boundaries of an empire which is already large enough to satisfy the greatest ambition, and I fear is much too large for the highest statesmanship to which any man has yet attained. The most ancient of profane historians has told us that the Scythians of his time were a very warlike people, and that they elevated an old cimeter upon a platform as a symbol of Mars, for to Mars alone, I believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To this cimeter they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main wealth of the country, and more costly sacrifices than to all the rest of their gods. I often ask myself whether we are at all advanced in one respect beyond those Scythians. What are our contributions to charity, to education, to morality, to religion, to justice, and to civil government, when compared with the wealth we expend in sacrifices to the old cimeter? Two nights ago I addressed in this hall a vast assembly composed to a great extent of your countrymen who have no political power, who are at work from the dawn of the day to the evening, and who have therefore limited means of informing themselves on these great subjects. Now I am privileged to speak to a somewhat different audience. You represent those of your great community who have a more complete education, who have on some points greater intelligence, and in whose hands reside the power and influence of the district. I am speaking, too, within the hearing of those whose gentle nature, whose finer instincts, whose purer minds, have not suffered as some of us have suffered in the turmoil and strife of life. You can mould opinion, you can create political power,-you cannot think a good thought on this subject and communicate it to your neighbours, you cannot make these points topics of discussion in your social circles and more general meetings, without affecting sensibly and speedily the course which the Government of your country will pursue. May I ask you, then, to believe, as I do most devoutly believe, that the moral law was not written for men alone in their individual character, but that it was written as well for nations, and for nations great as this of which we are citizens. If nations reject and deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will inevitably follow. It may not come at once, it may not come in our lifetime; but, rely upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a prophet, when he says,— The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite, We have experience, we have beacons, we have landmarks enough. We know what the past has cost us, we know how much and how far we have wandered, but we are not left without a guide. It is true we have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim-those oraculous gems on Aaron's breast-from which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the moral law to guide us, and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy people. John Bright. NOTES. I. Epitaph on a Jacobite. 1. See Introduction for notes on this Poem. II. Royal Tombs. 1. The ruins of Thebes, the ancient capital of Egypt, of which the most striking are those of Karnak and Luxor on the eastern bank of the Nile, consist of vast palaces, temples, obelisks, and colossal statues and sphinxes Staring right on with calm eternal eyes. At the end of a scorched and savage gorge among the Libyan mountains, on the west of the Nile, are the Tombs of the Kings, in vast passages and chambers excavated in the solid rock. The sides of the tombs are covered with paintings and sculptures illustrating the life of the mighty Dead in whose honour they were fashioned. There we may behold him hunting, or in battle, by the wine-press, or sitting at the banquet, and may trace his strange eventful history until he is entombed and carried as a mummy in the sacred vessel across the river of death. 2. The Mausoleum: a tomb. Properly speaking, the mausoleum was a magnificent tomb built in memory of Mausolus, an ancient king of Caria, by his widow and sister. It was one of the seven wonders of the world. 3. The Kremlin: the citadel of Moscow, a space two miles in circumference, and crowded with all kinds of buildings of most fantastic shapes, and glittering with gilded and silvered domes. 4. Edmund Waller (1605—1687): an English poet in the time of Cromwell and Charles II. 5. Jeremy Taylor (1613—1667): one of the greatest writers of imaginative English prose. His chief works are The Liberty of Prophesying, a plea for freedom in the interpretation of the Bible, and Holy Living and Holy Dying. A royalist clergyman, and at first chaplain to Laud, he was deprived of his living and suffered imprisonment at the hands of the Parliament. At the Restoration he became Bishop of Down and Connor and of Dromore. 6. Francis Beaumont (1585-1616): a dramatist and poet. His name is linked with that of John Fletcher, his partner in play-writing. 7. The Escurial: a palace in Spain, twenty-seven miles N.w. of Madrid. It contains the splendid tombs of many of the Spanish princes. 8. St. Denys the burial-place of the French kings on the Seine, near Paris. III. The Song of Callicles. 1. This beautiful song is from the poem Empedocles on Etna. Callicles is a young harp-player, who tries by his music to cheer his master Empedocles, a Greek philosopher, who is wandering about the mountain and who ends by throwing himself into the crater. IV. Noon in a Brazilian Forest. I. nihil quod tetigit non ornavit : i.e., there is nothing that he has touched that he has not adorned. V. The Question. 1. This poem should be compared with the descriptions of flowers, pages 133-135. Note how exact is the epithet of each flower, and how the imaginative descriptive touches of the poet throw a dreamy "moonlight beam" upon the flowers and listen to the sweet melody of the verse that is like "a sound of waters murmuring." Arcturi (in verse 2) is the plural of Arcturus, a bright star. VI. Our Ladies of Sorrow. 1. The various forms of sorrow are here imaginatively personified as three sisters. 2. She stood in Rama: "In Rama there was a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." Mat. ii. 18. 3. keys more than papal: the tradition which makes the Pope the successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome gives him also the power of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. See Mat. xvi. 19. St. Peter is thus described in Lycidas: Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain, 4. The Pariah: the sorrow that finds relief only in sighs is the visitor of the Pariah, a Hindoo who has lost caste, and is therefore despised and ill-treated by all. 5. the Jew: until recent times the Jews were oppressed throughout Europe. They were tortured, robbed, and driven from country to country. In some towns they were allowed to settle in an obscure quarter, but had to wear a distinctive dress. In England this was apparently a yellow bonnet or hat (see Bacon's Essay of Usury). Jews were not allowed to settle in England between the years 1290-1656. 6. Cybele or Rhea: the "mother of the gods." She is represented as wearing a crown adorned with towers. Thus Old Cybele, arrayed with pompous pride, With hundred turrets. FAERIE QUEENE, iv., II, 28. 7. matins: morning prayers. From French matin, morning; from Latin matutinus, belonging to the morning, from Matuta, the goddess of morning. So vespers: evening prayers, from Latin vesper, the evening. Greek Hesperos, the evening star. XI. Heroes. 1. Harry Hotspur. 1. Harry Hotspur or Henry Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland, born 1364, killed in the battle of Shrewsbury, 1403. This passage is taken from the play of Henry IV. Part I. iii. 2. 2. As thou art: i.e. Henry, Prince of Wales, [whose conduct vexed his father, for They say, he daily doth frequent, With unrestrained loose companions, Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, Shakespeare. KICHARD II. v. 3. His father compares his conduct to the reckless folly that caused Richard II. to lose his crown and his life. 3. And being no more in debt to years than thou: Percy was really some twenty-four years older than Prince Henry. Shakespeare represents them as of the same age in order the better to contrast them. 4. Capitulate: form an insurrection, or agree to rebel upon certain conditions. It is now used only in the opposite sense, to surrender upon certain conditions. It properly means to arrange the conditions or heads of agreement, from Latin caput, a head. |