505. LORD CLIVE BEFORE THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY. Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could place no confidence in the sincerity or in the courage of his confederate: and, whatever confidence he might place in his own military talents, and in the valour and discipline of his troops, it was no light thing to engage an army twenty times as numerous as his own. Before him lay a river over which it was easy to advance, but over which if things went ill, not one of his little band would ever return. On this occasion, for the first and the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a few hours, shrank from the fearful responsibility of making a decision. He called a council of war. The majority pronounced against fighting; and Clive declared his concurrence with the majority. Long afterwards, he said that he had never called but one council of war, and that, if he had taken the advice of that council, the British army would never have been masters of Bengal. But scarcely had the meeting broken up when he was himself again. He retired alone under the shade of some trees, and passed near an hour there in thought. He came back determined to put every thing to the hazard, and gave orders that all should be in readiness for passing the river on the morrow. LORD MACAULAY

506. After much discourse together, and the king insisting upon many particulars, which might induce others to consent, but were known to himself to be false; and therefore he could never in conscience give his own consent to them; the bishop, as hath been mentioned before, amongst other arguments, told him, 'that he must consider, that as he had a private capacity, and a public, so he had a public conscience, as well as a private; that though his private conscience, as a man, would not permit him to do an act contrary to his own understanding, judgment, and conscience; yet his public conscience, as a king, which obliged him to do all things for the good of his people, and to preserve his kingdom in peace for himself and his posterity, would not only permit him to do that, but even oblige and require him. That he saw in what commotion the people were; that his own life, and that of the queen's, and the royal issue, might probably be sacrificed to that fury; and it would be very strange, if his conscience should prefer the life of one single private person, how innocent soever, before all those other lives, and the preservation of the kingdom.'

507. Who is able to make a muster as it were of them that have been excellent in wit: so difficult a matter it is to run through so many kinds of sciences, and to take a survey of curious handiworks in such variety, of most rare and singular artisans? Unless haply we agree upon this, and say, that Homer the Greek poet excelled all other, considering either the subject-matter, or the happy fortune of his work. And hereupon it was, that Alexander the Great (for in this so proud a censure and comparison, I shall do best to cite the judgment of the highest, and of those that be not subject to envy) having found among the spoils of Darius the king, his perfumier or casket of sweet ointments, and the same richly embellished with gold and costly pearls and precious stones, when his friends about him shewed him many uses whereto the said coffer or cabinet might be put unto, considering that Alexander himself could not away with those delicate perfumes, being a warrior, and slurried with bearing arms, and following warfare: when, I say, his gallants about him could not resolve well what service to put it to: himself made no more ado but said thus, I will have it to serve for a case of Homer's books: judging hereby, that the most rare and precious work proceeding from that so admirable a wit of man, should be bestowed and kept in the richest box and casket of all others : the same prince, in the forcing and saccage of the city of Thebes, caused by express commandment, that the dwellinghouse and whole family of Pindarus the poet should be spared. He built again the native city wherein Aristotle the philosopher was born and in so glorious a show of his other worthy deeds, would needs intermingle this testimony of his bounty, in regard of that rare clerk who gave light to all things in the world. The murderers of Archilochus the poet, the very Oracle of Apollo at Delphi disclosed and revealed.

P. HOLLAND

WAR.

508. THE PART TAKEN BY THE HIGHER CLASSES IN In the nature of things it is not with their persons that the higher classes principally pay their contingent to the demands of war. There is another and not less important part which rests with almost exclusive weight upon them. They contribute all the mind that actuates the whole machine. The fortitude required of them is very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier, or common sailor, in the face of danger and death; it is not a

passion, it is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment; it is a cool, steady, deliberate principle, always present, always equable; having no connection with anger; tempering honour with prudence; incited, invigorated, and sustained, by a generous love of fame; informed, moderated, and directed by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public ends; flowing in one blended stream from the opposite sources of the heart and the head; carrying in itself its own commission, and proving its title to every other command, by the first and most difficult command, that of the bosom in which it resides: it is a fortitude which unites with the courage of the field, the more refined and exalted courage of the council; which knows as well to retreat as to advance; which can conquer as well by delay as by the rapidity of a march or the impetuosity of an attack; which can be with Fabius the black cloud that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or with Scipio the thunderbolt of war: which undismayed by false shame, can patiently endure the severest trial that a gallant spirit can undergo, in the taunts and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions, the cold respect, and "mouth honour" of those from whom it should meet a cheerful obedience; which undisturbed by false humanity can calmly assume that most awful moral responsibility of deciding when victory may be too dearly purchased by the loss of a single life, and when the safety and glory of their country may demand the certain sacrifice of thousands.

E. BURKE

509. I find my life ebbing apace, and my affections strengthening as my age increases; not that I am worse, but better, in my health than last winter, but my mind finds no amendment nor improvement, nor support to lean upon, from those about me: and so I find myself leaving the world as fast as it leaves me. Companions I have enough, friends few, and those too warm in the concerns of the world, for me to bear pace with: or else so divided from me, that they are but like the dead, whose remembrance I hold in honour. Nature, temper, and habit from my youth made me have but one strong desire: all other ambitions, my person, education, constitution, and religion conspired to remove far from me. That desire was, to fix and preserve a few lasting, dependable friendships: and the accidents which have disappointed me in it, have put a period to all my aims. So I am sunk into an idleness, which makes me neither care nor labour to be

noticed by the rest of mankind; I propose no rewards to myself, and why should I take any sort of pains? Here I sit and sleep, and probably here I shall sleep till I sleep for ever, like the old man of Verona.

A. POPE

510.

DANGER OF A QUARRELSOME SPIRIT. It is told in the annals of France, that when the kings of England and France in a deadly war had their armies ready to join battle, the French officers having felt the force of the English valour were not willing to venture the hazard of a battle, and persuaded their king to offer conditions of peace. The treaty was accepted, and the two kings withdrew into an old chapel in the field; where, when they had discoursed themselves into kindness, they resolved to part friends and to appoint commissioners to finish the treaty. But, as they were going out, a great serpent issued out of the ruinous wall and made towards the kings, who, being affrighted with the danger, drew their swords, and in that manner ran out of the chapel. Their guards, who in equal numbers attended at the door, seeing their princes in a fright and with their swords drawn, supposed they were fighting, and, without any sign, instantly drew upon each other; which alarm the two armies taking instantly engaged in a bloody fight, and could not for all the power of their kings be totally disengaged till the night parted them. Just such is the danger of an angry and quarrelsome spirit. He hath his sword by his side, and his army in the field, his hand is up and his heart is ready; and he wants nothing but an occasion. J. TAYLOR

511. Sir, the atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not assume the province of determining; but, surely, age may become justly contemptible if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand

errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object of either abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his grey hairs should secure him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country.

W. PITT

512. THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. The proof of the Divine goodness rests upon two propositions; each, as we contend, capable of being made out by observations drawn from the appearances of nature. The first is, 'that, in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial. The second, ‘that the Deity has superadded pleasure to animal sensations, beyond what was necessary for any other purpose, or when the purpose, so far as was necessary, might have been effected by the operation of pain.' First, 'in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial. No production of nature displays contrivance so manifestly as the parts of animals; and the parts of animals have all of them, I believe, a real, and, with very few exceptions, all of them a known and intelligible subserviency to the use of the animal. Now, when the multitude of animals is considered, the number of parts in each, their figure and fitness, the faculties depending upon them, the variety of species, the complexity of structure, the success, in so many cases, and felicity of the result, we can never reflect, without the profoundest adoration, upon the character of that Being from whom all these things have proceeded: we cannot help acknowledging, what an exertion of benevolence creation was; of a benevolence how minute in its care, how vast in its comprehension! When we appeal to the parts and faculties of animals, and to the limbs and senses of animals in particular, we state, I conceive, the proper medium of proof for the conclusion which we wish to establish. I will not say, that the insensible parts of nature are made solely for the sensitive parts: but this I say, that, when we consider the benevolence of the Deity, we can only consider it in relation to sensitive being. Without this reference, or referred to any thing else, the attribute has no object; the