manding the completeness of circumstantial | I withhold from the narratives of his crimes. evidence which would coerce their verdict Writers so demonstrably untrustworthy on against a living man, I simply ask whether many points, where their statements are exthere is any evidence against Nero? All that plicit, forfeit our trust on all. historians have produced have been given in the foregoing narrative; its value may now be estimated. All that is thoroughly reliable is the fact that a tradition of Nero's infamy existed, and was unhesitatingly accepted: a tradition all the more noticeable since it was coupled with one which made his early years of brilliant promise, so that Trajan in after days expressed the wish that his whole reign might rival the splendor of Nero's commencement. That he was once beloved by the Roman people is undisputed; how came he to forfeit that regard? how came he to leave a name surpassing in infamy even that of Caligula or Tiberius? The adage assures us that" where there is smoke there is fire; "shall we try The last crime to be noticed here is the murder of his wife. Suetonius assures us that he thrice attempted to strangle Octavia, and having failed in these attempts, divorced her; but Suetonius omits to explain how so sanguinary a tyrant should so easily have been baffled, or why he did not divorce her at once. His next wife, Poppaa, when about to become a mother, he killed with a kick, "only because she took the liberty of chiding him for coming home late." I waive the discussion of all the other and penetrate the wreathing columns of crimes, merely noting by the way that Nero, smoke, and reach the fiery embers in this on the very testimony of his accusers, was sin-case? It cannot, unhappily, be done with gularly free from cruelty, saving many whom any assurance of success, for no amount of the senate would have destroyed. In those patient investigation will recover any trustturbulent days he had many times to order worthy evidence. All must be conjectural, the execution of conspirators-some of these and the conjectures rest upon rumors, anecwere very possibly innocent; but we read of dotes, unverified assertions. Nevertheless, no such wholesale slaughter as is recorded of dealing with such evidence as at present exAugustus, who in one day put to death three ists, a sufficiently intelligible and credible achundred senators and nobles. And does not count may be elicited. This I proceed to Seutonius record the public act of interdict-arrange, warning the reader of its conjectural ing that the gladiators should be killed in the character. spectacle which he gave? Even the criminals were not suffered to be butchered: neminem occidit, ne noxiorum quidem. No one accuses Nero of hypocrisy, yet we are told that when a warrant for execution was brought to him for signature he sighed, and exclaimed, “Would I had never learned to write!" When Suilius was condemned, the senate wished to involve his son in the accusation; but Nero interfered, considering the vengeance ample." Indeed were it my purpose to prove historically that Nero, so far from being a monster, was a kind, gentle, and in many respects admirable ruler, I could without difficulty cite testimonies from his accusers which would somewhat stagger the reader; the more so because such testimonies, referring to public acts, always less open to question than private motives, would carry with them peculiar significance. But such is not my purpose. I distrust the evidence all round. At any rate I am not disposed to award that confidence to the narratives of his virtues which Granting, as we may, the probability of great self-indulgent licentiousness in a young man placed in so exceptional a position of power-a position dangerous to the highest virtue, from the absence of all restraints on the caprices of will and passion, except such restraints as issue from a high moral severity -a position full of temptations and of opportunities, capable of maddening an inferior nature; granting, as we must, the numerous enemies created by his excesses, and even by his very generosities, which would raise extravagant hopes in all related to those he favored, and corresponding exasperation in all whom he passed over, we have an initial probability in supposing that the reputation of such an emperor could only be rescued from contempt or infamy by conspicuous glory; unless he flattered the imaginations, or strikingly advanced the interests of his people, he would inevitably incur their scorn or hatred. Most of the Roman emperors suffered from this cause. If Nero suffered more than others who were equally if not more criminal, it was, I imagine, because he for the first | be the impulses of passion? Thus would men time inflicted an unpardonable outrage on argue; not very logically, perhaps, but with the Roman pride. It is not easy for us, in a coercive force no arguments could withour democratic age, to realize the feeling of stand. sanctity which surrounded the imperial purple. Then it could be truly said, that there was a divinity to hedge a king. We are so far removed from such a mental condition that it costs a considerable effort to believe that the emperor was really held as a god, not simply in the apotheosis which succeeded his reign, but actually during his lifetime. Yet it is necessary that we should make this effort, it is necessary we should vividly realize to ourselves the fact that the emperor was, not simply in flattering titles, but in honest belief, invested with a divine sanctity, a sanctity surpassing that which now invests the Papal throne, if we would understand the deep offence given to all that was grave and dignified in Rome by those wanton and undignified displays of personal and petty vanity with which Nero disgraced the purple. These vanities, which in a private man would have elicited no more than a contemptuous smile, in a senator would have been offensive, in an emperor were outrages. Something of what Rome felt may be imagined if we picture to ourselves the feeling of our own aristocracy, had Lord Byron, not content with "putting on the gloves," with Jackson, so far yielded to an inordinate desire for display as to have actually entered the ring and fought Tom Crib for the champion's belt; or, better still, if we imagine the uproar resounding through all the counties of Great Britain, if an agile archbishop, prouder of his agility than of his learning, should publicly exhibit his skill on the tight rope and trapeze. It would be of no use for muscular Christians to urge that muscular agility was in itself admirable, and that there was nothing contrary to virtue and piety in the tight rope and trapeze; so vehement a shock to all our sentiments of the becoming, and so wanton a disregard of all the dignities and gravities of office, would prepare the mind of the people to credit any stories, however infamous, which malice might circulate against such an archbishop. Showing so conspicuous a disregard to all the decencies of public life, he would be held capable of far greater disregard of the moralities. If vanity could make him thus overstep the rigid limits of propriety, how much more irresistible would Now something of this must have filled the Gaudentis fœdo peregrina ad pulpita cantu It is therefore, perfectly intelligible, though at first sight ludicrous, that when Julius Vindex raised the standard of revolt, his fiercest accusation against the emperor, and one which justified the soldiery in deposing him from the throne he disgraced, was that of being "a miserable harper. And Tacitus, speaking of Nero's practice of singing songs to the harp during his banquets-because it was the custom of ancient kings and chiefs-characterizes it as "not less disgraceful (non minus fœdum) than driving a chariot in public." Such being the state of Roman feeling, we can be at no loss to discover the cause of the senate and people having learned to despise and detest an emperor who could wantonly outrage it by his displays of vanity. I am not disposed to believe all the stories told respecting these displays. Gossip and exaggeration have doubtless been at work here; and the excesses of his vanity may be as open to doubt as the excesses of his criminality. but they were believed; and the belief is sufficient to account for his reputation. The fact of his public exhibitions scarcely admits of question; and it is a fact which furnishes us with two keys; one is the revelation of Nero's weakness in being unable to resist the impulses of vanity, however unbecoming, and this weakness may not unreasonably be supposed to have vitiated his private life, giving him up to manifold indulgences; the other key is the profound disgust and dishonoring hatred which it would inspire in all the graver minds, who saw the imperial purple thus degraded. Here ends my conjecture. The less disputable portion of this essay stands on other ground. Whether we choose to believe that the traditions about Nero imply great substantive criminality in him, or only mythical exaggerations, I hope it has been made clear that the four capital crimes with which his memory is loaded, not only want every ves tige of rational evidence, so that never for one moment could the accusations have been brought into a court of law, but are signally incredible, and never could have been admitted even into the laxities of history, otherwise than as rumors, had it not been for the causes which repress historical skepticism and make men, who are vigilant in jurisprudence and science, blindly credulous in history. Finally, let me repeat that the object of this essay is less the vindication of Nero's character, than an appeal to the common sense of mankind to be vigilant in its demands of evidence, when called upon either in history, or in the gossip circulated about living men, to accept statements affecting character and motives. What constitutes sufficient evidence may, in many cases, be open to debate; but every man can exercise the preliminary caution of asking what is the evidence upon which he is called upon to believe a statement; and he can then judge whether he is giving his assent to unauthenticated rumors, born of malice, and exaggerated by thoughtlessness, or to statements which carry with them at least the guarantee of direct testimony, the value of which may be estimated. G. H. L. from a remote common ancestry. In this speculation the writer thinks there is material for an argument against that doctrine of a plurality of origins for the human race maintained by many ethnologists recently, and in America now by Agassiz. He does not produce the whole mass of his nine years' accumulations on the subject, but only calls attention, by way of example, to one universal superstition-that of a certain sacredness, or notion of a provocation of the supernatural, attached to the act of sneezing. Among the ancient Orientals, and Greeks and Romans, sneezing was mysterious; so it is now in England, Scotland, Ireland, Polynesia, Borneo, Central Africa, etc. The author writes rather crudely, and does not seem aware that his notion of inheritance or transmission is already one of the firmest conclusions of recent philological and ethnographical science. There may be some originality, however, in his application of this notion to customs. Heretofore it has been applied chiefly to words and to legends.-Reader. A RATHER curious speculation is started in a little tract we have just received from across the Atlantic, entitled "New Materials for the History of Man, derived from a Comparison of the Customs and Superstitions of Nations: Read before the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science, by R. G. Haliburton, F.A.S., V.P. of the N. S. Institute." The author has been for nine years possessed with the idea that certain customs and superstitions are universal over the whole planet now, and always have been universal, so far as history records. Consideration has led him to the conclusion that, many of these customs being arbitrary in their nature, their universality cannot be explained on the mere supposition that similarity of circumstances in different places and countries has led to identity of results; and also to the conclusion that as certain customs are found and have been found in parts of the globe the most remote from each other, the supposition of intercommunication is equally insufficient to account for the fact in question. Hence he has recourse to a hypothesis now resorted to also by the mythologists in their science-to wit, the hypothesis of historical transmission or ramifica- MR. FROUDE'S "History of England under tion. Certain customs are prevalent everywhere, Elizabeth," in two volumes is preparing for pubbecause they have been inherited by all mankind lication. 10 58 THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. From The Reader. POLLARD'S FIRST YEAR OF THE AMERICAN WAR. These creatures would have a history written which would conceal all the shorts comings of our administration, and represent that our army was perfect in discipline and immaculate in morals; that our people were First Year of the War in America. By Edward A. Pollard, Editor of Richmond Ex-feeding on milk and honey; that our generaminer. (H. Stevens.) alship was without fault; and that Jefferson Davis was the most perfect and admirable man since the days of Moses-all for the purpose of wearing a false mask to the enemy. The author spits upon the criticism of such creatures as these." Even at the risk of being subjected to a similar act of moral expectoration, we are obliged to express a doubt whether Mr. Pollard's countrymen have much cause to be grateful for his vindication of their cause. He utterly demolishes the popular English assertion that the question of slavery had nothing to do with secession. his work with a long and able account of the causes which led to the disruption of the Union; and his grievance from beginning to end is that the North wanted to interfere with slavery. This bill of indictment against the Federal States is in itself worth studying for He commences MR. POLLARD was, and we believe is now, the editor of the Richmond Examiner. It is therefore hardly necessary to say that he is an ardent Southerner. Still, he has the merit of being perfectly frank and genuine; he writes the history of the war from a Southern point of view, but, apart from the bias inseparable from his position and principles, he appears to us to narrate the facts of his story fairly and temperately enough. To the ordinary English reader the "First Year of the War" will not be an interesting book. We cannot screw up our interest to any detailed examination of the conventions and elections and skirmishes which preceded the real action of the campaign. The broad results are matters of overwhelming interest even on this side the Atlantic; but the minute details are questions about which, in general, we neither know nor care anything. The student, however, of this great American convulsion will find much to interest him in Mr. Pol-crats were never heartily pro-slavery. lard's pages. The book is written obviously "While acting with the South on empty for home consumption, not for foreign expor- or accidental issues, the State-Rights' men tation; and it possesses, therefore, a value of the North were, for all practical purposes, the faithful allies of the open and avowed of its own, not conceded to the numerous partisan defences of the South which have ap- seriously divided the country, that of negro consolidationists on the question that most peared in England. Mr. Pollard, we gather, slavery." belongs himself to the most advanced section of the secessionists; he has no connection with the Government of the Confederate States, and is, indeed, but ill-disposed towards it. its admissions as well as its assertions. His first complaint is that the Northern Demo Then, the Missouri compromise was in itself an outrage on "the rights guaranteed by the Union to the South." In other words, any attempt to interfere with, or limit the extension of, slavery was, in the opinion of Mr. Pollard, a breach of the fundamental pact. The vigor with which General Jackson suppressed the abortive attempt of South Carolina to secede from the Union in 1832 inflicted a severe though temporary blow on the State-Rights" party. "He has made no attempt," he tells us in his preface," to conciliate either the favorites of the Government and literary slatterns in the departments or their masters; he is not in the habit of bandying to great men, and courting such official [an unquotable term here] as official newspapers; he is. under no obligation to any man living to flatter him, to tell lies, or to abate anything from the honest convictions of his mind." Indeed, his language throughout is rather terse than refined. If he were not ex officio a Southern cavalier, we should have thought him extremely like a Yankee rowdy. However, it seems that the chivalry of the South likes such language as this : "The idea of the Union became, what it continued to be for a quarter of a century thereafter, extravagant and sentimental. . . This unnatural tumor was not peculiar to any party or any portion of the country. It was deeply planted in the Northern mind, but prevailed also to a considerable extent in the South." Encouraged by the prevalence of this pop ular delusion, the North continued its outrages on the peculiar institutions of the South. the charges brought forward by Mr. Pollard. Interference, direct or indirect, with slavery is the one cause of secession to which he alludes. The only mention he makes through"The anti-slavery sentiment became bolder with success. Stimulated by secret jealous-out his long indictment against the North of ies, and qualified for success by the low and other causes is contained in the following narrow cunning of fanaticism, it had grown brief passage:up by indirection (sic), and aspired to the complete overthrow of the peculiar institution that had distinguished the people of the South from those of the North by a larger happiness, greater ease of life, and a superior tone of character.' "At the time of the Kansas discussions men began to calculate the precise value of an Union which, by its mere name and the paraphrases of demagogues, had long governed their affections. Some of these calculations, as they appeared in the newspaper presses of the times, were curious, and soon commenced to interest the Southern people. In fact, the tariff question, of which we heard so much in England, is one to which Mr. Pollard does not think it worth while to do more than allude. His silence upon it confirms a statement made to the writer by a distinguished American senator, who took a leading part in the Douglas discussions in he never heard the name of the tariff men1860—namely, that throughout their course tioned. The thin end of the wedge was driven in when Congress refused to prohibit the disIt was demonstrated to them that their seccussion of anti-slavery petitions. The slave-tion had been used to contribute the bulk of owners claimed, as a necessary concession, the revenues of the Government.' that no American citizen should be allowed to petition his Government with regard to any question bearing on slavery. In obedience to their wishes, resolutions were passed on three several occasions in 1836, 1837, and 1840 — limiting the powers of petition with respect to slavery. In the last named year the famous "Twenty-first Rule" was enacted by Congress, absolutely prohibiting, not only the discussion, but "the reception of all Abolition petitions, memorials, and resolutions." The Northern people, however, were ungrateful enough not to consent to this self-denying ordinance; "they would not relinquish what they termed 'a sacred right,' —that of petitioning the Government; and, finally, the resolution was definitely repealed in 1844 on the motion of John Quincy Adams. This is another of the chief grievances on which Mr. Pollard justifies the right of se cession. view taken by the few persons in England In truth, Mr. Pollard entirely confirms the who really have studied the subject - - that slavery, and slavery alone, was the cause of secession. He asserts, and we believe justly, dangered by the permanence of the Union. that the peculiar institution truly was enhad obtained permission of existence in the He states that, when once abolition doctrines Free States, their ultimate adoption by the nation was a matter of absolute certainty. "Mr. Calhoun," he says, "with characteristic sagacity, predicted that Mr. Webster and all Northern statesmen would in a few years yield to the storm of Northern abolitionism, and be overwhelmed by it." The Republicans were practically identical with the Abolitioniststs. "both shared the same sentiment of hostility to slavery; and they only differed as to the degree of indirection by which their purposes might be best accomplished." The Democratic party itself was subject "to demoralization on the slavery question, and was unreliable and rotten." Again, we learn that,— We have hitherto been led to imagine that the Clay compromise, by which the Missouri compact was repealed, was a discreditable concession on the part of the North to the demands of the Slave States. Mr. Pollard tells us that "it implied a surrender of the rights of the South." The extension of territory given by it to slavery, and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, cannot reconcile our author to the fact that it acknowledged the abstract right of the Union to legislate as to the extension of slavery. The admission of Kansas as a Free State, the fact that bells were tolled in New England on the day of John Brown's execution, and the endorsement of Helper's "Impending Crisis" by a Nothing in the present or the future could number of Republican deputies, are amongst be looked for from the so-called Conservatives 66 |
