commutable feet, sonorous, it is true, in their cadences, but irregular and unrestricted. You avoid, as all good writers do carefully, whatever is dactylic; for the dactyl is the bindweed of prose; but I know not what other author has trimmed it with such frugal and attentive husbandry.* One alone, in writing or conversation, would subject a man to violent suspicion of bad citizenship; and he who should employ it twice in a page or an oration, would be deemed so dangerous and desperate a malefactor, that it might be requisite to dig a pitfall or to lay an iron trap for him, or to noose him in his bed.

Aristoteles. Demosthenes has committed it in his first Philippic, where two dactyls and a spondee come after a tumultuous concourse of syllables, many sounding alike. 'Oude yaр 'ονтos пара тην αυτου ρωμην τοσουτον επηύξηται οσον παρα την nμeteρav aμeλeιav. Here are seven dactyls. The same number is nowhere to be found, in prose, within the same number of words.

Callisthenes, Throughout your works there is certainly no sentence that has not an iambic in it: now our grammarians tell us that one is enough to make a verse, as one theft is enough to make a thief: an informer then has only to place it last in his bill of indictment, and not Minos himself could absolve you.

* Callisthenes means the instance where another dactyl, or a spondee, follows it; in which case only is the period to be called dactylic. Cicero on one occasion took it in

Aristoteles. They will not easily take me for a poet.

Callisthenes. Nor Plato for anything else: he would be like a bee caught in his own honey.

Aristoteles. I must remark to you, Callisthenes, that among the writers of luxuriant and florid prose, however rich and fanciful, there never was one who wrote good poetry. Imagination seems to start back when they would lead her into a narrower walk, and to forsake them at the first prelude of the lyre. Plato has written much poetry, of which a few epigrams alone are remembered. He burned his iambics, but not until he found that they were thoroughly dry and withered. If ever a good poet should excell in prose, we, who know how distinct are the qualities, and how great must be the comprehension and the vigour that unites them, shall contemplate him as an object of wonder, and almost of worship. It is remarkable in Plato that he is the only florid writer who is animated. He will always be admired by those who have attained much learning and little precision, from the persuasion that they understand him, and that others do not; for men universally are ungrateful toward him who instructs them, unless in the hours or in the intervals of instruction he present a sweet cake to their self-love.

Callisthenes. I never saw two men so different as you and he.

Aristoteles. Yet many of those sentiments in

esses.

He judged rightly; but he could easily have done better. Longinus says that dactyls are the noblest of feet and the most adapted to the sublime. He adduces no proof, although he quotes a sentence of Demosthenes as resembling the dactylic.

Τούτο το ψήφισμα τον τότε τη πόλει περιστανία κίνδυνον παρέλθειν εποίησεν ώσπερ νέφος. Here is plenty of alliteration, but only one dactyl, for TOUTO TO is not one, being followed by 4. The letter recurs nine times in fifteen syllables. A dactyl succeeded by a

dichoree, or by a trochee with a spondee at the close, is among the sweetest of pauses; the gravest and most majestic is composed of a dactyl, a dichoree, and a dispondee. He however will soon grow tiresome who permits his partiality to any one close to be obtrusive or apparent.

The remark attributed to Callisthenes, on the freedom

of Aristoteles from pieces of verse in his sentences, is applicable to Plato, and surprisingly, if we consider how florid and decorated is his language. Among the Romans T. Livius is the most abundant in them; and among the Greeks there is a curious instance in the prefatory words

of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Φύσεως δὴ νόμος ἅπασι κοινὸς, ὃν οὐδεὶς καταλύσει χρόνος, ἄρχειν ἀεὶ τῶν ἡ ττόνων τοὺς | κρείττονας.

These words appear to have been taken from some tragedy: the last constitute a perfect iambic; and the preceding, with scarcely a touch, assume the same appearance: the diction too is quite poetical: ari zaivòs... καταλύσει, &c.

"Απασι κοινός ἐστι τῆς φύσεως νόμος,
*Ον. . .οὐδεὶς. . καταλύσει χρόνος,
Αρχειν ἀεὶ τῶν ἡττόνων τους κρείττονας.

In the Gorgias of Plato is the same idea in nearly the same words. Δηλοῖ δὲ ταῦτα πολλαχοῦ ὅτι οὕτως ἔχει, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις ζωοίς, καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐν ὅλαις ταῖς πόλεσι καὶ γένεσιν, ὅτι οὕτω τὸ δίκαιον κέκριται, τὸν κρείπτω τοῦ ἥττονος ἄρχειν καὶ πλέον ἔχειν.

together until they meet. I had represented excessive wealth as the contingency most dangerous to a republic; he took the opposite side, and asserted that excessive poverty is more.+ Now wherever there is excessive wealth, there is also in the train of it excessive poverty; as where the sun is brightest the shade is deepest. Many republics have stood for ages, while no citizen of them was in very great affluence, and while on the contrary most were very poor: but none hath stood long after many, or indeed a few, have grown inordinately wealthy. Riches cause poverty, then irritate, then corrupt it; so throughout their whole progress and action they are dangerous to the state. Plato defends his thesis with his usual ingenuity; for if there is nowhere a worse philosopher, there is hardly anywhere a better writer. He says, and truly, that the poor become wild and terrible animals, when they no longer can gain their bread by their trades and occupations ; and that, laden to excess with taxes, they learn a lesson from necessity, which they never would have taken up without her. Upon this all philosophers, all men of common sense indeed, think alike. Usually, if not always, the poor are quiet while there is among them no apprehension of becoming poorer, that is while the government is not oppressive and unjust: but the rich are

† It is evident that Aristoteles wrote his Polity after Plato, for he animadverts on a false opinion of Plato's in the proæmium : but many of the opinions must have been promulgated by both, before the publication of their works.

Henry. Dost thou know me, Nanny, in this yeoman's dress? 'S blood! does it require so long and vacant a stare to recollect a husband after a week or two? No tragedy-tricks with me! a scream, a sob, or thy kerchief a trifle the wetter, were enough. Why, verily the little fool faints in earnest. These whey faces, like their kinsfolk the ghosts, give us no warning. (Sprinkling water over her) Hast had water enough upon thee? take that then . . . art thyself again?

...

Anne. Father of mercies! do I meet again my husband, as was my last prayer on earth! do I behold my beloved lord . . . in peace and pardoned, my partner in eternal bliss! It was his voice. I can not see him ... why can not I? O why do these pangs interrupt the transports of the blessed!

Henry. Thou openest thy arms: faith! I came for that Nanny, thou art a sweet slut :* thou groanest, wench: art in labour? Faith! among the mistakes of the night, I am ready to think almost that thou hast been drinking, and that I have not.

Anne. God preserve your highness: grant me your forgiveness for one slight offence. My eyes were heavy; I fell asleep while I was reading; I did not know of your presence at first, and when I did I could not speak. I strove for utterance; I wanted no respect for my liege and husband.

Henry. My pretty warm nestling, thou wilt then lie! Thou wert reading and aloud too, with thy saintly cup of water by thee, and . . . what! thou art still girlishly fond of those dried cherries!

*Henry was not unlearned, nor indifferent to the costlier externals of a gentleman; but in manners and language he was hardly on a level with our ostlers of the present day. He was fond of bear-baitings and other such amusements in the midst of the rabble, and would wrestle with Francis L. His reign is one continued proof, flaring and wearisome as a Lapland summer day, that even the English form of government, under a sensual king with money at his disposal, may serve only to legitimatize injustice. The Constitution was still insisted on, in all its original strength and purity, by those who had abolished many of its fundamental laws, and had placed the remainder at the discretion of the king. It never has had a more zealous advocate than Empson. This true patriot of legitimacy requested on his trial, that, "if he and Dudley were punished, it might not be divulged to other nations, lest they should infer that the final dissolution of the English government was approaching."

The government was whatever the king ordered; and he a ferocious and terrific thing, swinging on high between two windy superstitions, and caught and propelled alternately by Fanaticism and Lust. In Anne Boleyn, the frank and unsuspicious gaiety of her temper, the restless playfulness of high spirits, which we often saw formerly in the families of country gentlemen, first captivated the affections and afterward raised the jealousy of Henry. Lightness of spirit, which had made all about her happy the whole course of her life, made her so the last day of it. She was beheaded on the 19th of May, and Henry on the morrow married Jane Seymour.

Anne. I had no other fruit to offer your highness the first time I saw you, and you were then pleased to invent for me some reason why they should be acceptable. I did not dry these: may I present them, such as they are? We shall have fresh next month.

Henry. Thou art always driving away from the discourse. One moment it suits thee to know me, another not.

Anne. Remember, it is hardly three months since I miscarried; I am weak and liable to swoons.

Henry. Thou hast however thy bridal cheeks, with lustre upon them when there is none elsewhere, and obstinate lips resisting all impression: but now thou talkest about miscarrying, who is the father of that boy?

Anne. The father is yours and mine; he who hath taken him to his own home, before (like me) he could struggle or cry for it.

Henry. Pagan, or worse, to talk so! He did not come into the world alive there was no baptism.

Anne. I thought only of our loss: my senses are confounded. I did not give him my milk, and yet I loved him tenderly; for I often fancied, had he lived, how contented and joyful he would have made you and England.

Henry. No subterfuges and escapes. I warrant, thou canst not say whether at my entrance thou wert waking or wandering.

Anne. Faintness and drowsiness came upon me suddenly.

Henry. Well, since thou really and truly sleepedst, what didst dream of?

Anne. I begin to doubt whether I did indeed sleep.

Henry. Ha! false one . . . never two sentences of truth together. . . but come, what didst think about, asleep or awake?

Anne. I thought that God had pardoned me my offences, and had received me unto him. Henry. And nothing more?

Anne. That my prayers had been heard and my wishes were accomplishing: the angels alone can enjoy more beatitude than this.

Henry. Vexatious little devil! she says nothing now about me, merely from perverseness Hast thou never thought about me, nor about thy falsehood and adultery?

Anne. If I had committed any kind of false

She miscarried of a son January the twenty-ninth, 1536: the King concluded from this event that his marriage was disagreeable to God. He had abundance of conclusions for believing that his last marriage was disagreeable to God, whenever he wanted a fresh one, and was ready in due time to give up this too with the same resignation; but he never had any conclusions of doing a thing disagreeable to God when a divorce or decapitation was in question.

hood, in regard to you or not, I should never have rested until I had thrown myself at your feet and obtained your pardon: but if ever I had been guilty of that other crime, I know not whether I should have dared to implore it, even of God's mercy.

Henry. Thou hast heretofore cast some soft glances upon Smeaton; hast thou not?

Anne. He taught me to play on the virginals, as you know, when I was little, and thereby to please your highness.

Henry. And Brereton and Norris, what have they taught thee?

Anne. They are your servants, and trusty ones. Henry. Has not Weston told thee plainly that he loved thee?

Anne. Yes; and . . .

Henry. What didst thou? Anne. I defied him.

Henry. Is that all?

Anne. I could have done no more if he had told me that he hated me. Then indeed I should have incurred more justly the reproaches of your highness: I should have smiled.

Henry. We have proofs abundant: the fellows shall one and all confront thee . . . ay, clap thy hands and kiss my sleeve, harlot !

Anne. O that so great a favour is vouchsafed me! my honour is secure; my husband will be happy again; he will see my innocence.

Henry. Give me now an account of the monies thou hast received from me within these nine months I want them not back: they are letters of gold in record of thy guilt. Thou hast had no fewer than fifteen thousand pounds in that period, without even thy asking; what hast done with it, wanton ?

Anne. I have regularly placed it out to interest. Henry. Where? I demand of thee.

Anne. Among the needy and ailing. My lord archbishop has the account of it, sealed by him weekly I also had a copy myself: those who took away my papers may easily find it, for there are few others, and they lie open.

Henry. Think on my munificence to thee; recollect who made thee. Dost sigh for what thou hast lost?

Anne. I do indeed.

check them when they speak about me; and that he whom next to God I have served with most devotion, is my accuser.

Henry. Wast thou conning over something in that dingy book for thy defence? Come, tell me, what wast thou reading?

Anne. This ancient chronicle. I was looking for some one in my own condition, and must have missed the page. Surely in so many hundred years, there shall have been other young maidens, first too happy for exaltation, and after too exalted for happiness: not perchance doomed to die upon a scaffold, by those they ever honoured and served faithfully that indeed I did not look for nor think of: but my heart was bounding for anyone I could love and pity. She would be unto me as a sister dead and gone, but hearing me, seeing me, consoling me, and being consoled. O my husband, it is so heavenly a thing . . .

:

Henry. To whine and whimper, no doubt, is vastly heavenly.

Anne. I said not so: but those, if there be any such, who never weep, have nothing in them of heavenly or of earthly. The plants, the trees, the very rocks and unsunned clouds, show us at least the semblances of weeping: and there is not an aspect of the globe we live on, nor of the waters and skies around it, without a reference and a similitude to our joys or sorrows.

Henry. I do not remember that notion anywhere. Take care no enemy rake out of it something of materialism. Guard well thy empty hot brain: it may hatch more evil. As for those odd words, I myself would fain see no great harm in them, knowing that grief and frenzy strike out many things, which would else lie still, and neither spirt nor sparkle. I also know that thou hast never read anything but bible and history, the two worst books in the world for young people, and the most certain to lead astray both prince and subject. For which reason I have interdicted and entirely put down the one, and will (by the blessing of the Virgin and of holy Paul) commit the other to a rigid censor. If it behoves us kings to enact what our people shall eat and drink, of which the most unruly and rebellious spirit can entertain no doubt, greatly more doth it behove us to examine what they read and

Anne. I do not regret that I have been a queen and am no longer one; nor that my innocence is called in question by those who never knew me but I lament that the good people who loved me so cordially, hate and curse me; that those who pointed me out to their daughters for imitation,

* The duke of Norfolk obtained an order that the archbishop of Canterbury should retire to his palace of Lambeth on the Queen's trial. Burnet, very sharp-sighted on irregularities in ladies, says that she had distributed, in the last nine months of her life, between fourteen and fifvalue to nearly five times the amount at present. It tends to prove how little she could have reserved for vanities or

teen thousand pounds among the poor; a sum equal in

favourites.

:

and will: we must take care that the movement be a right one, on pain of God's anger in this life and the next.

Anne. O my dear husband! it must be a naughty thing indeed that makes him angry be yond remission. Did you ever try how pleasant it is to forgive anyone? There is nothing else wherein we can resemble God perfectly and easily. Henry. Resemble God perfectly and easily! Do vile creatures talk thus of the Creator?

Anne. No, Henry, when his creatures talk thus of him, they are no longer vile creatures! When they know that he is good they love him, and when they love him they are good themselves. O Henry! my husband and king! the judgments

of our Heavenly Father are righteous: on this surely we must think alike.

Henry. And what then? speak out: again I command thee, speak plainly: thy tongue was not so torpid but this moment. Art ready? must I wait?

Anne. If any doubt remains upon your royal mind of your equity in this business; should it haply seem possible to you that passion or prejudice, in yourself or another, may have warped so strong an understanding, do but supplicate the Almighty to strengthen and enlighten it, and he will hear you.

Henry. What! thou wouldst fain change thy quarters, ay?

Anne. My spirit is detached and ready, and I shall change them shortly, whatever your highness may determine. Ah! my native Bickling is a pleasant place. May I go back to it? Does that kind smile say yes? Do the hounds ever run that way now? The fruit-trees must be all in full blossom, and the gorse on the hill above quite dazzling. How good it was in you to plant your park at Greenwich after my childish notion, tree for tree, the very same as at Bickling! Has the hard winter killed them? or the winds loosened the stakes about them?

Henry. Silly child! as if thou shouldst see them any more.

Anne. Alas! what strange things happen! But they and I are nearly of the same age; young alike, and without hold upon anything.

Henry. Yet thou appearest hale and resolute, and (they tell me) smirkest and smilest to everybody.

Anne. The withered leaf catches the sun sometimes, little as it can profit by it; and I have heard stories of the breeze in other climates, that sets in when daylight is about to close, and how constant it is, and how refreshing. My heart indeed is now sustained strangely: it became the more sensibly so from that time forward, when power and grandeur and all things terrestrial were sunk from sight. Every act of kindness in those about me gives me satisfaction and pleasure, such as I did not feel formerly. I was worse before God chastened me; yet I was never an ingrate. What pains have I taken to find out the villagegirls who placed their posies in my chamber ere I arose in the morning! how gladly would I have recompensed the forester who lit up a brake on my birthnight, which else had warmed him half the winter! But these are times past: I was not queen of England.

Henry. Nor adulterous, nor heretical.
Anne. God be praised!

Henry. Learned saint! thou knowest nothing of the lighter, but perhaps canst inform me about the graver of them.

Anne. Which may it be, my liege? Henry. Which may it be, pestilence! I marvel that the walls of this tower do not crack around thee at such impiety.

Anne. I would be instructed by the wisest of theologians: such is your highness.

Henry. Are the sins of the body, foul as they are, comparable to those of the soul?

Anne. When they are united they must be worst.

Henry. Go on, go on: thou pushest thy own breast against the sword: God hath deprived thee of thy reason for thy punishment. I must hear more; proceed, I charge thee.

Anne. An aptitude to believe one thing rather than another, from ignorance or weakness, or from the more persuasive manner of the teacher, or from his purity of life, or from the strong impres sion of a particular text at a particular time, and various things beside, may influence and decide our opinion; and the hand of the Almighty, let us hope, will fall gently on human fallibility.

Henry. Opinion in matters of faith! rare wisdom! rare religion! Troth! Anne, thou hast well sobered me. I came rather warmly and lovingly; but these light ringlets, by the holy rood, shall not shade this shoulder much longer. Nay, do not start; I tap it for the last time, my sweetest. If the church permitted it, thou shouldst set forth on thy long journey with the eucharist between thy teeth, however loth.

Anne. Love your Elizabeth, my honoured lord, and God bless you! She will soon forget to call me: do not chide her: think how young she is.*

Could I, could I kiss her, but once again! it would comfort my heart. . . or break it.

* Elizabeth was not quite three years old at her mother's death, being born the seventh of September 1533. It does not appear that the Defender of the Faith brought his wife to the scaffold for the good of her soul, nor that she was pregnant at the time, which would have added much to the merit of the action, as there is the probability that the child would have been heretical. Casper Scioppius, who flourished in the same century, says in his Classicum Belli Sacri that the children of heretics should not be pardoned, lest, if they grow up, they be implicated in the wickedness of their parents, and perish

eternally.

Literature and Religion seem to have been contending two hundred years unintermittingly, which of them should be most efficient in banishing humanity and civility from the world; the very things which it was which they not only are useless but pernicious. Scioppius their business to propagate and preserve, and without stood as bottle-holder to both, in their most desperate attacks. He, who was so munificent to children, in little faggots, little swords, and little halters, gave also a Christmas-box to James I. “Alexipharmacum regium felli Plessis nuperà papatus historia abdito, appositum, et seredraconum et veneno aspidum, sub Philippi Mornæi de

nissimo Domino, Jacobo Magna Britanniæ regi, strenæ Januariæ loco, muneri missum." From the inexhaustible stores of his generosity he made another such present. "Collyrium Regium, Britanniæ regi, graviter ex oculis laboranti, muneri missum." Sir Henry Wootton, who

found him in Madrid, to requite him for his Christmas

box and box of eye-salve, ordered him to be whipt without a metaphor: on which Lavanda says “ Quid Hispane calleat Scioppius haud scio ; si quid tamen istius linguæ in ipso fuit, tunc opinor exseruit maxime quando in Hispaniâ Anglice vapulavit." The remedies of Henry were less fallible, and his gifts more royal.