"But how easy to imagine the one," exclaimed Raper. "Wealth has its habits all stereotyped; from Dives to our own days the catalogue has been ever the same, purple and fine linen.' And if some have added to the mere sensual pleasures the higher enjoyments derivable from objects of art and the cultivation of letters, has it not been because their own natures were more elevated, and required such refinements as daily necessaries? The humble man suddenly enriched, lives no longer in the sphere of his former associates, but ascends into one of whose habits he knows nothing; and Jean Paul condemns him for this, and reminds him, that when a river is swollen by autumn rains, it does not desert its ancient channel, but enlarges the sphere of its utility, by spreading fertilisation on each side of it, seeming to think-I may, by the accidents of life, grow small and humble again; it is as well that I should not quit the tiny course I have followed in my humble fortunes."

"And do you agree with him?” asked Dan, more amazed by the enthusiasm of his companion, than by the theme that suggested it.

"I do so in everything; I speak, of course, as one who knows nothing of those ambitions by which wealthy men are encompassed; I am not in the posi tion of one who has seen and felt these fascinations, and who emerges from his poverty, to reassume a former station. Take the case of Mr. Curtis, for instance."

"What! old Curtis-Joe Curtis?" asked Dan eagerly."

"Yes, Curtis, formerly of Meaghvalley. Well, if his claim be as good as they suppose, he'll not only inherit the great Wicklow estates, but the western property so long in Chancery." MacNaghten saw that Raper was pouring forth this knowledge without being conscious that he was making an important revelation, and gave a dry commonplace assent.

"Who can say what may not be his income?" exclaimed Raper, thoughtfully; "twenty thousand a-year, at the least."

"And his prospects are good, you say his chances of success?"

66

'The marriage certificate of Noah

Curtis and Eleanor Carew has been discovered, sir, and if the will of Fownes Carew be authentic, the case, I believe, is clear."

"What Carews were these?"

"The ancestors of Walter Carew, sir, whose estates now descend to the heirs of the female branch."

"And Curtis will inherit these?"

The tone in which Dan uttered these words so startled Raper, that he suddenly recovered his self-possession, and remembered how unguardedly he had related this mysterious piece of intelligence.

"When was this discovery made ?— who chanced to trace this relationship between Curtis and the Carew family?" cried MacNaghten, in intense anxiety.

A signal from Raper suddenly sug gested caution and reserve; but Dan, too much excited to attend to it, went

on

"Sir, never believe it! It is some infernal scheme concocted between Fagan and the lawyers. They have put forward this wretched old man, half witted as he is

A hand grasped Dan's arm as he said this he turned, and there stood Curtis beside him!

"I've heard you both!" said the old man, drily. "To you, sir," said he to Raper, "I owe my thanks for a piece of welcome news; to you, MacNaghten, I feel grateful for all your candour!"

"Come, come, Curtis- be angry with me, if you will; but, for heaven's sake, do not lend yourself to these base plots and schemes. If there be a conspiracy to rob poor Walter's widow and her child, let not one of his oldest, best friends have any share in it."

66

"I'll maintain my rights, sir-be assured of that!" said Curtis, with a degree of resolution strangely different from his former manner. Mr. MacNaghten's impression of my competence to conduct my own affairs may possibly be disparaging, but, happily, there is another tribunal which shall decide on that question. Raper, I'm going into town will you accompany me? Mr. MacNaghten, I wish you a good morning." And with these words, he took Raper's arm, and retired, leaving Dan still standing, mute, overwhelmed, and thunderstruck.

As remarkable instances of haughtiness of temper and ungovernable pride, leading to perilous and unjustifiable extremes, Coriolanus and the Constable Bourbon appear to stand in close relationship. Two thousand years intervened between them. They existed under forms and institutions of social and political government exceedingly dissimilar; and yet they may be classed as historic brothers, closely resembling each other in moral and physical attributes, in the leading incident of their lives, the extent of their provocation, the nature of their revenge, and the violence of their deaths. Each, under the impulse of grievous wrong, renounced allegiance to his own country, cast aside the ties of kindred, friendship, and loyalty, and took up arms as leaders in the ranks of foreign enemies. The indelible stamp of renegade thus attaches to two names otherwise noble, and distinguished by heroic actions beyond the compass of ordinary mortals. On abstract principles of right and wrong, they must be condemned; in a comparative estimate of strong temptation, they may be pitied and excused. Who can af firm that he would not have yielded under the same trying circumstances? Man cannot read the heart of man, and is incompetent to pronounce sentence on defective proof

"Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;

What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."*

-LORD BYRON.

The life of Coriolanus is familiar to all classical readers in the pages of Plutarch, who derived his materials from Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, authors preceding the Greek biographer by more than a century. Their information came from Fabius Pictor. He lived and wrote two hundred years before they were born, and is the first Roman who composed an historical account of his own country. His work is known to have been lost. That which still remains and bears his name, has been proved by Gerard Vossiust to be a spurious composition.

Shakspeare transfused the essence of Plutarch into his own glowing scenes, with accuracy enriched by genius; and those who are old enough to remember John Kemble in Shakspeare's magnificent paraphrase, have seen the lofty Roman move before their eyes in living identity. According to the nearest computation, Coriolanus lived about six hundred years before the Christian era. The period refers back to a remote date, but there are no conclusive grounds for supposing that these early annals are to be rejected as unauthentic, however they may have reached us through oral tradition, or transmitted documents. All writers are agreed on their leading features, and this unanimity of opinion in essential points is reasonable evidence of veracity. Written memorials are sometimes less to be depended on than tra

ditions. They are more likely to be distorted by prejudice, biassed judgment, or wilful misinterpretation. Traditionary lore is usually founded on fact. It may amplify, but rarely invents. Discrepancies in particular details exist in the most unquestionable authorities. Such may be traced even in the inspired writings of the Evangelists; but no candid arguer attempts, on this showing, to depreciate the currency or throw doubt on the sterling value of the works in which they appear. Neither would the argument be received by clear logicians, if it was put forward. Antiquity is not in itself a necessary bar to correct information. Truth is still accessible, although it may be distant, fenced round with obscurities, and the avenue of approach a winding path, instead of a direct and open road. Where positive evidence is wanting, we must rely on circumstantial testimony; and if both are deficient, there is still a retreat on probable inference. The course is admissible in reasoning, if not in law.

We can speculate with more certainty on the causes and effects of many ancient revolutions of the world than on some that have occurred within recent times. We are more familiar with the siege of Troy than with the siege of Paris by Henri Quatre. We know more of Horace and Cicero than we do of Shakspeare, and possess more undisputed details on the campaigns of Alexander and Cæsar, than we can produce of the wars of Turenne, Marlborough, or Napoleon. The present age inquires deeply, and demands substantial proof. There is a disposition in the spirit of the day to question reputed learning, early discoveries, and statements hallowed by time. Our ancestors were easily satisfied, and believed everything they saw in print. We reject positively one half of what has been handed down as history, and are much inclined to throw doubt on the remainder. Everything is now put to the question, and being subjected to the torture of analysis, generally turns out to be something else. Established opinions are thrown aside

Lord Byron's "Don Juan," canto iv.

as exploded fallacies to such an extent, that we hourly expect to hear the Newtonian philosophy repudiated as a mistake, and to find Euclid ostracised as an unsound mathematician. In a comparison with modern genius, the wisdom of the ancients" is descending to a very humble level. Does it ever occur to any of the competitors in this headlong race that they may gallop too fast, and that Shakspeare once said something about "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself, and falls on the other side?" There can be no doubt that, with the progressive march of education, every succeeding race of man is, as it ought to be, wiser and more enlightened than that which went before; but it is surely no token of wisdom to deny all that has been said or done by our progenitors, or to ignore their existence altogether. Between extreme credulity and utter disbelief, the balance of evil vibrates as a pendulum, in regular time and equal proportions

"And so great names are nothing more than nominal,

And love of glory's but an airy lust,
Too often in its fury overcoming all

Who would, as 'twere, identify their dust

From out the wide destruction which, entombing
all,

Leaves nothing till the coming of the just,'
Save change: I've stood upon Achilles' tomb,
And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of
Rome."*

Let us, in the interim, turn over once again the leaves which afforded us such delight in our boyhood, and endeavour to extract from them a summary of what we find in connexion with the present subject. Caius Marcius derived the surname of Coriolanus from his supereminent valour and conduct at the capture of Corioli-a distinction not easily won where all were brave, and courage was synonymous with virtue. Scipio Africanus the Elder has been mentioned by several historians+ as the first Roman who bore the name of a conquered state, as a trophy of renown achieved in war, thus carelessly passing over Coriolanus and the exploit immortalized by his honorary cognomen.‡

The family of Marcius was one

of the noblest in the commonwealth. He descended in direct lineage from Ancus Marcius, the fourth King of Rome, and grandson of Numa, by his daughter Pompilia. His father dying while he was yet an infant, he was brought up by his mother, Volumnia, who, knowing that military prowess was all in all at Rome, trained his body to active exercise, and his mind to daring resolution. Nature had gifted him with great strength, activity, and fearlessness of danger. The frame and constitutional temperance of Hercules, joined to a mind of towering aspiration qualities indispensable in the composition of a successful warrior, at a time when, to decide the event of battles, the arm of the private soldier was nearly as important as the head of the commanding general. But the stern check of paternal influence was wanting in his education; and thus the temper of Marcius, always domineering and aristocratic to a painful extent, was suffered to grow with his growth, and expand with his years, until it entirely overshadowed his more generous qualities, and became (as the wayward history of the human heart illustrates in a thousand other instances) the bane of his existence, the stumbling-block of his fortunes, and the source of the only stain that tarnishes his memory. When Caius Mareius lived, the Romans had not matured or ripened into national dissoluteness: their habits were still primitive, their manners simple. They carried on little intercourse with other nations, and held in equal esteem domestic propriety and public patriotism. They were incessantly engaged in wars with surrounding states, as restless and semibarbarous as themselves, and had no time to cultivate the vices of indolence. Twenty years before, and thirty after the time of which we are now writing, the individual profligacy of Sextus Tarquin and Appius Claudius occasioned two revolutions.

Coriolanus regarded his mother with love approaching to adoration. He pursued and coveted glory, because it delighted her to see him honoured and

applauded. He married, rather in compliance with her wishes than from any personal preference or taste for conjugal retirement; and though uniformly kind and attached to his family, continued to dwell in his mother's house, even after his wife had borne him children. Plutarch draws a comparison between Coriolanus and Alcibiades. We can trace but little similarity beyond the one important characteristic of each abandoning the cause of his native land, and going over to the enemy. In military capacity, and in the importance of his victories by sea and on shore, while yet the soldier and champion of his own country, the Athenian, perhaps, excelled the Roman; while he left him, at an immeasurable distance, in the suavity of manner, the subtle eloquence, and the self-command, which win all hearts, and sway the listeners according to the views and wishes of the speaker. But again, the Roman towers above the brilliant and unsteady pupil of Socrates, in the manly consistency and unbending firmness of his character, in the unblemished purity of his private life, his temperate habits, his lofty contempt of riches, his disregard of selfinterest, and his ingenuous openness, which scorned dissimulation. Alcibiades was accomplished in all the arts and chicanery of politics; capable, by studied sophistry, of turning the tide of a debate even in a modern senate-house a practised trimmer, withal, who could shuffle in or out of a leading question, as adroitly as any disciple of expediency in our own House of Commons. Coriolanus, on the other hand, presented a magnificent specimen of a high, unflinching tory, an absolute protectionist, who lost his consulship by losing his temper, and who would really have died on the floor (instead of threatening to do so) rather than compromise his opinions; a man to vote with his party to any extreme, no matter how palpably they might be in the wrong; who thought the people totally unfit for self-government, and not sufficiently grateful for permission to live and breathe the common air.†

His military practice began while he was a mere stripling. In the great fight at Lake Regillus, where Tarquinius Superbus (then in extreme old age) made his last effort to recover the regal power, young Marcius distinguished himself by saving the life of a fellow-soldier, for which he was rewarded by the general with an oaken crown - a decoration of nobler order than the laurel garland; as preserving a citizen was deemed an act of more valuable service than destroying an enemy. The Romans at that time were engaged in other wars, and fought numerous battles, in all of which he participated, and never returned home without some additional token of honour. Early reputation gave him a preponderance beyond his years, which ministered to his inherent pride, and encouraged rather than softened his unbending manners.

The common people were generally oppressed by the senate and the richer classes. Those proceedings drove them at last to abandon the city in a body, and retire to the Mons Sacer, from whence they were won back by the address of Menenius Agrippa, who availed himself of the celebrated apologue of the belly and the members, and by the conceded privilege of appointing tribunes to defend their rights on all occasions. The persons of the new functionaries were held sacred. Their chief power consisted in a veto, or prohibition against the passing of any law which displeased them; a power nearly absolute, which, while it produced some good, created greater evil, and engendered a race of restless, dissatisfied demagogues, who perpetually impeded legislation, and then as now, were ever on the alert for turmoil and sedition. It was not so much the abolition of undue rights, as the transfer of despotism from bad hands into worse. Government of every kind and degree, in all ages and countries of the ancient world, appears to have been an unmitigated choice of evils; an unremitting, selfish struggle for place and power, aptly designated by Sir W. Napier "a scourge with a double thong," whether vested in prince or people, the peer or the plebeian; equally unjust and tyrannical under the open name of a monarchy, or the specious delusion of a republic.

The newly-created tribunes were not long in selecting a victim from the ranks of the aristocracy. Their choice fell upon Caius Marcius, who, in truth, had rendered himself obnoxious by many overt acts and expressions of contempt against the sovereign majesty of the people. In the mean

time he pursued his military career with increasing success and renown, and had gained the surname by which he is best known to posterity. After the taking of Corioli, and the subsequent battle-in both of which his courage and conduct were conspicuous above all the other Roman officers the Consul, Cominius, who impartially attributed these great successes to his individual prowess, awarded him a tenth of the entire booty taken, including horses and prisoners, before any distribution was made to the army in general. Coriolanus nobly rejected all pecuniary recompense, accepting only a charger fully caparisoned, and the exemption from slavery of one amongst the captives, with whom he was bound in ties of reciprocal hospitality. He fought for glory alone, and thought not of prize-money or reward-unlike the French republican generals in the early wars of the Revolution, who combated with a sword in one hand, and a poker in the other, to ferret out and stir up the treasures of the vanquished. “Il nà pas trouvé le fourgon d'Augereau" ("He has not found the poker of Augereau") passed into a proverbial expression with the French soldiers, when either a scruple of conscience, or the absence of opportunity, prevented any one of their generals from enriching himself by plunder. Augereau was distinguished for rapacity above all the

rest.

While in command at Milan, in 1796, he levied a contribution of one million of francs (£50,000) on the city. The authorities complained to Napoleon, as general-in-chief. He indignantly reprimanded his lieutenant, ordered him to disgorge the money, and sent him the amount from his personal funds. Augereau, according to Bourienne, contrived to pocket both the robbery and the compensation. History records but few examples of disinterestedness and contempt for money, similar to that of Coriolanus, on

to ten.