NOTES.-Gaius Julius Cæsar (b. 102, d. 44 B. C.) was the most remarkable genius of the ancient world. Cæsar ruled Rome as imperator five years and a half, and, in the intervals of seven campaigns during that time, spent only fifteen months in Rome. Under his rule Rome was probably at her best, and his murder at once produced a state of anarchy. The conspirators against Cæsar― among whom were Brutus, Cassius and Casca-professed to be moved by honest zeal for the good of Rome; but their own ambition was no doubt the true motive, except with Brutus. Mark Antony was a strong friend of Julius Cæsar. Upon the latter's death, Antony, by his funeral oration, incited the people and drove the conspirators from Rome. The Lupercal was a festival of purification and expiation held in Rome on the 15th of February. Antony was officiating as priest at this festival when he offered the crown to Cæsar. In his will Cæsar left to every citizen of Rome a sum of money, and bequeathed his private gardens to the public. The Nervii were one of the most warlike tribes of Celtic Gaul. Cæsar almost annihilated them in 57 B. C. Pompey, once associated with Cæsar in the government of Rome, was afterwards at war with him. He was murdered by those who thought to propitiate Cæsar, but the latter wept when Pompey's head was sent to him, and had the murderers put to death. Statua is the Latin form of statue, in common use in Shakespeare's time; this form is required here by the meter. LXXVIII. THE ENGLISH CHARACTER. William Hickling Prescott, 1796-1859, the historian, was the son of William Prescott, an eminent jurist, and the grandson of Col. William Prescott, who commanded the Americans at the battle of Bunker Hill. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard University in 1814, and died in Boston. Just as he was completing his college course, the careless sport of a fellow-student injured one of his eyes so seriously that he never recovered from it. He had intended to adopt law as his profession; but, from his defective eyesight, he was obliged to choose work in which he could regulate his hours of labor, and could employ the aid of a secretary. He chose to be a historian; and followed his choice with wonderful system, perseverance, and success till the close of his life. His works are: "The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella," "The Conquest of Mexico," "The Conquest of Peru," "The Reign of Philip II.,” and a volume of "Miscellanies." He had not completed the history of Philip at the time of his death. As a writer of history, Mr. Prescott ranks with the first for accuracy, precision, clearness, and beauty of style. As a man, he was genial, kind-hearted and even-tempered. ON the whole, what I have seen raises my preconceived estimate of the English character. It is full of generous, true, and manly qualities; and I doubt if there ever was so high a standard of morality in an aristocracy which has such means for self-indulgence at its command, and which occupies a position that secures it so much deference. In general, they do not seem to abuse their great advantages. The respect for religion-at least for the forms of it-is universal, and there are few, I imagine, of the great proprietors who are not more or less occupied with improving their estates, and with providing for the comfort of their tenantry, while many take a leading part in the great political movements of the time. There never was an aristocracy which combined so much practical knowledge and industry with the advantages of exalted rank. The Englishman is seen to most advantage in his country home. For he is constitutionally both domestic and rural in his habits. His fireside and his farm-these are the places in which one sees his simple and warm-hearted nature more freely unfolded. There is a shyness in an Englishman, a natural reserve, which makes him cold. to strangers, and difficult to approach. But once corner him in his own house, a frank and full expansion will be given to his feelings that we should look for in vain in the colder Yankee, and a depth not to be found in the light and superficial Frenchman, -speaking of nationalities, not of individualities. The Englishman is the most truly rural in his tastes and habits of any people in the world. I am speaking of the higher classes. The aristocracy of other countries affect the camp and the city. But the English love their old castles and country seats with a patriotic love. They are fond of country sports. Every man shoots or hunts. No man is too old to be in the saddle some part of the day, and men of seventy years and more follow the hounds, and take a five-barred gate at a leap. The women are good whips, are fond of horses and dogs, and other animals. Duchesses have their cows, their poultry, their pigs, all watched over and provided with accommodations of Dutchlike neatness. All this is characteristic of the people. It may be thought to detract something from the feminine graces which in other lands make a woman so amiably dependent as to be nearly imbecile. But it produces a healthy and blooming race of women to match the hardy Englishman, the finest development of the physical and moral nature which the world has witnessed. For we are not to look on the English gentleman as a mere Nimrod. With all his relish for field sports and country usages, he has his house filled with collections of art and with extensive libraries. The tables of the drawing-rooms are covered with the latest works, sent down by the London publisher. Every guest is provided with an apparatus for writing, and often a little library of books for his own amusement. The English country gentleman of the present day is anything but a Squire Western, though he does retain all his relish for field sports. The character of an Englishman, under its most refined aspect, has some disagreeable points which jar unpleasantly on the foreigner not accustomed to them. The consciousness of national superiority, combined with natural feelings of independence, gives him an air of arrogance, though it must be owned that this is never betrayed in his own house, -I may almost say in his own country. But abroad, when he seems to institute a comparison between himself and the people he is thrown with, it becomes so obvious that he is the most unpopular, not to say odious, person in the world. Even the open hand with which he dispenses his bounty will not atone for the violence he offers to national vanity. There are other defects, which are visible even in his most favored circumstances. Such is his bigotry, surpassing everything in a quiet passive form, that has been witnessed since the more active bigotry of the times of the Spanish Philips. Such, too, is the exclusive, limited range of his knowledge and conceptions of all political and social topics and relations. The Englishman, the cultivated Englishman, has no standard of excellence borrowed from mankind. His speculation never travels beyond his own little great little-island. That is the world to him. True, he travels, shoots lions among the Hottentots, chases the grizzly bear over the Rocky Mountains, kills elephants in India and salmon on the coast of Labrador, comes home, and very likely makes a book. But the scope of his ideas does not seem to be enlarged by all this. The body travels, not the mind. And, however he may abuse his own land, he returns home as hearty a John Bull, with all his prejudices and national tastes as rooted, as before. The English- the men of fortune-all travel. Yet how little sympathy they show for other people or institutions, and how slight is the interest they take in them! They are islanders, cut off from the great world. But their island is, indeed, a world of its own. With all their faults, never has the sun shone-if one may use the expression in reference to England- -on a more noble race, or one that has done more for the great interests of humanity. NOTES.-Nimrod is spoken of in Genesis (x. 9) as а mighty hunter." Thus the name came to be applied to any one devoted to hunting. Squire Western is a character in Fielding's "Tom Jones." He is represented as an ignorant, prejudiced, irascible, but, withal, a jolly, good-humored English country gentleman. LXXIX. THE SONG OF THE POTTER. TURN, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round, Without a pause, without a sound: So spins the flying world away! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, For some must follow, and some command, Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief; What now is leaf will soon decay; The wind blows east, the wind blows west; Will soon have wings and beak and breast, Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar Who wiser is than they. |