless wreck in which China had
long been lying prostrate. The great secret (whispered no doubt in Asia for some generations) was
broadly exposed. As some parliamentary candidate
rightly expressed it, China is now in a general state
of disintegration- rotten in one part, she is hollow
in another. On this quarter you detect cancer; on
that quarter you find nothing on which cancer could
prey. Neither is there any principle of relf-restoration. Vital stamina there are none; and amongst
the children of the state, cruel subjects of a cruel
and wicked government, it is vain to count upon any
filial tenderness or reverential mercy towards their
dying mother. Mercy there is (to use Shakspeare's
language) about " as much as there is milk in a male
tiger;" and as to principles that might do the work
of alienated affections, who has ever witnessed such
springs of action amongst the Chinese?  Gone,
therefore-  burned out - in China, is any one prinm




CHINA.                 171
ciple of cohesion to which you can look for the
restoration of a government. Since our war, there
has been no general government — none but a local
and fractured one: and what has disguised, or partially maslked, this state of anarchy, is simply the
vast extent of China; secondly, the comatose condition of what are called the literati; and thirdly, the
discontinuous currency of all public movements, from
the want of any real Press; and the want of any
such patriotic interests as could ever create a Press.
We therefore having been the organs by which
this fatal revolution was effected in China, and our
triumph in 1842 having been sealed by the martial
events that occurred in the Yang-tse-Keang, naturally enough our reappearance upon that stage awakened memories and fears accounting for a great
body of agitation. A generation partly new was
growing up, that had heard of us, and read of us, as
terrific water-monsters, sharks, or crocodiles, but
many of whom had not seen us. In those circumstances, naturally, the rush was great to see our jolly
tars of the Espiegle; and disappointed were many
that our heads did not grow beneath our shoulders.
The presents, and gages d'amitie, which we received
from the mob, were painfully monotonous - too generally assuming the shape of paving-stones. However, it was pleasant to find that in the distribution
of these favors their own countrymen, the mandarins,
went along with us -share and share alike: indeed,
some thought they got seven to our six, which was
inhospitable.  Such was our reception from  the
mob; but from the viceroy, and what elsewhere we




17 2                 CHINA.
call the literati, distinguished was our welcome, and
oily the courtesies at our service.
But the great result of the trip to Nanking was,
that we gained all the objects contemplated by the
consul in a degree, and with a facility, that no man
could have counted on; so that no act of vigor ever
perhaps so fully justified itself by the results as did
this of the consul. The fact was, they were ail
alarmed at our presence. Vainly we spoke words
of friendship and assurance. The emperor himself
was not very far off, and was agitated by the visit
of the little Espiegle; which the crew could not
understand, saying, " Bless your heart, the little pet
wouldn't harm a fly; she's as quiet as a lamb."
She might be so, but the literati were all anxious
that the lamb should seek her pastures in some other
river. This uneasiness was our greatest auxiliary:
aided by this, we obtained almost instant despatch;
and, that the lamb might have no pretence for coming back to attack the wolves, everything asked for
was conceded. Had we asked for Toots' head, we
should probably have got it.
Within three days, those ten ringleaders, whom
Toots had found it so dire an impossibility to produce for trial, were paraded with the cangue (or
portable pillory) about their necks in the centre of
Shanghai; and subsequently provided with chambers suited to their various walks of study, in select
dungeons. The thousand junks, in number, roominess, and elegance of accommodation, probably well
representing the thousand "black ships " that folb
lowed Admiral Agamemnon to the Troad, were all




CHINA.                173
in one minute suffered to unmoor by the little Childers, whose wrath exhaled as suddenly as that of
Diana at Aulis. Consequently rice was suddenly
" looking down " to a horrible extent in Peking.
The customs, which had seemed frozen up, now
thawed freely into the celestial breeches-pocket,
though sadly intercepted by ravenous mandarins on
the way. Concerning all which, though everybody
else was pleased, Toots remarked that it was n't of
much consequence; in fact, speaking confidentially,
wasn't of any, not the least in the world, of no consequence whatever.  So terminated, in such triumphant style, and with reparation so ample, this
affair of Shanghai, which, left to itself, or confided
to any other hands than those of Rutherford Alcock,
naturally and rapidly tended to a new war. That
tendency it was which so much alarmed the viceroy. Of all diplomatists, this masterly Rutherford
Alcock is least open to the charge of having operated by means of war; since, of all men in China,
he happens to be the one who prospered exclusively
by preventing a war. An anonymous writer in the
", Scotsman" of April 7 (having, however, no sanction 2 whatever to plead from the Editor of the
"Scotsman"), is most bitter in his reflections on
Consul Alcock; so bitter, that all readers will suspect a personal feud as underlying such intemperate language.  This I will not repeat; but will
content myself with summing up, as a suitable close
to the Shanghai narrative. Nine years have now
passed since the drama (at one time looking very
like a tragedy) closed in a joyous and triumphant
15*




1 4                  CHINA.
catastrophe. There was an anagnorisis (cvaryvwgcans)
just such as the Stagirite approves: the Tsing-poo
ruffians were all recognized and identified to the satisfaction of a crowded audience by the three missionaries; they were punished to the extent of what the
Chinese law allows, except that death (which that law
awards in the case of robbery) was remitted with
the cordial assent of the injured parties.  And,
finally, the consul, who may be regarded as the
hero of this drama, was crowned with universal
praise, and by none more than his official superiors,
Sir George Bonham and Lord Palmerston, who had
blamed or doubted his policy at first, but had now
the candor to allow that its headlong boldness had
constituted its main ground of success.
Meantime, no dealing of ours with men born in
China could ever pass without a characteristic kick
from some Chinese hoof.  In this particular case,
indeed, all things told so ill for the flowery people,
whether gentle or simple, master or man, that the
whole might have been expected for once to pass in
solemn silence. But this was not to be. The viceroy had been too thoroughly frightened by Her
Majesty's brig Espiegle, not to take out his vengeance in a private letter [marked confidential] to the
Emperor. How this letter transpired, is no business
of mine: it did; and well it exemplifies the scoundrelism of the Chinese nature in high quarters equally
as in lowest.
The viceroy describes the Tsing-poo robbery and
meditated murder as a brawl between the missionaries and some boatmen, leaving it to be collected




CHINA.                 1 7 5
that all the parties were perhaps drunk together,
and got to what in Westmoreland is called scraijling.
And next he insinuates that the wounds of the missionaries were mere romances for coloring the pecuniary claim.l3 It is probable that few of us who read
this chapter of Chinese spoliation altogether go
along with these missionaries in their proselytizing
views upon a people so unspiritual as our brutal
fiiends the Chinese. But we all know the self-denying character of missionaries as a class, who risk
their lives in lands such as China. Poor Mr. Medhurst did not live to recover the blessings -of English society; for he died immediately after landing
in England: but his book speaks for itself. He is
wrong, in my opinion, upon various Chinese questions, as particularly in his elaborate chapters upon
the probable population of China; and he too much
palliates the Chinese follies, when he apologizes for
our own English faith in Francis Moore. Only the
lowest of the low in England ever do make profession of believing in Moore.  Whilst buying his
almanac, which (in the common pirated editions of
Belfast) was cheap, and met the ordinary purposes
of an almanac, the rustic purchaser generally
laughed.  But, whether wrong or right in trifles,
Medhurst was a most generous and a pious man;
and the affair at Tsing-poo shows him to have been
as brave a man as ever existed; for all the accounts
show that, when Mr. Lockhart, by dropping behind,
had fallen into great peril, Mr. Medhurst did not
hesitate an instant in turning back and meeting an
infuriated mob for the purpose of aiding his friend,




17G                  CHINA.
But now, dismissing the past, let us come to our
immediate British prospects in China.  Gloomy,
indeed, are these; and it might seem greatly to
lighten this burden, if I should say (which with
great truth I can say) that we owe our difficulties
to our own deplorable want of energy; and, by one
act of resolution, might effect an instantaneous conquest of the two great obstacles to such a settlement as, under the social disorganization of China,
can now be had. What two obstacles are those
which I speak of? They are - the emperor: the
most stolid of all known princes, and by force of
very impotence an obstructive power; secondly,
the city of Canton. I will take this last-mentioned
nuisance first. Mr. Roebuck puts forward five separate ministers as having urged upon us the policy
of forbearing to press our treaty-rights with regard
to Canton. One only of the five is really answerable for such counsels -namely, Lord Aberdeen.
He held very dangerous and unpatriotic language.
The other four may be well represented by Lord
Palmerston, whose real language was this: he
advised us to keep up our right of free entrance into
this city; separately for itself he thought the right
of real importance; and also distinctly so, as a
treaty concession to us. What he said in the other
direction amounted simply to this: that no harm
would perhaps arise from consenting to suspend our
claim during a period of refractoriness in the Canton
mob. More than this,ord Palmerston could not
consistently have said, since he had himself counselled earnestly that the claim should never be




CHINA.                17 
dropped, or even intermitted, but only withdrawn to
the rear for a short period.
But now, listen, reader, to the arguments upon
which it is, past all doubting, that the noble viscount would at present hold an altered tone. When
he counselled delay, he did so under the impression
(as openly he avowed) that no immediate benefit
was lost through such a momentary suspension of
the claim. But now, first of all, as regards both
America and ourselves, there have arisen special
and intolerable grievances, from the want of building ground in the interior of Canton. The United
States agents are complaining more and more upon
this head. But what is that by comparison with the
moral effect from the growing diffusion over all
China of our exclusion for the express purpose of
degrading us?
I have reported circumstantially the behavior of
the Chinese magistracy, ordinary and extraordinary,
on occasion of the Tsing-poo outrage, in order that
it may be seen what sort of new treaties we need
for the security of our British brethren in China.
Had Mr. Consul Alcock failed in his last measure,
the lives and property of all our countrymen at
Shanghai would not have been worth a year's purchase. Now, lastly, knowing what is wanted, let
it be inquired what prospect there is of obtaining it
in face of the existing obstacles. What obstacles?
Those to which I have already mentioned — the
wicked city of Canton, and the wicked emperor;
both wicked, both wholesale dealers in murder, but,
unfortunately, both stolid and ignorant in an excess,
12




178                 CHINA.
which makes them unmanageable, except by war, or
by menaces of war.
I will begin with the first obstacle, - namely, Canton, -which, without a personal experience of the
evil, is hardly appreciable.
To tolerate a notorious and systematic degradation
to any body of men, cannot be wise anywhere, but
least of all in a nation so ignorant as the Chinese,
having no historic knowledge by which to correct
any false impressions derived from accident. Crowds
of men from Canton flock incessantly to Amoy and
Shanghai, where they diffuse the most degrading
opinions of the British, and, to some extent, confirm
them by the undeniable fact of our stern exclusion
from their city.l4
Secondly, amongst a people that cannot be thought
to have reached a higher stage of intellectual development than that which corresponds to childhood, it
is not prudent to suffer any one article of a treaty to
be habitually broken.  Such infractions are contagious; the knavish counsellors of the emperor, finding that we submit coolly to one infraction, that aims
at nothing confessedly beyond a bitter insult to us,
this only, and no dream of any further advantage
being proposed, are tempted into trying another
infraction, and so onwards. For fourteen years we
have allowed ourselves to tolerate this burning scandal; and all the while the successive governors of
Canton have been amusing us with moonshine visions
that " the time may come " when they can think of
fulfilling their engagements." Canton, therefore, has
two values - first, on its own account, separately;




CHINA                  1 W 9
secondly, on account of its relation to the treaty.
Upon this latter point I have spoken. But, as to the
other, it is not possible to find words strong enough
for the occasion. Mr. Consul Alcock, when reviewing the circumstances which, on the one side, constitute, or which, on the other, tend to control, the
danger attaching to the British position in China,
where a little household, counted by hundreds, is
scattered amongst hostile millions, thus brings the
weight of his official experience to bear upon the
question. He is speaking at the moment of Shanghai; but what he says applies to any and every
English station alike: " Our position is so deeply
compromised, and our security from molestation so
slight, that Shanghai will be no better than Canton in
ai incredibly short period.':
But what, then, was it that caused this gradual
assimilation of a port, previously reputed safe, to
that one which had always been a city of violence
and danger? Simply the example (published over
all China) of Canton. The example of itself kindled
evil thoughts, without, however, concealing the
accompanying dangers of public chastisement or
of private retaliation. But the record of its impunity whispered to the malignity of all China, encouraging thoughts of a possible gratification, liberated
from the pursuing Nemesis. What this experienced
consul thought upon the subject, even Lord Palmerston, in the midst of his overwhelming labors, may
find time to read. It is this: " Too many incidental
circumstances have been generally observed in the
demeanor and acts of the people and authorities,




.80                  CHINA.
since the last catastrophe of Canton, for those who
have them daily under their eyes, to avoid the conviction that our position at that port has execi.sed a
most prejudicial influence upon the minds of both
people and authorities. I have long been fully convinced, from the result of my observations at all the
three ports where I have resided, that Canton, and
our relations there, have the most serious effect upon
our position at all the other ports, and our standing
(with the authorities, at least) throughout the empire."'6
We need a solid arrangement for securing both the
safety and the respectability of the British; for at
present we hold equally the unsafe position, and the degraded position, of Jews in the middle ages. Strange
it seems that at this day any man should have it in
nis power to expose a new feature in the administration of the Chinese government; and yet, apparently,
it was never noticed by either of our two ambassadors; most certainly it never entered practically
into any chapter of their remedial provisions, that a
mysterious darkness surrounds the emperor, fatal to
ourselves. In Affghanistan we found ourselves in
this hopeless embarrassment, that no organ existed
in the state with which it was possible to form a
treaty. He that for the moment had power was the
man that could locally give effect to a treaty, but
only for his own district; and even there, possibly,
only for a few weeks. This terrible defect proclaimed
ruin to any party whose hopes lay in negotiating.
Now, a similar defect exists in China. The emperor,
for most purposes, is a cipher, and cannot give effect
to his own wishes, though occasionally they seem




just, In 1836, and on some other occasioms, he
issued an edict, evidently founded on his own dim
suspicions that the authorities at Canton were misleading him, and perhaps were themselves causing
the turbulent movements which they charged upon
the English, by their own attempts to pillage these
foreigners. It is plain, from what transpires at long
intervals, that an indistinct glimmering of the truth
reaches him at times. But too generally no truth
ever penetrates to the imperial cabinet.17
It is therefore our sad necessity in China, as things
stand at present, that we cannot in any satisfactory
or binding  sense negotiate.  In order to figure
adequately our embarrassment in this respect, we
have only to remember that the particular perplexity
which ruined a detachment of our army at Cabul, and
cost us four thousand Sepoys, together with nearly
five hundred British infantry, - namely, the absence
of any representative authority capable of guaranteeing the execution of a treaty, - exists virtually in
China, under a far less remediable form. It is a misery attaching to all barbarous lands that are under
no control from the fraternal responsibilities acknowledged by nations under a system of international
law. But the evil which at Cabul oppressed us for
a few weeks, in China exists forever. Nor will it be
at all mitigated until the present convulsions, consequent upon our sharp handling of China in 1842,
have accomplished their secret mission of disorganizing the hulk, which must be shattered into frag
ments before it can be usefully recast.
An Americart merchant (so he describes himself on
16




182                  ct~a,
the title-page) wrote a pamphlet on British relatioim~
with China in 1834. As a neutral observer, he obh
tained some attention in England, and one remark
of his deserves to be quoted; it is this: " We have
seen that the Emperor of China cannot be approached
by embassies."'8  This is true; he cannot, and he
will not. In reality, though conspiracies against the
person of the emperor are unaccountably rare, it is
probable that, if he did not receive ambassadors
brutally and superciliously, - if he consented to regard them as representing potentates standing on an
equality with himself,- he would not reign very long.
On the pretence that he had degraded the nation, the
next heir would be raised to the throne.
An amusing instance of this inflexible arrogance
occurred during Lord Amherst's embassy in 1816.
The letter from our Regent, of which Lord Amherst
was the bearer, began in the form usual amongst
sovereign princes " Sir, my Brother; " but the
great mandarins, who most impertinently opened the
letter, protested that they could not present such a
letter without risk of decapitation. This and a thousand similar anecdotes show us that we cannot send
an embassy in the ordinary form, without a gratuitous
sacrifice of our own dignity, where there is no prospect of advantage. How, then, does our government
propose to proceed? I will briefly array before the
reader the only three modes of action which lie within our choice.  Under any one of the three it is to
be presumed that we shall open the drama by taking
military possession of Canton. Toward this object,
it is fortunate that partial reinforcements from the




CHINA.                 183
Persian Gulf and India will have enabled the present
commanders to have made some considerable martial
advances before any trader in "moderation " and
pacific measures, which have so continually proved
ruinous when operating upon oriental tempers, car,
have arrived to prejudge the question. Any man
who tries the effect of opposite measures will find
his surest punishment in general defeat, and in the
necessity of soon abruptly changing his policy.
After the occupation of Canton, and the summary
expulsion of Yeh, whose degradation and signal punishment it is to be hoped will be instantly demanded
from the emperor, we might proceed with a fleet o.f
steam-frigates, and smaller craft, to the mouth of th<
river Peiho, from which the distance is but small to
Peking. Steam transports will carry some land
forces; how zany will depend upon the particular
scheme of tactics, one out of three, which our government may elect for its policy.
First, although it is true, in the words of the American merchant, that the Emperor of China cannot
be approached by embassies,- understanding by
that term pacific and ceremonial agents prepared to
discuss and to arrange international concerns, - that
is no reason for his declining to receive an armed
embassy  Our naval force at the mouth of the Peiho
will need in that case to be strengthened; and we
shall carry in the transports perhaps seven thousand
picked land troops. With these we shall probably
occupy Peking; in which case the emperor would
be found to have fled to his Tartar hunting-seat.
From him personally we should gain nothing. But




184                 CHINA.
his flight would by itself publish his defeat, and go
far to stamp a character of emptiness upon all his
subsequent gasconades. He could, however, as litt!le be dispensed with for any continued period, as
-he queen-bee from a hive. To stay away, would be
to interrupt the whole currency of the national administration. Yet, sometimes, it will be alleged, he does
stay -.wy for six or eight weeks, doing what he conceives so be " hunting; " for the Russian charge d'affaires had the honor to behold his majesty, when
belted with fourteen thousand men, bravely fire his
rifle at a tiger. But in these hunting expeditions, it
must be remembered, the intercourse with Peking
was kept open by couriers continually on the road;
whereas, under:)ur occupation of the capital, the
only available Load would be interdicted by a British
military post at the WVall, through which lies, of
necessity, the sole avenue of communication with
Mantchoo Tartary. An emperor who was so effectually frightened by the little saucy Espiegle would
be brought upon his knees, and himself "knock
head, " at the summons of such an expedition as
this.
But this policy requires money and energy, more,
I fear, than we are yet prepared to spend upon our
Chinese interest, until a great massacre of our British
brethren at Amoy or Shanghai shall have abolished
forever all policies suggested by the sons of the
feeble.
Secondly, the next policy is that which works by
bribery. This method, in times when the East India
Company domineered over the China trade, was




CHINA.                 185
employed largely, but unfortunately under Chinese
compulsion, so that it availed us only in a negative
way - that is, we were not kicked out of China; but
had no positive returns for our one hundred and fifty
thousand pounds. Little gratitude or service was
conceived to be due for money given protestingly,
and under the screw. Here was the very gall and
wormwood of robbery - that nothing was earned
apparently by submitting to it. But the Chinese
robber thought otherwise, and parried our complaints
in the spirit of AEsop's wolf, when replying to the
crane's complaint that she had received no fee for
her surgical service in extracting a bone from his
throat: "How? No fee? Do you count it none
to have withdrawn that long bill of yours,in safety
from my mouth?"  The pretence was, that a toleration of this commerce had been ourchased at court
by bribes judiciously planted. Mr. Matheson (of
the Canton firm, Jardine & Matheson) showed, in a
very valuable pamphlet, published in 1836, that the
whole sum distributed amongst the emperor's mother,
and a quadrille of other old ladies, &c., amounted
annually to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Think, therefore, arithmetical reader, what sad hypocrisy it was in the imperial court, that reaped so
largely where it had not sown, to talk in its grandiloquent strain about the infinite pettiness of this commerce in celestial eyes. No single person's family
in China, where all splendor is an unknown thing,
and the imperial gifts are seldom worth separately
as much as three half-crowns, could spend so much
as three thousand pounds a year. Such a sum, there.
16$




186                 CHINA.
fore, as one hundred and fifty thousand pounds ijc 
annum must mine its way through the court ranks
like so many miners' blastings; and, if it has been
discontinued since the war, there is no need to wonder
that Yehs, and such cattle, are employed. Little
doubt but Yeh was sent as a mischief-maker, to remind us, by rough practice, of the need we stand in
of a protector at Peking.
This bribery system, however, as shown by Mr.
Matheson in his excellent pamphlet of 1836, has
always ruinously recoiled upon our own interests.
In one chief instance,"9 the Canton knaves who pocketed the bribes actually employed those very bribes
- how? Let the reader guess. Actually in purchasing at Peking, by re-bribery, the license to coerce and limit our commerce in modes never before
attempted.
Finally, there is a third course - namely, again to
attempt a pacific embassy, such as Lord Macartney's
and Lord Amherst's; but - and prudence even on
his own behalf will now speak loudly to any man undertaking such an embassy — with great modifications. The two lords of past times had this excuse:
they did not know the government to which they
were accredited, as we of this generation know them;
and the British government, ignorant, even as these
lords were ignorant, upon the true condition of China,
sent them out most inadequately furnished and instructed for the mission before them. In this miserable perplexity, it should never be forgotten, to their
praise, that both resisted the killing degradation of
the ko-tou; and Lord Amherst, in particular, dealing




CHINA.                  187
with a more savage emperor, under a sense of personal danger. If this plea may palliate their conduct
for having submitted to be carted about like colnmercial bales, and at first to be conveyed in junks, bearing banners, inscribed " The English tribute-bearers,"
we must have no more of such passive acquiescences
in studied insults offered to our national honor. Sir
G. Staunton 20 attempts to palliate this compliance on
the ground that Lords Macartney and Amherst stood
firm upon greater questions. There is none greater.
It is through these unthinking concessions that we
are now reduced to miserable straits.  Most truly
does Mr. Matheson say (pp. 8, 9), " It is humiliating
to reflect that our present degradations in the eyes of
China are self-imposed.' The thorns which we have reaped are of the tree
We planted; they have torn us, and we bleed.'"
The Memorials addressed to government in the
year 1836, first by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, soon after by the Glasgow East India Association, next by the Liverpool East India Association,
all speak the same determined language; strictly
applicable to this time. But I quote by preference
from the " Canton Memorial."  This excellent paper,
after insisting indignantly upon the brutal Chinese
treatment of Lord Napier, 21 which persecuted him
into a condition of misery that terminated in his
death, and urging that ample reparation should be
exacted for this outrage, and also "for the arrogant
and degrading language used towards your Majesty,
and our country, in edicts of the local authorities,




188                  CHINA.
wherein your Majesty was represented as the' rev
erently submissive tributary of the Emperor of China,'
and your Majesty's subjects as profligate barbarians,"
goes on to suggest that with a small naval force -
namely, one ship of the line, two frigates, and four
armed vessels of light draught, together with a steam
vessel, all fully manned-there would be found no
difficulty in putting a stop to the greater part of the
external. and internal commerce of the Chinese Empire, of intercepting its revenues in their progress to
the capital, and in taking possession of all the armed
vessels of the country. And such measures, so far
from being likely to lead to a more serious collision,
would be the surest course for avoiding it.
The Memorial then goes on to this wise counsel:
" We would further urgently submit, that, as we cannot but trace the disabilities under which our commerce labors, to a long acquiescence in the arrogant
assumption of supremacy over the monarchs and
people of other countries, claimed by the Emperor of
China for himself and his subjects, we are forced to
conclude that no beneficial result can be expected to
arise from negotiations in which such pretensions are
not decidedly repelled."  Finally, I will quote a passage more closely and ominously applicable to any
inconsiderate undertaker of this arduous office:
" We would therefore beseech your Majesty not to
leave it to the discretion of any future representative
of your Majesty, as was permitted in the case of
Lord Amherst, to swerve in the smallest degree
from a calm and dispassionate, but determined,
maintenance of the true rank of your Majesty's empire in the scale of nations."




CHINA.                  189
And the Memorial concludes with this emphatic
sentence, just as wise now as it was then: Our
counsel is, "not to permit any future commissioner
to set his foot ca the shores of China, until ample
assurance is aff6oded of a reception and treatment
suitable to the dignity of a minister of your Majesty,
and to the honor of an empire that acknowledges no
superior on earth."
Who is to go out as our ambassador has not, I believe, as yet been officially made known. But whoever he may be, it is pretty certain that he will fail.
Were there no otter reason for saying so, how is
the following dilemma to be met? A man of rank
must be appointed, or the Chinese emperor will hold
himself affronted. Yet, on the other hand, all the
Englishmen who speak Chinese are not men of rank,
but are either supercargoes (some actually serving
as such, some emeriti), or else missionaries. There
is no time to learn Chinese; and interpreters are
perfectly useless, except on a mere mission of ceremony. How is that fix to be treated? (Edipus and
the Sphinx combined could not solve it.
CHINA.
IN the days of Grecian Paganism, when morals
(whether social or domestic) had no connection whatever with the National Religion, it followed that
there could be no organ corresponding to our modern
PULPIT (Christian or Mahometan) for teaching and
illustrating the principles of morality. Those principles, it was supposed, taught and explained them



190                  OCNA.
selves. Every man's understanding, healit, and con.
science, furnished him surely with light enough for
his guidance on a path so plain, within a field so
limited, as the daily life of a citizen — Spartan,
Theban, or Athenian. In reality, this field was even
more limited than at first sight appeared. Suppose
the case of a Jew, living in pre-Christian Judea,
under the legal code of Deuteronomy and Leviticus
-or suppose a Mussulman at this day, living under
the control of Mahometan law s, he finds himself left
to his own moral discretion hardly in one action out
of fifty; so thoroughly has the municipal law of his
country (the Pentateuch in the one case, the Koran
in the other) superseded and swallowed up the freedom of individual movement.- Very much of the
same legal restraint tied up the fancied autonomy
of the Grecian citizen. Not the moral censor, but
the constable was at his heels, if he allowed himself
too large a license. In fact, so small a portion of
his actions was really resigned to his own discretion,
that the very humblest intellect was equal to the
call upon its energies. Under these circumstances,
what need for any public and official lecturer upon
distinctions so few, so plain, so little open to casuistic doubts? To abstain from assault and battery;
not to run away from battle relicta non bene parmula;
not to ignore the deposit confided to his care, -these
made up the sum of cases that life brought with it
as possibilities in any ordinary experience. As an
office, therefore, the task of teaching morality was
amongst the ancients wholly superfluous.  Pulpit
there was none, nor any public teacher of morality




cHIsA.                 191
As regarded his own moral responsibility, every man
walked in broad daylight, needed no guide, and
found none.
But Athens, the marvellous city that in all things
ran ahead of her envious and sullen contemporaries,
here also made known her supremacy. Civilization,
not as a word, not as an idea, but as a thing, but as
a power, was known in Athens. She only through
all the world had a theatre, and in the service of this
theatre she retained the mightiest by far of her
creative intellects. Teach she could not in those
fields where no man was unlearned; light was impossible where there could be no darkness; and to
guide was a hopeless pretension when all aberrations
must be wilful. But, if it were a vain and arrogant
assumption to illuminate, as regarded those primal
truths which, like the stars, are hung aloft, and shine
for all alike, 2 neither vain nor arrogant was it to
fly her falcons at game almost as high. If not light,
yet life; if not absolute birth, yet moral regeneration, and fructifying warmth -these were quickening
forces which abundantly she was able to engraft
upon truths else slumbering and inert. Not affecting to teach the new, she could yet vivify the old.
Those moral echoes, so solemn and pathetic, that
lingered in the ear from her stately tragedies, all
spoke with the authority of voices from the grave.
The great phantoms that crossed her stage all
pointed with shadowy fingers to shattered dynasties
and the ruins of once-regal houses, Pelopidme or Labdacida,; as monuments of sufferings in expiation of
violated morals, or sometimes - which even more




192                  CHINA.
thrillingly spoke to human sensibilities - of guilt
too awful to be expiated. And in the midst of these
appalling records, what is their ultimate solution?
From what keynote does Athenian Tragedy trace
the expansion of its own dark impassioned music?
G"6g,5 (hybris) — the spirit of outrage and arrogant
self-assertion - in that temper lurks the original impulse towards wrong; and to that temper the Greek
drama adapts its monitory legends. The doctrine
of the Hebrew Scriptures as to vicarious retribution
is at times discovered secretly moving through the
scenic poetry of Athens. IHis own crime is seen
hunting a man through five generations, and finding
him finally in the persons of his innocent descendants. " Curses, like young fowls, come home in the
evening to roost."  This warning doctrine, adopted
by Southey as a motto to his " Kehama," is dimly
to be read moving in shadows through the Greek
legends  and  semi-historic traditions.  In  other
words, atrocious crime of any man towards others
in his stages of power comes round upon him with
vengeance in the darkening twilight of his evening,
And, accordingly, upon no one feature of moral
temper is the Greek Tragedy more frequent or earnest in its denunciations, than upon all expressions
of self-glorification, or of arrogant disparagement
applied to others.
What nation is it, beyond all that ever have
played a part on this stage of Earth, which ought,
supposing its vision cleansed for the better appreciation of things and persons, to feel itself primarily
interested in these Grecian denunciations?  What




CHINA,                 193
other than China? When Coleridge, in lyric fury,
apostrophized his mother-country in terms of hyperbolic wrath, almost of frenzy,
" The nations hate thee!"
every person who knew him was aware that in this
savage denunciation he was simply obeying the
blind impulse of momentary partisanship; and
nobody laughed more heartily than Coleridge himself, some few moons later, at his own violence.
But in the case of China, this apostrophe -The
nations hate thee! I would pass by acclamation,
without needing the formality of a vote. Such has
been the inhuman insolence of this vilest and silliest
amongst nations towards the whole household of
man, that (upon the same principle as governs our
sympathy with the persons and incidents of a novel
or a drama) we are pledged to a moral detestation
of all who can be supposed to have participated in
the constant explosions of unprovoked contumely to
ourselves. A man who should profess esteem for
Shakspeare's Iago, would himself become an object
of disgust and suspicion. Yet Iago is but a fabulous agent; it was but a dream in which he played
so diabolic a part. But the offending Chinese not
only supported that flesh-and-blood existence which
Iago had not, but also are likely (which Iago is not,
in any man's dreams) to repeat their atrocious insolences as often as opportunities offer.  Our business at present with the Chinese is -to speculate a
little upon the Future immediately before us, so far
as it is sure to be colored by the known dispositions
17      -            18




194                 CHINA.
of that peuple, and so far as it ought to be colored
by changes in our inter-relations, dictated by our
improved knowledge of the case, and by that larger
experience of Chinese character which has been
acquired since our last treaty with their treacherous
executive.  Meantime, for one moment let us fix
our attention upon a remarkable verification of the
old saying adopted by Southey, that " Curses come
home to roost." Two centuries have elapsed, and
something more, since our national expansion
brought us into a painful necessity of connecting
ourselves with the conceited and most ignorant
inhabitants of China. From the very first our connection had its foundations laid in malignity; so far
as the Chinese were concerned, in affected disdain,'
and in continual outbreaks of brutal inhospitality.
That we should have reconciled ourselves to such
treatment, formed, indeed, one-half of that apology
which might have been pleaded on behalf of tlie
Chinese.  But why, then, did we reconcile ourselves? Simply for a reason which offers the other
half of the apology, -namely, that no thoroughly
respectable section of the English nation ever presented itself at Canton in those early days as candidates for any share in so humiliating a commerce.
On reviewing that memorable fact, we must acknowledge that it offers some inadequate excuse on
behalf of the Chinese.  They had seen nothing
whatever of our national grandeur; nothing of our
power; of our enlightened and steadfast constitutional system; of our good faith; of our magnificent
and ancient literature; of our colossal charities and




CHINA.                  1 95
provision for every form of human calamity; of our
insurance system, which so vastly enlarged our
moneyed power; of our facilities for combining
and using the powers of all (as in our banks the
money of all) common purposes; of our mighty
shipping interest; of our docks, arsenals, lighthouses, manufactories, private or national.  Much
beside there was that they could not have understood, so that not to have seen it was of small moment; but these material and palpable indications
of power and antiquity, even Chinamen, even
Changs and Fangs, Chungs and Fungs, could have
appreciated; yet all these noble monuments of wisdom and persevering energy they had seen absolutely not at all. And the men of our nation who
had resorted to Canton were too few at any time to
suggest an impression of national greatness. Numerically, we must have seemed a mere vagrant
tribe; and, as the-Chinese even in 1851, and in the
council-chamber of the emperor, settled it as the
most plausible hypothesis that the English people
had no territorial horne, but made a shift (like some
birds) to float upon the sea in fine weather, and in
rougher seasons to run for "holes," upon the whole,
we English are worse off than are the naked natures
that affront the elements:
"If on windy days the raven
Gambol like a dancing skiff,
Not the less he loves his haven
On the bosom of a cliff.
"Though almost with eagle pinion
O'er the rocks the chamois roam,




196                  CHINA.
Yet he has some small dominion
Which no doubt he calls his home.'
Yes, no doubt. But, worse off than all these, -than
sea-horse, raven, chamois, -the Englishman, it
seems, of Chinese ethnography has not a home,
except in crevices of rocks. What are we to think
of that nation, which by its supreme councils could
accredit such follies? We in fact suffer from the
same cause, a thousand-fold exaggerated, as that
which injured the French in past times amongst
ourselves. Up to the time when Voltaire came
twice to England, no Frenchman of eminence, or
distinguished talents, had ever found a sufficient
motive for resisting his home-loving indolence so far
as to pay us a visit. The court had been visited in
the days of James 1. by Sully; in those of Charles
II. by De Grammont; but the nation for itself, and
with an honorable enthusiasm, first of all by Voltaire. What was the consequence? No Frenchman ever coming amongst us,- -except (1) as a
cook; (2) as a hair-dresser; (3) as a dancing-master,
- was it unnatural in the English to appreciate the
French nation accordingly?
"Paulum sepultue distat inertira
Celata virtus."
What they showed us, that, in commercial phrase,
we carried to their account; what they gave, for
that we credited them; and it was unreasonable to
complain of our injustice in a case where so determinately they were unjust to themselves.  Not
until lately have we in England done any justice to




CHINA.                 19 
the noble qualities of our French neighbors. But
yet, for this natural result of the intercourse
between us, the French have to thank themselves.
With Canton the case was otherwise. Nobody
having freedom could be expected to visit such a
dog-kennel, where all alike were muzzled, and where
the neutral ground for exercise measured about
fifteen  pocket-handkerclliefs.   Accordingly,  the
select few who had it not in their power to stay
away, proclaimed themselves ipso facto as belonging
to that class of persons who are willing to purchase
the privilege of raising a fortune at any price, and
through any sacrifice of dignity, personal or
national.  Almost excusably, therefore, the British were confounded for a time with the Portuguese
and the Dutch, who had notoriously practised sycophantic arts, carried to shocking extremities. The
first person who taught the astonished Chinese
what difference might happen to lurk between
nation and nation was Lord Anson — not yet a
lord; in fact, a simple commodore, and in a crazy
old hulk; but who, in that same superannuated
ship, had managed to plough up the timbers of the
Acapulco galleon, though by repute 23 bullet-proof,
and eventually to make prize of considerably
more than half-a-million sterling for himself and his
crew.  Having accomplished this little feat, the
commodore was not likely to put much value upon
the "crockery ware" (as he termed the forts) of
the Chinese. Not come, however, upon any martial
mission, he confined himself to so much of warlike
demonstration as sufficed for his own immediate
17'




198                 CHaINA.
purposes.  To place our Chinese establishments
upon a more dignified footing was indeed a most
urgent work; but work for councils more deliberate, and for armaments on a far larger scale. As
regarded the present, such was the vast distance
between Canton and Peking, that there was no time
for this Anson aggression to reach the ears of the
emperor's council, before all had passed off. It was
but a momentary typhoon, that thoroughly frightened the flowery people, but was gone before it
could influence their policy. By a pleasant accident, the Manilla treasure captured by Anson was
passing in wagons in the rear of St. James'
Palace, during the natal hour of the Prince of
Wales (George IV.); consequently we are within
sight, chronologically, of the period which will
round the century dated from Lord Anson's assault.
Within that century is comprised all that has ever
been done by war or by negotiation to bring down
upon their knees this ultra-gasconading, but also
ultra-pusillanimous, nation. Some thirty and more
years after the Anson skirmish, it was resolved that
the best way to give weight and splendor to our diplomatic overtures was by a solemn embassy, headed
by a man of rank.  At that time the East India
Company had a monopoly interest in the tea trade
of Canton, as subsequently in the opium trade.
What we had to ask from the Chinese was generally
so reasonable, and so indispensable to the establishment of our national name upon any footing of
equality, that it ought not for a moment to have
been tolerated as any subject for debate. There is




CHINA.                 199
a difficulty, often experienced even in civilized Europe, of making out any just equations between the
titular honors of different states. Ignorant people
are constantly guided in such questions by mere
vocal resemblances. The acrimonious Prince Piickler Mluskau, so much irritated at being mistaken in
France for an Englishman, and in fifty ways betraying his mortifying remembrances connected with England, charges us with being immoderately addicted to
a reverential homage towards the title of " Prince;"
in which, to any thoughtful man, there would be found
no subject for blame; since with us there can be no
prince 24 that is not by blood connected with the royal
family; so that such a homage is paid under an erroneous impression as to the fact, but not the less
under an honorable feeling as to the purpose; which
is that of testifying the peculiar respect in a free
country cheerfully paid to a constitutional throne.
But, if we had been familiarized with the mock
princes of Sicily and Russia (amongst which last are
found some reputed to have earned a living in St.
Petersburg as barbers), we should certainly moderate our respect towards the bearers of princely honors. Every man of the world knows how little a
French marquise or comptesse can pretend to rank
with a British marchioness or countess; as reasonably might you suppose an equation between a modern consul of commerce and the old Roman consul
cf the awful S. P. Q. R.
In dealing with a vile trickster like the Chinese
executive, -unacquainted with any one restraint of
decorum or honorable sensibility,- it is necessary




200                  CHINA.
for a diplomatist to be constantly upon his guard,
and to have investigated all these cases of international equation, before coming abruptly to any call
for a decision in some actiuil case. Cromwell was
not the man to have attached much importance to
the question of choosing a language for the embodying of a treaty, or for the iiJtercourse of the hostile
envoys in settling the terms of such a treaty; and
yet, when he ascertained that the French Court made
it a point of honor to use their own language, in the
event of any modern language being tolerated, he
insisted upon the adoption of Latin as the language
of the treaty.25  With the Chinese, a special, almost
a superstitiously minute, attention to punctilios is
requisite, because it has now Decome notorious that
they assign a symbolic and representative value to
every act of intercourse between their official deputies and all foreign ambassadors. Does the ambassador dine at some imperial table - the emperor has
been feeding the barbarians,  Do some of the court
mandarins dine with the ambassador -then the emperor has deigned to restore happiness to the barbarians, by sending those who represent his person to
speak words of hope and consolation.  Does the
ambassador convey presents from his own sovereign
to the emperor -the people of Peking are officially
informed that the barbarians are bringing their trib-.
ute. Does the emperor make presents to the ambassador-in that case his majesty has been furnishing
the means of livelihood to barbarians exhausted by
pestilence, and by the failure of crops. Hiuc, the
French missionary, who travelled'in the highest




CHINA.                 201
north latitudes of China, traversing the whole of the
frightful deserts between Peking and Lassa (or, in
his nomenclature, La Sae), the capital of Thibet, and
who, speaking the AIongol language, had the rare
advantage of passing for a native subject of the
Chinese emperor, and therefore of conciliating unreserved confidence, tells us of some desperate artifices
practised by the imperial government. In particular,
he mentions this: Towards the close of the British
war, a Tartar general - reputed invincible - had
been summoned from a very distant post in the
north to Peking, and thence immediately despatched
against the detested enemy. Upon this man's preslige of invincibility, and upon the notorious fact that
he really had been successful in repressing some
predatory aggressors in one of the Tartarys, great
hopes were built of laurel crops to be harvested
without end, and of a dreadful retribution awaiting
the doomed barbarian enemy. Naturally this poor
man, in collision with the English forces, met the
customary fate. M. Huc felt, therefore, a special
curiosity to learn in what way the Chinese government had varnished the result in this particular case,
upon which so very much of public interest had set
tled. This interest being in its nature so personal,
and the name of the Tartar hero so notorious, it had
been found impossible for the imperial government to
throw their mendacity into its usual form of blank
denial, applied to the total result, or of intricate
transformation, applied to the details. The barbarians, it was confessed, had, for the present, escaped
The British defeat had not been of that vast extent




202                  CHINA.
which was desirable. But why? The reason was,
that, in the very paroxysm of martial fury, on coming within sight of the barbarians, the Tartar general
was seized by the very impertinent26 passion of pity.
He pitied the poor wretches; through which mistake in his passions, the red-haired devils effected
their escape, doing, however, various acts of mischief in the course of the said escape; such being
the English mode of gratitude for past favors.
With a government capable of frauds like these,
and a people (at least in the mandarin class) trained
through centuries to a conformity of temper with
their government, we shall find, in the event of any
more extended intercourse with China, the greatest
difficulty in maintaining the just equations of rank
and privilege. But the difficulty as regards the people of the two nations promises to be a trifle by comparison with that which besets the relations between
the two crowns. We came to know something more
circumstantially about this question during the second
decennium of this nineteenth century. The unsatisfactoriness of our social position had suggested the
necessity of a second embassy.  Probably it was
simply an accidental difference in the temper of those
forming at that time the imperial council, which
caused the ceremonial ko-tou of court presentation to
be debated with so much more of rancorous bigotry.
Lord Amherst was now the ambassador, a man of
spirit and dignity, to whom the honor of his country
might have been safely confided, had he stood in a
natural and intelligible position; but it was the inevitable curse of an ambassador to Peking, that his




CHINA.                 203
official station had contradictory aspects, and threw
him upon incompatible duties. His first duty was to
his country; and nobody, in so many words, denied
that. But this patriotic duty, though a conditio sine
qua non for his diplomatic functions, and a perpetual
restraint upon their exercise, was not the true and
efficient cause of his mission. That lay in the commercial interests of a great company. This secondary duty was clearly his paramount duty, as regarded
the good sense of the situation. Yet the other was
the paramount duty, as regarded the sanctity of its
obligation, and the impossibility of compromising it
by so much as the shadow of a doubt or the tremor
of a hesitation. Nevertheless, Lord Amherst was
plied with secret whispers (more importunate than
the British public knew) from the East India Company, suggesting that it was childish to lay too much
stress on a pure ceremonial usage, of no more weight
than a bow or a curtsey, and which pledged neither
himself nor his country to any consequences. But,
in its own nature, the homage was that of a slave.
Genuflections, prostrations, and knockings of the
ground nine times with the forehead, were not
modes of homage to be asked from the citizen of a
free state, far less from that citizen when acting as
the acknowledged representative of that state.
For one moment,let us pause to review this hideous degradation of human nature which has always
disgraced the East. That no Asiatic state has ever
debarbarized itself, is evident from the condition of
WOMAN at this hour all over Asia, and from this very
abject form of homage, which already in the days of




204                  CHINA.
Darius and Xerxes we find established, and extorted
from the compatriots of Miltiades and Themistocles67
There cannot be any doubt that the ko-tou had
descended to the court of Susa and Persepolis from
the elder court of Babylon, and to that from the yet
elder court of Nineveh. Man in his native grandeur,
standing erect, and with his countenance raised to
the heavens
[Os homini sublime dedit, ccelumque tueri],
presents a more awful contrast to man when passing
through the shadow of this particular degradation,
than under any or all of the other symbols at any
time devised for the sensuous expression of a servile
condition — scourges, ergastula, infibulation, or the
neck-chains and ankle-chains of the Roman atriensis.
"The bloody writing" is far more legible in this
than any other language by which the slavish condition is or can be published to the world, because in
this only the sufferer of the degradation is himself a
party to it, an accomplice in his own dishonor. All
else may have been the stern doom of calamitous
necessity.  Here only we recognize, without ar
opening for disguise or equivocation, the man's own
deliberate act.  He has not been branded passively
(personal resistance being vain) with the record of
a master's ownership, like a sheep, a mule, or any
other chattel, but has solemnly branded himself.
Wearing, therefore, so peculiar and differential a
character, to whom is it in modern days that this
bestial yoke of servitude as regards Christendom
owes its revival? Without hope, the Chinese despot




CHINA.                  205
would not have attempted to enforce such a Moloch
vassalage upon the western world. Through whom,
therefore, and through whose facile compliance with
the insolent exaction, did he first conceive this hope?
It has not been observed, so far as we know, that
it was Peter I. of Russia, vulgarly called Peter the
Great, who prepared for us that fierce necessity of
conflict, past and yet to come, through which we
British, standing alone, - but henceforth, we may
hope, energetically supported by the United States, if
not by France, -have, on behalf of the whole western
nations, victoriously resisted the arrogant pretensions
of the East. About four years after the death of our
Queen Anne, Peter despatched from St. Petersburg
(his new capital, yet raw and unfinished) a very
elaborate embassy to Peking, by a route which
measured at least ten thousand versts; or, in English
miles, about two-thirds of that distance.  It was, in
fact, a vast caravan, or train of caravans, moving so
slowly that it occupied sixteen calendar months in
the journey. Peter was by natural disposition a
bully. Offering outrages of every kind upon the
slightest impulse, no man was so easily friightened
into a retreat and abject concessions as this drunken
prince. He had at the very time of this embassy
submitted tamely to a most atrocious injury from the
eastern side of the Caspian. The Khan of Khiva
a place since made known to us all as the foulest of
murdering dens - had seduced by perfidy the credulous little army despatched by Peter into quarters
so widely scattered, that with little difficulty he had
there massacred nearly the whole force; about three
18




20 6                 CHINA.
or four hundreds out of so many thousands being all
that had recovered their vessels on the Caspian.
This atrocity Peter had pocketed, and apparently
found his esteem for the khan greatly increased by
such an instance of energy. Hie was now meditating
by this great Peking embassy two objects: first,
the ordinary objects of a trading mission, together
with the adjustment of several disputes affecting the
Russian frontier towards Chinese Tartary and Thibet;
but, secondly, and more earnestly, the privilege of
having a resident minister at the capital of the
Chinese emperor. This last purpose was connected
with an evil result for all the rest of Christendom.
It is well known to all who have taken any pains in
studying the Chinese temper and character, that obstinacy - obstinacy like that of mules - is one of
its foremost features.  And it is also known, by a
multiplied experience, that the very greatest importance attaches in Chinese estimate to the initial
movement. Once having conceded a point, you need
not hope to recover your lost ground. The Chinese
are, as may easily be read in their official papers and
acts, intellectually a very imbecile people; and their
peculiar style of obstinacy is often found in connection with a feeble brain, and also (though it may
seem paradoxical) with a feeble moral energy. Apparently, a secret feeling of their own irresolution
throws them for a vicarious support upon a mechanic
resource of artificial obstinacy. This peculiar constitution of character it was, on the part of the
Chinese, which gave such vast importance to what
might now be done by the Russian ambassador




CHINA.                  207
Who was he? He was called M. De Ismaeloff, an
officer in the Russian guards, and somewhat of a
favorite with the czar. What impressed so deep a
value upon this gentleman's acts at this special
moment was, that a great crisis had now arisen for
the appraisal of the Christian nations. None hitherto
had put forward any large or ostentatious display of
their national pretensions. Generally for the scale
of rank as amongst the Chinese, who know nothing
of Europe, they stood much upon the casual proportions of their commerce, and in a small degree
upon old concessions of some past Chinese ruler, or
upon occasional encroachments that had become
settled through lapse of time. But in the East all
things masqueraded and belied their home character.
Popish peoples were, at times, the firmest allies of
bigoted Protestants; and the Dutch, that in Europe
had played the noblest of parts as the feeble (yet
eventually the triumphant) asserters of national
rights, everywhere in Asia, through mean jealousy
of England, had become but a representative word
for hellish patrons of slavery and torture. All was
confutsion between the two scales of appreciation,
domestic and foreign, European and Asiatic. But
now was coming one that would settle all this in a
transcendent way; for Russia would carry in her
train, and compromise by her decision, most of the
other Christian states. The very frontier line of
Russia, often conterminous with that of China, and
the sixteen months' journey, furnished in themselves
exponents of the Russian grandeur. China needed
no interpreter for that. She herself was great in




208                 CHINA.
pure virtue of her bigness. But here was a brother
bigger than herself. We have known and witnessed
the case where a bully, whom it was found desirable
to eject from a coffee-room, upon opening the window for that purpose, was found too big to pass, and
also nearly too heavy to raise, unless by machinery;
so that in the issue the bully maintained his ground
by virtue of his tonnage. That was really the case
oftentimes of China. Russia seemed to stand upon
the same basis of right as to aggression. China,
therefore, understood her, and admired her; but for
all that meant to make a handle of her. She judged
that Russia, in coming with so much pomp, had
something to ask.  So had China.  China, during
that long period when M. De Ismaeloff was painfully
making way across the steppes of Asia, had leisure
to think what it was that she would ask, and through
what temptation she would ask it. There was little
room for doubting. Russia being incomparably the
biggest potentate in Christendom (for as yet the
United States had no existence), seemed, therefore,
to the Chinese mind the greatest, and virtually to
include all the rest. What Russia did, the rest would
do. M. De Ismaeloff meant doubtless to ask for
something. No matter what it might be, he should
have it. At length the ambassador arrived. All his
trunks were unpacked; and then M. De Ismaeloff
unpacked to the last wrapper his own little request.
The feeble-minded are generally cunning; and therefore it was that the Chinese council did not at once
say yes, but pretended to find great difficulties in the
request, which was simply to arrange some disorders




CmINA                 209
on the frontier, but chiefly to allow of a permanent
ambassador from the czar taking up his residence at
Peking.  At last this demand was granted-but
granted conditionally. And what now might be the
little condition? " 0, my dear fellow —between
you and me, such old friends," said the Chinese
minister, "a bauble not worth speaking of: would
you oblige me, when presented to the emperor, by
knocking that handsome head of yours nine times -
that is, you know, three times three — against the
floor? I would take it very kindly of you; and the
floor is padded to prevent contusions."  Ismaeloff
pondered till the next day; but on that next day he
said, "I will do it." - "Do what, my friend? "
"I will knock my forehead nine times against the
padded floor." Mr. Bell, of Antermony (which, at
times, he writes Auchtermony), accompanied the
Russian ambassador, as a leading person in his suite.
A considerable section of his travels is occupied
with this embassy. But, perhaps from private regard
to the ambassador, whose character suffers so much
by this transaction, we do not recollect that he tells
us in so many words of this Russian concession.
But M. De Lange, a Swedish officer, subsequently
employed by the Czar Peter, does. A solemn courtday was held. M. De Ismaeloff attended. Thither
came the allegada, or Chinese prime minister; thither
came the ambassador's friends and acquaintances;
thither came, as having the official entree, the ambassador's friend I-Ium-Hum, and also his friend BugBug; and, when all is said and done, this truth is
undeniable —that there and then (namely, in the
18*                 14




210                  CHINA.
imperial city of Peking, and in Anno Domini 1720),
M. De Ismaeloff did knock his forehead nine times
against the floor of the Tartar khan's palace. M.
De Lange's report on this matter has been published
separately; neither has the fact of the prostration
and the forehead knockings to the amount cf nine
ever been called in question.
Now, it will be asked, did Ismaeloff absolutely
consent to elongate himself on the floor, as if preparing to take a swim, and then knock his forehead
repeatedly, as if weary of life - somebody counting
all the while with a stop watch, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3,
and so on? Did he do all this without capitulatingthat is, stipulating for some ceremonial return upon
the part of the Chinese?  O, no; the Russian
ambassador, at the beginning of the eighteenth ce;ntury, and our own at the end of it, both bargained
for equal returns; and here are the terms: The Russian had, with good faith, and through all its nine
sections, executed the lco-tou; and he stipulated,
before he did this, that any Chinese seeking a presentation to the czar, should, in coming to St. Petersburg, go through exactly the same ceremony. The
Chinese present all replied with good faith, though
doubtless stifling a little laughter, that when they or
any of them  should come to St. Petersburg, the /otou should be religiously performed. The English
lords, on the other hand,- Lord Macartney, and subsequently Lord Amherst,- declined the ko-toy:, but
were willing to make profound obeisances to the
emperor, provided these obeisances were simultaneously addressed by a high mandarin to the portrait




CHINA.                211
of George III. In both cases a man is shocked: by
the perfidy. of the Chinese in offering, by the folly of
the Christian envoys in accepting, a mockery so
unmeaning. Oertainly the English case is better; our
envoy escaped the degradation of the kc.totu, and obtained a shadow; he paid less, and he got in exchange
what many would think more. Homage paid to a picture, when counted against homage paid to a living
man, is but a shadow; yet a shadow wears some semblance of a reality. But, on the other hand, for the
Russian who submitted to an abject degradation,
under no hope of any equivalent, except in a contingency that was notoriously impossible, the mockery
was full of insult. The Chinese do not travel; by
the laws of China they cannot leave the country.
None but starving and desperate men ever do leave
the country. All the Chinese emigrants now in Australia, and the great body at this time quitting California in order to evade the pressure of American
laws against them, are liable to very severe punishment (probably to decapitation) on reentering China.
Had Ismaeloff known what a scornful jest the
emperor and his council were enacting at his
expense, probably he would have bambooed some of
these honorable gentlemen, on catching them within
the enclosed court of his private residence.28
However, in a very circuitous way, Ismaeloff has
had his revenge; for the first step in that retribution
which we described as overtaking the Chinese was
certainly taken by him. Russia, according to Chinese
ideas of greatness, is the greatest (that is, broadest and longest) of Christian states. Yet, being




212                  cHINA.
such, she has taken her dose of ko-tou. It followed,
then, afortiori, that Great Britain should take hers.
Into this logic China was misled by Ismaeloff. The
English were waited for.  Slowly' the occasions
arrived; and it was found by the Chinese, first
doubtfully, secondly beyond all doubt, that the ko-tou
would not do. The game was up. Out of this catastrophe, and the wrath which followed it, grew ultimately the opium-frenzy of Lin, the mad Commissioner of Canton; then the vengeance which fol.
lowed; next the war, and the miserable defeats of
the Chinese. All this followed out of the attempt to
enforce the ko-tou, which attempt never would have.
been made but for the encouragement derived from
Ismaeloff, the ambassador of so great a power as
Russia. But finally, to complete the great retribution, the war has left behind, amongst other dreadful
consequences, the ruin of their army. In the official
correspondence of a great officer with the present
emperor, reporting the events of the Tae-ping rebellion, it is repeatedly declared that the royal troops
will not fight, run away upon the slightest pretext,
and in fact have been left bankrupt in hope and
spirit by the results of their battles with the British.
Concurrently with this ruin of the army, the avowed
object of this great rebellion is to exterminate the
reigning dynasty; and, if that event should be accomplished, then the whole of this ruin will have been
due exclusively to its memorable insolence (the
demoniac hybris of Greek tragedy) towards ourselves.
Should, on the other hand, the Tae-ping rebellionu




CHINA,                 213
which has now stood its ground for five years, be
finally crushed, not the less an enormous revolution -
possibly a greater revolution — will then have been
accomplished in China, virtually our own work; and
fortunately it will not be in our power to retreat, as
hitherto, in a false spirit of forbearance, from the
great duties which will await us. The Tae-ping faction, however, though deadly and tiger-like in the
spirit of its designs, offers but one element amongst
many that are now fermenting in the bosom of Chinese
society. We British, as MVir. Meadows informs us
(p. 1.37 of "The Chinese and their Rebellions"),
were regarded by the late emperor-by him who
conducted the war against us - as the instruments
employed "by Heaven" for executing judgment on
his house. IIe was in the right to think so; and
our hope is that in a very few years we shall proclaim ourselves through Southern Asia as even more
absolutely the destroyers of the wicked government
which dared to promote and otherwise to reward that
child of hell who actually flayed alive the unhappy
MIr. Stead.  That same government passed over
without displeasure the similar atrocity of the man
who decapitated nearly two hundred personswhite, brown and black, but all subjects of Great
Britain, and all confessedly and necessarily unoffending, as being simply shipwrecked passengers thrown
on the shore of China from the Nerbudda Indiaman.
That same government gave titles, money, and
decorations, to a most cowardly officer, on the sole
assumption (whether simply false, or only exagger.




214                   CHINA.
ated) that he had secretly poisoned one thousand
British troops stationed in the island of Chusan.2?
Hardly a few weeks have passed since our initial
notice of China, before already a new interest has
gathered round the subject: a foreign interest, and a
domestic interest; an interest derived from atrocities
that are accomplished; an interest derived from perils
that are impending; an interest such as the intelligent counted upon from the known perfidy of the
Chinese; an interest more embittered than any of
us expected from the factious violence of our own
senate. Let not this expression be taxed with disrespect. Critical cases have a privilege; and we do
but echo the clamor of the nation in its main centres
of wealth and population, in London, 1Manchester,
Liverpool, when we denounce the recent intrusions
of our Legislature upon our old Chinese policy, by
means of a tumultuary cabal, as tending, too palpably, to a collusion with the vilest purposes of our
vilest oriental enemy. Have we forgot our experience? Fifteen years ago it cost Great Britain an
average of three pitched battles for the unrooting
from the Chinese intellect of each separate childish
conceit or traditional fraud, that risked, that fettered,
or that degraded (according to the caprice of the hour),
one great commercial interest of the civilized earth.
To revise a treaty with China, to correct the text
even of a solitary paragraph, or to introduce a supplementar3 clause, you must make your estimate for
so many cannon-shot, rockets and shells, one or two
campaigns, general actions counted by the dozen,




CHINA,                 215
and suicides by the thousand.30  In a land, therefore, where the most reasonable alterations are not
effected otherwise than at the point of the bayonet,
too painfully we are reminded that any encouragement to the aggressors from ourselves, as arguing
internal feuds in our own camp, will tend to perpetuate the dispute.
On the 8th day of October, 1856, about eight o'clock
in the morning, a very complex outrage was perpetrated near Canton by. Chinese agents, some of them
mandarins, wearing their official costume, upon a
commercial vessel apparently, and, according to all
legal presumption, BRITISH. In that word lay the
virus of the offence. What the Chinese governor of
Canton hungered and thirsted to put on record was,
his hatred and contempt of our national flag -hatred
that was real, contempt that was affected. In this
branch of the offence merged all the rest, as by comparison trivial misdemeanors that might have been
redeemed by a money payment; else the wrong was
not trivial suffered by the crew —that is, by twelve
men out of fourteen - arrested upon a doubt (probably simulated), affecting, at most, one man of the
whole dozen;"  secondly, the injury was not trivial
suffered by the master in command of the ship,
Thomas Kennedy, a British subject of good repute,
born at Belfast; thirdly, the injury was not trivial
suffered by some owner (as yet not clearly indicated)
from  an indefinite interruption to the commercial
uses of his ship and cargo. These were wrongs, infamous when viewed as the promptings of one solitary official man, placed by his sovereign at the head




216                   CHiNA
of a great province for the maintenance of order and
for the distribution of justice; but yet trifles, when
ranked against other acts of the same ruler, and
against the unprovoked insult which he had offered
to our national flag.
This insult being accomplished, next came the
judicial investigation, on our part, into its circumstances; after which began the punishment inflicted
by Admiral Seymour; and that, though exemplary,
is far indeed from having yet reached its consummation. In both chapters of the avenging work which
ran so fast upon the heels of the abominable outrage,
there occurred circumstances which merit notice.
Let me cite two. The particular vessel which furnished the arena for Governor Yeh's atrocity was
locally classed as a lorcha, and known by the name
of the Arrow. It is immaterial to pause for a description or definition of a " lorcha," since no allegation whatever, on one side or on the other, is at all
affected by the classification of the ship. But any
fair and upright reviewer of the case, who wishes
earnestly to hold the scales even between the parties,
is likely enough to find himself perplexed by the contradictory statements as to the past history of the
particular lorcha concerned. He will find in the
Blue-book32 recently laid before Parliament on this
Canton explosion, a letter from Sir J. Bowring himself, in which he seems to admit that all was not
sound in the pretensions of the Arrow; and, at first
sight, the English reader is met by a most painful
impression that Sir John is confidentially confessing
to Mr. Consul Parkes something or other which he




CHINA.                 217
describes as unknown to the Chinese, but which (the
natural inference is) would have bettered the case
of Yeh, had it been known to him. Precisely at this
point it is that one of two fatal blunders committed
by Lord Derby, in abstracting the sum of the Canton
reports, has misled all who relied on his authority.
At p. 10 of the Blue-book, Sir John Bowring says
[Hong-Hong, October 11]: "It appears, on examination, that the Arrow had no right to hoist the
British flag; the license to do so expired on the 27th
of September "- [thirteen days before the Chinese
outrage].  And Sir John then goes on to say:
"' But the Chinese had no knowledge of the expiry of
the license."33 Immediately, with rash haste, Lord
Derby presumes the logic of the case to stand thus:
" Between ourselves," he supposes Sir John to
say, " you and I, Mr. Consul Parkes, are quite in the
wrong box. If the Chinese knew all, we should n't
have a leg to stand on. But luckily they don't know
all. So let us keep our own counsel.'" Strange
that Lord Derby could have ascribed such a meaning
to any man in his senses that was not personating
the character of a stage-villain. What Sir John
wishes to say is this: that, as a matter of fact, there
really was an irregularity (as it happened) in the case
of the Arrow; but that this irregularity could be of
no avail to Yeh as an excuse for the outrage, since
it was entirely unknown to Yeh. Being unknown,
therefore, it was immaterial whether the supposed
irregularity had existed or not. However, Sir John
had scarcely written his letter before he became
aware that there had really been no irregularity at
l19




218                  CHINA.
all. The sailing license had indeed lapsed, blut under circumstances which legally sustained its continued validity until the vessel should reach the port
at which the license could be renewed. Sir John
had made a mistake; but such a mistake as could
lend no countenance to Yeh. The brief logic of the
case, as understood by Lord Derby, is: " Yeh does
not know the truth, therefore let us keep him in the
dark." But the true logic, in Sir John's meaning,
was: " Yeh does not know the truth, therefore let him
not presume to plead it as the ground of his violence."
Suppose that the Arrow had been, by oversight,
stripped in part of her particular privileges, was it
from this unguarded point- was it from this heel of
Achilles - that the villain Yeh would have sought
to steal his advantage? Not at all. In such a case,
by moving under the sanction of a treaty, he would
altogether have missed his triumph. Those persons
totally misconceive the governor's purpose who impute to him a special pleader's subtlety in construing
severely the terms on which we grant indulgences
and dispensations. Yeh was not in search of a case
where he really might find us trespassing a little to
the right or left; on the contrary -and in the very
broadest sense on the contrary-he sought for a
case in which our right was clear and unequivocal.
Else, if our right had been doubtful, his triumph would
have been doubtful in trampling on it. But how,
then, did Yeh purpose to give any even colorable or
momentary air of equity to his outrage? Simply by
drawing upon the old infamous times for precedents
of violence, which the treaty of 1842, and the sup



CHINA.                 219
plementai'y treaty had forever abolished.  Before
the war of 1841 and 1842, the unlimited despot who
sat in Canton arrested whom, and when, and how,
he pleased. In this affair of the Arrow, the old
obsolete system was suddenly revived. The pretence
was, that amongst the crew of the Arrow were two
men who had once been pirates. But such a pretence, whether true or false, was no longer valid.
Neither we nor the Chinese were left at liberty in
future to right ourselves. Had we complaints to
urge? Had we criminals to apprehend? For all
such purposes the treaty opened to us both a regular
and pacific course. It was not alleged that we, on
our part, had at all obstructed the fluent movement
of public justice. The sole motive to Yeh's manoeuvre
was a determination on his part to humble us, and,
as a preliminary step, to degrade our national honor.
The late debates in both IHouses betrayed a state
of ignorance as to our relations with China, and as
to the temper and profligacy of the Chinese people,
which few were aware of. The subject was first
treated in the Upper IHouse; consequently, in the
natural course of things, it was a lord, and really a
brilliant lord, that first launched upon the public
stage of politics the following almost inconceivable
blunder. The noble orator was insisting upon the
stupendous crop of wickedness which we British had
recently grown in the neighborhood of Canton; and
the proof which he cited was this - namely, that the
" rebels," by which unexplained term he meant evidently the Tae-pings, had actually joined their forces
and made common cause with the imperial army.




220                  CHINA.
Anything more desperately extravagant was never
heard of amongst men. All who know anything of
the soi-disant Christian rebels, commonly called the
Tae-pings, are well aware that the one sole object of
their political existence is the violent and bloody extermination of the reigning dynasty —that is, the
family of Mantchoo Tartars, now, and since 1644,
insecurely seated on the Peking throne. Not a proclamation have these rebels ever published, which
has not fiercely proclaimed a twofold mission upon
earth - namely, 1, to establish a monstrous form of
corrupt Christianity upon the ruins of the several
idolatries (often Fetish worships) in China; 2, to
exterminate [note well, not to expel into their native
regions of Eastern Tartary, but to decollate, to decapitate, to strangle, or more commonly to exterminate]
the Tartar race, root and branch; and, having accomplished that mission (in which there really is some
flavor of a religious purpose), to restore the old
Mling or native Chinese dynasty. The very principle
by which the Tae-ping rebellion exists (not merely
acts and legislates, but actually has its being) is the
unsparing destruction of the reigning house. And
yet between that reigning house it is, and these rebels
who have sworn its destruction, that Lord Derby supposes a coalition. It is true that a body of pirates
calling themselves rebels did immediately take advantage of the troubles at Canton - not in any form of
hostility to the British; on the contrary, in the very
humblest attitude of suppliants.  They pretended
to connect themselves with the Tae-pings, simply on
the conceit that we, being at feud with the imperial




CHINA.                 221
authority, must naturally seek alliance with all people
in the same predicament. But we had some years ago,
in the time of Sir George Bonham, had very unsatisfactory interviews with the Tae-pings, and the pretended brother of Jesus Christ. We had found them
weak, cruel, without systematic policy, and altogether as incomprehensibly arrogant as the reigning
family. These new pretenders, however, were not
even Tae-pings. Even as " rebels " they were spurious. Nor was there any appearance that they were
at all better than a swell-mob. The ludicrous position
of these pretended " rebels," whom Lord Derby
represents as having suddenly joined the Imperialists
against us, is, that, on being questioned with regard
to the grounds and objects of their rebellion, they
could not even assign the person against whom, or
in support of whom, they were rebelling. Where, in
our English slang, " these leaders hung out," or in
what camps they proposed to establish head-quarters,
were insoluble questions. Generally, it was collected,
that wherever a man could be indicated as having
probably ten dollars in his purse, against that man
they were prepared to "rebel." 34
Although the absurdity and drollery of the case,
and the extreme disproportion between the grave
realities of our official experience at Canton, and the
romantic legends of Her Majesty's opposition, have
the effect of drawing off the lightning of the national
displeasure from the House of Lords, yet not the less
it cannot be disguised that the accrediting of such
nursery fables by dignified leaders and accomplished
statesmen must operate, through many channels,
J9*




222                  CHINA.
injuriously upon the character of our senate, and
would, were not such a result intercepted by the
savage duncery of Chinese mandarins, make us a
by-word for credulity in the councils of Canton. To
be objects of derision and banter to a nation of what,
in old English, would have been styled HEa f-wits IIleavens! what a destiny! I n a memorable little
poem of Donne's, entitled the " Curse," which perhaps offers the most absolute chef d'ceuvre extant of
condensation as to thinking and expression, one
massy line is this:
" May he be scorned by one whom all else scorn."
Such an imprecation would assuredly be realized for
any of our senators whom Hansard might transferin
a comprehensible form to the make-believe ltterati of
China. It should be remembered by our senators
that " Nescit vox imissa reverti;" or else centuries
hence the mortified descendants of distinguished
leaders may read with astonishment the monstrous
memorials of ancestral credulity.
At page 118 of the Blue-book occurs the first
notice of the pretended rebels. In Sir J. Bowring's
letter, printed partially on this page, and dated
November 25, 1856, it is first of all noticed that Yeh,
amongst his other hateful falsehoods, was "industriously circulating " that we, the British, are " in
league with the rebel forces." At page 119 occurs
the second notice: On December 12, 1856) Sir J.
Bowring makes the following entry into his journal
meant for Lord Clarendon; "I have received from




crHNA.                 223
Mr. Secretary Wade a report (dated yesterday) to
the effect that, in consequence of the withdrawal"
(meaning by Mr. Governor Yeh) "of the troops
from the open country 3 for the defence -of Canton,
crowds of bandits, calling themselves rebels, have
devastated large districts, committing every sort of
violence and excess." It is, indeed, most strange
that the imperial commissioner should not have foreseen how certainly his rash quarrel with the treatypowers would encourage movements such as those
now described, and imperil the imperial authority,
probably beyond redemption. These were counterfeit
rebels, and others on the sea, of the same lawless
character, who made advances to us, seeking shelter
under our power, and the benefit of our countenance,
aided by their most ambiguous name of rebels. Had
these rebels been less determinately cruel, and had
they been willing to renounce their mysterious pretensions to some ridiculous superiority, which Sir G.
Bonham, in his sole conference with their chiefs,
treated, as usual, with nothing of the requisite disdain, it was at one time (say four years ago) really
becoming a question whether it might not be advisable to form a provisional alliance with them, rather
than continue our support to the mouldering family
at present on the throne. In the wickedness of
wholesale murder the two factions are exactly on a
level; and with our aid either party would be sure
of a triumph. It happens, however, that, in fact,
we never did make any overture of alliance. Never
once, by the slightest expression of approval or collusion, have we given countenance or ground of hope




224                 CHIINA.
to the Tae-pings; far less to the sham rebels, and,
no doubt, as we had made a treaty with the reigning
house, this line of policy (due to no merits of that
house) is, upon the whole, the most becoming to our
position.
At this moment we see the extraordinary spectacle
in the English capital of a la;ge party, composed of
distinguished Englishmen, laboring to establish a
charge of murder and multiplied incendiarism against
their own compatriots in the East; and for no other
purpose than that of reaching one obnoxious leader,
Sir John Bowring, we see them involving in the
charge a gallant sailor, whose reputation, if tainted
by shadows of doubt, touches the interests of the
British navy. On the other side, ranged against Sir
John and the admiral, we behold a real and undoubted
murderer, the Governor of Canton, whom any coroner's inquest in England would assuredly find guilty
of murder; not as having by military means killed
an English subject acting against him in open combat, but as having by two separate bribes 8 encouiaged and suborned murderers. Three37 men have
already been assailed under this incitement. One, a
Portugese in the English naval service, was saved
(though wounded) by the aid which answered critircally to his call. But early in the quarrel two others,
both Englishmen, perished. Charles Bennet was
seized suddenly by a crowd, whom he had approached
without distrust, and was instantly decapitated. The
other, too sure of the fate awaiting him, leaped into
the sea, as a gentler and nobler enemy that neither
tempted nor betrayed, arid he died in solitary quiet.




CHINA.                  225
Now, let us pause for a moment and consider.
There have been cases, past all numbering, of men
individually or in factions setting prices on the heads
of their rivals, whom they chose or had reason to
denounce as their enemies. History rings with such
cases. But these were always the cases — or if
excused, it was because they were presumed to be
the cases - of men contending for some great prize,
generally a crown, whose existence and security had
become reciprocally incompatible.  One or other,
it was felt, must perish; and it was the supreme
authority of self-preservation which conferred the
right of inflicting death upon the baffled competitor.
Even these were viewed oftentimes by all parties as
afflicting necessities, which under that name only
could be reconciled to human feelings. Turn from
such conflicts, so natural and so deeply palliated, to
the hellish atrocity of this inhuman murderer at Canton. What, let us ask briefly, had been his provocation? And supposing that he might, in his meagre
faculty of judgment, have misconceived his own
rights and position, or read in a false sense the steps
taken by Sir J. Bowring and the British admiral,
what men are those whom he has selected for the
victims of his vengeance? He could scarcely hope
that his pretended retaliation should alight upon the
leaders of the British; and for all the rest, they were
poor men without power, the very humblest in kind
or in degree for disputing the orders of their superiors. But what was the provocation? It is worth
the reader's while to follow the explanation as it
unfolds itself to any one who reviews the whole
16




226                  CHINA.
connection and relations between the Governor of
Canton and the controllers of the British interests.
Let us briefly sketch it. The war in 1841-2, which
followed close upon the heels of the abominable
oppressions exercised by Commissioner Lin, and of
his lawless confiscations, did not unseal the eyes of
the Chinese government,- nothing on this side the
grave could do that,- but it left the whole aristocratic
part of the nation lost in horror, astonishment, and
confusion. For us also it brought strange light and
revolutionary views upon the true available resources
of China. The wretched government of Peking had
neither men nor money, and entirely through its own
vices of administration. We ourselves never brought
above nine thousand infantry into the field, no cavalry
(which, in some instances, would have been worth
its weight in gold), and at the utmost three thousand
miscellaneous reserves, artillery, marines, sailors,
&c.  The Chinese, by a great effort, sometimes
brought five men to our two; though never in one
instance were they able to make good their ground,
although often aided by the advantage of lofty walls,
which our men had to scale. Pretty nearly the
greatest number that they were able to manoeuvre on
one field against us ran up to seventeen or eighteen
thousand. Think, reader, with astonishment (but
with horror when you consider the cause) of this
awful disproportion to the reputed population of this
vast empire. Grant, as readily one may grant, that
this population is hyperbolically exaggerated, still
there is ground for assuming eighty millions, or onefifth part of the ridiculous four hundred millions, which




CHINA.                 227
some writers assume; and, even on this diminished
scale, you have a population larger perhaps by four.
teen millions, certainly by ten millions, than that of
martial Russia. It is a fact in the highest degree
probable, that neither Circassia nor Algerine Arabia
has brought into the field forces numerically smaller
than this monstrous China, whose area is hard upon
one million three hundred thousand square English
miles - that is, about eleven times larger38 than the
Britannic Isles. Inconceivable, therefore, is the martial poverty of China; and even yet the worst has
not been said. Of the ridiculously small armies produced by China, only the Tartar section displayed
any true martial qualities; and one fact which
demonstrates the paucity of this meritorious section
is, that on the approach of the final panic39 it was
found necessary to summon five thousand of these
Tartars from Thibet, and other extramural regions,
as we learn from the French missionaries, MMA. Hue
and Gabet. For the very last reinforcement, on which
the Mantchoo throne was likely to depend, a summons was requisite to regions beyond the Wall,
at distances of one, two, and even three thousand
miles!
In 1842 the war had come to an end, through the
absolute exhaustion of the Chinese in every possible
resource. Men, money, munitions of war, even provisions locally, all were drained. Three great aggravations of the case had arisen almost simultaneously: the emperor had incautiously suffered himself, in a sudden paroxysm of rabid fury against the
British, to say, "Spare no cost in exterminating"




228                  CHINA.
(such was his uniform word) " the profligate bar.
barians;" upon which the two maritime provinces
of Chekeang and Fokien took him at his word, in a
few months had run up an account of eleven million
taels (three taels to one pound sterling), which in
the spring of 1842 called for instant liquidation; and,
meantime (which was the most dismal feature of the
case), nothing whatever had the provinces to show
in return for such a fearful expenditure, except
indeed a few shameless romances of Bobadil victories,
which even the stolid emperor now began to see
through as mockeries; whilst daily it became more
certain that four-fifths of the eleven millions had been
embezzled by the mandarins. Here was one exasperation of the public calamity.  A second was,
that whilst the English at Chusan and Koolangsoo
lived generally on the very best terms with the
inhabitants, never pillaged them, and never imposed
fines or pecuniary contributions upon them, the
pauper part of the native population (a very numerous part in many provinces of China) followed our
army like carrion crows, blackening the whole face
of the land as they settled upon the derelict property, to which unavoidably our victorious troops had
laid open the road. Always the pillagers of China
were the Chinese. A third aggravation of the ruin was,
that vast floods were abroad, in many cases destroying the crops. In our own country, comparatively so
limited, at a certain ciitical part of the autumn, It is
often said that unseasonable weather makes a difference to the nation of one million pounds sterling in
each successive period of twenty-four heours; in




CHINA.                 229
China, where there is so much less of vicarious dependence upon animal diet, it may be guessed in how
vast an excess of range must operate any derangement of the cereal crops.  Such was the misery
which, amidst infinite gnashing of teeth, compelled
the emperor to make a hasty and humiliating peace.
The misery of this period might be received as a
solemn foretaste of deeper woes awaiting this wicked
prince and nation in coming times. It needs no
spirit of prophecy to denounce this. Such tempers
as govern those who are here concerned carry with
them to a certainty their own fearful chastisements,
when brought (as now at last they are) upon a wider
stage of action, and forced into daylight.
Peace, then, was made; and peace, to the deadly
mortification of the Chinese court, was followed by
a treaty. We were not going to let the impression
of our victories exhale; we insisted, therefore, on
such results from our martial successes as our experience had then taught us to be requisite; but unhappily, such is our general spirit of moderation irn
dealing with those who cannot appreciate moderation, we demanded far too little, as now we find.
And even of that little we have allowed the Chinese
fraudulently to keep back all that displeased the
mobs in great cities.
The peace, therefore, and the treaty were finished;
and things should have settled back, it was fancied,
into their old grooves at Canton. Heavens! what
a mistake! Not until all parties resumed their old
habits at the southernmost point of China, did any
of them realize experimentally the prodigious revolu20




230                  CHINA.
tion. There — where heretofore the haughty ruler
of Canton issued his superb ukase, "Go, and he
goeth - do this, and he doeth it "- now walked, in
conscious independence and admitted equality, a
British plenipotentiary, having rights of his own,
and knowing how to maintain them.  Instead of
flying for a few hours' shelter from Chinese wrath to
poor trembling Macao, this plenipotentiary had now
a home and a flag that nobody could violate with impunity. Htong-Kong was, for itself, little better than
a rock; but, which was a point of more importance
to us, the harbor attached to that rock was worthy
of England. In a map of China what a pin's point
is Hong-Kong! And yet, through all that vast empire, there is not one refuge so impregnable to the
whole embattled Orient.
Now, then, exactly in proportion as we had become almost as invulnerable as the air to the idle
weapons of the governor, more frantic grew his
morbid craving for wounding us. But how? Nothing
was left to him but a crime. To violate our flag -
that was the only way in which he could sting. But
it was a way in which he could not sting twice.
Measures of repression' and measures of chastisement followed instantly. It was felt most justly by
all the official people on the spot that the spirit of
aggression was nursed by the submission, on our
part, to exclusion froml free access to Canton — this
being at once a traditional insult to ourselves, and
a flagrant violation of four separate treaties. All the
defences, therefore, of Canton, one after another,
were destroyed; and not merely in their fittings and




CHINA.                231
immediate capacity for service, as had too often been
tolerated before; they were now mined and blown
up, so as to leave them heaps of ruins. It had been
a trial of strength between ourselves and Yeh. IIe
had declared that we should not enter Canton; we
had replied that we would. Accordingly, Admiral
Seymour and the plenipotentiary not only walked
over the ruined defences into that city, but into the
residence (Yamun) of Yeh, sat down on Yeh's sofas,
and redeemed their vow. Mere frenzy seems then to
have taken possession of Yeh; he looked round for
some weapon of retaliation, but could find none -none
that was tolerated by the usages of any nation raised
above savagery. Then it was - and in an evil hour
for himself, if we prove faithful to our duty — that
Yeh dispersed everywhere his offers of blood-money
to murderers. Yet, in Mr. Cobden's eyes, Yeh is an
injured man. Now, on the othsr side, hear Admiral
Seymour's vigilant interposition on behalf of the
Cantonese. In the very midst of the excitement at
the moment of storming the breach in the Canton
wall, on the morning of November 29, the admiral
took the following precautions: "Before the landing took place, I assembled the officers, and urgently
impressed upon them (as I had previously done by
written orders) the necessity of restraining the men
from molesting the persons and property of the inhabitants, confining warlike operations against the
troops only; and I have pleasure in bearing testimony to the forbearance of the seamen and marines."
Again, on the capture of the Bogue and Anunghoy
Forts, mounting jointly four hundred and ten guns,




232                  CHINA.
the dastardly mandarins in command had secured
boats for their own escape, but had left their followers unprovided for. Upon this the several Chinese garrisons had rushed into the water, as their sole
resource against our victorious stormers.  What
course, in these circumstances, did the admiral adopt?
He declined even to make prisoners of the men (a
generosity perhaps indiscreet, considering the pressure everywhere upon the Chinese government for
troops); and, without even amputating the tails of
the men, a measure sometimes adopted by us in 1842
to braver men than the Chinese, - namely, to the
Tartar troops,- the admiral most kindly took them all
on board, and put them ashore uninjured. In many
other cases, the anxious care of this admiral — whom
Mr. Cobden involves in the somrme reproaches as the
plenipotentiary — was to stand between the Chinese
and all injury that it was possible to avoid, though
many of these Chinese were those very Cantonese
who had converted their city into a den of murder.
And the return for this Forbearance is, that secret
murderers are hired by Yeh, not merely against soldiers and marines, indicated by their uniforms, but
against non-combatants utterly disconnected from
the diplomatic interests at issue, or the warlike serv ice ministerial to those interests.  Mr. Cobden will
1 robably find reason hereafter to repent of his motion
as the worst day's work he ever accomplished; and
the more so because, first, in order to protect'the
very existence of the British in China, it will be indispensable to pursue the same virtual policy as that
of Sir J. Bowring, whatever change may be made




CHINA                  233
in names or forms; secondly, because our supreme
government at home is already committed to this
policy, by the formal approbation given to the whole
of the warlike proceedings40 against Canton, under
the official seal of Lord Clarendon. (See his letter to
the lords of the Admiralty in reference to Sir M.
Seymour.)
Now, let us come to the practical suggestions
which the past, in connection with the known knavery of the Chinese administration through all its
ranks and local subdivisions, imperatively prescribes.
First, as to an appeal, which is talked of generally,
to the emperor at Peking. Nothing will come of
this -nothing but evil, if it is managed as hitherto
it has been. Here it is, and perhaps here only, that
Sir J. Bowring has failed in his duty. We make a
treaty with this emperor, or at least with his father.
Finding it insufficient, we make four treaties — one
in 1842, one in 1843, a third in 1846, and a final one
in 184:7. Every one of these in succession has recognized our right to move freely in and out of Canton.
But always we have permitted the governor for
the time to set aside this right, upon an assurance
that the obstacle lay in the irritable temper of the
mob; that this mob could not be controlled for the
present; but that, in some mysterious way (never
explained), at an indefinite period in futurity, the
requisite subordination would probably be developed.
Upon this, at various times, appeals have been presented to the emperor (not the emperor under whom
the treaties were extorted, but the present emperor,
his son; and uniformly these appeals have taken the
20*




234                  CHINA.
form of petitions, to which uniformly the Peking
reply has been by one insolent No, sans phrase
Now, what child's play is this! We make a treaty;
we begin by permitting the public officers to evade
the fulfilment of it, without so much as a plausible
pretext. The mob is not satisfied, that is the. curt
diplomatic reply; and mighty thrones are instructed
to await the pleasure (now through fourteen years)
of a vile murdering populace for the concession of
their primary rights. A treaty has been obtained,
at the cost of a war, and therefore of many thousand
lives; and then we send a humble petition to the
beaten prince that he will graciously fulfil the terms
of this treaty. Sir J. Bowring has been blamable
in this; but in the very opposite direction to that
indicated by Mr. Cobden. Briefly, then, the national
voice cries loudly, " No more petitions to Peking! "
Once for all, a stern summons to the fulfilment of the
Chinese undertakings. Every year the smarting of
the wounds inflicted by the war is cooling down, the
terror is departing; and a new war will become necessary, which would have been made unnecessary by
the simple course of building on the terrors of the
first war. It cannot be denied by the whole body
of our official people — consuls, plenipotentiaries,
&c. - that they have in this point acted foolishly -
namely, that whenever the swindling commissioners
of the Quantung province or city have been callel
on to assign the plea under which they claim further
indulgence, they have always replied, " 0, the m.ob / "
without further comment, neither showing through
what channel the mob exercised any present in



CHINA.                23A.
fluence, nor by what unspeakable agency it was pretended that the friends of this mob looked reasonably
for its amendment. We have, in short, allowed ourselves to be trifled with, and to furnish a standing
jest to all the diplomatic people of China.
Secondly, next as to a resident ambassador of high
rank in Peking. We know not what we ask. The
thing has been amply tried. As great a power as
ourselves, though moulded on a different model, - the
mighty Court of St. Petersburg, - tried this scherne
with much patience, and swallowed affronts that
would have injured the prestige of the czar, had
they been reported through Europe. But all came
to nothing, through the insurmountable chicanery of
the highest Chinese officers, and through the inhuman
insolence of the court. It is true the Russian envoy
was not of the very highest rank; and that was a
dismal oversight of the czar.  But, possibly, the
czar shrank from compromising his own grandeur in
the person of a higher representative. However,
the envoy was high enough to be held presentable
at court, and was invited to hunting-parties. But
the mortifications and affronts put upon him passed
all count and valuation. Soldiers were quartered in
his house, and stationed at his gate, to examine, by
inquisitorial (often tormenting) modes, what might
be the business of every visitor. Sometimes they
horsewhipped these visitors for presuming to come
at all, on any errand whatever. Sometimes they
hustled the visitor violently. Sometimes (indeed
always, as regarded their true purposes) they in.
sisted on large money bribes. In short, they made




236                  ciiNA,
the envoy weary of his existence. The same infamous trick, so ignoble and scoundrelish, was practised
upon the Russian as upon the British ambassador.
The emperor, through pure insolence, insisted on
feeding the embassy. Well, this was brutal; but,
if the embassy really were fed, the main end was
answered. But oftentimes the supply of provisions
was utterly neglected.  On the one hand, it was
construed into an affront to the emperor if his guests
purchased provisions - it was even dangerous to do
so under so capricious a despotism; and yet, on the
other hand, if provisions were not purchased, frequently the servants suffered absolute starvation.
In the Russian case the Chinese agent laid down the
imperial allowance on the ground of the court-yard;
nor was the service ever much improved. And in the
case of Lord Amherst, after a fatiguing day's travel,
the embassy was introduced to a court, in which
was fixed a table bearing a dish of broken meat, such
as in England would be offered to itinerant beggars;
and for all the beverage that waited upon this sumptuous repast, the gentlemen were referred to a nunmber of horse-buckets filled with water. On remonstrating,- for it was too evident that an indignity
was designed, - the mandarin in attendance wilfully
heightened the affront by pleading, with mock humility, that the horse-buckets were introduced on the
special assurance that such was the usage of our
country. The main object, meantime, of this puerile
insult was altogether baffled, since nobody, but a
Chinese servant or two, condescended to touch any.
thing. It was a most unfortunate arrangement fo,




CHINA.                 237
the Russian envoy that he was too closely connected
with the commercial business of his countrymen.
Upon this the Chinese, as usual, took occasion to
build every form of insult. They did not condescend
to matters of trade; and, really, if the Russians
wanted to be protected, they must not apply on such
trifles to great men. A most seasonable opening
occurred for, a retort to the Russian minister; and,
perilous as it was to play with such sneers, the temptation to do so was too strong for human patience.
It happened that, at the very moment when the poor
Russian dealers began to bring forward for sale a
vast mass of Siberian furs, the emperor suddenly
forestalled and ruined their trade by coming down
upon the market with a matter of twenty thousand
similar furs from the region of the river Amour.
Upon this the envoy observed, with bitter irony, that
it made him truly happy - 0O,  was delightful! -
to find that his Chinese Majesty had seen the error
of his opinions, and was at length going to consecrate
commerce by entering "into business himself" in
the wholesale line as a furrier. The great mandarins
were all taken aback: they colored, looked very
angry, and then very foolish.  " It was n't to be imagined," they said, " that his Celestial Majesty cared
about making gain; O, no! He only wanted to __"
" Make a little profit," said the Russian, filling up
the blank.
Thirdly, it is probable, therefore, that our government, if they were to read and muse a little on the
journal of the Russian envoy,41 the one solitary memorial of diplomatic residence amongst this odious




23s                  CHINA.
people, will think twice before they propose to any
British nobleman a service at once so degrading and
so perilous.  There is no exaggeration in saying
perilous. Our own experience furnishes sufficient
voucners. Lord Amherst, in 1816, although disposed
individually to make far too serious concessions to
the ridiculous claims of this savage court, although
he submitted (which surely was almost a criminal
act) to be advertised, on the outside of the boats conveying himself and suite, as "the English tributebearer," and was even inclined to perform the ko-tou,
had he not been recalled to nobler sentiments by Sir
George Staunton (one of his two associates in the
legatine functions), yet could not, by all his obsequious overtures, so long as he retained any reserve of
manly self-respect, secure the decencies of civility
from a court which he had visited at the cost of a
twenty-five-thousand-mile voyage.42  He was driven
back with contumely and violence on the very morning of reaching the emperor's palace; no resting
time allowed after an exhausting journey, pursued
most unnecessarily the whole night long; mobs of
ruffians were allowed to rush into the room where he
was seeking a moment's repose, and to treat him,
the representative of the British Majesty, together
with his suite, as a show of wild beasts. With such
headlong fury was Lord Amherst ordered off, that he
himself and his experienced assessors, knowing the
capricious violence of this besotted despotism, did
seriously regard it as no impossible catastrophe that
the whole embassy might be summarily put to death,
Lord Amherst's courage in persisting, unterrified




CHINA.                 23t
redeems his error as to the ko-tou. It is probable
enough that, but for one refrigerating suggestion
(namely, the close proximity of our vast Indian
empire), Lord Amherst and his train would really
have been sacrificerd to the brute arrogance of China.
England was far off, but Hindostan was near; and it
appears, by the ridiculous collections of Lin, in fifty
volumes 4to, that circuitously through Thibet some
nursery tales had reached Peking of our Indian conquests, and in particular of our conflict with Nepaul.
But so preposterously were the relations and proportions of all objects distorted, that Lin (who may
pass for a fair representative of the Chinese literati) conceived our main Indian empire to be called
London, and lying somewhere near to the Himalayas.
Such was the wrath of Taoukwang and his council; and so was it probably averted. Fear of the
phantom London on the Ganges was too probably
what saved Lord Amherst's head. Now, when men
came to read of this danger threatened, and of these
indignities sufferedO  murmurs arose amongst the
intelligent that the government at home should have
exposed a band of faithful servants and the honor
of the nationaJ name to such useless humiliations.
Nothing at all was gained by the mission. At no time
was there a prospect of gaining anything; but there
was a very serious risk, through many weeks, of a
tragedy that would have cost us an extra war. Let
us keen that in mind - that a war stands as the issue
and arb trernent of future negotiations with China
not wisely managed; and wisely means above all




240                  CHINA.
things so managed as to allow no effect whatever to
these pretensions of China, which all men of sense or
feeling no longer mention without disgust. One or
two of these hateful pretensions shall be noticed immediately; but, meantime, let us pause for a moment to
remark upon the new form which our negotiations are
going to assume. Lord Granville has announced that
France and the United States will now join us in our
new diplomacy, arid give weight to our demands.
Even this arrangement marks on the part of our government a non-acquainiance with the Chinese nature
and condition of culture. These two advantages we
have a chance of drawing from the association of the
two nations in our overtures, that, by lightening the
cost, they will improve the quality of our interventions, and that each of them is more irritably jealous
of even shadows that may sully the bright disk of.
their national honor than we are; and it is to their
credit, in Shakspeare's words,
"Greatly to find quarrel in a straw,"
wherever a hostile purpose is on the watch to found
future assumptions and insolent advantages upon
what seemed to be accident, and was therefore
neglected as such. In this direction we shall find
useful allies in these great nations, that will not so
lightly make rash concessions as we have done.
But this is the least part of what our government is
expecting. They fancy that the great authority, the
authentic prestige of two leading peoples in Christendom will have its natural weight even with a silly




CHINA.                 241
oriental nation.  There are, perhaps, one or two
oriental nations- for instance, the Burmese- who
seem to have a natural aptitude for conforming their
apprehensions to the new social phenomena introduced to them by European civilization; but in the
Chinese this power is stifled in its earliest stages by
the enormity of their self-conceit. In any case they
would allow no weight to foreign nations, even if
made acquainted with their high pretensions. But
they are not acquainted with the elements of those
pretensions. Having no knowledge of geography,
none of history, and, above all, none of civilization
and its marvels, how or when should they learn, for
instance, to respect the splendor of France? All
that they know of France is, that two centuries ago
some unintelligible missionaries introduced an obscure
doctrine into China, at one time protected by. the
caprice of this or that prince, at another persecuted
by the cruelty of his successor. At the time of our
war with China, some of the provincial governors,
from pure childishness, were in hopes that by a mere
request they could induce some of the barbarian
nations to attack the British.43 One of these governors undertook to coax the French by flattery into this
belligerent humor. But how? The point on which
he opened his flattery was, that his sovereigns, the
kings of France, were truly meritorious; for that in
all generations they had been "submissive" and
" obedient " to the great Emperor of China, and
had never swerved from  their "duty."  This was
the highest form of merit which his Chinese imagin.
21                     16




242                   CHINA.
ation could admit, and the sole bait with which the
poor fool angled for a French alliance.
Recurring, then, to those hateful pretensions of
superiority, surely the nation may expect that, if the
new negotiators are sent to Peking, they will not (as
heretofore) be consigned in travelling to the insolent
authority of the Chinese, ordered to stop at this point
or that, furnished with insulting supplies on one day,
vith none at all on the next, and forbidden to purchase provisions for themselves out of delicacy to a
prince who finds no indelicacy in suffering his guests
to starve. But this is a trifle by comparison with
other arrogances of the Chinese; and these ought
surely to be met by a preliminary letter from the
associated nations, and not left as subjects for a mere
remonstrance from the ambassadors.  In substance
something like this should surely be sent forward
beforehand:
That, whilst the Three Powers allied for the purposes of this negotiation approach his Chinese Majesty with respect for the station which he occupies,
at the same time they feel bound to protest against
the offensive terms in which his Chinese Majesty has
always claimed some imaginary superiority.  More
especially they must notice with displeasure the secret
pretension which his Chinese Majesty seems to assume
of levying some paramount allegiance from their
subjects. This pretension will no longer be endured.
It will not be tolerated in future that his majesty
should describe the British, French, or Americans, as
"rebels," or as "repenting," and "returning to
their duty," when making peace with him. Even as




CHINA.                  243
regards his more general claim  of superiority, the
allied powers are unable to understand on what his
majesty builds.  If on population, as regards the
amount numerically, China has not established her
pretensions; whilst, as regards its quality, it is sufficient to refer his Chinese Majesty to the result of
his past military experience.  It is possible that his
Chinese Majesty founds upon extent of dominions;
and in that case he is likely to remain under his delusion so long as he is guided by the maps and
geographical works of his own subjects. It is enough
to say that the American United States possess a territory larger than the Chinese, even counting China
beyond the Wall. This total area of China may
amount to three millions of square English miles.
But the Queen of Great Britain possesses a territory
of seven millions, if her American and Australian
states are included, and without counting the vast
British territory in Hindostan; whilst, as regards
China within the Wall, it is pretty nearly on a level
with the British possessions in India, - close neighbors to his Chinese Majesty, - each counting nearly
one million, three hundred thousand square English
miles. The Three Powers, announce, finally, that
they will no longer tolerate the practice of setting
prices upon the heads of their subjects by Chinese
governors, but will, after this notice, hang all such
savage traffickers in blood whenever they may happen
to be captured.
*      *       *      *       *       *
A dreadful echo lingers on the air from our past
dealings with the Chinese- an echo from the cry of




244                 CHINA.
innocent blood shed many years ago by as British
adulterating wickedly with Chinese wickedness.
Not Chinese blood it is that cries from the earth for
vengeance, but blood of our own dependent, a poor
humble serving man, whom we British were bound
to have protected, but whom, in a spirit of timid and
sordid servility to Cantonese insolence, we, trembling
for our Factory menaced by that same wicked mob
that even now is too likely to win a triumph over us,
and coerced by the agents of the East India Company
(always upright and noble in its Indian -always
timid and cringing in its Chinese policy), surrendered
to the Moloch that demanded him. The case was
this: Always, as against aliens, the Chinese have
held the infamous doctrine that the intention, the
motive, signifies nothing.44  If you, being a foreigner, should, by the bursting of your rifle, most
unwillingly cause the death of a Chinese, you must
die. Luckily we have since 1841 cudgelled them out
of this hellish doctrine; but such was the doctrine
up to 1840. Whilst this law prevailed - namely, in
1784 — an elderly Portuguese gunner, on board a
Chinaman of ours lying close to Whampoa, was
ordered to fire a salute in honor of the day, which
happened to be June 4, the birthday of George III.
The case was an extreme one; for the gunner was
not firing a musket or a pistol for his own amusement,
but a ship's gun under positive orders. It happened,
however, that some wretched Chinese was killed.
Immediately followed the usual insolent demand for
the unfortunate gunner. Some resistance was made;
some disputing and wrangling followed; the Mephis~




CHINA                   245
topheles governor looking on with a smile of deadly
derision. A life was what he wanted —blood was
what he howled for: whose life, whose blood, was
nothing to him. Settle it amongst yourselves, said
he to the gentlemen of the Factory. They did settle it: the poor, passive gunner, who had been
obliged to obey, was foully surrendered —was murdered by the Chinese, under British connivance;
and things appeared to fall back into their old track.
Since then our commerce has leaped forward by
memorable expansions.  I that write these words
am not superstitious; but this one superstition has
ever haunted me - that foundations laid in the blocd
of innocent men are not likely to prosper.
POSTSCRIPT.
[Written subsequently to the British Government's latest publication of despatches from Hong-Kong, and subsequently to the
Chinese intelligence received by way of France.]
FIRST in order of interest is the French despatch
published in the " Moniteur de la Flotte."  This
French news reached England on the 15th of April,
between the evening of which day and the iorning of the 16th, it was dispersed all over the island.
The amount of the news is this - that the river
Peiho (North River), which communicates directly
between Peking and the Yellow Sea, had been sacrificed for the present to the fears prevailing in the
capital. A river as broad as the Clyde, and having
the same commercial value, had been ruined by
21'




246                   CHINA.
twenty-two stone dams, leaving a passage to the
water, but destroying the navigation. Now, first,
as to the truth of this intelligence; secondly, as to
its value. As to its truth, the main reasons for
doubting it, if reported of ally wise nation, are
wanting in the case of the Chinese.  It is a suicidal
act: but all modes of suicide are regarded with
honor in China and in Japan. Self-homicide, selfmurder, and the sacrifice of all remote interests to a
momentary pique, or to the spiteful counteraction of
a rival, all these are admired, have been practised by
the government, and are practised at this moment.
When the vast line of maritime territory was ravaged in former generations by piratical invaders, the
emperor, instead of making prudent treaties with
the aggressors, simply compelled the population, at
the cost of infinite distress, to move inland, so as to
leave a zone ten miles broad swept clean of all
population. And, at this moment, Admiral Seymour reports a similar attempt to operate upon the
waters of Canton, by the submersion of stone-laden
junks. Here, indeed, lies the admiral's most cruel
anxiety: he is working night and day to keep open
the main current with his present narrow means,
until reinforcements arrive. Will he succeed? It
is too plain that he himself has deep anxieties lest
he should not.
Returning for one moment to the Peiho, the first
question (as to the truth of the news) there can, as
we see, be no reason for doubting. But, secondly,
as to its value: what harm will it do? None at all.
The  French journal, the nautical "Moniteur,"




CHINA.                 24-7
speaks of Peking as thus placed out of all danger.
By no means. Our own advances upon Peking in
1842 were not made by that approach. The great
river, the Yang-tse-Keang, laughs at dams. It is on
THAT quarter, -that is, from the south, and. not
chiefly from the northern river Peiho - that we can
famish Peking into submission. But, secondly, there
are other and richer cities than Peking; richer inc
tributes (generally paid in kind). T5hirdly, the entire imports into the northern half of China from the
southern can be swept at one haul into the nets of
our cruisers on the Yellow Sea; the Peiho signifying little, except as to a shorter passage to the capital for him that commands the sea. But for us, who
know the road to Peking by two routes, this Peiho
news is a bagatelle; it ruins a Chinese interest.
without much affecting any that is British.
But now, having dismissed the French news,
lastly for our own: -I confess that it is gloomy.
It is always the best policy, as it is peculiarly our
British policy, not to deceive ourselves, but to tell
the worst. The worst in the present case is this:
the Governor of Singapore, it was well known, had,
in last November, offered a re6nforcement of five
hundred good troops. This, because the case was
not considered urgent, had been then declined. But
now - namely, in January of this year - that same
aid has been pressingly applied for by the admiral
and the plenipotentiary.
Secondly, they have written to Calcutta for an
immediate reenforcement of five thousand troops.
Thirdly, they are most anxiously waiting for gun.




24E                  CHINA..
boats, with which they can do nothing in pursuing
the Chinese junks into shallow creeks. It is the old
misery of the Crusaders: their heavy cavalry could
not pursue the light Arabian horsemen, by whom
they were teased all day long, and had no effectual
means of retort.
Fourthly, but the worst feature of the case is this:
seventy per cent. of the Hong-Kong population are
domestic servants; and chiefly from  one sole dis.
trict. The "elders" in this district (namely, the
heads of families) have been coerced by Yeh into
ordering home all these servants, who have at the
same time been warned, that, to win a welcome from
the government, there is but one acceptable offering
which they can bring -namely, the heads of their
masters. In a colony already distressed and agi.
tated, we may guess the effect of such a notification.




NOTES.
NOTE 1. Page 143.
Originally published in this form.
NOTE 2. Page 144.
" Putrescent:" - See the recorded opinions of Lord Amherst's
suite upon the personal cleanliness of the Chinese.
NoTE 3. Page 145.
" For the next six months: "- Naturally the public anxiety
cannot intermit or decay until the two capital interests are
secured - first, of security for our countrymen threatened by a
government universally capable of murder, even when not actively
engaged in stimulating murder; secondly, of our indispensable
commerce in tea. As regards the first point, let it be remembered that in 1842 the present emperor's father, with the approbation of his son, bestowed large rewards and titular honors upon
a man who pleaded no other merit than that, in the island of
Chusan, during our long occupation of it, he had, by poisoning
the waters, caused the agonizing death of a thousand British subjects, chiefly soldiers. The exaggeration of his success does not
alter the character of his claim, or the animus of the emperor
and his council in recognizing that claim as a ground for public
distinction. Here- namely, on the point of personal security -
lies, for the moment, our most pressing interest. On the othernamely, our commercial interest — I will say a word or two in the
text. But, taking the two interests together, in less time than
six months - allowing for the overland journey, voyage, &c., of
the surreme commissioner, who has not yet left England; secondly, for the martial negotiation and adjustment of the dispute ~
thirdly, for the homeward despatch of the results —we cannot
anticipate any secure settlement of the case.
(249)




'250                      NOTES.
NOTE 4. Page 148.
The Americans did quite enough for committing themselves to
the same policy as ourselves, but also (I fear) not enough to satisfy
the claims of their national honor, as it is likely to be interpreted
at Washington by Congress and by the Piesident's Council. For,
as is remarked, with an evanescent sneer, by a British naval officer, although battering to rags a goodly number of forts, &c.,
they compromised matters obscurely with Yeh, after failing tc
obtain those indemnities, and, above all, those guarantees, which
they had originally proclaimed as their objects.
NOTE 5. Page 150.
It is asserted by philosophic travellers more than one, that not
any great city throughout the greater part of the East is placed
where naturally it ought to have been; and why?  Simply out
of deference to the sister folly of seeking fortunate sites. Good
sense pointed out one site; but divination and magical tricks
stepped in to prescribe some other. Even our ambassador in Persia has been stopped, sometimes at the gates of Teheran, &c., that
his horse's feet might be timed into perfect coincidence with the
suggestions of astrology.
NOTE 6. Page 155.
But Sir J. Davis, or else Mr. Fortune it is, who remarks, that
instead of counting a le as one-third of an English mile, more
often it would be fair to regard it as a fourth, or sometimes even
as a fifth of a mile. However, in this case, thirty miles is the
consul's own valuation.
NOTE 7. Page 156.
The natural hydraulics of the river system in China threatens
a vast section of this country with ruin; and the ruin is drawing
nearer every year. One main cause lies in the constitution of the
Yellow River (the second in rank among the Chinese rivers!,
which brings down continually vast bodies of mud, much of
which is not carried out to sea, but forms constant layers of depo



NOTES.                       251
sition, which have already. raised the body of the water to such a
height, that it is in a permanent condition of overflow, and at
some seasons ruinously so. Shallows, on the other hand, arise in
the artificial waters, from causes to which European science could
apply remedies.
NOTE 8. Page 163.
" /rea " -Not of a thousand miles square, which else the
reader might be predisposed to think from the vast extent of
China, but of a thousand square miles.
NOTE 9. Page 165.
" To call: "-But begging pardon of the English Mr. Toots,
whom we all know to be a kind-hearted and honorable man, for
taking such a liberty with his respected name, even for a moment.
NOTE 10. Page 167.
This is amongst the commonest tricks of the Chinese government. When any European has been injured too deeply to admit
of a blank denial, half-a-dollar is paid to some Chinese vagabond
for personating the delinquent; having been shown once or twice
in a public place, he is then withdrawn to some distant station,
for the assumed purpose of brigading him with other convicts
working out their penal sentences, but in reality to fulfil the bargain by discharging him in a place where the transaction will
escape all public notice. This infamous trick suggested the prudence of nominating, in cases affecting our own interests, some
inspector to watch the infliction of the sentence. But to this there
are various objections; and Lord Palmerston suggested one additional objection, which is painfully insurmountable - namely,
that under a cruel government we should be called on to witness
(inferentially to sanction) torture.
NOTEll1. Page 168.
Yang-tse-Keang: — Such is~ the native designation of this
mighty river, nearly three thousand miles long.;




252                       NOTES.
NoTE 12. Page 178.
I do not know whether his very long (and not uninteresting)
communication of three columns, in small type, may not even be
an advertisement. But, assuredly, it is in no harmony with the
decisive opinions of that journal. The writer adopts the signature of " Cathay." Now, this (an old name for the northern section of China, China to the north of the Great River, constantly
used by writers of our Henry VIII. period, as, for example, Ariosto, who always speaks of Angelica as daughter to the Emperor
of Cathay) may properly enough express antiquated doctrines on
the subject of China. A superannuated name may appropriately
symbolize a superannuated policy — the policy of submission on
our part.
NoTE 13. Page 175.
This honorable viceregal gentleman was here coining a double
calumny — first, in pretending to have ground for representing
the bodily wounds as fictions; secondly, as fictions meant to sustain a pecuniary claim for indemnity: whereas, no charge at all,
great or small, was made for anything whatever, except for the
watches, &c., violently torn from the persons of the missionaries;
and by looking to the Blue-book (" Reports respecting Insults in
China "), it will be seen that this charge was exceedingly moderate.
In fact, it was important to let the mob know that they could not
gain by robbery. Meantime, whilst circulating these calumnies
in a quarter where he could not be met and contradicted, the
viceroy was perfectly aware that the very same falsehood, calling
the affair a brawl and an affray, had been already attempted and
repelled in a lower region.
NOTE 14. Page 178.
Lieutenant Holman, the blind traveller, reports an infamous
trick of the authorities at Canton on this subject. In order to
justify the exclusion of the British, they circulated at Peking
(where no contradiction was possible) the vilest calumnies as to the
habits of the British, charging them with indecencies in public of
a character too shocking for public mention.




NOTES.                       253
NOTE 15. Page 178.
The writer under the signature of " Cathay " seems to rehearse
with sympathy the furious reiterations of hatred to us by the Cantonese, and to fancy that the very blindness of this fury furnishes
an argument for treating it with deference. But a just man,
though occupying a neutral position, would find in this one feature of the murderous frenzy an adequate argument for resisting
it. Had the people of Canton pleaded any reasons for their hatred,
drawn from a real experience, they would have found some countenance, more or less, from the disinterested observer. But all
men of good feeling recoil with disgust from a headlong monomea
nia that glories in its own groundlessness.
NOTE 16. Page 180.
Is the reader aware of the insufferable affronts which our countrymen have had to face daily at Canton? How would any of
ourselves like this which follows- to be under a necessity, often
once a-day, of passing outside of a city, and at the gate of this
city to be taunted with our exclusion, in spite of the treaty:
" You red-haired devil, dare not for your life enter here! "  Then
come derisive grimaces, and, at the same time, a peculiar chirping sound, which these fools suppose to be the characteristic utterance of demons. And, at the same time, the British man or
woman, who is obliged to pass the gate, can make no effectual
retort, and is aware that, on entering the town, at all times,
whether in public peace or not, a frantic murderous assault will
follow. Such insolence it may require no great philosophy to
endure once or twice; but how, if you were summoned to the
same scene of furious indignity through twenty-five years- and
summoned to this by the basest of poltroons, who never stood for
ten minutes before our troops, but fled like hares? What injuries
do the Cantonese reproach us with? They can mention none:
the real injury is, that we British are that nation who have dissipated forever the chimera, worshipped as an idol by China, that
she is the supreme nation upon this earth.
22




254                       NOTES.
NOTE 17. Page 181.
The great mystery in the Chinese administration is.how it can
happen that, amongst a variable body like the high mandarins,
liable to sudden degradation and exile, with none of the stability
attaching to hereditary nobles, any permanent conspiracy for the
intercepting of light can prosper. And yet, manifestly, it does.
Every event of our war with China was concealed from the emperor. As one gross instance, in 1841, when we had so posted our
troops that Canton lay completely at our mercy, the governor,
aware that the capture of Canton would resound through all
China, was anxious to buy off this fate by a payment of six million dollars for the opium confiscated by Lin. This was accepted
by us; but so reported to the poor, foolish prince at Peking, that he
published an exulting proclamation, saying that at length chastisement had overtaken us, and we had reaped the just reward of
our enormous crimes. Thirty-six hours later he received a little
despatch informing him of the ransom, which it was impossible
to conceal, since it was to be paid out of his majesty's poor, exhausted treasury. Strange to say, the emperor detected no contradiction in these two despatches, and continued to believe himself
victorious throughout the war, until he found us to be within a
few marches of Peking, and another bill, eventually to be paid
of fourteen million dollars. So profound a delusion assuredly
never before rested on a ruler, that in most respects is an unlim.
ited despot, even in respect to those who are thus inexplicably
combining successfully to deceive him.
NOTE 18. Page 182.
This American goes on to say, with great truth: "To send
embassies is only to confirm him in a false superiority, and to
give another precedent of refusal to be cited by his successor."
So far the writer is reasonable; otherwise, his views are vicious
and irrelevant.
NOTE 19. Page 186.
The bribery was practised under the orders of the East India
Company. That great Company have, in their vast Indian em.




N6TES.                       255
pire, been the benefactors of the human race. In China, on the
other hand, they it is - they chiefly - who have ruined us. Not
by acts only, and the whole stream of their policy, but by direct
written injunctions, and general orders, and by special opposition
to nobler counsels, they have authorized a cringing mode of tactics. Blind as bats even to their own instant pecuniary interests,
they have resisted the employment, in any Chinese case, of a
king's officer, because he (said the Company) must support tho
national honor, which we (as commercial men) may disregard.
That one fact shows the policy of the East India Directors.
NOTE 20. Page 187.
It is remarkable that Sir George Staunton, the very man to
whose bold remonstrance, in 1816, we owe it that Lord Amherst
refused the ko-tou, twenty years afterwards published a pamphlet
against the admirable pamphlets of Messrs. Lindsay and Matheson, treating the idea of a military opposition to China, " with
her countless millions," as " wild and desperate," and as mere
"' infatuation." Unfortunately for Sir George's reputation as a
Chinese counsellor, the infatuated plan was actually tried four
years later, and succeeded in the amplest extent. But would it
not have seemed impossible beforehand that a man of sense should
have gathered so little knowledge in fifty years of life, as to fancy
mere brute numbers, without arms, without training, without discipline, and, above all, without food, at all formidable to the
select soldiers of the earth?  In this pamphlet, which really can
celled most of Sir George's earlier merits, he attempted even to
varnish the monstrous arrogances of the Chinese emperor. He
asserted (what he of all men should best have known to be untrue) that at least the emperor had never pretended to any rights
over the island of Great Britain; whereas one of the official persons authorized by the Court of Peking to accompany Lord Amherst's return by land to Canton, had gravely reminded our people that the emperor was as truly lord of the British Isles as of
Peking; and in this expostulation did not evidently suppose himself advanc ng any new truth, but simply recalling to our minds
an old one, which we were forgetting. Sir George further insists,




256                       NOTES.
that, even at the worst, the emperor went no further than our
own kings, who, until the last alteration of the royal title, in the
days of George III., always called themselves Kings of France.
But how different the case! We meant only Kings of France de
jure, not de facto. And our original title rested upon a twofold
real groundd-namely, upon overwhelming victories, which ena
bled us to crown an infant prince as King of France; and, secondly, upon plausible genealogical grounds. Besides that, we
used the claim as only a peacock's feather of pomp, but never in
the slightest instance attempted to assert any power over a French
subject upon this basis. But the Chinese emperor never cited his
pretended claim over Great Britain as less than a solid argument
for demanding obedience to himself. And, in the mean time,
China, having confessedly never sent any expedition whatever to
Europe, could not even in a romance plead such a title.
NoTE 21. Page 187.
"Lord XNapier: "- The immediate causes of the wrath shown
to Lord Napier are still made the subject of dispute amongst all
apologists for China, as though there had been an original irregularity in the commission of that ill-used nobleman. But, on comparing all the documents, it is plain that the true and sole
ground of the brutality was the deadly fear that this change
would lead to a transfer of all our commercial affairs from the
hands of corrupt and irresponsible local officers to others of a
higher class in immediate communication with Peking.
NoTE 22. Page 191.
I quote a sentiment of Wordsworth's in "The Excursion," but
cannot remember its expression.
NOTE 23. Page 197.
" By repute: "- The crew of the Centurion were so persuaded
that these treasure-galleons were impregnable to ordinary cannonballs, that the commodore found it advisable to reason with them,
and such was their confidence in him, that upon his promise to




NOTES.                        257
nnd a road into the ship if they would only lay him alongside of
her, they unanimously voted the superstition a Spanish lie.
NOTE 24. Page 199.
Can be no prince: " —In the technical heraldic usage, a
duke in our peerage is styled a prince.  But this book honor finds
no acceptation or echo in the usage of life; not even in cases, like
those of Marlborough and Wellington, where the dukes have received princedoms from foreign sovereigns, and might, under the
sanction of their own sovereign, assume their continental honors.
NOTE 25. Page 200.
This tells favorably for Cromwell as an instance of fair and
honorable nationality in one direction; and yet in the counter
direction how ill it tells for his discernment, that, in forecasting
a memoir on his own career for continental use, and therefore
properly to be written in Latin, his thoughts turned (under some
unaccountable bias) to continental writers, descending even to
such a fellow as Meric Casaubon, the son, indeed, of an illustrious scholar, but himself a man of poor pretensions; and all the
while this English-hearted Protector utterly overlooked his own
immortal secretary.
NOTE 26. Page 202.
" Impertinent: " - That is, according to an old and approved
parliamentary explanation, not pertinent, irrelevant.
NOTE 27. Page 204.
We may see by the recorded stratagem of an individual Greek,
cunning enough, but, on the other hand, not at all less base than
that which he sought to escape, that these prostrations (to which
Euripides alludes with such lyrical and impassioned scorn, in a
chorus of his " Orestes," as fitted only for Phrygian slaves) must
have been exacted from all Greeks alike, as the sine qua non for
admission to the royal presence. Some Spartan it was, already
slavish enough by his training, who tried the artifice of dropping
22*                        17




258                        NOTES.
a ring, and affecting to pass off his prostrations as simply so many
efforts to search for and to recover his ring.  But to the feelings
of any honorable man, this stratagem would not avail him. One
baseness cannot be evaded by another. The anecdote is useful,
however; for this picturesque case, combined with others, satisfactorily proves that the sons of Greece could and did submit to
the ko-tou for the furtherance of what seemed to them an adequate
purpose. Had newspapers existed in those days, this self-degradation would have purchased more infamy in Greece than benefit
in Persia. The attempted evasion by this miserable Greek, who
sought to have the benefits of the ko-tou without paying its price,thinking, in fact, that honor could be saved by swindling, --- seems
on a level with that baseness ascribed (untruly, it may be hoped)
to Galileo, whom some persons represent as seeking to evade his
own formal recantation of the doctrine as to the earth's motion,
by muttering inaudibly, " But it does move, for all that."  This
would have been the trick of the Grecian ring-dropper.
NOTE 28. Page 211.
There seems to have been a strange blunder at the bottom of all
our diplomatic approaches to the Court of China, if we are to
believe what the lexicographers tell us, -namely, that the very
word in Chinese which we translate ambassador means tributebearer.  If this should be true, it will follow that we have all
along been supposed to approach the emperor in a character of
which the meaning and obligations were well known to us, but
which we had haughtily resolved to violate. There is, besides,
another consideration which calls upon us to investigate this subject. It would certainly be a ludicrous discovery if it should be
found that we and the Chinese ha-e been at cross-purposes for so
long a time.  Yet such things have occurred, and in the East are
peculiarly likely to occur, so radically incompatible is our high
civilization with their rude barbarism; and precisely out of this
barbarism grows the very consideration we have adverted to as
laying an arrest upon all that else we should have a right to
think. It is this: so mean and unrefined are the notions of oriental nations, that, according to those, it is very doubtful indeed




NoTES -                      259
whether an eastern potentate would be able to understand or
figure to himself any business, or office, belonging to an ambassador, except that of declaring war and defiance; or, secondly, of
humbly bringing tribute! Hence, we presume, arises the Chinese rigor in demanding to know the substance of any letter before
admitting the bearer of it to the imperial presence; since, if it
should happen to contain a defiance, in that case they presume
that the messenger might indulge himself in insolence; and this
it might not be safe to punish in any nation where the sanctity of
heralds still lingers, and a faith in the mysterious perils overtaking all who violate that sanctity. Wherever there are but two
categories - war and tributary submission - into which the idea
of ambassador subdivides, then it must be difficult for the Chinese to understand in which it is that we mean to present ourselves at Peking.
NOTE 29. Page 214.
In the twenty-sixth Regiment alone eight hundred men died.
This, it is true, was chiefly at Hong-Kong; but the disease was
mysterious; for the stationary inhabitants of Hong-Kong did not
die. Is it not therefore open to reasonable conjecture that the
men had swallowed a slow poison?
NOTE 30. Page 215.
" Suicides by the thousand: "-The Chinese, amongst our
antagonists, did not commit suicide when routed; the Tartars
did.  But it is a point still unsettled whether this act were
regarded by them as a measure of unavoidable desperation, under
their anticipation of a death possibly cruel, but if not, a degrading vassalage at the hands of their conquerors; or whether, even
if made aware of our merciful usages, they would not still have
held their sacramentum  militare-the faith which they had
pledged to their wicked emperor- paramount in obligation to
any release, howsoever framed or worded by us, from the penalties of their condition as captives. There is, however, ground for
a reasonable presumption that the Tartars generally, whom as
brave men our army universally respected, would not have refused




260                       NOTES.
quarter if it had been fully explained to them, nor would, in that
case, have felt suicide a duty; because those among them whom
wounds and helplessness had disabled from attempting suicide,
were deeply and pathetically impressed by the tenderness of their
treatment in our hospitals, and even more so by the parting
marks of respect which they received on their discharge.
NOTE 31. Page 215.
S' ifecting at most two men, perhaps one: "-And this " one"
challenged upon these two worshipful grounds: first, that he had
something 1" red " in a part of his dress - so much went for little
even in China; but then, secondly, he had lost one (or by'r lady
it might be two) of his front teeth, but whether in the upper jaw
or in the lower, the witness did not specify.
NOTE 32. Page 216.
"Proceedings of Her Majesty's Naval Forces at Canton."
NOTE 33. Page 217.' Expiry of the License:"- It is remarkable enough that
Lord Clarendon, whose long practice in the art of reading statepapers must have qualified him so eminently for moving with
rapidity and with steadiness amongst the accumulated documents
of Hong-Kong, might almost seem to have foreseen the blunder of
Lord Derby. Writing from  the Foreign Office on December 10,
1856, and reviewing all the papers connected with the Arrow that
could then have reached him by the overland mail, coming down
to October 15, Lord Clarendon says that he has consulted the
law-officer of the crown, and has come to the conclusion that this
act of the Chinese authorities constitutes an infraction of Art. IX.
of the Supplementary Treaty. Yet, whilst saying this, he adds,
as a part of the very same despatch, pretty nearly that very
identical remark of Sir J. Bowring, which Lord Derby fancies to
be nothing less than a confidential retractation of the whole
charge against the Chinese. IHere are Lord Clarendon's words:
" The expiration of the Arrow's sailing license on September 27,




NOTES.                       261
previous to her seizure, does not appear to have been known to the
Chinese authorities." What then? Does he mean that this
might ultimately weaken our claim for reparation, as giving us a
present and momentary advantage which would melt away as the
truth became gradually more apparent? Not at all. So far from
this, he means to say that Yeh does not appear to have known the
one sole fact, which, if known, might, under an erroneous construction, have seemed to authorize, or colorably to palliate, his outrage;
and Lord Clarendon, it must be remembered, is not giving this
opinion under any suspicion of partisanship, as would have been
the case had he been speaking in the House of Lords, but under
the most solemn seal of public duty, as a minister of state writing
confidentially to responsible agents.
NOTE 34. Page 221.
"Prepared to rebel: " -It deserves notice, however, that in
China there is a permanent opening for rebels -both word and
thing —in the condition of society. Besides the " Christian "
rebels, the formidable Tae-pings, who have kept open for halfa-dozen years the cause of insurrection in the interior (sometimes in the very centre) of the empire, there has always been
a smouldering rebellion - first, amongst the triads; secondly,
amongst the eastern 7naritimte populations, tainted with the leaven
of piracy, and scornfully disaffected to the supreme government,
as too notoriously not able to protect them; thirdly, amongst an
old indigenous race of mountaineers, called the.Jeaoutsee
(whether Chinese originally by blood is unknown), who, having
long since found out the trick of cudgelling the Chinese, are not
likely to unlearn it amongst the advantageous positions of their
native hills and mountain-passes.  John Chinaman from the
plains below is continually opening a new chapter of the eternal
row with these people; which being reported to Peking, in the
old mendacious fashion, and discounted accordingly by the emperor, do not leave any large balance of victory to receive at the
end of the year: no burden arises for the Peking memory. During our own war with the Chinese of 1841-2, a very natural fancy
occurred to the. Cabinet of Peking - namely, to hire these old




262                       NOTES.
enemies in the stage character of new friends. Fighting so well
as nuisances, why not as allies? But unhappily the plan failed.
Ranged against the British, the stout mountaineers " went the
way of all flesh."
NOTE 35. Page 223.
His Excellency in his hurry is excusably unprecise. What Sir
John means is the withdrawal into the city of Canton, so as to be
available against the British, of the troops appointed to the general defence of the vast province bearing the same name.
NOTE 36. Page 224.
"Two separate bribes: "- Yeh, the governor, first of all,
offered by proclamation, upon the 27th of October, the sum of
thirty dollars for the head of every Englishman; and subsequently a private association of persons in Canton, whom we
dignify with the titles of "gentry" and " literati," offered a
second bribe, larger by more than one-half — namely, thirtythree taels. A tael is precisely the old English noble, or 6s. 8d.;
whence comes our ordinary law-solicitor's fee. Three taels, therefore, at the ordinary exchange, make one pound sterling. Consequently, Yeh's price for an English head is about six pounds or
guineas; but the literati are more liberal, and offer pretty nearly
to a fraction ten guineas.
NOTE 37. Page 224.
Since then the crew and passengers of the Thistle steamer,
eleven in number, and others.
NOTE 38. Page 227.
"Eleven times larger: " - Confining the estimate, of course,
to China Proper; else China beyond the Wall counts a total of
three million square English miles.
NOTE 39. Page 227.
This panic was in itself a most memorable and scenical display,- perhaps the finest as a poetic vision that homely China has
ever witnessed; for in China there is no magnificence of any




NOTES.                       2/3
sort. Since the siege of Jerusalem, there has been nothing like
the terror-stricken packing up of the court at Peking, after it
became known that the English army occupied the head of the
imperial canal. Had our horse-guards been present at headquarters, we should have caught and amputated more bushels of
pigtails than Hannibal of equestrian gold rings at Canne. But
the comedy of the case really rises to the sublime, when the fact
transpires, that, what between the knavery and the panic of the
court, there disappeared from the treasure-chests of the emperor,
during the headlong process of packing up, three millions of
money; not taels observe, - three millions of which would unhappily make only one million of sovereigns, - but three downright
sterling millions. What was to be done? Horror turned the
emperor's head grass-green in one night. But what good would
that do? Verdant hair would not bring back the departed
money. Nothing would bring it back. Hitherto there had been
no national debt in China; but from this night forward there
was. Taoukwang, first and last, ordained that the three millions
should be funded, and stand as a debt against the names to the
thousandth generation of those who should have guarded the
money, but certainly did not, and probably stole it. Meantime
the emperor could not cash a bill for ten pounds; and in his
journey to Mantchoo Tartary, had it held, he must have gone
upon tick with his postilions: which might have brought his
green hair with sorrow to the grave.
NOTE 40. Page 233.
" Warlike proceedings: "- But not, therefore, to any bom.
bardment of Canton, meaning the dwelling-houses and shops of
that city, which is a pure fiction of the Cobdenites. No bombardment has yet taken place, but one directed against the cincture of walls around Canton   walls which are surmounted or
surmountable with guns. But assume even that a general bornbardment of the city had been found necessary, for the mastering
of its foolish governor's obstinacy, what more would that have
been than we have many times adopted against far more meritorious places, or than we had actually made final preparations t~




264:                      NOTES.
carry out against this very Canton in the year 1841, as the one
sole available resource for extorting a most equitable indemnity
to our injured merchants.
NOTE 41. Page 237.
M. De Lange. He was left by M. De Ismaeloff, and was personally known to the Scottish traveller, Bell of Antermony. Bell
was a favorite and an agent of the Czar Peter the Great; and
after the czar's death he reprinted De Lange's Record as a supplement to his own Travels. But it had been printed previously
in a separate form, and somewhat differently in parts, at the
Hague, if not at Stockholm. Some seventy years after this abortive residence of De Lange, the Russians made another effort, of
which no memorial has been printed.
NOTE 42. Page 238.
"Twenty-five-thousand-mile voyage: " —That is, outward and
homeward.
NOTE 43. Page 241.
A ludicrous incident occurred under this blunder at Amoy: an
American frigate, on coming into the harbor, saluted our shipping,; on which the Chinese notified by expresses that the barbarians were now hard at work against each other.
NoTE 44. Page 244.
Rokh Mirza, a splendid prince, presented to one of the former
Chinese emperors a splendid horse.  In China there are no
horses that an English farmer's wife, carrying poultry to market,
would condescend to mount. Consequently, in China there are
no horsemen. The emperor was no better in this accomplishment than the rest of his subjects. Upon mounting, he was
instantly thrown. No anger burns so fiercely as that which is
kindled by panic. The emperor, therefore, I believe, regarded
the horse as an assassin, but certainly the ambassadors who
brought him; and with great difficulty was prevailed on to spare
their lives.




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
[1833.]
THE chief portion of the Rabbinical fantasies is
derived from Indian fables; and among those the
transmigration of souls seems to have made the most
powerful impression. It is singular that this doctrine, utterly unsupported as it is by any approach
to evidence, should have yet prevailed among a vast
multitude, or rather the great majority, of ancient
mankind; and the question is still dubious to which
of the three most learned and investigating nations
of antiquity the doctrine is first due. It belonged at
once to India, Egypt, and Greece. Yet its origin
may probably be traced to India, and there to some
of those corruptions of the primal revelation, and of
the second birth of mankind, the spirit transmitted
fiom the antediluvian race into the descendants of
Noah, the representative of the first man, and beginner of a new patriarchal line. The doctrine, too,
served the purpose of offering an apparent explanation of that mysterious Providence by which the
guilty sometimes exhibit striking examples of pros
perity. It further gave some equally obscure hope
of an explanation of the uses, partial sufferings, and
23                      (265)




266        IRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
general degradation of the lower animal creation.
The transfer of the soul of a tyrant to the body of a
tiger seemed not unnatural; of the glutton's to the
hog, or the robber's to the wolf, the vulture, or the
hyena; all displayed a species of natural justice
which might gradually render the transmigration
probable to the quick and figurative fancies of the
East. Their style of expression, too, the forms and
emblems by which, in the early rudeness of penmanship, they labored to describe moral and mental
qualities, tended to reenforce the doctrine. The outline of a dog expressed the persevering or the faithful, the lion characterized the bold, or the eagle gave
the natural conception of lofty aspirings and indomitable ardor. For this doctrine the Rabbinical name
is Gilgul Neshameth (the revolving of souls).
But the Rabbins sometimes deform the poeticalpart of this conception by their absurd habits ofparticularizing.  In the Nishmeth Chajinm we are thus
told that the soul of the man who transgresses by
attempting to provoke another to anger, passes inevitably into a beast. Those who were engaged in
the rebellion at the building of Babel were punished
by three judgments. The best among them were
punished by the confusion of tongues. The second
rank, or those who attempted to set up the idol, were
sent to inhabit cats and monkeys. The third, more
ambitious and more impious, who attempted to scale
the heavens and assault the divine throne with earthly
weapons, were flung down fiom  their height, and
transformed into evil spirits, whose torment is, to be
always:in restless and agonizing motion. A prevail.




TRADITIONS OF THE:RABI3INS.     267
ing cabalistic doctrine is the transmigration of the
human spirit into cattle. But this depends on the
degree of guilt.  "If he hath committed one sin
more than the number of his good works," he must
undergo transmigration. The soul of the man who
thinks on his good works is the more fortunate; for,
though he must undergo the degradation of passing
into the form of a beast, yet it is of a clean or ruminant one. But the soul of the profligate, or the shedder of blood, passes into an unclean beast, the camel,
the rabbit, or the hog. The sensualist is generally
condemned to the form of a reptile.
Rabbinism has continued full of trivial observances;
and the Jew of the present day is harassed with a
weight of ceremonies, which exceed the heaviest
burdens of the ancient law. This yoke he has laid
upon himself. A rigor, worthy of the Pharisee, is
exercised in minute and perpetual triflings worthy
of a child.  One of those ordinances which pass
through every portion of Jewish society, relates to
the smoothness of their knife-blades. The knife with
which the Jew puts bird or beast to death must be
without jags or notches of any kind. The Avcodath
Ialcicodesh assigns the important reason: "Sometimes the soul of a righteous man is found in a clean
beast or fowl. The Jews are therefore commanded
to have their killing-knives without notches, to the
end that they may give as little pain as possible to
the souls contained therein."
The treatise'Ginek HXammelech gives the following
instance of the penal effect of the transmigration as
detailed by the Rabbi Mosche Gallante, chief judge




268        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
of Jerusalem: "When, in the first ages of Israel,
the Rabbi Isaac Lurja - blessed be his memory! -
was passing through the Holy Land, he came faint
and weary to a grove of olives, and there laid him
down. He said to the Rabbi Mosche,' Here let us
rest;' but the Rabbi would not, for he looked round,
and the place whereon they lay was a grave of the
wicked. But the Rabbi Isaac, pointing to a tree
above, on which sat a raven loudly croaking, said,' There is no spirit in this grave. Dost thou not remember Nismath, the extortioner of the city?'-' I
remember him well,' answered the Rabbi Mosche;'he was the grand collector of the customs, and was
cursed every day he lived for his cruelty. He robbed
the rich, and he trampled on the poor; the old he deprived of their property, and the young of their inheritance. May his name be black as night, and his
memory be buried deep as the bottom of the sea.' —.'He is sorry enough now for his oppression,' said
the Rabbi Isaac Lurja.'The King of Judgment
hath sentenced his evil soul to be imprisoned in the
body of that raven, and its complainings are its sor
rows for its state, and its supplications to me to pray
for its release.' —' And wilt thou pray for the son of
evil?' asked the Rabbi Mosche. -' Sooner will I
pray that this staff be the serpent of the magician,'
answered Rabbi Isaac; and, thereupon rising, he
flung it at the raven, which, with a yell of fury,
waved its wings, and shot up in agony into the
bosom of the clouds."
But, even in its original state, the soul, according
to the Rabbins, is under a multiform shape. They




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      269
hold that the human soul has no less than five different forms or stages. " The first is the Nephesh, the
bodily soul. The second is the Ruach, the spirit.
The third is the Neshama, the more celestial soul..
The fourth, the Chaja, the life. The fifth is the Jechida, the solitary."  And these divisions have their
appropriate occasions and uses, every remarkable
period of human existence requiring a due re6nforcement of the soul, as a principle. " In the working
and week days, between the new moon and the feastday, thou must be content with having the Nephesh.
On the Feast-day comes the Ruach. On the day of
Atonement comes the Neshama. On the Sabbath
comes the Chaja, or supernumerary soul, and in the
final and future life of happiness comes the Jechida."
The tenet that on the Sabbath man receives an additional soul, is established among the Rabbins. But
the extravagance of those conceptions is occasionally
qualified among the later commentators by the explanation that those diversities of the human spirit
simply mean the gradual advance of the soul from
excellence to-excellence in the course of prayer, and
the study of divine things.
By a singular improvement on the pagan doctrine
of the metempsychosis, there is also a reverse change
of bodies; and the spirit which had inhabited the
form of a wild beast, becomes occasionally the inhabitant of the human shape.  The tenet of the
famous Rabbi Lurja, in the treatise Ginek Hlammelech, is, that the violences and follies so conspicuous
and unaccountable on human grounds, in certain
individuals, are explained by this transmission, The
283




27T0       TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
vulture, the panther, the jackal, the fox, transmit
their spirits into men, and thence we obviously derive the gluttonous, the rapacious, the base, the
crafty, the whole train of the profligate and the mischievous of mankind; the race whom no precept can
guide, no fear can restrain, and no principle can reg.
ulate; the whole lineage of the desperate and impracticable among men.
Such are the doctrines in their ruder state. But
they sometimes take a finer and more fanciful shape,
and rise into the boldness and imagery of Oriental
fiction. "What," says the Shaar Aikkune, " is the
fall of the guiltiest of the guilty; of those who have
made themselves abominable in the sight of earth
and heaven; of those who have exulted in their sins;
of the man who has slain a son of Israel; of the
apostate who has denied the supremacy of the religion of Israel over all other religions on the earth;
of the spy who has betrayed a Jew, or a community
of Jews? Shall they ascend to heaven? shall they
be worthy to plant their steps in the courts of the
palaces of the angels?  No; the angels are their
punishers; they utter the sentence of ruin against
them; they drive them downward, and summon a
band of evil spirits to chase them round the world.
The dark tormentors rush after them with goads and
whips of fire; their chase is ceaseless; they hunt
them from the plain to the mountain, from the mountain to the river, from the river to the ocean, from
the ocean round the circle of the earth. Thus the
tormented fly in terror, and the tormentors follow in
vengeance, until the time decreed is done. Then the




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      271
doomed sink into dust and ashes. Another beginning
of existence, the commencement of a second trial,
awaits them. They become clay, they take the na.
ture of the stone and of the mineral; they are water,
fire, air; they roll in the thunder; they float in the
cloud; they rush in the whirlwind. They change
again. They enter into the shapes of the vegetable
tribes; they live in the shrub, the flower, and the
tree. Ages on ages pass in their transformations;
they wither; they are tossed by the tempest; they
ure trampled by man; they are smote by the axe;
they are consumed by fire. Another change comes;
they enter into the shape of the beast, the bird, the
fish, the insect; they traverse the desert, they destroy, and are destroyed; they soar into the clouds;
they shoot through the depths of the ocean; they
burrow their invisible way through the recesses of
the earth; they come by devouring millions in the
locust; they sting in the scorpion; they crumble
away the roots of vegetation in the hosts of the ant;
they destroy the promise of the year in the caterpillar; they drive the flocks and herds into famine and
madness in the hornet and the fly zebib. They at
last are suffered to ascend into the rank of human
beings once more. Yet their ascent is step by step.
They are first slaves; they see their first light in
the land of misery. The African or the Asiatic sun
scorches them by day; they are frozen with the
dews of the night; they live in perpetual toil; their
frames are lacerated with the scourge; their steps
clank with the chain; their souls faint within thcm
in hopeless misery, till they long to die. At last




272        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
they die, and again commence life in a higher rank;
they are now free, but they cultivate a sterile soil;
they are impoverished, trampled, tortured by tyrant
rulers; they are dragged to war by fierce ambition;
they are pursued, starved, ruained by furious war;
they are thrown into dungeons; they are banished;
and, above all, their souls are degraded by the darkness of superstitions bathed in blood. They are
bowed down to idols which they dread while they
despise; they repeat prayers to things which they
know to be the work of men's hands, stocks and
stones, which yet from  infancy they have taught
themselves to adore; and thus drag on life in torture
of mind, in shame, the twilight of truth, and the bewilderment of ignorance; they worship with their
lips, yet scorn with their hearts. But their scorn
breaks forth; they are grasped by power; they resist; they are dragged to the rack and the flame;
they are slain. The final change is now come. They
are Israelites. They have risen into the first class
of mankind; they are of the chosen people; the sons
of Abraham, to whom has been given the promise of
universal dominion. Joy to them unspeakable, if
they hold their rank; misery tenfold if they fall, for
their fall now will be without redemption."
Those are the theories, and they bear evidence of
that mixture of Greek philosophy and Asiatic invention, which forms the romance of the early ages.
But they are sometimes embodied into narratives of
singular imagination. The Thousand and One Nights
are rivalled, and the Sultana Scheherazade might find




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      2'3
some of her originality thrown into the shade by
those tales. The Widow of Hebron is an example.
" The Rabbi Joseph, the son of Jehoshaphat, had
been praying from noon until the time of the going
down of the sun, when a messenger from the chief
of the Synagogue of Hebron came to him, and besought him to go forth and pray for a woman who
was grievously tormented. The Rabbi, ever awake
to the call of human sorrow, rose from his knees,
girt his robe round him, and went forth. The messenger led him to a building deep in the forest that
grew on the south side of the hill of Hebron. The
building had more the look of the palace of one of
the princes of Israel than of a private dwelling. But
if its exterior struck the gaze of the Rabbi, its apartments excited his astonishment. He passed through
a succession of halls worthy of the days of the first
Herod, when Jerusalem raised her head again after
the ruin of Antiochus, when her long civil wars were
past, and she had become once more the most magnificent city of the eastern world. Marble columns,
silken veils suspended from the capitals of the pillars,
tissues wrought with the embroidery of Sidon, and
colored with the incomparable dyes of Cmesarea,
vases of Armenian crystal, and tables of Grecian
mosaic, filled chambers, in which were trains of attendants of e7ery climate, Ethiopian, Indian, Persian, and Greek, all habited in the richest dresses.
All that met the eye wore an air of the most sumptuous and habitual magnificence.
" The Rabbi, however, had but a short time for wonder, before he was summoned to the chamber of the
18




27~4:      TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
sick person.. But all the costliness that he had seen
before was eclipsed by the singular brilliancy of this
apartment; it was small, and evidently contrived for
the secluded hours of an individual; but everything
was sumptuous, all gold or pearl, amber or lapisLazuli. And in the midst of this pomp, reclined,
half-sitting, half-lying, on huge pillows of Shiraz
silk, a female, whose beauty, in all the languor of
pain, riveted even the ancient eye of the pious Rabbi.
The sufferer was young; but the flush that from time
to time broke across her countenance, and then left
"t to the paleness of the grave, showed that she was
mn the verge of the tomb. The Rabbi was famous
{br his knowledge of herbs and minerals, and he
offered her some of those medicaments which he had
Aound useful in arresting the progress of decay. The
vying beauty thanked him, and said in a faint voice
1slat she had implored his coming, not to be cured of
a disease which she knew to be fatal, but -to disburaen her mind of a secret which had already hung
heavy on her, and which must extinguish her existence before the morn. The Rabbi, on hearing this,
besought her to make him the depositary of her sorrow, if he could serve her; but, if he could not, forbade her to tell him what might hang darkly on the
memory of a man of Israel.' I am the daughter,'
said she,'of your friend the Rabbi Ben Bechai,
whose memory be blessed, but the widow of a prince,
the descendant of Ishmael. You see the riches in
this house; but they are not the riches of the sons
of the Desert. They were desperately gained, bitterly enjoyed, and now they are repented of when




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.     275
it is too late.' As the lovely being spoke, her countenance changed; she suddenly writhed and tossed
with pain, and in her agony cried out words that
pierced the holy man's ears with terror. He cast his
eyes on the ground, and prayed, and was strengthcned. But when he looked up again, an extraordinary change had come upon the woman's countenance. Its paleness was gone, her cheeks were
burning, her hollow eyes were darting strange light;
her lips, which had been thin and faded as the falling
leaf, were full, crimson, and quivering with wild passion and magic energy. The Rabbi could not believe
that he saw the dying woman by whose side he had
so lately knelt, in the fierce and bold, yet still beautiful creature, that now gazed full and fearless upon
him.'You see me now,' said she,'with surprise;
but these are the common changes of my suffering.
The deadly disease, that is sinking me to the dust,
thus varies its torment hour by hour; but I must
submit and suffer.' The Rabbi knew by those words
that the woman was tormented with an evil spirit.
Upon this he sent for a famous unction, which had
been handed down to him from his ancestor the
Rabbi Joseph, who had been physician to King
Iterod the Great, and had exorcised the evil spirit
out of the dying king. On its being brought, he
anointed the forehead of the woman, her eyes, and the
tips of her fingers. He then made a fire of citronwood and cinnamon, and threw on it incense. As
the smoke arose, he bowed her head gently over it,
that she might imbibe the odor in her nostrils, which
was an established way of expelling the evil spirit.




276         TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
"The woman's countenance now changed again;
it was once more pale with pain, and she cried out
in her torment; at length in strong agony she uttered
many words. But the Rabbi perceived, from her
fixed eyes and motionless lips, that it was the spirit
within her that spoke the words. It said,' Why am
I to be disturbed with anointings and incense? Why
am I to hear the sound of prayer, and be smitten
with the voice of the holy? Look round the chamber. Is it not full of us and our punishers? Are
we not pursued forever by the avenging angels?
Do they not hold scourges of fire in their hands, and
fill every wound they make with thrice-distilled
poison of the tree Asgard, that grows by the lake
of fire? I was an Egyptian; five hundred years
ago I lived at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. I
longed for power, and I obtained it; I longed to
possess the fairest daughters of the land, and I possessed them. I longed for riches, and I practised
all evil to gain them. I was at length accused before the king of sorcery. I longed for revenge on
my accuser, and I enjoyed my revenge. I stabbed
him as he was sleeping in his chamber. The murder
was known; I was forced to fly. But I first sent
a present of perfumed cakes of Damascus to the
mistress of the man who made the discovery; they
feasted on them together, and together they died.
The ship in which I fled was overtaken by a storm.
I was charged with having brought the anger of
heaven on the vessel. I was seized, and about to be
slain.  I drove my dagger through the captain,
sprang overboard, and reached the shore. From it,




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      277
in triumphant revenge, I saw the ship and all the
crew perish in the waters. I was now in the Great
Desert of Africa; and was starving and scorched,
until I lay down to die. But at the last moment an
old man came from among the tombs, and offered me
bread and water. I followed him to his dwelling in
the tombs. He scoffed at my complaints of ill-fortune, and swore to place me once again at the height
of my wishes, if I would be ready at his call at the
end of a hundred years. I could have then drunk
fire and blood in my fury against mankind, and my
thirst of possession. I swore to be his, and prepared to begin my hundred years of enjoyment.
"' I returned to Egypt. I had been supposed to
have sunk to the bottom of the waters with the
wreck of the vessel. MAy countenance was no longer
the same. No man remembered me. I began my
career. I was full of wild ambition, eager desire,
and matchless sagacity.  I rapidly outstripped all
rivalry. I rose to the first rank under the Ptolemies.
I enjoyed the delight of ruining every man who had
formerly thwarted me. All Egypt rang with my
fame.  I had secret enemies, and strange rumors
of the means of my perpetual success began to be
spread. But I had spies everywhere; a whisper
was repaid by defth. A frown was avenged like an
open accusation  My name became a universal terror.
But I had my followers and flatterers only the more.
I trampled on mankind. I revelled in seeing the
proud grovelling at my feet. I corrupted the lowly,
I terrified the high, I bound the strong to my basest
services. I was hated and cursed, but I was feared
24




:27 8      TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
Daggers, poison, secret rage, and public abhorrence,
all were levelled against me; I encountered them all,
defied them all, challenged and triumphed over them
all. I was the most successful, the most envied, and
the most wretched of human beings. But my passicns
at length changed their color; I had lost all sense of
enjoyment; habit had worn its sense away; the feast.
rank, splendor, the adulation of the great, the beauty
of woman, all had grown tasteless and wearisome.
Life was withering. But I had a fierce enjoyment
still, and one that grew keener with the advance of
years. I rejoiced in the degradation of my fellowmen. I revelled in corrupting the mercenary, in
hardening the ferocious, in inflaming the vindictive,
in stimulating the violent. I lived, too, in an evil
time of the monarchy. Deslpcrate excesses in the
court were all but rivalled by furious vice in the
people. The old age of the Greek dynasty was a
sinking of the soul and body of dominion together.
The deepest sensuality, the wildest waste of public
wealth, the meanest extortion, the most reckless
tyranny, all that could fester the memory of a nation,
were the daily crimes of the decaying court of the
Ptolemies. I had come at the right time. Invested
with power which made the monarch a cipher, I
exulted in the coming ruin -I blinded, the eyes of
this voluptuous tyranny to its inevitable fate - I had
but little to do in urging it to new crime, but I did
that little. I wove round it a web of temptation
that the strength even of virtue could have scarcely
broken, but into which the eager dissoluteness of the
Egyptian court plunged as if it had been the most




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      279
signal gift of fortune. I exulted in the prospect of
my accomplished task of precipitating a guilty palace
and people into utter ruin; but in the fever of my
exultation I had forgot that my time was measured.
At a banquet in the king's chamber I saw a guest
whose face struck me as having been known to me,at some remote period. He was the chieftain of one
sf the Bactrian tribes, who now came to offer compensation for some outrages of his wild horsemen on
a caravan returning from the Indus to Egypt. I-fe
was a man of marvellous age, the signs of which he
bore in his visage, but of the most singular sagacity.
His reputation had gone forth among the people;
and all the' dealers in forbidden arts, the magi, the
soothsayers, and the consulters of the dead, acknowledged their skill outdone by this exhausted and decrepit barbarian. The first glance of his keen eye
awoke me to strange and fearful remembrances, but
his first word put an end to all doubt, and made me
feel the agonies of despair. At the sound of his
voice I recognized the old man of the tombs, and
felt that the terrible time for his payment was come.
It was true, I was to die — I was to suffer for the
long banquet of life- I was to undergo the torture
of the place of all torture -I was to suffer a hideous
retribution for the days of my triumph. They had
been many, but they now seemed to me but a
moment.  Days, months, years, were compressed
into a thought, and I groaned within my inmost soul
at the frenzy which had bound me to a master so
soon to demand the penalty to the uttermost.
"' I flew from the royal chamber; my mind was a




280         TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
whirl of terror, shame, loathing, hatred, and remorse.
I seized my sword, and was about to plunge it into
my heart, and end a suspense more stinging than
despair, when I found my hand arrested, and, on
turning, saw the visage of the Battrian. I indignantly attempted to wrest the sword from him, and
drive it home to a heart burning with the poison of
the soul, But he held it with a grasp to which my
utmost strength was a child's. I might as well have
forced a rock from its base. He smiled, and said,
"I am Sammael. You should have known, that to
resist me was as absurd as to expect pity from our
race. I am one of the princes of evil — I reign over
the south-east - I fill the Bactrian deserts with
rapine, the Persian chambers with profligacy, and
am now come to fling the firebrands of civil war into
this court of effeminate Asiatics, savage Africans,
and treacherous Greeks. The work was nearly done
without me; but Sammael must not let the wickedness of man triumph alone. HIe tempts, ensnares,
betrays, and he must have his reward like mankind.
This kingdom will soon be a deluge of blood where
it is not a deluge of conflagration, and a deluge of
conflagration where it is not a deluge of blood." As
he spoke his countenance grew fiery, his voice became
awful, and I fell at his feet without the power to
struggle or to speak. Ile was on the point of plunging me through the crust of the earth ten thousand
times ten thousand fathoms deep, below the roots of
the ocean, to abide in the region of rack and flame.
He had already lifted his heel to trample me down.
But he paused, and uttered a groan. I saw a burst of




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.     281
lighli that covered him from the head to the foot, and
in which.he writhed as if it had been a robe of venom.
I looked up and saw a giant shape, one of the sons
of Paradise who wa'tch over the children of Israel,
standing before the _,'vil King. They fought for me
wi't lances bpright and swift as flashes of lightning.
But Sanmael was overthrown. Ile sprang fiom. the
ground, and, cursing, spread his wings and flew up
into a passing thunder-cloud. The son of Paradise
still stood over me with a countenance of wrath, and
said, " Child of guilt, why shall not vengeance be
wrought upon the guilty? Why shall not the subject of the evil one be stricken with his punishment,
and be chained on the burning rocks of his dungeon,
that are deep as the centre of the earth, and wide as
its surface spread out ten thousand times?"  I
clasped his knees, and bathed them with'tears; I
groaned, and beat my bosom in the terrors of instant
death. The bright vision still held the blow suspended, and saying " that I had been preserved from
ruin only by being the descendant of an Israelitish
mother, but that my life had earned punishment which
must be undergone; " as he spoke the words, he laid
his hand upon my forehead with a weight wlicl
seemed to crush my brain.
"' I shrank and sprang away in fear; I rushr'
wildly through the palace, through the streets
through the highways. I felt myself moving with a
vigor of limb, and savage swiftness, that astonished
me. On the way I overtook a troop of Alexandrian
merchants going towards the desert of the Pentapolis.
I felt a strange instinct to rush among them - I was
24*




282        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
hungry and parched with thirst. I sprang among a
group who had sat down beside one of die wells that
border the sands. Th,?-y all rose up at my sight with
a hideous outcry. Some fled, some threw themselves
down behind the shelter of the thickets, but some
seized their swords and lances, and stood to defend
themselves.  I glowed with unaccountable ragel
The sight of their defiance doubly inflamed me; the
rery gleam of their steel seemed to me the last
nsult, and I rushed forward to make them repent of
their temerity. At the same instant I felt a sudden
tarill of pain; a spear, thrown by a powerful hand,
was quivering in my side. I bounded resistlessly on
my assailant, and in another moment saw him lying in
horrid mutilation at my feet. The rest instantly lost
all courage at the sight, and, flinging down their
weapons, scattered in all directions, crying for help.
But those dastards were not worth pursuit. The
well was before me, I was burning with thirst and
fatigue, and I stooped down to drink of its pure and
smooth water.  What was my astonishment when I
saw a lion stooping in the mirror of the well! I distinctly saw the shaggy mane, the huge bloodshot
eyes, the rough and rapidly moving lips, the pointed
tusks, and all red with recent gore. I shrank in
strange perturbation. I returned to the well again,
stooped to drink, and again saw the same furious
monster stoop to its calm, blue mirror. A horrid
thought crossed my mind. I had known the old doctrine of the Egyptians and Asiatics, which denounced
punishment in the shape of brutes to the guilty dead.
Had I shared this hideous punishment? I again gave




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       28Z
a glance at the water. The sight was now conviction.
I no longer wondered at the wild outcry of the caravan,
at the hurried defence, at the strange flight, at the ferocious joy with which I tore down imy er:eamy, and trampled and rent him till he had lost all seeiolance of man.
The punishment had come upon me. My fated spirit
had left its human body, and had entered into the shape
ef th- savage inhabitant of the wilderness. The
thought was one of indescribable horror. I bounded
away with furious speed, I tore up the sands, I
darted my fangs into my own flesh, and sought for
some respite from hideous thought in the violence of
bodily pain. I flew along the limitless plains of the
desert, from night till morning, and from morning till
night, in hope to exhaust bitter memory by fatigue.
All was in vain. I lay down to die, but the vast
strength of my frame was proof against fatigue.
"' I rushed from hill to valley with the speed of
the whirlwind, and still I was but the terror of the
wilderness, all whose tenants flew before me. I
sought the verge of the little villages, where the
natives hide their heads from the scorching sun and
the deadly dews. I sought them, to perish by their
arrows and lances. I was often wounded; I often
carried away with me their barbed iron in my flesh.
I often writhed in the agony of poisoned wounds.
Still I lived.  MIy life was the solitary existence of
the wild beast. I hunted down the antelope, the
boar, and the goat, and gorged upon their blood. I
then slept, until hunger, or the cry of the hunter,
roused me once more to commence the same career
of flight, pursuit, watching, and wounds. This life




284        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
was hideous. With the savage instincts of the wild
beast, I retained the bitter recollections of my earlier
nature, and every hour was felt with the keenness of
a punishment allotted by a Judge too powerful to be
questioned, ad too stern to be propitiated. How
long I endured this state of evil, I had no means of
kniowing. I had lost the human faculty of measuring
the flight of time. I howled in rage at the light of
the moon as I roamed through the wilderiess; I
shrank fiom the broad blaze of the sun, which at nrace
parched my blood and warned my prey of,my
approach; I felt the tempests of the furious season,
which drove all the feebler animals fiom the face of
the land to hide in caves and woods. I felt the
renewed fires of the season when the sun broke
through his clouds once more, and the earth, refreshed
with the rains, began to be withered like the weed in
the furnace. But, for all other purposes, the moon
and the sun rose alike to my mind, embodied as it was
in the brute, and sharing the narrowness and obscurity of the animal intellect. Months and years passed
unnoted. In the remnant of understanding that was
left to me in vengeance, I labored in vain to recount
the periods of my savage suffering; but the periods
of my human guilt were, by some strange visitation
of wrath, always and instantly ready at my call. I
there saw  my whole career with a distinctness
which seemed beyond all human memory. I lived
over every hour, every thought, every passion,
every pang. Then the instincts of my degraded
state would seize me again; I was again the
devourer, the insatiate drinker of blood, the terror




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      285
of the African, the ravager of the sheepfold, the
monarch of the forest. But my life of horror seemed
at length to approach its limit; I felt the gradual
approach of decay. liy eyes, once keen as the
lightning, could no longer discern the prey on the edge
of the horizon; my massive strength grew weary;
my limbs, the perfection of muscular strength and
activity, became ponderous, and bore me no longer
with the lightness that had given the swiftest gazelle
to my grasp. I shrank within my cavern, and was
to be roused only by the hunger which I bore long
after it had begun to gnaw me. One day I dragged
out my tardy limbs, urged by famine to seize upon
the buffaloes of a tribe passing across the desert. I
sprang upon the leader of the herd, and had already
dragged it to the earth, when the chieftain of the
tribe rushed forward with his lance, and, uttering a
loud outcry, I turned from the fallen buffalo to attack
the hunter. But in that glance I saw an aspect
which I remembered after the lapse of so many years
of misery. The countenance of the being who had
crushed me out of human nature was before me. I
felt the powerful pressure; a pang new to me, a sting
of human feeling, pierced through my frame. I dared
not rush upon this strange avenger- I cowered in
the dust —I would have licked his feet. My fury,
my appetite for carnage, my ruthless delight in rending and devouring the helpless creatures of the wilderness, had passed away. I doubly loathed my
degradation, and, if I could have uttered a human
voice, I should at this moment have implored the
being before me to plunge his spear into my brain,




286         TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
and extinguish all consciousness at once. As the
thought arose, I looked on him once more; he was
no longer the African; he wore the grandeur and
fearful majesty of Azrael. I knew  the Angel of
Judgment. Again he laid his grasp upon my front.
Again I felt it like the weight of a thunderbolt. I
bounded in agony from the plain, fell at his feet, and
the sky, the earth, and the avenger, disappeared from
my eyes.
",' Ahen life returned to me again, I found that I
was rushing forward with vast speed, but it was no
longer the bound and spring of my sinewy limbs. I
felt, too, that I was no longer treading the sands that
had so long burned under my feet. I was tossed by
winds; I was drenched with heavy moisture; I saw
at intervals a strong glare of light bursting on me,
and then suddenly obscured. My senses gradually
cleared, and I became conscious that my being had
undergone a new change. I glanced at my limbs,
and saw them covered with plumage; but the talons
were still there. I still felt the fierce eagerness for
blood, the instinctive desire of destroying life, the
eagerness of pursuit, the savage spirit of loneliness.
Still I was the sullen king of the forest; in every
impulse of my spirit I rushed on. As far as my
eye could gaze, — and it now possessed a power of
vision which seemed to give me the command of the
earth, -I saw clouds rolling in huge piles as white as
snow, and wilder than the surges of an uproused sea.
I saw the marble pinnacles of mountains piercing
through the vapory ocean like the points of lances; I
saw the whole majesty of the kingdom of the air,




tRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       287
with all its splendor of coloring, its gathering tempests, its boundless reservoirs of the rain, its fiery
forges of the thunder.  Still I rushed on, susttined
by unconscious power, and filled with a fierce joy in
my new strength.  As I accidentally passed over a
broad expanse of vapor, which lay calm and smooth
under the meridian beams, I looked downwards.
The speed of my shadow as it swept across the
cloud, first caught my eye. But I was in another
moment struck with still keener astonishment at the
shape which fell there. It bore the complete outline
of an eagle; I saw the broad wings, the strong form,
the beak and head framed for rapine; the destruction
of prey was in every movement. The truth flashed
on me. My spirit had transmigrated into the king
of the feathered race. My first sensations were of
the deepest melancholy. I was to be a prisoner
once more in the form of an inferior nature. I was
still to be exiled fiom the communion of man. I was,
for years or ages, to be a fierce and blood-devouring
creature, the dweller among mountains and precipices, pursued by man, a terror to all the beings of its
nature, stern, solitary, hated, and miserable. Yet I
had glimpses of consolation. Though retaining the
ruthless impulses of my forest state, I felt that my
lot was now softened, that my fate was cast in a
mould of higher capabilities of enjoyment, that I
was safer from the incessant fears of pursuit, firom
the famine, the thirst, the wounds, and the inclernency of the life of the wilderness.  I felt still a
higher alleviation of my destiny in the sense that the
very enjoyments, few  and lonely as they werer




288        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
which were added to my existence, were proof that
my captivity was not to be forever. The recollec.
tions of my human career still mingled with the keen
and brute impulses of my present being; but they
were no longer the scorpion scourges that had once
tortured me. I remembered with what eager longing
I had often looked upon the clear heavens of Egypt,
and envied every bird that I saw soaring in the sunshine. I remembered how often, in even the most
successful hours of my ambition, I had wished to
exchange existence with the ibis that I had seen
sporting over the banks of the Nile, and then spreading his speckled wings, and floating onward to the
Thebais, at a height inaccessible to the arrow. How
often had I gazed at the eagles which I started at the
head of my hunting train from the country of the
Cataracts, and while I watched their flight into the
highest region of the blue and lovely atmosphere,
saw their plumage turned to gold and purple as they
rose through the colored light of the clouds, or poised
themselves in the full radiance of the sunbeams I
This delight was now fully within my possession,
and I enjoyed it to the full. The mere faculty of
motion is an indulgence; but to possess it without
restraint; to have unlimited space before me for its
exercise, and to traverse it without an exertion; to
be able to speed with a swiftness surpassing all
human rapidity; to speed through a world, and to
speed wvith the simple wave of a wing, — was a new
sense, a source of pleasure that alone might almost
have soothed my calamity. The beauty of nature,
the grandeur of the elemental changes, the contrasted




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      289
nijesty of the mountains with the living and crowded
luxuriance of the plains below, were perpetually
before my eye; and tardily as they impressed themselves on my spirit, and often as they were degraded
and darkened by the necessities of my animal nature,
they still made their impression. My better mind
was beginning to revive. At length, one day as I
lay on my poised pinions, basking in the sun, and
wondering at the flood of radiance that from his orb
illumined earth and heaven, I lamented, with almost
the keenness of human regret, that I was destitute
of the organs to make known to man the magnificence of the powers of creation, thus seen nigh,
cloudless, and serene. In this contemplation I had
forgotten that a tempest had been gathering in the
horizon. It had rapidly advanced towards me. It
enwrapped me before I had time to spread my pinions and escape from its overwhelming ruin. WThen
I made the attempt, it was too late. I saw nothing
before, below, or above me, but rolling volumes of
vapor, which confused my vision and clogged my
wings. Lightning began to shoot through the depths
of the world of cloud. As I still struggled fiercely
to extricate myself, I saw a shape standing in the
heart of the storm. I knew the countenance. It was
Azrael; still awful, but with its earlier indignation
gone. {My strength sank and withered before him.
My powerful pinion flagged. I waited the blow. It
was mercy. I saw him stretch forth the fatal hand
again. The lightning burst around me. I was enveloped in a whirlwind of fire, felt one wild pang, and
felt no more.
25                     19




290        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
"' I awoke in the midst of a chamber filled with
a crowd of wild-looking men and women, who, on
seeing me open my eyes, could not suppress their
wonder and joy. They danced about the chamber
with all the gesticulations of barbarian delight. As
I gazed round, with some hope or fear of seeing the
mighty angel who had smote me, my gesture was
mistaken for a desire to breathe the open air. I was
carried towards a large casement, from which a view
of the country spread before me. I was instantly,
and for the first time, now sensible that another
change had come upon me. Where were the vast
volumes of clouds, on which I had floated in such
supreme command? Where were the glittering pinnacles of the mountains, on which I had for so many
years looked down from a height that made them
dwindle into spear-heads and arrow-points? Where
was that broad and golden splendor of the sun, on
which I had for so many thousand days gazed, as if
I drank new life from the lustre? I now saw before
me only a deep and gloomy ravine, feathered with
pines, and filled with a torrent that bounded from the
marble summit of the precipice. The tops of the
hills seemed to pierce the heavens, but they were a
sheet of sullen forest; the sun was shut out, and but
for a golden line that touched the ridge, I should
have fbrgotten that he had an existence. I had left
the region of lights and glories; I was now a wingless, powerless, earth-fixed thing, a helpless exile
from the azure provinces of the sky. What I had
become, I toiled in vain to discover. I was changed;
I knew no more; my faculties still retained the




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.     291
impressions made on them by long habit; and I felt
myself involuntarily attempting to spring forward,
and launch again upon the bosom of the air. But I
was at length to be fully acquainted with the truth.
"'As the evening came on, I heard signals of
horns and wild cries; the sounds of many voices
roused me, and, soon after, the women whom I had
seen before, rushed into the chamber, bringing a
variety of ornaments and robes, which they put on
me. A mirror, which one of them held to my face
when all was completed. showed me that I had transmigrated into the form of a young female. I was now
the daughter of a Circassian chieftain. The being
whose form I now possessed had been memorable for
her beauty, was accordingly looked upon as a treasure by her parents, and destined to be sold to the
most extravagant purchaser. But envy exists even
in the mountains of Circassia; and a dose of opium,
administered by a rival beauty, had suddenly extinguished a bargain, which had been already far advanced, with an envoy from the royal harem of
Persia. My parents were inconsolable, and they had
torn their garments, and vowed revenge over me for
three days. On this evening the horsemen of the
whole tribe were to have assembled for an incursion
upon the tribe of my successful rival, and to have
avenged my death by general extermination. While
all was in suspense, the light had come into the eyes
of the dead beauty, the color had dawned on her
cheeks, her lips had moved; and her parents, in
exultation at the hope of renewing their bargain, had
at once given a general feast to their kinsmen, loaded




292        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
me with their family ornaments, and invited the Per.
sian to renew his purchase, and carry me without
delay beyond the chance of future doses of opium.
"' The Persian came in full gallop, and approved
of me for the possession of his long-bearded lord.
My parents embraced me, wept over me, protested
that I was the light of their eyes, and sold me without the slightest ceremony. That night I was packed
up like a bale of Curdistan cloth, was flung on a
horse, and carried far from the mountains of Circassia.
"' At the Persian court I lived sumptuously, and
in perpetual terror. I ate off dishes of gold, and
slept on beds fringed with pearl, yet I envied the
slave who swept the chamber. Everything around
me was distrust, discontent, and treachery. My Persian lord was devoted to me for a month; and, at the
end of that time, I learned from an old female slave
that I was to be poisoned, as my place was to be
supplied by a new favorite, and it was contrary to
the dignity of the court that I should be sold to a
subject.  My old fiiend further told me that the
poison was to be administered in a pomegranate that
night at supper, and mentioned by what mark I was
to know the fatal fruit. On that night there was a
banquet in the harem; the monarch was beyond all
custom courteous, and he repeatedly invited me to
drink perfumed liquors, as the highest token of his
regard, from his own table. At length, in a sportive
tone, he ordered a dish of pomegranates from his
favorite garden to be divided among the fairest of the
fair of the harem. My heart sank within me, as I




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      293
heard the sentence of death. But I became only the
more vigilant. The dish was brought. The fruits
were flung by the monarch to his delighted guests,
till at last but two remained. One of them, I saw, was
the marked one. To have refused it, would have
argued detection of the treachery, and must have
been followed by certain death. At the moment when
his hand touched it, I exclaimed that a scorpion had
stung me, and fell on the floor in agony! This produced a momentary confusion. The monarch dropped
the fruit from his hand, and turned to summon assistance. Quick as the love of life could urge me, I
darted towards the table, and changed the places
of the two pomegranates. The confusion soon subsided, and I received from the hand of the Sofi the
one which was now next to his royal touch. I bowed
to the ground in gratitude, and tasted the fruit,
which I praised as the most exquisite of all productions of the earth. The monarch, satisfied with his
performance, now put the remaining one to his lips.
I saw the royal epicure devour it to the last morsel,
and observed the process without the least compunction; he enjoyed it prodigiously. In the consciousness that he would not enjoy it long, I packed up
every jewel and coin I could gather in my chamber
the moment I left the banquet, desiring the old slave
to bring me the earliest intelligence of the catastrophe. My labors were scarcely completed, when
an uproar in the palace told me that my pomegranate
was effectual. The old slave came flying in immediately after, saying that all the physicians of the
city had been ordered to come to the Sofi's chamber;
25*




294        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
that he was in agony, and that there were " strong
suspicions of his having been poisoned! " The old
Nubian laughed excessively as she communicated her
intelligence, and, at the same time, recommended my
taking advantage of the tumult to escape. I lost no
time, and we fled together.
"' But, as I passed the windows of the royal chamber, I could not resist the inipulse to see how his
supper succeeded with him. Climbing on my old
companion's shoulders, I looked in. IIe was surrounded by a crowd of physicians of all ranks and
races, Jews and infidels, all offering their nostrums;
and all answered by the most furious threats, that
unless they recovered him before the night was over,
the dawn should see every one of them without his
head. He then raved at his own blunder, which he
appeared to have found out in all points, and cursed
the hour when he ate pomegranates for supper, and
was outwitted by a woman. I-e then rolled in
agony. I left him yelling, and heard his. ong after
I had reached the boundaries of tne harem garden.
Ile died before he had time to cut off the physicians' heads. Before dawn he was with his forefathers.
"'Through what changes of life I now ran, I remember but little more. All is confused before my
eyes. I became the captive of a Bedoueen, fed his
camels, moved the jealousy of the daughter of a neighboring robber, was carried off by his wild riders in
consequence, and left to perish in the heart of the
Hedjaz. From this horrible fate I was rescued, after
days of wandering and famine, by a caravan which




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       295
had lost its way, and, by straying out of the right
road, came to make prize of me. The conductor of
the escort seized me as his property, fed me until I
was in due fulness for the slave-market at Astrachan,
and sold me to a travelling Indian dealer in Angora
goats' hair and women. I was hurried to the borders
of the Ganges, and consigned to the court of a mighty
sovereign, black as ebony, and with the strongest
resemblance to an overgrown baboon. I was next
the sultana of a Rajahpoot.  I was then the watercarrier of a Turcoman horse-stealer; I was the slave
of a Roman matron at Constantinople, who famished
and flogged me to make me a convert, and, when I at
last owned the conversion, famished and'flogged me
to keep me to my duty. She died, and I was free
from the scourge, the temple, and the dungeon. I
have but one confession more to make. Can the ear
of the holy son of Jehoshaphat, the wisest of the
wise, listen to the compacts of the tempter?' The
fair speaker paused; the Rabbi shrank at the words.
But the dying penitent before him was no longer an
object of either temptation or terror.  He pressed
his hands upon his bosom, bowed his head, and listened.
" The fainting beauty smiled, and taking from her
locks a rich jewel, placed it on the hand of her hearer.' 3iy story is at an end,' said she.' I had but one
trial yet to undergo. The King of the Spirits of
Evil urged me to deliver myself over to him. I[e
promised me instant liberty, the breaking of my
earthly chain, the elevation into the highest rank of
earth, the enjoyment of riches beyond the treasures




296        TRADITIONS OF TITE RABBINS.
of kings. The temptation was powerful; the- wealth
which you now see round me, was brought by hands
that might have controlled the elements; but I had
learned to resist all that dazzled the eye. Ambition
was not for my sex, yet I might have at this hour
ranked at the head of the race of woman; a spell
was within my power, by the simple uttering of
which, I might have sat on a throne, the noblest
throne at this hour upon earth. This, too, I resisted.
But the more overwhelming temptation was at hand:
the King of Evil stood before me in a garb of splendor inexpressible, and offered to make me the possessor of all the secrets of magic. He raised upon
the earth visions of the most bewitching beauty; he
filled these halls with shapes of the most dazzling
brightness; he touched my eyes, and I saw the
secrets of other worlds, the people of the stars, the
grandeur of the mighty regions that spread above
this cloudy dwelling and prison of man. The temptation was beyond all resistance. I was on the point
of yielding, when I saw the Spirit of Evil suddenly
writhe as if an arrow had shot through him; his
brightness instantly grew dim, his strength withered,
and, even while I gazed, he sank into the earth.
Where he had stood, I saw nothing but a foot-print,
marked as if the soil had borne fire; but another form
arose. I knew Azrael; his countenance had now
lost all its terrors. He told me that my trials were
come to their conclusion; that, guilty as I was, my
last allegiance to the tempter was broken; that the
decree had gone forth for my release, and thea this
night I was to inhabit a form of clay no more.' The




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.     297
Rabbi listened in holy fear to the language of the
wearied spirit, and for a while was absorbed in supplication. He then repeated the prayers for the
dying hours of the daughters of Israel.
"' It was for this that I summoned you, son of
Jehoshaphat,' said the sinking form.'It was to
soothe my last hour on earth with the sounds of holy
things, and to fill my dying ear with the wisdom of
our fathers. So shall my chain be gently divided,
and the hand of the angel of death lead me through
the valley of darkness, without treading on the
thorns of pain.' The Rabbi knelt, and prayed more
fervently. But he was roused by the deep sigh of
the sufferer.'Now, pray for me no longer,' were
her words;' pray for the peace of Jerusalem.' The
Rabbi prayed for the restoration of Zion. As his
prayer arose, he heard it echoed by voices of sweet.
ness that sank into his soul. He looked upon the
couch; the sufferer was dead; but the struggle of
death had not disturbed a feature. She lay still
lovely, and he knew that the fetter of the spirit had
been loosed forever, and that the trial had been ended
in mercy. He rose to call the attendants to watch
by the dead, but the halls were empty. He then
turned to the porch, and, pondering on the ways of
destiny, set his face in awe and sorrow towards his
own home. lie looked back once more, but where
was the porch through which he had so lately passed?
Where was the stately mansion itself?  All before
the eye was the dim and yellow expanse of weeds
that covers the foot of Hebron. IHe looked around
him — he saw but the heathy sides of the- hill, with




298        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
{he city on its brow; he looked below him - he saw
but the endless range of fertile plain that is lost in
the desert; above him, all was the blue glory (of
midnight. The palace was air. Had he been in a
trance?  Had he seen a vision? Had a warning
been given to him in a dream? WVho knoweth? But
is it not recorded in the book of the house of Jehoshaphat; who shall tell? Go, thou who readest, and
learn wisdom. Are not all things dust and air?"
Some of the traditions allow a much more extensive transmigration. The treatise Zohar claims the
privilege, or admits the punishment, for it may be
either, of transmigrating no less than a thousand
times; on these grounds: WIhen the great Judge
causes the soul of a man to transmigrate, it is generally because it has not prospered, or done good, in
its former state. It is then that the soul is torn from
one existence and planted in the form of another;
and this is called the " changing of the place." On
the third change, it receives a new appellative, and
this is called the " changing of the name." A more
marked stage is the alteration to a new form, with a
consequent alteration of all the objects, pursuits, and
faculties; this is called the " changing of the work."
But, "how often," asks the treatise, "may those
changes take place?  To one thousand times," is
the answer.
But this singular doctrine is urged still further,
and is made to comprehend even the fallen angels.
The treatise l'uf haraez declares that, as it is not the
will of Providence that any Jew should be lost, and
the command of circumcision was given to Abraham,




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      299
the resource of transmigration was devised for the
assistance of those who might neglect that essential
rite; as thus, instead of being utterly cast forth, they
were to be only temporarily separated fiom the chosen
people, being sent to transmigrate through a series
of bodies, until their due purification should be accomplished. Upon the discovery of this proviso, the
treatise tells us that the fallen angels, conceiving
themselves not much worse than an uncircumcised
Jew, laid their claim to a similar privilege. Sammael
and his seventy princes pleaded their cause, on the
ground that as they were the work of creation not
less than the sons of Abraham, they, fallen as they
might be, deserved the same consideration. " For,
what had Abraham done that he should be preferred
to beings originally so much his superiors? " The
answer was, that the patriarch's merits had entitled
him to this privilege; " that he had gone into the
fire of the Chaldeans," to prove his zeal, which was
more than Sammael and his seventy princes had ever
thought of doing. The application was closed by a
summary command that it should not be repeated.
" Ye have not hallowed my words; therefore speak
no more, good or bad."
When we read those perversions of Scripture,
which seem to be engendered of the most wilful
ignorance, and the blindest infatuation, we may well
account for the earnestness with which the apostolical writers warned the Christian world against the
traditionary spirit of the Jews, against the "old
wives' fables," the entangled genealogies, and the
endless mysticism. We here have specimens of the




300        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
wisdom of the proud and stubborn generation which
rejected the Messiah, and, with the oracles of divine
truth in their hands, actually loved the false, the
extravagant, and the trifling. We may well understand the force of the caution against "will worship," and prying into things of which no knowledge
has been vouchsafed to man -the nature of angels,
and the transactions of Heaven. We see here the
fantastic humility, the uncalled-for mortification, the
unauthorized homage to the living saints or the dead.
It is not less palpable that the propensity to load
scriptural truth with human inventions has been the
characteristic of the corruption of Christianity, not
less than of Judaism; and that Rome may vie, at
this hour, in legendary extravagance, the worshipping of angels, the prayers for those spirits who are
beyond all human intervention, the homage to the
saints and martyrs, the useless and frivolous miracles,
and the misty, fluctuating, and irreverent doctrines
suggested for their support, with the wildest and
most worthless fabrications of the Rabbins.
Like all Oriental writings on theology, the Rabbinical traditions discuss largely the glories, wonders,
and delights of the future state. The Sacred Scriptures, written for higher purposes than curiosity, or
the indulgence of an extravagant imagination, are
nearly silent on the subject, probably from the double
reason, that sufficient grounds are laid down for virtue without this detail of its rewards, and that
human faculties are still but feebly fitted to com.
prehend the development, were it made. Yet even
they are not without indications of the peculiar




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       301
species of happiness reserved for the immortal spirit.
They give us statements of the temper in which
Paradise will be enjoyed, the combination of love,
gratitude, adoration, ardor of spirit, and activity of
powers, which will constitute the purified nature;
and which, if it existed on earth, would make earth
itself, with all its inclemencies of nature, and anxieties of circumstance, almost a Paradise.  And, in
those declarations, they exhibit the same wisdom,
and the same sublime simplicity, which characterize
the visible operations of Providence; for they give
us the principle of happiness, without embarrassing
us with the details. They give us an incitement to
the vigorous performance of our human duty, by
suggesting a magnificent and various future, yet
of which neither the magnificence is suffered to
dazzle, nor the variety to distract, the mind.
But the famous treatise Nishmath Chajim settles
all questions at once, according to the wisdom of the
sons of Solomon. After announcing that there are
seven regions, or dwellings, in the place of evil, for
the punishment of the wicked, it cheers the true believer by telling him that Paradise is similarly partitioned, and equally large. The discovery is made
in the form of a commission, directed by the Rabbi
Gamaliel to the Rabbi Jehoscha ben Levi, a renowned
name in the legendary world, for the purpose of deciding whether any of the Gojimn (Gentiles, or Infidels) are in Paradise, and whether any of the children of Israel are in hell. The angel of death bears
the commission to the Rabbi, and the Rabbi sets out
imfmediately on his inquisition.  The result of his
26




302         TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
investigation is, that Paradise contains seven houses,
or general receptacles for the blissful. Those houses
are unquestionably adapted for a large p-lpulation;
for each house is twelve times ten thousand miles
long, and twelve times ten thousand miles broad, or
one hundred and twenty thousand miles square. Ile
then proceeds to report on their distinctions.
The first house fronts the first gate of Paradise,
and is inhabited by converts from the Infidels, who
have voluntarily embraced the Jewish faith.  The
walls are of glass, and the timbers cedar. He proposed to give accuracy to his statement by actually
measuring the extent. But the converts, probably
jealous of his superior sanctity, and conceiving that
he was about to eject them, began to offer opposition.
Fortunately, Obadiah the prophet, their superintendent saint, happening to be on the spot, he remonstrated with them, and the measurement was suffered to go on in peace. The second house fronts the
second gate of Paradise. Its walls are of silver, and
its beams cedar. It is inhabited by those who have
repented, and they are superintended by a penitent:
Manasseh, the son of lHezekiah, is set over them.
The third house is opposite to the third gate, is built
of silver and gold, and is inhabited by Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, with all the Israelites who came
out of Egypt, and all that were in the desert.  In
this house, also, dwell David, Solomon, and all the
other sons of David, with the exception of Absalom.
But those do not comprehend the whole habitancy
of this well-stocked house. It contains, in addition,
the whole succession of the kings of Judah, with




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       303
the exception of Manasseh, who, as we have already
seen, is occupied in governing the second house. At
the head of this dwelling are Moses and Aaron.
The Rabbi now, observing that this household possessed a great quantity of handsome furniture, gold
and silver plate, &c., and that the chambers were
provided with beds, couches, and candlesticks of
pearls and diamonds, asked David the purport of
this opulence.  " These," said David, "are for the
children of the world from whom you came."  The
Rabbi then inquired whether any of the Gentiles, or
of the children of Esau, were there.  " None," was
the answer.  "Whatever good they may do, is
rewarded in the world; but their natural destiny is
hell." But every one who is wicked among the
children of Israel is punished in his lifetime, but
obtains the life to come; as it is written: "He repayeth those that hate him."
The fourth house fronts the fourth gate of Paradise,
and is built, as the first man was framed, in perfection. It is built with oil-tree (olive) wood. But
why is it thus built? Because the house is built for
the habitation of the perfectly righteous, and their
earthly days were bitter, like the oil-tree. The fifth
house is built of silver, fine gold, glass, and crystal.
The river Gihon flows through the midst of it. The
framework is of gold and silver, with an odor far
exceeding that of Lebanon wood. The couches are
also more costly than those of the others; being
formed of gold, silver, spice, and scarlet and blue silk,
which was woven by Eve; and also crimson silk,
and the finest linen, and cloth of goats' hair, which




304        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
was woven by angels. In this house dwell Messiah
ben David, and Elias of blessed memory; and to the
chamber with pillars of silver, and carpets of scarlet,
whore Messiah especially dwells, with Elias perpetually declaring to him, "Be at ease; for the end
is at hand, when thou art to redeem Israel," Moses,
Aaron, David, and Solomon, with the kings of Israel,
and of the house of David, come on the second and
fifth day of every week, and also on every Sabbath
and festival, to lament with him, and comfort him,
saying, " Be at ease, rely on Heaven, for the end is
at hand."
But the fourth day of the week is reserved for a
different assemblage. On this day, Korah and his
company, with Dathan and Abiram, come to him,
and ask, " EWhen will be the end of what is wonderful; and when shall we be raised from death, and
suffered to come out of the abyss of the earth? "
And duly they hear the same scornful answer, " Go
to your fathers and ask them." This answer is decisive: they are overwhelmed with shame, shrink,
and disappear. Two houses remain; but description
has been exhausted, and they seem to be yet either
inadequately finished, or inadequately filled. The
sixth is for those who have rigidly walked in the
path of the commandments; the seventh for those
who died, whether of sorrow for the national sins,
or innocent and undue victims, swept away in the
times of national calamity.
But among the possessors of Paradise, independently of the great historic characters of the race of
Israel, there are ranks, differing in dignity according




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       305
to their merits, or the circumstances of their lives
or deaths. The first order consists of those who
suffered death for the honor of their law and nation,
by the hands of Infidel governments; such as the
Rabbi Akkiba and his disciples, who were put to
death by the Roman authorities. The second order
consists of those who have been drowned at sea.
The third, of the famous Rabbi Ben Saccai and his
disciples; the fourth, of those on whom the Shekinah,
or glory, has descended; the fifth, of true penitents,
who rank with the perfectly righteous; the sixth,
of those who have never married, yet have lived a
life of purity; the seventh, of those in humble life,
who have constantly exercised themselves ill the
Bible, and the study of the MIishna, and have had an
honest vocation. For each order there is a distinct
abode. The highest order is that of the martyrs for
the Law, the order of Akkiba and his disciples.
The decorations assigned to those fortunate classes
are various; yet as even the Rabbinical imagination
can invent nothing fine' than gold and jewels, the
diversity is not marked with sufficient distinctness
to gratify European taste. All, however, is in the
true Oriental profusion. Rabbi Jehoscha, still the
great authority for supramundane affairs, relates, according to the Jalkcut Schimoni, "That at the two
ruby gates of Paradise, stand sixty times tel thousand spirits ministering, and that the countenance of
each of them shines like the brightness of the firmament. On the arrival of one of the righteous from
Earth, those spirits surround him, receive him with
due honors, strip him of his grave-clothes, and robe
26*                 20




306        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
him in no less than eight garments of clouds of glory
They next put upon his head two crowns, one of
pearls and diamonds, and the other of pure gold, and
put eight myrrh branches into his hands. They then
sing a chorus of praise round him, and bid him go
and eat his bread in joy! They next lead him to
springs of water, margined with eight hundred
species of roses and myrrh, where to each of the
righteous is assigned a separate canopy from the
heat, or the splendor, or both. From the springs
flf(w four rivers, of milk, wine, balsam, and honey.
The canopies are crowned and lighted by pearls,
each of which gives a light equal to that of the
planet Venus. Under every canopy is laid a table
of pearls and precious stones. And over the head
of each hover a group of angels, who say to him,
" Go now and eat honey with joy, because thou hast
studied the Law, and exercised thyself therein; and
go and drink the wine which is preserved from the
six days of the Creation."
Among the righteous, the least handsome are like
Joseph and Rabbi Jochanan (who was celebrated for
his beauty). No night comes there; and there also
the process of beauty and beatification is a matter
of a few hours. In the time of the first watch, the
righteous becomes an infant of Paradise, passes into
the place where the spirits of infants are, and feels
all the joyousness belonging to infancy. In the
second watch, he starts into Paradisiac youth, passes
into the dwelling of the youthful spirits, and enjoys
their pursuits and pastimes. In the third watch, he
enters into the state of Paradisiac manhood; his




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.        s07
perfection is complete, and he is thenceforth master
of all the faculties and enjoyments of the region of
happiness.
Paradise, too, retains its old supremacy over all
gardens, from its abundance of trees, of which the
Rabbins give it no less than eighty times ten thousand species in each of the quarters of this famous
spot of celestial horticulture. Angels in abundance
are also provided, either to cultivate or to admire
them; for there are six hundred thousand in each
quarter, floating about, or guarding the fruit. The
tree of life stands there, with its branches covering
the whole extent of Paradise, and with fruits suitable
to all the various tastes of the righteous, for they
have five hundred thousand several flavors. Seven
clouds of glory sit above it, and at every wind which
shakes it the fragrance passes from  one end of the
world to the other. The disciples of the sages are
peculiarly favored, for they have their especial seats
allotted under this tree. Their merit is to have pro.
foundly studied and eloquently explained the Law.
A large portion of the Rabbinical writings is filled
with those descriptions of lavish and fanciful beauty,
but deformed with extravagancies, which offend even
against the wildness of Eastern fiction. The light
which supplies the place of sun to the righteous
occupies a large space in the description. The
treatise Avodalh Hakkcadesh, after saying that the
extent of the garden is immense, states that there
stands in the centre a vast laver, filled with dew from
the highest celestial region; and in its centre stands
a light incapable of being eclipsed or obscured, it




308        TRADITIONS OF THE RABB'LNS.
being of the nature of that which was originally
given for the use of Adam, and by which he was
enabled to see at a glance from one end of the world
to the other. But the ground in the neighborhood
of this prodigious luminary conduces partially to this
result, as it is an entire pavement of precious stones,
each of which gives a light brilliant as that of a
burning torch; the whole forming an illumination of
indescribable lustre.
It is obvious that, in their inventions, the Traditionists had no reluctance to borrow from the written
letter. They seize just enough of the facts of Scripture to form a frame-work for the fiction, and over
this they flourish their rambling and legendary conceptions. But, as they borrow largely, so they
have been prodigally borrowed fiom. The Romish
doctrines of supererogation, purgatory, and individual
intercession, are not the work of Rome alone; they
are as old as the Rabbins; and the only merit which
the Romish adopters can claim is that of having
turned a play of imagination into a principle of practice, made a rambling tenet a profitable dogma,
and fabricated dreams and visions into a source
of the deepest corruption that ever violated the
simplicity of religion, revolted human reason, and
stained the feeble purity of the human heart. In
the Nismath Chajinm  we are told that the Rabbi
Akkiba, their great doctor, one day, as he was
going to be present at the burial of one of his disciples, was surprised at the sight of a being with
the shape of a man, running with an enormous pile
of wood on his shoulders —yet running with the




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      309
speed of a horse. The compassionate Rabbi stopped
his celerity, and, perceiving that he was human,
asked him why he was condemned to this singular
labor, adding, "that he pitied him so much, that if
he were a slave, and his master would be content to
sell him, he himself would be the purchaser, in order
to free him from this severity of toil; or, if his poverty were the cause, that he would give him some
opportunity of obtaining wealth." The man listened,
but with wild impatience; he struggled to break
away, but, awed by the power of the great Akkiba,
he could not move from the spot. At length he
burst into a passionate cry, imploring that he might
be suffered to go on, and fly over the world, bearing
his melancholy burden. The Rabbi was astonished,
but he now began to perceive that he was conversing
with a being not of this world, and sternly demanded,
"Art thou man:or devil?"  The unfortunate being
in agony exclaimed, " I have past away from earth,
and now my eternal portion is to carry fuel to the
Great Fire."  The startled Rabbi asked what act of
his life could have plunged him into this dreadful
calamity. The criminal answered that he had been
a collector of the public taxes, and had abused his
office by favoring the rich and oppressing the poor.
The next question was whether he had ever heard, in
his place of punishment, that there was any remedy
for his guilt? The condemned now began to be
impatient, through fear of increasing his punishment
by delaying his task, and eagerly implored the Rabbi
to let him go. At length, acknowledging that he
had heard of one redemption,- namely, that if he had




310        TRADITIONS OF -THE RABBINS.
a son, who could stand forth in the congregation, and
there say the prayer of the Synagogue, beginning
with " Blessed be the blessed Lord,"- he might be
delivered from his sentence. On his being asked,
whether he had a son, he answered that he did not
know; that he had left his widow when she was
about to have a child, but that he now could not
know whether it was a son or a daughter; or, if a
son, whether he was sufficiently instructed in the
Law. To the further inquiry, where his family were
to be found, he answered that his own name was
Akkiba, his wife's Susmira, and his city Alduca.
The man was now suffered to recommence his fearful
race again. And the benevolent Rabbi began a pilgrimage from city to city until he found the due
place. There he inquired for the dwelling of the
husband. But he seems to have been unpopular
among his countrymen, for the general answer to the
Rabbi was, " May his bones be bruised in hell."
The perplexed inquirer now attempted to ascertain
the fate of the widow; but she appeared to be scarcely
more fortunate than her husband -for the reply was,
"Let her name be rooted out of the world."  IIis
sole resource now was the son; and of him the
answer was not much more favorable.  "He was not
circumcised, his parents having had no regard to
the Covenant."
But the Rabbi was not to be repelled; he discovered the boy at last, took him to his home, found him
a preternatural dunce, into whom the Law could not
by possibility make way; and was driven to a fast
of forty days, which by divine aid at length accome




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       311
plished the task of teaching him the alphabet. After
this his educafion advanced to the extent of reading
the prayer Shemna. (Deut. vi. 4.) The Rabbi now
brought forward his pupil, the prayer of spiritual
liberation was recited, and in that hour the fhther was
freed from his task. Ile soon after appeared to the
Rabbi in a dream, saying, " lMay the rest of Paradise
be thy portion, because thou hast rescued me from
the punishment of hell." Then the Rabbi burst out
into rejoicings, and repeated a holy hymn in honor
of the achievement.
The only distinction between this pious performance and the exploits of later times is in the penance.
If the Rabbi Akkiba had done his purgatorial work at
Rome instead of at Jerusalem, he would have made
others fast instead of mortifying himself, and he would
have put a handsome sum into his purse for masses
and indulgences, instead of incumbering himself with
hospitality to the tardy subject of circumcision.
Some of those stories are publicly founded on the
facts of the Jewish persecutions, though the historian who would take them, in their present state,
for authority, would tread upon slippery ground.
The treatise Sanhedrin gives the following account
of the origin of the celebrated book Zohar:
The Rabbis Jehuda, Isaac, and Shimeon, were conversing, when Jehuda ben Gerim, a convert, came
to them. On Jehuda's observing that the Romans
excelled in buildings and public works, that they
had erected markets, bridges, and baths, the Rabbi
Shimeon contested their merit, by saying that they
had done those things with selfish or corrupt objects,




312        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
The convert was clearly unworthy of hearing so
much wisdom, for he carried the conversation to the
imperial ear, and sentence soon followed, that the
Rabbi who had spoken contemptuously of the reigning power should be slain, and the Rabbi who had
kept silence should be banished, while the laudatory
Rabbi should be promoted. On this announcement
the Rabbi Shimeon, the chief culprit, fled with his
son, and they hid themselves in the school, his wife
bringing them bread and water every day. But the
pursuit becoming close, and Shimeon observing to
his son, with more truth than gallantry, that women
were somewhat light-minded, and that the Romans
might tease his wife into discovering the place of
their retreat, he determined to put this casualty out
of her power by hiding in a cave. There they must,
however, have met with a fate as evil as the Roman
sword, for they were on the point of famine; when
a fruit-tree and a spring were created fbr their support. Here, whether for comfort, concealment, or
saving their clothes, they undressed themselves, sat
up to the neck in sand, and spent the day in study.
At the time of prayer, however, they recollected -the
decorums of their law, dressed themselves, performed
their service, and then laid aside their clothing once
more. At the end of twelve years of this life of
nakedness and learning, the prophet Elias stood at
the entrance of the cave, and cried aloud, " Who will
tell the son of Jochai that the emperor is dead, and
his decree is come to an end?"  Then went out the
Rabbi Shimeon and his son. But their studies had
rendered them  unfit for the easy morality of the




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       313
world into which they were reentering. They saw
mankind as busy as ever with their worldly affairs,
ploughing and trading, pursuing wealth, passion, and
pleasure. They instantly exclaimed, " Behold a race
of evil! behold a people who neglect eternal things!"
Their words were fearful, but their effect was more
fearful still, for, whatever they denounced, or whatever object fell beneath their indignant glance, was
instantly consumed with flame. But this discipline
would have thinned mankind too rapidly to be suffered long. A voice came forth from the clouds,
"Are ye come out only to destroy the world?
Return to your cave." The hermits were not disobedient to the high admonition. They returned to
their solitude, and there abode a whole year. At the
end of that period the Rabbi Shimeon lifted up his
voice, and said, "Even in hell the wicked are punished but twelve months."  This remonstrance was
graciously listened to. The voice was heard again,
commanding that they should come forth from the
cave. They now came forth, restraining their wrath
at the incorrigible worldliness of man, and shutting
those fiery eyes whose glances consumed all they
fell upon, like flashes of lightning. They suffered
the world to take its own way, they took theirs; and
thenceforth lived in popularity, ate their bread in
peace, and escaped the turbulent life and thankless
death of those who trouble themselves with thco
morals of their neighbors. But their sojourn in the
cave was not unproductive; for their wise heads
and industrious fingers produced the famous treatise,
Zohar.
27




814        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
With those conceptions of the power of man -and
apgels, it may be presumed that the Rabbinls have
not-neglected the space offered to the imagination in
the kingdom of darkness. There they arrange, distribute, and define all kinds of faculties, pursuits, and
punishments, in the most exuberant and sometimes in
the most striking style. Their legends exhibit all
the characteristics of the Oriental school, and are alter.
nately feeble and forcible, absurd and interesting, trivial and sublime. One portion of the spirits of evil they
conceive to posrsess a kind of middle state between the
worlds of nature and spirit. They are declared to
resemble angels in three things — the power of flight,
foresight, and passing from one part of the earth to
the other with instant and angelic speed. To -the
humbler race of man they are linked also by three
things —by, feeling the necessity of food, by being
increased according to human generation, and by
being liable to death. Those evil spirits know no
Salic law, for they have no less than four queens,
named the Lilts, the Naama, the Igerith, and the.Iiachalath; each of these formidable sovereigns
waving the sceptre over bands of unclean spirits
utterly beyond calculation. They are severally paramount, each presiding over a fourth of the year, but
in this period reigning over nature only from the hour
of sunset till midnight,. Once in the year they
assemble with their dark legions on the heights of
Nishl a, in the centre of the mountains of the Equator.
But over them all Solomon had power. Those four
are, however, the wives of one, the Prince Sammael
who reigns over Esau; to whom the Rabbins have




TPADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.        315
a peculiar aversion, which they display on all occasions. The four queens are among the inconvenienccs which beset the daily life of the Jew.  The
Christian peasantry of Europe have their unlucky
day, Friday; and the Moslems are not without their
day of casualty.  But the Jew must be a dexterous
steersman, who can make his way through any of
the seven days of the week without running foul of
misfortune regularly laid down in the calendar. The
Rabbinical caution especially lies against venturing
out alone in the nights of Thursdays or-the Sabbaths,
for on those nights the Igerith is especially abroad,
with an army of no less than one hundred and eighty
thousand evil spirits, ready to pluck the truest of
believers from the face of the earth at the instant
of his putting his foot beyond the threshold.
But the Lilith, or Lilis, is the lady of romance.
When Adam was first formed, Lilis was his wife.
She was made of earth, but her earthly compound
was ill suited to the perfection of the first father of
mankind.  She contested his right of' being mas-.
ter of his own house, and then began that quarrel
which has been so often renewed since the beginning
of the world. Lilis would not recede; Adam would
not concede; and the result was, as in later times,
a demand for a separate maintenance. Lilis pronounced the Shem  ctnmphorash; wings started from
her shoulders at the words, and she darted upward
from the presence of her astonished lord, to range
the kingdoms of the air.  Adam appealed to authority; and three angels, Sensi, Sacsenoi, and SammangeL2f, were sent in full wing after her.  A decree was




316        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
issued, that, if she came back voluntarily, all should
be forgiven; but, if she refused to come, one hundred
of her children should die every day! But Lilis
had already felt the charms of freedom, and shle
resolved to enjoy them to her utmost. The three
angels supplicated in vain. She waved her plumage
across the earth; they pursued. She fled across the
f:artllest waters of the ocean. There, at length, she
was overtaken.  She still refused.  The angels
threatened to strip her of her wings, to plunge her
in the waters which rolled beneath them, and bind
her in chains at the bottom of the sea forever. Still
Lilis was inflexible, and she even awed them with the
declaration that she had been created with the especial power to destroy children, the males from the
day of their birth to the eighth. day (the day of circumcision), but the females until the tenth day.
This menace rendered it only the more indispensable
that this formidable truant should be brought back
to her allegiance. They now proceeded to exert
their powerful means; when Lilis offered a compromise, that whenever she saw any of the names or
pictures of the angels on a Kamea (a slip of parch
ment hung round a child's neck), she would spare
the child. The subsequent offspring of Lilis were
evil spirits, of whom a hundred die daily, but unfortunately the produce is more rapid than the extinction. But the Doctors of the Law acknowledge the
value of the agreement, and therefore write the
names of the angels upon all children's necks, that
Lilis may be equally true to the compact, and siare
the-rising generation of Israel.




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       317
Solomnon, the perpetual theme of Oriental story, of
course flourishes in the annals of those inexhaustible
dealers in prodigies. One of the Chaldee paraphrases
tells us of a feast which Solomon, the son of David,
the wise and holy, gave in the days of his glory, and
to which he invited all the kings of the earth, firom
east to west. He regaled his guests with more than
royal magnificence; and in the course of the banquet, when his heart was high with wine, showed
them the wonders of his power. He first ordered
the troops of minstrels trained by his father to enter
and exhibit their skill on the harp, cymbal, trumpet,
and other instruments.  Nothing could be more
exquisite. All were astonished and delighted. But
he had a more striking display in reserve. At the
waving of his sceptre, and the uttering of a conmmand to all the creatures of the earth to attend, the
halls of the immense palace were instantly crowded
with a concourse of all the kinds of animals, from
the lion to the serpent, and from the eagle to the
smallest of the birds.  The terror of his kingly
guests was at first excessive, but it was changed to
wonder by seeing the whole crowd of animals acknowledging the power of the man of wisdom; uttering voices to him, all which he understood and
answered, and displaying all their qualities and beauties in homage to the mighty monarch. But a still
more astounding spectacle was to follow. The king,
ordering a small cup of a single chrysolite to be
brought to him, poured into it a liquid of a dazzling
brightness, till the whole cup glowed like at star;
and a flame ascending from it shot forth a thousand
27'




318         TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
distinct shafts of fire to all parts of the horizon. Tn
a short time sounds of the most fearful kind were
heard in earth and ail, and the army of' the demons,
night-spectres, and evil spirits, submissive to his
will, poured into the palace.  The numbers on this
putblic occasion may be imagined from their habits
of congregating on the most private ones.  The
Rabbins hold that the whole system of nature is so
crowded with them, that a true believer has scarcely
room to turn on his heel without treading on the hoofs
of some of them. The Rabbi Benjamin says that, if
a man is not cautious how he opens his eye, there
are some who will be sure to get between the lids.
Others assert that they stand round us as thick as the
fences of a garden. The treatise Raf Ham gives the
actual number that molest a Rabbi, - an occupation
in which they naturally take a peculiar pleasure. This
number amounts to a thousand on his left side, and
by some curious preference of mischief, ten thousand
on his right. The treatise Babba proceeds to solve
some of the more obvious earthly inconveniences
which beset the Israelite by this perverse presence.
Thus the thronging and pressing in the synagogue,
which produces so much confusion and surprise, when
every one seems to perceive that there is room enough
for all, is really occasioned by those invisible intruders, who are so fond of hearing the discourses of the
Jewish priests that they fill the synagogue to suffocation. The whole fatigue felt in the service also
proceeds from their pressure. Even the tearing and
wearing of the clothes of the Israelites - a matter
which they seem to feel as a peculiar grievance —




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       319
pioceeds from the restless movement and remcrseless
rubbing of their viewless associates.
But on this feast day of their mighty master none
dared to make experiments on his sufferance. All
displayed themselves in their best points of view;
and nothing could be more strange, more wonderful,
or more dazzling, than the whole measureless muster
of the hosts of the nether world. There followed, in
long march, shapes of fire; some flashing beams,
keen as lightning; some shedding light, soft as the
rainbow; some of colossal stature; some of the
smallest dwarfishness; some in the naked and powerful proportions of the antediluvian giant; some of
the most delicate and subtle loveliness of form,
clothed in silk and gold; some wearing armor, royal
robes, coronets studded with stars small as the eye
of a mole, yet sparkling with intolerable brilliancy;
some on the wing; some in floating chariots of metals
unknown on earth, yet exceeding the gossamer in
lightness, and gold in splendor; some riding coursers
of the most inconceivable strength and stupendous
magnitude, tall as the towers of a city, and beside
which the elephant would have looked like a fawn;
some steering barges, entirely formed of rich jewels,
through the air, and sweeping round the pillars and
sculptures of the palace with infinite velocity; some
on foot, and treading on tissues of silver and scarlet,
which continually spread wherever they trode, and
threw up living roses at each step; some with countenances marked with the contortions of pain and
terroi, but some of an exquisite and intense beauty,
which at once fixed and overwhelmed the eye. All




320         TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
moved to the sound of an infinite number of instru
ments, warlike, pastoral, and choral, according to
their states and powers-? and all form-ed the most singular and wondrous sight inmaginable.  Yet, though
all the guests confessed that they had never seen the
equal of this display, they yet acknowledged that it
inspired them with indescribhble fear.  They felt that
they were ill an evil presence; and not even the charm
of those allurements and temptations which still
remain to fallen spirits, - not even their wvisdorm,
beauty, and knowledge of the secrets of nature, their
brilliant intellect, and universal skill,- could prevent
the kings from playing Solomon that he would command his terrible vassals, the tribes of the world of
darkness, to depart firom the palace. The king, in
compassion to their human weakness, complied, and
taking up the cup of chrysolite, poured into it a liquor
of the color of ebony.  The cup suddenly grew black
as night, and a thousand shafts of darkness shot out
from it to all parts of the'horizon.  They pierced
through the ranks of the evil spirits like a flight of
arrows, and instantly the whole mighty multitude
broke up, and scattered in all directions through the
air. Their flight was long seen like a fall of fiery
meteors; and their yells, as they flew, were heard as
far as Babylon.
Wolf, the missionary, who is now rambling through
Asia, and rejoicing in the perilous encounter of
Rajahs, tigers, angry Israelites, and dagger-bearing
Moslems, will probably swon give a new public interest to one of the most panular conceptions that ever
fell into oblivion, - the existence of the lost tribes




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      321
of Israel. The present object of this indefatigable
rambler is declaredly to bring to light the retreats
of the famous revolters of Jeroboam. What resources
for the discovery he may find in his own possession,
we must leave to time. But, if he should condescend
to take his wisdom from the pages of the Rabbins, he
will find them ready and copious in supplying him
with the most unhesitating information on every
point of possible curiosity. The Rabbi Benjamin, in
his work, Massaoth Shel Rabbi Benjamin, long since
informed the wondering world that "from the city
Raabar, formerly called Pombeditha, on the banks of
the Euphrates, it is exactly twenty-one days' journey through the desert of Saba, in the direction of
Sincar, to the frontier of the country called that of
the Rechabites. Their capital is the city of Tema,
where the Prince Chanan, who is also a Rabbi, governs the nation. The city is of large dimensions,
and the territory is worthy of the capital. It extends
sixteen days' journey between the northern mountains. The people are numerous and warlike, yet
they are subject to the Gojim, a Gentile power, which
forays to a great distance, in company with some
hordes of wild Arabs, who live on their northern
boundary. Those Rechabite Jews plough, and keep
cattle, give the tenth of their possessions to the
scribes and sages, who live in the schools, and to the
poorer Jews, and especially to those who mourn over
Sion, and neither eat flesh nor drink wine, but who
perpetually wear black garments, in sign of the sorrows of Jerusalem. The number of the people living
in Tema and  ilima is about one hundred thousand.
21




322         TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
And thither come, once in the year, Prin Ce Solomon,
and his brother Chanan, of the line of David, with
shattered clothing, to fast forty days, and pray for
the miseries of those Jews who are in exile.
" In the country of the prince, who thus' comes
periodically to fast with the Rechabites, the people
seem to be tolerably prosperous. IIe has fifty cities,
two hundred villages, and a hundred fortresses. His
capital is Thenai, remarkably strong, and fifteen miles
square, containing fields, gardens, and orchards.
Tilima is also a very strong city, seated in the mountains. From Tilima it is three days' journey to Hibar,
where the people declare themselves of the tribes
Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, which
Shalmanezer, the Assyrian, carried into captivity.
They are a singularly belligerent race; they have
large and strong cities. They wage constant hostilities with their neighbors, and are almost secure
of impunity, by having in their frontier a desert of
eighteen days' journey, utterly uninhabitable by
man. The city of Kibar also is large, with about
fifty thousand Jews among the inhabitants. They
carry on frequent wars with the people of Sincar and
the north. The other Israelites spread to the east;
and the country of Aliman touches even the borders
of India."  We are in some fear that these names
will not be found in the modern maps; but the detail is confident, and if the missionary should blunder
in the regions between the Euxine and the Caspian,
he will have the satisfaction of blundering upon high
Rabbinical authority.
But it was to be presumed that a tradition, which




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.        323
hiad so long excited popular curiosity, would at some
time or other be adapted for the purposes of ingenious imposture. How few instances are there of the
mysterious death of a prince, or the fatl of a dynasty,
which have not exhibited a ready succession of dexterous pretenders, fiomr t4he days of Sebastian of
Portugal down to the late Dauphin, the unfortunate
son of the unfortunate Louis XVI.! The treatise Shibboleth gives a sketch of one of these bold adventurers.
In the year of the world the 1466th after the destruction of the second temple (A. D. 1534), there appeared
in Europe a man from a distant country, who called
himself Rabbi David, a Reubenile. IHe went to Rome,
where he had an interview with Clement VII., and
was favorably received.  On being questioned by
the pontiff as to himself, he said that he was the
Commander-in-Chief of the army of the King of' Israel.
He was of a Moorish complexion, short in stature,
and about forty-five years of age. From Rome he
went to Portugal, where he was received by the king;
and, understanding only HIebrew and Arabic, spoke
generally by an interpreter. IHe declared that he
was sent as ambassador firom the Israelite Kings of
Chalach, Chabar, and the nations on the river Gozanz,
to demand assistance, and peculiarly cannon, from
the European princes, that they, the Israelites, might
be enabled to make head against their infidel enemies.
The Rabbi remained for a considerable time in Portugal, and converted to Judaism one of the king's private secretaries, who, though a Christian, was of
Jewish parents.  On this conversion, the Rabbi
David left the country, and took with him his con



324        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
vert, who now bore the name of Solomon l faico. The
convert was a man of ability and eloquence; and
though he had previously no knowledge of the law,
and was of the uncircumcised, yet, when he came
among his new brethren, he preached powerfully,
especially in Italy, where his expounding both the
written and the oral law astonished the most celebrated teachers, and perplexed the people, who wondered where he could have found his singular wisdom.
His own account of it was satisfactory; he had been
endowed with it by an angel. Solomon Malco now
wrote several treatises which increased his fane; he
next declared himself to be one of the messengers of
the Messiah. He was remarkably handsome, and
his manners were high-bred and courteous. Rabbi
David, too, had his share of public wonder, for he
fasted for six days and nights, without suffering anything to enter his lips, - a fact proved by accurate
witnesses. But the career of the more aspiring or
more active missionary was to have an unhappy
close. Rabbi Solomon ventured himself within the
presence of Charles V. at MIantua. To what the
actual conference amounted has escaped history,
but the result was an order that he should be delivered over to the secular arm. The unfortunate zealot
was brought to the stake, gagged, through fear, as
the Jews say, of his using some strong spell, or form
of words, by which he might escape his tormentors.
His life wac offered to him, but he firmly rejected
the offer, and died without shrinking. Rabbi David's
career was extinguished at the same time, but by a




tRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.      325
less cruel catastrophe. IHe was sent a prisoner into
Spain, where he died.
Subsequent narratives state that the two missionaries had attempted to convert the King of Portugal,
the Pope, and the Emperor - an attempt which certainly wanted nothing of the boldness of proselytism;
and that the Rabbi's refusal to be converted in turn
was the immediate cause of the sentence. Solomon
was burned in Mantua, A. D. 1540.
But to those who desire a more detailed account
of the expatriated and long-hidden nations, let the
learned Rabbi Eldad the Danite supply intelligence.
"There," says this faithful topographer, "is the
tribe of Moses, our instructor, the just, and the servant of heaven. Those Jews are surrounded with
the river Sabbatajon, the compass of which is as much
as one can walk in three months. They live in stately
houses, and have magnificent buildings and towers
erected by themselves. There is no unclean thing
among them; no scorpion, no serpent, no wild beast.
Their flocks and herds bring forth twice a year. They
have gardens, stocked with all kinds of fruits; but
they neither sow nor reap. They are a people of
faith, and well instructed in the llishna, Gemara, and
Aggada. Their Talmud is written in the Hebrew
tongue. They say, our forefathers have taught us
out of the mouth of Joshua, out of the mouth of
Moses, and out of the mouth of God. They know
nothing of the Talmudic doctrines which were in being in the time of the second temple. They lengthen
their days to a hundred and twenty years. Neither
sons nor daughters die in the lifetime of their parents;
28




326        TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.
they advance to the third and fourth generation. A
child drives their cattle many days' journey, because
they have neither wild beasts, murderers, nor evil
spirits to fear. Their Levites labor in the law and
in the commandments. They see no man, and are
seen of none, except the four tribes which dwell on
the further side of the river of Ethiopia, Dan, Naphthali, Gad, and Asser. The sand of the river Sabbatajon is holy. In an hour-glass it runs six days of
the week; but on the seventh it is immovable. The
people are twice as numerous as when they left
Judea. "
But those narratives are endless. Though probably containing some fragments of truth, the fact is
so encumbered with the fiction that they become a
mere matter of romance. But the graver consideration remains: Are such things the wisdom of the
chosen people? Are the reveries of the Talmuds
the study by which the learned of the Jews at this
hour are to be advanced in sacred knowledge? Are
those giddy and wandering inventions to be the substitute for those " Oracles," which the greatest
writer of their nation, even Saul of Tarsus, pronounced to be the preiminent privilege of the sons
of Israel? Unhappily, the question cannot be answered in the negative. The Talmuds are at this
hour the fount from which the immense multitude of
Judaism draw all their knowledge of religion. Some
learned men among them may study the learning of
the Scriptures. Some holy men among them- for
there are those even in the community of Israel, who
have not been utterly forsaken by the light of truth




TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS.       327
- the seven thousand who have not yet bowed the
knee to Baal, may love the wisdom of inspiration.
But to the majority the Talmuds are the grand obstruction to light and knowledge, the fatal source of
that stubborn resistance to sacred truth, and to the
severest lessons of national suffering, which, even in
all the advances of later times, keeps the Jew in irremediable darkness and inexorable chains.








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