Ah me! methinks it were a happier fate To be no better than an humble swain !' If some will allow no merit to those they hate, others will allow no charm to the places in which they live. Even Seneca was allied to these; for while he was suffering banishment in Corsica, he would allow it nothing. It had no apples in autumn; no harvests in summer; no verdure in spring. LXIII. PREJUDICES IN RESPECT TO ANCIENT TIMES. THERE is in all countries a prejudice which may be called perpetual. It may be learnt from a passage in Terence's Self-tormentor.' "Syrus. Good sort of girl, this wench of Clinia, Syrus. And handsome. Chremes. Well enough. Syrus. Not like the maids of old, but passable The great advantage of Turenne, over the imperial general Montecuculi, is said to have consisted in having had a stronger and more active frame. This enabled him to inspect all the posts in person; and, therefore, to take judicious measures on the spot for the execution of his designs. Strength, then, is necessary even in an age of cannon; yet not so much so as in that when Alexander, on quitting India, erected twelve altars of square stone to remain as monuments of his expedition; and caused beds of an extended size to be left, in order to deceive the natives as to the personal proportions of his men *. Reverence for ancient times reminds one of those castles in Spain, which associate ideas of dwarfs, giants, duennas, beautiful virgins, courteous knights, and brilliant tournaments. From this reverence arises the im pression, that has, for so many ages, dwelt upon the more ignorant portion of mankind in regard to stature. Indeed some are so entirely determined in their resolution to allow no superiority to the living, that, like a celebrated Spanish (or Portuguese) poet, in allusion to cosmography, they would gravely assert, that America is fully described in the pages of Herodotus. This frailty is of old standing; for when Diomed throws a stone, Homer declares, 'Not two strong men th' enormous weight could raise ; Virgil, in using this, improves the number to twelve: 'So vast, that twelve strong men of modern days Th' enormous weight from earth could hardly raise ‡.' Take a passage, also, from our excellent and agreeable friend Horace. 'Damnosa quid non imminuit dies? Ætas parentum, pejor avis, tulit Progeniem vitiosiorem.'-Lib. iii., 6. * Quintus Curtius, 1. ix., c. iii. + Iliad. v. n., xii., 1. 899. * Augustin prolonged the cheat in his age, and Dry den in our own. 'By chace our long-lived fathers earned their food: This idea, however, is finely corrected by one of the heroes of the Iliad. 'What needs, O monarch, this invidious praise, Ourselves to lessen, while our sires you raise? Our valour equal, though our fury less.' Great power has generally been ascribed to size: but Livy assures us, that the Romans were the slightest men in all Italy; insomuch, that the difference could be distinguished at the first glance: their superiority consisting not in their size but in their pride, their courage, their exercise, their tactics, their discipline, and their fear of their own officers. Alexander was of a small stature, and a multitude of other heroes have been equally diminutive. Many great men in the time of Cromwell were so. Lord Clarendon says of Sir Charles Cavendish, that he was so small, that he attracted the eyes of every one; yet he charged the enemy in all battles with a courage as *Thus he says, in reference to two bodies found under the pavement of a church at Milan: ‘Invenimus miræ magnitudinis 'viros duos, ut prisca ætas ferebat.' On this subject refer to Audran's 'Proportions du Corps Humain, &c.,' and De Bosse's 'Figures Humaines mesurées sur des Antiques à Rome.' 1656. keen as could dwell in the heart of man. As to Lord Falkland, the mirror of his times, he, too, was of diminutive stature, and still more unfavoured by nature; yet never lived there a man of more true courage, nor one more disposed to the accomplishment of great enterprises. Indeed, most great men (if we may be allowed to avail ourselves of a witticism) have been little ones*. From FORM to MIND. Many persons admire antiquity exceedingly: but then it is more to mortify the living, than to do justice to the dead. *Lucifer, however, is universally painted great. Zuccaro, in his pictures on the Cupola di Santa Maria, at Florence, makes him so large, that all the rest appear like children. Tasso says: 'Horrida maestà nel fero aspetto Terrore accresce, e più superbo il rende.' Dante draws him large and horrible. Un mostro straordinariamente grande et spaventoso.' In another place; 'E più con un gigante i' mi convegno, Che i giganti non fan con le sue bracchia, &c."' And Milton describes the same personage as large as 'That sea beast, Leviathan, which God, of all his works, Created hugest, that swim the ocean stream.' a Più io m' accosto alla grandezza di un gigante, che non s' ac'costino i giganti alla grandezza delle sole di lui braccia.'—Angelucci. Roma, 1741. 'Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis; Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit.' Horace. Bacon was one of the first to give a depth of wound to prejudices of this kind. Since which, prejudice has taken an opposite direction. We disdain our masters; and having, in our voyage towards the pole, as it were, arrived at the eightieth degree of latitude, we think ourselves as wise,-better informed we certainly are,than those who first had the sagacity to point us out the way. Yet not always so. Hence dead men are celebrated; and living ones are despised, on the ground that the good has been, the bad is, and the worst is still to come. Envying the living, we feel ourselves overwhelmed with their merit. But from the dead, as we have nothing to fear from their eminence, we are content to edify by their labours; and that but too often without the least acknowledgment. We ought, however, to meditate on a remark of Mr. Locke *; viz. that' we should make 'much greater progress in knowledge, were we to seek it ⚫ in a consideration of things themselves, by making use ' of our own faculties than by perpetually calling in the ' aid of other persons.' There is a medium, however, in these things; for the knowing when to resort to other men's judgments, and when to rely upon our own, is the great point in this argument. And here it were sacrilege not to remember a melancholy but true remark by Dugald Stewart: 'A great part of the life of 'a philosopher is devoted, not so much to the acqui * Essay on Human Understanding, ch. iii., 65. |