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ones; but they were the vices of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius; and avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth, the other governed his age. The vices of young and light minds, the joys of wine, and the pleasures of love, never reached his aspiring nature. The general run of men he looked on with contempt, and treated with cruelty when they opposed him. Nor was the rigour of his mind to be softened but with the appearance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which, by a sympathy congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration and ensured his mercy. So that there were often seen in this one man, at the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty, and a generosity that does honour to human nature. E. BURKE

394. MILTON HIS BLINDNESS. In the numerous imitations and still more numerous traces of ancient poetry which we perceive in Milton's chief poem, it is always to be kept in mind, that he had only his recollection to rely upon. His blindness seems to have been complete before 1654; and I scarcely think he had begun his poem, before the anxiety and trouble, into which the public strife of the commonwealth and restoration had thrown him, gave him leisure for immortal occupations. Then the remembrance of early reading came over his dark and lonely path like the moon emerging from the clouds. Then it was that the muse was truly his; not only as she poured her creative inspiration into his mind, but as the daughter of Memory, coming with fragments of ancient melodies, the voice of Euripides and Homer and Tasso; sounds that he had loved in youth, and treasured up for the solace of his age. They who, though not enduring the calamity of Milton, have known what it is, when afar from books, in solitude or in travelling, or in the intervals of worldly care, to feed on poetic recollections, to murmur over the beautiful lines whose cadence has long delighted their ear, to recall the sentiments and images which retain by association the charm that early years once gave them, they will feel the inestimable value of .committing to the memory, in the prime of its power, what it will easily receive and indelibly retain. I know not indeed whether an education that deals much with poetry, such as is still usual in England, has any more solid argument among many in its favour, than that it lays the foundation of intellectual pleasures at the other extreme of life.

H. HALLAM

395. THE BUCCANEERS. Nothing could appear less formidable than the first armaments of these buccaneers, who called themselves brothers of the coast. Having formed themselves, like the hunters of wild cattle, into small societies, they sailed in open boats, which generally contained twenty or thirty men, exposed to all the intemperature of the climate; to the burning heat by day and the chilling damps by night. The evils of this mode of life were augmented by those arising from their licentious disposition. Like savages having no fear of want, nor taking any care to guard against famine by economy, they frequently suffered the extremities of hunger and thirst. But deriving even from their distresses a courage superior to every danger, the sight of a sail transported them to frenzy. They seldom deliberated on the mode; their custom was to attack at once. The smallness of their own vessels and their skill in managing them was their protection. W. RUSSELL

396. THE POET, THE MONARCH OF ALL SCIENCES. Of all sciences (I speak now of human, and according to the human conceit) is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes; that, full of that taste, you may long to pass farther. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margin with interpretations and load the memory with doubtfulness; but he cometh to you with words either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner; and pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste. So it is in men, most of whom are childish in the best things, till they be cradled in their graves. Glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, Æneas; and hearing them, must needs hear the right description of wisdom, valour, and justice; which if they had been barely, that is to say, philosophically set out, they would swear they be brought to school again.

SIR P. SIDNEY

397. CHARACTER. He was ambitious, but it was to serve his king and country only; fearless, because his whole heart was bound up in these noble objects; disinterested, because the enriching of himself or his family never for a moment crossed his mind; insensible to private fame when it interfered with public duty; indifferent to popular obloquy when it arose from rectitude of conduct. Like the Roman patriot, he wished rather to be than to appear deserving. Greatness was forced upon him, both in military and political life, rather because he was felt to be the worthiest, than because he desired to be the first: he was the architect of his own fortune, but he became so almost unconsciously, while solely engrossed in constructing that of his country. He has left undone many things, as a soldier, which might have added to his fame, and done many things, as a statesman, which were fatal to his power; but he omitted the first because they would have endangered his country, and committed the second because he felt them to be essential to its salvation. It is to the honour of his country and of human nature that such a man should have risen at such a time to the rule of her armies and her councils; but he experienced, with Themistocles and Scipio Africanus, the mutable tenure of popular applause, and the base ingratitude of those whom he had saved.

398. MASSACRE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. The massacre continues during this dreadful night. The murderers are alternately judges and executioners. At the same time they are drinking, and setting down on the table their glasses stained with blood. In the midst of this butchery they spare, however, some of their victims, and even feel an excessive delight in restoring them to life. One young man was acquitted amidst shouts of delight, and was borne in triumph in the blood-stained arms of the executioners. An old man was brought forward in his turn, and sentenced to be removed to another prison, which was the signal for execution. His daughter perceived it from the interior of the prison, rushed out amidst the pikes and swords, embraced her father in her arms, clung to him so forcibly, and intreated the murderers with so many tears, and with such an expression of agony, that they paused in the midst of their fury. Then, as if to subject to a new trial this filial feeling which could not but move them, they called out to the

noble maiden, "Drink then of the blood of the enemies of the people." They held to her a vessel full of blood; she drank of it, and her father was saved.

399.

FOREIGN GOVERNMENT OF ITALY. This was the last end of the tragedy, which had been acting for twenty years, with the exception of a few short intervals, and even these filled if not with blood, at least with enmities, with threats and with ambition, in the unfortunate Italy. Torn first by one party and then by the other, all held out to her promises of prosperity, and what was worse, each party in turn complained that she made no movement in their favour, as if it had been her duty to return love for injury. Now at last was to be determined to which of the two, to Austria or to France, was to belong the dominion of Italy; whether the new or the old fortune was to prevail; whether the harsh government of Napoleon was to be mitigated or not; whether Austria would return to Milan with the same gentle temper as she had left it, or indignant for the wrongs she had sustained; whether France or Austria were to make the sweets of peace throw a veil over the violences and the rapines of war; whether twenty years of novelties were to lead to centuries like themselves, or to be lost, leaving no other marks than those of history in the resumed course of centuries past; whether the Italians were to learn to speak French or German; whether finally the soft words addressed to the Italians were for their good or their masters'. For the enticing the nations by winning words in order to their subjection, was always more in our times, than in any other, the act of those who want to appropriate to themselves that which belongs to others.

400. THE APPEARANCE OF CASUALTY IN OCCURRENCES OF LIFE PROMOTES ITS USES AS A STATE OF PROBATION.

Again: one man's sufferings may be another man's trial. The family of a sick parent is a school of filial piety. The characters of domestic life, and not only these, but all the social virtues, are called out by distress. But then, misery, to be the proper object of mitigation, or of that benevolence which endeavours to relieve, must be really or apparently casual. For were there no evils in the world, but what were punishments, properly and intelligibly such, benevolence

would only stand in the way of justice. Such evils, consistently with the administration of moral government, could not be prevented or alleviated; that is to say, could not be remitted in whole or in part, except by the authority which inflicted them, or by an appellate or superior authority. This consideration, which is founded on our most acknowledged apprehensions of the nature of penal justice, may possess its weight in the divine counsels. Virtue is the greatest of all ends. Now virtue in man presupposes not only the existence of evil, without which it could have no object, no material to work upon, but that evils be, apparently at least, misfortunes, that is, the effects of apparent chance. It may be, in pursuance, therefore, and in furtherance of the same scheme of probation, that the evils of life are made so to present themselves.

W. PALEY

401. SIEGE OF BADAJOZ, A.D. 1812. The night was dry but clouded, the air thick with watery exhalations from the rivers, the ramparts and the trenches unusually still; yet a low murmur pervaded the latter, and in the former, lights were seen to flit here and there, while the deep voices of the sentinels at times proclaimed, that all was well in Badajoz. The French, confiding in Philippon's direful skill, watched, from their lofty station, the approach of enemies, whom they had twice before baffled, and now hoped to drive a third time blasted and ruined from the walls; the British, standing in deep columns, were as eager to meet that fiery destruction as the others were to pour it down; and both were alike terrible for their strength, their discipline, and the passions awakened in their resolute hearts. Former failures there were to avenge, and on either side, such leaders as left no excuse for weakness in the hour of trial; and the possession of Badajoz was become a point of honour, personal with the soldiers of each nation. But the strong desire for glory was, in the British, dashed with a hatred of the citizens on an old grudge; and recent toil and hardship, with much spilling of blood, had made many incredibly savage: for these things render the noble-minded indeed averse to cruelty, but harden the vulgar spirit. W. F. P. NAPIER

402. MOTION FOR THE REPEAL OF THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT BY GENERAL CONWAY. I remember, with a melancholy

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