"
He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were
horses.
He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were
horses.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 to v10 - Cal to Fro
We know, on the
best authority, that it prophesied nothing, even proposed nothing,
but only vetoed the rasher impulses of its human companion. But
to apply the tests of mere accuracy to Diogenes would be like criti-
cizing Uncle Remus for his sins against English syntax.
Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to
the third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers
of the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors.
LIFE OF SOCRATES
From the 'Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers >
SOCR
OCRATES was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phæna-
rete a midwife [as Plato also states in the 'Theætetus'], and
an Athenian, of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid
Euripides in composing his dramas. Hence Mnesimachus speaks
thus:
And again:
"This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians':
And Socrates has furnished him the sticks. "
"Euripides, Socratically patched. "
Callias also, in his 'Captives,' says:-
――
A-"Why art so solemn, putting on such airs?
B- Indeed I may; the cause is Socrates. "
Aristophanes, in the 'Clouds,' again, remarks:
"And this is he who for Euripides
Composed the talkative wise tragedies. "
## p. 4713 (#507) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4713
He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but
also of Damon, as Alexander states in his 'Successions. ' After
the former's condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the
natural philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave, and carried
stones. Some say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his;
they are clothed figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his 'Silli'
declares:
-
"From them proceeded the stone-polisher,
Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks,
Who taught the art of subtle argument,
The nose-in-air, mocker of orators,
Half Attic, the adept in irony. "
For he was also clever in discussion. But the Thirty Tyrants,
as Xenophon tells us, forbade him to teach the art of arguing.
Aristophanes also brings him on in comedy, making the Worse
Argument seem the better. He was moreover the first, with his
pupil schines, to teach oratory. He was likewise the first who
conversed about life, and the first of the philosophers who came
to his end by being condemned to death. We are also told that
he lent out money. At least, investing it, he would collect what
was due, and then after spending it invest again. But Demetrius
the Byzantine says it was Crito who, struck by the charm of his
character, took him out of the workshop and educated him.
Realizing that natural philosophy was of no interest to men,
it is said, he discussed ethics, in the workshops and in the
agora, and used to say he was seeking
"Whatsoever is good in human dwellings, or evil. ”
And very often, we are told, when in these discussions he con-
versed too violently, he was beaten or had his hair pulled out,
and was usually laughed to scorn. So once when he was kicked,
and bore it patiently, some one expressed surprise; but he said,
"If an ass had kicked me, would I bring an action against him?
>>>
Foreign travel he did not require, as most men do, except
when he had to serve in the army. At other times, remaining
in Athens, he disputed in argumentative fashion with those who
conversed with him, not so as to deprive them of their belief,
but to strive for the ascertainment of truth. They say Euripides
gave him the work of Heraclitus, and asked him, "What do you
think of it? " And he said, "What I understood is fine; I sup-
pose what I did not understand is, too; only it needs a Delian
## p. 4714 (#508) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4714
diver! " He attended also to physical training, and was in excel-
lent condition. Moreover, he went on the expedition to Am-
phipolis, and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the
battle of Delium he picked him up and saved him. Indeed,
when all the other Athenians were fleeing he retreated slowly,
turning about calmly, and on the lookout to defend himself if
attacked. He also joined the expedition to Potidæa-by sea,
for the war prevented a march by land; and it was there he
was said once to have remained standing in one position all
night. There too, it is said, he was pre-eminent in valor, but
gave up the prize to Alcibiades, of whom he is stated to have
been very fond. Ion of Chios says moreover that when young
he visited Samos with Archelaus, and Aristotle states that he
went to Delphi. Favorinus again, in the first book of his 'Com-
mentaries,' says he went to the Isthmus.
He was also very firm in his convictions and devoted to the
democracy, as was evident from his not yielding to Critias and
his associates when they bade him bring Leon of Salamis, a
wealthy man, to them to be put to death. He was also the only
one who opposed the condemnation of the ten generals. When
he could have escaped from prison, too, he would not. The
friends who wept at his fate he reproved, and while in prison he
composed those beautiful discourses.
He was also temperate and austere. Once, as Pamphila tells
us in the seventh book of her 'Commentaries,' Alcibiades offered
him a great estate, on which to build a house; and he said, "If
I needed sandals, and you offered me a hide from which to make
them for myself, I should be laughed at if I took it. " Often,
too, beholding the multitude of things for sale, he would say to
himself, "How many things I do not need! " He used constantly
to repeat aloud these iambic verses:-
"But silver plate and garb of purple dye
To actors are of use,- but not in life. "
He disdained the tyrants,-Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of
Crannon, Eurylochus of Melissa,-not accepting gifts from them.
nor visiting them. He was so regular in his way of living that
he was frequently the only one not ill when Athens was attacked
by the plague.
Aristotle says he wedded two wives, the first Xanthippe,
who bore him Lamprocles, and the second Myrto, daughter of
## p. 4715 (#509) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4715
Aristides the Just, whom he received without dowry and by
whom he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Some however say
he married Myrto first; and some again that he had them both
at once, as the Athenians on account of scarcity of men passed
a law to increase the population, permitting any one to marry
one Athenian woman and have children by another; so Socrates
did this.
He was a man also able to disdain those who mocked him.
He prided himself on his simple manner of living, and never
exacted any pay.
He used to say he who ate with best appetite
had least need of delicacies, and he who drank with best appetite
had least need to seek a draught not at hand; and that he who
had fewest needs was nearest the gods. This indeed we may
learn from the comic poets, who in their very ridicule covertly
praise him. Thus Aristophanes says:
"O thou who hast righteously set thy heart on attaining to noble
wisdom,
[Hellenes!
How happy the life thou wilt lead among the Athenians and the
Shrewdness and memory both are thine, and energy unwearied
Of mind; and never art thou tired from standing or from walking.
By cold thou art not vexed at all, nor dost thou long for breakfast.
Wine thou dost shun, and gluttony, and every other folly. "
Ameipsias also, bringing him upon the stage in the philoso-
pher's cloak, says: -
"O Socrates, best among few men, most foolish of many, thou also
Art come unto us; thou'rt a patient soul; but where didst get that
doublet?
That wretched thing in mockery was presented by the cobblers!
Yet though so hungry, he never however has stooped to flatter a
mortal. "
This disdain and arrogance in Socrates has also been exposed
by Aristophanes, who says:-
"Along the streets you haughtily strut; your eyes roll hither and
thither:
Barefooted, enduring discomforts, you go with countenance solemn
among us. "
And yet sometimes, suiting himself to the occasion, he dressed
finely; as when for instance in Plato's 'Symposium' he goes to
Agathon's.
## p. 4716 (#510) ###########################################
4716
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
He was a man able both to urge others to action, and to
dissuade them. Thus, when he conversed with Theætetus on
Knowledge, he sent him away inspired, as Plato says. Again,
when Euthyphron had indicted his own father for manslaughter,
by conversing with him on piety Socrates turned him from his
purpose. Lysis also by his exhortations he rendered a most
moral man. He was moreover skillful in fitting his arguments
to the circumstances. He changed the feeling of his son Lam-
procles when he was enraged with his mother, as Xenophon some-
where relates. Plato's brother Glaucon, who wished to be active
in politics, he dissuaded because of his inexperience, as Xenophon
states; but Charmides on the other hand, who was well fitted,
he urged on. He roused the spirit of Iphicrates the general
also, pointing out to him the cocks of Midias the barber fighting
those of Callias. He said it was strange that every man could
tell easily how many sheep he had, but could not call by name
the friends whom he had acquired, so negligent were men in
that regard. Once seeing Euclid devoting great pains to cap-
tious arguments, he said, "O Euclid, you will be able to manage
sophists-but men, never! " For he thought hair-splitting on
such matters useless, as Plato also says in his 'Euthydemus. '
When Glaucon offered him some slaves, so that he might
make a profit on them, he did not take them.
-
He praised leisure as the best of possessions, as Xenophon
also says in his 'Symposium. ' He used to say, too, that there
was but one good — knowledge; and one evil — ignorance. Wealth
and birth, he said, had no value, but were on the contrary
wholly an evil. So when some one told him Antisthenes's mother
was a Thracian, "Did you think," quoth he, "so fine a man
must be the child of two Athenians? " When Phædo had been
captured in war and shamefully enslaved, Socrates bade Crito
ransom him, and made him a philosopher.
He also learned, when already an old man, to play the lyre,
saying there was no absurdity in learning what one did not
know. He used to dance frequently, too, thinking this exercise
helpful to health. This Xenophon tells us in the 'Symposium. '
He used to say that his Dæmon foretold future events: and
that he knew nothing, except that very fact that he did know
nothing. Those who bought at a great price what was out of
season, he said, had no hope of living till the season came around.
Once being asked what was virtue in a young man, he said,
## p. 4717 (#511) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4717
"To avoid excess in all things. " He used to say one should study
geometry (surveying) just enough to be able to measure land in
buying and selling it.
When Euripides in the 'Auge' said of virtue: -
"These things were better left to lie untouched,»
he rose up and left the theatre, saying it was absurd to think it
proper to seek for a slave if he was not to be found, but to let
virtue perish unregarded. When his advice was asked whether
to marry or not, he said, "Whichever you do, you will regret it! "
He used to say that he marveled that those who made stone
statues took pains to make the stone as like the man as possible,
but took none with themselves, that they might not be like the
stone. He thought it proper for the young to look constantly in
the mirror, so that if they had beauty they might prove them-
selves worthy of it, and if they were ugly, that they might con-
ceal their ugliness by their accomplishments.
When he had invited rich friends to dinner, and Xanthippe
was ashamed, he said, "Do not be troubled. If they are sensible,
they will bear with us. If not, we shall care nothing for them. "
Most men, he said, lived to eat; but he ate to live. As to those
who showed regard for the opinions of the ignoble multitude, he
said it was as if a man should reject one tetradrachm [coin] as
worthless, but accept a heap of such coins as good. When
Eschines said, "I am poor and have nothing else, but I give you
myself," he said, "Do you then not realize you are offering me
the greatest of gifts? " To him who said, "The Athenians have
condemned you to death," he responded, "And nature has con-
demned them also thereto:" though some ascribe this to Anax-
agoras. When his wife exclaimed, "You die innocent! " he
answered, "Do you wish I were guilty? "
When a vision in sleep seemed to say:-
"Three days hence thou'lt come to the fertile region of Phthia,”
he said to Æschines, "On the third day I shall die. " When he
was to drink the hemlock, Apollodorus gave him a fine garment
to die in: "But why," quoth he, "is this garment of mine good
enough to live in, but not to perish in? " To him who said,
"So-and-so speaks ill of you," he answered, "Yes, he has not
learned to speak well. " When Antisthenes turned the ragged
side of his cloak to the light, he remarked, "I see your vanity.
-
## p. 4718 (#512) ###########################################
4718
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
through your cloak. " He declared we ought to put ourselves
expressly at the service of the comedy writers: "For if they say
anything about us that is true, they will correct us; and if what
they say be untrue, it does not concern us at all. ”
When Xanthippe had first reviled him, then drenched him
with water, "Didn't I tell you," said he, "it was thundering and
would soon rain? " To Alcibiades, who said Xanthippe's scolding
was unbearable, he replied, "I am accustomed to it, as to a con-
stantly creaking pulley. And you," he added, "endure the cack-
ling of geese. " Alcibiades said, "Yes, for they bring me eggs
and goslings. " "And Xanthippe," retorted Socrates, "bears me
children. " Once when she pulled off his cloak in the agora, his
friends advised him to defend himself with force. "Yes," said
he, "by Jove, so that as we fight, each of you may cry, 'Well
done, Socrates! ' 'Good for you, Xanthippe! '" He used to say
he practiced on Xanthippe just as trainers do with spirited horses.
"Just as they if they master them are able to control any other
horse, so I who am accustomed to Xanthippe shall get on easily
with any one else. "
It was for such words and acts as this that the Delphic priest-
ess bore witness in his honor, giving to Chairephon that famous
response:
"Wisest of all mankind is Socrates. "
He became extremely unpopular on account of this oracle;
but also because he convicted of ignorance those who had a great
opinion of themselves, particularly Anytus, as Plato also says in
the 'Meno. ' For Anytus, enraged at the ridicule Socrates brought
upon him, first urged Aristophanes and the rest on to attack
him, and then induced Meletus to join in indicting him for impi-
ety and for corrupting the young men. Plato in the 'Apology'
says there were three accusers,- Anytus, Lycon, and Meletus:
Anytus being incensed at him in behalf of the artisans and poli-
ticians, Lycon for the orators, and Meletus for the poets, all of
whom Socrates pulled to pieces. The sworn statement of the
plaintiffs ran as follows; for it is still recorded, Favorinus says,
in the State archives:-"Socrates is guilty, not honoring the
gods whom the State honors, but introducing other strange divin-
ities; and he is further guilty of corrupting the young.
Penalty,
death. "
When Lysias wrote a speech for his defense, he read it, and
said, "A fine speech, Lysias, but not suited to me;" for indeed
## p. 4719 (#513) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4719
it was rather a lawyer's plea than a philosopher's. Lysias said,
"But why, if the speech is a fine one, should it not be suitable
for you? " Socrates replied, "Would not fine robes, then, and
sandals, be unfitting for me? "
While he was on trial, it is stated that Plato ascended the
bema and began, "Being the youngest, O men of Athens, of all
who ever came upon the bema"- but at this point the judges
cried out, «< Come down come down! " So he was convicted by
two hundred and eighty-one votes more than were cast for his
acquittal. And when the judges considered what penalty or fine
he should receive, he said he would pay five-and-twenty drachmæ.
Euboulides says he agreed to pay a hundred, but when the
judges expressed their indignation aloud, he said, "For what I
have done, I consider the proper return to be support at the
public expense in the town hall. " But they condemned him to
death, the vote being larger than before by eighty.
Not many days later he drank the hemlock in the prison,
after uttering many noble words, recorded by Plato in the
'Phædo. According to some, he wrote a poem beginning -
<< Greeting, Apollo of Delos, and Artemis, youthful and famous. ”
He also versified, not very successfully, a fable of Æsop's
which began-
"Æsop once to the people who dwell in the city of Corinth
Said, 'Let virtue be judged not by the popular voice. › »
So he passed from among men; but straightway the Athenians
repented of their action, so that they closed the gymnasia, and
exiling the other accusers, put Meletus to death. Socrates they
honored with a statue of bronze, the work of Lysippus, which
was set up in the Pompeion. Anytus in exile, entering Heraclea,
was warned out of town that very day.
The Athenians have had the same experience not only in Soc-
rates's case, but with many others. Indeed, it is stated that they
fined Homer as a madman, and adjudged Tyrtæus to be crazy.
Euripides reproves them in the 'Palamedes,' saying:-
"Ye have slain, ye have slain the all-wise, the harmless nightin-
gale of the Muses. "
That is so. But Philochorus says Euripides died before Socrates.
## p. 4720 (#514) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4720
Socrates and Euripides were both disciples of Anaxagoras.
It appears to me, too, that Socrates did talk on natural philoso-
phy. In fact, Xenophon says so, though he states that Socrates.
held discourse only upon moral questions. Plato indeed, in the
'Apology,' mentioning Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers,
himself says of them things whereof Socrates denies any knowl-
edge; yet it is all ascribed to Socrates.
Aristotle states that a certain mage from Syria came to
Athens, and among other prophecies concerning Socrates foretold
that his death would be a violent one.
The following verses upon him are our own:
Drink, in the palace of Zeus, O Socrates, seeing that truly
Thou by a god wert called wise, who is wisdom itself.
Foolish Athenians, who to thee offered the potion of hemlock,
Through thy lips themselves draining the cup to the dregs!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William
C. Lawton.
EXAMPLES OF GREEK WIT AND WISDOM
BIAS
The ves-
ON
NCE he was on a voyage with some impious men.
sel was overtaken by a storm, and they began to call upon
the gods for aid. But Bias said, "Be silent, so they may
not discover that you are aboard our ship! "
He declared it was pleasanter to decide a dispute between his
enemies than between friends. "For of two friends," he ex-
plained, "one is sure to become my enemy; but of two enemies
I make one friend. "
PLATO
IT is said Socrates, in a dream, seemed to be holding on his
knees a cygnet, which suddenly grew wings and flew aloft, sing-
ing sweetly. Next day Plato came to him; and Socrates said he
was the bird.
It is told that Plato, once seeing a man playing at dice,
reproved him. "The stake is but a trifle," said the other. "Yes,
but," responded Plato, "the habit is no trifle. "
Once when Xenocrates came into Plato's house, the latter
bade him scourge his slave for him, explaining that he could not
## p. 4721 (#515) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4721
do it himself, because he was angry. Again, he said to one
of his slaves, "You would have had a beating if I were not
angry.
>>
ARISTIPPUS
«<
DIONYSIUS Once asked him why it is that the philosophers are
seen at rich men's doors, not the rich men at the doors of the
sages. Aristippus replied, Because the wise realize what they
lack, but the rich do not. " On a repetition of the taunt on an-
other occasion he retorted, "Yes, and physicians are seen at sick
men's doors; yet none would choose to be the patient rather than
the leech! "
Once when overtaken by a storm on a voyage to Corinth, he
was badly frightened. Somebody said to him, "We ordinary folk
are not afraid, but you philosophers play the coward. " "Yes,"
was his reply, we are not risking the loss of any such wretched
life as yours.
<<
Some one reproached him for his extravagance in food. He
answered, "If you could buy these same things for threepence,
wouldn't you do it? "-"Oh yes. "Why then, 'tis not I who
am too fond of the luxurious food, but you that are over-fond of
your money! "
ARISTOTLE
WHEN asked, "What is Hope? " he answered, "The dream of
a man awake. " Asked what grows old quickest, he replied,
"Gratitude. " When told that some one had slandered him in
his absence, he said, "He may beat me too-in my absence! "
Being asked how much advantage the educated have over the
ignorant, he replied, "As much as the living over the dead. "
Some one asked him why we spend much time in the society
of the beautiful. "That," he said, "is a proper question for a
blind man! " [Cf. Emerson's 'Rhodora. ']
Once being asked how we should treat our friends, he said,
"As we would wish them to treat us. " Asked what a friend is,
he answered, "One soul abiding in two bodies. "
VIII-296
## p. 4722 (#516) ###########################################
4722
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
THEOPHRASTUS
To A man who at a feast was persistently silent, he remarked,
"If you are ignorant, you are acting wisely; if you are intelligent,
you are behaving foolishly. "
DEMETRIUS
IT WAS a saying of his that to friends in prosperity we should'
go when invited, but to those in misfortune unbidden.
When told that the Athenians had thrown down his statues,
he answered, "But not my character, for which they erected
them. "
ANTISTHENES
SOME one asked him what he gained from philosophy. He
replied, "The power to converse with myself.
"
He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were
horses. When they thought that irrational, he said, “But cer-
tainly, your generals are not such because they have learned any-
thing, but simply because you have elected them! "
DIOGENES
HE USED to say that when in the course of his life he saw
pilots, and physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the most
sensible of animals; but when he saw interpreters of dreams, and
soothsayers, and those who paid attention to them, and those
puffed up by fame or wealth, he believed no creature was sillier
than man.
Some said to him, "You are an old man.
Take life easy
now. " He replied,
He replied, "And if I were running the long-distance
race, should I when nearing the goal slacken, and not rather
exert myself? "
When he saw a child drink out of his hands, he took the cup
out of his wallet and flung it away, saying, "A child has beaten
me in simplicity. "
He used to argue thus, "All things belong to the gods. The
wise are the friends of the gods. The goods of friends are com-
mon property. Therefore all things belong to the wise. "
To one who argued that motion was impossible, he made no
answer, but rose and walked away.
## p. 4723 (#517) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4723
When the Athenians urged him to be initiated into the Mys-
teries, assuring him that in Hades those who were initiated have
the front seats, he replied, "It is ludicrous, if Agesilaus and
Epaminondas are to abide in the mud, and some ignoble wretches
who are initiated are to dwell in the Isles of the Blest! "
Plato made the definition "Man is a two-footed featherless
animal," and was much praised for it. Diogenes plucked a fowl
and brought it into his school, saying "This is Plato's man! "
So the addition was made to the definition, "with broad nails. "
When a man asked him what was the proper hour for lunch,
he said, "If you are rich, when you please; if you are poor,
when you can get it. "
He used often to shout aloud that an easy life had been given
by the gods to men, but they had covered it from sight in their
search for honey-cakes and perfumes and such things.
The musician who was always left alone by his hearers he
greeted with "Good morning, cock! " When the other asked
him the reason, he said, "Because your music starts everybody
up. ”
When an exceedingly superstitious man said to him, "With
one blow I will break your head! " he retorted, "And with a
sneeze at your left side I will make you tremble. "
«<
When asked what animal had the worst bite, he said, Of.
wild beasts, the sycophant; and of tame creatures, the flatterer. ”
Being asked when was the proper time to marry, he responded,
"For young men, not yet; and for old men, not at all. "
When he was asked what sort of wine he enjoyed drink-
ing, he answered, "Another man's. " [Of a different temper
was Dante, who knew too well "how salt the bread of others
tastes! "]
Some one advised him to hunt up his runaway slave. But
he replied, "It is ridiculous if Manes lives without Diogenes, but
Diogenes cannot without Manes. "
When asked why men give to beggars, but not to philoso-
phers, he said, "Because they expect themselves to become lame
and blind; but philosophers, never! "
CLEANTHES
WHEN a comic actor apologized for having ridiculed him from
the stage, he answered gently, "It would be preposterous, when
## p. 4724 (#518) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4724
Bacchus and Hercules bear the raillery of the poets without
showing any anger, if I should be indignant when I chance to
be attacked. "
PYTHAGORAS
Precepts
Do NOT stir the fire with a sword.
Do not devour your heart.
Always have your bed packed up.
Do not walk in the main street.
Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.
Avoid a sharp sword.
When you travel abroad, look not back at your own borders.
[Diogenes explains this: be resigned to death. ]
Consider nothing exclusively your own.
Destroy no cultivated tree, or harmless animal.
Modesty and decorum consist in never yielding to laughter,
and yet not looking stern. [Cf. Emerson on Manners. ]
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William C.
Lawton.
## p. 4725 (#519) ###########################################
4725
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
(1766-1848)
MONG the writers whose education and whose tastes were the
outcome of the classicism of the eighteenth century, yet
whose literary life lapped over into the Victorian epoch,
was Isaac D'Israeli, born at Enfield in May 1766. D'Israeli was of
Jewish origin, his ancestors having fled from the Spanish persecu-
tions of the fifteenth century to find a home in Venice, whence a
younger branch migrated to England.
At the time of his birth his family had stood for generations among
the foremost English Jews, his father hav-
ing been made a citizen by special legisla-
tion. The boy, however, did not inherit
the commercial spirit which had established
his house. He was a lover of books and
a dreamer of dreams, and so early devel-
oped literary tendencies that his frightened
father sent him off to Amsterdam to school,
in the hope of curing proclivities so dan-
gerous. Here he became familiar with the
works of the Encyclopædists, and adopted
the theories of Rousseau. On returning to
England in his nineteenth year, he replied
to his father's proposition that he should
enter a commercial house at Bordeaux, by
a long poem in which he passionately inveighed against the commer-
cial spirit, and avowed himself a student of philosophy and letters.
His father's reluctant acquiescence was obtained at last through the
good offices of the laureate Pye, to whom the youth had already
dedicated his first book, 'A Defence of Poetry. '
At the outset of his career he found himself received with consid-
eration by the men whose acquaintance he most desired. Following
the fashion of the day, and inspired by the books of anecdotes so
successfully published by his friend Douce, D'Israeli in 1791 pro-
duced anonymously a small volume entitled 'Curiosities of Litera-
ture,' the copyright of which he magnanimously presented to his
publisher. The extraordinary success of this book can be accounted
for only by the curious taste of the time, which still reflected the
more unworthy traditions of the Addisonian era. It was an age of
clubs and tea-tables, of society scandal-mongering and fireside gossip;
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
## p. 4726 (#520) ###########################################
4726
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
and the reading public welcomed a contribution whose refined dilet-
tantism so well matched its own. The mysteries of Eleusis and the
origin of wigs received the same grave attention. This popularity
induced D'Israeli to buy back the copyright at a generous valuation;
he enlarged the work to five volumes, which passed through twelve
in his own lifetime, and still serves to illustrate a curious literary
phase.
Other compilations of similar nature met the same success: 'The
Calamities of Authors,' 'Quarrels of Authors,' and 'Literary Recol-
lections'; but the Amenities of Literature,' his last work, is the
most purely literary in form, and affords perhaps the best index to
D'Israeli's abilities as a writer. The reader of to-day, however, is
struck by the ephemeral nature of this criticism, which yet by a
curious literary experience is keeping a place among the permanent
productions of its age. The reader is everywhere impressed by the
human sympathy, by the wide if rather superficial knowledge, and
by innumerable felicities of expression and style, which betray the
cultivated mind. To lovers of the curious the books still appeal, and
they will continue to hold an honorable place among the bric-a-brac
of literature.
The spirit of curiosity which characterized the mind of D'Israeli
assumed its most dignified concrete form in the 'Commentaries on
the Reign of Charles I. ' D'Israeli had an artistic sense of the values
in a historical picture, with a keen perception of the importance of
side lights; and although the book is not a great contribution to the
literature of history, yet it became popular, and in July 1832 earned
for its author the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford.
D'Israeli's romances were tedious tales, but his hold upon the pub-
lic was secure, and the vast amount of miscellaneous matter which
he published always found a delighted audience. The Genius of
Judaism,' a philosophical inquiry into the historical significance of
the permanence of the Jewish race, showed the author's psychic limi-
tations. He designed a history of English literature, for which he
had gathered much material, but increasing blindness forced him to
abandon it. Much of D'Israeli's popularity was unquestionably due
to his qualities of heart. His nature was fine; he was an affectionate
and devoted friend, and held an enviable position in the literary cir-
cles of the day. Campbell, Byron, Rogers, and Scott alike admired
and loved him, while a host of lesser men eagerly sought his friend-
ship.
Although brought up in the Jewish faith, D'Israeli affiliated early
in life with the Church of England, in which his three sons and one
daughter were baptized. He died in 1848, and was buried at Bran-
denham. Twenty years later his daughter-in-law, the Countess of
Beaconsfield, erected at Hughenden a monument to his memory.
## p. 4727 (#521) ###########################################
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4727
POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS MADE BY ACCIDENT
From Curiosities of Literature'
Α
CCIDENT has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses.
to display their powers. It was at Rome, says Gibbon, on
the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the
ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing
vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the
decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Father Malebranche, having completed his studies in philos-
ophy and theology without any other intention than devoting
himself to some religious order, little expected the celebrity his
works acquired for him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop
of a bookseller, and turning over a parcel of books, 'L'Homme
de Descartes' fell into his hands. Having dipt into some parts,
he read with such delight that the palpitations of his heart com-
pelled him to lay the volume down. It was this circumstance
that produced those profound contemplations which made him the
Plato of his age.
Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apart-
ment he found, when very young, Spenser's 'Fairy Queen,' and
by a continual study of poetry he became so enchanted of the
Muse that he grew irrecoverably a poet.
Dr. Johnson informs us that Sir Joshua Reynolds had the
first fondness of his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's
Treatise.
Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics.
His taste was first determined by an accident: when young, he
frequently attended his mother to the residence of her confessor;
and while she wept with repentance, he wept with weariness! In
this state of disagreeable vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck
with the uniform motion of the pendulum of the clock in the
hall. His curiosity was roused; he approached the clock-case,
and studied its mechanism; what he could not discover he
guessed at. He then projected a similar machine, and gradually
his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success, he
proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius which thus
could form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton.
If Shakespeare's imprudence had not obliged him to quit his
wool trade and his town; if he had not engaged with a company
## p. 4728 (#522) ###########################################
4728
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
of actors, and at length, disgusted with being an indifferent per-
former, he had not turned author, the prudent wool-seller had
never been the celebrated poet.
Accident determined the taste of Molière for the stage. His
grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there.
The young man lived in dissipation; the father, observing it,
asked in anger if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to
God," replied the grandfather, "he was as good an actor as
Montrose. " The words struck young Molière; he took a disgust
to his tapestry trade; and it is to this circumstance France owes
her greatest comic writer.
Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a
poet, composed Mélite,' and afterwards his other celebrated
works. The discreet Corneille had remained a lawyer.
Thus it is that the devotion of a mother, the death of Crom-
well, deer-stealing, the exclamation of an old man, and the
beauty of a woman, have given five illustrious characters to
Europe.
We owe the great . discovery of Newton to a very trivial acci-
dent. When a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the
time of the plague into the country. As he was reading under
an apple-tree, one of the fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow
on the head. When he observed the smallness of the apple, he
was surprised at the force of the stroke. This led him to con-
sider the accelerating motion of falling bodies; from whence he
deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the foundation of his
philosophy.
Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman who was danger-
ously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his
imagination by reading the Lives of the Saints, which were
brought to him in his illness instead of a romance, he conceived
a strong ambition to be the founder of a religious order; whence
originated the celebrated society of the Jesuits.
Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the
advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy
of Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated
Declamation against the arts and sciences; a circumstance which
determined his future literary efforts.
La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any
profession or devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally
heard some verses of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which
## p. 4729 (#523) ###########################################
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4729
directed his future life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and
was so exquisitely delighted with this poet that after passing the
nights in treasuring his verses in his memory, he would run in
the daytime to the woods, where, concealing himself, he would
recite his verses to the surrounding dryads.
Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken
from school on account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book
'De Sphæra having been lent to him, he was so pleased with
it that he immediately began a course of astronomic studies.
Pennant's first propensity to natural history was the pleasure he
received from an accidental perusal of Willoughby's work on
birds; the same accident, of finding on the table of his professor
Reaumur's 'History of Insects,' of which he read more than
he attended to the lecture, and having been refused the loan,
gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet that he has-
tened to obtain a copy, but found many difficulties in procuring
this costly work. Its possession gave an unalterable direction to
his future life: this naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by
his devotion to the microscope.
Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar
accident. "I found a work of Defoe's, entitled an Essay on
Projects,' from which perhaps I derived impressions that have
since influenced some of the principal events of my life. "
I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to
write his Schoolmaster,' one of the most curious and useful
treatises among our elder writers.
At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil during the plague in
1563, at his apartments at Windsor, where the Queen had taken
refuge, a number of ingenious men were invited. Secretary
Cecil communicated the news of the morning, that several schol-
ars at Eton had run away on account of their master's severity,
which he condemned as a great error in the education of youth.
Sir William Petre maintained the contrary; severe in his own
temper, he pleaded warmly in defense of hard flogging. Dr.
Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the Secretary. Sir John
Mason, adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded
the hard-hearted Sir William Petre, and adduced as an evidence
that the best schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flog-
ger. Then was it that Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed
that if such a master had an able scholar it was owing to the
boy's genius and not the preceptor's rod. Secretary Cecil and
## p. 4730 (#524) ###########################################
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4730
others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir Richard Sack-
ville was silent; but when Ascham after dinner went to the
Queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him
aside, and frankly told him that though he had taken no part
in the debate he would not have been absent from that conversa-
tion for a great deal; that he knew to his cost the truth Ascham
had supported, for it was the perpetual flogging of such a
schoolmaster that had given him an unconquerable aversion to
study. And as he wished to remedy this defect in his own
children, he earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his observations.
on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance which pro-
duced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham.
THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES THE FIRST
From the Commentaries on the Reign of Charles the First'
AT
T WHITEHALL a repast had been prepared. The religious
emotions of Charles had consecrated the sacrament, which
he refused to mingle with human food. The Bishop, whose
mind was unequal to conceive the intrepid spirit of the King,
dreading lest the magnanimous monarch, overcome by the sever-
ity of the cold, might faint on the scaffold, prevailed on him to
eat half a manchet of bread and taste some claret. But the more
consolatory refreshment of Charles had been just imparted to
him in that singular testimony from his son, who had sent a carte
blanche to save the life of his father at any price. This was a
thought on which his affections could dwell in face of the scaf-
fold which he was now to ascend.
Charles had arrived at Whitehall about ten o'clock, and was
not led to the scaffold till past one. It was said that the scaffold
was not completed; it might have been more truly said that the
conspirators were not ready. There was a mystery in this delay.
The fate of Charles the First to the very last moment was in sus-
pense. Fairfax, though at the time in the palace, inquired of
Herbert how the King was, when the King was no more! and
expressed his astonishment on hearing that the execution had
just taken place. This extraordinary simplicity and abstraction
from the present scene of affairs has been imputed to the Gen-
eral as an act of refined dissimulation, yet this seems uncertain.
The Prince's carte blanche had been that morning confided to his
## p. 4731 (#525) ###########################################
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4731
hands, and he surely must have laid it before the "Grandees of
the Army," as this new order of the rulers of England was
called. Fairfax, whose personal feelings respecting the King were
congenial with those his lady had so memorably evinced, labored
to defer for a few days the terrible catastrophe; not without the
hope of being able, by his own regiment and others in the army,
to prevent the deed altogether. It is probable-inexplicable as
it may seem to us-that the execution of Charles the First really
took place unknown to the General. Fairfax was not unaccus-
tomed to discover that his colleagues first acted, and afterwards
trusted to his own discernment.
Secret history has not revealed all that passed in those three
awful hours. We know, however, that the warrant for the exe-
cution was not signed till within a few minutes before the King
was led to the scaffold. In an apartment in the Palace, Ireton and
Harrison were in bed together, and Cromwell, with four colonels,
assembled in it. Colonel Huncks refused to sign the warrant.
Cromwell would have no further delay, reproaching the Colonel
as "a peevish, cowardly fellow," and Colonel Axtell declared that
he was ashamed for his friend Huncks, remonstrating with him,
that "the ship is coming into the harbor, and now would he
strike sail before we come to anchor? " Cromwell stepped to a
table, and wrote what he had proposed to Huncks; Colonel
Hacker, supplying his place, signed it, and with the ink hardly
dry, carried the warrant in his hand and called for the King.
At the fatal summons Charles rose with alacrity. The King
passed through the long gallery by a line of soldiers. Awe and
sorrow seem now to have mingled in their countenances. Their
barbarous commanders were intent on their own triumph, and
no farther required the forced cry of "Justice and Execution. "
Charles stepped out of an enlarged window of the Banqueting
House, where a new opening leveled it with the scaffold. Charles
came forward with the same indifference as "he would have
entered Whitehall on a masque night," as an intelligent observer
described. The King looked towards St. James's and smiled.
Curious eyes were watchful of his slightest motions; and the
Commonwealth papers of the day express their surprise, perhaps
their vexation, at the unaltered aspect and the firm step of the
Monarch. These mean spirits had flattered themselves that he
who had been cradled in royalty, who had lived years in the
fields of honor, and was now, they presumed, a recreant in
## p. 4732 (#526) ###########################################
4732
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
imprisonment,-"the grand Delinquent of England,”—as they
called him, would start in horror at the block.
This last triumph at least was not reserved for them,—it was
for the King. Charles, dauntless, strode "the floor of Death," to
use Fuller's peculiar but expressive phraseology. He looked on
the block with the axe lying upon it, with attention; his only
anxiety was that the block seemed not sufficiently raised, and
that the edge of the axe might be turned by being swept by the
flappings of cloaks, or blunted by the feet of some moving about
the scaffold. "Take care they do not put me pain! - Take
heed of the axe! take heed of the axe! " exclaimed the King to
a gentleman passing by. "Hurt not the axe; that may hurt
me! " His continued anxiety concerning these circumstances
proves that he felt not the terror of death, solely anxious to
avoid the pain, for he had an idea of their cruelty. With that
sedate thoughtfulness which was in all his actions, he only looked
at the business of the hour. One circumstance Charles observed
with a smile. They had a notion that the King would resist the
executioner; on the suggestion of Hugh Peters, it is said, they
had driven iron staples and ropes into the scaffold, that their
victim, if necessary, might be bound down upon the block.
The King's speech has many remarkable points, but certainly
nothing so remarkable as the place where it was delivered. This
was the first "King's Speech" spoken from a scaffold. Time
shall confirm, as history has demonstrated, his principle that
"They mistook the nature of government; for people are free
under a government, not by being sharers in it, but by the due
administration of the laws. " "It was for this," said Charles,
"that now I am come here. If I could have given way to an
arbitrary sway, for to have all laws changed according to the
power of the sword, I need not have come here; and therefore
I tell you that I am the Martyr of the People! »
## p. 4733 (#527) ###########################################
4733
SYDNEY DOBELL
(1824-1874)
YDNEY DOBELL, the son of a wine merchant, was born at Cran-
brook in Kent. His parents, both persons of strong indi-
viduality, believed in home training, and not one of their
eight children went either to school or to university. They belonged
to the Broad Church Community founded by Sydney's maternal grand-
father, Samuel Thompson; a church intended to recall in its princi-
ples the primitive Christian ages.
best authority, that it prophesied nothing, even proposed nothing,
but only vetoed the rasher impulses of its human companion. But
to apply the tests of mere accuracy to Diogenes would be like criti-
cizing Uncle Remus for his sins against English syntax.
Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to
the third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers
of the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors.
LIFE OF SOCRATES
From the 'Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers >
SOCR
OCRATES was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phæna-
rete a midwife [as Plato also states in the 'Theætetus'], and
an Athenian, of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid
Euripides in composing his dramas. Hence Mnesimachus speaks
thus:
And again:
"This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians':
And Socrates has furnished him the sticks. "
"Euripides, Socratically patched. "
Callias also, in his 'Captives,' says:-
――
A-"Why art so solemn, putting on such airs?
B- Indeed I may; the cause is Socrates. "
Aristophanes, in the 'Clouds,' again, remarks:
"And this is he who for Euripides
Composed the talkative wise tragedies. "
## p. 4713 (#507) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4713
He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but
also of Damon, as Alexander states in his 'Successions. ' After
the former's condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the
natural philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave, and carried
stones. Some say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his;
they are clothed figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his 'Silli'
declares:
-
"From them proceeded the stone-polisher,
Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks,
Who taught the art of subtle argument,
The nose-in-air, mocker of orators,
Half Attic, the adept in irony. "
For he was also clever in discussion. But the Thirty Tyrants,
as Xenophon tells us, forbade him to teach the art of arguing.
Aristophanes also brings him on in comedy, making the Worse
Argument seem the better. He was moreover the first, with his
pupil schines, to teach oratory. He was likewise the first who
conversed about life, and the first of the philosophers who came
to his end by being condemned to death. We are also told that
he lent out money. At least, investing it, he would collect what
was due, and then after spending it invest again. But Demetrius
the Byzantine says it was Crito who, struck by the charm of his
character, took him out of the workshop and educated him.
Realizing that natural philosophy was of no interest to men,
it is said, he discussed ethics, in the workshops and in the
agora, and used to say he was seeking
"Whatsoever is good in human dwellings, or evil. ”
And very often, we are told, when in these discussions he con-
versed too violently, he was beaten or had his hair pulled out,
and was usually laughed to scorn. So once when he was kicked,
and bore it patiently, some one expressed surprise; but he said,
"If an ass had kicked me, would I bring an action against him?
>>>
Foreign travel he did not require, as most men do, except
when he had to serve in the army. At other times, remaining
in Athens, he disputed in argumentative fashion with those who
conversed with him, not so as to deprive them of their belief,
but to strive for the ascertainment of truth. They say Euripides
gave him the work of Heraclitus, and asked him, "What do you
think of it? " And he said, "What I understood is fine; I sup-
pose what I did not understand is, too; only it needs a Delian
## p. 4714 (#508) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4714
diver! " He attended also to physical training, and was in excel-
lent condition. Moreover, he went on the expedition to Am-
phipolis, and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the
battle of Delium he picked him up and saved him. Indeed,
when all the other Athenians were fleeing he retreated slowly,
turning about calmly, and on the lookout to defend himself if
attacked. He also joined the expedition to Potidæa-by sea,
for the war prevented a march by land; and it was there he
was said once to have remained standing in one position all
night. There too, it is said, he was pre-eminent in valor, but
gave up the prize to Alcibiades, of whom he is stated to have
been very fond. Ion of Chios says moreover that when young
he visited Samos with Archelaus, and Aristotle states that he
went to Delphi. Favorinus again, in the first book of his 'Com-
mentaries,' says he went to the Isthmus.
He was also very firm in his convictions and devoted to the
democracy, as was evident from his not yielding to Critias and
his associates when they bade him bring Leon of Salamis, a
wealthy man, to them to be put to death. He was also the only
one who opposed the condemnation of the ten generals. When
he could have escaped from prison, too, he would not. The
friends who wept at his fate he reproved, and while in prison he
composed those beautiful discourses.
He was also temperate and austere. Once, as Pamphila tells
us in the seventh book of her 'Commentaries,' Alcibiades offered
him a great estate, on which to build a house; and he said, "If
I needed sandals, and you offered me a hide from which to make
them for myself, I should be laughed at if I took it. " Often,
too, beholding the multitude of things for sale, he would say to
himself, "How many things I do not need! " He used constantly
to repeat aloud these iambic verses:-
"But silver plate and garb of purple dye
To actors are of use,- but not in life. "
He disdained the tyrants,-Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of
Crannon, Eurylochus of Melissa,-not accepting gifts from them.
nor visiting them. He was so regular in his way of living that
he was frequently the only one not ill when Athens was attacked
by the plague.
Aristotle says he wedded two wives, the first Xanthippe,
who bore him Lamprocles, and the second Myrto, daughter of
## p. 4715 (#509) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4715
Aristides the Just, whom he received without dowry and by
whom he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Some however say
he married Myrto first; and some again that he had them both
at once, as the Athenians on account of scarcity of men passed
a law to increase the population, permitting any one to marry
one Athenian woman and have children by another; so Socrates
did this.
He was a man also able to disdain those who mocked him.
He prided himself on his simple manner of living, and never
exacted any pay.
He used to say he who ate with best appetite
had least need of delicacies, and he who drank with best appetite
had least need to seek a draught not at hand; and that he who
had fewest needs was nearest the gods. This indeed we may
learn from the comic poets, who in their very ridicule covertly
praise him. Thus Aristophanes says:
"O thou who hast righteously set thy heart on attaining to noble
wisdom,
[Hellenes!
How happy the life thou wilt lead among the Athenians and the
Shrewdness and memory both are thine, and energy unwearied
Of mind; and never art thou tired from standing or from walking.
By cold thou art not vexed at all, nor dost thou long for breakfast.
Wine thou dost shun, and gluttony, and every other folly. "
Ameipsias also, bringing him upon the stage in the philoso-
pher's cloak, says: -
"O Socrates, best among few men, most foolish of many, thou also
Art come unto us; thou'rt a patient soul; but where didst get that
doublet?
That wretched thing in mockery was presented by the cobblers!
Yet though so hungry, he never however has stooped to flatter a
mortal. "
This disdain and arrogance in Socrates has also been exposed
by Aristophanes, who says:-
"Along the streets you haughtily strut; your eyes roll hither and
thither:
Barefooted, enduring discomforts, you go with countenance solemn
among us. "
And yet sometimes, suiting himself to the occasion, he dressed
finely; as when for instance in Plato's 'Symposium' he goes to
Agathon's.
## p. 4716 (#510) ###########################################
4716
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
He was a man able both to urge others to action, and to
dissuade them. Thus, when he conversed with Theætetus on
Knowledge, he sent him away inspired, as Plato says. Again,
when Euthyphron had indicted his own father for manslaughter,
by conversing with him on piety Socrates turned him from his
purpose. Lysis also by his exhortations he rendered a most
moral man. He was moreover skillful in fitting his arguments
to the circumstances. He changed the feeling of his son Lam-
procles when he was enraged with his mother, as Xenophon some-
where relates. Plato's brother Glaucon, who wished to be active
in politics, he dissuaded because of his inexperience, as Xenophon
states; but Charmides on the other hand, who was well fitted,
he urged on. He roused the spirit of Iphicrates the general
also, pointing out to him the cocks of Midias the barber fighting
those of Callias. He said it was strange that every man could
tell easily how many sheep he had, but could not call by name
the friends whom he had acquired, so negligent were men in
that regard. Once seeing Euclid devoting great pains to cap-
tious arguments, he said, "O Euclid, you will be able to manage
sophists-but men, never! " For he thought hair-splitting on
such matters useless, as Plato also says in his 'Euthydemus. '
When Glaucon offered him some slaves, so that he might
make a profit on them, he did not take them.
-
He praised leisure as the best of possessions, as Xenophon
also says in his 'Symposium. ' He used to say, too, that there
was but one good — knowledge; and one evil — ignorance. Wealth
and birth, he said, had no value, but were on the contrary
wholly an evil. So when some one told him Antisthenes's mother
was a Thracian, "Did you think," quoth he, "so fine a man
must be the child of two Athenians? " When Phædo had been
captured in war and shamefully enslaved, Socrates bade Crito
ransom him, and made him a philosopher.
He also learned, when already an old man, to play the lyre,
saying there was no absurdity in learning what one did not
know. He used to dance frequently, too, thinking this exercise
helpful to health. This Xenophon tells us in the 'Symposium. '
He used to say that his Dæmon foretold future events: and
that he knew nothing, except that very fact that he did know
nothing. Those who bought at a great price what was out of
season, he said, had no hope of living till the season came around.
Once being asked what was virtue in a young man, he said,
## p. 4717 (#511) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4717
"To avoid excess in all things. " He used to say one should study
geometry (surveying) just enough to be able to measure land in
buying and selling it.
When Euripides in the 'Auge' said of virtue: -
"These things were better left to lie untouched,»
he rose up and left the theatre, saying it was absurd to think it
proper to seek for a slave if he was not to be found, but to let
virtue perish unregarded. When his advice was asked whether
to marry or not, he said, "Whichever you do, you will regret it! "
He used to say that he marveled that those who made stone
statues took pains to make the stone as like the man as possible,
but took none with themselves, that they might not be like the
stone. He thought it proper for the young to look constantly in
the mirror, so that if they had beauty they might prove them-
selves worthy of it, and if they were ugly, that they might con-
ceal their ugliness by their accomplishments.
When he had invited rich friends to dinner, and Xanthippe
was ashamed, he said, "Do not be troubled. If they are sensible,
they will bear with us. If not, we shall care nothing for them. "
Most men, he said, lived to eat; but he ate to live. As to those
who showed regard for the opinions of the ignoble multitude, he
said it was as if a man should reject one tetradrachm [coin] as
worthless, but accept a heap of such coins as good. When
Eschines said, "I am poor and have nothing else, but I give you
myself," he said, "Do you then not realize you are offering me
the greatest of gifts? " To him who said, "The Athenians have
condemned you to death," he responded, "And nature has con-
demned them also thereto:" though some ascribe this to Anax-
agoras. When his wife exclaimed, "You die innocent! " he
answered, "Do you wish I were guilty? "
When a vision in sleep seemed to say:-
"Three days hence thou'lt come to the fertile region of Phthia,”
he said to Æschines, "On the third day I shall die. " When he
was to drink the hemlock, Apollodorus gave him a fine garment
to die in: "But why," quoth he, "is this garment of mine good
enough to live in, but not to perish in? " To him who said,
"So-and-so speaks ill of you," he answered, "Yes, he has not
learned to speak well. " When Antisthenes turned the ragged
side of his cloak to the light, he remarked, "I see your vanity.
-
## p. 4718 (#512) ###########################################
4718
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
through your cloak. " He declared we ought to put ourselves
expressly at the service of the comedy writers: "For if they say
anything about us that is true, they will correct us; and if what
they say be untrue, it does not concern us at all. ”
When Xanthippe had first reviled him, then drenched him
with water, "Didn't I tell you," said he, "it was thundering and
would soon rain? " To Alcibiades, who said Xanthippe's scolding
was unbearable, he replied, "I am accustomed to it, as to a con-
stantly creaking pulley. And you," he added, "endure the cack-
ling of geese. " Alcibiades said, "Yes, for they bring me eggs
and goslings. " "And Xanthippe," retorted Socrates, "bears me
children. " Once when she pulled off his cloak in the agora, his
friends advised him to defend himself with force. "Yes," said
he, "by Jove, so that as we fight, each of you may cry, 'Well
done, Socrates! ' 'Good for you, Xanthippe! '" He used to say
he practiced on Xanthippe just as trainers do with spirited horses.
"Just as they if they master them are able to control any other
horse, so I who am accustomed to Xanthippe shall get on easily
with any one else. "
It was for such words and acts as this that the Delphic priest-
ess bore witness in his honor, giving to Chairephon that famous
response:
"Wisest of all mankind is Socrates. "
He became extremely unpopular on account of this oracle;
but also because he convicted of ignorance those who had a great
opinion of themselves, particularly Anytus, as Plato also says in
the 'Meno. ' For Anytus, enraged at the ridicule Socrates brought
upon him, first urged Aristophanes and the rest on to attack
him, and then induced Meletus to join in indicting him for impi-
ety and for corrupting the young men. Plato in the 'Apology'
says there were three accusers,- Anytus, Lycon, and Meletus:
Anytus being incensed at him in behalf of the artisans and poli-
ticians, Lycon for the orators, and Meletus for the poets, all of
whom Socrates pulled to pieces. The sworn statement of the
plaintiffs ran as follows; for it is still recorded, Favorinus says,
in the State archives:-"Socrates is guilty, not honoring the
gods whom the State honors, but introducing other strange divin-
ities; and he is further guilty of corrupting the young.
Penalty,
death. "
When Lysias wrote a speech for his defense, he read it, and
said, "A fine speech, Lysias, but not suited to me;" for indeed
## p. 4719 (#513) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4719
it was rather a lawyer's plea than a philosopher's. Lysias said,
"But why, if the speech is a fine one, should it not be suitable
for you? " Socrates replied, "Would not fine robes, then, and
sandals, be unfitting for me? "
While he was on trial, it is stated that Plato ascended the
bema and began, "Being the youngest, O men of Athens, of all
who ever came upon the bema"- but at this point the judges
cried out, «< Come down come down! " So he was convicted by
two hundred and eighty-one votes more than were cast for his
acquittal. And when the judges considered what penalty or fine
he should receive, he said he would pay five-and-twenty drachmæ.
Euboulides says he agreed to pay a hundred, but when the
judges expressed their indignation aloud, he said, "For what I
have done, I consider the proper return to be support at the
public expense in the town hall. " But they condemned him to
death, the vote being larger than before by eighty.
Not many days later he drank the hemlock in the prison,
after uttering many noble words, recorded by Plato in the
'Phædo. According to some, he wrote a poem beginning -
<< Greeting, Apollo of Delos, and Artemis, youthful and famous. ”
He also versified, not very successfully, a fable of Æsop's
which began-
"Æsop once to the people who dwell in the city of Corinth
Said, 'Let virtue be judged not by the popular voice. › »
So he passed from among men; but straightway the Athenians
repented of their action, so that they closed the gymnasia, and
exiling the other accusers, put Meletus to death. Socrates they
honored with a statue of bronze, the work of Lysippus, which
was set up in the Pompeion. Anytus in exile, entering Heraclea,
was warned out of town that very day.
The Athenians have had the same experience not only in Soc-
rates's case, but with many others. Indeed, it is stated that they
fined Homer as a madman, and adjudged Tyrtæus to be crazy.
Euripides reproves them in the 'Palamedes,' saying:-
"Ye have slain, ye have slain the all-wise, the harmless nightin-
gale of the Muses. "
That is so. But Philochorus says Euripides died before Socrates.
## p. 4720 (#514) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4720
Socrates and Euripides were both disciples of Anaxagoras.
It appears to me, too, that Socrates did talk on natural philoso-
phy. In fact, Xenophon says so, though he states that Socrates.
held discourse only upon moral questions. Plato indeed, in the
'Apology,' mentioning Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers,
himself says of them things whereof Socrates denies any knowl-
edge; yet it is all ascribed to Socrates.
Aristotle states that a certain mage from Syria came to
Athens, and among other prophecies concerning Socrates foretold
that his death would be a violent one.
The following verses upon him are our own:
Drink, in the palace of Zeus, O Socrates, seeing that truly
Thou by a god wert called wise, who is wisdom itself.
Foolish Athenians, who to thee offered the potion of hemlock,
Through thy lips themselves draining the cup to the dregs!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William
C. Lawton.
EXAMPLES OF GREEK WIT AND WISDOM
BIAS
The ves-
ON
NCE he was on a voyage with some impious men.
sel was overtaken by a storm, and they began to call upon
the gods for aid. But Bias said, "Be silent, so they may
not discover that you are aboard our ship! "
He declared it was pleasanter to decide a dispute between his
enemies than between friends. "For of two friends," he ex-
plained, "one is sure to become my enemy; but of two enemies
I make one friend. "
PLATO
IT is said Socrates, in a dream, seemed to be holding on his
knees a cygnet, which suddenly grew wings and flew aloft, sing-
ing sweetly. Next day Plato came to him; and Socrates said he
was the bird.
It is told that Plato, once seeing a man playing at dice,
reproved him. "The stake is but a trifle," said the other. "Yes,
but," responded Plato, "the habit is no trifle. "
Once when Xenocrates came into Plato's house, the latter
bade him scourge his slave for him, explaining that he could not
## p. 4721 (#515) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4721
do it himself, because he was angry. Again, he said to one
of his slaves, "You would have had a beating if I were not
angry.
>>
ARISTIPPUS
«<
DIONYSIUS Once asked him why it is that the philosophers are
seen at rich men's doors, not the rich men at the doors of the
sages. Aristippus replied, Because the wise realize what they
lack, but the rich do not. " On a repetition of the taunt on an-
other occasion he retorted, "Yes, and physicians are seen at sick
men's doors; yet none would choose to be the patient rather than
the leech! "
Once when overtaken by a storm on a voyage to Corinth, he
was badly frightened. Somebody said to him, "We ordinary folk
are not afraid, but you philosophers play the coward. " "Yes,"
was his reply, we are not risking the loss of any such wretched
life as yours.
<<
Some one reproached him for his extravagance in food. He
answered, "If you could buy these same things for threepence,
wouldn't you do it? "-"Oh yes. "Why then, 'tis not I who
am too fond of the luxurious food, but you that are over-fond of
your money! "
ARISTOTLE
WHEN asked, "What is Hope? " he answered, "The dream of
a man awake. " Asked what grows old quickest, he replied,
"Gratitude. " When told that some one had slandered him in
his absence, he said, "He may beat me too-in my absence! "
Being asked how much advantage the educated have over the
ignorant, he replied, "As much as the living over the dead. "
Some one asked him why we spend much time in the society
of the beautiful. "That," he said, "is a proper question for a
blind man! " [Cf. Emerson's 'Rhodora. ']
Once being asked how we should treat our friends, he said,
"As we would wish them to treat us. " Asked what a friend is,
he answered, "One soul abiding in two bodies. "
VIII-296
## p. 4722 (#516) ###########################################
4722
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
THEOPHRASTUS
To A man who at a feast was persistently silent, he remarked,
"If you are ignorant, you are acting wisely; if you are intelligent,
you are behaving foolishly. "
DEMETRIUS
IT WAS a saying of his that to friends in prosperity we should'
go when invited, but to those in misfortune unbidden.
When told that the Athenians had thrown down his statues,
he answered, "But not my character, for which they erected
them. "
ANTISTHENES
SOME one asked him what he gained from philosophy. He
replied, "The power to converse with myself.
"
He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were
horses. When they thought that irrational, he said, “But cer-
tainly, your generals are not such because they have learned any-
thing, but simply because you have elected them! "
DIOGENES
HE USED to say that when in the course of his life he saw
pilots, and physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the most
sensible of animals; but when he saw interpreters of dreams, and
soothsayers, and those who paid attention to them, and those
puffed up by fame or wealth, he believed no creature was sillier
than man.
Some said to him, "You are an old man.
Take life easy
now. " He replied,
He replied, "And if I were running the long-distance
race, should I when nearing the goal slacken, and not rather
exert myself? "
When he saw a child drink out of his hands, he took the cup
out of his wallet and flung it away, saying, "A child has beaten
me in simplicity. "
He used to argue thus, "All things belong to the gods. The
wise are the friends of the gods. The goods of friends are com-
mon property. Therefore all things belong to the wise. "
To one who argued that motion was impossible, he made no
answer, but rose and walked away.
## p. 4723 (#517) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4723
When the Athenians urged him to be initiated into the Mys-
teries, assuring him that in Hades those who were initiated have
the front seats, he replied, "It is ludicrous, if Agesilaus and
Epaminondas are to abide in the mud, and some ignoble wretches
who are initiated are to dwell in the Isles of the Blest! "
Plato made the definition "Man is a two-footed featherless
animal," and was much praised for it. Diogenes plucked a fowl
and brought it into his school, saying "This is Plato's man! "
So the addition was made to the definition, "with broad nails. "
When a man asked him what was the proper hour for lunch,
he said, "If you are rich, when you please; if you are poor,
when you can get it. "
He used often to shout aloud that an easy life had been given
by the gods to men, but they had covered it from sight in their
search for honey-cakes and perfumes and such things.
The musician who was always left alone by his hearers he
greeted with "Good morning, cock! " When the other asked
him the reason, he said, "Because your music starts everybody
up. ”
When an exceedingly superstitious man said to him, "With
one blow I will break your head! " he retorted, "And with a
sneeze at your left side I will make you tremble. "
«<
When asked what animal had the worst bite, he said, Of.
wild beasts, the sycophant; and of tame creatures, the flatterer. ”
Being asked when was the proper time to marry, he responded,
"For young men, not yet; and for old men, not at all. "
When he was asked what sort of wine he enjoyed drink-
ing, he answered, "Another man's. " [Of a different temper
was Dante, who knew too well "how salt the bread of others
tastes! "]
Some one advised him to hunt up his runaway slave. But
he replied, "It is ridiculous if Manes lives without Diogenes, but
Diogenes cannot without Manes. "
When asked why men give to beggars, but not to philoso-
phers, he said, "Because they expect themselves to become lame
and blind; but philosophers, never! "
CLEANTHES
WHEN a comic actor apologized for having ridiculed him from
the stage, he answered gently, "It would be preposterous, when
## p. 4724 (#518) ###########################################
DIOGENES LAERTIUS
4724
Bacchus and Hercules bear the raillery of the poets without
showing any anger, if I should be indignant when I chance to
be attacked. "
PYTHAGORAS
Precepts
Do NOT stir the fire with a sword.
Do not devour your heart.
Always have your bed packed up.
Do not walk in the main street.
Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.
Avoid a sharp sword.
When you travel abroad, look not back at your own borders.
[Diogenes explains this: be resigned to death. ]
Consider nothing exclusively your own.
Destroy no cultivated tree, or harmless animal.
Modesty and decorum consist in never yielding to laughter,
and yet not looking stern. [Cf. Emerson on Manners. ]
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William C.
Lawton.
## p. 4725 (#519) ###########################################
4725
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
(1766-1848)
MONG the writers whose education and whose tastes were the
outcome of the classicism of the eighteenth century, yet
whose literary life lapped over into the Victorian epoch,
was Isaac D'Israeli, born at Enfield in May 1766. D'Israeli was of
Jewish origin, his ancestors having fled from the Spanish persecu-
tions of the fifteenth century to find a home in Venice, whence a
younger branch migrated to England.
At the time of his birth his family had stood for generations among
the foremost English Jews, his father hav-
ing been made a citizen by special legisla-
tion. The boy, however, did not inherit
the commercial spirit which had established
his house. He was a lover of books and
a dreamer of dreams, and so early devel-
oped literary tendencies that his frightened
father sent him off to Amsterdam to school,
in the hope of curing proclivities so dan-
gerous. Here he became familiar with the
works of the Encyclopædists, and adopted
the theories of Rousseau. On returning to
England in his nineteenth year, he replied
to his father's proposition that he should
enter a commercial house at Bordeaux, by
a long poem in which he passionately inveighed against the commer-
cial spirit, and avowed himself a student of philosophy and letters.
His father's reluctant acquiescence was obtained at last through the
good offices of the laureate Pye, to whom the youth had already
dedicated his first book, 'A Defence of Poetry. '
At the outset of his career he found himself received with consid-
eration by the men whose acquaintance he most desired. Following
the fashion of the day, and inspired by the books of anecdotes so
successfully published by his friend Douce, D'Israeli in 1791 pro-
duced anonymously a small volume entitled 'Curiosities of Litera-
ture,' the copyright of which he magnanimously presented to his
publisher. The extraordinary success of this book can be accounted
for only by the curious taste of the time, which still reflected the
more unworthy traditions of the Addisonian era. It was an age of
clubs and tea-tables, of society scandal-mongering and fireside gossip;
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
## p. 4726 (#520) ###########################################
4726
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
and the reading public welcomed a contribution whose refined dilet-
tantism so well matched its own. The mysteries of Eleusis and the
origin of wigs received the same grave attention. This popularity
induced D'Israeli to buy back the copyright at a generous valuation;
he enlarged the work to five volumes, which passed through twelve
in his own lifetime, and still serves to illustrate a curious literary
phase.
Other compilations of similar nature met the same success: 'The
Calamities of Authors,' 'Quarrels of Authors,' and 'Literary Recol-
lections'; but the Amenities of Literature,' his last work, is the
most purely literary in form, and affords perhaps the best index to
D'Israeli's abilities as a writer. The reader of to-day, however, is
struck by the ephemeral nature of this criticism, which yet by a
curious literary experience is keeping a place among the permanent
productions of its age. The reader is everywhere impressed by the
human sympathy, by the wide if rather superficial knowledge, and
by innumerable felicities of expression and style, which betray the
cultivated mind. To lovers of the curious the books still appeal, and
they will continue to hold an honorable place among the bric-a-brac
of literature.
The spirit of curiosity which characterized the mind of D'Israeli
assumed its most dignified concrete form in the 'Commentaries on
the Reign of Charles I. ' D'Israeli had an artistic sense of the values
in a historical picture, with a keen perception of the importance of
side lights; and although the book is not a great contribution to the
literature of history, yet it became popular, and in July 1832 earned
for its author the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford.
D'Israeli's romances were tedious tales, but his hold upon the pub-
lic was secure, and the vast amount of miscellaneous matter which
he published always found a delighted audience. The Genius of
Judaism,' a philosophical inquiry into the historical significance of
the permanence of the Jewish race, showed the author's psychic limi-
tations. He designed a history of English literature, for which he
had gathered much material, but increasing blindness forced him to
abandon it. Much of D'Israeli's popularity was unquestionably due
to his qualities of heart. His nature was fine; he was an affectionate
and devoted friend, and held an enviable position in the literary cir-
cles of the day. Campbell, Byron, Rogers, and Scott alike admired
and loved him, while a host of lesser men eagerly sought his friend-
ship.
Although brought up in the Jewish faith, D'Israeli affiliated early
in life with the Church of England, in which his three sons and one
daughter were baptized. He died in 1848, and was buried at Bran-
denham. Twenty years later his daughter-in-law, the Countess of
Beaconsfield, erected at Hughenden a monument to his memory.
## p. 4727 (#521) ###########################################
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4727
POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS MADE BY ACCIDENT
From Curiosities of Literature'
Α
CCIDENT has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses.
to display their powers. It was at Rome, says Gibbon, on
the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the
ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing
vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the
decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Father Malebranche, having completed his studies in philos-
ophy and theology without any other intention than devoting
himself to some religious order, little expected the celebrity his
works acquired for him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop
of a bookseller, and turning over a parcel of books, 'L'Homme
de Descartes' fell into his hands. Having dipt into some parts,
he read with such delight that the palpitations of his heart com-
pelled him to lay the volume down. It was this circumstance
that produced those profound contemplations which made him the
Plato of his age.
Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apart-
ment he found, when very young, Spenser's 'Fairy Queen,' and
by a continual study of poetry he became so enchanted of the
Muse that he grew irrecoverably a poet.
Dr. Johnson informs us that Sir Joshua Reynolds had the
first fondness of his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's
Treatise.
Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics.
His taste was first determined by an accident: when young, he
frequently attended his mother to the residence of her confessor;
and while she wept with repentance, he wept with weariness! In
this state of disagreeable vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck
with the uniform motion of the pendulum of the clock in the
hall. His curiosity was roused; he approached the clock-case,
and studied its mechanism; what he could not discover he
guessed at. He then projected a similar machine, and gradually
his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success, he
proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius which thus
could form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton.
If Shakespeare's imprudence had not obliged him to quit his
wool trade and his town; if he had not engaged with a company
## p. 4728 (#522) ###########################################
4728
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
of actors, and at length, disgusted with being an indifferent per-
former, he had not turned author, the prudent wool-seller had
never been the celebrated poet.
Accident determined the taste of Molière for the stage. His
grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there.
The young man lived in dissipation; the father, observing it,
asked in anger if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to
God," replied the grandfather, "he was as good an actor as
Montrose. " The words struck young Molière; he took a disgust
to his tapestry trade; and it is to this circumstance France owes
her greatest comic writer.
Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a
poet, composed Mélite,' and afterwards his other celebrated
works. The discreet Corneille had remained a lawyer.
Thus it is that the devotion of a mother, the death of Crom-
well, deer-stealing, the exclamation of an old man, and the
beauty of a woman, have given five illustrious characters to
Europe.
We owe the great . discovery of Newton to a very trivial acci-
dent. When a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the
time of the plague into the country. As he was reading under
an apple-tree, one of the fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow
on the head. When he observed the smallness of the apple, he
was surprised at the force of the stroke. This led him to con-
sider the accelerating motion of falling bodies; from whence he
deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the foundation of his
philosophy.
Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman who was danger-
ously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his
imagination by reading the Lives of the Saints, which were
brought to him in his illness instead of a romance, he conceived
a strong ambition to be the founder of a religious order; whence
originated the celebrated society of the Jesuits.
Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the
advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy
of Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated
Declamation against the arts and sciences; a circumstance which
determined his future literary efforts.
La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any
profession or devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally
heard some verses of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which
## p. 4729 (#523) ###########################################
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4729
directed his future life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and
was so exquisitely delighted with this poet that after passing the
nights in treasuring his verses in his memory, he would run in
the daytime to the woods, where, concealing himself, he would
recite his verses to the surrounding dryads.
Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken
from school on account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book
'De Sphæra having been lent to him, he was so pleased with
it that he immediately began a course of astronomic studies.
Pennant's first propensity to natural history was the pleasure he
received from an accidental perusal of Willoughby's work on
birds; the same accident, of finding on the table of his professor
Reaumur's 'History of Insects,' of which he read more than
he attended to the lecture, and having been refused the loan,
gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet that he has-
tened to obtain a copy, but found many difficulties in procuring
this costly work. Its possession gave an unalterable direction to
his future life: this naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by
his devotion to the microscope.
Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar
accident. "I found a work of Defoe's, entitled an Essay on
Projects,' from which perhaps I derived impressions that have
since influenced some of the principal events of my life. "
I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to
write his Schoolmaster,' one of the most curious and useful
treatises among our elder writers.
At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil during the plague in
1563, at his apartments at Windsor, where the Queen had taken
refuge, a number of ingenious men were invited. Secretary
Cecil communicated the news of the morning, that several schol-
ars at Eton had run away on account of their master's severity,
which he condemned as a great error in the education of youth.
Sir William Petre maintained the contrary; severe in his own
temper, he pleaded warmly in defense of hard flogging. Dr.
Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the Secretary. Sir John
Mason, adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded
the hard-hearted Sir William Petre, and adduced as an evidence
that the best schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flog-
ger. Then was it that Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed
that if such a master had an able scholar it was owing to the
boy's genius and not the preceptor's rod. Secretary Cecil and
## p. 4730 (#524) ###########################################
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4730
others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir Richard Sack-
ville was silent; but when Ascham after dinner went to the
Queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him
aside, and frankly told him that though he had taken no part
in the debate he would not have been absent from that conversa-
tion for a great deal; that he knew to his cost the truth Ascham
had supported, for it was the perpetual flogging of such a
schoolmaster that had given him an unconquerable aversion to
study. And as he wished to remedy this defect in his own
children, he earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his observations.
on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance which pro-
duced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham.
THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES THE FIRST
From the Commentaries on the Reign of Charles the First'
AT
T WHITEHALL a repast had been prepared. The religious
emotions of Charles had consecrated the sacrament, which
he refused to mingle with human food. The Bishop, whose
mind was unequal to conceive the intrepid spirit of the King,
dreading lest the magnanimous monarch, overcome by the sever-
ity of the cold, might faint on the scaffold, prevailed on him to
eat half a manchet of bread and taste some claret. But the more
consolatory refreshment of Charles had been just imparted to
him in that singular testimony from his son, who had sent a carte
blanche to save the life of his father at any price. This was a
thought on which his affections could dwell in face of the scaf-
fold which he was now to ascend.
Charles had arrived at Whitehall about ten o'clock, and was
not led to the scaffold till past one. It was said that the scaffold
was not completed; it might have been more truly said that the
conspirators were not ready. There was a mystery in this delay.
The fate of Charles the First to the very last moment was in sus-
pense. Fairfax, though at the time in the palace, inquired of
Herbert how the King was, when the King was no more! and
expressed his astonishment on hearing that the execution had
just taken place. This extraordinary simplicity and abstraction
from the present scene of affairs has been imputed to the Gen-
eral as an act of refined dissimulation, yet this seems uncertain.
The Prince's carte blanche had been that morning confided to his
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ISAAC D'ISRAELI
4731
hands, and he surely must have laid it before the "Grandees of
the Army," as this new order of the rulers of England was
called. Fairfax, whose personal feelings respecting the King were
congenial with those his lady had so memorably evinced, labored
to defer for a few days the terrible catastrophe; not without the
hope of being able, by his own regiment and others in the army,
to prevent the deed altogether. It is probable-inexplicable as
it may seem to us-that the execution of Charles the First really
took place unknown to the General. Fairfax was not unaccus-
tomed to discover that his colleagues first acted, and afterwards
trusted to his own discernment.
Secret history has not revealed all that passed in those three
awful hours. We know, however, that the warrant for the exe-
cution was not signed till within a few minutes before the King
was led to the scaffold. In an apartment in the Palace, Ireton and
Harrison were in bed together, and Cromwell, with four colonels,
assembled in it. Colonel Huncks refused to sign the warrant.
Cromwell would have no further delay, reproaching the Colonel
as "a peevish, cowardly fellow," and Colonel Axtell declared that
he was ashamed for his friend Huncks, remonstrating with him,
that "the ship is coming into the harbor, and now would he
strike sail before we come to anchor? " Cromwell stepped to a
table, and wrote what he had proposed to Huncks; Colonel
Hacker, supplying his place, signed it, and with the ink hardly
dry, carried the warrant in his hand and called for the King.
At the fatal summons Charles rose with alacrity. The King
passed through the long gallery by a line of soldiers. Awe and
sorrow seem now to have mingled in their countenances. Their
barbarous commanders were intent on their own triumph, and
no farther required the forced cry of "Justice and Execution. "
Charles stepped out of an enlarged window of the Banqueting
House, where a new opening leveled it with the scaffold. Charles
came forward with the same indifference as "he would have
entered Whitehall on a masque night," as an intelligent observer
described. The King looked towards St. James's and smiled.
Curious eyes were watchful of his slightest motions; and the
Commonwealth papers of the day express their surprise, perhaps
their vexation, at the unaltered aspect and the firm step of the
Monarch. These mean spirits had flattered themselves that he
who had been cradled in royalty, who had lived years in the
fields of honor, and was now, they presumed, a recreant in
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4732
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
imprisonment,-"the grand Delinquent of England,”—as they
called him, would start in horror at the block.
This last triumph at least was not reserved for them,—it was
for the King. Charles, dauntless, strode "the floor of Death," to
use Fuller's peculiar but expressive phraseology. He looked on
the block with the axe lying upon it, with attention; his only
anxiety was that the block seemed not sufficiently raised, and
that the edge of the axe might be turned by being swept by the
flappings of cloaks, or blunted by the feet of some moving about
the scaffold. "Take care they do not put me pain! - Take
heed of the axe! take heed of the axe! " exclaimed the King to
a gentleman passing by. "Hurt not the axe; that may hurt
me! " His continued anxiety concerning these circumstances
proves that he felt not the terror of death, solely anxious to
avoid the pain, for he had an idea of their cruelty. With that
sedate thoughtfulness which was in all his actions, he only looked
at the business of the hour. One circumstance Charles observed
with a smile. They had a notion that the King would resist the
executioner; on the suggestion of Hugh Peters, it is said, they
had driven iron staples and ropes into the scaffold, that their
victim, if necessary, might be bound down upon the block.
The King's speech has many remarkable points, but certainly
nothing so remarkable as the place where it was delivered. This
was the first "King's Speech" spoken from a scaffold. Time
shall confirm, as history has demonstrated, his principle that
"They mistook the nature of government; for people are free
under a government, not by being sharers in it, but by the due
administration of the laws. " "It was for this," said Charles,
"that now I am come here. If I could have given way to an
arbitrary sway, for to have all laws changed according to the
power of the sword, I need not have come here; and therefore
I tell you that I am the Martyr of the People! »
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4733
SYDNEY DOBELL
(1824-1874)
YDNEY DOBELL, the son of a wine merchant, was born at Cran-
brook in Kent. His parents, both persons of strong indi-
viduality, believed in home training, and not one of their
eight children went either to school or to university. They belonged
to the Broad Church Community founded by Sydney's maternal grand-
father, Samuel Thompson; a church intended to recall in its princi-
ples the primitive Christian ages.
