No More Learning

And
it must be admitted that, as so often happens, Akenside's outward
ensemble was eminently what the vulgar world terms “guyable. He
was not a little of a fop. He was plain-featured and yet assuming


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254
MARK AKENSIDE
in manner. He hobbled in walking from lameness of tell-tale origin,
a cleaver falling on his foot in childhood, compelling him to wear
an artificial heel — and he was morbidly sensitive over it. His prim
formality of manner, his sword and stiff-curled wig, his small and
sickly face trying to maintain an expression impressively dignified,
made him a ludicrous figure, which his contemporaries never tired
of ridiculing and caricaturing. Henderson, the actor, said that "Aken-
side, when he walked the streets, looked for all the world like one
of his own Alexandrines set upright. ” Smollett even used him as
a model for the pedantic doctor in Peregrine Pickle,' who gives a
dinner in the fashion of the ancients, and dresses each dish according
to humorous literary recipes.
But there were those who seem to have known an inner and supe-
rior personality beneath the brusqueness, conceit, and policy, beyond
the nerves and fears; and they valued it greatly, at least on the
intellectual side. A wealthy and amiable young Londoner, Jeremiah
Dyson, remained a friend so enduring and admiring as to give the
poet a house in Bloomsbury Square, with £300 a year and a chariot,
and personally to extend his medical practice. We cannot suppose
this to be a case of patron and parasite. Other men of judgment
showed like esteem. And in congenial society, Akenside was his best
and therefore truest self. He was an easy and even brilliant talker,
displaying learning and immense memory, taste, and philosophic re-
flection; and as a volunteer critic he has the unique distinction of a
man who had what books he liked given him by the publishers for
the sake of his oral comments!
The standard edition of Akenside's poems is that edited by Alex-
ander Dyce (London, 1835). Few of them require notice here. His
early effort, “The Virtuoso,' was merely an acknowledged and servile
imitation of Spenser. The claim made by the poet's biographers
that he preceded Thomson in reintroducing the Spenserian stanza is
groundless. Pope preceded him, and Thomson renewed its popu-
larity by being the first to use it in a poem of real merit, “The
Castle of Indolence. ) Mr. Gosse calls the Hymn to the Naiads)
“beautiful,” _ of transcendent merit," – perhaps the most elegant
of his productions. ” The 'Epistle to Curio,' however, must be held
his best poem,
doubtless because it is the only one which came
from his heart; and even its merit is much more in rhetorical energy
than in art or beauty. As to its allusion and object, the real and
classic Curio of Roman social history was a protégé of Cicero's, a rich
young Senator, who began as a champion of liberty and then sold
himself to Cæsar to pay his debts. In Akenside's poem, Curio repre-
sents William Pulteney, Walpole's antagonist, the hope of that younger
generation who hated Walpole's system of parliamentary corruption
-


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MARK AKENSIDE
255
and official jobbing. This party had looked to Pulteney for a clean
and public-spirited administration. Their hero was carried to a brief
triumph on the wave of their enthusiasm. But Pulteney disappointed
them bitterly: he took a peerage, and sunk into utter and perma-
nent political damnation, with no choice but Walpole's methods and
tools, no policy save Walpole's to redeem the withdrawal of so much
lofty promise, and no aims but personal advancement. From Aken-
side's address to him, the famous Epistle to Curio,' a citation is
made below. Akenside's fame, however, rests on the Pleasures of
the Imagination. ' He began it at seventeen; though in the case of
works begun in childhood, it is safer to accept the date of finishing
as the year of the real composition. He published it six years later,
in 1744, on the advice and with the warm admiration of Pope, a man
never wasteful of encomiums on the poetry of his contemporaries. It
raised its author to immediate fame. It secures him a place among
the accepted English classics still. Yet neither its thought nor its
style makes the omission to read it any irreparable loss. It is culti-
vated rhetoric rather than true poetry. Its chief merit and highest
usefulness are that it suggested two far superior poems, Campbell's
Pleasures of Hope and Rogers's Pleasures of Memory. ' It is the
relationship to these that really keeps Akenside's alive.
In scope, the poem consists of two thousand lines of blank verse.
It is distributed in three books. The first defines the sources, meth-
ods, and results of imagination; the second its distinction from phi-
losophy and its enchantment by the passions; the third sets forth
the power of imagination to give pleasure, and illustrates its mental
operation. The author remodeled the poem in 1757, but it is gener-
ally agreed that he injured it. Macaulay says he spoiled it, and
another critic delightfully observes that he “stuffed it with intel-
lectual horsehair. ”
The year of Akenside's death (1770) gave birth to Wordsworth.
The freer and nobler natural school of poetry came to supplant the
artificial one, belonging to an epoch of wigs and false calves, and to
open toward the far greater one of the romanticism of Scott and
Byron.


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256
MARK AKENSIDE
FROM THE EPISTLE TO CURIO
[With this earlier and finer form of Akenside's address to the unstable
Pulteney (see biographical sketch above) must not be confused its later
embodiment among his odes; of which it is (IX: to Curio. ) Much of its
thought and diction were transferred to the Ode named; but the latter by no
means happily compares with the original (Epistle. Both versions, however,
are of the same year, 1744. ]
TH
HRICE has the spring beheld thy faded fame,
And the fourth winter rises on thy name,
Since I exulting grasped the votive shell,
In sounds of triumph all thy praise to tell;
Blest could my skill through ages make thee shine,
And proud to mix my memory with thine.
But now the cause that waked my song before,
With praise, with triumph, crowns the toil no more.
If to the glorious man whose faithful cares,
Nor quelled by malice, nor relaxed by years,
Had awed Ambition's wild audacious hate,
And dragged at length Corruption to her fate;
If every tongue its large applauses owed,
And well-earned laurels every muse bestowed;
If public Justice urged the high reward,
And Freedom smiled on the devoted bard:
Say then,- to him whose levity or lust
Laid all a people's generous hopes in dust,
Who taught Ambition firmer heights of power
And saved Corruption at her hopeless hour,
Does not each tongue its execrations owe?
Shall not each Muse a wreath of shame bestow?
And public Justice sanctify the award ?
And Freedom's hand protect the impartial bard ?
There are who say they viewed without amaze
The sad reverse of all thy former praise;
That through the pageants of a patriot's name,
They pierced the foulness of thy secret aim;
Or deemed thy arm exalted but to throw
The public thunder on a private foe.
But I, whose soul consented to thy cause,
Who felt thy genius stamp its own applause,
Who saw the spirits of each glorious age
Move in thy bosom, and direct thy rage, -


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MARK AKENSIDE
257
I scorned the ungenerous gloss of slavish minds,
The owl-eyed race, whom Virtue's lustre blinds.
Spite of the learned in the ways of vice,
And all who prove that each man has his price,
I still believed thy end was just and free;
And yet, even yet believe it — spite of thee.
Even though thy mouth impure has dared disclaim,
Urged by the wretched impotence of shame,
Whatever filial cares thy zeal had paid
To laws infirm, and liberty decayed;
Has begged Ambition to forgive the show;
Has told Corruption thou wert ne'er her foe;
Has boasted in thy country's awful ear,
Her gross delusion when she held thee dear;
How tame she followed thy tempestuous call,
And heard thy pompous tales, and trusted all
Rise from your sad abodes, ye curst of old
For laws subverted, and for cities sold !
Paint all the noblest trophies of your guilt,
The oaths you perjured, and the blood you spilt;
Yet must you one untempted vileness own,
One dreadful palm reserved for him alone:
With studied arts his country's praise to spurn,
To beg the infamy he did not earn,
To challenge hate when honor was his due,
And plead his crimes where all his virtue knew.
When they who, loud for liberty and laws,
In doubtful times had fought their country's cause,
When now of conquest and dominion sure,
They sought alone to hold their fruit secure;
When taught by these, Oppression hid the face,
To leave Corruption stronger in her place,
By silent spells to work the public fate,
And taint the vitals of the passive state,
Till healing Wisdom should avail no more,
And Freedom loath to tread the poisoned shore:
Then, like some guardian god that flies to save
The weary pilgrim from an instant grave,
Whom, sleeping and secure, the guileful snake
Steals near and nearer thro' the peaceful brake,-
Then Curio rose to ward the public woe,
To wake the heedless and incite the slow,
1--17


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MARK AKENSIDE
Against Corruption Liberty to arm,
And quell the enchantress by a mightier charm.
Lo! the deciding hour at last appears;
The hour of every freeman's hopes and fears!
See Freedom mounting her eternal throne,
The sword submitted, and the laws her own!
See! public Power, chastised, beneath her stands,
With eyes intent, and uncorrupted hands!
See private life by wisest arts reclaimed!
See ardent youth to noblest manners framed!
See us acquire whate'er was sought by you,
If Curio, only Curio will be true.
-
'Twas then O shame! O trust how ill repaid !
O Latium, oft by faithless sons betrayed! -
'Twas then — What frenzy on thy reason stole?
What spells unsinewed thy determined soul ?
Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved ?
The man so great, so honored, so beloved ?
This patient slave by tinsel chains allured ?
This wretched suitor for a boon abjured ?
This Curio, hated and despised by all ?
Who fell himself to work his country's fall ?
O lost, alike to action and repose!
Unknown, unpitied in the worst of woes!
With all that conscious, undissembled pride,
Sold to the insults of a foe defied!
With all that habit of familiar fame,
Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame!
The sole sad refuge of thy baffled art
To act a stateman's dull, exploded part,
Renounce the praise no longer in thy power,
Display thy virtue, though without a dower,
Contemn the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind,
And shut thy eyes that others may be blind.
O long revered, and late resigned to shame!
If this uncourtly page thy notice claim
When the loud cares of business are withdrawn,
Nor well-drest beggars round thy footsteps fawn;


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MARK AKENSIDE
259
In that still, thoughtful, solitary hour,
When Truth exerts her unresisted power,
Breaks the false optics tinged with fortune's glare,
Unlocks the breast, and lays the passions bare:
Then turn thy eyes on that important scene,
And ask thyself — if all be well within.
Where is the heart-felt worth and weight of soul,
Which labor could not stop, nor fear control ?
Where the known dignity, the stamp of awe,
Which, half abashed, the proud and venal saw ?
Where the calm triumphs of an honest cause ?
Where the delightful taste of just applause ?
Where the strong reason, the commanding tongue,
On which the Senate fired or trembling hung!
All vanished, all are sold — and in their room,
Couched in thy bosom's deep, distracted gloom,
See the pale form of barbarous Grandeur dwell,
Like some grim idol in a sorcerer's cell!
To her in chains thy dignity was led;
At her polluted shrine thy honour bled;
With blasted weeds thy awful brow she crowned,
Thy powerful tongue with poisoned philters bound,
That baffled Reason straight indignant few,
And fair Persuasion from her seat withdrew:
For now no longer Truth supports thy cause;
No longer Glory prompts thee to applause;
No longer Virtue breathing in thy breast,
With all her conscious majesty confest,
Still bright and brighter wakes the almighty flame,
To rouse the feeble, and the willful tame,
And where she sees the catching glimpses roll,
Spreads the strong blaze, and all involves the soul;
But cold restraints thy conscious fancy chill,
And formal passions mock thy struggling will;
Or, if thy Genius e'er forget his chain,
And reach impatient at a nobler strain,
Soon the sad bodings of contemptuous mirth
Shoot through thy breast, and stab the generous birth,
Till, blind with smart, from truth to frenzy tost,
And all the tenor of thy reason lost,
Perhaps thy anguish drains a real tear;
While some with pity, some with laughter hear.


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MARK AKENSIDE
Ye mighty foes of liberty and rest,
Give way, do homage to a mightier guest!
Ye daring spirits of the Roman race,
See Curio's toil your proudest claims efface! -
Awed at the name, fierce Appius rising bends,
And hardy Cinna from his throne attends:
“He comes,” they cry, “to whom the fates assigned
With surer arts to work what we designed,
From year to year the stubborn herd to sway,
Mouth all their wrongs, and all their rage obey;
Till owned their guide, and trusted with their power,
He mocked their hopes in one decisive hour;
Then, tired and yielding, led them to the chain,
And quenched the spirit we provoked in vain. ”
But thou, Supreme, by whose eternal hands
Fair Liberty's heroic empire stands;
Whose thunders the rebellious deep control,
And quell the triumphs of the traitor's soul,
O turn this dreadful omen far away!
On Freedom's foes their own attempts repay;
Relume her sacred fire so near suppressed,
And fix her shrine in every Roman breast:
Though bold corruption boast around the land,
“Let virtue, if she can, my baits withstand! »
Though bolder now she urge the accursed claim,
Gay with her trophies raised on Curio's shame;
Yet some there are who scorn her impious mirth,
Who know what conscience and a heart are worth.
ASPIRATIONS AFTER THE INFINITE
From Pleasures of the Imagination)
W*
Ho that, from Alpine heights, his laboring eye
Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave
Thro' mountains, plains, thro' empires black with shade,
And continents of sand, will turn his gaze
To mark the windings of a scanty rill
That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul
Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm;


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MARK AKENSIDE
261
.
Rides on the volleyed lightning through the heavens;
Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars
The blue profound, and, hovering round the sun,
Beholds him pouring the redundant stream
Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of Time. Thence, far effused,
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets; through its burning signs
Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invests the orient. Now, amazed she views
The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold
Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode;
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has traveled the profound six thousand years,
Nor yet arrived in sight of mortal things. .
Even on the barriers of the world, untired
She meditates the eternal depth below;
Till half-recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges; soon o'erwhelmed and swallowed up
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Nor in the fading echoes of Renown,
Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap,
The soul should find enjoyment: but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.
ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY
C®
OME then, tell me, sage divine,
Is it an offense to own
That our bosoms e'er incline
Toward immortal Glory's throne ?
For with me nor pomp nor pleasure,
Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure,


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PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN
So can Fancy's dream rejoice,
So conciliate Reason's choice,
As one approving word of her impartial voice.
If to spurn at noble praise
Be the passport to thy heaven,
Follow thou those gloomy ways:
No such law to me was given,
Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me
Faring like my friends before me;
Nor an holier place desire
Than Timoleon's arms acquire,
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre.
PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN
(1833-1891)
his novelist, poet, and politician was born at Guadix, in Spain,
near Granada, March 1oth, 1833, and received his early train-
ing in the seminary of his native city. His family destined
him for the Church; but he was averse to that profession, subse-
quently studied law and modern languages at the University of
Granada, and took pains to cultivate his natural love for literature
and poetry. In 1853 he established at Cadiz the literary review Eco
del Occidente (Echo of the West). Greatly interested in politics, he
joined a democratic club with headquarters at Madrid. During the
revolution of 1854 he published El Látigo (The Whip), a pamp
which he satirized the government. The spirit of adventure being
always strong in him, he joined the African campaign under O'Don-
nell in 1859.
His next occupation was the editorship of the journals La Epoca
and La Politica. Condemned to a brief period of exile as one of the
signers of a protest of Unionist deputies, he passed this time in
Paris. Shortly after his return he became involved in the revolution
of 1868, but without incurring personal disaster. After Alfonso XII.
came to the throne in 1875, he was appointed Councilor of State.
It was in the domain of letters, however, and more especially as a
novelist, that he won his most enduring laurels. In 1855 he produced
El Final de Norma' (The End of Norma), which was his first
romance of importance. Four years later he began to publish that
series of notable novels which brought him fame, both at home and
abroad. The list includes (El Sombrero de Tres Picos' (The Three-


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PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN
263
Cornered Hat), a charming genre sketch famous for its pungent wit
and humor, and its clever portraiture of provincial life in Spain at
the beginning of this century: La Alpujarra'; El Escándalo' (The
Scandal), a story which at once created a profound sensation because
of its ultramontane cast and opposition to prevalent scientific opinion;
'El Niño de la Bola” (The Child of the Ball), thought by many to be
his masterpiece; El Capitán Veneno' (Captain Veneno); Novelas
Cortas (Short Stories), 3 vols. ; and (La Pródiga' (The Prodigal).
Alarcón is also favorably known as poet, dramatic critic, and an
incisive and effective writer of general prose.
His other publications comprise :- Diario de un Testigo de la
Guerra de Africa' (Journal of a Witness of the African War), a work
which is said to have netted the publishers a profit of three million
pesetas ($600,000); De Madrid à Nápoles' (from Madrid to Naples);
(Poesias Serias y Humorísticas? (Serious and Humorous Poems);
Judicios Literários y Artísticos' (Literary and Artistic Critiques);
Viages por España) (Travels through Spain): El Hijo Pródigo'
(The Prodigal Son), a drama for children; and Ultimos Escritos )
(Last Writings). Alarcón was elected a member of the Spanish
Academy December 15th, 1875. Many of his novels have been trans-
lated into English and French. He died July 20th, 1891.
A WOMAN VIEWED FROM WITHOUT
From The Three-Cornered Hat)
The last and perhaps the most powerful reason which the
Tas ,
with the bishop and the corregidor— had for visiting the
mill so often in the afternoon, was to admire there at leisure one
of the most beautiful, graceful, and admirable works that ever
left the hands of the Creator: called Seña [Mrs. ] Frasquita. Let
us begin by assuring you that Seña Frasquita was the lawful
spouse of Uncle Luke, and an honest woman; of which fact all
the illustrious visitors of the mill were well aware. Indeed, none
of them ever seemed to gaze on her with sinful eyes or doubtful
purpose. They all admired her, indeed, and sometimes paid her
compliments, — the friars as well as the cavaliers, the prebend-
aries as well as the magistrate, -as a prodigy of beauty, an
honor to her Creator, and as a coquettish and mischievous sprite,
who innocently enlivened the most melancholy of spirits. “She
is a handsome creature,” the most virtuous prelate used to say.
«She looks like an ancient Greek statue,” remarked a learned


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PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN
advocate, who was an Academician and corresponding member on
history. “She is the very image of Eve," broke forth the prior
of the Franciscans. She is a fine woman,” exclaimed the colonel
of militia. “She is a serpent, a witch, a siren, an imp,” added the
corregidor. “But she is a good woman, an angel, a lovely creat-
ure, and as innocent as a child four years old,” all agreed in
saying on leaving the mill, crammed with grapes or nuts, on their
way to their dull and methodical homes.
This four-year-old child, that is to say, Frasquita, was nearly
thirty years old, and almost six feet high, strongly built in pro-
portion, and even a little stouter than exactly corresponded to her
majestic figure. She looked like a gigantic Niobe, though she
never had any children; she seemed like a female Hercules, or
like a Roman matron, the sort of whom there are still copies to
be seen in the Rioni Trastevere. But the most striking feature
was her mobility, her agility, her animation, and the grace of her
rather large person.
For resemblance to a statue, to which the Academician com-
pared her, she lacked statuesque repose. She bent her body like
a reed, or spun around like a weather-vane, or danced like a top.
Her features possessed even greater mobility, and in consequence
were even less statuesque. They were lighted up beautifully by
five dimples: two on one cheek, one on the other, another very
small one near the left side of her roguish lips, and the last-
and a very big one — in the cleft of her rounded chin. Add to
these charms her sly or roguish glances, her pretty pouts, and the
various attitudes of her head, with which she emphasized her
talk, and you will have some idea of that face full of vivacity
and beauty, and always radiant with health and happiness.
Neither Uncle Luke nor Seña Frasquita was Andalusian by
birth: she came from Navarre, and he from Murcia. He went
to the city of when he was but fifteen years old, as half
page, half servant of the bishop, the predecessor of the present
incumbent of that diocese. He was brought up for the Church
by his patron, who, perhaps on that account, so that he might
not lack competent maintenance, bequeathed him the mill in his
will. But Uncle Luke, who had received only the lesser orders
when the bishop died, cast off his ecclesiastical garb at once and
enlisted as a soldier; for he felt more anxious to see the world
and to lead a life of adventure than to say mass or grind corn.
He went through the campaign of the Western Provinces in


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PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN
265
1793, as the orderly of the brave General Ventura Caro; he was
present at the siege of the Castle of Piñon, and remained a long
time in the Northern Provinces, when he finally quitted the serv-
ice. In Estella he became acquainted with Seña Frasquita, who
was then simply called Frasquita; made love to her, married
her, and carried her to Andalusia to take possession of the mill,
where they were to live so peaceful and happy during the rest
of their pilgrimage through this vale of tears.
When Frasquita was taken from Navarre to that lonely place
she had not yet acquired any Andalusian ways, and was very
different from the countrywomen in that vicinity. She dressed
with greater simplicity, greater freedom, grace, and elegance
than they did. She bathed herself oftener; and allowed the sun
and air to caress her bare arms and uncovered neck. To a cer-
tain extent she wore the style of dress worn by the gentlewomen
of that period; like that of the women in Goya's pictures, and
somewhat of the fashion worn by Queen Maria Louisa: if not
exactly so scant, yet so short that it showed her small feet, and
the commencement of her superb limbs; her bodice was low,
and round in the neck, according to the style in Madrid, where
she spent two months with her Luke on their way from Navarre
to Andalusia. She dressed her hair high on the top of her head,
displaying thus both the graceful curve of her snowy neck and
the shape of her pretty head. She wore earrings in her small
ears, and the taper fingers of her rough but clean hands were
covered with rings. Lastly, Frasquita's voice was as sweet as a
flute, and her laugh was so merry and so silvery it seemed like
the ringing of bells on Saturday of Glory or Easter Eve.
HOW THE ORPHAN MANUEL GAINED HIS SOBRIQUET
From "The Child of the Ball)
Thr
HE unfortunate boy seemed to have turned to ice from the
cruel and unexpected blows of fate; he contracted a death-
like pallor, which he never again lost. No one paid any
attention to the unhappy child in the first moments of his
anguish, or noticed that he neither groaned, sighed, nor wept.
When at last they went to him they found him convulsed and
rigid, like a petrifaction of grief; although he walked about,
heard and saw, and covered his wounded and dying father with
kisses. But he shed not a single tear, either during the death


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PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN
agony of that beloved being, when he kissed the cold face after
it was dead, or when he saw them carry the body away forever;
nor when he left the house in which he had been born, and
found himself sheltered by charity in the house of a stranger.
Some praised his courage, others criticized his callousness.
Mothers pitied him profoundly, instinctively divining the cruel
tragedy that was being enacted in the orphan's heart for want
of some tender and compassionate being to make him weep by
weeping with him.
Nor did Manuel utter a single word from the moment he
saw his beloved father brought in dying. He made no answer
to the affectionate questions asked him by Don Trinidad after the
latter had taken him home; and the sound of his voice was never
heard during the first three years which he spent in the holy
company of the priest. Everybody thought by this time that
he would remain dumb forever, when one day, in the church of
which his protector was the priest, the sacristan observed him
standing before a beautiful image of the “Child of the Ball,”
and heard him saying in melancholy accents:-
Child Jesus, why do you not speak either ? »
Manuel was saved. The drowning boy had raised his head
above the engulfing waters of his grief. His life was no longer
in danger. So at least it was believed in the parish.
Toward strangers — from whom, whenever they came in con-
tact with him, he always received demonstrations of pity and
kindness — the orphan continued to maintain the same glacial
reserve as before, rebuffing them with the phrase, stereotyped on
his disdainful lips, “Let me alone, now;" having said which, in
tones of moving entreaty, he would go on his way, not with-
out awakening superstitious feelings in the minds of the persons
whom he thus shunned.
Still less did he lay aside, at this saving crisis, the profound
sadness and precocious austerity of his character, or the obstinate
persistence with which he clung to certain habits. These were
limited, thus far, to accompanying the priest to the church;
gathering flowers or aromatic herbs to adorn the image of the
“Child of the Ball,” before which he would spend hour after
hour, plunged in a species of ecstasy; and climbing the neighbor-
ing mountain in search of those herbs and flowers, when, owing
to the severity of the heat or cold, they were not to be found in
the fields.
.


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PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN
267
This adoration, while in consonance with the religious prin-
ciples instilled into him from the cradle by his father, greatly
exceeded what is usual even in the most devout.
It was a
fraternal and submissive love, like that which he had entertained
for his father; it was a confused mixture of familiarity, pro-
tection, and idolatry, very similar to the feeling which the
mothers of men of genius entertain for their illustrious sons; it
was the respectful and protecting tenderness which the strong
warrior bestows on the youthful prince; it was an identification
of himself with the image; it was pride; it was elation as for a
personal good. It seemed as if this image symbolized for him
his tragic fate, his noble origin, his early orphanhood, his poverty,
his cares, the injustice of men, his solitary state in the world,
and perhaps too some presentiment of his future sufferings.
Probably nothing of all this was clear at the time to the mind
of the hapless boy, but something resembling it must have been
the tumult of confused thoughts that palpitated in the depths of
that childlike, unwavering, absolute, and exclusive devotion.
For
him there was neither God nor the Virgin, neither saints nor
angels; there was only the “Child of the Ball,” not with relation
to any profound mystery, but in himself, in his present form,
with his artistic figure, his dress of gold tissue, his crown of
false stones, his blonde head, his charming countenance, and the
blue-painted globe which he held in his hand, and which was
surmounted by a little silver-gilt cross, in sign of the redemption
of the world.
And this was the cause and reason why the acolytes of Santa
María de la Cabéza first, all the boys of the town afterward, and
finally the more respectable and sedate persons, bestowed on
Manuel the extraordinary name of “The Child of the Ball”: we
know not whether by way of applause of such vehement idolatry,
and to commit him, as it were, to the protection of the Christ-
Child himself; or as a sarcastic antiphrasis, - seeing that this
appellation is sometimes used in the place as a term of compar-
ison for the happiness of the very fortunate; or as a prophecy
of the valor for which the son of Venegas was to be one day
celebrated, and the terror he was to inspire,— since the most
hyperbolical expression that can be employed in that district, to
extol the bravery and power of any one, is to say that “he does
not fear even the Child of the Ball. ) »
Selections used by permission of Cassell Publishing Company


## p. 268 (#298) ############################################

268
ALCÆUS
(Sixth Century B. C. )
was
LCÆUS, a contemporary of the more famous poet whom he
addressed as "violet-crowned, pure, sweetly-smiling Sappho,
was a native of Mitylene in Lesbos. His period of work
fell probably between 610 and 580 B. C. At this time his native
town was disturbed by an unceasing contention for power between
the aristocracy and the people; and Al-
cæus, through the vehemence of his zeal
and his ambition, was among the leaders
of the warring faction. By the accidents
of birth and education he was an aristo-
crat, and in politics he was what is now
called a High Tory. With his brothers,
Cicis and Antimenidas, two influential
young nobles as arrogant and haughty
as himself, he resented and opposed the
slightest concession to democracy. He
a stout soldier, but he threw away
his arms at Ligetum when he saw that
ALCÆUS
his side was beaten, and afterward wrote
a poem on this performance, apparently not in the least mortified by
the recollection. Horace speaks of the matter, and laughingly con-
fesses his own like misadventure.
When the kindly Pittacus was chosen dictator, he was compelled
to banish the swashbuckling brothers for their abuse of him. But
when Alcæus chanced to be taken prisoner, Pittacus set him free,
remarking that «forgiveness is better than revenge. ” The irrecon-
cilable poet spent his exile in Egypt, and there he may have seen
the Greek oligarch who lent his sword to Nebuchadnezzar, and whom
he greeted in a poem, a surviving fragment of which is thus para-
phrased by John Addington Symonds:-
From the ends of the earth thou art come,
Back to thy home;
The ivory bilt of thy blade
With gold is embossed and inlaid ;
Since for Babylon's host a great deed
Thou didst work in their need,
Slaying a warrior, an athlete of might,
Royal, whose height
Lacked of five cubits one span
A terrible man.



## p. 269 (#299) ############################################

ALCÆUS
269
Alcæus is reputed to have been in love with Sappho, the glorious,
but only a line or two survives to confirm the tale. Most of his
lyrics, like those of his fellow-poets, seem to have been drinking
songs, combined, says Symonds, with reflections upon life, and
appropriate descriptions of the different seasons. «No time was
amiss for drinking, to his mind: the heat of summer, the cold of
winter, the blazing dog-star and the driving tempest, twilight with
its cheerful gleam of lamps, mid-day with its sunshine -all suggest
reasons for indulging in the cup. Not that we are justified in
fancying Alcæus a mere vulgar toper: he retained Æolian sumptu-
ousness in his pleasures, and raised the art of drinking to an æsthetic
attitude. ”
Alcæus composed in the Æolic dialect; for the reason, it is said,
that it was more familiar to his hearers. After his death his poems
were collected and divided into ten books. Bergk has included the
fragmentsand one of his compositions has come down to us entire
- in his Poetæ Lyrici Græci. '
His love of political strife and military glory led him to the
composition of a class of poems which the ancients called “Stasiotica'
(Songs of Sedition). To this class belong his descriptions of the
furnishing of his palace, and many of the fragments preserved to us.
Besides those martial poems, he composed hymns to the gods, and
love and convivial songs.
His verses are subjective and impassioned. They are outbursts of
the poet's own feeling, his own peculiar expression toward the world
in which he lived; and it is this quality that gave them their
strength and their celebrity. His metres were lively, and the care
which he expended upon his strophes has led to the naming of one
metre the Alcaic. " Horace testifies (Odes ii. 13. ii. 26, etc. ), to the
power of his master.
The first selection following is a fragment from his "Stasiotica.
It is a description of the splendor of his palace before «the work
of war began. ”
THE PALACE
Fs
ROM roof to roof the spacious palace halls
Glitter with war's array;
With burnished metal clad, the lofty walls
Beam like the bright noonday.
There white-plumed helmets hang from many a nail,
Above, in threatening row;
Steel-garnished tunics and broad coats of mail
Spread o'er the space below.


## p. 270 (#300) ############################################

270
ALCÆUS
Chalcidian blades enow, and belts are here,
Greaves and emblazoned shields;
Well-tried protectors from the hostile spear,
On other battlefields.
With these good helps our work of war's begun,
With these our victory must be won.
Translation of Colonel Mure.
A BANQUET SONG
T"
He rain of Zeus descends, and from high heaven
A storm is driven:
And on the running water-brooks the cold
Lays icy hold;
Then up: beat down the winter; make the fire
Blaze high and higher;
Mix wine as sweet as honey of the bee
Abundantly:
Then drink with comfortable wool around
Your temples bound.
We must not yield our hearts to woe, or wear
With wasting care;
For grief will profit us no whit, my friend,
Nor nothing mend;
But this is our best medicine, with wine fraught
To cast out thought.
Translation of J. A. Symonds.
AN INVITATION
W"
Hy wait we for the torches' lights ?
Now let us drink while day invites.
In mighty flagons hither bring
The deep-red blood of many a vine,
That we may largely quaff, and sing
The praises of the god of wine,
The son of Jove and Semele,
Who gave the jocund grape to be
A sweet oblivion to our woes.
Fill, fill the goblet- one and two:
Let every brimmer, as it flows,
In sportive chase, the last pursue.
Translation of Sir William Jones.


## p. 271 (#301) ############################################

ALCÆUS
271
THE STORM
N°"
ow here, now there, the wild waves sweep,
Whilst we, betwixt them o'er the deep,
In shatter'd tempest-beaten bark,
With laboring ropes are onward driven,
The billows dashing o'er our dark
Upheavèd deck -- in tatters riven
Our sails — whose yawning rents between
The raging sea and sky are seen.
Loose from their hold our anchors burst,
And then the third, the fatal wave
Comes rolling onward like the first,
And doubles all our toil to save.
Translation of Sir William Jones.
THE POOR FISHERMAN
TH
HE fisher Diotimus had, at sea
And shore, the same abode of poverty -
His trusty boat;— and when his days were spent,
Therein self-rowed to ruthless Dis he went;
For that, which did through life his woes beguile,
Supplied the old man with a funeral pile.
Translation of Sir William Jones.
THE STATE
W**
HAT constitutes a State ?
Not high-raised battlement, or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crown'd;
No:- Men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude: -
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.
Translation of Sir William Jones.


## p. 272 (#302) ############################################

272
BALTÁZAR DE ALCÁZAR
POVERTY
TH
HE worst of ills, and hardest to endure,
Past hope, past cure,
Is Penury, who, with her sister-mate
Disorder, soon brings down the loftiest state,
And makes it desolate.
This truth the sage of Sparta told,
Aristodemus old, -
<< Wealth makes the man. ” On him that's poor,
Proud worth looks down, and honor shuts the door.
Translation of Sir William Jones.
BALTÁZAR DE ALCÁZAR
(1530 ? -1606)
LTHOUGH little may be realized now of Alcázar's shadowy per-
sonality, there is no doubt that in his own century he was
widely read. Born of a very respectable family in Seville,
either in 1530 or 1531, he first appears as entering the Spanish navy,
and participating in several battles on the war galleys of the Mar-
quis of Santa Cruz. It is known that for about twenty years he
was alcalde or mayor at the Molares on the outskirts of Utrera -
an important local functionary, a practical man interested in public
affairs.
But, on the whole, his seems to have been a strongly artistic
nature; for he was a musician of repute, skillful too at painting, and
above all a poet. As master and model in metrical composition he
chose Martial, and in his epigrammatic turn he is akin to the great
Latin poet. He was fond of experimenting in Latin lyrical forms,
and wrote many madrigals and sonnets. They are full of vigorous
thought and bright satire, of playful malice and epicurean joy in life,
and have always won the admiration of his fellow-poets. As has
been said, they show a fine taste, quite in advance of the age.
Cervantes, his greater contemporary, acknowledged his power with
cordial praise in the Canto de Caliope.
The witty Andalusian” did not write voluminously. Some of his
poems still remain in manuscript only. Of the rest, comprised in one
small volume, perhaps the best known are (The Jovial Supper,'
(The Echo,' and the Counsel to a Widow. '


## p. 273 (#303) ############################################

BALTAZAR DE ALCÁZAR
273
SLEEP
S"
LEEP is no servant of the will,
It has caprices of its own:
When most pursued, — 'tis swiftly gone;
When courted least, it lingers still.
With its vagaries long perplext,
I turned and turned my restless sconce,
Till one bright night, I thought at once
I'd master it; so hear my text!
When sleep will tarry, I begin
My long and my accustomed prayer;
And in a twinkling sleep is there,
Through my bed-curtains peeping in.
When sleep hangs heavy on my eyes,
I think of debts I fain would pay;
And then, as flies night's shade from day,
Sleep from my heavy eyelids flies.
And thus controlled the winged one bends
Ev'n his fantastic will to me;
And, strange, yet true, both I and he
Are friends, the very best of friends.
We are a happy wedded pair,
And I the lord and she the dame;
Our bed- our board our hours the same,
And we're united everywhere.
I'll tell you where I learnt to school
This wayward sleep:- a whispered word
From a church-going hag I heard,
And tried it — for I was no fool.
So from that very hour I knew
That having ready prayers to pray,
And having many debts to pay,
Will serve for sleep and waking too.
From Longfellow's (Poets of Europe): by permission of Houghton, Mifflin and
Company
THE JOVIAL SUPPER
N JAEN, where I reside,
Lives Don Lopez de Sosa;
And I will tell thee, Isabel, a thing
The most daring that thou hast heard of him.
I
1-18


## p. 274 (#304) ############################################

274
BALTAZAR DE ALCÁZAR
This gentleman had
A Portuguese serving man
However, if it appears well to you, Isabel,
Let us first take supper.
We have the table ready laid,
As we have to sup together;
The wine-cups at their stations
Are only wanting to begin the feast.
Let us commence with new, light wine,
And cast upon it benediction;
I consider it a matter of devotion
To sign with cross that which I drink.
Be it or not a modern invention,
By the living God I do not know;
But most exquisite was
The invention of the tavern.
Because, I arrive thirsty there,
I ask for new-made wine,
They mix it, give it to me, I drink,
I pay for it, and depart contented.
That, Isabel, is praise of itself,
It is not necessary to laud it.
I have only one fault to find with it,
That is — it is finished with too much haste.
But say, dost thou not adore and prize
The illustrious and rich black pudding ?
How the rogue tickles!
It must contain spices.
How it is stuffed with pine nuts!
But listen to a subtle hint.
You did not put a lamp there?
How is it that I appear to see two?
But these are foolish questions,
Already know I what it must be:
It is by this black draught
That the number of lamps accumulates.
[The several courses are ended, and the jovial diner resolves to finish his
story. ]
And now, Isabel, as we have supped
So well, and with so much enjoyment,


## p. 275 (#305) ############################################

ALCIPHRON
275
It appears to be but right
To return to the promised tale.
But thou must know, Sister Isabel,
That the Portuguese fell sick
Eleven o'clock strikes, I go to sleep.
Wait for the morrow.
.
ALCIPHRON
(Second Century A. D. )
BY HARRY THURSTON PECK
N THE history of Greek prose fiction the possibilities of the
epistolary form were first developed by the Athenian teacher
of rhetoric, Alciphron, of whose life and personality noth-
ing is known except that he lived in the second century A. D. ,-a
contemporary of the great satirical genius Lucian. Of his writings
we now possess only a collection of imaginary letters, one hundred
and eighteen in number, arranged in three books. Their value
depends partly upon the curious and interesting pictures given in
them of the life of the post-Alexandrine period, especially of the
low life, and partly upon the fact that they are the first successful
attempts at character-drawing to be found in the history of Greek
prose fiction. They form a connecting link between the novel of
pure incident and adventure, and the more fully developed novel
which combines incident and adventure with the delineation of char-
acter and the study of motive. The use of the epistolary form in
fictitious composition did not, to be sure, originate with Alciphron;
for we find earlier instances in the imaginary love-letters composed
in verse by the Roman poet, Ovid, under the names of famous
women of early legend, such as those of Enone to Paris (which
suggested a beautiful poem of Tennyson's), Medea to Jason, and
many others. In these one finds keen insight into character, espe-
cially feminine character, together with much that is exquisite in
fancy and tender in expression. But it is to Alciphron that we owe
the adaptation of this form of composition to prose fiction, and its
employment in a far wider range of psychological and social obser-
vation.
The life whose details are given us by Alciphron is the life of
contemporary Athens in the persons of its easy-going population.
The writers whose letters we
we are supposed to read in reading
Alciphron are peasants, fishermen, parasites, men-about-town, and


## p. 276 (#306) ############################################

276
ALCIPHRON
courtesans. The language of the letters is neat, pointed, and appro-
priate to the person who in each case is supposed to be the writer;
and the details are managed with considerable art. Alciphron effaces
all impression of his own personality, and is lost in the characters
who for the time being occupy his pages. One reads the letters as
he would read a genuine correspondence. The illusion is perfect,
and we feel that we are for the moment in the Athens of the third
century before Christ; that we are strolling in its streets, visiting its
shops, its courts, and its temples, and that we are getting a whiff of
the Ægean, mingled with the less savory odors of the markets and
of the wine-shops.
We stroll about the city elbowing our way
through the throng of boatmen, merchants, and hucksters. Here a
barber stands outside his shop and solicits custom; there an old
usurer with pimply face sits bending over his accounts in a dingy
little office; at the corner of the street a crowd encircles some Cheap
Jack who is showing off his juggling tricks at a small three-legged
table, making sea-shells vanish out of sight and then taking them
from his mouth. Drunken soldiers pass and repass, talking bois-
terously of their bouts and brawls, of their drills and punishments,
and the latest news of their barracks, and forming a striking contrast
to the philosopher, who, in coarse robes, moves with supercilious
look and an affectation of deep thought, in silence amid the crowd
that jostles him. The scene is vivid, striking, realistic.
Many of the letters are from women; and in these, especially,
Alciphron reveals the daily life of the Athenians. We see the demi-
monde at their toilet, with their mirrors, their powders, their
enamels and rouge-pots, their brushes and pincers, and all the
thousand and one accessories. Acquaintances come in to make a
morning call, and we hear their chatter, Thaïs and Megara and
Bacchis, Hermione and Myrrha. They nibble cakes, drink sweet
wine, gossip about their respective lovers, hum the latest songs,
and enjoy themselves with perfect abandon. Again we see them
at their evening rendezvous, at the banquets where philosophers,
poets, sophists, painters, artists of every sort, - in fact, the whole
Bohemia of Athens, - gather round them. We get hints of all the
stages of the revel, from the sparkling wit and the jolly good-
fellowship of the early evening, to the sodden disgust that comes
with daybreak when the lamps are poisoning the fetid air and the
remnants of the feast are stale.
We are not to look upon the letters of Alciphron as embodying a
literary unity. He did not attempt to write one single symmetrical
epistolary romance; but the individual letters are usually slight
sketches of character carelessly gathered together, and deriving
their greatest charm from their apparent spontaneity and artlessness.


## p. 277 (#307) ############################################

ALCIPHRON
277
Many of them are, to be sure, unpleasantly cynical, and depict the
baser side of human nature; others, in their realism, are essentially
commonplace; but some are very prettily expressed, and show a
brighter side to the picture of contemporary life. Those especially
which are supposed to pass between Menander, the famous comic
poet, and his mistress Glycera, form a pleasing contrast to the greed
and cynicism of much that one finds in the first book of the epistles;
they are true love-letters, and are untainted by the slightest sug-
gestion of the mercenary spirit or the veiled coarseness that makes
so many of the others unpleasant reading. One letter (i. 6) is
interesting as containing the first allusion found in literature to the
familiar story of Phryne before the judges, which is more fully told
in Athenæus.
The imaginary letter was destined to play an important part in
the subsequent history of literature. Alciphron was copied by
Aristænetus, who lived in the fifth century of our era, and whose
letters have been often imitated in modern times, and by Theophy-
lactus, who lived in the seventh century. In modern English fiction
the epistolary form has been most successfully employed by Rich-
ardson, Fanny Burney, and, in another genre, by Wilkie Collins.
The standard editions of Alciphron are those of Seiler (Leipzig,
1856) and of Hercher (Paris, 1873), the latter containing the Greek
text with a parallel version in Latin. The letters have not yet been
translated into English. The reader may refer to the chapter on
Alciphron in the recently published work of Salverte, Le Roman
dans la Grèce Ancienne' (The Novel in Ancient Greece: Paris,
1893). The following selections are translated by the present writer.
H. J. Peck
(
FROM A MERCENARY GIRL
PETALA
TO
SIMALION
Welshould be;" for you are generous enough with them, any-
for me.
a girl , a I
.
how! Unfortunately, however, that isn't quite enough
I need money; I must have jewels, clothes, servants,
and all that sort of thing. Nobody has left me a fortune, I
should like you to know, or any mining stock; and so I am
obliged to depend on the little presents that gentlemen happen
to make me. Now that I've known you a year, how much better


## p. 278 (#308) ############################################

278
ALCIPHRON
off am I for it, I should like to ask ? My head looks like a
fright because I haven't had anything to rig it out with, all that
time; and as to clothes, - why, the only dress I've got in the
world is in rags that make me ashamed to be seen with my
friends: and yet you imagine that I can go on in this way with-
out having any other means of living! Oh, yes, of course, you
cry; but you'll stop presently. I'm really surprised at the num-
ber of your tears; but really, unless somebody gives me some-
thing pretty soon I shall die of starvation. Of course, you
pretend you're just crazy for me, and that you can't live without
me. Well, then, isn't there any family silver in your house ?
Hasn't your mother any jewelry that you can get hold of?
Hasn't your father any valuables ? Other girls are luckier than
I am; for I have a mourner rather than a lover. He sends me
crowns, and he sends me garlands and roses, as if I were dead
and buried before my time, and he says that he cries all night.
Now, if you can manage to scrape up something for me, you can
come here without having to cry your eyes out; but if you can't,
why, keep your tears to yourself, and don't bother me!
From the (Epistolæ,' i. 36.
THE PLEASURES OF ATHENS
EUTHY DICUS TO EPIPHANIO
Y ALL the gods and demons, I beg you, dear mother, to leave
B' , ,
discover what beautiful things there are in town. Just think
what you are losing,— the Haloan Festival and the Apaturian
Festival, and the Great Festival of Bacchus, and especially the
Thesmophorian Festival, which is now going on. If you would
only hurry up, and get here to-morrow morning before it is day.
light, you would be able to take part in the affair with the other
Athenian women. Do come, and don't put it off, if you have
any regard for my happiness and my brothers'; for it's an awful
thing to die without having any knowledge of the city. That's
the life of an ox; and one that is altogether unreasonable. Please
excuse me, mother, for speaking so freely for your own good.
After all, one ought to speak plainly with everybody, and espe-
cially with those who are themselves plain speakers.
From the Epistolæ,' iii. 39.


## p. 279 (#309) ############################################

ALCIPHRON
279
FROM AN ANXIOUS MOTHER
PHYLLIS TO THRASONIDES
I
You only would put up with the country and be sensible,
and do as the rest of us do, my dear Thrasonides, you would
offer ivy and laurel and myrtle and flowers to the gods at
the proper time; and to us, your parents, you would give wheat
and wine and a milk-pail full of the new goat's-milk.
But as
things are, you despise the country and farming, and are fond
only of the helmet-plumes and the shield, just as if you were an
Acarnanian or a Malian soldier. Don't keep on in this way, my
son; but come back to us and take up this peaceful life of ours
again (for farming is perfectly safe and free from any danger,
and doesn't require bands of soldiers and strategy and squad-
rons), and be the stay of our old age, preferring a safe life to a
risky one.
From the Epistolæ,' iii. 16.
FROM A CURIOUS YOUTH
PHILOCOMUS TO THESTYLUS
SO
INCE I have never yet been to town, and really don't know at
all what the thing is that they call a city, I am awfully anx-
ious to see this strange sight, - men living all in one place, -
and to learn about the other points in which a city differs from
the country. Consequently, if you have any reason for going to
town, do come and take me with you. As a matter of fact, I am
sure there are lots of things I ought to know, now that my beard
is beginning to sprout; and who is so able to show me the city
as yourself, who are all the time going back and forth to the
town?
From the Epistolæ,' iii. 31.
FROM A PROFESSIONAL DINER-OUT
CAPNOSPHRANTES TO ARISTOMACHUS
I
SHOULD like to ask my evil genius, who drew me by lot as his
own particular charge, why he is so malignant and so cruel
as to keep me in everlasting poverty; for if no one happens
to invite me to dinner I have to live on greens, and to eat acorns
and to fill my stomach with water from the hydrant. Now, as


## p. 280 (#310) ############################################

280
ALCIPHRON
long as my body was able to put up with this sort of thing, and
my time of life was such as made it proper for me to bear it, I
could get along with them fairly well; but now that my hair is
growing gray, and the only outlook I have is in the direction of
old age, what on earth am I going to do? I shall really have to
get a rope and hang myself unless my luck changes. However,
even if fortune remains as it is, I shan't string myself up before
I have at least one square meal; for before very long, the wed-
ding of Charitus and Leocritis, which is going to be a famous
affair, will come off, to which there isn't a doubt that I shall be
invited,-either to the wedding itself or to the banquet after-
ward.