O Cromwel., Wol. That's news indeed! Crom. Wol. There was the weight that pulled me down. No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors, Go, get thee from me, Cromwell; (I know his noble nature) not to let Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell, Crom. Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear And sleep in dull, cold marble, where no mention Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, There, take an inventory of all I have, To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, Crom. Good sir, have patience. Farewell The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell. SHAKSPEARL LESSON CI. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF CARDINAL WOLSEY. Queen Catherine. Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me, That the great child of honor, Cardinal Wolsey, Was dead? Griffith. Yes, madam; but, I think, your grace, Out of the pain you suffered, gave no ear to 't. Q. Cath. Pr'ythee, good Griffith, tell me how he died: If well, he stepped before me, happily, For my example. Grif. Well, the voice goes, madam: For, after the stout Earl Northumberland Arrested him at York, and brought him forward (As a man sorely tainted) to his answer, He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill, He could not sit his mule. Q. Cath. Alas! poor man! Grif. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester, To whom he gave these words,-" O, father abbot, So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness gave his honors to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace. Q. Cath. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him! Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him, And yet with charity. He was a man Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking His own opinion was his law; in the presence,* His promises were, as he was, mighty; Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues Q. Cath. I were malicious else. Grif. Yes, good Griffith; This cardinal, Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly Than man could give him, he died fearing God. Q. Cath. After my death, I wish no other herald, To keep mine honor from corruption, But such an honest chronicler as Griffith. Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me, With thy religious truth and modesty, Now in his ashes, honor. Peace be with him! SHAKSPEARE. LESSON CII. CHARACTER OF LOUIS FOURTEENTH. 1. CONCERNING Louis the Fourteenth, the world seems, at last, to have formed a correct judgment. He was not a great general; * In the presence of the king. he was not a great statesman; but he was, in one sense of the word, a great king. Never was there so consummate a master of what James the First of England called king-craft; of all those arts which most advantageously display the merits of a prince, and most completely hide his defects. 2. Though his internal administration was bad; though the military triumphs which gave splendor to the early part of his reign, were not achieved by himself; though his later years were crowded with defects and humiliations; though he was so ignorant that he scarcely understood the Latin of his mass-book; though he fell under the control of a cunning Jesuit, and of a more cunning old woman; he succeeded in passing himself off on his people as a being above humanity. And this is the more extraordinary, because he did not seclude himself from the public gaze, like those Oriental despots whose faces are never seen, and whose very names it is a crime to pronounce lightly. 3. It has been said, that no man is a hero to his valet; and all the world saw as much of Louis the Fourteenth, as his valet could see. Five hundred people assembled to see him shave and put on his clothes in the morning. He then kneeled down at the side of his bed, and said his prayers, while the whole assembly awaited the end in solemn silence, the ecclesiastics on their knees, and the laymen with their hats before their faces. He walked about his gardens, with a train of two hundred courtiers at his heels. All Versailles came to see him dine and sup. He was put to bed at night, in the midst of a crowd as great as that which had met to see him rise in the morning. He took his very emetics in state, and vomited majestically in the presence of all his nobles. Yet, though he constantly exposed himself to the public gaze, in situations in which it is scarcely possible for any man to preserve much personal dignity, he, to the last, impressed those who surrounded him, with the deepest awe and reverence. 4. The illusion which he produced on his worshipers, can be compared only to those illusions, to which lovers are proverbially subject, during the season of courtship. It was an illusion which affected even the senses. The cotemporaries of Louis thought him tall. Voltaire, who might have seen him, and who had lived with some of the most distinguished members of his court, speaks repeatedly of his majestic stature. Yet, it is as certain as any fact can be, that he was rather below than above the middle size. He had, it seems, a way of holding himself, a way of walking, a way of swelling his chest and rearing his head, which deceived the eyes of the multitude. Eighty years after his death, the royal cemetery was violated by the revolutionists; his coffin was opened; his body was dragged out; and it appeared, that the prince whose majestic figure had been so long and loudly extolled, was in truth a little man. 5. His person and government have had the same fate. He had the art of making both appear grand and august, in spite of the clearest evidence that both were below the ordinary standard. Death and time have exposed both the deceptions. The body of the great king has been measured more justly than it was measured by the courtiers, who were afraid to look above his shoe-tie. His public character has been scrutinized by men free from the hopes and fears of Boileau and Moliere.* In the grave, the most majestic of princes is only five feet eight. In history, the hero and the politician dwindle into a vain and feeble tyrant, the slave of priests and women, little in war, little in government, little in every thing but the art of simulating greatness. 6. He left to his infant successor a famished and miserable people, a beaten and humbled army, provinces turned into deserts by misgovernment and persecution, factions dividing the army, a schism raging in the court, an immense debt, an innumerable household, inestimable jewels and furniture. All the sap and nutriment of the state seemed to have been drawn, to feed one bloated and unwholesome excrescence. The nation was withered. The court was morbidly flourishing. Yet, it does not appear that the associations, which attached the people to the monarchy, had lost strength during his reign. He had neglected or sacrificed their dearest interests, but he had struck their imaginations. The very things which ought to have made him unpopular, the prodigies of luxury and magnificence with which his person was surrounded, while, beyond the inclosure of his parks, nothing was to be seen but starvation and despair, seemed to increase the respectful attachment which his people felt for him. MACAULAY. LESSON CIII. A PETITION TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE CARE OF YOUTH. 1. I ADDRESS myself to all the friends of youth, and conjure them to direct their compassionate regards to my unhappy fate, in order to remove the prejudices of which I am the victim. There are twin sisters of us; and the eyes of man do not more closely resemble, nor are capable of being upon better terms with each other, than my sister and myself, were it not for the par * Pronounced Bwi-lo and Mo-le-air. |