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Plutarch, who was twenty-one when Nero declared his country free, was the first leader in the great Hellenist revival, without, at the same time, entirely belonging to it. He cared more for the matter than for the form of antiquity, for the great deeds and greater thoughts of the past than for the words in which they were related and explained. Hence, by the awkwardness and heaviness of his style, he is more akin to the writers of the Alexandrian period than to his immediate successors. On the one side, he opens the era of classical idealism; on the other, he closes that of encyclopaedic erudition. The next generation bore much the same relation to Plutarch that the first Sophists bore to Hecataeus and Herodotus. Addressing themselves to popular audiences, they were obliged to study perspicuity and elegance of expression, at the risk, it is true, of verbosity and platitude. Such men were Dion Chrysostom, Her?des Atticus, Maximus Tyrius, and Aristeides. But the old models were imitated with more success by writers who lived more entirely in the past. Arrian reproduced the graceful simplicity270 of Xenophon in his narrative of the campaigns of Alexander and his reports of the lectures of Epictêtus. Lucian composed dialogues ranking with the greatest masterpieces of lighter Attic literature. The felicity of his style and his complete emancipation from superstition may probably be traced to the same source—a diligent study of the ancient classics. It is certain that neither as a writer nor as a critic does he represent the average educated taste of his own times. So far from giving polytheism its deathblow, as he was formerly imagined to have done, he only protested unavailingly against its restoration. 272 The civilization of the Englishman is only skin deep. And therein lies his strength and his salvation. Beneath that outer surface, tubbed and groomed and prosperous, there is the man, raw and crude from the workshops of Creation. Back of that brain, trained to a nicety of balance and perception and judgment, there are the illogical passions of a savage. An adaptation of the proverb might run that you scratch an Englishman and you find a Briton—one of those same Britons who stained themselves blue with woad, who fell upon their foes with clumsy swords and flaming torches, who wore the skins of beasts, and lived in huts of straw, and who burned men and animals together, in sacrifice to their gods. To acquire popularity, the Rockingham administration made a further restriction on the import of foreign silks; they made a modification of the Cider Bill, but this only extended to taking the duty off cider belonging to private persons, and was regarded as a bribe to the country gentlemen. They induced the House of Commons to pass a resolution on the 25th of April, declaring general warrants illegal, and, if for seizing any member of the House, a breach of privilege. But when they passed this in the form of a bill, the Lords threw it out; and a second bill for the same purpose failed in the Commons. Still, these conciliatory measures did not procure them confidence. Colonel Barré refused them his support; General Conway was sick of his post, and longed to be out of it; and Henley, Lord Northington, as Chancellor, was found actually intriguing against his colleagues. With the Court they grew into no favour, because the king thought them backward in procuring from Parliament suitable provision for his younger brother. It was clear that this could not last. To cap the climax of weakness, the Rockingham Cabinet came to open issue amongst themselves on the plan of government for Canada. Northington informed the king that they could not go on; and the king, on the 7th of July, gave the Chancellor a letter to Pitt, inviting him to form a new Ministry. The same day his Majesty also informed the existing Cabinet of the change which he contemplated. Conway[190] said frankly, it was the best thing the king could do; but Lord Rockingham and the Duke of Newcastle were deeply offended. His first measure was to establish the Great Northern Alliance. He had obtained information of designs on the part of France and Spain to make a descent on our southern coast, and burn the dockyards of Portsmouth and Plymouth. Before quitting office, in 1761, he had planned this alliance, and he now made endeavours, but in vain, to induce Frederick of Prussia to come into such an alliance. Frederick was too sore at his treatment by the Cabinet of Lord Bute to listen to any proposals from England. Still, this would not have prevented Chatham from prosecuting the object of the alliance with Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Germany, and Holland, had he remained long enough in[191] office. His name carried the utmost weight all over the Continent. His indomitable vigour, and his victorious arms, had been witnessed with wonder. In Paris, Horace Walpole found the news of his return to office produced a panic not to be described. The very mention of his name struck a silence into the most boastful or insolent company. With a yell the regiment swept across the clearing into the brush beyond. A furious, noisy scrambling ensued in the thickets. Neither side could see 10 yards ahead, and the firing, though fierce and rapid, was not very effective. Men shot at sounds, or motions of the bushes, and the bullets, glancing on the limbs, whistled in all directions. But the 200th Ind. pressed furiously forward, and though the rebels resisted stubbornly they were gradually pressed back up the hill. Occasionally one was killed, many were wounded, and squads were caught in clumps of brush and compelled to surrender. Si and Shorty kept their boys in hand, on the left of Co. Q, restrained them from firing until they saw something to shoot at, and saw that they did not advance until their guns were loaded. They heard a crashing volley delivered on their right front, and springing swiftly in that direction, came to a little break, across which they saw a squad of 15 or 16 rebels under the command of a Captain, with their guns still smoking, and peering into the woods to see the result of their fire. Si rushed at the Captain, with leveled gun, and ordered him to surrender. The bodies of Bob Willis and Jim Humphreys were wrapped in their blankets, and mournfully consigned to the earth. A cedar bush was stuck in the head of each grave, and Si, finding a piece of smooth board and a chunk of soft charcoal from a fire, sat down on the bank, and begun laboriously composing the following inscription: "True," answered the monk, with increased tenacity; "but will the Lord of life hold us guiltless, if we heed not the cry of the innocent?" "I want no drink," said the galleyman, impatiently, pushing away the vessel—"but stay, 't will do me no harm." "I dare not—let me go! Is he not excommunicated? has he not lived on in sin? Let me go." Next to the considerate hospitality (if it may be so termed) of allowing the water-conduit in Cheapside spout wine, nothing elicited more unqualified approbation from the lower classes than a temporary building erected at the extremity of the before-mentioned place. This building, coloured so as to give an idea of firmly-cemented stone, presented the appearance of a castle, with four circular towers and a spacious gateway midway between. The arch stretched across nearly the whole extent of the horse-road, so that the towers terminating the four angles of the gateway stood parallel with the verge of the footpath. In each of the towers, at about five feet from the ground, was an arched doorway, in which stood a young maiden about sixteen, attired in a white flowing robe, with a chaplet of white roses encircling her hair, and holding a gold cup in her right hand, and a crystal vase in her left. On the castellated summit of the arch, which was about four feet in depth, and just in the centre between the towers, was placed a figure of equal height with the maidens, apparently of gold, representing an angel holding a beautifully wrought crown in its right hand, which, as the procession approached, the angel bent down, and presented to the young king. At the same instant, the two maidens, in the two towers at the east side, filled their cups with wine from a crystal fountain at their right hand, and each, with a graceful smile, proffered the draught to Richard. They then took, from the vase on their left, a handful of golden leaves, which they wafted towards the young king, and concluded by showering a number of counterfeit gold florences on his head. HoME操妈 影视先锋ENTER NUMBET 0017 1688qp.com.cn 92111.com.cn sunper.com.cn sige8.net.cn www.erli0.net.cn linke8.com.cn renan5.com.cn tafen3.com.cn qunna2.com.cn zuori6.com.cn
