The breath of heaven hath blown its spirit out, Hub. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. That mercy, which fierce fire, and iron, extends-- Hub. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eyes Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, With this same very iron to burn them out. Arth. O, now you look like Hubert! all this while Hub. Arth. O heaven!-I thank you, Hubert. Hub. Silence: no more. Go closely in with me; Much danger do I undergo for thee. LESSON CXIX. [Exeunt. Speech of a Scythian* Ambassador to Alexander.-Q. CURTIUS. 1. WHEN the Scythian ambassadors waited on Alexander the Great, they gazed on him a long time without speaking a word; being very probably surprised, as they formed a judgment of men from their air and stature, to find that his did not answer the high idea they entertained of him from his fame. 2. At last the oldest of the ambassadors addressed him thus: "Had the gods given thee a body proportionable to thy ambition, the whole universe would have been too little for thee. With one hand thou wouldst touch the East, and with the other the West; and not satisfied with this, thou wouldst follow the sun, and know where he hides himself. The Scythians were a wandering people, in the eastern part of Europe and western part of Asia. 3. "But what have we to do with thee? We never set foot in thy country. May not those who inhabit woods be allowed to live, without knowing who thou art, and whence thou comest? We will neither command over, nor submit to any man. 4. "And that thou mayst be sensible what kind of people the Scythians are, know that we received from heaven, as a rich present, a yoke of oxen, a ploughshare, a dart, a javelin, and a cup. These we make use of, both with our friends, and against our enemies. 5. "To our friends we give corn, which we procure by the labor of our oxen; with them we offer wine to the gods in our cup; and with regard to our enemies, we combat them at a distance with our arrows, and near at hand with our javelins. 6. "But thou, who boastest thy coming to extirpate robbers, art thyself the greatest robber upon earth. Thou hast plundered all nations thou overcamest; thou hast possessed thyself of Libya, invaded Syria, Persia, and Bactriana; thou art forming a design to march as far as India, and now thou comest hither to seize upon our hels of cattle. 7. "The grens ossessions thou hast, only make thee covet the more eagerly what thou hast not. If thou art a god, thou oughtest to do good to mortals, and not deprive them of their possessions. 8. "If thou art a mere man, reflect always on what thou art. They whom thou shalt not molest will be thy true friends; the strongest friendships heing contracted between equals; and they are esteemed equals who have not tried their strength against each other. But do not suppose that those whom thou conquerest can love thee." LESSON CXX. Diogenes at the Isthmian Games.*. -WAKEFIELD'S DIO CHRY SOSTOM. 1. THE cynic philosopher Diogenes,† observing a person stalking from the Stadium, in the midst of so immense a multi *So called from their being celebrated on the Isthmus of Corinth, in the southern part of Greece. + Diogenes was a celebrated cynic philosopher, born 420 years B. C., at Sinope. He was remarkable for his contempt of riches, and for his negli gence in dress; he had no food but what was brought to him daily; and he lived in a tub, of which he turned the open side toward the sun in winter, and the contrary in summer. After a life spent in the greatest indigence and misery, he died in the 96th year of his age. A place for running, wrestling, &c. tude, as sometimes not even to touch the ground, but to be borne aloft by the concourse round him : some following close upon him with loud acclamations, others leaping with exultation and raising their hands to heaven; others again throwing garlands and fillets at the man-as soon as he was able to approach, inquired, What this tumultuous assemblage of people was doing? and, What had happened? The man replied, "I have gained the victory, Diogenes! over the runners in the Stadium." 2. "What is the nature of this victory?" said he. "Your understanding, I presume, has acquired not even the slenderest improvements from your superiority of speed over your competitors; nor are you become more temperate and continent than before; nor less timorous, nor less a prey to melancholy: nor, peradventure, will you live henceforward with more moderate desires, or under greater freedom from uneasiness and vexation of spirit." 3." Be that as it may," the man rejoins, "I excel all the other Greeks in the swiftness of my feet." -"But," said Diogenes, "you are not swifter than the hares, nor the stags; and yet these creatures, though the swiftest of all others, are at the same time the most timorous, afraid both of men, and birds of prey, and of dogs; so as to lead a life of uninterrupted misery. 4. Indeed you must be aware, are you not, that speed is in reality a symptom of timidity? for the most timid animals are also invariably the swiftest. In conformity with this dispensation of nature, Hercules was slower of foot than most men; and, from his consequent inability of laying hold on his antagonists by speed, was accustomed to carry a bow and arrows, and thus arrest a flying adversary with his weapons." 5. "Yes," said the man: "but the poet tells us, how Achilles, the swift-footed, was a warrior likewise of incomparable fortitude." "And whence," replied Diogenes, 66 can we infer the celerity of Achilles? for we find him incapable of overtaking Hector, after a pursuit of an entire day. However, are you not ashamed of priding yourself on that property, in which must acknowledge your inferiority to the meanest animals? Nay, suppose, that you would not be able to outstrip even a fox in speed. But, after all, at what a distance did you leave your competitors behind?" I you 6. "A very small distance, Diogenes! and this very circum stance makes my victory so admirably glorious." "It seems, * Fillet, a band to tie up the hair. + The bravest of the Greeks in the Trojan war. The son of Priam, king of Troy, and a valiant hero. 99 а then," said Diogenes, "that your triumph and felicity depended on a single step.' "No wonder: we were all the fleetest runners imaginable."-"By how great an interval do you think lark would have gone over the Stadium before you all?" "But they have wings, and fly." "Well !" replied Diogenes: "if swiftness then be a proof of excellence, it were better to be a lark than a man: so that our commiseration for larks and lapwings, because they were metamorphosed* from men into birds, as mythologists inform us, is unseasonable and unnecessary." 7. "But I," said the victorious racer, "who am a man myself, am the swiftest of mankind." "Yes!" replied Diogenes: "and is it not probable, that among ants, also, one is swifter than another? Yet are the ants objects of admiration to their fellows on that account? Or would you not think it a laughable absurdity in any man to admire an ant for his speed? Suppose again, that all your competitors had been lame, would you have prided yourself, as on some masterly achievement, for outstripping the lame, when you were not lame like the rest?" 8. By such conversation as this, he produced in many of his hearers a supreme contempt for the boasted accomplishment in question and the man too departed, under no little mortification and humiliation, from this interview with Diogenes. Nor was the philosopher of little service to society in this respect, by reducing to a smaller compass and assuaging the tumors of a senseless infatuation, as swellings on the body subside from scarification and puncture, whenever he saw any man inflated with a frivolous conceit of unsubstantial excellence, and carried beyond the limits of sober sentiment by qualities utterly destitute of intrinsic worth. LESSON CXXI. Diversity in the Human Character.-POPE. But Heaven's great view is one, and that the whole. Pronounced Met-a-mor-fus'd, changed. + Goal, the end which a person aims to reach or accomplish. 2. That counterworks each folly and caprice, 3. Heaven, forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. To those we owe true friendship, love sincere, 4. What'er the passion, knowledge, fame or pelf, The poor contents him with the care of heaven: The starving chimist in his golden views 5. See some strange comfort ev'ry state attend, 6. Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, |