His insight made his
opinions
prophetic.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 to v20 - Phi to Qui
IL PENSEROSO
H
ENCE, vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the sun-beams;
Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus's train.
But hail, thou goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy !
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
## p. 10061 (#489) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10061
Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended.
Yet thou art higher far descended:
Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore
To solitary Saturn bore;
His daughter she; in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain.
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypress lawn
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come; but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet;
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheelèd throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
Gently o'er the accustomed oak.
Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
## p. 10062 (#490) ##########################################
10062
JOHN MILTON
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among
I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, food, or underground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops's line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
But, () sad Virgin! that thy power
Might raise Musæus from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
## p. 10063 (#491) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10063
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made hell grant what love did seek;
Or call up him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride:
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn appear,
Not tricked and flounced, as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kerchieft in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or ushered with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute-drops from off the eaves.
And when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There, in close covert, by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings, in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid;
## p. 10064 (#492) ##########################################
10064
JOHN MILTON
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy-proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew,
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give:
And I with thee will choose to live.
THE APPEAL OF SATAN
From Paradise Lost)
(
'T
-
S this the region, this the soil, the clime,”
Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
That we must change for heaven ? - this mournful
gloom
For that celestial light ? Be it so, since he
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equaled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor one who brings
## p. 10065 (#493) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10065
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater ? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure: and in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in heaven, or what more lost in hell ? »
So Satan spake; and him Beëlzebub
Thus answered: « Leader of those armies bright
Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, — heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal, — they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed :
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height! ”
He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear — to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand –
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
XT11-630
## p. 10066 (#494) ##########################################
10066
JOHN MILTON
On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamèd sea he stood, and called
His legions - angel forms, who lay entranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded:- “Princes, potentates,
Warriors, the flower of heaven once yours; now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf ? --
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen! »
MILTON ON HIS BLINDNESS
From Paradise Lost)
H
AIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity – dwelt then in thee,
## p. 10067 (#495) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10067
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell ? Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless Infinite!
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
I sung of chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equaled with me in fate,
So were I equaled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
## p. 10068 (#496) ##########################################
10068
JOHN MILTON
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
ADAM AND EVE
From Paradise Lost)
T"
wo of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
God-like erect, with native honor clad
In naked majesty, seemed lords of all,
And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure
Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,
Whence true authority in men: though both
Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed;
For contemplation he and valor formed,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him.
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She, as a veil down to the slender waist,
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Disheveled, but in wanton ringlets waved
As the vine curls her tendrils, — which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received
Yielded, with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. .
So passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight
Of God or Angels; for they thought no ill:
So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces met –
Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.
## p. 10069 (#497) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10069
EVE RELATES HER FIRST MEETING WITH ADAM
From Paradise Lost)
"T"
THAT day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awaked, and found myself reposed
Under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where
And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence, a murmuring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread
Into a liquid plain; then stood unmoved,
Pure as the expanse of heaven. I thither went
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite
A shape within the watery gleam appeared,
Bending to look on me. I started back,
It started back; but pleased I soon returned,
Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love. There I had fixed
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warned me: 'What thou seest,
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;
With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming, and thy soft embraces — he
Whose image thou art: him thou shalt enjoy
Inseparably thine; to him shalt bear
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called
Mother of human race. ' What could I do,
But follow straight, invisibly thus led ?
Till I espied thee, fair indeed, and tall,
Under a platane: yet methought less fair,
Less winning soft, less amiably mild,
Than that smooth watery image. Back I turned;
Thou, following, cried'st aloud, Return, fair Eve:
Whom fliest thou ? Whom thou Aiest, of him thou art,
His flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent
Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart,
Substantial life, to have thee by my side
Henceforth an individual solace dear:
Part of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim
My other half. With that thy gentle hand
## p. 10070 (#498) ##########################################
10070
JOHN MILTON
Seized mine; I yielded, and from that time see
How beauty is excelled by manly grace
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair. ”
So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreproved,
And meek surrender, half-embracing leaned
On our first father; half her swelling breast
Naked met his, under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid. He, in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms,
Smiled with superior love, as Jupiter
On Juno smiles when he impregns the clouds
That shed May flowers, and pressed her matron lip
With kisses pure.
Aside the Devil turned
For envy; yet with jealous leer malign
Eyed them askance.
SONG OF THE PAIR IN PARADISE
From (Paradise Lost)
Lº
OWLY they bowed, adoring, and began
Their orisons, each morning duly paid
In various style; for neither various style
Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise
Their Maker, in fit strains pronounced, or sung
Unmeditated; such prompt eloquence
Flowed from their lips, in prose or numerous verse,
More tunable than needed lute or harp
To add more sweetness: and they thus began. -
« These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair: thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye Sons of Light,
Angels — for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing — ye in heaven;
On earth join, all ye creatures, to extol
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of Night,
## p. 10071 (#499) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10071
If better thou belong not to the Dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling inorn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon has gained, and when thou fall’st.
Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fliest,
With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wandering fires, that move
In mystic dance, not without song, resound
His praise who out of darkness called up light.
Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix
And nourish all things, let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honor to the world's great Author rise;
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling, still advance his praise.
His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls. Ye birds,
That, singing, up to heaven-gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep, —
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,
To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord! Be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Have gathered aught of evil, or concealed,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark. ”
So prayed they innocent, and to their thoughts
Firm peace recovered soon, and wonted calm.
## p. 10072 (#500) ##########################################
10072
JOHN MILTON
INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
From Paradise Lost)
D"
ESCEND from Heaven, Urania, by that name
It rightly thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the fight of Pegasean wing!
The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwell'st; but, heavenly born,
Before the hills appeared or fountain flowed,
Thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song. Up led by thee,
Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering. With like safety guided down,
Return me to my native element;
Lest, from this flying steed unreined (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower clime)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander and forlorn.
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible diurnal sphere.
Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues,
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revelers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, till the savage clamor drowned
Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend
Her son.
So fail not thou who thee implores;
For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream.
## p. 10073 (#501) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10073
FOR THE LIBERTY OF PRINTING
From the (Areopagitica)
F
latter ages.
OR, as in a body, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and
vigorous not only to vital but to rationall faculties, and those
in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit and suttlety,
it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is, so
when the cherfulnesse of the people is so sprightly up, as that
it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and
safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublim-
est points of controversie and new invention, it betok'ns us not
degenerated, nor drooping to a fatall decay, but casting off the
old and wrinci'd skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and
wax young again, entring the glorious waies of Truth and pros-
perous, vertue destin'd to become great and honourable in these
Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant
Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking
her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an Eagle muing her
mighty youth, and kindling her undazi'd eyes at the full mid-day
beam, purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fount-
ain itself of heav'nly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous
and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter
about, amaz'd at what she means, and in their envious gabble
would prognosticat a year of sects and schisms.
What should ye doe then, should ye suppresse all this flowry
crop of knowledge and new light, sprung up and yet springing
daily in this City, should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty ingross-
over it, to bring a famin upon our minds again, when we
shall know nothing but what is measur'd to us by their bushel ?
Beleeve it, Lords and Commons, they who counsell ye to such a
suppressing doe as good as bid ye suppresse yourselves; and
I will soon shew how. If it be desir'd to know the immediat
cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be
assign'd a truer then your own mild and free and human govern-
ment; it is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your own val-
orous and happy counsels have purchast us, liberty which is the
nurse of all great wits: this is that which hath rarify'd and enlight-
n'd our spirits like the influence of heav'n; this is that which
hath enfranchisid, enlarg'd and lifted up our apprehensions degrees
above themselves. Ye cannot make us now lesse capable, lesse
ers
## p. 10074 (#502) ##########################################
10074
JOHN MILTON
knowing, lesse eagarly pursuing of the truth, unlesse ye first
make your selves, that made us so, lesse the lovers, lesse the
founders of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brut-
ish, formall and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first
become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyr-
annous, as they were from whom ye have free'd us.
That our
hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the
search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the
issue of your owne vertu propagated in us; ye cannot suppresse
that unlesse ye reinforce an abrogated and mercilesse law, that
fathers may dispatch at will their own children. And who shall
then sticke closest to ye, and excite others ? Not he who takes
up armes for cote and conduct and his four nobles of Danegelt.
Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love
my peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know,
to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all
liberties.
ON ERRORS IN TEACHING
From the (Treatise on Education
He end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first
T"to
knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as
we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which
being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest
perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this body
found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive soe clearly to the
knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning
over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is neces-
sarily to be followed in all discreet teaching. And seeing every
nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kinds
of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of
those people who have at any time been most industrious after
wisdom; soe that language is but the instrument conveying to us
things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride
himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into,
yet if he have not studied the solid things in them, as well
as the words and lexicons, he were nothing soe much to be es-
teemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently
wise in his mother dialect only.
## p. 10075 (#503) ##########################################
JOHN MILTON
10075
Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning
generally soe unpleasing and soe unsuccessful: first, we doe amiss
to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together soe
much miserable Latin and Greek, as might be learned otherwise
easily and delightfully in one year. And that which casts our
proficiency therein so much behind, is our time lost partly in too
oft idle vacancies given both toe schools and universities; partly
in a preposterous exaction, forcing the empty wits of children to
compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of ripest
judgment, and the final work of a head filled by long reading
and observing, with elegant maxims and copious invention. These
are not matters toe be wrung from poor striplings, like blood
out of the nose, or the plucking of untimely fruit. Besides the
ill habit which they get of wretched barbarizing against the Latin
and Greek idiom, with their untutored Anglicisms, odious toe
be read, yet not to be avoided without a well-continued and judi-
cious conversing among pure authors digested, which they scarce
taste. Whereas, if after some preparatory grounds of speech by
.
their certain forms got into memory, they were led toe the
praxis thereof in some chosen short book lessoned thoroughly toe
them, they might then forth with proceed to learn the substance
of good things, and arts in due order, which would bring the
whole language quickly into their power. This I take toe be
the most rationall and most profitable way of learning languages,
and whereby we may best hope toe give account toe God of
our youth spent herein.
And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it toe
be an old error of universities, not yet well recovered from the
scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning
with arts most easy (and those be such as are most obvious to
the sense), they present their young unmatriculated novices, at
first coming, with the most intellective abstractions of logic and
metaphysics; soe that they, having but newly left those gram-
matic flats and shallows where they stuck unreasonably, toe learn
a few words with lamentable construction, and now on the sud-
den transported under another climate, toe be tosst and turmoil'd
with their unballast'd wits in fathomless and unquiet deeps of
controversy, doe for the most part grow into hatred and contempt
of learning, mocked and delud'd all this while with ragged no-
tions and battlements, while they expected worthy and delightful
knowledge: till poverty or youthful years call them importunately
## p. 10076 (#504) ##########################################
10076
JOHN MILTON
their several waies, and hasten them, with the sway of friends,
either toe an ambitious and mercenary, or ignorantly zealous
divinity; some allur'd toe the trade of law, grounding their pur-
poses not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice
and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising
and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flow-
ing fees; others betake them to State affairs, with souls so un-
principled in virtue and true generous breeding that flattery and
court-shifts and tyrannous aphorisms appear toe them the highest
points of wisdom, instilling their barren hearts with a conscien-
tious slavery — if, as I rather think, it be not feigned. Others,
lastly, of a more delicious and airy spirit, retire themselves
(knowing no better) to the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living
out their days in feast and jollity; which indeed is the wisest and
safest course of all these, unless they were with more integrity
undertaken. And these are the errors, and these are the fruits
of misspending our prime youth at the schools and universities as
we doe, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as
were better unlearn'd.
I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of
what we should not doe, but straight conduct you to a hillside,
where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble
education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth,
so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on
every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming. I
doubt not but ye shall have more ado to drive our dullest and
laziest youth, our stocks and stubs, from the infinite desire of
such a happy nurture, than we have now to hale and drag our
choicest and hopefullest wits to that asinine feast of sow-thistles
and brambles, which is commonly sett before them as all the
food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docible age.
I call therefore a complete and generous education, that which
fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the
offices, both private and public, of peace and war. And how all
this may be done between twelve and one-and-twenty, less time
than is now bestowed in pure trifling at grammar and sophistry,
is to be thus ordered.
## p. 10077 (#505) ##########################################
10077
MIRABEAU
(1749–1791)
BY FRANCIS N. THORPE
1. 3
RHAT unparalleled social upheaval and reorganization called the
French Revolution was as productive of literature as of vio-
lence and change. To us it seems only literature, and its
actors only characters in comedy or tragedy. They believed that
they were thinking and doing for mankind, and their eloquence of
speech and action moved the world. Revolutionists who take charge
of such an upheaval inspire literature.
Rarely do they themselves produce it.
There are exceptions. Such was Gabriel-
Honoré de Riquetti, Count of Mirabeau,
born on the 9th of March, 1749, at Bignon.
The record of his life is stranger and more
fascinating than fiction. Its episodes have.
been the quarry of novelists and play-
wrights; its various fortunes, its immoral
depths, its political heights, have furnished
figures of speech for modern literature.
Judged by the standards of any other time
than his own, Mirabeau is
monster.
Judged by the standard of the half-century
MIRABEAU
he filled, he was the savior of the French,
the father of a people. From his birth to his death his career was
an open letter. He had no privacy. All is preserved, — sorrow, am-
bition, sin, power, eloquence, action, letters, pamphlets, octavos, and
the climax, — revolution. The world would scarcely produce such a
being now. His was the course of nature. It was possible in 1749,
in France.
Never was there child more ugly in face and feature; nor more
passionate and uncontrollable. Nature seemed to have played a
prank on the world in producing him. He defied law, morals, author-
ity; and because of defiance, was sent by his father to the dun-
geons ºf Castles If, and Joux, and Vincennes, in hopes of his death
by sickness, or starvation, or despair, or suicide. Yet from each he
managed to get release, and ever through grosser immoralities, as
a
## p. 10078 (#506) ##########################################
10078
MIRABEAU
would now be said; through intrigue, and friendships, and the collus-
ion of officials, as was said then. «Escape; flight into Switzerland,
to Holland, to England, and desperate poverty ever at his elbow.
He must write or starve. Whence there issued pamphlets, as on the
Order of Cincinnatus; on the Bank of Spain, called of St. Charles;
on the Bank of Discount; on the Water Company of Paris, and many
more. ” The pamphlets on French finance attacked the rotten system
of the ministry and compelled a reform — and the author's further
flight from arrest.
At thirty-one he was done with prison life; at thirty-seven he
went to Berlin with hope of making a living there by his writings.
He invaded the acquaintance of the Great Frederick, who broke his
rule against foreigners and met him, and recognized the man of
power at once. But the dying King had other questions on hand
than those Mirabeau might raise. To his successor, Frederick William
II. , Mirabeau sent a pamphlet of some eighty-four octavo pages, being
advice how to govern.
Meanwhile French finances were becoming more hopeless. Mira-
beau attacked the system which had been followed by Necker and by
his successor Calonne, in a fierce pamphlet called A Denunciation
of Stock-Jobbing to the King and the Assembly of Notables. A
decree in council suppressed the pamphlet, and Mirabeau fled from
Paris. He knew that he had caused the banishment of two of the
most disreputable speculators in the credit of the government.
During his imprisonment at If and Joux he had restlessly written
an essay on Despotism, and a pamphlet on Lettres-de-Cachet. '
whose publication had been quickly suppressed. But the time was
ready for them, and they were widely circulated and read. Mirabeau
was thinking aloud, as the French people were thinking in silence
and fiercely.
It was now 1787, and the meeting of the States-General probable.
De Brienne, the prime minister, was resolved not to summon them.
He was an embodiment of the ancien régime which was fast coming
to a close. Mirabeau returned to Paris, restless, discerning keenly
and accurately the condition of affairs; ambitious to direct them.
From this time his letters are the record of revolutionary directions.
His insight made his opinions prophetic. But though the fruit was
ripe, it still hung on the tree of monarchy. A zephyr would bring
it to the ground. Mirabeau at this time published his most import-
ant work, on the Prussian monarchy under Frederick the Great, with
an inquiry into the condition of the principal countries of Germany,
It was in eight octavo volumes, and reads like an extemporaneous
speech — but, a speech by Mirabeau. The world has accepted his por-
trait of Frederick.
1
1
## p. 10079 (#507) ##########################################
MIRABEAU
10079
ror.
The States-General, so ran the ministerial decree, shall meet on
the 1st of May, 1789. This was opportunity. Mirabeau sought a
constituency and an election. He found them in Aix. ( War with
the privileged and with privileges. ”—I myself shall be personally
very monarchic. »
This was his platform. His campaign was a suc-
cession of speeches and pamphlets. The people of Aix made him
their idol because he was their hope. His election decided the fate
of France. It was now 1789, the year of the Notables. The 4th of
May, and all Paris was out to behold this procession from Notre
Dame. All eyes were looking for Mirabeau. His ideas were well
known; his career had been most scandalous in an age of scandals.
The strong man, with the immense head and the lion's mane,- that
was he.
But there were others in the line. France did not yet know
Mirabeau. The King's address is over; the discussions begin. Every-
body is full of speech. What name shall the Assembly take? Mira-
beau proposed « The Representatives of the People of France, and
delivered the first oration that ever was heard by that people. He
spoke a second time, but in vain. The Members assumed the title of
“National Assembly. ” This was the beginning of the Reign of Ter-
The National Assembly was composed of a few men of landed
estate; a few eminent lawyers; but chiefly of adventurers without
fortune. "I should not be surprised,” remarked Mirabeau, “if civil
war were the result of their beautiful decree. ”
Meanwhile the King had been tampered with. On the 23d he
came into the Assembly in royal pomp. “I command you, gentle-
men, to disperse immediately, and to repair to-morrow morning to
your respective chambers, there to resume your sitting” — and the
King withdrew. Some of the clergy had joined the Assembly.
There was strong inclination to obey the royal command. Mirabeau
was quickly on his feet. "I call upon you, gentlemen, to assert your
dignity and legislative power, and to remember your oath [at the
Tennis Court] which will not permit you to disperse till you have
established the constitution. ” While he was sitting down, amidst
applause, the Marquis de Brézé, grand master of ceremonies, entered,
and turning to the President, Bailli, said, “You have heard the King's
orders. ”
“Yes, sir," flashed out Mirabeau: we have heard the intentions
that have been suggested to the King; and you, sir, who cannot be
his organ with the National Assembly,— you, who have here neither
place, nor voice, nor right of speech, you are not the person to
remind us thereof. Go, and tell those who sent you that we
here by the will of the people, and that we will only be driven
hence by the power of the bayonet. ”
That reply overthrew absolute monarchy in France, and began the
era of constitutional liberty. From the moment of that utterance,
»
are
## p. 10080 (#508) ##########################################
10080
MIRABEAU
Mirabeau became a political party in France; and he stood alone.
Then followed in quick succession his orations, unparalleled in French
annals, rarely equaled and still more seldom surpassed in those of any
other country.
Oratory is a form of genius; but it makes great demands of those
who follow it when the man and the occasion are past. Great indeed
is he whose reputation, based on eloquence, survives the rarages of
time. To Demosthenic eloquence, Mirabeau gave the full force of a
masterful genius for practical politics. Because he was a practical
statesman he stood alone, and was an enigma to his colleagues and
to the people whom he loved and served. His reputation does not
rest merely on a series of dazzling utterances, but on the sound ideas
he scattered so lavishly before the Assembly. He foresaw the death
of the King and Queen; the overthrow of monarchy and the Reign of
Terror. He knew the centuries of wrongs that must be righted to
save France from utter disintegration. Yet no word of vengeance
or anarchy dropped from him. He would save the monarchy, and
make it the centre of a constitutional system. Therefore his orations
dealt wholly with practical matters: civil organization; the veto power;
finance; trade; slavery; the landed estates; taxation; the balance
of powers under a constitution. He was neither of the Right nor of
the Left, but of the whole estate of the people. His speech on the
inviolability of letters ranks with Milton's defense of unlicensed
printing. From his first conception of a constitutional monarchy, as
announced by him in his appeal to the electors of Aix, he never
departed. Like Montesquieu, he had learned from the British consti-
tution, but his efforts to secure a like balance of functions for France
were unsuccessful. The Radicals demanded a general proscription:
Paris was with the Radicals, and Paris was France.
In the midst of his career, while yet in his second youth, he
was suddenly cut off, the victim of his uncontrollable passions. The
revolution was completing its twenty-third month. Mirabeau was
dead. Unparalleled honors were paid to his memory. The Assem-
bly voted him a public funeral. St. Généviève should be devoted to
the reception of his ashes, and the birthday of French liberty should
be his monument. Paris was in mourning. All parties followed the
illustrious dead to the Pantheon. Swiftly the shadow of grief passed
over France, and departments and cities held funeral services in his
memory. The poets and pamphleteers issued their formal lamenta-
tions; the theatres brought out Mirabeau in life and Mirabeau in
death.
He had struggled to save the monarchy, and to construct a na-
tional government based on constitutional liberty.
After the King's death the royal papers were found in the iron
chest; and among them several that disclosed Mirabeau's plans. He
## p. 10081 (#509) ##########################################
MIRABEAU
1008
had been dead two years. His honors were re-examined, his memory
put under arrest, his bust destroyed; and from the Assembly there
went forth a decree that the body of Honoré Gabriel Riquetti Mira-
beau should be withdrawn from the French Pantheon, and that the
body of Marat should be put in its place. Soon after, rude hands
flung his remains into the burying-place for criminals, in the Fau-
bourg of St. Marcel. To this day no sign marks his grave.
Frencio N. horpen
ON THE REMOVAL OF THE TROOPS AROUND PARIS
From a Speech in the National Assembly, July 1789
G
ENTLEMEN, the time presses. I reproach myself for every
moment that I steal from your sage deliberations; and I
hope that these considerations, rather indicated than pre-
sented by me,— but whose evidence appears to me irresistible,-
will be sufficient to pass the motion which I have the honor now
to propose to you:-
That there be presented to the King a humble address, de-
scribing to his Majesty the vivid alarm which has been felt in
this National Assembly of his kingdom by reason of the abuse
which has been made of the King's name, within a short time, in
order to permit the approach to the capital, and to this city of
Versailles, of an artillery train, and of enormous bodies of troops,
foreign and national; a large number of which troops are already
quartered in neighboring villages: and also, through this abuse
of the King's name, the announced formation of fixed camps in
the neighborhood of these two cities.
That there be represented to the King, not only how much
these measures are opposed to the gracious intentions of his
Majesty toward relieving his people, in the present unhappy con-
ditions of the dearness and scantiness of grain, but also how
much these measures are contrary to the liberty and to the honor
of the National Assembly; how adapted they are to alter that
mutual confidence between the King and his people which makes
the glory and the security of a monarch, and which alone can
insure the repose and the tranquillity of his kingdom; and in fine,
procure for the nation the inestimable results which the country
awaits from the labors and the zeal of this Assembly.
XVII—631
## p. 10082 (#510) ##########################################
10082
MIRABEAU
That his Majesty most respectfully be urged to reassure his
faithful subjects, by giving all necessary orders for the immediate
cessation of these measures, which are equally useless, dangerous,
and alarming; and also for the prompt return of the troops in
question, and of the artillery train, to the places from which
they have been brought.
And while waiting for this measure to be decided, and in
consequence of the disquietude and alarm which such a state
of affairs has brought to pass in the heart of the people, and
in order provisionally to maintain calm and tranquillity, let his
Majesty be begged to issue a command that in the two cities
of Paris and Versailles there shall be a levy of the civil guard,
which, acting under the orders of the King, will entirely suffice
for such duty without augmenting around the two cities in ques-
tion a population that must be supplied with food.
THE ADDRESS
SIRE, - You have invited the National Assembly to bestow on
you a mark of its confidence; in such a request you have gone
further than the most eager of its fervent hopes.
We have been imparting to your Majesty our most vivid
alarms: if we only were the object of them, if we had been so
weak as to be fearful only for ourselves, then your goodness
would condescend to reassure us; and moreover, in blaming us
for having been doubtful of your intentions toward us, you would
concentrate all our inquietudes, you would dissipate the cause
of them, and you would leave no uncertainty as to the position
before you of the National Assembly.
But, Sire, we do not implore your protection, for that would
be to accuse your justice: we have indeed felt fears, and we
dare to say that our fears are a part of the purest patriotism,
the interest of those who trust in us, of public tranquillity, and
of the happiness of that dear monarch, who, in making smooth
for our feet the road of happiness, certainly deserves to walk in
it himself without obstacles.
The promptings of your own heart, Sire — behold in them
the true safety of the French people. As soon as troops pour in
from all sides, as soon as camps are formed around us, the very
capital invested, we ask ourselves with astonishment, “Does the
King distrust the fidelity of his own people? If he had doubted
## p. 10083 (#511) ##########################################
MIRABEAU
10083
>>
that, would he not have confided to us his paternal chagrin ?
What are we to understand by this menacing procedure? Where
are those enemies of the State and of the King to be overcome ?
Where are the rebels, the conspirators, that it is necessary to
reduce to subjection ? ” One unanimous voice replies to this in
the capital and throughout the kingdom: "Our King is true to
us; we bless Heaven for the gift which Heaven has bestowed
upon us in his love. »
Sire, the religious convictions of your Majesty cannot waver
except under the pretext of public benefit.
If those who have given these counsels to our King had had
enough confidence in their own principles to unfold them to us,
such a moment would bring in the fairest triumph of truth.
The State has nothing to dread from the evil ideas of those
who dare to lay siege even to the throne, who do not respect the
confidence of the purest and most virtuous of princes. And how
do they contrive, Sire, to make you disbelieve in the attachment
and the love of your subjects ? Have you shed their blood ?
Are you cruel, implacable? Have you abused justice? Do the
people impute to you their own misfortunes ? Do they connect
your name with their calamities? Can they have said to you that
the nation is impatient under your yoke, that it is weary of the
sceptre of the Bourbons ? No, no, they have not done this. The
calumny they employ is at least not absurd; they seek something
like probability to give color to their dark treacheries.
Your Majesty has seen recently all your own government can
do for your people: subordination is re-established in your per-
turbed capital; the prisoners set at liberty by the multitude have
themselves reassumed their chains; public order, which would
perhaps have cost torrents of blood to re-establish had it been
done by force, has been re-established by one single word from
your mouth.
But that word was a word of
peace;
it was the
expression of your heart, and your subjects feel it their glory
never to resist that. How grand to exercise such authority! It
is that of Louis IX. , of Louis XII. , of Henri IV. ; it is the only
authority which can be worthy of you.
We should deceive you, Sire, if we did not add, forced by cir-
cumstances, that this kind of rule is the only one which to-day it
would be possible to exercise in France. France will not tolerate
the abuse of the best of kings, or that there should be set aside,
through untoward measures, that noble plan which he himself
has outlined. You have called us hither to adjust in concert with
## p. 10084 (#512) ##########################################
10084
MIRABEAU
(
you, the Constitution; to take measures for the regeneration of
the kingdom: this National Assembly has just declared solemnly
to you that your wishes shall be accomplished, that your prom-
ises are not vain, and that difficulties and terrors shall not retard
the work of the Assembly, nor intimidate in any way its courage.
But our enemies will presume to say, “What now is the harm
in the coming together of the troops ? ”
The danger, Sire, is pressing, is general, beyond all the calcu-
lations of human prudence.
The danger affects the people of your provinces. Once alarmed
as to our liberty, this alarm cannot be checked. Distance only
makes more of the matter, exaggerates everything, doubles, sharp-
ens, and poisons their disquietude.
The danger threatens the capital. With what sort of an eye
can a people in poverty, and tormented by most cruel anxieties,
see the poor relics of its own daily bread quarreled over by a
host of menacing soldiery? The mere presence of the military
will kindle excitement, and produce a general fermentation; and
the first act of real violence, originating under the pretext of a
matter for the police, may be the beginning of a horrible series
of calamities.
The danger threatens the troops themselves. French soldiers
brought near to the very centre of discussion, sharing in the
passions as well as in the interests of the people, can easily for-
get that enlistment has made them soldiers, in remembering that
nature has made them men.
The danger, Sire, menaces our own labors, which are our first
duty, and which will not have full success, genuine permanence,
except so far as the people regard them as the work absolutely
of our own free will. Besides this, there is a contagion in pas-
sionate popular movements. We are only men. Our defiance of
ourselves, the fear of appearing weak, can make us overshoot our
mark; we are besieged by violent and unregulated counsels; calm
reason and tranquil wisdom do not utter their oracles in the midst
of tumult, disorders, and scenes of faction.
The danger, Sire, is even more terrible; judge of its extent
by the alarms which bring us to you. Great revolutions have
had causes much less intelligible; more than one enterprise fatal
to nations and to kings has announced itself in a way less sin-
ister and less formidable. Do not give credence to those who
speak lightly to you of the nation at large; those who do not
know how to represent it before you except according to their
## p. 10085 (#513) ##########################################
MIRABEAU
10085
own views,- sometimes as insolent, rebellious, seditious,- some-
times as submissive, docile under the yoke, and ready to bend its
head to receive it. These two pictures are equally untruthful.
Always ready to obey you, Sire, since you command us in the
name of the law, our fidelity is without limits, as it is without
stain.
Ready to resist to a man the arbitrary commands of those
who are abusing your name,- since they are enemies of the law,
our devotion to your Majesty itself commands such resistance;
and it shall be to our eternal honor to have merited the re-
proaches that our firmness may bring upon us.
Sire, we conjure you, in the name of our fatherland, in the
name of your happiness and your glory, send back your soldiers
to the garrison posts whence your counselors have brought them;
dismiss that artillery destined to protect our frontiers; and above
all, send away the foreign troops,—those allies of the nation
that we paid to defend and not to disturb our firesides. Your
Majesty has no need of them: why should a monarch, adored
by twenty-five millions of Frenchmen, at an enormous cost draw
together around his throne so many thousands of foreigners ?
Sire, surrounded by your children, let our love be your guard !
The deputies of the nation are summoned to consecrate with you
the supreme rights of royalty, upon the immovable basis of a
people's liberty: while they are doing their duty, while they are
yielding to the dictates of their reason, of their sentiment, will
you expose them to the suspicion of having yielded not to these
things, but to fear? Ah! the authority that all hearts confer on
you is the only authority that is pure, the only authority that
cannot be defied; it is the just return for your benefits, and it is
the immortal appanage of princes, of whom you are the model.
THE ELEGY ON FRANKLIN
Pronounced in the National Assembly
F*
RANKLIN is dead! The genius that freed America, and poured
a flood of light over Europe, has returned to the bosom of
the Divinity.
The sage whom two worlds claim as their own, the man for
whom the history of science and the history of empires contend
## p. 10086 (#514) ##########################################
10086
MIRABEAU
with each other, held, without doubt, a high rank in the human
race.
Too long have political cabinets taken formal note of the
death of those who were great only in their funeral panegyr-
ics. Too long has the etiquette of courts prescribed hypocritical
mourning. Nations should wear mourning only for their bene-
factors. The representatives of nations should recommend to
their homage none but the heroes of humanity.
The Congress has ordained, throughout the United States, a
mourning of one month for the death of Franklin; and at this
moment America is paying this tribute of veneration and grati-
tude to one of the fathers of her Constitution.
Would it not become us, gentlemen, to join in this religious
act, to bear a part in this homage, rendered in the face of the
world, both to the rights of man and to the philosopher who has
most contributed to extend their sway over the whole earth?
Antiquity would have raised altars to this mighty genius, who, to
the advantage of mankind, compassing in his mind the heavens
and the earth, was able to restrain alike thunderbolts and tyrants.
Europe, enlightened and free, owes at least a token of remem-
brance and regret to one of the greatest men who have ever been
engaged in the service of philosophy and of liberty.
I propose that it be decreed that the National Assembly, dur-
ing three days, shall wear mourning for Benjamin Franklin.
A LETTER TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA
Yº
ou have reached the throne at a fortunate period. The age
is becoming daily more enlightened. It has labored for
your benefit, in collecting sound notions for you. It ex-
tends its influence over your nation, which so many circumstances
have kept behind others. Everything is now tested by a severe
logic. The men who see only a fellow-creature under the royal
mantle, and require that he should possess some virtue, are more
numerous than ever. Their suffrages cannot be dispensed with.
In their opinion, one kind of glory alone remains; every other
is exhausted. Military success, political talents, wonders in art,
improvements in science, have all appeared in turn, and their
light has blazed forth from one extremity of Europe to the
other. That enlightened benevolence which gives form and life
## p. 10087 (#515) ##########################################
MIRABEAU
10087
to empires has not yet appeared, pure and unmixed, upon a
throne. To you it belongs to place it there; this sublime glory
is reserved for you. Your predecessor gained battles enough,
perhaps too many; he has too much fatigued Fame's hundred
tongues, and exhausted military glory, for several reigns,— nay,
for several centuries.
With much greater facility you
may create a glory more pure and not less brilliant, which shall
be wholly your own. Frederick conquered the admiration of man-
kind, but he never won their love.
This love you may
entirely possess.
Do not, ah! do not neglect the treasure which Providence has
spread in your path. Deserve the blessings of the poor, the love
of your people, the respect of Europe, and the good wishes of
wise men.
Be just, be good, and you will be great and happy!
You wish to obtain, dread sir, the title of Great; but you
wish to receive it from the mouth of history, and from the suf-
frage of ages to come,- you would despise it from the mouths
of your courtiers. If you do that which the son of your slave
could do, ten times a day, better than yourself, they will tell you
that you have performed an extraordinary action! If you suffer
your passions to mislead you, they will say that you are right!
If you are as lavish of the blood of your subjects as of the waters
of your rivers, again will they tell you that you are right! If
you barter for gold the air that preserves life, they will say that
you are right! If you revenge yourself - you who are so power-
ful — they will continue to tell you that you are right!
They said the same thing when Alexander, in a drunken fit,
plunged his dagger into the bosom of his friend; they said the
same thing when Nero murdered his mother.
If you indefatigably perform your duties, without ever putting
off till the following day the burthen of the present day; if by
great and fruitful principles you can simplify these duties, and
reduce them within the capacity of a single man; if you give
your subjects all the freedom they can bear; if you can protect
every kind of property, and facilitate useful labor; if you terrify
petty oppressors who in your name would prevent men from
doing, for their own advantage, that which injures not their fel-
lows,-a unanimous shout will bless your authority, and render
it more sacred and more powerful. Everything will then be easy
for you, because the will and the strength of all will be united
to your own strength and your own will, and your labor will
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become every day less severe. Nature has made labor necessary
to man. It gives him also this precious advantage, that change
of labor is to him not only a relaxation but a source of pleasure.
Who, more easily than a king, can live in strict accordance with
this order of nature? A philosopher has said that "no man feels
such lassitude of spirit as a king”; he should have said, "a
slothful king. ” How could lassitude of mind fall upon a
ereign who did his duty ? Could he ever keep up his vigor of
intellect and preserve his health so well as by shielding himself,
under the pursuit of labor, from the disgust which every man of
sense must feel among those idle talkers, those inventors of ful-
some praises, who study their prince for no other purpose than
to corrupt, blind, and rob him ? Their sole art is to render him
indifferent and feeble, or else impatient, rude, and idle.
Your subjects will enjoy your virtues, which alone can preserve
and improve their patrimony. Your courtiers will cultivate your
defects, by which alone they can support their influence and their
expectations.
It is worthy of you not to govern too
much.
