MORAL.

“Insula me genuit, rapuit Castellio nomen;Perstrepuit modulis Gallia tota meis.”

“Insula me genuit, rapuit Castellio nomen;

Perstrepuit modulis Gallia tota meis.”

But he is known sometimes by his birthplace, and sometimes by his early residence. The highest French authority calls him “Gaultier of Lille, or of Châtillon.”[308]He has been sometimes confounded with Gaultier of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, who was born in the island of Jersey,[309]—and sometimes with the Bishop of Maguelonne of the same name, reputed author of an Exposition of the Psalter, whose see was on an island in the Mediterranean, near the coast of France.[310]

Not content with residence at Châtillon, he repaired to Bologna, in Italy, where he studied the Civil and Canon Law. Returning to France, he became secretary of two successive Archbishops of Rheims, the latter of whom, by the name of William,—a descendant by his grandmother from William the Conqueror,—occupied this place of power from 1176 to 1201. The secretary enjoyed the favor of the Archbishop, who seems to have been fond of letters. It was during this period that he composed, or at least finished, his poem. Its date is sometimes placed at 1180; and there is an allusion in its text which makes it near this time.Thomas à Becket was assassinated before the altar of Canterbury in 1170; and this event, so important in the history of the age, is mentioned as recent: “Nuper … cæsum dolet Anglia Thomam.”[311]The poem was dedicated to the Archbishop, who was to live immortal in companionship with his secretary:—

“Vivemus pariter, vivet cum vate superstesGloria Guillermi, nullum moritura per ævum.”[312]

“Vivemus pariter, vivet cum vate superstes

Gloria Guillermi, nullum moritura per ævum.”[312]

The grateful Archbishop bestowed upon the poet a stall in the cathedral of Amiens, where he died of the plague at the commencement of the thirteenth century.[313]

This does not appear to have been his only work. Others are attributed to him. There are dialoguesadversus Judæos, which Oudin publishes in his collection entitled “Veterum aliquot Galliæ et Belgii Scriptorum Opuscula Sacra nunquam edita.” This same Oudin, in another publication, speaks of “Opuscula Varia,” preserved among the manuscripts in the Imperial Library[314]of France, as by Gaultier, although the larger part of these Opuscula have been ascribed to a very different person, Gaultier Mapes, chaplain to Henry the Second, King of England, and Archdeacon of Oxford.[315]But more recent researches would restore them to Philip Gaultier. An edition appeared at Hanover, in Germany, in 1859, by W. Müldener, after the Paris manuscripts, with the following title:“Die zehn Gedichte des Walther von Lille genannt von Châtillon, zum ersten Male vollständig herausgegeben.” Among these are satirical songs in Latin on the World, and also on Prelates, which, it is said, were sung in England as well as throughout France.[316]Indeed, the second verse of the epitaph already quoted may point to these satires:—

“PerstrepuitmodulisGallia totameis.”

Here, as in the “Alexandreïs,” we encounter the indignant sentiments inspired by the assassination of Becket. The victim is called “the flower of priests,” and the king “Neronior est ipso Nerone” which may be translated by Shakespeare’s “out-Herods Herod.” But these poems, whether by Walter Mapes or Philip Gaultier, are forgotten. The “Alexandreïs” has a different fortune.

The poem became at once famous. It had the success of Victor Hugo or Byron. Its author took rank, not only at the head of his contemporaries, but even among classics of antiquity. Leyser chronicles no less than ninety-nine Latin poets in the twelfth century,[317]but we are assured that not one of them is comparable to Gaultier.[318]M. Édélestand du Méril, who has given especial attention to this period, speaks of the “Alexandreïs” as a “great poem,” and remarks that its “Latinity is very elegant for the time.”[319]Another authority calls him “the first of the modern Latin poets who appears to have had a spark of true poetic genius.”[320]And still another says, that,“notwithstanding all its defects, we must regard this poem, and the ‘Philippis’ of William of Brittany, which appeared about sixty years later, as two brilliant phenomena in the midst of the thick darkness which covered Europe, from the decline of the Roman Empire to the revival of letters in Italy.”[321]Pasquier, to whom I have already referred, goes so far, in his chapter on the University of Paris, as to illustrate its founder, Peter Lombard, as having for a contemporary “one Galterus, an eminent poet, who wrote in Latin verses the life of Alexander, under the title of the ‘Alexandreïs,’ a great imitator of Lucan”; and the learned writer then adds, that it is in his work that we find a verse often quoted without knowing the author.[322]These testimonies show his position among contemporaries; but there is something more.

An anonymous Latin poet of the next century, who has left a poem on the life and miracles of Saint Oswald, calls Homer, Gaultier, and Lucan the three capital heroic poets. Homer, he says, has celebrated Hercules,—Gaultier, the son of Philip,—and Lucan, so he declares, swells the praises of Cæsar; but these heroes deserve to be immortalized in verse much less than the holy confessor Oswald.[323]In England, the Abbot of Peterborough transcribed Seneca, Terence, Martial, Claudian, and the “Gesta Alexandri.”[324]Even in Iceland there was an early version, edited at a later day by Arnas Magnæus (the Latin for Arne Magnussen), Secretary and Antiquary to the King of Denmark, and Professor in the University of Copenhagen, who, styling the poem the “Gualterian Alexandreïs,” characterizes the Icelandic version as“the incomparable monument of Northern antiquity.”[325]The new poem was studied, even to the exclusion of ancient masters and of Virgil himself. Henry of Ghent, who wrote about 1280, says that it “was of such dignity in the schools of the grammarians that the reading of the ancient poets was comparatively neglected.”[326]This testimony is curiously confirmed by the condition of the manuscripts that have come down to us, most of which are loaded with glosses and interlinear explanations, doubtless for public use in the schools.[327]It is sometimes supposed that Dante repaired to Paris. It is certain that his excellent master, Brunetto Latini, passed much time there. This must have been at the very period when the new poem was taught in the schools. Perhaps it may be traced in the “Divina Commedia.”

Next after the tale of Troy, the career of Alexander was at this period the most popular subject for poetry, romance, or chronicle. The Grecian conqueror filled a vast space in the imagination. He was the centre of marvel and of history. Every modern literature, according to its development, testifies to this predominance. Even dialects testify, and so does art. Wood engraving is supposed to have been invented in Italy, somewhere about 1285, by the two Cunio, and their earliest work was a representation, in eight parts, of the actions of Alexander, with explanatory verses in Latin beneath the prints.[328]In France, the professors of grammarat Toulouse were directed by statutes of the University, dated 1328, to read to their pupils “De Historiis Alexandri.”[329]In England, during the reign of Henry the Third, the sheriff was ordered to procure the Queen’s chamber at Nottingham to be painted with the history of Alexander,—“Depingi facias historiam, Alexandri circumquaque.”[330]Chaucer, in his “House of Fame,” places Alexander with Hercules,[331]and then again shows the universality of his renown:—

“The storie of Alexandre is so commune,That every wight that hath discretiounHath herd somwhat or all of his fortune.”[332]

“The storie of Alexandre is so commune,

That every wight that hath discretioun

Hath herd somwhat or all of his fortune.”[332]

We have the excellent authority of the poet Gray for the remark, that the Alexandrine verse, which “like a wounded snake drags its slow length along,” took its name from an early poem in this measure, called “La Vie d’Alexandre.” There was also the “Roman d’Alexandre,” contemporary with the “Alexandreïs,” which Gray thinks was borrowed from the latter, apparently because the authors say that they took it from the Latin.[333]There was also “The Life and Actions of Alexander the Macedonian,” originally written in Greek, by Simeon Seth, magister, and protovestiary or wardrobe-keeper of the palace at Constantinople, in 1070, and translated from Greek into Latin, and thence into French, Italian, and German.[334]Other forms have been perpetuated by the bibliographical care of the Roxburghe Club and the Bannatyne Club. Arabia contributedher stories, and the Grecian conqueror became a hero of romance. Like Charlemagne, he had his twelve peers; and he also had a horn to proclaim his word of command, which took sixty men to blow, and was heard sixty miles,—being the same which Orlando sounded afterwards at Roncesvalles. That great career, which was one of the epochs of mankind, which carried in its victorious march the Greek language and Greek civilization, which at the time enlarged the geography of the world, opening the way to India, and which Plutarch in his “Morals” makes so Christian, was overlaid by an incongruous mass of fable and anachronism, so that the real story disappeared. Times, titles, and places were confounded. Monks and convents, churches and confessors, were mixed with achievements of the hero; and in an early Spanish History of Alexander, by Juan Lorenzo Segura, we meet such characters as Don Phœbus, the Emperor Jupiter, and the Count Don Demosthenes, and others with the constant prefix of Don; and the mother of Achilles is represented as placing him, when a child, in a convent of Benedictine nuns,—thus subjecting the early hero as the later to the same jumble of Heathen and Christian mythology.[335]

Philip Gaultier, with all his genius, has incongruities and anachronisms; but his poem is founded substantially upon the History of Quintus Curtius, which he has done into Latin hexameters, with the addition of long speeches and some few inventions. Aristotle is represented with a hideous exterior, face and bodylean, hair neglected, and the air of a pedant exhausted by study. The soldiers of Alexander are called Quirites, as if they were Romans. The month of June in Greece is described as if it were in Rome:—

“Mensis erat, cujus juvenum de nomine nomen.”[336]

Events connected with the passion of Jesus Christ are treated as having already passed in the time of Alexander.

The poem is divided into ten books, corresponding to the number in the original of Curtius,[337]and the ten initial letters of the books, when put together like an acrostic, spell the name of the Archbishop,Guillermus, the equivalent for William at that time, the patron of the poet. Besides this conceit, there is a dedication both at the beginning and the end. Quantity, especially in Greek or Asiatic words, is disregarded; and there are affectations in style, of which the very beginning is an instance:—

“Gestaducis Macepûm totumdigestaper orbem,…Musa, refer.”[338]

“Gestaducis Macepûm totumdigestaper orbem,

…

Musa, refer.”[338]

In the same vein is the verse,—

“Inclitus ille Clitus,” etc.;[339]

and another verse, describing the violence of the soldiers after victory:—

“Extorquent torques, et inaures perdidit auris.”[340]

A rapid analysis will at least exhibit the order of events in the poem, and its topics, with something of its character.

Alexander appears, in the first book, a youth panting for combat with the Persians, enemies of his country and of his father. There also is his teacher, Aristotle. Philip dies, and the son repairs to Corinth for coronation. Under the counsels of Demosthenes, the Athenians declare against him. The young king arrives under the walls of Athens. Demosthenes speaks for war; Æschines for peace. The party of peace prevails; and the Macedonian turns to Thebes, which he besieges and captures by assault. The poet Cloades, approaching the conqueror, chants in lyric verses an appeal for pardon, and reminds him that without clemency a kingdom is unstable:—

“Instabile est regnum quod non clementia firmat.”[341]

And the words of this chant are still resounding. But Alexander, angry and inexorable, will not relent. He levels the towers, which had first risen to the music of Amphion, and delivers the city to the flames,—thus adding a new act to that tragic history which made Dante select Thebes as the synonym of misfortune.[342]Turning from these smoking ruins, he gathers men and ships against Persia. Traversing the sea, he lands in Asia; and here the poet describes geographically the different states of that continent,—Assyria, Media, Persia, Arabia, with its Sabæan frankincense and its single phœnix,—ending with Palestine, where a God was born of a Virgin, at whose death the world shook with fear. Commencing his march through Cilicia and Phrygia, the ambitious youth stops at Troy, and visits the tomb of Achilles, where he makes a long speech.

The second book opens with the impression on themind of Darius, menaced by his Macedonian enemy. He writes an insolent letter, which Alexander answers by moving forward. At Sardes he cuts the Gordian knot, and then advances rapidly. Darius quits the Euphrates with his vast army, which is described. Alexander bathes in the cold waters of the Cydnus, is seized with illness, and shows his generous trust in the physician that attended him,—drinking the handed cup, although said to be poisoned. Restored to health, he shows himself to his troops, who are transported with joy. Meanwhile the Persians advance. Darius harangues. Alexander also. The two armies prepare for battle.

The third book is of battle and victory at Issus, described with minuteness and warmth. Here dies Zoroas, the Egyptian astronomer, than whom nobody was more skilled in the stars, the origin of winter’s cold or summer’s heat, or in the mystery of squaring the circle,—“circulus an possit quadrari.”[343]The Persians are overcome. Darius seeks shelter in Babylon. His treasures are the prey of the conqueror. Horses are laden with spoils, and the sacks are so full that they cannot be tied. Rich ornaments are torn from the women, who are surrendered to the brutality of the soldiers. Only the royal family is spared. Conducted to the presence of Alexander, they are received with the regard due to their sex and misfortune. The siege and destruction of Tyre follow; then the expedition to Egypt and the temple of Jupiter Ammon. Here is a description of the Desert, which is said, like the sea, to have its perils, with its Scylla and its Charybdis of sand:—

“Hic altera siccoScylla mari latrat; hic pulverulenta Charybdis.”[344]

“Hic altera sicco

Scylla mari latrat; hic pulverulenta Charybdis.”[344]

Meanwhile Darius assembles new forces. Alexander leaves Egypt and rushes to meet him. An eclipse of the moon causes sedition among his soldiers, who dare to accuse their king. The phenomenon is explained by soothsayers, and the sedition is appeased.

The fourth book opens with a funeral. It is of the Persian queen. Alexander laments her with tears. Darius learns at the same time her death and the generosity of his enemy. He addresses prayers to the gods for the latter, and offers propositions of peace. Alexander refuses these, and proceeds to bestow funeral honors upon the spouse of him he was about to meet in battle. Then comes an invention of the poet, which may have suggested afterwards to Dante that most beautiful passage of the “Purgatorio,” where great scenes are sculptured on the walls.[345]At the summit of a mountain a tomb is constructed by the skilful Hebrew Apelles, to receive the remains of the Persian queen; and on this tomb are carved, not only kings and names of Greek renown, but histories from the beginning of the world:—

“Nec solum reges et nomina gentis Achææ,Sed generis notat historias, ab origine mundiIncipiens.”[346]

“Nec solum reges et nomina gentis Achææ,

Sed generis notat historias, ab origine mundi

Incipiens.”[346]

Here in breathing gold is the creation in six days; the fall of man, seduced by the serpent; Cain a wanderer; the increase of the human race; vice prevailing overvirtue; the deluge; the intoxication of Noah; the story of Esau, of Jacob, of Joseph; the plagues of Egypt,—

“Hic dolet Ægyptus denis percussa flagellis”;[347]

the flight of the Israelites,—

“Et puro livescit pontus in auro”;[348]

the manna in the Desert; the giving of the Law; the gushing of water from the rock; and then the succession of Hebrew history, stretching to the time of Esdras,—

“Totaque picturæ series finitur in Esdra.”[349]

At once, after these great obsequies, Alexander marches against Darius. And here the poet dwells on the scene of the Persian army watching by its camp-fires. Helmets rival the stars; the firmament is surprised to see fires like its own reflected from bucklers, and fears lest the earth be changed into sky and the night become day. Instead of the sun, there is the helmet of Darius, which shines like Phœbus himself, and at its top a gem of flame, obscuring the stars and yielding only to the rays of the sun; for, as much as it yields to the latter, so much does it prevail over the former. The youthful chieftain, under protection of a benignant divinity, passes the night in profound repose. His army is all marshalled for the day, and he still sleeps. He is waked, harangues his men, and gives the order for battle. The victory of Arbela is at hand.

The fifth book is occupied with a description of this battle. Here are episodes in imitation of the ancients, with repetitions or parodies of Virgil. The poet apostrophizes the unhappy, defeated Darius, as he is about to flee, saying,—“Whither do you go, O King, about to perish in useless flight? You do not know, alas! lost one, you do not know whom you flee. While you flee from one enemy, you run upon other enemies. Desiring to escape Charybdis, you fall upon Scylla.”

“Quo tendis inerti,Rex periture, fuga? Nescis, heu! perdite, nescisQuem fugias; hostesque incurris, dum fugis hostem;Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.”[350]

“Quo tendis inerti,

Rex periture, fuga? Nescis, heu! perdite, nescis

Quem fugias; hostesque incurris, dum fugis hostem;

Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.”[350]

The Persian monarch finds safety at last in Media, and Alexander enters Babylon in triumph, surpassing all other triumphs, even those of ancient Rome: and this is merited,—so sings the poet,—for his exploits are above those of the most celebrated warriors, whether sung by Lucan in magnificent style, or by Claudian in pompous verse. The poet closes the book by referring to the condition of Christianity in his own age, exclaiming, that, if God, touched by the groans and the longings of his people, would accord to the French such a king, the true faith would soon shine throughout the universe. Had he witnessed either Bonaparte on the throne of France, it is doubtful if he would not have regretted his supplicatory prophecy, or rejected them as unworthy of Alexander.

The sixth book glows with the luxury of Alexander at Babylon, the capture of Susa, the pillage of Persepolis. Here the poet forgets the recorded excesses of his hero, with Thaïs by his side, and the final orgy, when the celebrated city was handed to the flames at the bidding of a courtesan; but he dwells on an incident of his own invention, calculated to excite emotions of honor rather than of condemnation. Alexander meets three thousand Greek prisoners, wretchedly mutilated bythe Persians, and delivers them. He leaves to them the choice of returning to Greece, or of fixing themselves in the country there on lands he promises to distribute. Some propose to go back. Others insist, that, in their hideous condition, they cannot return to the eyes of their families and friends, when an orator declares that it is always pleasant to see again one’s country, that there is nothing shameful in the condition caused by a barbarous enemy, and that it is unjust to those who love them to think that they will not be glad to see them. A few follow the orator; but the larger part remain behind, and receive from their liberator the land he had promised, also money, flocks, and whatever was necessary for farmers.

In the seventh book we meet the treason of Bessus substantially as in Quintus Curtius. Darius, with chains of gold on his feet, is carried in a closed vehicle to be delivered up. Alexander, who was still in pursuit of his enemy, is horror-struck. With more rapidity he moves to deliver or to avenge the Persian monarch than he ever moved to his defeat. He is aroused against the criminals, like Jupiter pursuing the Giants with his thunder. Darius is found in his carriage covered with wounds and bathed in his blood. With the little breath that remains, and yet struggling on the last confines of life, he makes a long speech, which the poet follows with bitter exclamations against his own age, beginning with venal Simon and his followers, and ending with the assassins of Thomas à Becket:—

“Non adeo ambiret cathedræ venalis honoremJam vetus ille Simon, non incentiva malorumPollueret sacras funesta pecunia sedes.”[351]

“Non adeo ambiret cathedræ venalis honorem

Jam vetus ille Simon, non incentiva malorum

Pollueret sacras funesta pecunia sedes.”[351]

Thus here again the poet precedes Dante, whose terrible condemnation of Simon has a kindred bitterness:—

“O Simon mago, o miseri seguaci,Che le cose di Dio, che di bontateDenno essere spose, voi rapaciPer oro e per argento adulterate.”[352]

“O Simon mago, o miseri seguaci,

Che le cose di Dio, che di bontate

Denno essere spose, voi rapaci

Per oro e per argento adulterate.”[352]

These ejaculations are closed by an address to the manes of Darius, and a promise to immortalize him in the verse of the poet. The grief of Alexander for the Persian queen is renewed for the sovereign. The Hebrew Apelles is charged to erect in his honor a lofty pyramid in white marble, with sculptures in gold. Four columns of silver, with base and capital of gold, support with admirable art a concave vault, where are represented the three continents of the terrestrial globe, with their rivers, forests, mountains, cities, and people. In the characteristic description of each nation, France has soldiers and Italy wine:—

“Francia militibus, celebri Campania Bacco.”[353]

From funeral the poet passes to festival, and portrays the banquets and indulgence to which Alexander now invites his army. Sedition ensues. The soldiers ask return to their country. Alexander harangues and awakens the love of glory. They swear to confront all dangers, following him to the end of the world.

The eighth book chronicles the march into Hyrcania; the visit of Talestris, queen of the Amazons, and her Amazonian life, with one breast burnt so as to accommodate the bent bow; then the voluntary sacrifice of all the immense booty of the conqueror, as an example for the troops; then the conspiracy against Alexander in his own camp, with the examination and torture of the son of Parmenio, suspected of complicity; and thenthe doom of Bessus, the murderer of Darius, who is delivered by Alexander to the brother of his victim. Then comes the expedition to Scythia. The Macedonian, on the banks of the Tanaïs, receives an embassy. The ambassador fails to delay him; he crosses the river, and reduces the deserts and mountains of Scythia. And here the poet likens this people, which, after resisting so many powerful nations, now falls under the yoke, to a lofty, star-seeking Alpine fir, “astra petens abies,”[354]which, after resisting for ages all the winds of the East, of the West, and of the South, falls under the blows of Boreas. The name of the conqueror becomes a terror, and other nations in this distant region submit voluntarily, without a blow.

The ninth book commences with a mild allusion to the murder of Clitus, and other incidents, teaching that the friendships of kings are not perennial:—

“Etenim testatur eorumFinis amicitias regum non esse perennes.”[355]

“Etenim testatur eorum

Finis amicitias regum non esse perennes.”[355]

Here comes the march upon India. Kings successively submit. Porus alone dares to resist. With a numerous army he awaits the Macedonian on the Hydaspes. The two armies stand face to face on the opposite banks. Then occurs the episode of two youthful Greeks, Nicanor and Symmachus, born the same day, and attached like Nisus and Euryalus. Their perilous expedition fails, under pressure of numbers, and the two friends, cut off and wounded, after prodigies of valor, at last embrace, and die in each other’s arms. Then comes the great battle. Porus, vanquished, wounded, and a prisoner, is brought before Alexander. His noble spirit touches the generous heart of the conqueror, who restoreshis dominions, increases them, and places him in the number of friends:—

“Odium clementia vicit.”[356]

The gates of the East are now open. His movement has the terror of thunder breaking in the middle of the night,—

“Quem sequitur fragor, et fractæ collisio nubis.”[357]

A single city arrests the triumphant march. Alexander besieges it, and himself mounts the first to the assault. His men are driven back. Then from the top of the ladder, instead of leaping back, he throws himself into the city, and alone encounters the foe. Surrounded, belabored, wounded, he is about to perish, when his men, learning his peril, redouble their efforts, burst open the gates, inundate the place, and massacre the inhabitants. After a painful operation, Alexander is restored to his army and to his great plans of conquest. The joy of the soldiers, succeeding sorrow, is likened to that of sailors, who, after seeing the pilot overboard, and ready to be ingulfed by the raging floods, as Boreas plays the Bacchanal, “Borea bacchante,”[358]at last behold him rescued from the abyss and again at the helm. But the army is disturbed by preparation for distant maritime expeditions. Alexander avows that the world is too small for him; that, when it is all conquered, he will push on to subjugate another universe; that he will lead them to the Antipodes, and to another Nature; and that, if they refuse to accompany him, he will go forth alone, and offer himself as chief to other people. The army is on fire with this answer, and vow again never to abandon their king.

The tenth book is the last. Nature, indignant that amortal should venture to penetrate her hidden places, suspends unfinished works, and descends to the lower world for succor against the conqueror. Before the gates of Erebus, under the walls of the Stygian city,—

“Ante fores Erebi, Stygiæ sub mœnibus urbis,”[359]—

are sisters, monsters of the earth, representing every vice,—thirst of gold, drunkenness, gluttony, treachery, detraction, envy, hypocrisy, adulation. In a distant recess is a perpetual furnace, where crimes are punished, but not with equal flames, as some are tormented more lightly and others more severely. Leviathan is in the midst of his furnace; but he drops his serpent form, and assumes the divine aspect he had worn when wishing to share the high Olympus,—

“Cum sidere solisClarior intumuit, tantamque superbia mentemExtulit, ut summum partiri vellet Olympum.”[360]

“Cum sidere solis

Clarior intumuit, tantamque superbia mentem

Extulit, ut summum partiri vellet Olympum.”[360]

To him the stranger appeals against the projects of Alexander, which extend on one side to the unknown sources of the Nile and the Garden of Paradise, and on the other to the Antipodes and ancient Chaos. The infernal monarch convenes his assembly on the plains where agonize the souls of the wicked in undying torments,—

“quibus morsEst non posse mori,”[361]—

“quibus mors

Est non posse mori,”[361]—

and where, as in the Inferno of Dante, ice and snow, as well as fire, are punishments. The satraps of Styx are collected, and the ancient Serpent addresses sibilations from his hoarse throat:—

“Hic ubi collecti satrapæ Stygis et tenebrarum,Consedere duces, et gutture sibila raucoEdidit antiquus serpens.”[362]

“Hic ubi collecti satrapæ Stygis et tenebrarum,

Consedere duces, et gutture sibila rauco

Edidit antiquus serpens.”[362]

He commands the death of the Macedonian king before his plans can be executed. Treason rises and proposes poison. All Hell applauds; and Treason, in disguise, fares forth to instruct the agent. The whole scene suggests sometimes Dante and sometimes Milton. Each was doubtless familiar with it. Meanwhile Alexander returns to Babylon. The universe is in suspense, not knowing to which side he will direct his arms. From all quarters ambassadors come to his feet. In the pride of power he is universal lord. At a feast, surrounded by friends, he drinks the fatal cup. His end approaches, showing to the last grandeur and courage. The poet closes, as he began, with salutation to his patron.

Such is the sketch of a curiosity of literature. It is interesting to look upon this little book, which for a time played so considerable a part; to imagine the youthful students once nurtured by it; to recognize its relations to an age when darkness was slowly yielding to light; to note its possible suggestions to great poets who followed, especially to Dante; and to behold it lost from human knowledge, and absolutely forgotten, until saved by a single verse, which, from its completeness of form and its proverbial character, must live as long as the Latin language. The verse does not occupy much room; but it is a sure fee-simple for the poet. And are we not told by an ancient, that it is something, in whatsoever place or corner, to have made one’s self master of a spot big enough for a single lizard?

“Est aliquid, quocumque loco, quocumque recessu,Unius sese dominum fecisse lacertæ.”[363]

“Est aliquid, quocumque loco, quocumque recessu,

Unius sese dominum fecisse lacertæ.”[363]

A poem of ten books shrinks to a very petty space. There is a balm of a thousand flowers, and here a single hexameter is the express essence of many times a thousand verses. It was the jest of Hamlet, conversing with Horatio in the churchyard, that the noble Alexander, returning to dust and loam, had stopped a bung-hole. But the memorable poem celebrating him, while reduced as much, may be put to far higher and more enduring use.

At the conclusion of a fable there is a moral, or, as sometimes called, the application. There is a moral now, or, if you please, the application. And, believe me, in these serious days, I should have little heart for literary diversion, if I did not hope to make it help those just principles which are essential to the well-being, if not the safety, of the Republic. To this end I have written. This article is only a long whip with a snapper.

Two verses rescued from the wreck of a once popular poem have become proverbs, and one of these is very famous. They inculcate clemency, and the common sense found in not running upon one danger to avoid another. Never was the lesson more needed than now, when, in the name of clemency to belligerent traitors, the National Government is preparing to abandon the freedman, to whom it is bound by the most sacred ties,—is preparing to abandon the national creditor also, with whose security the national welfare is indissolubly associated,—and is even preparing, without probation or trial, to invest belligerent traitors, who for four bloody years have murdered our fellow-citizens,with those Equal Rights in the Republic which are denied to friends and allies, so that the former shall rule over the latter. Verily, here is a case for common sense.

The lesson of clemency is of perpetual obligation. Thanks to the mediæval poet for teaching it! Harshness is bad. Cruelty is detestable. Even justice may relent at the prompting of mercy. Fail not, then, to cultivate the grace of clemency. Perhaps no scene in history is more charming than that of Cæsar, who, after vows against an enemy, listened calmly to the appeal for pardon, and, listening, let the guilty papers fall from his hand. Early in life he had pleaded in the Senate for the lives of conspirators; and afterwards, when supreme ruler of the Roman world, practised the clemency he had once defended, except where enemies were incorrigible, and then he knew how to be rigorous and firm. By example we are instructed; and from the great master of clemency we may well learn that the general welfare must not be sacrificed to this indulgence. And also from the Divine Teacher we may learn, that, even while forgiving enemies, there are Scribes and Pharisees to be exposed, and money-changers who must be scourged from the temple. But with us are Scribes and Pharisees, and there are also criminals, worse than any money-changers, now trying to establish themselves in the very temple of our Government.

Cultivate clemency. But consider well what is embraced in this charity. It is not required that you surrender the Republic into the hands of pardoned criminals. It is not required that you surrender friends and allies to the tender mercies of these same pardonedcriminals. Clearly not. Clemency has limitations; and when it transcends these, it ceases to be a virtue, and is only a mischievous indulgence. Of course, one of these limitations, never to be disregarded, isthe general security, which is the first duty of Government. No pardon can be allowed to imperil the nation; nor can any pardon be allowed to imperil those rightfully looking to us for protection. There must be no vengeance upon enemies; but there must be no sacrifice of friends. And here is the distinction never to be forgotten.Nothing for vengeance; everything for justice.Follow this rule, and the Republic will be safe and glorious. Words attributed to Marcus Aurelius in a letter to his colleague in empire, Lucius Verus, are worthy to be repeated now by the chief of the Republic:—

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