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The study is recommended by Cicero' as equally pleasant and instructive. They amuse the mind by remembrance of old words and the portrait of ancient manners; they inculcate the soundest principles of government and morals; and I am not afraid to affirm, that the brief composition of the decemvirs surpasses in genuine value the libraries of Grecian philosophy. "How admirable," says Tully, with honest or affected prejudice, "is the wisdom of our ancestors! We alone are the masters of civil prudence, and our superiority is the more conspicuous, if we deign to cast our eyes on the rude and almost ridiculous jurisprudence of Draco,2 of Solon, and of Lycurgus."

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The twelve tables were committed to the memory of the young and the meditation of the old; they were transcribed and illustrated with learned diligence; they had escaped the flames of the Gauls, they subsisted in the age of Justinian, and their subsequent loss has been imperfectly restored by the labours of modern critics. But although these venerable monuments were considered as the rule of right and the fountain of justice, they were overwhelmed by the weight and variety of new laws, which, at the end of five centuries, became a grievance more intolerable than the vices of the city. Three thousand brass plates, the acts of the senate and people, were deposited in the capitol: and some of the acts, as the Julian law against extortion, surpassed the number of a hundred chapters. The decemvirs had neglected to import the sanction of Zaleucus," which so long maintained the integrity of his republic. A Locrian who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.-GIBBON'S 'Roman Empire.'

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THE Greek had no abhorrence for kings; the descendant of a hero1

race, ruling over a people whom his fathers had ruled from time

immemorial, was no subject of obloquy, either with the people or with the philosophers. But a tyrant, a man of low or ordinary birth, who by force or fraud had seated himself on the necks of his countrymen, to gorge each prevailing passion of his nature at their cost, with no principle but the interest of his own power, such a man was regarded as a wild beast that had broken into the fold of civilized society, and whom it was every one's right and duty by any means, or with any weapon, presently to destroy. Such mere monsters of selfishness Christian Europe has rarely seen. If the claim to reign by "the Grace of God" has given an undue sanction to absolute power, yet it has diffused at the same time a sense of the responsibilities of power, such as the tyrants, and even the kings of the later age of Greece, never knew. The most unprincipled of modern sovereigns would yet have acknowledged that he owned a duty to his people, for the discharge of which he was answerable to God; but the Greek tyrant regarded his subjects as the mere instruments of his own gratification; fortune, or his own superiority, had given him extraordinary means of indulging his favourite passions, and it would be folly to forego the opportunity. It is this total want of regard for his fellow-creatures, the utter sacrifice of their present and future improvement for the sake of objects purely personal, which constitutes the guilt of Dionysius and his fellowtyrants.

In such men all virtue was necessarily blighted; neither genius, nor courage, nor occasional signs of human feeling, could atone for the deliberate wickedness of their system of tyranny. Brave and able as Dionysius was, active, temperate, and energetic, he left behind him no beneficial institutions; he degraded rather than improved the character of his countrymen; and he has therefore justly been branded with infamy by the accordant voice of his own and of after ages; he will be known for ever as Dionysius the tyrant.3-ARNOLD's 'History of Rome.'

1. The heroes celebrated, in Greek poetry and tradition, for wisdom, strength and courage, were regarded as a class intermediate between men and gods, and to them divine honours were often paid. 2. Is whom the proper relative to put into this place?

3. This Dionysius was a man of low birth. He managed to ingratiate him

self with the soldiers, and when he was only 25 years of age he became tyrant of Syracuse, B.C. 404. He invited Plato to his court, but not being pleased with the lessons of the philosopher, the tyrant caused him to be sold as a slave. The example has been often copied since in various parts of Europe, particularly in France.

HISTORY.

THOU chronicle of crimes! I'll read no more;
For I am one who willingly would love
His fellow-kind. O gentle Poesy,

Receive me from the court's polluted scenes,
From dungeon horrors, from the fields of war,
Receive me to your haunts. . that I may nurse
My nature's better feelings, for my soul
Sickens at man's misdeeds!

I spake, when lo!
There stood before me, in her majesty,
Clio, the strong-eyed Muse. Upon her brow
Sate a calm anger. Go, young man, she cried,
Sigh among myrtle bowers, and let thy soul
Effuse itself in strains so sorrowfully sweet,
That love-sick maids may weep upon thy page,
Soothed with delicious sorrow. Oh shame! shame!
Was it for this I wakened thy young mind?
Was it for this I made thy swelling heart
Throb at the deeds of Greece, and thy boy's eye
So kindle when that glorious Spartan died?
Boy! boy! deceive me not!... What if the tale
Of murdered millions strike a chilling pang;
What if Tiberius in his island stews,
And Philip at his beads, alike inspire

Strong anger and contempt; hast thou not risen
With nobler feelings. . with a deeper love
For freedom? yes, if righteously thy soul
Loathes the black history of human crimes
And human misery, let that spirit fill
Thy song, and it shall teach thee, boy! to raise
Strains such as Cato might have deigned to hear,
As Sidney in his hall of bliss may love.

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It cannot be doubted that modern history is especially interesting to us, inasmuch as it treats only of national existence, not yet

extinct; it contains, so to speak, the first acts of a great drama, now actually in the process of being represented, and of which the catastrophe is still future. But besides this personal interest, is there nothing in modern history of more essential difference from ancient-of difference such as would remain-even if we could conceive ourselves living in some third period of history, when existing nations had passed away, like those which we now call ancient, and when our modern history would have become what the history of Greece and Rome is to us?

Such a difference does characterize what we now call modern history, and must continue to characterize it for ever. Modern history exhibits a fuller development of the human race, a richer combination of its most remarkable elements. We ourselves are one of the most striking examples of this. We derive scarcely one drop of our blood from Roman fathers; we are in our race strangers to Greece, and strangers to Israel. But morally how much do we derive from all three in this respect their life is in a manner continued in ours; their influences, to say the least, have not perished.

Here then we have, if I may so speak, the ancient world still existing, but with a new element added-the element of our English race. And that this element is an important one cannot be doubted for an instant. Our English race is the German race; for though our Norman fathers had learnt to speak a stranger's language, yet in blood, as we know, they were the Saxon's brethren: both alike belong to the Teutonic or German stock. Now the importance of this stock is plain from this, that its intermixture with the Celtic and Roman races at the fall of the western empire has changed the whole face of Europe. It is doubly remarkable, because the other elements of modern history are derived from the ancient world.

If we consider the Roman empire in the fourth century of the Christian era, we shall find in it Christianity, we shall find in it all the intellectual treasures of Greece, all the social and political wisdom of Rome. What was not there was simply the German race, and the peculiar qualities which characterize it. This one addition was of such power that it changed the character of the whole mass. The peculiar stamp of the middle ages is undoubtedly German. The change manifested in the last three centuries has been owing to the revival of the older elements with greater power, so that the German element has been less manifestly predominant. But that element still preserves its force, and is felt for good or for evil in almost every country of the civilized world. We will pause for a moment to observe over how large a portion of the earth this influence is now extended. It affects more

or less the whole west of Europe, from the head of the Gulf of Bothnia to the most southern promontory of Sicily; from the Oder and the Adriatic to the Hebrides and to Lisbon. It is true that the language spoken over a large portion of this space is not predominantly German; but even in France, and Italy, and Spain, the influence of the Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Lombards, while it has coloured even the language, has in blood and institutions left its mark legibly and indelibly. Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland for the most part, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and our own islands, are all in language, in blood, and in institutions, German most decidedly. But all South America is peopled with Spaniards and Portuguese, all North America and all Australia with Englishmen. I say nothing of the prospects and influence of the German race in Africa and in India-it is enough to say that half of Europe, and all America and Australia, are German more or less completely, in race, in language, or in institutions, or in all. ARNOLD'S Modern History.'

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THE first and second Punic Wars were separated by an interval of two-and-twenty years, and the first Punic War, as we have seen, had lasted for a period of exactly the same duration. The end of the fourth Samnite war, and the final submission of the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians, took place eight years before the beginning of the contest with Carthage; and the treaty which permanently settled the relations of Rome with the Etrurians, was concluded eight years earlier still. Thus, when Hannibal, in the spring of the year 537,' invaded Etruria, few living Etrurians had seen their country independent, except in their childhood or earliest youth, and all who were still in the vigour of manhood had been born since it had become the dependent ally of Rome. And when, after this victory at the Lake of Thrasymenus, he marched into Samnium, and encouraged the Samnites to take up arms once more in their old national quarrel,

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