of locomotion after the lightning speed of the railway. At length they arrived at the large farm house. A very pretty old place it was; a low, irregular building, nearly covered by the clustering ivy, which had also twined round one of two tall chimneys, standing aloft like sentinels. Within, a warm welcome awaited them, and they were soon doing ample justice to Aunt Hannah's bountiful dinner. Lena was seated between her two cousins, Martha and Lizzie, the youngest of whom, a sunburnt gypsy of nine, seemed to take an especial fancy to the shy little stranger, particularly when she found that they were of the same age. When Lena was somewhat rested Martha proposed a walk, to which she joyfully assented, and away they ran to the hall. For a few minutes there was a great fussing among the gingham sun-bonnets, to find one which would suit Lena; this being over, Lizzie shut the door with a bang, to announce their departure, and off they dashed through the lane, like young colts. "Now, where shall we go?" said Lizzie, when she recovered her breath. "Oh! to the brook," said Martha, "that is the prettiest." No objection being made, the little party went on right merrily down the sloping green hill, where the sun lay so bright on the short velvet turf; through the apple-orchard, whose hard green knobs gave promise of something better in the time to come; then over a fence, which Lena, unused to climbing, managed by squeezing through the bars, to the infinite amusement of her cousins; and there they were at the brook at last. A pleasant little thing was that same brook, now singing merrily as it rippled over the pebbles, now lying still and tranquil in some quiet nook, while in other places it leaped and sparkled as it fell over the rocks, forming tiny cascades. "Oh! oh!" called Lena, "look at the dear tiny little fishes, ever so many of them; just see how they jump around!" "Pooh!" said Joe, boylike, "that's nothing to the creek, where we fellows go fishing; you ought to see the lots there." "Now," said Lizzie, "let's go to Willow Glen.'" This was a lovely spot, nained by a travelling artist, who had sketched it some years before. On each side of the brook stood two weeping willows, whose graceful hanging branches nearly touched the water, on which they were mirrored; while the sunlight, which found its way between them, danced and flickered on the water in a thousand fantastic forms. "Oh! Lizzie," said Lena, "do look at those funny black flies, jumping about on the water; dear me ! won't they get drowned ?" "Why no!" said Joe! "don't you see they have India-rubber boots on;" with which, of course, Lena was completely satisfied. As the sun was now sinking behind the treetops, Joe hinted that they had better follow the wise example of the little birds, and go home, which they did at rather a slower pace than they had started. This was only the first of many delightful walks Lena took with her cousins. Then there was a wonderful little pony, which Uncle John taught her to ride, and many a pleasant canter down the green lanes did she have when the heat of the day was over. Then as for climbing, which she dreaded so much at first, Joe declared that now she could go up the tall trees in the lane, "as well as any squirrel." Thus pleasantly passed the time, till one bright morning, near the end of August, Joe proposed a blackberrying party; he knew a field some way off where there were fine ones." A blackberry party was something new to Lena, and she eagerly commenced to make ready. When the sun began to dry up the dew, you might have seen the little party start across the fields, each with a tin can, except Joe, who carried a large basket, declaring his intention of getting more than all the rest, though as Martha observed, considering the quantity he always ate, that was somewhat doubtful. "A race! a race!" called Lena, as they entered a large field, pointing to the opposite fence. Away they all went; but Lena, light and agile as a bird, soon gained on her more clumsy pursuers, and reaching the fence, threw the little tin can over on the grass, then mounting the top rail, stood nodding a laughing defiance to them. "Aint she as pretty as a picture?" said Joe, stopping to gaze in admiration at the little figure on the fence. Very pretty indeed she looked at that moment. The brown wavy curls, escaping from the sun-bonnet which had fallen back in the race, fell in rich profusion to her shoulders; her cheeks were glowing with exercise, and a saucy smile danced round the half-parted lips, reach the fence she was over, and snatching up Before they could her tin can, bounded off to the blackberry bushes. as she beckoned them on. good things; among these were a number of apples from Uncle John's favourite tree, but which, he declared, were not half so red as the rosy cheeks little Lena would take home to her father. A LITTLE CHILD AT PRAYER. "Lord, hear the prayer of a little child, "Guard my footsteps all the day; OUR LIBRARY TABLE. THE SAYINGS OF LABIENUS: ON THE LIFE OF CESAR BY NAPOLEON III. By M. Rogeard.-[Of all the literary criticisms which have budded under the sun of the French empire, none has attained the height of the Sayings of Labienus (Les Propos de Labienus). Mr. Rogeard has transported into the French language the elegance of Cicero and the conciseness of Tacitus; he has, nevertheless, been very wrong in adding one more demonstration to that truth so often proved, that the height of intellect and talent are not measurable by the height of the several positions of an author. He has humiliated his imperial antagonist, and should have expected what has happened to him. Why" discuss with him who has thirty legions? In a country which is not free, one should avoid meddling with contemporaneous history; and criticism as to such matters is impossible." Poor Mr. Rogeard has experienced the extreme justice of his previsions; having been condemned to prison and to several bundreds of francs fine, for possessing more mind and talent than his sovereign. I hope that the free public will absolve him and read his work, as the finest specimen of literary criticism which France has produced for years.-TRANS.] What follows took place in the year VII., after J. C., the thirty-first year of the reign of Augustus, seven years before his death. The principality had full sway, the people had a master. Slowly escaping from that vapour of blood which had reddened its rising, the star of Julius at length cast a soft light upon the silent forum. It was a fine moment! The wards were quiet, and laws were mute; no more ward comitia, or assemblies of hundreds, took place, no more rogations, no more provocations, no more secessions, no more plesbiscitum, no more elections, no more disorder; there was no republican army any longer, nulla publica arma. Roman peace was everywhere, gained by the Romans: a single tribune reigned-Augustus; a single army stood-the army of Augustus; a single will prevailed-his; there was a single consul-himself; a single censor-himself also; a single prætor-himself; he was everywhere (1). Proscribed eloquence died away under the shadows of the schools; literature expired under the protection of Mæcenus (2). Titus Livius ceased to write; Labeon ceased to speak; Cicero's readings were forbidden; society was saved (3). As for glory, that was abundant, as it should be in an empire which respects itself; there had been fighting about in all directions; the people of the north and south, on the right and on the left, had received an all-sufficient whipping; there were plenty of names to post up at the corners of streets, and on the triumphal arches; there were vanquished nations to be chained in basso relievo; there were the Dalmatians, the Cantabrians, and the Aquitanians, and the Pannonians; the Illyrians, the Rhætians, the Vindelisians, the Salassians, and the Dacians, the Ubians, the Sicambrians, and the Parthians, whom Cæsar dreamed of conquering; without counting the Romans of the civil wars, over whom Augustus had had the audacity to triumph, but on horseback only, through modesty. The emperor had even led the command in one of these wars, and been wounded (4), which is the height of glory for a great nation. Nevertheless, sesterces rained down upon the plebeians; the prince multiplied his distributions. You would have said it cost him nothing. He distributed all the time, and everywhere. He was so kind that he even gave to little children under eleven (5), which is con- | (10). Legions seemed to spring from the trary to law. It is a fine time to violate the law, when you are better than it is. (6) The only difficulty was where to choose. There were theatrical games, gladiators' games, games in the forum, games in the amphitheatre, games in the circus, games in the comitia, nautical games, and Trojan games, without counting the races, huntings, and athletic wrestling, all of which did not prevent there being exhibitions of rhinoceroses, tigers, and serpents fifty yards long. Never had the Roman nation had go fine a time. Let us add that the prince frequently reviewed the horsemen himself, and that he loved often to renew the spectacle of defiling (7), a majestic, if not a varied one, which it would be unjust to fail to enumerate among the pleasures he afforded to the masters of the world. As for himself, his pleasures were simple; and, unless it should be that he gave a little too often the legitimate place of Scribonia or Livia, either to Drusula, or Tertulla, or Terentulla, or Rufulla, or to Salvia Titiscenia, or to others; and that he had the bad taste, when famine was everywhere, to banquet too joyously, disguised as a god, with eleven of his jolly companions, likewise deified (8); and that he was too ardently devoted to fine furniture and beautiful Corinth vases, so as even sometimes to kill the owner to get the vase; and that he was fond of gambling and shaking of dice; and that he was still a little given to his * uncle's vices There were some shadows in the picture, to be sure. There had been about ten conspiracies or so (9), and as many seditions; that spoils a reign; and there were the republicans coming up again. The most that could be, had been killed, at Pharsalia, at Thapsus, at Munda, at Philippi, at Actium, at Alexandria, and in Sicily; for Roman liberty is tough, and no less slaughters, had been necessary to disable it than seven butcheries of the mass, and seven (5). An allusion to the orphan asylum of the Imperial Prince, and other benevolent societies, under the exclusive patronage of the Empress and the Imperial Prince. (6). An allusion to the great number of new theatres opened, under the reign of Napoleon III. (7). Napoleon, at the beginning of his reign, constantly reviewed the cavalry troops, accompanied by his wife. (8). An allusion to the scandalous orgies at Compiegnes, Saint Cloud, and Fontainebleau, as well as to certain private parties at the Tuileries. (9). An allusion to Orsini's attempt to assassinate earth at the call of Pompey. These republicans, then, had been conscientiously killed; but how many of them? Three hundred thousand, perhaps, at most; that was pretty fair, but not quite enough; there were still some of them Hence some little drawbacks in the | about. great man's life. In the senate, he was obliged to wear a cuirass and a sword under his robe, which are disagreeable, especially in a warm climate (11); and was obliged to surround himself by ten robust fellows, whom he called his friends, but who were nevertheless unpleasant companions (12). There were also three cohorts, who dragged their clanking swords after him, in that same city, where sixty years before not so much as a little life could be brought; this might make one doubt the popularity of the father of the country a little. There was Agrippa, too (13), who was demolishing rather too much; but a fine marble tomb must, of course, be made for the great nation that desired to die (14). There was besides, the prefect of Lyons, Licinius, who drained his province somewhat too much; he did not know how to fleece the sheep without making it bleat; he was an ignorant rough administrator, who satisfied himself with taking money where it was to be found, that is, in people's pockets, proceeding without ceremony, and wanting genius in execution; it was he who took it into his head to add two months to the almanac, in order to have the monthly tax paid twice in his good city. As for the rest, it must be admitted that he shared honestly with his master the product of his administration. The good people of Lyons not knowing how to shake this leech off their skin, had the simplicity to appeal to Cæsar to recal their prefect-who kept his place. There was, besides, a certain expedition to a distance, which was not exactly the thing to had been whipped like a simpleton, with three take airs about. The unfortunate Varus (15) legions, down there, beyond the Rhine, in the Hyrcinian forest. This looked badly. War is like all good things, there is such a thing as having too much of it. It has the merit of being all diversions, I grant you; but it is a resource an absorbing spectacle; the most powerful of which must be economized. We should not play this terrible and insolent game too easily, it may turn against him who plays it; and when the Emperor, to that at the Champs Elysees, at the Comic Opera, at Marseilles, and many others. (10). An 'allusion to the Italian, Hungarian, and Polish up-risings. (11). An allusion to the coat-of-mail, given by the Empress and worn by the Emperor, as well as to his body-guard. (12). An allusion to the Imperial Guard. (13). An allusion to Prefect Haussman. (14). Probably an allusion to the government of Algiers, under Randon and Pelissier. (15). An allusion to the defeat of General Laurencet in Mexico. a man is a "saviour" (16), it is hardly becoming everything was for the best in the best of to send the people he has saved to be butchered. empires. This may be made an objection; but who thought of such a thing? about twenty thousand mothers, and what is that in a great empire? It is well known that glory does not give her favours, and Rome was rich enough in blood and money to pay for them. Augustus merely run his head against a post and made a prosopopoeia, which for the matter has become classic (17). There was Lollius, too, who had lost an eagle; it could be done without; and, as for finances, a new era was about opening; great administration was invented; the world was to be administered. The monster empire, with a hundred million hands and one stomach, unity, was founded! I will work with your hands, and you shall digest with my stomach; that is a clear matter, and Menenius was right; the opinion of the peasant of the Danube is no business of mine (18). If this system led to some abuses; if from time to time there was a famine or so, that was but a cloud in the light of universal joy, a discordant note lost in the concert of public gratitude; and all these little misfortunes that peradventure ruffle the surface of the empire, were, sooth to say, but merry contrasts and frequent diversions kept for a happy nation by its good fortune, in order that it might rest from its happiness and have time to breathe. It was like the seasoning of the feast just enough to break the monotony of success, temper jubilation, and prevent satiety. They were choking with prosperity; there are benefits which overwhelm and joys that kill. Who, then, in this golden age, who could complain? Tacitus said, seven years later, when Augustus died, that there remained but few citizens who had seen the republic; still fewer remained of those who had served it; they had been carried off in the civil wars, or by outlawry, or by summary executions, or by assassination, or by prison, or by exile, or by poverty, or by despair. Time had done the rest. There remained some vexed spirits, some morose old men; and as for those who had been born since Actium, they had come into the world with a picture of the emperor in their eyeball (19), and they did not see any the better for that; there was reason to hope that they would be at least disposed to find the new appearance of things satisfactory, and even the most satisfactory of all, as they had never seen any other. Thus the bulk of the people of Remus (20) was content, and (16). An allusion to the role of saviour, assumed by Napoleon, after the coup d'état, when he declared himself the "saviour of society about to perish." (17). "Empire is peace." (Napoleon III). (18). It is impossible to better impersonate the present political system in France, and its so-vannted centralization. (19). An allusion to the present French generation (20). Probably an allusion to Romieu. At this period lived Labienus. Do you know Labienus? He was a strange man, with an odd disposition. Just imagine, that he persisted in remaining a citizen in a city where there were no longer anything but subjects. Can one fancy such a thing? Civis romanus sum, said he; and you could not get him away from that idea. He wished, like Cicero, to die free in his free country; could anything be more utterly preposterous? A citizen and a free man : what a fool! undoubtedly he said that-as Polynectes at a later day: I am a Christian!without so much as knowing what be did say. The truth is, that his poor mind was wandering; he had a dangerous affection of the brain; at least, that was the opinion of the physician of Augustus, the celebrated Antonius, who called this species of madness an arguing monomania, and who had ordered the patient to be treated by imprisonment. Labienus did not take the remedy; so he was not cured, as you will see, when I shall have made you better acquainted with him. (21). Titus Labienus bore a name honoured already doubly by good citizens. The first La bie nus, Cæsar'slieutenant, had left him at the time when the Rubicon was passed, in order not to be an accomplice of his outrage; the second had served the Parthians better than the triumvers; our hero was the third. A line of Seneca, the rhetor, already suffices to give us a glimpse of this majestic personage; for we find there the haughty words of Labienus: "I know that what I write can only be read after my death." An orator and a historian of the highest order, having attained glory through a thousand obstacles, it was said of him that he had wrested admiration away, rather than obtained it. He then wrote a history, some pages of which he occasionally read within closed doors, to tried friends. It was on account of this history that the condemnation of books to the flames was put into force for the first time, on motion of a senator, who became himself a sufferer, a little while after, by the penalty he had invented: and Labienus was thus the first in Rome who had the honour of an incendiary senatus-consultum. This is what Mr. Egger judiciously calls "the new difficulties which the imperial régime caused to arise in history." The poor scorched historian, not being able to survive his work, went to shut himself up in the tomb of his ancestors, to emerge no more. He thought his work had perished, but it was not so. Cassius knew it by heart, and Cassius, protected by exile, was, as he said himself, a living edition of his friend's book, an edition which was not to be burned. Without doubt the book of Labienus was as insane as his life. A burned book: what a trifling matter! is that anything (21). Everything seems to indicate that this is an allusion to Victor Hugo, whose father was a republican general under Bonaparte. R to kill oneself about? The Senate did not wish the death of the guilty man, but merely to give him a warning; it was needful to profit by it; but this man took everything in the wrong way, and always heard a thing backwards, when he heard it at all. He was well worthy of figuring in the long file of stoic suicides which had begun to form, and among all those heroic simpletons, those absolute and systematic opposers, insane and absurd, who made their very death an act of opposition, and imagined that, by opening their veins, they played the emperor a trick. Some even killed themselves solely to spite the prince, who laughed under his moustache, and was all the more convinced of the excellence of his policy, when he saw his work doing itself. Labienus was a man of this kind; you see he was an idiot; such was the man whose Sayings we wish to tell you, and you will see in those sayings, as in his life and death, that he was always the same, that is to say, incorrigible. He was a man of the old party, since the republic had gone by; a reactionary, since the republic was a thing of the past; one of the old régime, since the government of laws was the former régime; in a word, he was an old fogy (22). He was one of those quarrelsome men who must tremble under a strong government, in order that peaceable men should be secure, and that society, shaken to its foundation, should be able to rest again upon its basis. This is not all: Labienus was ungrateful. In the very midst of Cæsarism, in the full tide of glory, amid that over-abundance of felicity and that vast festival of humankind he ignored the banefactions scattered with open hand by the second founder of Rome, the peace-maker of the worid. He cherished, at the same time, the inimical passions and blind folly which make dangerous men and bad citizens. But you do not know him. His passion wanted air and space in the suffocation of the principality. Being able no longer to speak, write, act or move, he passed whole hours upon the Sublicius bridge, looking at the flow of the Tiber, motionless and mute, but with flashing eyes and threatening gesture, his bosom swelling with the spirit of former days; like a statue of Mars the avenger, like a petrified tribune. "It is sweet to sleep," said Michael Angelo, "or to be of stone, so long as shame and misery endure." Labienus did not sleep, but he was of stone, harder than the rock of the capitol (immobile saxum). Tyranny had no hold upon him, the empire could not clutch at him; he was a Roman of the old rock, which nothing could break. Alone, standing, like Cocles, between an army and a precipice, he defied both; he defied Augustus and smiled upon death. In all this there was something good, if you will; but, at the same time, what a detestable disposition! what a surly turn of mind! Octavius in vain struck off a superb medal, with the three interlaced hands of the triumvirate and this (2). Napoleon's words after the coup d'êtât. sublime inscription: "The salvation of humanity.” Even this displeased him; he asserted that he had been saved in spite of himself, and he quoted the line of Horace : "When thus to be preserved is not my wish or will, The saviour an assassin is, who thus preserves me still." The old Labienus was one of those who had seen the republic; he had the folly to remember it; there lay the evil. He now saw a great reign, and he was not satisfied. There are people who never are so. He always thought himself on the day after Pharsalia'; forty years of glory put his eyes out with their lustre, but without opening them; he looked like a man in a bad dream, and reality was only an infernal vision to him. He was a simpleton in his astonishment; he would not believe what had happened. Epimenides (who slept a hundred years*), when he awoke, was less astonished. Sad in the midst of universal joy, sombre at the Roman orgie, like the two philosophers in Couture's picture, he was there and seemed to live elsewhere: he was a death's-head at the feast. You might have thought him a corpse escaped from the tombs at Philippi, an inquisitive spectre who had come to look on. Sometimes a friend pitied him; he pitied his friend. Most often, all alone, he growled in his own corner: he looked at the empire passing. It was not possible to make such a man listen to reason. He belonged to another age, and was an exile in the new one; he had the home-sickness of the past; he had learned nothing and forgotten nothing; he comprehended nothing in the present epoch; he had all the prejudices of Brutus; he was infested with Greek opinions which had not been fashionable in Rome for some time past. He looked as old as the Twelve Tables; he still thought as people thought in the time of Fabricius and the long-haired Camillus. And what fantastic ideas and incredible manias; especiaily one very singular, inexplicable taste: he loved liberty! It is clear that T. Labienus had not common sense. To love liberty! Do you understand that? It was a retrograde opinion, since liberty was a thing of old. The new men loved the new régime. He did not understand nicety of shades, nor had he the idea of time, or the comprehension of transition. Time had gone on, ideas also; he remained as firmly planted as a goal: he still believed in justice, in the law, in science and in conscience; he was clearly in his dotage. He talked of the party of honest men, like Cicero; he talked of the senate, of tribunes, of the comitia, and did not see that all these had melted away, like snow, into an immense sink, and that he was almost alone upon the outside. He still counted years by the consuls; for Augustus had left the name, in order that the thing might be believed in, and he hoped to resuscitate the thing by preserving the name. He prepared discourses to the people, as if there was a people; he in The classic Epimenides scarcely slept so long; his trance endured fifty-seven years.-ED. |