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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. XVI.

NEW YORK THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

Connoisseur Edition

LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA

_No_. ..........

Copyright, 1896, by R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL _All rights reserved_

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL

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.

ALCEE 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. XVI

LIVED PAGE AULUS GELLIUS Second Century A.D. 6253 From 'Attic Nights': Origin, and Plan of the Book; The Vestal Virgins; The Secrets of the Senate; Plutarch and his Slave; Discussion on One of Solon's Laws; The Nature of Sight; Earliest Libraries; Realistic Acting; The Athlete's End

GESTA ROMANORUM 6261 Theodosius the Emperoure Moralite Ancelmus the Emperour Moralite How an Anchoress was Tempted by the Devil

EDWARD GIBBON 1737-1794 6271 BY W. E. H. LECKY Zenobia Foundation of Constantinople Character of Constantine Death of Julian Fall of Rome Silk Mahomet's Death and Character The Alexandrian Library Final Ruin of Rome All from the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT 1836- 6333 Captain Reece The Yarn of the Nancy Bell The Bishop of Rum-ti-foo Gentle Alice Brown The Captain and the Mermaids All from the 'Bab Ballads'

RICHARD WATSON GILDER 1844- 6347 Two Songs from 'The New Day' "Rose-Dark the Solemn Sunset" The Celestial Passion Non Sine Dolore On the Life Mask of Abraham Lincoln From 'The Great Remembrance'

GIUSEPPE GIUSTI 1809-1850 6355 Lullaby ('Gingillino') The Steam Guillotine

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 1809- 6359 Macaulay ('Gleanings of Past Years')

EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 1831- 6373 The Duty of Criticism in a Democracy ('Problems of Modern Democracy')

GOETHE 1749-1832 6385 BY EDWARD DOWDEN From 'Faust,' Shelley's Translation Scenes from 'Faust', Bayard Taylor's Translation Mignon's Love and Longing ('Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship') Wilhelm Meister's Introduction to Shakespeare (same) Wilhelm Meister's Analysis of Hamlet (same) The Indenture (same) The Harper's Songs (same) Mignon's Song (same) Philina's Song (same) Prometheus Wanderer's Night Songs The Elfin-King From 'The Wanderer's Storm Song' The Godlike Solitude Ergo Bibamus! Alexis and Dora Maxims and Reflections Nature

NIKOLAI VASILIEVITCH GOGOL 1809-1852 6455 BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD From 'The Inspector' Old-Fashioned Gentry ('Mirgorod')

CARLO GOLDONI 1707-1793 6475 BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON First Love and Parting ('Memoirs of Carlo Goldoni') The Origin of Masks in the Italian Comedy (same) Purists and Pedantry (same) A Poet's Old Age (same) The Cafe

MEIR AARON GOLDSCHMIDT 1819-1887 6493 Assar and Mirjam ('Love Stories from Many Countries')

OLIVER GOLDSMITH 1728-1774 6501 BY CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY The Vicar's Family Become Ambitious ('The Vicar of Wakefield') New Misfortunes: But Offenses are Easily Pardoned Where There is Love at Bottom (same) Pictures from 'The Deserted Village' Contrasted National Types ('The Traveller')

IVAN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHAROF 1812- 6533 BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE Oblomof

THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT 6549 Edmond 1822-1896 Jules 1830-1870 Two Famous Men ('Journal of the De Goncourts') The Suicide ('Sister Philomene') The Awakening ('Renee Mauperin')

EDMUND GOSSE 1849- 6565 February in Rome Desiderium Lying in the Grass

RUDOLF VON GOTTSCHALL 1823- 6571 Heinrich Heine ('Portraits and Studies')

JOHN GOWER 1325?-1408 6579 Petronella ('Confessio Amantis')

ULYSSES S. GRANT 1822-1885 6593 BY HAMLIN GARLAND Early Life ('Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant') Grant's Courtship (same) A Texan Experience (same) The Surrender of General Lee (same)

HENRY GRATTAN 1746-1820 6615 On the Character of Chatham Of the Injustice of Disqualification of Catholics (Speech in Parliament) On the Downfall of Bonaparte (Speech in Parliament)

THOMAS GRAY 1716-1771 6623 BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard Ode on the Spring On a Distant Prospect of Eton College The Bard

THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY 6637 BY TALCOTT WILLIAMS On the Athenian Dead at Plataea (Simonides); On the Lacedaemonian Dead at Plataea (Simonides); On a Sleeping Satyr (Plato); A Poet's Epitaph (Simmias of Thebes); Worship in Spring (Theaetetus); Spring on the Coast (Leonidas of Tarentum); A Young Hero's Epitaph (Dioscorides); Love (Posidippus); Sorrow's Barren Grave (Heracleitus); To a Coy Maiden (Asclepiades); The Emptied Quiver (Mnesalcus); The Tale of Troy (Alpheus); Heaven Hath its Stars (Marcus Argentarius); Pan of the Sea-Cliff (Archias); Anacreon's Grave (Antipater of Sidon); Rest at Noon (Meleager); "In the Spring a Young Man's Fancy" (Meleager); Meleager's Own Epitaph (Meleager); Epilogue (Philodemus); Doctor and Divinity (Nicarchus); Love's Immortality (Strato); As the Flowers of the Field (Strato); Summer Sailing (Antiphilus); The Great Mysteries (Crinagoras); To Priapus of the Shore (Maecius); The Common Lot (Ammianus); "To-morrow, and To-morrow" (Macedonius); The Palace Garden (Arabius); The Young Wife (Julianus AEgyptius); A Nameless Grave (Paulus Silentiarius); Resignation (Joannes Barbucallus); The House of the Righteous (Macedonius); Love's Ferriage (Agathias); On a Fowler (Isidorus) Anonymous: Youth and Riches; The Singing Reed; First Love again Remembered; Slave and Philosopher; Good-by to Childhood; Wishing; Hope and Experience; The Service of God; The Pure in Heart; The Water of Purity; Rose and Thorn; A Life's Wandering

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME XVI

PAGE The Alexander Romance (Colored Plate) Frontispiece Gibbon (Portrait) 6271 Ruined Rome (Photograph) 6316 Gladstone (Portrait) 6359 Goethe (Portrait) 6385 "Faust and Margaret in Prison" (Photogravure) 6408 "The Bride's Toilet" (Photogravure) 6466 Goldoni (Portrait) 6475 Goldsmith (Portrait) 6501 Grant (Portrait) 6593 Gray (Portrait) 6623 "Stoke Poges Church and Churchyard" (Photogravure) 6626

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

Gilbert Goncharof Gilder De Goncourt Giusti Gottschall Godkin Gower Gogol Grattan Goldschmidt

AULUS GELLIUS

(SECOND CENTURY A. D.)

Perhaps Gellius's 'Attic Nights' may claim especial mention here, as one of the earliest extant forerunners of this 'Library.' In the original preface (given first among the citations), Gellius explains very clearly the origin and scope of his work. It is not, however, a mere scrap-book. There is original matter in many chapters. In particular, an ethical or philosophic excerpt has often been framed in a little scene,--doubtless imaginary,--and cast in the form of a dialogue. We get, even, pleasant glimpses of autobiography from time to time. The author is not, however, a deep or forceful character, on the whole. His heart is mostly set on trifles.

Yet Gellius has been an assiduous student, both in Greece and Italy; and his book gives us an agreeable, probably an adequate, view of the fields which are included in the general culture of his time. Despite its title, the work is chiefly Roman. In history, biography, antiquities, grammar, literary criticism, his materials and authors are prevailingly Latin. He is perhaps most widely known and quoted on early Roman life and usages. Thus, one of his chapters gives a mass of curious information as to the choice of the Vestal Virgins. We are also largely indebted to him for citations from lost authors. We have already quoted under Ennius the sketch, in eighteen hexameters, of a scholar-soldier, believed to be a genial self-portraiture. These lines are the finest specimen we have of the 'Annales.' Similarly, under Cato, we have quoted the chief fragment of the great Censor's Roman history. For both these treasures we must thank Gellius. Indeed, throughout the wide fields of Roman antiquities, history of literature, grammar, etc., we have to depend chiefly upon various late Latin scrap-books and compilations, most of which are not even made up at first hand from creative classical authors. To Gellius, also, the imposing array of writers so constantly named by him was evidently known chiefly through compendiums and handbooks. It is suspicious, for instance, that he hardly quotes a poet within a century of his own time. Repetitions, contradictions, etc., are numerous.

Despite its twenty "books" and nearly four hundred (short) chapters, the work is not only light and readable for the most part, but quite modest in total bulk: five hundred and fifty pages in the small page and generous type of Hertz's Teubner text. There is an English translation by Rev. W. Beloe, first printed in 1795, from which we quote below. Professor Nettleship's (in his 'Essays in Latin Literature') has no literary quality, but gives a careful analysis of Gellius's subjects and probable sources. There is a revival of interest in this author in recent years. We decidedly recommend Hertz's attractive volume to any Latin student who wishes to browse beyond the narrow classical limits.

FROM 'ATTIC NIGHTS'

ORIGIN AND PLAN OF THE BOOK

More pleasing works than the present may certainly be found: my object in writing this was to provide my children, as well as myself, with that kind of amusement in which they might properly relax and indulge themselves at the intervals from more important business. I have preserved the same accidental arrangement which I had before used in making the collection. Whatever book came into my hand, whether it was Greek or Latin, or whatever I heard that was either worthy of being recorded or agreeable to my fancy, I wrote down without distinction and without order. These things I treasured up to aid my memory, as it were by a store-house of learning; so that when I wanted to refer to any particular circumstance or word which I had at the moment forgotten, and the books from which they were taken happened not to be at hand, I could easily find and apply it. Thus the same irregularity will appear in these commentaries as existed in the original annotations, which were concisely written down without any method or arrangement in the course of what I at different times had heard or read. As these observations at first constituted my business and my amusement through many long winter nights which I spent in Attica, I have given them the name of 'Attic Nights.' ... It is an old proverb, "A jay has no concern with music, nor a hog with perfumes:" but that the ill-humor and invidiousness of certain ill-taught people may be still more exasperated, I shall borrow a few verses from a chorus of Aristophanes; and what he, a man of most exquisite humor, proposed as a law to the spectators of his play, I also recommend to the readers of this volume, that the vulgar and unhallowed herd, who are averse to the sports of the Muses, may not touch nor even approach it. The verses are these:--

Silent be they, and far from hence remove, By scenes like ours not likely to improve, Who never paid the honored Muse her rights, Who senseless live in wild, impure delights; I bid them once, I bid them twice begone, I bid them thrice, in still a louder tone: Far hence depart, whilst ye with dance and song Our solemn feast, our tuneful nights prolong.

THE VESTAL VIRGINS

The writers on the subject of taking a Vestal Virgin, of whom Labeo Antistius is the most elaborate, have asserted that no one could be taken who was less than six or more than ten years old. Neither could she be taken unless both her father and mother were alive, if she had any defect of voice or hearing, or indeed any personal blemish, or if she herself or father had been made free; or if under the protection of her grandfather, her father being alive; if one or both of her parents were in actual servitude, or employed in mean occupations. She whose sister was in this character might plead exemption, as might she whose father was flamen, augur, one of the fifteen who had care of the sacred books, or one of the seventeen who regulated the sacred feasts, or a priest of Mars. Exemption was also granted to her who was betrothed to a pontiff, and to the daughter of the sacred trumpeter. Capito Ateius has also observed that the daughter of a man was ineligible who had no establishment in Italy, and that his daughter might be excused who had three children. But as soon as a Vestal Virgin is taken, conducted to the vestibule of Vesta, and delivered to the pontiffs, she is from that moment removed from her father's authority, without any form of emancipation or loss of rank, and has also the right of making her will. No more ancient records remain concerning the form and ceremony of taking a virgin, except that the first virgin was taken by King Numa. But we find a Papian law which provides that at the will of the supreme pontiff twenty virgins should be chosen from the people; that these should draw lots in the public assembly; and that the supreme pontiff might take her whose lot it was, to become the servant of Vesta. But this drawing of lots by the Papian law does not now seem necessary; for if any person of ingenuous birth goes to the pontiff and offers his daughter for this ministry, if she may be accepted without any violation of what the ceremonies of religion enjoin, the Senate dispenses with the Papian law. Moreover, a virgin is said to be taken, because she is taken by the hand of the high priest from that parent under whose authority she is, and led away as a captive in war. In the first book of Fabius Pictor, we have the form of words which the supreme pontiff is to repeat when he takes a virgin. It is this:--

"I take thee, beloved, as a priestess of Vesta, to perform religious service, to discharge those duties with respect to the whole body of the Roman people which the law most wisely requires of a priestess of Vesta."

It is also said in those commentaries of Labeo which he wrote on the Twelve Tables:--

"No Vestal Virgin can be heiress to any intestate person of either sex. Such effects are said to belong to the public. It is inquired by what right this is done?" When taken she is called _amata_, or beloved, by the high priest; because Amata is said to have been the name of her who was first taken.

THE SECRETS OF THE SENATE

It was formerly usual for the senators of Rome to enter the Senate-house accompanied by their sons who had taken the praetexta. When something of superior importance was discussed in the Senate, and the further consideration adjourned to the day following, it was resolved that no one should divulge the subject of their debates till it should be formally decreed. The mother of the young Papirius, who had accompanied his father to the Senate-house, inquired of her son what the senators had been doing. The youth replied that he had been enjoined silence, and was not at liberty to say. The woman became more anxious to know; the secretness of the thing, and the silence of the youth, did but inflame her curiosity. She therefore urged him with more vehement earnestness. The young man, on the importunity of his mother, determined on a humorous and pleasant fallacy: he said it was discussed in the Senate, which would be most beneficial to the State--for one man to have two wives, or for one woman to have two husbands. As soon as she heard this she was much agitated, and leaving her house in great trepidation, went to tell the other matrons what she had learned. The next day a troop of matrons went to the Senate-house, and with tears and entreaties implored that one woman might be suffered to have two husbands, rather than one man to have two wives. The senators on entering the house were astonished, and wondered what this intemperate proceeding of the women, and their petition, could mean. The young Papirius, advancing to the midst of the Senate, explained the pressing importunity of his mother, his answer, and the matter as it was. The Senate, delighted with the honor and ingenuity of the youth, made a decree that from that time no youth should be suffered to enter the Senate with his father, this Papirius alone excepted.

PLUTARCH AND HIS SLAVE

Plutarch once ordered a slave, who was an impudent and worthless fellow, but who had paid some attention to books and philosophical disputations, to be stripped (I know not for what fault) and whipped. As soon as his punishment began, he averred that he did not deserve to be beaten; that he had been guilty of no offense or crime. As they went on whipping him, he called out louder, not with any cry of suffering or complaint, but gravely reproaching his master. Such behavior, he said, was unworthy of Plutarch; that anger disgraced a philosopher; that he had often disputed on the mischiefs of anger; that he had written a very excellent book about not giving place to anger; but that whatever he had said in that book was now contradicted by the furious and ungovernable anger with which he had now ordered him to be severely beaten. Plutarch then replied with deliberate calmness:--"But why, rascal, do I now seem to you to be in anger? Is it from my countenance, my voice, my color, or my words, that you conceive me to be angry? I cannot think that my eyes betray any ferocity, nor is my countenance disturbed or my voice boisterous; neither do I foam at the mouth, nor are my cheeks red; nor do I say anything indecent or to be repented of; nor do I tremble or seem greatly agitated. These, though you may not know it, are the usual signs of anger." Then, turning to the person who was whipping him: "Whilst this man and I," said he, "are disputing, do you go on with your employment."

DISCUSSION ON ONE OF SOLON'S LAWS