Chapter 1

LIBRARY OF THE

WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE

ANCIENT AND MODERN

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

EDITOR

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE GEORGE HENRY WARNER

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Connoisseur Edition

VOL. IV.

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL

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CRAWFORD H. TOY, A.M., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.

THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D., Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.

WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH.D., L.H.D., Professor of History and Political Science, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N.J.

BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B., Professor of Literature, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.

JAMES B. ANGELL, LL.D., President of the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.

WILLARD FISKE, A.M., PH.D., Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and Literatures, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N.Y.

EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A.M., LL.D., Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.

ALCÉE FORTIER, LIT.D., Professor of the Romance Languages, TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.

WILLIAM P. TRENT, M.A., Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of English and History, UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.

PAUL SHOREY, PH.D., Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL.D., United States Commissioner of Education, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D.C.

MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A.M., LL.D., Professor of Literature in the CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D.C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOL. IV

LIVED GEORGE BANCROFT--_Continued_: 1800-1891 Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham ('History of the United States') Lexington (same) Washington (same)

JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM 1798-1874 The Publican's Dream ('The Bit of Writin'') Ailleen Soggarth Aroon Irish Maiden's Song

THÉODORE DE BANVILLE 1823--1891 Le Café ('The Soul of Paris') The Mysterious Hosts of the Forests ('The Caryatids': Lang's Translation) Aux Enfants Perdus: Lang's Translation Ballade des Pendus: Lang's Translation

ANNA LÆITIA BARBAULD 1743-1825 Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations A Dialogue of the Dead Life Praise to God

ALEXANDER BARCLAY 1475-1552 The Courtier's Life (Second Eclogue)

RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM 1788-1845 As I Laye A-Thynkynge The Lay of St. Cuthbert A Lay of St. Nicholas

SABINE BARING-GOULD 1834- St. Patrick's Purgatory ('Curious Myths of the Middle Ages') The Cornish Wreckers ('The Vicar of Morwenstow')

JANE BARLOW 18-- Widow Joyce's Cloak ('Strangers at Lisconnel') Walled Out ('Bogland Studies')

JOEL BARLOW 1754-1812 A Feast ('Hasty Pudding')

WILLIAM BARNES 1800-1886 Blackmwore Maidens May Milken Time Jessie Lee The Turnstile To the Water-Crowfoot Zummer an' Winter

JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE 1860- The Courtin' of T'nowhead's Bell ('Auld Licht Idylls') Jess Left Alone ('A Window in Thrums') After the Sermon ('The Little Minister') The Mutual Discovery (same) Lost Illusions ('Sentimental Tommy') Sins of Circumstance (same)

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT 1801-1850 Petition of Manufacturers of Artificial Light Stulta and Puera Inapplicable Terms ('Economic Sophisms')

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (by Grace King) 1821-1867 Meditation Death of the Poor Music The Broken Bell The Enemy Beauty Death The Painter of Modern Life ('L'Art Romantique') Modernness From 'Little Poems in Prose': Every One His Own Chimera; Humanity; Windows; Drink From a Journal

LORD BEACONSFIELD (by Isa Carrington Cabell) 1804-1881 A Day at Ems ('Vivian Grey') The Festa in the Alhambra ('The Young Duke') Squibs from 'The Young Duke': Charles Annesley; The Fussy Hostess; Public Speaking; Female Beauty Lothair in Palestine ('Lothair')

BEAUMARCHAIS 1732-1799 Outwitting a Guardian ('The Barber of Seville') Outwitting a Husband ('The Marriage of Figaro')

FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER 1584-1625 The Faithful Shepherdess Song Song Aspatia's Song Leandro's Song True Beauty Ode to Melancholy To Ben Jonson, on His 'Fox' On the Tombs in Westminster Arethusa's Declaration ('Philaster') The Story of Bellario (same) Evadne's Confession ('The Maid's Tragedy') Death of the Boy Hengo ('Bonduca') From 'The Two Noble Kinsmen'

WILLIAM BECKFORD 1759-1844 The Incantation and the Sacrifice ('Vathek') Vathek and Nouronihar in the Halls of Eblis (same)

HENRY WARD BEECHER 1813-1887 Book-Stores and Books ('Star Papers') Selected Paragraphs Sermon: Poverty and the Gospel A New England Sunday ('Norwood')

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (by Irenæus Stevenson) 1770-1827 Letters: To Dr. Wegeler; To the Same; To Bettina Brentano; To Countess Giulietta Guicciardi; To the Same; To His Brothers; To the Royal and Imperial High Court of Appeal; To Baroness von Drossdick; To Zmeskall; To the Same; To Stephan v. Breuning

CARL MICHAEL BELLMAN (by Olga Flinch) 1740-1795 To Ulla Cradle-Song for My Son Carl Amaryllis Art and Politics Drink Out Thy Glass

JEREMY BENTHAM 1748-1832 Of the Principle of Utility ('An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation') Reminiscences of Childhood Letter to George Wilson (1781) Fragment of a Letter to Lord Lansdowne (1790)

JEAN-PIERRE DE BÉRANGER (by Alcée Fortier) 1780-1857 From 'The Gipsies' The Gad-Fly Draw It Mild The King of Yvetot Fortune The People's Reminiscences The Old Tramp Fifty Years The Garret My Tomb From His Preface to His Collected Poems

GEORGE BERKELEY 1685-1753 On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America Essay on Tar-Water ('Siris')

HECTOR BERLIOZ 1803-1869 The Italian Race as Musicians and Auditors ('Autobiography') The Famous "K Snuff-Box Treachery" (same) On Gluck (same) On Bach (same) Music as an Aristocratic Art (same) Beginning of a "Grand Passion" (same) On Theatrical Managers in Relation to Art

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 1091-1153 Saint Bernard's Hymn Monastic Luxury (Apology to the Abbot William of St. Thierry) From His Sermon on the Death of Gerard

BERNARD OF CLUNY (by William C. Prime) Twelfth Century Brief Life Is Here Our Portion

JULIANA BERNERS Fifteenth Century The Treatyse of Fyssbynge with an Angle

WALTER BESANT 1838- Old-Time London ('London') The Synagogue ('The Rebel Queen')

BESTIARIES AND LAPIDARIES (by L. Oscar Kuhns) The Lion The Pelican The Eagle The Phoenix The Ant The Siren The Whale The Crocodile The Turtle-Dove The Mandragora Sapphire Coral

MARIE-HENRI BEYLE (Stendhal) (by Frederic Taber Cooper) 1783-1842 Princess Sanseverina's Interview ('Chartreuse de Parme') Clélia Aids Fabrice to Escape (same)

WlLLEM BlLDERDIJK 1756-1831 Ode to Beauty From the 'Ode to Napoleon' Slighted Love The Village Schoolmaster ('Country Life')

BION Second Century B.C. Threnody Hesper

AUGUSTINE BIRRELL 1850- Dr. Johnson ('Obiter Dicta') The Office of Literature (same) Truth-Hunting (same) Benvenuto Cellini (same) On the Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Browning's Poetry (same)

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME IV.

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PAGE Egyptian Hieroglyphics (Colored Plate) Frontispiece "The Irish Maiden's Song" (Photogravure) 1473 "Milking Time" (Photogravure) 1567 "Music" (Photogravure) 1625 Henry Ward Beecher (Portrait) 1714 "Beethoven" (Photogravure) 1750 Jean-Pierre de Béranger (Portrait) 1784 "Monastic Luxury" (Photogravure) 1824

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

John Banim Théodore de Banville Anna Lætitia Barbauld Richard Harris Barham Jane Barlow Joel Barlow James Matthew Barrie Frédéric Bastiat Charles Baudelaire Lord Beaconsfield Beaumarchais Francis Beaumont William Beckford Ludwig van Beethoven Jeremy Bentham George Berkeley Hector Berlioz Saint Bernard of Clairvaux Juliana Berners Walter Besant Henri Beyle (Stendhal) Augustine Birrell

GEORGE BANCROFT (Continued from Volume III)

WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM

From 'History of the United States'

But, in the meantime, Wolfe applied himself intently to reconnoitering the north shore above Quebec. Nature had given him good eyes, as well as a warmth of temper to follow first impressions. He himself discovered the cove which now bears his name, where the bending promontories almost form a basin, with a very narrow margin, over which the hill rises precipitously. He saw the path that wound up the steep, though so narrow that two men could hardly march in it abreast; and he knew, by the number of tents which he counted on the summit, that the Canadian post which guarded it could not exceed a hundred. Here he resolved to land his army by surprise. To mislead the enemy, his troops were kept far above the town; while Saunders, as if an attack was intended at Beauport, set Cook, the great mariner, with others, to sound the water and plant buoys along that shore.

The day and night of the twelfth were employed in preparations. The autumn evening was bright; and the general, under the clear starlight, visited his stations, to make his final inspection and utter his last words of encouragement. As he passed from ship to ship, he spoke to those in the boat with him of the poet Gray, and the 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' "I," said he, "would prefer being the author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to-morrow;" and, while the oars struck the river as it rippled in the silence of the night air under the flowing tide, he repeated:--

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour-- The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o'clock in the morning of the thirteenth of September, Wolfe, Monckton, and Murray, and about half the forces, set off in boats, and, using neither sail nor oars, glided down with the tide. In three quarters of an hour the ships followed; and, though the night had become dark, aided by the rapid current, they reached the cove just in time to cover the landing. Wolfe and the troops with him leaped on shore; the light infantry, who found themselves borne by the current a little below the intrenched path, clambered up the steep hill, staying themselves by the roots and boughs of the maple and spruce and ash trees that covered the precipitous declivity, and, after a little firing, dispersed the picket which guarded the height; the rest ascended safely by the pathway. A battery of four guns on the left was abandoned to Colonel Howe. When Townshend's division disembarked, the English had already gained one of the roads to Quebec; and, advancing in front of the forest, Wolfe stood at daybreak with his invincible battalions on the Plains of Abraham, the battle-field of the Celtic and Saxon races.

"It can be but a small party, come to burn a few houses and retire," said Montcalm, in amazement as the news reached him in his intrenchments the other side of the St. Charles; but, obtaining better information, "Then," he cried, "they have at last got to the weak side of this miserable garrison; we must give battle and crush them before mid-day." And, before ten, the two armies, equal in numbers, each being composed of less than five thousand men, were ranged in presence of one another for battle. The English, not easily accessible from intervening shallow ravines and rail fences, were all regulars, perfect in discipline, terrible in their fearless enthusiasm, thrilling with pride at their morning's success, commanded by a man whom they obeyed with confidence and love. The doomed and devoted Montcalm had what Wolfe had called but "five weak French battalions," of less than two thousand men, "mingled with disorderly peasantry," formed on commanding ground. The French had three little pieces of artillery; the English, one or two. The two armies cannonaded each other for nearly an hour; when Montcalm, having summoned De Bougainville to his aid, and dispatched messenger after messenger for De Vaudreuil, who had fifteen hundred men at the camp, to come up before he should be driven from the ground, endeavored to flank the British and crowd them down the high bank of the river. Wolfe counteracted the movement by detaching Townshend with Amherst's regiment, and afterward a part of the Royal Americans, who formed on the left with a double front.

Waiting no longer for more troops, Montcalm led the French army impetuously to the attack. The ill-disciplined companies broke by their precipitation and the unevenness of the ground; and fired by platoons, without unity. Their adversaries, especially the Forty-third and the Forty-seventh, where Monckton stood, of which three men out of four were Americans, received the shock with calmness; and after having, at Wolfe's command, reserved their fire till their enemy was within forty yards, their line began a regular, rapid, and exact discharge of musketry. Montcalm was present everywhere, braving danger, wounded, but cheering by his example. The second in command, De Sennezergues, an associate in glory at Ticonderoga, was killed. The brave but untried Canadians, flinching from a hot fire in the open field, began to waver; and, so soon as Wolfe, placing himself at the head of the Twenty-eighth and the Louisburg grenadiers, charged with bayonets, they everywhere gave way. Of the English officers, Carleton was wounded; Barré, who fought near Wolfe, received in the head a ball which made him blind of one eye, and ultimately of both. Wolfe, also, as he led the charge, was wounded in the wrist; but still pressing forward, he received a second ball; and having decided the day, was struck a third time, and mortally, in the breast. "Support me," he cried to an officer near him; "let not my brave fellows see me drop." He was carried to the rear, and they brought him water to quench his thirst. "They run! they run!" spoke the officer on whom he leaned. "Who run?" asked Wolfe, as his life was fast ebbing. "The French," replied the officer, "give way everywhere." "What," cried the expiring hero, "do they run already? Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton; bid him march Webb's regiment with all speed to Charles River to cut off the fugitives." Four days before, he had looked forward to early death with dismay. "Now, God be praised, I die happy." These were his words as his spirit escaped in the blaze of his glory. Night, silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the sure inspiration of genius, had been his allies; his battle-field, high over the ocean river, was the grandest theatre for illustrious deeds; his victory, one of the most momentous in the annals of mankind, gave to the English tongue and the institutions of the Germanic race the unexplored and seemingly infinite West and South. He crowded into a few hours actions that would have given lustre to length of life; and, filling his day with greatness, completed it before its noon.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.

LEXINGTON

From 'History of the United States'

Day came in all the beauty of an early spring. The trees were budding; the grass growing rankly a full month before its time; the bluebird and the robin gladdening the genial season, and calling forth the beams of the sun which on that morning shone with the warmth of summer; but distress and horror gathered over the inhabitants of the peaceful town. There on the green lay in death the gray-haired and the young; the grassy field was red "with the innocent blood of their brethren slain," crying unto God for vengeance from the ground.

Seven of the men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded; a quarter part of all who stood in arms on the green. These are the village heroes, who were more than of noble blood, proving by their spirit that they were of a race divine. They gave their lives in testimony to the rights of mankind, bequeathing to their country an assurance of success in the mighty struggle which they began. Their names are held in grateful remembrance, and the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and multiply their praise from generation to generation. They fulfilled their duty not from the accidental impulse of the moment; their action was the slowly ripened fruit of Providence and of time. The light that led them on was combined of rays from the whole history of the race; from the traditions of the Hebrews in the gray of the world's morning; from the heroes and sages of republican Greece and Rome; from the example of Him who died on the cross for the life of humanity; from the religious creed which proclaimed the divine presence in man, and on this truth, as in a life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the dark flood of the Middle Ages; from the customs of the Germans transmitted out of their forests to the councils of Saxon England; from the burning faith and courage of Martin Luther; from trust in the inevitable universality of God's sovereignty as taught by Paul of Tarsus and Augustine, through Calvin and the divines of New England; from the avenging fierceness of the Puritans, who dashed the mitre on the ruins of the throne; from the bold dissent and creative self-assertion of the earliest emigrants to Massachusetts; from the statesmen who made, and the philosophers who expounded, the revolution of England; from the liberal spirit and analyzing inquisitiveness of the eighteenth century; from the cloud of witnesses of all the ages to the reality and the rightfulness of human freedom. All the centuries bowed themselves from the recesses of the past to cheer in their sacrifice the lowly men who proved themselves worthy of their forerunners, and whose children rise up and call them blessed.

Heedless of his own danger, Samuel Adams, with the voice of a prophet, exclaimed: "Oh, what a glorious morning is this!" for he saw his country's independence hastening on, and, like Columbus in the tempest, knew that the storm did but bear him the more swiftly toward the undiscovered world.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.

WASHINGTON

From 'History of the United States'

Then, on the fifteenth of June, it was voted to appoint a general. Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, nominated George Washington; and as he had been brought forward "at the particular request of the people of New England," he was elected by ballot unanimously.

Washington was then forty-three years of age. In stature he a little exceeded six feet; his limbs were sinewy and well-proportioned; his chest broad; his figure stately, blending dignity of presence with ease. His robust constitution had been tried and invigorated by his early life in the wilderness, the habit of occupation out of doors, and rigid temperance; so that few equaled him in strength of arm, or power of endurance, or noble horsemanship. His complexion was florid; his hair dark brown; his head in its shape perfectly round. His broad nostrils seemed formed to give expression and escape to scornful anger. His eyebrows were rayed and finely arched. His dark-blue eyes, which were deeply set, had an expression of resignation, and an earnestness that was almost pensiveness. His forehead was sometimes marked with thought, but never with inquietude; his countenance was mild and pleasing and full of benignity.

At eleven years old left an orphan to the care of an excellent but unlettered mother, he grew up without learning. Of arithmetic and geometry he acquired just knowledge enough to be able to practice measuring land; but all his instruction at school taught him not so much as the orthography or rules of grammar of his own tongue. His culture was altogether his own work, and he was in the strictest sense a self-made man; yet from his early life he never seemed uneducated. At sixteen, he went into the wilderness as a surveyor, and for three years continued the pursuit, where the forests trained him, in meditative solitude, to freedom and largeness of mind; and nature revealed to him her obedience to serene and silent laws. In his intervals from toil, he seemed always to be attracted to the best men, and to be cherished by them. Fairfax, his employer, an Oxford scholar, already aged, became his fast friend. He read little, but with close attention. Whatever he took in hand he applied himself to with care; and his papers, which have been preserved, show how he almost imperceptibly gained the power of writing correctly; always expressing himself with clearness and directness, often with felicity of language and grace.

When the frontiers on the west became disturbed, he at nineteen was commissioned an adjutant-general with the rank of major. At twenty-one, he went as the envoy of Virginia to the council of Indian chiefs on the Ohio, and to the French officers near Lake Erie. Fame waited upon him from his youth; and no one of his colony was so much spoken of. He conducted the first military expedition from Virginia that crossed the Alleghanies. Braddock selected him as an aid, and he was the only man who came out of the disastrous defeat near the Monongahela, with increased reputation, which extended to England. The next year, when he was but four-and-twenty, "the great esteem" in which he was held in Virginia, and his "real merit," led the lieutenant-governor of Maryland to request that he might be "commissioned and appointed second in command" of the army designed to march to the Ohio; and Shirley, the commander-in-chief, heard the proposal "with great satisfaction and pleasure," for "he knew no provincial officer upon the continent to whom he would so readily give that rank as to Washington." In 1758 he acted under Forbes as a brigadier, and but for him that general would never have crossed the mountains.

Courage was so natural to him that it was hardly spoken of to his praise; no one ever at any moment of his life discovered in him the least shrinking in danger; and he had a hardihood of daring which escaped notice, because it was so enveloped by superior calmness and wisdom.