And none so poor to do him reverence.*
O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men.

I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar;
I found it in his closet, 'tis his will:

Let but the commons hear this testament,-
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,-
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,+

And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy,
Unto their issue.

*

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle : I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on ;

'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii : ‡—

Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through :
See, what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this, the well-belovèd Brutus stabb'd ;
And as he pluck'd his cursèd steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar follow'd it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no ;

For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel: §
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Cæsar lov'd him!
This was the most unkindest || cut of all;

* No one is now so far beneath him in power and rank as to pay him reverence as a duty.

+ For a memorial.

A Belgic tribe in the north-east of France, near the Sambre. § Favourite. || An intensitive form of the superlative, common enough in the old language. Cp. most highest, more happier, etc.

For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,

Even at the base of Pompey's statue,

Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen !
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.
O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel
The dint* of pity: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls, what weep you, when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors.

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.

They that have done this deed are honourable ;–
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it; they are wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts ;

I am no orator, as Brutus is;

But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend ; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on ;

I tell you that which you yourselves do know ;

Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,

And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony

Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue

In every wound of Cæsar, that should move

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

* Stroke. A.S. dynt.

See p. 173.

THOMAS CARLYLE: 1795

Work. From "Past and Present."

"Past and Present" is one of the most famous and characteristic works of Thomas Carlyle, in which he contrives to hang around the story of an old monastery and its inmates, during the twelfth century, some of his profounde t sayings on work and earnestness, and his deepest convictions on the present and the future.

ness.

BLESSED is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedHe has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it! How, as a free flowing channel, dug and torn by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows; draining off the sour festering water from the root of the remotest grass blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green, fruitful meadow with its clear flowing stream. How blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its value be great or small! Labour is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred celestial life-essence, breathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens him to all nobleness, to all knowledge, “self-knowledge,” and much else, so soon as work fitly begins. Knowledge! the knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that; for Nature herself accredits that, says yea to that. Properly thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working; the rest is yet all an hypothesis of knowledge: a thing to be argued of in philosophy, a thing floating in the clouds, till we try it and fix it. Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone. . . . .

Work is of a religious nature; work is of a brave nature; which it is the aim of all religion to be. "All work of man is as the swimmer's: " a waste ocean threatens to devour him if he front it not bravely, it will keep its word. By incessant wise defiance of it, lusty rebuke and buffet of it, behold how it loyally supports him, bears him as its conqueror along. "It is so," says Goethe, "with all things that man undertakes in this world."

J. R. GREEN.

On the "Canterbury Tales." From "The History of the English

People."

Full of the fruits of a wide and close reading, richly coloured, sober, yet enthusiastic, this history is by far the finest and most complete account we possess of the doings and the thoughts of the English people.

It is the first time in English poetry that we are brought face to face, not with characters or allegories or reminiscences of the past, but with living and breathing men, men distinct in temper and sentiment, as in face or costume or mode of speech; and with this distinctness of each maintained throughout the story by a thousand shades of expression and action. It is the first time, too, that we meet with the dramatic power which not only creates each character, but combines it with its fellows, which not only adjusts each tale or jest to the temper of the person who utters it, but fuses all into a poetic unity. It is life in its largeness, its variety, its complexity, which surrounds us in the "Canterbury Tales." In some of the stories, indeed, composed no doubt at an earlier time, there is the tedium of the old romance, or the pedantry of the schoolman; but taken as a whole the poem is the work, not of a man of letters, but of a man of action. He has received his training from war, courts, business, travel,—a training, not of books, but of life. And it is life that he loves,—the delicacy of its sentiment, the breadth of its force, its laughter, and its tears, the tenderness of its Griseldes, or the Smollet-like adventures of the miller and the schoolboy. It is this largeness of heart, this wide tolerance, which enables him to reflect man for us, as none but Shakspere has ever reflected it; but to reflect it with a pathos, a shrewd sense and kindly humour, freshness and joyousness of feeling, that even Shakspere has not surpassed.

EDMUND BURKE: 1730—1797.

From "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents.”

See pp. 68 and 81. The following extract contains Burke's well-known theory and defence of party.

IT is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals, that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as

copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest ; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as the best. Of this stamp is the cant of Not men but measures ;* a sort of charm, by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement. When I see a man acting this desultory and disconnected part, with as much detriment to his own fortune as prejudice to the cause of any party, I am not persuaded that he is right; but I am ready to believe he is in earnest. I respect virtue in all its situations; even when it is found in the unsuitable company of weakness. I lament to see qualities, rare and valuable, squandered away without any public utility. But when a gentleman with great visible emoluments † abandons the party in which he has long acted, and tells you, it is because he proceeds upon his own judgment; that he acts on the merits of the several measures as they arise; and that he is obliged to follow his own conscience, and not that of others; he gives reasons which it is impossible to controvert, and discovers a character which it is impossible to mistake. What shall we think of him who never differed from a certain set of men until the moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards? Would not such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate? Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice, that a man's connections should degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power, or he accepts a place? When people desert their connections, the desertion is a manifest fact, upon which a direct simple issue lies, triable by plain men. Whether a measure of government be right or wrong, is no matter of fact, but a mere affair of opinion, on which men may, as they do, dispute and wrangle without end. But whether the individual thinks the measure right or wrong, is a point at still a greater distance from the reach of all human decision. It is therefore very convenient to politicians not to put the judgment of their conduct on overt acts, cognizable in any ordinary court, but upon such a matter as can be triable only in that secret tribunal, where they are sure of being heard with favour, or where, at worst, the sentence will be only private whipping.

* Brown-"Thoughts on Civil Liberty."

+ Most obviously applicable to General Conway.