University of Virginia Library

This is the favorite argument of the Epicurean poets. Anacreon, Horace, and Menzini, have given it a thousand exquisite turns: but it has never been expressed with more grace and vivacity, than by Redi, in the opening of his incomparable dithyrambic.

I may, perhaps, gratify the English reader, by subjoining a translation of this passage.

Selon les livres des Parses, Zoroastre a consulté Ormuzd sur les montagnes, et l'on assuroit du tems de Dion Chrysostome, que par un principe d'amour pour la sagesse et pour la justice, ce législateur s'étoit éloigné du commerce des hommes, et avoit vécu seul dans une montagne. Vie de Zoroastre, par M. Anquetil du Perron.

See the Tusculan Disputations.

The difference between the effect of a perception and an idea, in awakening associated thoughts and feelings, is finely described in the introduction to the fifth book De finibus.

We agreed, says Cicero, that we should take our afternoon's walk in the academy, as at that time of the day it was a place where there was no resort of company. Accordingly, at the hour appointed, we went to Piso's.—We passed the time in conversing on different matters during our short walk from the double gate, till we came to the academy, that justly celebrated spot; which, as we wished, we found a perfect solitude. “I know not,” said Piso, “whether it be a natural feeling, or an illusion of the imagination founded on habit, that we are more powerfully affected by the sight of those places which have been much frequented by illustrious men, than when we either listen to the recital, or read the detail, of their actions. At this moment, I feel strongly that emotion which I speak of. I see before me the perfect form of Plato, which was wont to dispute in this place: these gardens not only recall him to my memory, but present his very form to my senses. I fancy to myself, that here stood Speusippus, there Xenocrates; and here, on this bench, sat his disciple Polemo. To me, our ancient senate-house seems peopled with the like visionary forms: for often when I enter it, the shades of Scipio, of Cato, and of Lælius, and, in particular, of my venerable grandfather, rise to my imagination. In short, such is the effect of local situation in recalling associated ideas to the mind, that it is not without reason, some philosophers have founded on this principle a species of artificial memory.” Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind.

Yet the modern Athenians “walk with supine indifference among the glorious ruins of antiquity: and it would not be easy, in the country of Plato and Demosthenes, to find a reader, or a copy, of their works.” See the sixty-second chapter of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Haud procul Teutoburgiensi saltu, in quo reliquiæ Vari legionumque insepultæ dicebantur. Igitur cupido Cæsarem invadit solvendi suprema militibus, ducique; permoto ad miserationem omni, qui aderat, exercitu, ob propinquos, amicos, denique ob casus bellorum, et sortem hominum. Præmisso Cæcina, ut occulta saltuum scrutaretur, pontesque et aggeres humido paludum et fallacibus campis imponeret, incedunt mœstos locos, visuque ac memoria deformes. Prima Vari castra, lato ambitu, et dimensis principiis, trium legionum manus ostentabant: dein semiruto vallo, humili fossa, accisæ jam reliquiæ consedisse intelligebantur: medio campi albentia ossa, ut fugerant, ut restiterant, disjecta vel aggerata: adjacebant fragmina telorum, equorumque artus, simul truncis arborum antefixa ora: lucis propinquis barbaræ aræ, apud quas tribunos, ac primorum ordinum centuriones mactaverant: et cladis ejus superstites, pugnam aut vincula elapsi, referebant: “Hic cecidisse legatos; illic raptas aquilas; primum ubi vulnus Varo adactum; ubi infelici dextra, et suo ictu mortem invenerit; quo tribunali concionatus Arminius; quot patibula captivis, quæ scrobes; utque signis et aquilis per superbiam inluserit.” Igitur Romanus qui aderat exercitus, sextum post cladis annum, trium legionum ossa, nullo noscente alienas reliquias an suorum humo tegeret, omnes ut conjunctos, ut consanguineos, aucta in hostem ira, mœsti simul et infensi condebant. Primum exstruendo tumulo cespitem Cæsar posuit, gratissimo munere in defunctos, et præsentibus doloris socius. Tacitus.

The Romans were now at a small distance from the forest of Teutoburgium, where the bones of Varus and his legions were said to be still unburied. Touched by this affecting circumstance, Germanicus resolved to pay the last human office to the relics of that unfortunate commander and his slaughtered soldiers. The same tender sentiment diffused itself through the army: some felt the touch of nature for their relations, others for their friends; and all lamented the disasters of war, and the wretched lot of human kind. Cæcina was sent forward to explore the woods; where the waters were out, to throw over bridges, and by heaping loads of earth on the swampy soil, to secure a solid footing. The army marched through a gloomy solitude. The place presented an awful spectacle, and the memory of a tragic event increased the horror of the scene. The first camp of Varus appeared in view. The extent of the ground, and the three different inclosures for the eagles still distinctly seen, left no doubt but the whole was the work of the three legions. Farther on were traced the ruins of a rampart, and the hollow of a ditch well nigh filled up. This was supposed to be the spot, where the few who escaped the general massacre made their last effort, and perished in the attempt. The plains around were white with bones, in some places thinly scattered, in others lying in heaps, as the men happened to fall in flight, or in a body resisted to the last. Fragments of javelins, and the limbs of horses, lay scattered about the field. Human sculls were seen upon the trunks of trees. In the adjacent woods stood the savage altars, where the tribunes and principal centurions were offered up a sacrifice with barbarous rites. Some of the soldiers who survived that dreadful day, and afterwards broke their chains, related circumstantially several particulars. “Here the commanders of the legions were put to the sword: on that spot the eagles were seized. There Varus received his first wound: and this the place where he gave himself the mortal stab, and died by his own sword. Yonder mound was the tribunal from which Arminius harangued his countrymen; here he fixed his gibbets; there he dug the funeral trenches; and in that quarter he offered every mark of scorn and insolence to the colors and the Roman eagles.” Six years had elapsed since the overthrow of Varus; and now, on the same spot, the Roman army collected the bones of their slaughtered countrymen. Whether they were burying the remains of strangers, or of their own friends, no man knew; all however considered themselves as performing the last obsequies to their kindred and brother soldiers. While employed in this pious office, their hearts were torn with contending passions, by turns oppressed with grief, and burning for revenge. A monument to the memory of the dead was raised with turf: Germanicus with his own hand laid the first sod; discharging at once the tribute due to the legions, and sympathising with the rest of the army.

Petrarca: S. ccx. in Vita di M. L.

See the sonnets of Petrarch in Morte di M. Laura, particularly the thirteenth:

Tasso: G.L. xviii. 18.

The Welch have a very pleasing ballad, Morwynnion glân Meirionnydd, which assigns, with strict poetical justice, the palm of female loveliness to the young ladies of that most picturesque and beautiful county.

In journeying from Llanvair to the Traeth Mawr, our crusaders must have passed either through or very near the town of Harlech, and as it remains unnoticed by Giraldus, I should imagine that no fortress of any consequence existed there at the period of Baldwin's progress through Wales. Mr. Pennant says, “That an ancient fortress at this place bore the name of Twr Bronwen, from Bronwen, or the White Necked, sister to Bran ap Llyr, King of Britain. In after times it got the name of Caer Collwyn, from Collwyn ap Tango, who lived there in the time of Prince Anarawd, about the year 877, and was lord of Efionydd, Ardudwy, and part of Llyn. He resided some time in a square tower of the ancient fortress, whose remains are very apparent, as are part of the old walls, which the more modern, in certain places, are seen to rest upon.” Its present name of Harddlech, or Harlech, is derived from hardd, towering or bold, and llech, a rock, and is truly applicable to its situation. The present stately castle, seated on a high and bold projecting rock, is supposed to owe its foundation to the same royal hand that erected the magnificent fortresses of Conwy, Caernarvon, and Beaumaris.

In the year 1283, Hugh de Wlonkeslow received the annual salary of one hundred pounds, as constable of the castle. When England was embroiled in the civil wars, David ap Ievan, ap Eineon, a British nobleman, who sided with the House of Lancaster, defended this castle stoutly against Edward the Fourth, until William Herbert,Earl of Pembroke, forcing his way, with incredible difficulty, through the British Alps, attacked it with so much vigor, that it was surrendered into his hands. The rugged track by which his army marched to the siege, is said to have retained the name of Lhe Herbert, or Herbert's way.

Marius, upon his expulsion from Rome, retired to his own villa at Salonium; and, being unprovided for a longer flight, sent his son to the farm of one Mutius, a friend in the neighbourhood, to procure what might be necessary for a voyage by sea. The young man was discovered at this place, and narrowly escaped, in a waggon loaded with straw, which, the better to deceive his pursuers, was ordered to take the road to Rome. The father fled to Ostia, and there embarked on board a vessel which was provided for him by Numerius, who had been one of his partizans in the late troubles. Having put to sea, he was forced by stress of weather to Circeii, there landed in want of every necessary, and made himself known to some herdsmen, of whom he implored relief. Being informed of the parties that were abroad in pursuit of him, he concealed himself in a neighbouring wood. Next day, as he was within a few miles of the town of Minturnæ, he was alarmed at the sight of some horsemen, ran with all the speed he could make to the shore, and, with much difficulty, got on board of a boat which was passing. The persons, with whom he thus took refuge, resisted the threats and importunities of the pursuers, to have him delivered up to them, or thrown into the sea; but having rowed him to a supposed place of safety, at the mouth of the Liris, they put him on shore, and left him to his fate. Here he first took refuge in a cottage, afterwards under a hollow bank of the river, and, last of all, on hearing the tread of horsemen, who still pursued him, he plunged himself to the chin in the marsh; but, though concealed by the reeds and the depth of the water, he was discovered, and dragged from thence all covered with mud. He was carried to Minturnæ, and doomed by the magistrates of the place to suffer the execution of the sentence, which had been denounced against himself and his partizans at Rome. He was, however, by some connivance, allowed to escape from hence, again put to sea, and, at the island Ænaria, joined some associates of his flight. Being afterwards obliged to land in Sicily for a supply of water, and being known, he narrowly escaped with the loss of some of the crew that navigated his vessel. From thence he arrived on the coast of Africa; but being forbid the province by the Prætor Sextilius, continued to shift his abode among the islands or places of retirement on the coast.

Marius was in his seventieth year, when he made this attempt to overturn the Roman republic by means of popular tumults, and when he strove to obtain the command of an army in the busiest and most arduous service which the Roman empire had then to offer. Being forced, by his miscarriage in this attempt, into the state of an outlaw, he still amused the world with adventures and escapes, which historians record with the embellishments of a picturesque, and even romantic, description. A Gaulish or German soldier, who was employed at Minturnæ to put him to death, overawed by his aspect, recoiled from the task; and the people of the place, as if moved by the miracle, concurred in aiding his escape. The presence of such an exile on the ground where Carthage had stood, was supposed to increase the majesty and the melancholy of the scene. “Go,” he said to the Lictor, who brought him the orders of the Prætor to depart, “tell him that you have seen Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage.”

Virgilius.

Dante: Purgatorio, viii. Pr.

See, in Dr. Gillies's Ancient Greece, the narrative of the disastrous expedition of the Athenians against Sicily.

Nicias had little to expect from the humanity of a proud and victorious Spartan; but Demosthenes might naturally flatter himself with the hope of justice. He urged with energy, but urged in vain, the observance of the capitulation, which had been ratified with due forms, on the faith of which he had surrendered himself and the troops entrusted to his command. The public prisoners, conducted successively to Syracuse, and exceeding together the number of seven thousand, were treated with the same inhuman cruelty. They were universally condemned to labor in the mines and quarries of Sicily: their whole sustenance was bread and water: they suffered alternately the ardors of a scorching sun, and the chilling damps of autumn. For seventy days and nights they languished in this dreadful captivity, during which the diseases incident to their manner of life were rendered infectious by the stench of the dead bodies, which corrupted the purity of the surrounding air. At length, an eternal separation was made between those who should enjoy the happier lot of being sold as slaves into distant lands, and those who should for ever be confined to their terrible dungeons. The Athenians, with such Italians and Sicilians as had unnaturally embraced their cause, were reserved for the latter doom. Their generals Nicias and Demosthenes had not lived to behold this melancholy hour. Gylippus would have spared their lives, not from any motives of humanity or esteem, but that his joyous return to Sparta might have been graced by their presence. But the resentment of the Syracusans, the fears of the Corinthians, above all, the suspicious jealousy of those perfidious traitors who had maintained a secret correspondence with Nicias, which they dreaded lest the accidents of his future life might discover, loudly demanded the immediate execution of the captive generals. The Athenians of those times justly regretted the loss of Demosthenes, a gallant and enterprising commander; but posterity will for ever lament the fate of Nicias, the most pious, the most virtuous, and the most unfortunate man of the age in which he lived.

Amidst this dark and dreadful scene of cruelty and revenge, we must not omit to mention one singular example of humanity, which broke forth like a meteor in the gloom of a nocturnal tempest. The Syracusans, who could punish their helpless captives with such unrelenting severity, had often melted into tears at the affecting strains of Euripides, an Athenian poet, who had learned in the Socratic school to adorn the lessons of philosophy with the charms of fancy, and who was regarded by the taste of his contemporaries, as he still is by many competent and impartial judges, as the most tender and pathetic, the most philosophical and instructive, of all tragic writers. The pleasure, which the Syracusans had derived from his inimitable poetry, made them long to hear it rehearsed by the flexible voices and harmonious pronunciation of the Athenians, so unlike, and so superior, to the rudeness and asperity of their own Doric dialect. They desired their captives to repeat the plaintive scenes of their favorite bard. The captives obeyed, and affecting to represent the woes of ancient kings and heroes, they too faithfully expressed their own. Their taste and sensibility endeared them to the Syracusans, who released their bonds, received them with kindness into their families, and after treating them with all the honorable distinctions of ancient hospitality, restored them to their longing and afflicted country, as a small but precious wreck of the most formidable armament that had ever sailed from a Grecian harbour. At their return to Athens, they walked in solemn procession to the house of Euripides, whom they gratefully hailed as their deliverer from slavery and death: an acknowledgment, infinitely more honorable than all the crowns and splendor that ever surrounded the person, and even than all the altars and temples that ever adorned the memory, of a poet.

See the romance of The Three Brothers.

Odin was supposed to guard the monuments of the dead from sacrilege, by certain sacred and wandering fires which played around them. Northern Antiquities.

Alfieri.

Anacreon calls the rose the flower of love, Ερωτος ανθος

That one thought is suggested to the mind by another, and that the sight of an external object often recalls former occurrences, and revives former feelings, are facts perfectly familiar, even to those who are least disposed to speculate concerning the principles of their nature. In passing along a road which we have formerly travelled in the company of a friend, the particulars of the conversation in which we were then engaged are frequently suggested to us by the objects we meet with. In such a scene we recollect that such a particular subject was started; and in passing the different houses, and plantations, and rivers, the arguments we were discussing when we last saw them recur spontaneously to the memory. . . . After time has in some degree reconciled us to the death of a friend, how wonderfully are we affected the first time we enter the house where he lived! Every thing we see, the apartment where he studied, the chair upon which he sate, recall to us the happiness we enjoyed together; and we should feel it a sort of violation of that respect which we owe to his memory, to engage in any light or indifferent discourse, when such objects are before us. Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind.

Dante: Purgatorio, viii. Pr.

------les feux du soleil commençoient à embraser l'horison: l'inconnu, appercevant un arbre isolé, proposa à Orondal de s'arrêter un moment sous son ombrage.—Cette idée m'enchante, dit le vieillard: cet arbre m'est cher, plus que tu ne penses: c'est mon pere.—Votre pere!—Jeune homme, écoute-moi. Je n'ai point cru outrager la nature, en faisant servir la cendre d'un pere à la génération des êtres: j'osai l'exposer au soleil, renfermée dans son urne, et couverte d'un crystal léger, qui, sans s'opposer au contact de l'air, arrêtoit les graines étrangeres qui auroient pu végéter sur sa surface: tous les jours j'arrosai cette cendre précieuse avec de l'eau, portée par l'alembic à son dernier degré de pureté: enfin, les principes de vie que l'urne renfermoit se développèrent, et je vis naître une plante que la botanique ne rangeroit dans aucune de ses classes. Cette plante périt, et eut une postérité, dont la cendre augmenta le volume du limon générateur: au bout d'un certain nombre d'années, les principes de vie acquirent plus d'activité: la plante devint arbuste: et aujourd'hui c'est un arbre qui le dispute en hauteur aux plus beaux cèdres de ces déserts. Philosophie de la Nature.

See the man, who is informed of some severe and unexpected misfortune, who is deprived of a wife whom he loves, or of a child whom paternal affection had made the object of the fondest wishes. In an instant, his ideas take a new course. The world around him is overspread with gloom. Every thing lends itself to his grief. The cheerful sunshine, which soon may pass away, brings a mournful recollection to his soul; and he sighs, in contemplating the bloom of youth, which has lately flourished, and which must shortly fade. For him there is no joy in scenes of festivity and mirth; no allurement in the attractions of society; and no interest in the pursuits of ambition. He hears not the voice of consolation: he indulges and encourages his sorrow. It is not, until some sentiment, secretly approved, has whispered to him, that he may yet find solace in the pleasures of the world, that he discovers grief to be unavailing, and solitude to be irksome: he yields to the impulse of sentiment, and vaunts the exercise of reason. Drummond's Academical Questions.

Thrasea was a stoic philosopher, condemned by Nero for his inflexible virtue. When his veins were opened, he sprinkled the blood on the ground, as a libation to Liberating Jupiter. Libemus, inquit, Jovi Liberatori.

Horatius.

After the fatal battle of Cannæ, when the noblest of the Romans meditated to forsake their country, and offer their services to some foreign king, Scipio rushed, with a few followers, into the council, which was held with this design; and drawing his sword in the assembly, declared, that he would neither desert the republic, nor suffer any other citizen to desert it; and that whosoever should refuse to swear implicit conformity to this patriotic resolution, might know that against him that sword was drawn. Ex mei animi sententia, inquit, ut ego rempublicam populi Romani non deseram, neque alium civem Romanum deserere patiar. Si sciens fallo, tum me, Jupiter optime maxime, domum, familiam, remque meam, pessimo leto adficias. In hœc verba, L. Cœcili, jures postulo, ceterique, qui adestis: qui non juraverit, in se hunc gladium strictum esse sciat. The oath was unanimously taken, and the republic was preserved by Scipio in its most dreadful extremity.

Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the god of war, the goddess of generation, and the god of thunder. In the general festival, that was solemnized every ninth year, nine animals of every species (without excepting the human) were sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred grove, adjacent to the temple. The only traces that now subsist of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, a system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth century, and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the most valuable remains of their ancient traditions.

Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of the Edda, we can easily distinguish two persons confounded under the name of Odin, the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The latter, the Mahomet of the north, instituted a religion adapted to the climate, and to the people. Numerous tribes on either side of the Baltic were subdued by the invincible valor of Odin, by his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame, which he acquired, of a most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated, during a long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death. Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the god of war. The native and proper habitation of Odin is distinguished by the appellation of Asgard. The happy resemblance of that name with As-burg, or As-of, words of a similar signification, has given rise to an historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we could almost wish to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians, which dwelt on the banks of the lake Mæotis, till the fall of Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the north with servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power which he was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of forming, in that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and a people, which in some remote age might be subservient to his immortal revenge; when his invincible Goths, armed with martial fanaticism, should issue in numerous swarms from the neighbourhood of the Polar circle, to chastise the oppressors of mankind.

Tasso.

The following illustrations of this passage are extracted from different parts of the Edda and the Northern Antiquities.

The way from earth to heaven is over the bridge Bifrost, which men call the rain-bow. It is of three colors, is extremely solid, and constructed with more art than any work in the world. It will nevertheless be broken in pieces, when the genii of fire sally forth to war.

Asgard is the city, and Valhalla the hall of Odin, where he receives the souls of heroes who perish in battle. Their beverage is beer and mead; their cups the skulls of enemies whom they have slain. Valhalla has one hundred and forty gates, through every one of which eight heroes may march abreast.

Heimdaller is a very sacred and powerful deity. He dwells at the end of the bridge Bifrost, in a castle called the celestial fort. He is the centinel, or watchman, of the gods. The post assigned him is at the entry into heaven, to prevent the giants from forcing their way over the bridge. He sleeps less than a bird. He sees by night, as well as by day, more than a hundred leagues around him. The smallest sound does not escape him; and he has a trumpet, which is heard through all the worlds.

Thor is the most valiant of the sons of Odin, the most warlike and formidable of the gods. His weapon is the mace Miolner, which he grasps with gauntlets of iron. He governs the thunder, the winds, the rains, the fair weather, and the harvest.

Hilda is one of the Valkyræ. These goddesses officiate in Valhalla, pouring out ale and mead for the heroes. Odin sends them into the field of battle, to make choice of those who are to be slain, and to bestow the victory.

Nilflhil is a place consisting of nine worlds, reserved for those who die of disease or old age. Hela, or Death, there exercises her despotic power. She is livid and ghastly pale: the threshold of her door is Precipice; her palace Anguish; her table Famine; and her attendants Expectation and Delay.

Surtur is the prince of the genii of fire. In the twilight of the gods, the army of these genii will pass on horseback over the bridge of heaven, and break it in pieces. Heimdaller will then rise up, and violently sound his trumpet, to call the gods and heroes to battle.

Ομηρος.

Orpheus: Fragm. vi.

It is pleasing to compare this sublime enunciation of the system of the 'ΕΝ ΤΟ ΠΑΝ, with the equally sublime enunciation of the dualistic system in the sixth Æneid, and the impressive inscription on the pedestal of the veiled image in an Indian temple: I am all that is, all that was, and all that will be; and the veil which conceals me has never been raised by man.

Orpheus: Argonautica, v. 15.

The old reading, ΠΑΤΕΡΑ, is so manifestly shewn to be corrupt by the epithet αειγνητης, (see Herman's note,) that it is surprising Mr. Bryant should treat it as genuine, and speak of it as contradicting the notion of Aristophanes; who, ridiculously enough, represents Night laying an egg, from the shell of which, in due season, bursts the golden-winged Love. It is not only in the monstrous mythology of the Hindus, that we meet with oviparous deities.