Ten years after 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' there appeared in Amsterdam a book

that caused as great a sensation among the Dutch coffee-traders on the

Amstel, as had Harriet Beecher Stowe's wonderful story among the

slaveholders at the South. This book was 'Max Havelaar,' and its author,

veiled under the suggestive pen-name of "Multatuli" ("who have suffered

much"), at once became famous. It frankly admitted that it was a novel

with a purpose, and this purpose was to bring home to his countrymen the

untold sufferings and oppression to which the natives of the Dutch East

Indies were subjected, in order that the largest possible profit might

flow into the coffers of the people of Holland. Multatuli, under the

disguise of fiction, professed to give facts he had himself collected on

the spot.

Eduard Douwes Dekker, born in 1820 in Amsterdam, went as a youth of

seventeen to the Dutch colonies. There for nearly twenty years he was in

the employ of the government, obtaining at last the post of Assistant

Resident of Lebak, a province of Java. In this responsible position he

used his influence to stem the abuses and extortions practiced by the

native chiefs against the defenseless populace. But his humanitarianism

clashed with the interests of his government, and sacrificing a

brilliant career to a principle, he sent in his resignation and returned

to Holland in 1856 a poor man. He began to put his experiences on paper,

and in 1860 published the book that made him famous. 'Max Havelaar' is a

bitter arraignment of the Dutch colonial system, and gives a more

excruciating picture of the slavery of the natives of fair "Insulind"

than ever existed in the South. For nearly three hundred years Dutch

burghers on the Scheldt, the Maas, and the Amstel, have waxed fat on the

labors of the Malays of the far East. In these islands of the

East-Indian Archipelago the relations between the Europeans and the

Dutch are peculiar, based on the policy of the government of getting the

largest possible revenues out of these fertile possessions. Practically

the native is a Dutch subject, and the product of his labor goes

directly to Holland; nominally he is still ruled by his tribal chief, to

whom he is blindly and superstitiously devoted. Playing on this feudal

attachment, the Dutch, while theoretically pledging themselves to

protect the defenseless populace against rapacity, have yet so arranged

the administration that the chiefs have unlimited opportunities of

extortion. They are paid premiums on whatever their provinces furnish

for the foreign market, and as they have practically full control over

the persons and property of their subjects, they force these poor

wretches to contribute whatever they may demand in unpaid labor and

provisions, besides the land taxes.

And there is yet another hardship. Rice is the staple product of Java,

but as that does not pay so well as coffee, sugar, indigo, or spices,

the Javanese is driven away from the rice fields he loves, and famine is

often the result.

"Famine? in Java, the rich and fertile, famine? Yes, reader, a few

years ago whole districts were depopulated by famine; mothers

offered to sell their children for food; mothers ate their own

children. But then the mother country interfered. In the halls of

the Dutch Parliament complaints were made, and the then reigning

governor had to give orders that THE EXTENSION OF THE SO-CALLED

EUROPEAN MARKET SHOULD NO LONGER BE PUSHED TO THE EXTREMITY OF

FAMINE."

The book is an eloquent plea for more humane treatment of these

wretches. In glowing colors Dekker paints the condition of Java, its

scenery, its inhabitants, the extortions of the native regents, and the

rapacity of the European traders. The truth of these accusations has

never been disputed; indeed, it has been said that he kept on this side

of exaggeration. At the International Congress for the Promotion of

Social Science, at Amsterdam in 1863, he challenged his critics to prove

him false, but no one came forward. One high government official indeed

said that he could refute 'Max Havelaar,' but that it was not in his

interest to do so.

Despite the sensation the book made, affairs in the East remained pretty

much the same as before. Dekker tried in vain to get some influence in

Holland, but he had killed himself politically by avowing that 'Max

Havelaar' was not written in the interests of either party, but was the

utterance of a champion of humanity. Thoroughly disappointed in his

countrymen, he exiled himself and went to live in Germany in 1866. But

he did not therefore lay down a pen that had become in his hands a

powerful weapon. He published a number of books on political, social,

and philosophic subjects, in the form of stories, dramas, aphorisms, or

polemics. Noteworthy among these are his fine parables, the novel 'La

Sainte Vierge' (The Holy Virgin); the drama in blank, 'Vorstenschool'

(School for Princes), containing many fine thoughts, and still one of

the most popular plays of the day; and the incomplete 'Geschiedem's van

Wontertje Pieterse' (Story of Wontertje Pieterse), published in 1888 by

his widow, who also brought out his letters, and in 1892 a complete

edition of his works.

The writings of Dekker are marked by a fiery yet careful style, Oriental

richness of imagery, and originality and independence of thought. He

wrote as social reformer, and attacked with unrivaled power of sarcasm

all manner of cant, sham, and red-tape. His works betray the

disappointment of a defeated idealist. He was a man of marked

individuality, and strongly attracted or repelled others. For the last

few years of his life he ceased to write, and lived in retirement in

Nieder-Ingelheim on the Rhine, where he died February 19th, 1887.

MULTATULI'S LAST WORDS TO THE READER

From 'Max Havelaar'

Yes, I, Multatuli, "who have suffered much,"--I take the pen. I do not

make any excuses for the form of my book,--that form was thought proper

to obtain my object.... _I will be read!_ Yes, I will be read. I will be

read by statesmen who are obliged to pay attention to the signs of the

times; by men of letters, who must also look into the book of which so

many bad things are said; by merchants, who have an interest in the

coffee auctions; by lady's-maids, who read me for a few farthings; by

governors-general in retirement; by ministers who have something to do;

by the lackeys of these Excellencies; by mutes, who, _more majorum_,

will say that I attack God Almighty, when I attack only the god which

they made according to their own image; by the members of the

representative chambers, who must know what happens in the extensive

possessions over the sea which belong to Holland....

Ay, I _shall_ be read!

When I obtain this I shall be content, for I did not intend to write

well.... I wished to write so as to be heard; and as one who cries "Stop

thief!" does not care about the style of his _impromptu_ address to the

public, I too am indifferent to criticism of the manner in which I cried

_my_ "Stop thief!"

"The book is a medley; there is no order, nothing but a desire to make a

sensation. The style is bad; the author is inexperienced; no talent, no

method."

Good! good! ... all very well! ... _but the Javanese are ill-treated_.

For the merit of my book is this: that _refutation_ of its main features

is _impossible_. And the greater the disapprobation of my book the

better I shall be pleased, for the chance of being _heard_ will be so

much the greater;--and that is what I desire.

But you whom I dare to interrupt in your business or in your

retirement,--ye ministers and governors-general,--do not calculate too

much upon the inexperience of my pen. I could exercise it, and perhaps

by dint of some exertion, attain to that skill which would make the

truth heard by the people. Then I should ask of that people a place in

the representative chambers, were it only to protest against the

certificates which are given _vice versa_ by Indian functionaries.

To protest against the endless expeditions sent, and heroic deeds

performed against poor miserable creatures, whose ill treatment has

driven them to revolt.

To protest against the cowardice of general orders, that brand the honor

of the nation by invoking public charity on behalf of the victims of

inveterate piracy.

It is true those rebels were reduced by starvation to skeletons, while

those pirates could defend themselves.

And if that place were refused me, ... if I were still disbelieved, ...

then I should translate my book into the few languages that I know, and

the many that I yet can learn, to put that question to Europe which I

have in vain put to Holland.

And in every capital such a refrain as this would be heard: "There is a

band of robbers between Germany and the Scheldt!"

And if this were of no avail, ... then I should translate my book into

_Malay_, _Javanese_, _Soudanese_, _Alfoer_, _Boegi_, and _Battah_.

And I should sharpen _Klewangs_, the scimitars and the sabres, by

rousing with warlike songs the minds of those martyrs whom I have

promised to help--I, _Multatuli_, would do this!

Yes! delivery and help, _lawfully if possible_;--_lawfully with

violence_ if need be.

And that would be very pernicious to the COFFEE AUCTIONS OF THE DUTCH

TRADING COMPANY!

For I am no fly-rescuing poet, no rapt dreamer like the down-trodden

Havelaar, who did his duty with the courage of a lion, and endured

starvation with the patience of a marmot in winter.

This book is an introduction....

I shall increase in strength and sharpness of weapons, according as it

may be necessary.

Heaven grant that it may not be necessary!...

No, it _will_ not be necessary! For it is to thee I dedicate my book:

WILLIAM THE THIRD, King, Grand Duke, Prince, ... more than Prince, Grand

Duke, and King, ... EMPEROR of the magnificent empire of INSULIND, which

winds about the equator like a garland of emeralds!...

I ask THEE if it be thine IMPERIAL will that the Havelaars should be

bespattered with the mud of Slymerings and Dry-stubbles; and that thy

_more_ than _thirty millions_ of SUBJECTS far away should be _ill

treated and should suffer extortion_ in THY name!

IDYLL OF SAIDJAH AND ADINDA

From 'Max Havelaar'

Saidjah's father had a buffalo, with which he plowed his field. When

this buffalo was taken away from him by the district chief at

Parang-Koodjang he was very dejected, and did not speak a word for many

a day. For the time for plowing was come, and he had to fear that if the

rice field was not worked in time, the opportunity to sow would be lost,

and lastly, that there would be no paddy to cut, none to keep in the

store-room of the house. He feared that his wife would have no rice, nor

Saidjah himself, who was still a child, nor his little brothers and

sisters. And the district chief too would accuse him to the Assistant

Resident if he was behindhand in the payment of his land taxes, for this

is punished by the law. Saidjah's father then took a poniard which was

an heirloom from his father. The poniard was not very handsome, but

there were silver bands round the sheath, and at the end there was a

silver plate. He sold this poniard to a Chinaman who dwelt in the

capital, and came home with twenty-four guilders, for which money he

bought another buffalo.

Saidjah, who was then about seven years old, soon made friends with the

new buffalo. It is not without meaning that I say "made friends," for it

is indeed touching to see how the buffalo is attached to the little boy

who watches over and feeds him. The large strong animal bends its heavy

head to the right, to the left, or downward, just as the pressure of the

child's finger, which he knows and understands, directs.

Such a friendship little Saidjah had soon been able to make with the

new-comer. The buffalo turned willingly on reaching the end of the

field, and did not lose an inch of ground when plowing backwards the

new furrow. Quite near were the rice fields of the father of Adinda

(the child that was to marry Saidjah); and when the little brothers

of Adinda came to the limit of their fields just at the same time that

the father of Saidjah was there with his plow, then the children called

out merrily to each other, and each praised the strength and the

docility of his buffalo. Saidjah was nine and Adinda six, when this

buffalo was taken by the chief of the district of Parang-Koodjang.

Saidjah's father, who was very poor, thereupon sold to a Chinaman two

silver curtain-hooks--heirlooms from the parents of his wife--for

eighteen guilders, and bought a new buffalo.

When this buffalo had also been taken away and slaughtered--

(I told you, reader, that my story is monotonous)

... Saidjah's father fled out of the country, for he was much afraid of

being punished for not paying his land taxes, and he had not another

heirloom to sell, that he might buy a new buffalo. However, he went on

for some years after the loss of his last buffalo, by working with hired

animals for plowing; but that is a very ungrateful labor, and moreover

sad for a person who has had buffaloes of his own.

Saidjah's mother died of grief; and then it was that his father, in a

moment of dejection, fled from Bantam in order to endeavor to get labor

in the Buitenzorg districts.

But he was punished with stripes because he had left Lebak without a

passport, and was brought back by the police to Badoer. But he was not

long in prison, for he died soon afterwards. Saidjah was already fifteen

years of age when his father set out for Buitenzorg; and he did not

accompany him hither, because he had other plans in view. He had been

told that there were at Batavia many gentlemen who drove in two-wheeled

carriages, and that it would be easy for him to get a post as driver. He

would gain much in that way if he behaved well,--perhaps be able to save

in three years enough money to buy two buffaloes. This was a smiling

prospect for him. He entered Adinda's house, and communicated to her his

plans.

"Think of it! when I come back, we shall be old enough to marry and

shall possess two buffaloes: ... but if I find you married?"

"Saidjah, you know very well that I shall marry nobody but you; my

father promised me to your father."

"And you yourself?"

"I shall marry you, you may be sure of that."

"When I come back, I will call from afar off."

"Who shall hear it, if we are stamping rice in the village?"

"That is true, ... but Adinda--... oh yes, this is better; wait for me

under the oak wood, under the Retapan."

"But Saidjah, how can I know when I am to go to the Retapan?"

"Count the moons; I shall stay away three times twelve moons.... See,

Adinda, at every new moon cut a notch in your rice block. When you have

cut three times twelve lines, I will be under the Retapan the next day:

... do you promise to be there?"

"Yes, Saidjah, I will be there under the Retapan, near the oak wood,

when you come back."

* * * * *

[Saidjah returns with money and trinkets at the appointed time, but

does not find Adinda under the Retapan.]

... But if she were ill or ... dead?

Like a wounded stag Saidjah flew along the path leading from the Retapan

to the village where Adinda lived. But ... was it hurry, his eagerness,

that prevented him from finding Adinda's house? He had already rushed to

the end of the road, through the village, and like one mad he returned

and beat his head because he must have passed her house without seeing

it. But again he was at the entrance to the village, and ... O God, was

it a dream?...

Again he had not found the house of Adinda. Again he flew back and

suddenly stood still.... And the women of Badoer came out of their

houses, and saw with sorrow poor Saidjah standing there, for they knew

him and understood that he was looking for the house of Adinda, and they

knew that there was no house of Adinda in the village of Badoer.

For when the district chief of Parang-Koodjang had taken away Adinda's

father's buffaloes....

(I told you, reader! that my narrative was monotonous.)

... Adinda's mother died of grief, and her baby sister died because she

had no mother, and had no one to suckle her. And Adinda's father, who

feared to be punished for not paying his land taxes....

(I know, I know that my tale is monotonous.)

... had fled out of the country; he had taken Adinda and her brother

with him. He had gone to Tjilang-Rahan, bordering on the sea. There he

had concealed himself in the woods and waited for some others that had

been robbed of their buffaloes by the district chief of Parang-Koodjang,

and all of whom feared punishment for not paying their land taxes. Then

they had at night taken possession of a fishing boat, and steered

northward to the Lampoons.

[Saidjah, following their route] arrived in the Lampoons, where the

inhabitants were in insurrection against the Dutch rule. He joined a

troop of Badoer men, not so much to fight as to seek Adinda; for he had

a tender heart, and was more disposed to sorrow than to bitterness.

One day that the insurgents had been beaten, he wandered through a

village that had just been taken by the Dutch, and was therefore in

flames. Saidjah knew that the troop that had been destroyed there

consisted for the most part of Badoer men. He wandered like a ghost

among the houses which were not yet burned down, and found the corpse of

Adinda's father with a bayonet wound in the breast. Near him Saidjah saw

the three murdered brothers of Adinda, still only children, and a little

further lay the corpse of Adinda, naked and horribly mutilated.

* * * * *

Then Saidjah went to meet some soldiers who were driving, at the point

of the bayonet, the surviving insurgents into the fire of the burning

houses; he embraced the broad bayonets, pressed forward with all his

might, and still repulsed the soldiers with a last exertion, until their

weapons were buried to the sockets in his breast.

THOMAS DEKKER

(1570?-1637?)

Thomas Dekker, the genial realist, the Dickens of Jacobean London, has

left in his works the impress of a most lovable personality, but the

facts with which to surround that personality are of the scantiest. He

was born about 1570 in London; at least in 1637 he speaks of himself as

over threescore years of age. This is the only clue we have to the date

of his birth. He came probably of a tradesman's family, for he describes

better than any of his fellows in art the life of the lower middle

class, and enters into the thoughts and feelings of that class with a

heartiness which is possible only after long and familiar association.

He was not a university man, but absorbed his classical knowledge as

Shakespeare did, through association with the wits of his time.

He is first mentioned in Henslowe's diary in 1597, and after that his

name appears frequently. He was evidently a dramatic hack, working for

that manager, adapting and making over old plays and writing new ones.

He must have been popular too, for his name appears oftener than that of

any of his associates. Yet his industry and popularity could not always

keep him above water. Henslowe was not a generous paymaster, and the

unlucky dramatist knew the inside of the debtor's prison cell; more than

once the manager advanced sums to bail him out. Oldys says he was in

prison from 1613 to 1616. After 1637 we find his name no more.

As a dramatist, Dekker was most active between the years 1598 and 1602.

In one of those years alone he was engaged on twelve plays. Many of

these have been lost; of the few that remain, two of the most

characteristic belong to this period. 'The Shoemaker's Holiday,'

published in 1599, shows Dekker on his genial, realistic side, with his

sense of fun and his hearty sympathy with the life of the people. It

bubbles over with the delight in mere living, and is full of kindly

feeling toward all the world. It was sure to appeal to its audience,

especially to the pit, where the tradesmen and artisans with their wives

applauded, and noisiest of all, the 'prentices shouted their

satisfaction: here they saw themselves and their masters brought on the

stage, somewhat idealized, but still full of frolic and good-nature. It

is one of the brightest and pleasantest of Elizabethan comedies. Close

on its heels followed 'The Pleasant Comedy of Old Fortunatus.' Here

Dekker the idealist, the poet of luxurious fancy and rich yet delicate

imagination, is seen at his best. Fortunatus with his wishing-hat and

wonderful purse appealed to the romantic spirit of the time, when men

still sailed in search of the Hesperides, compounded the elixir of

youth, and sought for the philosopher's stone. Dekker worked over an old

play of the same name; the subject of both was taken from the old German

_volksbuch_ 'Fortunatus' of 1519. Among the collaborators of Dekker at

this time was Ben Jonson. Both these men were realists, but Jonson

slashed into life with bitter satire, whereas Dekker cloaked over its

frailties with a tender humor. Again, Jonson was a conscientious artist,

aiming at perfection; Dekker, while capable of much higher poetry, was

often careless and slipshod. No wonder that the dictator scorned his

somewhat irresponsible co-worker. The precise nature of their quarrel,

one of the most famous among authors, is not known; it culminated in

1601, when Jonson produced 'The Poetaster,' a play in which Dekker and

Marston were mercilessly ridiculed. Dekker replied shortly in

'Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet,' a burlesque full

of good-natured mockery of his antagonist.

Dekker wrote, in conjunction with Webster, 'Westward Ho,' Northward Ho,'

and 'Sir Thomas Wyatt'; with Middleton, 'The Roaring Girl'; with

Massinger, 'The Virgin Martyr'; and with Ford, 'The Sun's Darling' and

'The Witch of Edmonton.' Among the products of Dekker's old age, 'Match

Me in London' is ranked among his half-dozen best plays, and 'The Wonder

of a Kingdom' is fair journeyman's work.

One of the most versatile of the later Elizabethans,--prolonging their

style and ideas into the new world of the Stuarts,--Dekker was also

prominent as pamphleteer. He first appeared as such in 1603, with 'The

Wonderfull Yeare 1603, wherein is showed the picture of London lying

sicke of the Plague,' a vivid description of the pest, which undoubtedly

served Defoe as model in his famous book on the same subject. The best

known of his many pamphlets, however, is 'The Gul's Horne Booke,' a

graphic description of the ways and manners of the gallants of the time.

These various tracts are invaluable for the light they throw on the

social life of Jacobean London.

Lastly, Dekker as song-writer must not be forgotten. He had the genuine

lyric gift, and poured forth his bird-notes, sweet, fresh, and

spontaneous, full of the singer's joy in his song. He also wrote some

very beautiful prayers.

Varied and unequal as Dekker's work is, he is one of the hardest among

the Elizabethans to classify. He at times rises to the very heights of

poetic inspiration, soaring above most of his contemporaries, to drop

all of a sudden down to a dead level of prose. But he makes up for his

shortcomings by his whole-hearted, manly view of life, his compassion

for the weak, his sympathy with the lowly, his determination to make the

best of everything, and to show the good hidden away under the evil.

"Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail,"--

these he knew from bitter experience, yet never allowed them to

overcloud his buoyant spirits, but made them serve his artistic

purposes. Joyousness is the prevailing note of his work, mingled with a

pathetic undertone of patience.

FROM 'THE GUL'S HORNE BOOKE'

HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN POWLES WALK[49]

Now for your venturing into the Walke: be circumspect and wary what

piller you come in at, and take heed in any case (as you love the

reputation of your honour) that you avoide the _serving-man's_ dogg; but

bend your course directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the

Church may appear to be yours; where, in view of all, you may publish

your suit in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your

cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must (as twere in anger)

suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside (if it be taffata at the

least) and so by the meanes your costly lining is betrayed, or else by

the pretty advantage of complement. But one note by the way do I

especially wooe you to, the neglect of which makes many of our gallants

cheape and ordinary; that you by no means be seen above fowre turnes,

but in the fifth make your selfe away, either in some of the Sempsters'

shops, the new Tobacco-office, or amongst the Bookesellers, where, if

you cannot reade, exercise your smoke, and inquire who has writ against

this divine weede, &c. For this withdrawing yourselfe a little will much

benefite your suit, which else by too long walking would be stale to the

whole spectators: but howsoever, if Powles Jacks be up with their

elbowes, and quarrelling to strike eleven, as soone as ever the clock

has parted them and ended the fray with his hammer, let not the Duke's

gallery conteyne you any longer, but passe away apace in open view. In

which departure, if by chance you either encounter, or aloofe off throw

your inquisitive eye upon any knight or squire, being your familiar,

salute him not by his name of Sir such a one, or so, but call him _Ned_

or _Jack_, &c. This will set off your estimation with great men: and if

(tho there bee a dozen companies betweene you, tis the better) hee call

aloud to you (for thats most gentile), to know where he shall find you

at two a clock, tell him at such an Ordinary, or such; and bee sure to

name those that are deerest; and whither none but your gallants resort.

After dinner you may appeare againe, having translated yourselfe out of

your English cloth cloak, into a light Turky-grogram (if you have that

happiness of shifting) and then be seene (for a turn or two) to correct

your teeth with some quill or silver instrument, and to cleanse your

gummes with a wrought handkercher: It skilles not whether you dinde or

no (thats best knowne to your stomach) or in what place you dinde,

though it were with cheese (of your owne mother's making, in your

chamber or study).... Suck this humour up especially. Put off to none,

unlesse his hatband be of a newer fashion than yours, and three degrees

quainter; but for him that wears a trebled cipres about his hatte

(though he were an Alderman's sonne), never move to him; for hees

suspected to be worse than a _gull_ and not worth the putting off to,

that cannot observe the time of his hatband, nor know what fashioned

block is most kin to his head: for in my opinion, ye braine that cannot

choose his felt well (being the head ornament) must needes powre folly

into all the rest of the members, and be an absolute confirmed foule in

_Summa Totali_.... The great dyal is your last monument; these bestow

some half of the threescore minutes, to observe the sawciness of the

jaikes that are above the man in the moone there; the strangenesse of

the motion will quit your labour. Besides you may heere have fit

occasion to discover your watch, by taking it forth and setting the

wheeles to the time of Powles, which, I assure you, goes truer by five

notes then S. _Sepulchers_ chimes. The benefit that will arise from

hence is this, that you publish your charge in maintaining a gilded

clocke; and withall the world shall know that you are a time-server. By

this I imagine you have walkt your bellyful, and thereupon being weary,

or (which rather I believe) being most gentlemanlike hungry, it is fit

that I brought you in to the Duke; so (because he follows the fashion of

great men, in keeping no house, and that therefore you must go seeke

your dinner) suffer me to take you by the hand, and lead you into an

Ordinary.

SLEEP

Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is; it is so inestimable a

jewel that if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it

cannot be bought; yea, so greatly are we indebted to this kinsman of

death, that we owe the better tributary half of our life to him; and

there is good cause why we should do so; for sleep is that golden chain

that ties health and our bodies together. Who complains of want, of

wounds, of cares, of great men's oppressions, of captivity, whilst he

sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings. Can we

therefore surfeit on this delicate ambrosia? Can we drink too much of

that, whereof to taste too little tumbles us into a churchyard; and to

use it but indifferently throws us into Bedlam? No, no. Look upon

Endymion, the moon's minion, who slept threescore and fifteen years, and

was not a hair the worse for it. Can lying abed till noon then, being

not the threescore and fifteenth thousand part of his nap, be hurtful?

THE PRAISE OF FORTUNE

From 'Old Fortunatus'

Fortune smiles, cry holiday!

Dimples on her cheek do dwell.

Fortune frowns, cry well-a-day!

Her love is heaven, her hate is hell.

Since heaven and hell obey her power,--

Tremble when her eyes do lower.

Since heaven and hell her power obey,

When she smiles, cry holiday!

Holiday with joy we cry,

And bend and bend, and merrily

Sing hymns to Fortune's deity,

Sing hymns to Fortune's deity.

_Chorus_

Let us sing merrily, merrily, merrily,

With our songs let heaven resound.

Fortune's hands our heads have crowned.

Let us sing merrily, merrily, merrily.

CONTENT

From 'Patient Grissil'

Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?

O sweet Content!

Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?

O punishment!

Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed

To add to golden numbers golden numbers?

O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content!

Work apace, apace, apace, apace,

Honest labor bears a lovely face.

Then hey nonny, nonny; hey nonny, nonny.

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?

O sweet Content!

Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?

O Punishment!

Then he that patiently Want's burden bears

No burden bears, but is a king, a king.

O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content!

RUSTIC SONG

From 'The Sun's Darling'

Haymakers, rakers, reapers, and mowers,

Wait on your Summer Queen!

Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers,

Daffodils strew the green!

Sing, dance, and play,

'Tis holiday!

The sun does bravely shine

On our ears of corn.

Rich as a pearl

Comes every girl.

This is mine, this is mine, this is mine.

Let us die ere away they be borne.

Bow to our Sun, to our Queen, and that fair one

Come to behold our sports:

Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one,

As those in princes' courts.

These and we

With country glee,

Will teach the woods to resound,

And the hills with echoes hollow.

Skipping lambs

Their bleating dams

'Mongst kids shall trip it round;

For joy thus our wenches we follow.

Wind, jolly huntsmen, your neat bugles shrilly,

Hounds, make a lusty cry;

Spring up, you falconers, partridges freely,

Then let your brave hawks fly!

Horses amain,

Over ridge, over plain,

The dogs have the stag in chase:

'Tis a sport to content a king.

So ho! ho! through the skies

How the proud birds flies,

And sousing, kills with a grace!

Now the deer falls; hark! how they ring.

LULLABY

From 'Patient Grissil'

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,

Smiles awake you when you rise.

Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby.

Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

Care is heavy, therefore sleep you.

You are care, and care must keep you.

Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby.

Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

JEAN FRANCOIS CASIMIR DELAVIGNE

(1793-1843)

BY FREDERIC LOLIEE

[Illustration: CASIMIR DELAVIGNE]

This French lyrical poet and dramatist, born in Havre in 1793, and

brought up at Paris, was awarded a prize by the Academie Francaise in

1811, elected a member of that illustrious body July 7th, 1825, and died

December 11th, 1843. When hardly twenty years of age he had already made

his name famous by dithyrambs, the form of which, imitated from the

ancients, enabled him to express in sufficiently poetic manner quite

modern sentiments. Possessed of brilliant and easy imagination,

moderately enthusiastic, and more sober than powerful, he hit upon a

lucky vein which promptly led him to fame. He described the recent

disasters of his country in fine odes entitled 'Messeniennes,' in

allusion to the chants in which the defeated Messenians deplored the

hardships inflicted on them by the Spartans. Those political elegies

were named--'La Bataille de Waterloo' (The Battle of Waterloo); 'La

Devastation du Musee' (The Spoliation of the Museum); 'Sur le Besoin de

S'unir apres le Depart des Etrangers' (On the Necessity of Union after

the Departure of the Foreigners). They expressed emotions agitating the

mind of the country. At the same time they appealed to the heart of the

"liberals" of the period by uttering their regrets for vanished power,

their rancor against the victorious party, their fears for threatened

liberty. The circumstances, the passions of the day, as also the

awakening of young and new talent, all concurred to favor Casimir

Delavigne, who almost from the very first attained high reputation. In

1819 the publication of two more Messeniennes, on the life and death of

Joan of Arc,--inspired like the first with deep patriotic fervor,--was

received with enthusiasm.

Earlier even than the day of Lamartine and Victor Hugo, Casimir

Delavigne had the glory of stirring the heart of France. He had the

added merit of maintaining, after Beaumarchais and before Emile Augier,

the dignity of high comedy. Ingenious scenes of life, lively and

spirited details, grace and delicacy of style, save from oblivion such

pieces as 'L'Ecole des Vieillards' (The School of Age), first performed

by the great artists Mademoiselle Mars and Talma; and 'Don Juan

d'Autriche' (Don John of Austria), a prose comedy. Other dramas of

his--'Marino Faliero,' 'Les Vepres Siciliennes' (The Sicilian Vespers),

'Louis XI.,' 'Les Enfants d'Edouard' (The Children of Edward), and 'La

Fille du Cid' (The Daughter of the Cid)--are still read with admiration,

or acted to applauding spectators. A pure disciple of Racine at first,

Delavigne deftly managed to adopt some innovations of the romanticist

school. 'Marino Faliero' was the first of his productions in which,

relinquishing the so-called classic rules, he endeavored, as a French

critic fitly remarks, to introduce a kind of eclecticism in stage

literature; a bold attempt, tempered with prudent reserve, in which he

wisely combined the processes favored by the new school with current

tradition. That play is indeed a happy mixture of drama and comedy. It

contains familiar dialogues and noble outbursts, which however do not

violate the proprieties of academic style.

Though he never displayed the genius of Lamartine or of Victor Hugo, and

though some of his pictures have faded since the appearance of the

dazzling productions of the great masters of romanticism, Casimir

Delavigne still ranks high in the literature of his country and century,

thanks to the lofty and steady qualities, to the tender and generous

feeling, to the noble independence, which were the honorable

characteristics of his talent and his individuality. His works, first

published in Paris in 1843 in six octavo volumes, went through many

subsequent editions.

[Illustration: Signature: Frederic Loliee]

THE CONFESSION OF LOUIS XI.

[On the point of dying, Louis XI. clings desperately to life, and

summons before him a holy monk, Francis de Paula, whom he implores

to work a miracle in his favor and prolong his life.]

_Dramatis personae:_--King Louis XI, _and_ Saint Francis de Paula,

_founder of the order of the Franciscan friars_.

_Louis_--We are alone now.

_Francis_--What do you wish of me?

_Louis_ [_who has knelt down_]--At your knees see me trembling with hope

and fear.

_Francis_--What can I do for you?

_Louis_--Everything, Father; you can do everything: you can call the

dead to life again.

_Francis_--I!

_Louis_--To the dead you say, "Leave your graves!" and they leave them.

_Francis_--Who? I?

_Louis_--You bid our ailments to be cured.

_Francis_--I, my son?

_Louis_--And they are cured. When you command the skies clear, the wind

suddenly blows or likewise abates; the falling thunderbolt at your

command moves back to the clouds. Oh, I implore you, who in the air can

keep up the beneficent dew or let it pour its welcome freshness on the

withering plant, impart fresh vigor to my old limbs. See me; I am dying;

revive my drooping energy; stretch ye out your arms to me, touch ye

those livid features of mine, and the spell of your hands will cause my

wrinkles to vanish.

_Francis_--What do you ask of me? You surprise me, my son. Am I equal to

God? From your lips I first learn that I go abroad rendering oracles,

and with my hands working miracles.

_Louis_--At least ten years, father! grant me ten more years to live,

and upon you I shall lavish honors and presents.... I shall found

shrines to your name, in gold and jasper shall have your relics set;

but!--twenty years more life are too little a reward for so much wealth

and incense. I beseech you, work a whole miracle! Do not cut so short

the thread of my life. A whole miracle! give me new life and prolong my

days!

_Francis_--To do God's work is not in his creature's power. What! when

everything dies, you alone should last! King, such is not God's will. I

his feeble creature cannot alter for you the course of nature. All that

which grows must vanish, all that which is born must perish, man himself

and his works, the tree and its fruit alike. All that produces does so

only for a time; 'tis the law here below, for eternity death alone shall

fructify.

_Louis_--You wear out my patience. Do your duty, monk! Work in my favor

your marvelous power; for if you refuse, I shall compel you. Do you

forget that I am a king? The holy oil anointed my forehead. Oh, pardon

me! but it is your duty to do more for kings, for crowned heads, than

for those obscure and unfortunate wretches whom, but for your prayers,

God in heaven would never have remembered.

_Francis_--Kings and their subjects are equal in the eyes of the Lord;

he owes you his aid as to the rest of his children; be more just to

yourself, and claim for your soul that help for which you beg.

_Louis_ [_eagerly_]--No, not so much at a time: let us now mind the

body; I shall think of the soul by-and-by.

_Francis_--It is your remorse, O King, 'tis that smarting wound

inflicted by your crimes, which slowly drags your body to final ruin.

_Louis_--The priests absolved me.

_Francis_--Vain hope! The weight of your present alarms is made up of

thirty years of iniquitous life. Confess your shame, disclose your sins,

and let sincere repentance wash away your defiled soul.

_Louis_--Should I get cured?

_Francis_--Perhaps.

_Louis_--Say yes, promise that I shall. I am going to confess all.

_Francis_--To me?

_Louis_--Such is my will. Listen.

_Francis_ [_seating himself whilst the King stands up with clasped

hands_]--Speak then, sinner, who summon me to perform this holy

ministry.

_Louis_ [_after having recited mentally the_ Confiteor]--I cannot and

dare not refuse.

_Francis_--What are your sins?

_Louis_--Through fear of the Dauphin, the late King died of starvation.

_Francis_--A son shortened his own father's old age!

_Louis_--I was that Dauphin.

_Francis_--You were!

_Louis_--My father's weakness was ruining France. A favorite ruled.

France must have perished had not the King done so. State interests are

higher than--

_Francis_--Confess thy sins, thou wicked son; do not excuse thy

wrong-doings.

_Louis_--I had a brother.

_Francis_--What of him?

_Louis_--Who died ... poisoned.

_Francis_--Were you instrumental in his death?

_Louis_--They suspected me.

_Francis_--God Almighty!

_Louis_--If those who said so fell in my power!...

_Francis_--Is it true?

_Louis_--His ghost rising from the grave can alone with impunity accuse

me of his death.

_Francis_--So you were guilty of it?

_Louis_--The traitor deserved it!

_Francis_ [_rising_]--You would escape your just punishment! Tremble! I

was your brother, I am now your judge. Crushed under your sin, bend low

your head. Return to nothingness, empty Majesty! I no longer see the

King, I hear the criminal: to your knees, fratricide!

_Louis_ [_falling on his knees_]--I shudder.

_Francis_--Repent!

_Louis_ [_crawling to the monk and catching hold of his garments_]--I

own my fault, have pity on me! I beat my breast and repent another

crime. I do not excuse it.

_Francis_ [_resuming his seat_]--Is this not all?

_Louis_--Nemours!... He was a conspirator. But his death.... His crime

was proved. But under his scaffold his children's tears.... Thrice

against his lord he had taken up arms. His life-blood spattered them.

Yet his death was but just.

_Francis_--Cruel, cruel King!

_Louis_--Just, but severe; I confess it: I punished ... but no, I have

committed crimes. In mid-air the fatal knot has strangled my victims; in

murderous pits they have been stabbed with steel; the waters have put an

end to them, the earth has acted as their jailer. Prisoners buried

beneath these towers groan forgotten in their depths.

_Francis_--Oh! since there are wrongs which you can still repair, come!

_Louis_--Where to?

_Francis_--Let us set free those prisoners.

_Louis_--Statecraft forbids.

_Francis_ [_kneeling before the King_]--Charity orders: come, and save

your soul.

_Louis_--And risk my crown! As a king, I cannot.

_Francis_--As a Christian, you must.

_Louis_--I have repented. Let that suffice.

_Francis_ [_rising_]--That avails nothing.

_Louis_--Have I not confessed my sins?

_Francis_--They are not condoned while you persist in them.

_Louis_--The Church has indulgences which a king can pay for.

_Francis_--God's pardon is not to be bought: we must deserve it.

_Louis_ [_in despair_]--I claim it by right of my anguish! O Father, if

you knew my sufferings, you would shed tears of pity! The intolerable

bodily pain I endure constitutes but half my troubles and my least

suffering, I desire the places where I cannot be. Everywhere remorse

pursues me; I avoid the living; I live among the dead. I spend dreadful

days and nights more terrible. The darkness assumes visible shapes;

silence disturbs me, and when I pray to my Savior I hear his voice say:

"What would you with me, accursed?" When asleep, a demon sits on my

chest: I drive him away, and a naked sword stabs me furiously; I rise

aghast; human blood inundates my couch, and my hand, seized by a hand

cold as death, is plunged in that blood and feels hideous moving

debris....

_Francis_--Ah, wretched man!

_Louis_--You shudder. Such are my days and nights; my sleep, my life.

Yet, dying, I agonize to live, and fear to drink the last drop of that

bitter cup.

_Francis_--Come then. Forgive the wrongs others have done you, and thus

abate your own tortures. A deed of mercy will buy you rest, and when you

awake, some voice at least will bless your name. Come. Do not tarry.

_Louis_--Wait! Wait!

_Francis_--Will the Lord wait?

_Louis_--To-morrow!

_Francis_--But to-morrow, to-night, now, perhaps, death awaits you.

_Louis_--I am well protected.

_Francis_--The unloved are ill protected. [_Tries to drag the King

along._] Come! Come!

_Louis_ [_pushing him aside_]--Give me time, time to make up my mind.

_Francis_--I leave you, murderer. I cannot forgive your crimes.

_Louis_ [_terrified_]--What! do you condemn me?

_Francis_--God may forgive all! When he still hesitates, how could I

condemn? Take advantage of the delay he grants you; weep, pray, obtain

from his mercy the softening of your heart towards those unfortunates.

Forgive, and let the light of day shine for them once more. When you

seized the attribute of Divine vengeance they denounced your name from

the depth of their jails in their bitter anguish, and their shrieks and

moans drowned your prayers. Now end those sufferings, and God shall hear

your prayers.

Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'

DEMOSTHENES

(384-322 B.C.)

BY ROBERT SHARP

[Illustration: DEMOSTHENES]

The lot of Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, was cast in evil

times. The glorious days of his country's brilliant political

pre-eminence among Grecian States, and of her still more brilliant

pre-eminence as a leader and torch-bearer to the world in its progress

towards enlightenment and freedom, were well-nigh over. In arms she had

been crushed by the brute force of Sparta. But this was not her deepest

humiliation; she had indeed risen again to great power, under the

leadership of generals and statesmen in whom something of the old-time

Athenian spirit still persisted; but the duration of that power had been

brief. The deepest humiliation of a State is not in the loss of military

prestige or of material resources, but in the degeneracy of its

citizens, in the overthrow and scorn of high ideals; and so it was in

Athens at the time of Demosthenes's political activity.

The Athenians had become a pampered, ease-loving people. They still

cherished a cheap admiration for the great achievements of their

fathers. Stirring appeals to the glories of Marathon and Salamis would

arouse them to--pass patriotic resolutions. Any suggestion of

self-sacrifice, of service on the fleet or in the field, was dangerous.

A law made it a capital offense to propose to use, even in meeting any

great emergency, the fund set aside to supply the folk with amusements.

They preferred to hire mercenaries to undergo their hardships and to

fight their battles; but they were not willing to pay their hirelings.

The commander had to find pay for his soldiers in the booty taken from

their enemies; or failing that, by plundering their friends. It must be

admitted, however, that the patriots at home were always ready and most

willing to try, to convict, and to punish the commanders upon any charge

of misdemeanor in office.

There were not wanting men of integrity and true patriotism, and of

great ability, as Isocrates and Phocion, who accepted as inevitable the

decline of the power of Athens, and advocated a policy of passive

non-interference in foreign affairs, unless it were to take part in a

united effort against Persia. But the mass of the people, instead of

offering their own means and their bodies to the service of their

country, deemed it rather the part of the State to supply their needs

and their amusements. They considered that they had performed, to the

full, their duty as citizens when they had taken part in the noisy

debates of the Assembly, or had sat as paid jurymen in the never-ending

succession of court procedures of this most litigious of peoples. Among

men even in their better days not callous to the allurements of bribes

judiciously administered, it was a logical sequence that corruption

should now pervade all classes and conditions.

Literature and art, too, shared the general decadence, as it ever must

be, since they always respond to the dominant ideals of a time and a

people. To this general statement the exception must be noted that

philosophy, as represented by Plato and Aristotle, and oratory, as

represented by a long succession of Attic orators, had developed into

higher and better forms. The history of human experience has shown that

philosophy often becomes more subtle and more profound in times when men

fall away from their ancient high standards, and become shaken in their

old beliefs. So oratory attains its perfect flower in periods of the

greatest stress and danger, whether from foreign foes or from internal

discord. Both these forms of utterance of the active human intellect

show, in their highest attainment, the realization of imminent emergency

and the effort to point out a way of betterment and safety.

Not only the condition of affairs at home was full of portent of coming

disaster. The course of events in other parts of Greece and in the

barbarian kingdom of Macedon seemed all to be converging to one

inevitable result,--the extinction of Hellenic freedom. When a nation or

a race becomes unfit to possess longer the most precious of heritages, a

free and honorable place among nations, then the time and the occasion

and the man will not be long wanting to co-operate with the internal

subversive force in consummating the final catastrophe. "If Philip

should die," said Demosthenes, "the Athenians would quickly make

themselves another Philip."

Throughout Greece, mutual jealousy and hatred among the States, each too

weak to cope with a strong foreign foe, prevented such united action as

might have made the country secure from any barbarian power; and that at

a time when it was threatened by an enemy far more formidable than had

been Xerxes with all his millions.

The Greeks at first entirely underrated the danger from Philip and the

Macedonians. They had, up to this time, despised these barbarians.

Demosthenes, in the third Philippic, reproaches his countrymen with

enduring insult and outrage from a vile barbarian out of Macedon, whence

formerly not even a respectable slave could be obtained. It is indeed

doubtful whether the world has ever seen a man, placed in a position

of great power, more capable of seizing every opportunity and of using

every agency, fair or foul, for accomplishing his ambitious purposes,

than was Philip of Macedon. The Greeks were most unfortunate in their

enemy.

Philip understood the Greek people thoroughly. He had received his early

training among them while a hostage at Thebes. He found in their petty

feuds, in their indolence and corruptibility, his opportunity to carry

into effect his matured plans of conquest. His energy never slept; his

influence was ever present. When he was far away, extending his

boundaries among the barbarians, his money was still active in Athens

and elsewhere. His agents, often among the ablest men in a community,

were busy using every cunning means at the command of the wonderful

Greek ingenuity to conceal the danger or to reconcile the fickle people

to a change that promised fine rewards for the sale of their liberty.

Then he began to trim off one by one the outlying colonies and

dependencies of the Greek States. His next step was to be the obtaining

of a foothold in Greece proper.

The chief obstacle to Philip's progress was Athens, degenerate as she

was, and his chief opponent in Athens was Demosthenes. This Philip

understood very well; but he treated both the city and the great

statesman always with a remarkable leniency. More than once Athens,

inflamed by Demosthenes, flashed into her old-time energy and activity,

and stayed the Macedonian's course; as when, in his first bold march

towards the heart of Greece, he found himself confronted at Thermopylae

by Athenian troops; and again when prompt succor from Athens saved

Byzantium for the time. But the emergency once past, the ardor of the

Athenians died down as quickly as it had flamed up.

The Social War (357-355 B.C.) left Athens stripped almost bare of

allies, and was practically a victory for Philip. The Sacred War

(357-346 B.C.) between Thebes and Phocis, turning upon an affront

offered to the Delphian god, gave Philip the eagerly sought-for

opportunity of interfering in the internal affairs of Greece. He became

the successful champion of the god, and received as his reward a place

in the great Amphictyonic Council. He thus secured recognition of his

claims to being a Greek, since none but Greeks might sit in this

council. He had, moreover, in crushing the Phocians, destroyed a

formidable power of resistance to his plans.

Such were the times and such the conditions in which Demosthenes entered

upon his strenuous public life. He was born most probably in 384 B.C.,

though some authorities give preference to 382 B.C. as the year of his

birth. He was the son of Demosthenes and Cleobule. His father was a

respectable and wealthy Athenian citizen, a manufacturer of cutlery and

upholstering. His mother was the daughter of Gylon, an Athenian citizen

resident in the region of the Crimea.

Misfortune fell early upon him. At the age of seven he was left

fatherless. His large patrimony fell into the hands of unprincipled

guardians. Nature seems almost maliciously to have concentrated in him a

number of blemishes, any one of which might have checked effectually the

ambition of any ordinary man to excel in the profession Demosthenes

chose for himself. He was not strong of body, his features were

sinister, and his manner was ungraceful,--a grievous drawback among a

people with whom physical beauty might cover a multitude of sins, and

physical imperfections were a reproach.

He seems to have enjoyed the best facilities in his youth for training

his mind, though he complains that his teachers were not paid by his

guardians; and he is reported to have developed a fondness for oratory

at an early age. In his maturing years, he was taught by the great

lawyer, Isaeus; and must often have listened to the orator and

rhetorician Isocrates, if he was not indeed actually instructed by him.

When once he had determined to make himself an orator, he set himself to

work with immense energy to overcome the natural disadvantages that

stood in the way of his success. By hard training he strengthened his

weak voice and lungs; it is related that he cured himself of a painful

habit of stammering; and he subjected himself to the most vigorous

course of study preparatory to his profession, cutting himself off from

all social enjoyments.

His success as an orator, however, was not immediate. He tasted all the

bitterness of failure on more than one occasion; but after temporary

discouragement he redoubled his efforts to correct the faults that were

made so distressingly plain to him by the unsparing but salutary

criticism of his audience. Without doubt, these conflicts and rebuffs of

his earlier years served to strengthen and deepen the moral character of

Demosthenes, as well as to improve his art. They contributed to form a

man capable of spending his whole life in unflagging devotion to a high

purpose, and that in the face of the greatest difficulties and dangers.

The dominant purpose of his life was the preservation of the freedom of

the Greek States from the control of any foreign power, and the

maintenance of the pre-eminent position of Athens among these States. In

this combination of a splendid intellect, an indomitable will, and a

great purpose, we find the true basis of Demosthenes's greatness.

When at the age of eighteen he came into the wreck of his patrimony, he

at once began suit against Aphobos, one of his unfaithful guardians. He

conducted his case himself. So well did he plead his cause that he

received a verdict for a large amount. He seems, however, owing to the

trickery of his opponent, never to have recovered the money. He became

now a professional writer of speeches for clients in private suits of

every kind, sometimes appearing in court himself as advocate.

In 355-354 B.C. he entered upon his career as public orator and

statesman. He had now found his field of action, and till the end of his

eventful life he was a most prominent figure in the great issues that

concerned the welfare of Athens and of Greece. He was long

unquestionably the leading man among the Athenians. By splendid ability

as orator and statesman he was repeatedly able to thwart the plans of

the traitors in the pay of Philip, even though they were led by the

adept and eloquent AEschines. His influence was powerful in the

Peloponnesus, and he succeeded, in 338 B.C., in even uniting the bitter

hereditary enemies Thebes and Athens for one final, desperate, but

unsuccessful struggle against the Macedonian power.

Demosthenes soon awoke to the danger threatening his country from the

barbarian kingdom in the north, though not even he understood at first

how grave was the danger. The series of great speeches relating to

Philip--the First Philippic; the three Olynthiacs, 'On the Peace,' 'On

the Embassy,' 'On the Chersonese'; the Second and Third

Philippics--show an increasing intensity and fire as the danger became

more and more imminent. These orations were delivered in the period

351-341 B.C.

When the cause of Greek freedom had been overwhelmed at Chaeronea, in the

defeat of the allied Thebans and Athenians, Demosthenes, who had

organized the unsuccessful resistance to Philip, still retained the

favor of his countrymen, fickle as they were. With the exception of a

short period of disfavor, he practically regulated the policy of Athens

till his death in 322 B.C.

In 336 B.C., on motion of Ctesiphon, a golden crown was voted to

Demosthenes by the Senate, in recognition of certain eminent services

and generous contributions from his own means to the needs of the State.

The decree was not confirmed by the Assembly, owing to the opposition of

AEschines, who gave notice that he would bring suit against Ctesiphon for

proposing an illegal measure. The case did not come up for trial,

however, till 330 B.C., six years later. (The reason for this delay has

never been clearly revealed.)

When Ctesiphon was summoned to appear, it was well understood that it

was not he but Demosthenes who was in reality to be tried, and that the

public and private record of the latter would be subjected to the most

rigorous scrutiny. On that memorable occasion, people gathered from all

over Greece to witness the oratorical duel of the two champions--for

Demosthenes was to reply to AEschines. The speech of AEschines was a

brilliant and bitter arraignment of Demosthenes; but so triumphant was

the reply of the latter, that his opponent, in mortification, went into

voluntary exile. The speech of Demosthenes 'On the Crown' has been

generally accepted by ancients and moderns as the supreme attainment in

the oratory of antiquity.

It is evident that a man the never-swerving champion of a cause which

demanded the greatest sacrifice from a people devoted to

self-indulgence, the never-sleeping opponent of the hirelings of a

foreign enemy, and a persistent obstacle to men of honest conviction who

advocated a policy different from that which seemed best to him, would

of necessity bring upon himself bitter hostility and accusations of the

most serious character. And such was the case. Demosthenes has been

accused of many crimes and immoralities, some of them so different in

character as to be almost mutually exclusive. The most serious charge is

that of receiving a bribe from Harpalus, the absconding treasurer of

Alexander. He was tried upon this charge, convicted, fined fifty

talents, and thrown into prison. Thence he escaped to go into a

miserable exile.

How far and how seriously the character of Demosthenes is compromised by

this and other attacks, it is not possible to decide to the satisfaction

of all. The results of the contest in regard to the crown and the trial

in the Harpalus matter were very different; but the verdict of neither

trial, even if they were not conflicting, could be accepted as decisive.

To me, the evidence,--weighed as we weigh other evidence, with a just

appreciation of the source of the charges, the powerful testimony of the

man's public life viewed as a whole, and the lofty position maintained

in the face of all odds among a petulant people whom he would not

flatter, but openly reproved for their vices,--the evidence, I say, read

in this light justifies the conclusion that the orator was a man of high

moral character, and that in the Harpalus affair he was the victim of

the Macedonian faction and of the misled patriotic party, co-operating

for the time being.

When the tidings of the death of Alexander startled the world,

Demosthenes at once, though in exile, became intensely active in

arousing the patriots to strike one more blow for liberty. He was

recalled to Athens, restored to his high place, and became again the

chief influence in preparing for the last desperate resistance to the

Macedonians. When the cause of Greek freedom was finally lost,

Demosthenes went into exile; a price was set upon his head; and when the

Macedonian soldiers, led by a Greek traitor, were about to lay hands

upon him in the temple of Poseidon at Calauria, he sucked the poison

which he always carried ready in his pen, and died rather than yield

himself to the hated enemies of his country.

It remains only to say that the general consensus of ancient and modern

opinion is, that Demosthenes was the supreme figure in the brilliant

line of orators of antiquity. The chief general characteristics in all

Demosthenes's public oratory are a sustained intensity and a merciless

directness. Swift as waves before a gale, every word bears straight

toward the final goal of his purpose. We are hardly conscious even of

the artistic taste which fits each phrase, and sentence, and episode, to

the larger occasion as well as to each other. Indeed, we lose the

rhetorician altogether in the devoted pleader, the patriot, the

self-forgetful chief of a noble but losing cause. His careful study of

the great orators who had preceded him undoubtedly taught him much; yet

it was his own original and creative power, lodged in a far-sighted,

generous, and fearless nature, that enabled him to leave to mankind a

series of forensic masterpieces hardly rivaled in any age or country.

[Illustration: Signature: Robert Shark]

THE THIRD PHILIPPIC

THE ARGUMENT

This speech was delivered about three months after the second

Philippic, while Philip was advancing into Thrace, and threatening

both the Chersonese and the Propontine coast. No new event had

happened which called for any special consultation; but

Demosthenes, alarmed by the formidable character of Philip's

enterprises and vast military preparations, felt the necessity of

rousing the Athenians to exertion.

Many speeches, men of Athens, are made in almost every Assembly about

the hostilities of Philip, hostilities which ever since the treaty of

peace he has been committing as well against you as against the rest of

the Greeks; and all, I am sure, are ready to avow, though they forbear

to do so, that our counsels and our measures should be directed to his

humiliation and chastisement: nevertheless, so low have our affairs been

brought by inattention and negligence, I fear it is harsh truth to say,

that if all the orators had sought to suggest and you to pass

resolutions for the utter ruining of the commonwealth, we could not

methinks be worse off than we are. A variety of circumstances may have

brought us to this state; our affairs have not declined from one or two

causes only: but if you rightly examine, you will find it chiefly owing

to the orators, who study to please you rather than advise for the best.

Some of whom, Athenians, seeking to maintain the basis of their own

power and repute, have no forethought for the future, and therefore

think you also ought to have none; others, accusing and calumniating

practical statesmen, labor only to make Athens punish Athens, and in

such occupation to engage her that Philip may have liberty to say and do

what he pleases. Politics of this kind are common here, but are the

causes of your failures and embarrassment. I beg, Athenians, that you

will not resent my plain speaking of the truth. Only consider. You hold

liberty of speech in other matters to be the general right of all

residents in Athens, insomuch that you allow a measure of it even to

foreigners and slaves, and many servants may be seen among you speaking

their thoughts more freely than citizens in some other States; and yet

you have altogether banished it from your councils. The result has been,

that in the Assembly you give yourselves airs and are flattered at

hearing nothing but compliments; in your measures and proceedings you

are brought to the utmost peril. If such be your disposition now, I must

be silent: if you will listen to good advice without flattery, I am

ready to speak. For though our affairs are in a deplorable condition,

though many sacrifices have been made, still if you will choose to

perform your duty it is possible to repair it all. A paradox, and yet a

truth, am I about to state. That which is the most lamentable in the

past is best for the future. How is this? Because you performed no part

of your duty, great or small, and therefore you fared ill: had you done

all that became you, and your situation were the same, there would be no

hope of amendment. Philip has indeed prevailed over your sloth and

negligence, but not over the country; you have not been worsted; you

have not even bestirred yourselves.

If now we were all agreed that Philip is at war with Athens and

infringing the peace, nothing would a speaker need to urge or advise but

the safest and easiest way of resisting him. But since, at the very time

when Philip is capturing cities and retaining divers of our dominions

and assailing all people, there are men so unreasonable as to listen to

repeated declarations in the Assembly that some of us are kindling war,

one must be cautious and set this matter right: for whoever moves or

advises a measure of defense is in danger of being accused afterwards as

author of the war.

I will first then examine and determine this point, whether it be in our

power to deliberate on peace or war. If the country may be at peace, if

it depends on us (to begin with this), I say we ought to maintain peace;

and I call upon the affirmant to move a resolution, to take some

measure, and not to palter with us. But if another, having arms in his

hand and a large force around him, amuses you with the name of peace

while he carries on the operations of war, what is left but to defend

yourselves? You may profess to be at peace if you like, as he does; I

quarrel not with that. But if any man supposes this to be a peace, which

will enable Philip to master all else and attack you last, he is a

madman, or he talks of a peace observed towards him by you, not towards

you by him. This it is that Philip purchases by all his expenditure--the

privilege of assailing you without being assailed in turn.

If we really wait until he avows that he is at war with us, we are the

simplest of mortals: for he would not declare that, though he marched

even against Attica and Piraeus; at least if we may judge from his

conduct to others. For example, to the Olynthians he declared when he

was forty furlongs from their city, that there was no alternative, but

either they must quit Olynthus or he Macedonia; though before that time,

whenever he was accused of such an intent, he took it ill and sent

ambassadors to justify himself. Again, he marched toward the Phocians as

if they were allies, and there were Phocian envoys who accompanied his

march, and many among you contended that his advance would not benefit

the Thebans. And he came into Thessaly of late as a friend and ally, yet

he has taken possession of Pherae; and lastly he told these wretched

people of Oreus that he had sent his soldiers out of good-will to visit

them, as he heard they were in trouble and dissension, and it was the

part of allies and true friends to lend assistance on such occasions.

People who would never have harmed him, though they might have adopted

measures of defense, he chose to deceive rather than warn them of his

attack; and think ye he would declare war against you before he began

it, and that while you are willing to be deceived? Impossible. He would

be the silliest of mankind, if whilst you the injured parties make no

complaint against him, but are accusing your own countrymen, he should

terminate your intestine strife and jealousies, warn you to turn against

him, and remove the pretexts of his hirelings for asserting, to amuse

you, that he makes no war upon Athens. O heavens! would any rational

being judge by words rather than by actions, who is at peace with him

and who at war? Surely none. Well then, tell me now: when he sends

mercenaries into Chersonesus, which the king and all the Greeks have

acknowledged to be yours, when he avows himself an auxiliary and writes

us word so, what are such proceedings? He says he is not at war; I

cannot however admit such conduct to be an observance of the peace; far

otherwise: I say, by his attempt on Megara, by his setting up despotism

in Euboea, by his present advance into Thrace, by his intrigues in

Peloponnesus, by the whole course of operations with his army, he has

been breaking the peace and making war upon you; unless indeed you will

say that those who establish batteries are not at war until they apply

them to the walls. But that you will not say: for whoever contrives and

prepares the means for my conquest, is at war with me before he darts or

draws the bow. What, if anything should happen, is the risk you run? The

alienation of the Hellespont, the subjection of Megara and Euboea to

your enemy, the siding of the Peloponnesians with him. Then can I allow

that one who sets such an engine at work against Athens is at peace with

her? Quite the contrary. From the day that he destroyed the Phocians I

date his commencement of hostilities. Defend yourselves instantly, and I

say you will be wise: delay it, and you may wish in vain to do so

hereafter. So much do I dissent from your other counselors, men of

Athens, that I deem any discussion about Chersonesus or Byzantium out of

place. Succor them,--I advise that,--watch that no harm befalls them,

send all necessary supplies to your troops in that quarter; but let your

deliberations be for the safety of all Greece, as being in the utmost

peril. I must tell you why I am so alarmed at the state of our affairs,

that if my reasonings are correct, you may share them, and make some

provision at least for yourselves, however disinclined to do so for

others; but if in your judgment I talk nonsense and absurdity, you may

treat me as crazed, and not listen to me either now or in future.

That Philip from a mean and humble origin has grown mighty, that the

Greeks are jealous and quarreling among themselves, that it was far more

wonderful for him to rise from that insignificance than it would now be,

after so many acquisitions, to conquer what is left: these, and similar

matters which I might dwell upon, I pass over. But I observe that all

people, beginning with you, have conceded to him a right which in

former times has been the subject of contest in every Grecian war. And

what is this? The right of doing what he pleases, openly fleecing and

pillaging the Greeks, one after another, attacking and enslaving their

cities. You were at the head of the Greeks for seventy-three years, the

Lacedaemonians for twenty-nine; and the Thebans had some power in these

latter times after the battle of Leuctra. Yet neither you my countrymen,

nor Thebans, nor Lacedaemonians, were ever licensed by the Greeks to act

as you pleased; far otherwise. When you, or rather the Athenians of that

time, appeared to be dealing harshly with certain people, all the rest,

even such as had no complaint against Athens, thought proper to side

with the injured parties in a war against her. So, when the

Lacedaemonians became masters and succeeded to your empire, on their

attempting to encroach and make oppressive innovations a general war was

declared against them, even by such as had no cause of complaint. But

wherefore mention other people? We ourselves and the Lacedaemonians,

although at the outset we could not allege any mutual injuries, thought

proper to make war for the injustice that we saw done to our neighbors.

Yet all the faults committed by the Spartans in those thirty years, and

by our ancestors in the seventy, are less, men of Athens, than the

wrongs which in thirteen incomplete years that Philip has been uppermost

he has inflicted on the Greeks: nay, they are scarcely a fraction of

these, as may easily be shown in a few words. Olynthus and Methone and

Apollonia, and thirty-two cities on the borders of Thrace, I pass over;

all which he has so cruelly destroyed, that a visitor could hardly tell

if they were ever inhabited; and of the Phocians, so considerable a

people exterminated, I say nothing. But what is the condition of

Thessaly? Has he not taken away her constitutions and her cities, and

established tetrarchies, to parcel her out, not only by cities, but also

by provinces, for subjection? Are not the Euboean States governed now

by despots, and that in an island near to Thebes and Athens? Does he not

expressly write in his epistles, "I am at peace with those who are

willing to obey me?" Nor does he write so and not act accordingly. He is

gone to the Hellespont; he marched formerly against Ambracia; Elis, such

an important city in Peloponnesus, he possesses; he plotted lately to

get Megara: neither Hellenic nor barbaric land contains the man's

ambition.

And we the Greek community, seeing and hearing this, instead of sending

embassies to one another about it and expressing indignation, are in

such a miserable state, so intrenched in our separate towns, that to

this day we can attempt nothing that interest or necessity requires; we

cannot combine, or form any association for succor and alliance; we look

unconcernedly on the man's growing power, each resolving, methinks, to

enjoy the interval that another is destroyed in, not caring or striving

for the salvation of Greece: for none can be ignorant that Philip, like

some course or attack of fever or other disease, is coming even on those

that yet seem very far removed. And you must be sensible that whatever

wrong the Greeks sustained from Lacedaemonians or from us was at least

inflicted by genuine people of Greece; and it might be felt in the same

manner as if a lawful son, born to a large fortune, committed some fault

or error in the management of it; on that ground one would consider him

open to censure and reproach, yet it could not be said that he was an

alien, and not heir to the property which he so dealt with. But if a

slave or a spurious child wasted and spoiled what he had no interest

in--Heavens! how much more heinous and hateful would all have pronounced

it! And yet in regard to Philip and his conduct they feel not this,

although he is not only no Greek and no way akin to Greeks, but not even

a barbarian of a place honorable to mention; in fact, a vile fellow of

Macedon, from which a respectable slave could not be purchased formerly.

What is wanting to make his insolence complete? Besides his destruction

of Grecian cities, does he not hold the Pythian games, the common

festival of Greece, and if he comes not himself, send his vassals to

preside? Is he not master of Thermopylae and the passes into Greece, and

holds he not those places by garrisons and mercenaries? Has he not

thrust aside Thessalians, ourselves, Dorians, the whole Amphictyonic

body, and got pre-audience of the oracle, to which even the Greeks do

not all pretend? Yet the Greeks endure to see all this; methinks they

view it as they would a hailstorm, each praying that it may not fall on

himself, none trying to prevent it. And not only are the outrages which

he does to Greece submitted to, but even the private wrongs of every

people: nothing can go beyond this! Still under these indignities we are

all slack and disheartened, and look towards our neighbors, distrusting

one another instead of the common enemy. And how think ye a man who

behaves so insolently to all, how will he act when he gets each

separately under his control?

But what has caused the mischief? There must be some cause, some good

reason why the Greeks were so eager for liberty then, and now are eager

for servitude. There was something, men of Athens, something in the

hearts of the multitude then which there is not now, which overcame the

wealth of Persia and maintained the freedom of Greece, and quailed not

under any battle by land or sea; the loss whereof has ruined all, and

thrown the affairs of Greece into confusion. What was this? Nothing

subtle or clever: simply that whoever took money from the aspirants for

power or the corrupters of Greece were universally detested; it was

dreadful to be convicted of bribery; the severest punishment was

inflicted on the guilty, and there was no intercession or pardon. The

favorable moments for enterprise which fortune frequently offers to the

careless against the vigilant, to them that will do nothing against

those that discharge all their duty, could not be bought from orators or

generals; no more could mutual concord, nor distrust of tyrants and

barbarians, nor anything of the kind. But now all such principles have

been sold as in open market, and those imported in exchange, by which

Greece is ruined and diseased. What are they? Envy where a man gets a

bribe; laughter if he confesses it; mercy to the convicted; hatred of

those that denounce the crime; all the usual attendants upon corruption.

For as to ships and men and revenues and abundance of other materials,

all that may be reckoned as constituting national strength--assuredly

the Greeks of our day are more fully and perfectly supplied with such

advantages than Greeks of the olden time. But they are all rendered

useless, unavailable, unprofitable, by the agency of these traffickers.

That such is the present state of things, you must see without requiring

my testimony; that it was different in former times I will demonstrate,

not by speaking my own words, but by showing an inscription of your

ancestors, which they graved on a brazen column and deposited in the

citadel, not for their own benefit (they were right-minded enough

without such records), but for a memorial and example to instruct you

how seriously such conduct should be taken up. What says the

inscription then? It says:--"Let Arthmius, son of Pythonax the Zelite,

be declared an outlaw and an enemy of the Athenian people and their

allies, him and his family." Then the cause is written why this was

done: because he brought the Median gold into Peloponnesus. That is the

inscription. By the gods! only consider and reflect among yourselves

what must have been the spirit, what the dignity of those Athenians who

acted so. One Arthmius a Zelite, subject of the king (for Zelea is in

Asia), because in his master's service he brought gold into

Peloponnesus,--not to Athens,--they proclaimed an enemy of the Athenians

and their allies, him and his family, and outlawed. That is not by the

outlawry commonly spoken of: for what would a Zelite care, to be

excluded from Athenian franchises? It means not that; but in the

statutes of homicide it is written, in cases where a prosecution for

murder is not allowed, but killing is sanctioned, "and let him die an

outlaw," says the legislator; by which he means that whoever kills such

a person shall be unpolluted. Therefore they considered that the

preservation of all Greece was their own concern (but for such opinion,

they would not have cared whether people in Peloponnesus were bought and

corrupted); and whomsoever they discovered taking bribes, they chastised

and punished so severely as to record their names in brass. The natural

result was, that Greece was formidable to the barbarian, not the

barbarian to Greece. 'Tis not so now: since neither in this nor in other

respects are your sentiments the same. But what are they? You know

yourselves; why am I to upbraid you with everything? The Greeks in

general are alike, and no better than you. Therefore I say, our present

affairs demand earnest attention and wholesome counsel.

There is a foolish saying of persons who wish to make us easy, that

Philip is not yet as powerful as the Lacedaemonians were formerly, who

ruled everywhere by land and sea, and had the king for their ally, and

nothing withstood them; yet Athens resisted even that nation, and was

not destroyed. I myself believe that while everything has received great

improvement, and the present bears no resemblance to the past, nothing

has been so changed and improved as the practice of war. For anciently,

as I am informed, the Lacedaemonians and all Grecian people would for

four or five months during the season, only, invade and ravage the land

of their enemies with heavy-armed and national troops, and return home

again; and their ideas were so old-fashioned, or rather national, that

they never purchased an advantage from any; theirs was a legitimate and

open warfare. But now you doubtless perceive that the majority of

disasters have been effected by treason; nothing is done in fair field

or combat. You hear of Philip marching where he pleases, not because he

commands troops of the line, but because he has attached to him a host

of skirmishers, cavalry, archers, mercenaries, and the like. When with

these he falls upon a people in civil dissension, and none (through

mistrust) will march out to defend the country, he applies engines and

besieges them. I need not mention that he makes no difference between

winter and summer, that he has no stated season of repose. You, knowing

these things, reflecting on them, must not let the war approach your

territories, nor get your necks broken, relying on the simplicity of the

old war with the Lacedaemonians; but take the longest time beforehand for

defensive measures and preparations, see that he stirs not from home,

avoid any decisive engagement. For a war, if we choose, men of Athens,

to pursue a right course, we have many natural advantages; such as the

position of his kingdom, which we may extensively plunder and ravage,

and a thousand more; but for a battle he is better trained than we are.

Nor is it enough to adopt these resolutions and oppose him by warlike

measures: you must on calculation and on principle abhor his advocates

here, remembering that it is impossible to overcome your enemies abroad

until you have chastised those who are his ministers within the city.

Which, by Jupiter and all the gods, you cannot and will not do! You have

arrived at such a pitch of folly or madness or--I know not what to call

it: I am tempted often to think that some evil genius is driving you to

ruin--that for the sake of scandal or envy or jest or any other cause,

you command hirelings to speak (some of whom would not deny themselves

to be hirelings), and laugh when they abuse people. And this, bad as it

is, is not the worst; you have allowed these persons more liberty for

their political conduct than your faithful counselors; and see what

evils are caused by listening to such men with indulgence. I will

mention facts that you will all remember.

In Olynthus some of the statesmen were in Philip's interest, doing

everything for him; some were on the honest side, aiming to preserve

their fellow-citizens from slavery. Which party, now, destroyed their

country? or which betrayed the cavalry, by whose betrayal Olynthus

fell? The creatures of Philip; they that, while the city stood,

slandered and calumniated the honest counselors so effectually that the

Olynthian people were induced to banish Apollonides.

Nor is it there only, and nowhere else, that such practice has been

ruinous.

What can be the reason--perhaps you wonder--why the Olynthians were more

indulgent to Philip's advocates than to their own? The same which

operates with you. They who advise for the best cannot always gratify

their audience, though they would; for the safety of the State must be

attended to; their opponents by the very counsel which is agreeable

advance Philip's interest. One party required contribution, the other

said there was no necessity; one were for war and mistrust, the other

for peace, until they were ensnared. And so on for everything else (not

to dwell on particulars); the one made speeches to please for the

moment, and gave no annoyance; the other offered salutary counsel that

was offensive. Many rights did the people surrender at last, not from

any such motive of indulgence or ignorance, but submitting in the belief

that all was lost. Which, by Jupiter and Apollo, I fear will be your

case, when on calculation you see that nothing can be done. I pray, men

of Athens, it may never come to this! Better die a thousand deaths than

render homage to Philip, or sacrifice any of your faithful counselors. A

fine recompense have the people of Oreus got, for trusting themselves to

Philip's friends and spurning Euphraeus! Finely are the Eretrian commons

rewarded, for having driven away your ambassadors and yielded to

Clitarchus! Yes; they are slaves, exposed to the lash and the torture.

Finely he spared the Olynthians! It is folly and cowardice to cherish

such hopes, and while you take evil counsel and shirk every duty, and

even listen to those who plead for your enemies, to think you inhabit a

city of such magnitude that you cannot suffer any serious misfortune.

Yea, and it is disgraceful to exclaim on any occurrence, when it is too

late, "Who would have expected it? However--this or that should have

been done, the other left undone." Many things could the Olynthians

mention now, which if foreseen at the time would have prevented their

destruction. Many could the Orites mention, many the Phocians, and each

of the ruined States. But what would it avail them? As long as the

vessel is safe, whether it be great or small, the mariner, the pilot,

every man in turn should exert himself, and prevent its being overturned

either by accident or design: but when the sea hath rolled over it,

their efforts are vain. And we likewise, O Athenians, whilst we are

safe, with a magnificent city, plentiful resources, lofty

reputation--what must we do? Many of you, I dare say, have been longing

to ask. Well then, I will tell you; I will move a resolution; pass it,

if you please.

First, let us prepare for our own defense; provide ourselves, I mean,

with ships, money, and troops--for surely, though all other people

consented to be slaves, we at least ought to struggle for freedom. When

we have completed our own preparations and made them apparent to the

Greeks, then let us invite the rest, and send our ambassadors everywhere

with the intelligence, to Peloponnesus, to Rhodes, to Chios, to the

king, I say (for it concerns his interests not to let Philip make

universal conquest); that, if you prevail, you may have partners of your

dangers and expenses in case of necessity, or at all events that you may

delay the operations. For since the war is against an individual, not

against the collected power of a State, even this may be useful; as were

the embassies last year to Peloponnesus, and the remonstrances with

which I and the other envoys went round and arrested Philip's progress,

so that he neither attacked Ambracia nor started for Peloponnesus. I say

not, however, that you should invite the rest without adopting measures

to protect yourselves; it would be folly, while you sacrifice your own

interest, to profess a regard for that of strangers, or to alarm others

about the future, whilst for the present you are unconcerned. I advise

not this; I bid you send supplies to the troops in Chersonesus, and do

what else they require; prepare yourselves and make every effort first,

then summon, gather, instruct the rest of the Greeks. That is the duty

of a State possessing a dignity such as yours. If you imagine that

Chalcidians or Megarians will save Greece, while you run away from the

contest, you imagine wrong. Well for any of those people if they are

safe themselves! This work belongs to you; this privilege your ancestors

bequeathed to you, the prize of many perilous exertions. But if every

one will sit seeking his pleasure, and studying to be idle himself,

never will he find others to do his work; and more than this, I fear we

shall be under the necessity of doing all that we like not at one time.

Were proxies to be had, our inactivity would have found them long ago;

but they are not.

Such are the measures which I advise, which I propose; adopt them, and

even yet, I believe, our prosperity may be re-established. If any man

has better advice to offer, let him communicate it openly. Whatever you

determine, I pray to all the gods for a happy result.

Translation of Charles R. Kennedy.

INVECTIVE AGAINST LICENSE OF SPEECH

This, you must be convinced, is a struggle for existence. You cannot

overcome your enemies abroad till you have punished your enemies, his

ministers, at home. They will be the stumbling-blocks which prevent you

reaching the others. Why, do you suppose, Philip now insults you? To

other people he at least renders services though he deceives them, while

he is already threatening you. Look for instance at the Thessalians. It

was by many benefits conferred on them that he seduced them into their

present bondage. And then the Olynthians, again,--how he cheated them,

first giving them Potidaea and several other places, is really beyond

description. Now he is enticing the Thebans by giving up to them

Boeotia, and delivering them from a toilsome and vexatious war. Each

of these people did get a certain advantage; but some of them have

suffered what all the world knows; others will suffer whatever may

hereafter befall them. As for you, I recount not all that has been taken

from you, but how shamefully have you been treated and despoiled! Why is

it that Philip deals so differently with you and with others? Because

yours is the only State in Greece in which the privilege is allowed of

speaking for the enemy, and a citizen taking a bribe may safely address

the Assembly, though you have been robbed of your dominions. It was not

safe at Olynthus to be Philip's advocate, unless the Olynthian

commonalty had shared the advantage by possession of Potidaea. It was not

safe in Thessaly to be Philip's advocate, unless the people of Thessaly

had secured the advantage by Philip's expelling their tyrants and

restoring the Synod at Pylae. It was not safe in Thebes, until he gave up

Boeotia to them and destroyed the Phocians. Yet at Athens, though

Philip has deprived you of Amphipolis and the territory round

Cardia--nay, is making Euboea a fortress as a check upon us, and is

advancing to attack Byzantium--it is safe to speak in Philip's behalf.

JUSTIFICATION OF HIS PATRIOTIC POLICY

Do not go about repeating that Greece owes all her misfortunes to one

man. No, not to one man, but to many abandoned men distributed

throughout the different States, of whom, by earth and heaven, AEschines

is one. If the truth were to be spoken without reserve, I should not

hesitate to call him the common scourge of all the men, the districts,

and the cities which have perished; for the sower of the seed is

answerable for the crop....

I affirm that if the future had been apparent to us all,--if you,

AEschines, had foretold it and proclaimed it at the top of your voice

instead of preserving total silence,--nevertheless the State ought not

to have deviated from her course, if she had regard to her own honor,

the traditions of the past, or the judgment of posterity. As it is, she

is looked upon as having failed in her policy,--the common lot of all

mankind when such is the will of heaven; but if, claiming to be the

foremost State of Greece, she had deserted her post, she would have

incurred the reproach of betraying Greece to Philip. If we had abandoned

without a struggle all which our forefathers braved every danger to win,

who would not have spurned you, AEschines? How could we have looked in

the face the strangers who flock to our city, if things had reached

their present pass,--Philip the chosen leader and lord of all,--while

others without our assistance had borne the struggle to avert this

consummation? We! who have never in times past preferred inglorious

safety to peril in the path of honor. Is there a Greek or a barbarian

who does not know that Thebes at the height of her power, and Sparta

before her--ay, and even the King of Persia himself--would have been

only glad to compromise with us, and that we might have had what we

chose, and possessed our own in peace, had we been willing to obey

orders and to suffer another to put himself at the head of Greece? But

it was not possible,--it was not a thing which the Athenians of those

days could do. It was against their nature, their genius, and their

traditions; and no human persuasion could induce them to side with a

wrong-doer because he was powerful, and to embrace subjection because it

was safe. No; to the last our country has fought and jeopardized herself

for honor and glory and pre-eminence. A noble choice, in harmony with

your national character, as you testify by your respect for the

memories of your ancestors who have so acted. And you are in the right;

for who can withhold admiration from the heroism of the men who shrank

not from leaving their city and their fatherland, and embarking in their

war-ships, rather than submit to foreign dictation? Why, Themistocles,

who counseled this step, was elected general; and the man who counseled

submission was stoned to death--and not he only, for his wife was stoned

by your wives, as he was by you. The Athenians of those days went not in

quest of an orator or a general who could help them to prosperous

slavery; but they scorned life itself, if it were not the life of

freedom. Each of them regarded himself as the child not only of his

father and of his mother, but of his country; and what is the

difference? He who looks on himself as merely the child of his parents,

awaits death in the ordinary course of nature; while he who looks on

himself as the child also of his country, will be ready to lay down his

life rather than see her enslaved....

Do I take credit to myself for having inspired you with sentiments

worthy of your ancestors? Such presumption would expose me to the just

rebuke of every man who hears me. What I maintain is, that these very

sentiments are your own; that the spirit of Athens was the same before

my time,--though I do claim to have had a share in the application of

these principles to each successive crisis. AEschines, therefore, when he

impeaches our whole policy, and seeks to exasperate you against me as

the author of all your alarms and perils, in his anxiety to deprive me

of present credit is really laboring to rob you of your everlasting

renown. If by your vote against Ctesiphon you condemn my policy, you

will pronounce yourselves to have been in the wrong, instead of having

suffered what has befallen you through the cruel injustice of fortune.

But it cannot be; you have not been in the wrong, men of Athens, in

doing battle for the freedom and salvation of all: I swear it by your

forefathers, who bore the battle's brunt at Marathon; by those who stood

in arms at Plataea; by those who fought the sea fight at Salamis; by the

heroes of Artemisium, and many more whose resting-place in our national

monuments attests that, that as our country buried, so she honored, all

alike--victors and vanquished. She was right; for what brave men could

do, all did, though a higher power was master of their fate.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

(1785-1859)

BY GEORGE R. CARPENTER

[Illustration: THOMAS DE QUINCEY.]

De Quincey's popular reputation is largely due to his autobiographical

essays,--to his 'Confessions.' Whatever may be the merits of his other

writings, the general public, as in the case of Rousseau, of Dante, of

St. Augustine, and of many another, has, with its instinctive and

unquenchable desire for knowledge of the inner life of men of great

emotional and imaginative power, singled out De Quincey's 'Confessions'

as the most significant of his works. There has arisen a popular legend

of De Quincey, making him (not unlike Dante, who had seen hell with his

bodily eyes) a man who had felt in his own person the infernal pangs and

pleasures consequent upon enormous and almost unique excesses in the use

of that Oriental drug which possesses for us all such a romantic

attraction. He became the "English Opium-Eater"; and even the most

recent and authoritative edition of his writings, that of the late

Professor Masson, did not hesitate in advertisements to avail itself of

a title so familiar and so sensational.

To a great degree, this feeling on the part of the public is natural and

proper. De Quincey's opium habit, begun in his youth under circumstances

that modern physicians have guessed to be justifiable, and continued

throughout the remainder of his life,--at first without self-restraint,

at last in what was for him moderation,--has rendered him a striking and

isolated figure in Western lands.

We have a right eagerly to ask: On this strongly marked temperament, so

delicately imaginative and so keenly logical, so receptive and so

retentive, a type alike of the philosopher and the poet, the scholar and

the musician--on such a contemplative genius, what were the effects of

so great and so constant indulgence in a drug noted for its power of

heightening and extending, for a season, the whole range of the

imaginative faculties?

Justifiable as such feelings may be, however, they tend to wrong De

Quincey's memory and to limit our conceptions of his character and

genius. He was no vulgar opium drunkard; he was, to all appearances,

singularly free even from the petty vices to which eaters of the drug

are supposed to be peculiarly liable. To be sure, he was not without his

eccentricities. He was absent-mindedly careless in his attire, unusual

in his hours of waking and sleeping, odd in his habits of work,

ludicrously ignorant of the value of money, solitary, prone to whims, by

turns reticent and loquacious. But for all his eccentricities, De

Quincey--unlike Poe, for example--is not a possible object for pity or

patronage; they would be foolish who could doubt his word or mistrust

his motives. He was "queer," as most great Englishmen of letters of his

time were; but the more his at first enigmatic character comes to light,

through his own letters and through the recollections of his friends,

the more clearly do we see him to have been a pure-minded and well-bred

man, kind, honest, generous, and gentle. His life was almost wholly

passed among books,--books in many languages, books of many kinds and

times. These he incessantly read and annotated. And the treasures of

this wide reading, stored in a retentive and imaginative mind, form the

basis of almost all his work that is not distinctly autobiographical.

De Quincey's writings, as collected by himself (and more recently by

Professor Masson), fill fourteen good-sized volumes, and consist of

about two hundred and fifteen separate pieces, all of which were

contributed to various periodicals between 1813, when at the age of

thirty-eight he suddenly found himself and his family dependent for

support on his literary efforts, to his death in 1859. Books, sustained

efforts of construction, he did not except in a single instance, and

probably could not, produce; his mind held rich stores of information on

many subjects, but his habit of thought was essentially non-consecutive

and his method merely that of the brilliant talker, who illumines

delightfully many a subject, treating none, however, with reserved power

and thorough care. His attitude toward his work, it is worth while to

notice, was an admirable one. His task was often that of a hack writer;

his spirit never. His life was frugal and modest in the extreme; and

though writing brought him bread and fame, he seems never, in any

recorded instance, to have concerned himself with its commercial value.

He wrote from a full mind and with genuine inspiration, and lived and

died a man of letters from pure love of letters and not of worldly gain.

As we have noticed, it is the autobiographical part of De Quincey's

writing--the 'Confessions' of one who could call every day for "a glass

of laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar"--that has made him famous,

and which deserves first our critical attention. It consists of four or

five hundred pages of somewhat disconnected sketches, including the

'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater' and 'Suspiria de Profundis.' De

Quincey himself speaks of them as "a far higher class of composition"

than his philosophical or historical writings,--declaring them to be,

unlike the comparatively matter-of-fact memoirs of Rousseau and St.

Augustine, "modes of impassioned prose, ranging under no precedents

that I am aware of in any literature." What De Quincey attempted was to

clothe in words scenes from the world of dreams,--a lyric fashion, as it

were, wholly in keeping with contemporary taste and aspiration, which

under the penetrating influence of romanticism were maintaining the

poetical value and interest of isolated and excited personal feeling.

Like Dante, whose 'Vita Nuova' De Quincey's 'Confessions' greatly

resemble in their essential characteristics of method, he had lived from

childhood in a world of dreams. Both felt keenly the pleasures and

sorrows of the outer world, but in both contemplative imagination was so

strong that the actual fact--the real Beatrice, if you will--became as

nothing to that same fact transmuted through idealizing thought. De

Quincey was early impressed by the remarkable fashion in which dreams or

reveries weave together the separate strands of wakeful existence.

Before he was two years old he had, he says, "a remarkable dream of

terrific grandeur about a favorite nurse, which is interesting to myself

for this reason,--that it demonstrates my dreaming tendencies to have

been constitutional, and not dependent on laudanum." At the same age he

"connected a profound sense of pathos with the reappearance, very early

in the spring, of some crocuses." These two incidents are a key to the

working of De Quincey's mind. Waking or sleeping, his intellect had the

rare power of using the facts of life as the composer might use a song

of the street, building on a wandering ballad a whole symphony of

transfigured sound, retaining skillfully, in the midst of the new and

majestic music, the winning qualities of the popular strain. To such a

boy, with an imaginative mind, an impassioned nature, and a memory which

retained and developed powerfully year by year all associations

involving the feelings of grandeur, magnificence, or immensity,--to such

a boy, life and experience were but the storing up of material which the

creative mind might weave into literature that had the form of prose and

the nature of poetry.