suppress their challenged liberty, and to exert an arbitrary authority, might imitate the example of Lewis XI. of France, who, as he termed it, delivered the crown from wardship. [King's College, 1841.]

112. THE Roman arms were successful; and the independence of Britain was no more, But the sentiments, which must have animated these last defenders of their country, still breathe in the immortal pages of the historian; and the virtues of the Caledonians are now for ever united to the taste and feelings of mankind. Another melancholy scene followed: the Romans retired from the island, and the Britons deprived of their protection, were insulted and overpowered by every invader; the Romans had long inured them to a sense of inferiority. The country had been partly civilized and improved; but the mind of the country had been destroyed. The Britons had lost the rude virtues of Barbarians, without having acquired those feelings of national respect and dignity, which do more than supply their place, in the character of each civilized community, a form of government, in which the conquered were excluded from any share, could exercise no influence over their conduct. They were unable to make head against their enemies, and they exhibited to the world that lesson, which has been so often repeated; that a country can never be defended by a population, that has been, on whatever account, degraded. They, who are to resist an invading foe, and to resist successfully, must first be moulded by equal laws, and the benefits of a free government, into a due sense of national pride, and individual importance. Men can never be converted into heroes, upon the principles of suspicion and injustice.

It often happens in human affairs, that the evil and the remedy grow up at the same time. The latter is scarcely visible perhaps above the earth, and remains unnoticed; whilst the evil shoots rapidly into strength, and catches the eye of the observer, by the immensity of its shadow, and the fulness of its luxuriance. The eternal law, however, which imposes change upon all things, insensibly produces its effect: and a subsequent age may be enabled to mark, how the one declined, and the other advanced; how the life and the vigour were gradually transferred; and how returning Spring seemed no longer to renew the honors of the one, while it summoned into progress and maturity, the promise and the perfection of the other.

[Trinity College Fellowships, 1841.]

113. MEN fear death, he said, as if unquestionably the greatest evil; and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good. If indeed great joys were in prospect, he and his friends for him, with somewhat more reason, might regret the event; but at his years, and with his scanty fortune, though he was happy enough, at seventy, still to preserve both body and mind in vigor, yet even his present gratifications must necessarily soon decay. To avoid therefore the evils of elderhood, pain, sickness, decay of sight, decay of hearing, perhaps decay of understanding, and this by the easiest of deaths, (for such the Athenian mode of execution by a draught of hemlock was reputed,) and cheered with the company of surrounding friends, could not be otherwise than a blessing. [Christ's College, 1841.]

114. WELL, what says our severe examiner to this?

Why truly with a pretended jest, but at the bottom in sober earnest, He lets Phalaris shift for himself, and is resolved not to answer this argument. I will not say how ungenerous a design this is, to leave his Sicilian prince in the lurch; but, I fear, it is too late now to shake him off with honour: his Phalaris will stick close to him longer than he will wish him. However, instead of an answer to me, he desires me to answer him whether it was prudent in me to accuse Phalaris of a theft, by a pair of quotations pillaged from his poor Notes on this Epistle? Poor Notes! he may be free with them, because he claims them as his own; and yet, as poor as he calls them, if common fame may be believed, somebody run in debt for them. [Clare Hall Scholarship, 1842.]

115. ON August 30th, 1572, eight days after the massacre of St Bartholomew, I supped at the Louvre at Mademoiselle de Fisque's; the heat had been intense all the day; we went and sat down in a small harbour by the river side, to enjoy the fresh air. On a sudden we heard in the air a horrible sound of tumultuous voices, and of groans mixed with cries of rage and fury: we remained motionless, in the utmost consternation, looking on each other from time to time, without being able to speak. This continued, I believe, almost half an hour; it is certain the king heard it, that he was terrified by it, and that he could not sleep the remainder of the night; that, nevertheless, he did not mention it the next morning, but he was observed to look gloomy, pensive, and wild; and Henry IV. afterward asserted, that eight days after the massacre of St Bartholomew, he saw a vast number of ravens perch and croak on the pavilion of the Louvre; that the same night Charles IX., after he had

been two hours in bed, started up, roused his grooms of the chamber, and sent them out to listen to a great noise of groans in the air, and among others, some furious and threatening voices, the whole resembling what was heard on the night of the massacre; that all these various cries were so striking, so remarkable, and so articulate, that Charles IX. believing that the enemies of the Montmorencies and of their partizans had surprised and attacked them, sent a detachment of his guards to prevent this new massacre. [Jesus College, 1842.]

116. BETWEEN two writers so near together in all other points as Thucydides and Xenophon, the difference appears extraordinary which we find in their manner of speaking of the religion of their age; and particularly of the reputed science of divination, which was so intimately connected with the religion. Thucydides, a man evidently of very serious and generally just thought on religious and moral subjects, never shews any faith in pretensions to prophecy, nor attributes any consequence to a sacrifice. On the contrary, Xenophon is continually holding out the importance of various ceremonies, especially sacrifice; and avowing implicit credit in that science which pretended, from the symptoms of victims, from dreams and from various occurrences in nature, to learn the will of the gods, and to foretel future events. It is hazardous to undertake to say for another what he thought, which he has not said, on a subject on which he has said much; but some passages in the writings of Xenophon seem to afford ground for supposing that the strong feeling he had of the want of some check upon the passions of men, which the religion and morality of his age did not offer, led him to value a superstition

which might be employed for the most salutary purposes, and to carry the profession of his belief sometimes rather beyond the reality. On more than one occasion we find cause to suspect his influence amongst the prophets and augurs of the army; and indeed if ever deceit, for preventing evil, might be allowed, it would do credit to the scholar of Socrates in the business of the Tibarenes; for, apparently, nothing but the advantage made of a salutary superstition could have preserved the property of that unoffending people from plunder, their persons from slavery, and probably many lives from slaughter.

[Bell Scholarships, 1842.]

117. AFTER he had entertained the company with such discourse, he applied himself to the governour; and told him, that if he might be admitted to privacy with him, he would discover somewhat to him, which he would not repent to have known. The governour, who was a man apt enough to fear his own safety, but more apprehensive of the jealousies which would attend him, would not venture himself in another room; but drew him to a great window at a convenient distance from the company, and wished him to say what he thought fit. The Lord Digby, finding he could not obtain more privacy, asked him, in English, whether he knew him? the other, surprised, told him, no; then, said he, I shall try whether I know Sir John Hotham; and whether he be in truth, the same man of honour, I have always taken him to be: and, thereupon, told him who he was; and that he hoped he was too much a gentleman to deliver him up a sacrifice to their rage and fury, who, he well knew, were his implacable enemies. The other, being astonished, and fearing that the by-standers would discover him too (for,