dead.

My only surviving child is confined to a living tomb" (he was the inmate of a lunatic asylum). "My old friends, brothers and sisters, are dead-all but one, and she too is dying. My last hopes are blighted. As for fame, it is a bubble that must soon burst. Earned for others, shared for others, it was sweet; but, at my age, to my own solitary experience it is bitter. Left in my chamber alone with myself, is it wonderful my philosophy at times takes fright—that I rush into company, resort to that which blunts, but heals no pang; and then, sick of the world, and dissatisfied with myself, shrink back into solitude ?"

Perhaps few literary contrasts are sharper than that presented by the first great success of Alexander Dumas, at the Palais Royal, albeit that success was of a questionable kind. The Duc d'Orléans (Louis Philippe) was there, accompanied by twenty or thirty princes and princesses. Completely unknown before the representation of his "Henri Trois," he was next day the most famous man in Paris. As soon as his success was assured, and he had received the congratulations of his friends, he hurried off to see his sick mother. "How many envy me this evening," he writes, "who little thought that I passed the night on a mattress by the bedside of my dying mother!"

Of Voltaire, it is none other than the friendly Marmontel who says: "To him the greatest of blessings-repose-was unknown. It is true that at last envy appeared tired of the pursuit, and began to spare him on the brink of the grave. On his return to Paris, after a long exile, he enjoyed his renown, and felt the enthusiasm of a whole people grateful for the pleasures he had afforded them. The weak and last effort he made to amuse them, 'Irène,' was applauded, as 'Zaïre' had been; and this representation, at which he was crowned, was for him the most delightful triumph. But at what moment did this tardy consolation, the recompense of so much work

ing, reach him? The next day I saw him in his bed. 'Well,' said I, 'are you at last satiated with glory?' 'Ah, my good friend,' he replied, 'you talk to me of glory, and I am dying in frightful torture." "

As an example of a literary family, eminent for sorrow as well as intellectual greatness, look at the memorials of the wonderful Hallam. Not so much to be pitied were those that died young as was the father who witnessed the premature departure of so much goodness and promise. Look first at the inscription on his tablet at St. Paul's, which was probably written by Macaulay. "Henry Hallam, the historian of the Middle Ages, of the Constitution of his country, and of the literature of Europe. This monument is raised by many friends, who, regarding the soundness of his learning, the simple elegance of his style, his manly and capacious intellect, the fearless honesty of his judgment, and the moral dignity of his life, desire to perpetuate his memory within these sacred walls, as of one who has best illustrated the English language, the English character, and the English name."

This is the inscription to the memory of Arthur Henry, æt. 23, the subject of Tennyson's "In Memoriam." His epitaph at Clevedon is as follows: "And now, in this obscure and solitary church, repose the mortal remains of one too early lost for public fame, but already distinguished among his contemporaries for the brightness of his genius, the depth of his understanding, the nobleness of his disposition, the fervor of his piety, and the purity of his life. Vale dulcissime, desideratissime. Requiescat in pace usque ad tubam."

Here are the epitaphs on two other children: "Eleanor Hallam, d. æt. 21. Her afflicted parents, bending under this second bereavement, record here that loveliness of temper and that heavenly minded piety which are lost to them, but are gone to their own reward."

"Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam,,d. æt. 26. In whose clear and vivid understanding, sweetness of disposition, and purity of life, an image of his elder brother was before the eyes of those who had most loved him. Distinguished, like him, by early reputation, and by the affection of many friends, he was, like him, also cut off by a short illness in a foreign land."

We need not add any thing to these touching epitaphs. They tell, indeed, the touching story of the vanity and glory of genius and success, but they tell us also of that blessed hope that alone solves the enigma of life, and brings consolation to all its sorrows and disappointments.

CHAPTER XIII.

Statesmen.

A LARGE subject in connection with history and life opens up in reference to statesmen and statesmanship. Their lives are fraught with larger influence and meaning than the lives of other men; they connect the broad events and tendencies of history with the details of individual life. Many of the most stirring pages of history, and all its milder and more graceful passages, belong to the lives of the great men who have lived and made history. There is a curious theory that distinguished statesmen are but the "outcome" of their time, and the real history of a country must be sought in the masses of the people. There may be some measure of truth in this assertion which has been overlooked by some regular historians, but the world is pretty well agreed that the great men who have stamped their mark upon an era have shaped the destinies of their country, and have invisibly influenced the course of subsequent ages.

Dr. Johnson intercalated a well-known passage in Goldsmith's "Traveller," commencing with the lines,

"How small of all that human hearts endure,

That part which kings or laws can cause or cure !" There is in these lines that general amount of truth and error which is ordinarily found in such universal propositions.

In the Georgian era it can hardly be said of any English statesmen that he caused or cured many human ills, except in some very remote way. There are, however, times in the his

tory of all nations when good or bad legislation has been fraught with far-reaching consequences. Some moments in the lives of statesmen have really been the deepest moments of national history. The hour when a line of thought and observation has conducted a statesman's mind to some course of practical action beyond battle or treaty is a landmark in a people's history. No events loom larger in Athenian story than the Constitution of Solon or the Constitution of Cleisthenes. To use Dr. Arnold's phrase, we draw no distinction between ancient and modern history, except that ancient history is, in a sense, much more truly modern than much which we call modern history. That is indeed a happy destiny "To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, and read his history in a nation's eyes." At the same time there is an infinite amount of truth in Johnson's lines. Nothing is more important than that people should understand what statesmen are and what they are not able to do. Individual life is the ultimate fact in all politics. The great men of any era are unable to confer upon a man the mastery over his passions and the harmonious development of his complex nature. They can only put him under general conditions favorable for his progress. They can not enlighten his conscience, soothe his grief, or take away his poverty. They can provide him with a sphere for the exercise of his powers, but they can only do this in propartion as "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control" can make him fit for political life. The great defect of all revolutions has been that people have sought from governments what governments can not give, but what they might have found in themselves. The lives of statesmen may demonstrate conclusively the comparative narrowness of the limits in which they must work. They show, also, the comparative unimportance of the forms of institutions, but the supreme importance of the brightness, spirit, and purity that should animate them.