text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/350

 Although the beaks and feet of birds are generally clean, earth sometimes adheres to them: in one case I removed sixty-one grains, and in another case twenty-two grains of dry argillaceous earth from the foot of a partridge, and in the earth there was a pebble as large as the seed of a vetch. Here is a better case: the leg of a woodcock was sent to me by a friend, with a little cake of dry earth attached to the shank, weighing only nine grains; and this contained a seed of the toad-rush (Juncus bufonius) which germinated and flowered. Mr. Swaysland, of Brighton, who during the last forty years has paid close attention to our migratory birds, informs me that he has often shot wagtails (Motacillæ), wheatears, and whinchats (Saxicolæ), on their first arrival on our shores, before they had alighted; and he has several times noticed little cakes of earth attached to their feet. Many facts could be given showing how generally soil is charged with seeds. For instance, Professor Newton sent me the leg of a red-legged partridge (Caccabis rufa) which had been wounded and could not fly, with a ball of hard earth adhering to it, and weighing six and a half ounces. The earth had been kept for three years, but when broken, watered and placed under a bell glass, no less than 82 plants sprung from it: these consisted of 12 monocotyledons, including the common oat, and at least one kind of grass, and of 70 dicotyledons, which consisted, judging from the young leaves, of at least three distinct species. With such facts before us, can we doubt that the many birds which are annually blown by gales across great spaces of ocean, and which annually migrate — for instance, the millions of quails across the Mediterranean — must occasionally transport a few seeds embedded in dirt adhering to their feet or beaks? But I shall have to recur to this subject.

As icebergs are known to be sometimes loaded with earth and stones, and have even carried brushwood, bones, and the nest of a land-bird, it can hardly be doubted that they must occasionally, as suggested by Lyell, have transported seeds from one part to another of the arctic and antarctic regions; and during the Glacial period from one part of the now temperate regions to another. In the Azores, from the large number of plants common to Europe, in comparison with the species on the other islands of the Atlantic, which stand nearer to the mainland, and (as remarked by Mr. H.C. Watson) from their somewhat northern character, in comparison with the latitude, I suspected that these islands had been partly stocked by ice-borne seeds during the Glacial epoch. At my request Sir C. Lyell wrote to M. Hartung to inquire whether he had observed erratic boulders on these islands, and he answered that he

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/350


text:
Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/434

Rh to him, as an untravelled Englishman, as the better class of convict, with whom he has at least the common ground of speaking the same language and having lived in the same country when at home. The American "rowdy," the New Orleans gambler, the San Francisco free-fighter, or the Chinese miner of Victoria, would, no doubt, prove quite as unsuited to his home-country feelings as even the Swan River expiree.

The quiet hard-working man whose chief ambition is to establish himself in a little farm of his own with his wife and family around him, and who is willing to accept the position of shepherd to one of the larger settlers for a few years, may soon save money; and, in the course of five or six years, may hope to find himself able to start on his own account, with every prospect of doing well and becoming a small landowner.

The class to whom the colony is least of all suited would seem to be those who are dependent solely upon a small fixed income, such as the chaplains of the Church of England, the ministers of the various non-conforming denominations, the lower grades of the Government officials, and the country schoolmasters and mistresses in Government employ. Their incomes are very small compared with the expenditure absolutely necessary for the maintenance of themselves and their families in a position of respectability, while, unlike the settlers in general, they are unable to pay for any of the goods supplied to them by the barter or exchange of their own produce, (since they do not possess any land or stock,) but are obliged to settle all their bills by cheques upon their banker. No one who has not had personal experience of this

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/434


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/351

 had found large fragments of granite and other rocks, which do not occur in the archipelago. Hence we may safely infer that icebergs formerly landed their rocky burdens on the shores of these mid-ocean islands, and it is at least possible that they may have brought thither the seeds of northern plants.

Considering that these several means of transport, and that other means, which without doubt remain to be discovered, have been in action year after year for tens of thousands of years, it would, I think, be a marvellous fact if many plants had not thus become widely transported. These means of transport are sometimes called accidental, but this is not strictly correct: the currents of the sea are not accidental, nor is the direction of prevalent gales of wind. It should be observed that scarcely any means of transport would carry seeds for very great distances; for seeds do not retain their vitality when exposed for a great length of time to the action of sea water; nor could they be long carried in the crops or intestines of birds. These means, however, would suffice for occasional transport across tracts of sea some hundred miles in breadth, or from island to island, or from a continent to a neighbouring island, but not from one distant continent to another. The floras of distant continents would not by such means become mingled; but would remain as distinct as they now are. The currents, from their course, would never bring seeds from North America to Britain, though they might and do bring seeds from the West Indies to our western shores, where, if not killed by their very long immersion in salt water, they could not endure our climate. Almost every year, one or two land-birds are blown across the whole Atlantic Ocean, from North America to the western shores of Ireland and England; but seeds could be transported by these rare wanderers only by one means, namely, by dirt adhering to their feet or beaks, which is in itself a rare accident. Even in this case, how small would be the chance of a seed falling on favourable soil, and coming to maturity! But it would be a great error to argue that because a well-stocked island, like Great Britain, has not, as far as is known (and it would be very difficult to prove this), received within the last few centuries, through occasional means of transport, immigrants from Europe or any other continent, that a poorly-stocked island, though standing more remote from the mainland, would not receive colonists by similar means. Out of a hundred kinds of seeds or animals transported to an island, even if far less well-stocked than Britain, perhaps not more than one would be so well fitted to its new home, as to become naturalised. But this is no valid argument against what would be effected by occasional means of transport, during the long

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/351


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/352

 lapse of geological time, whilst the island was being upheaved, and before it had become fully stocked with inhabitants. On almost bare land, with few or no destructive insects or birds living there, nearly every seed which chanced to arrive, if fitted for the climate, would germinate and survive.

Dispersal during the Glacial Period.

The identity of many plants and animals, on mountain-summits, separated from each other by hundreds of miles of lowlands, where Alpine species could not possibly exist, is one of the most striking cases known of the same species living at distant points, without the apparent possibility of their having migrated from one point to the other. It is indeed a remarkable fact to see so many plants of the same species living on the snowy regions of the Alps or Pyrenees, and in the extreme northern parts of Europe; but it is far more remarkable, that the plants on the White Mountains, in the United States of America, are all the same with those of Labrador, and nearly all the same, as we hear from Asa Gray, with those on the loftiest mountains of Europe. Even as long ago as 1747, such facts led Gmelin to conclude that the same species must have been independently created at many distinct points; and we might have remained in this same belief, had not Agassiz and others called vivid attention to the Glacial period, which, as we shall immediately see, affords a simple explanation of these facts. We have evidence of almost every conceivable kind, organic and inorganic, that, within a very recent geological period, central Europe and North America suffered under an Arctic climate. The ruins of a house burnt by fire do not tell their tale more plainly than do the mountains of Scotland and Wales, with their scored flanks, polished surfaces, and perched boulders, of the icy streams with which their valleys were lately filled. So greatly has the climate of Europe changed, that in Northern Italy, gigantic moraines, left by old glaciers, are now clothed by the vine and maize. Throughout a large part of the United States, erratic boulders and scored rocks plainly reveal a former cold period.

The former influence of the glacial climate on the distribution of the inhabitants of Europe, as explained by Edward Forbes, is substantially as follows. But we shall follow the changes more readily, by supposing a new glacial period slowly to come on, and then pass away, as formerly occurred. As the cold came on, and as each more southern zone became fitted for the inhabitants of the north, these would take the places of the former inhabitants of the temperate regions. The latter, at the same time, would travel

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/352


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/353

 further and further southward, unless they were stopped by barriers, in which case they would perish. The mountains would become covered with snow and ice, and their former Alpine inhabitants would descend to the plains. By the time that the cold had reached its maximum, we should have an arctic fauna and flora, covering the central parts of Europe, as far south as the Alps and Pyrenees, and even stretching into Spain. The now temperate regions of the United States would likewise be covered by arctic plants and animals and these would be nearly the same with those of Europe; for the present circumpolar inhabitants, which we suppose to have everywhere travelled southward, are remarkably uniform round the world.

As the warmth returned, the arctic forms would retreat northward, closely followed up in their retreat by the productions of the more temperate regions. And as the snow melted from the bases of the mountains, the arctic forms would seize on the cleared and thawed ground, always ascending, as the warmth increased and the snow still further disappeared, higher and higher, whilst their brethren were pursuing their northern journey. Hence, when the warmth had fully returned, the same species, which had lately lived together on the European and North American lowlands, would again be found in the arctic regions of the Old and New Worlds, and on many isolated mountain-summits far distant from each other.

Thus we can understand the identity of many plants at points so immensely remote as the mountains of the United States and those of Europe. We can thus also understand the fact that the Alpine plants of each mountain-range are more especially related to the arctic forms living due north or nearly due north of them: for the first migration when the cold came on, and the re-migration on the returning warmth, would generally have been due south and north. The Alpine plants, for example, of Scotland, as remarked by Mr. H. C. Watson, and those of the Pyrenees, as remarked by Ramond, are more especially allied to the plants of northern Scandinavia; those of the United States to Labrador; those of the mountains of Siberia to the arctic regions of that country. These views, grounded as they are on the perfectly well-ascertained occurrence of a former Glacial period, seem to me to explain in so satisfactory a manner the present distribution of the Alpine and Arctic productions of Europe and America, that when in other regions we find the same species on distant mountain-summits, we may almost conclude, without other evidence, that a colder climate formerly permitted their migration across the intervening lowlands, now become too warm for their existence.

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/353


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/354

 As the arctic forms moved first southward and afterwards backward to the north, in unison with the changing climate, they will not have been exposed during their long migrations to any great diversity of temperature; and as they all migrated in a body together, their mutual relations will not have been much disturbed. Hence, in accordance with the principles inculcated in this volume, these forms will not have been liable to much modification. But with the Alpine productions, left isolated from the moment of the returning warmth, first at the bases and ultimately on the summits of the mountains, the case will have been somewhat different; for it is not likely that all the same arctic species will have been left on mountain ranges far distant from each other, and have survived there ever since; they will also, in all probability, have become mingled with ancient Alpine species, which must have existed on the mountains before the commencement of the Glacial epoch, and which during the coldest period will have been temporarily driven down to the plains; they will, also, have been subsequently exposed to somewhat different climatical influences. Their mutual relations will thus have been in some degree disturbed; consequently they will have been liable to modification; and they have been modified; for if we compare the present Alpine plants and animals of the several great European mountain ranges, one with another, though many of the species remain identically the same, some exist as varieties, some as doubtful forms or sub-species and some as distinct yet closely allied species representing each other on the several ranges.

In the foregoing illustration, I have assumed that at the commencement of our imaginary Glacial period, the arctic productions were as uniform round the polar regions as they are at the present day. But it is also necessary to assume that many sub-arctic and some few temperate forms were the same round the world, for some of the species which now exist on the lower mountain slopes and on the plains of North America and Europe are the same; and it may be asked how I account for this degree of uniformity of the sub-arctic and temperate forms round the world, at the commencement of the real Glacial period. At the present day, the sub-arctic and northern temperate productions of the Old and New Worlds are separated from each other by the whole Atlantic Ocean and by the northern part of the Pacific. During the Glacial period, when the inhabitants of the Old and New Worlds lived further southwards than they do at present, they must have been still more completely separated from each other by wider spaces of ocean; so that it may well be asked how the

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/354


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/355

 same species could then or previously have entered the two continents. The explanation, I believe, lies in the nature of the climate before the commencement of the Glacial period. At this, the newer Pliocene period, the majority of the inhabitants of the world were specifically the same as now, and we have good reason to believe that the climate was warmer than at the present day. Hence, we may suppose that the organisms which now live under latitude 60°, lived during the Pliocene period further north, under the Polar Circle, in latitude 66°-67°; and that the present arctic productions then lived on the broken land still nearer to the pole. Now, if we look at a terrestrial globe, we see under the Polar Circle that there is almost continuous land from western Europe through Siberia, to eastern America. And this continuity of the circumpolar land, with the consequent freedom under a more favourable climate for intermigration, will account for the supposed uniformity of the sub-arctic and temperate productions of the Old and New Worlds, at a period anterior to the Glacial epoch.

Believing, from reasons before alluded to, that our continents have long remained in nearly the same relative position, though subjected to great oscillations of level, I am strongly inclined to extend the above view, and to infer that during some earlier and still warmer period, such as the older Pliocene period, a large number of the same plants and animals inhabited the almost continuous circumpolar land; and that these plants and animals, both in the Old and New Worlds, began slowly to migrate southwards as the climate became less warm, long before the commencement of the Glacial period. We now see, as I believe, their descendants, mostly in a modified condition, in the central parts of Europe and the United States. On this view we can understand the relationship with very little identity, between the productions of North America and Europe,— a relationship which is highly remarkable, considering the distance of the two areas, and their separation by the whole Atlantic Ocean. We can further understand the singular fact remarked on by several observers that the productions of Europe and America during the later tertiary stages were more closely related to each other than they are at the present time; for during these warmer periods the northern parts of the Old and New Worlds will have been almost continuously united by land, serving as a bridge, since rendered impassable by cold, for the intermigration of their inhabitants.

During the slowly decreasing warmth of the Pliocene period, as soon as the species in common, which inhabited the New and Old Worlds, migrated south of the Polar Circle, they will have been

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/355


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/356

 completely cut off from each other. This separation, as far as the more temperate productions are concerned, must have taken place long ages ago. As the plants and animals migrated southward, they will have become mingled in the one great region with the native American productions, and would have had to compete with them; and in the other great region, with those of the Old World. Consequently we have here everything favourable for much modification,— for far more modification than with the Alpine productions, left isolated, within a much more recent period, on the several mountain ranges and on the arctic lands of Europe and North America. Hence, it has come, that when we compare the now living productions of the temperate regions of the New and Old Worlds, we find very few identical species (though Asa Gray has lately shown that more plants are identical than was formerly supposed), but we find in every great class many forms, which some naturalists rank as geographical races, and others as distinct species; and a host of closely allied or representative forms which are ranked by all naturalists as specifically distinct.

As on the land, so in the waters of the sea, a slow southern migration of a marine fauna, which, during the Pliocene or even a somewhat earlier period, was nearly uniform along the continuous shores of the Polar Circle, will account, on the theory of modification, for many closely allied forms now living in marine areas completely sundered. Thus, I think, we can understand the presence of some closely allied, still existing and extinct tertiary forms, on the eastern and western shores of temperate North America; and the still more striking fact of many closely allied crustaceans (as described in Dana's admirable work), some fish and other marine animals, inhabiting the Mediterranean and the seas of Japan,— these two areas being now completely separated by the breadth of a whole continent and by wide spaces of ocean.

These cases of close relationship in species either now or formerly inhabiting the seas on the eastern and western shores of North America, the Mediterranean and Japan, and the temperate lands of North America and Europe, are inexplicable on the theory of creation. We cannot maintain that such species have been created alike, in correspondence with the nearly similar physical conditions of the areas; for if we compare, for instance, certain parts of South America with parts of South Africa or Australia, we see countries closely similar in all their physical conditions, with their inhabitants utterly dissimilar.

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/356


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/357

 Alternate Glacial Periods in the North and South.

But we must return to our more immediate subject. I am convinced that Forbes's view may be largely extended. In Europe we meet with the plainest evidence of the Glacial period, from the western shores of Britain to the Ural range, and southward to the Pyrenees. We may infer from the frozen mammals and nature of the mountain vegetation, that Siberia was similarly affected. In the Lebanon, according to Dr. Hooker, perpetual snow formerly covered the central axis, and fed glaciers which rolled 4,000 feet down the valleys. The same observer has recently found great moraines at a low level on the Atlas range in North Africa. Along the Himalaya, at points 900 miles apart, glaciers have left the marks of their former low descent; and in Sikkim, Dr. Hooker saw maize growing on ancient and gigantic moraines. Southward of the Asiatic continent, on the opposite side of the equator, we know, from the excellent researches of Dr. J. Haast and Dr. Hector, that in New Zealand immense glaciers formerly descended to a low level; and the same plants, found by Dr. Hooker on widely separated mountains in this island tell the same story of a former cold period. From facts communicated to me by the Rev. W.B. Clarke, it appears also that there are traces of former glacial action on the mountains of the south-eastern corner of Australia.

Looking to America; in the northern half, ice-borne fragments of rock have been observed on the eastern side of the continent, as far south as lat. 36°-37°, and on the shores of the Pacific, where the climate is now so different, as far south as latitude 46°. Erratic boulders have, also, been noticed on the Rocky Mountains. In the Cordillera of South America, nearly under the equator, glaciers once extended far below their present level. In central Chile I examined a vast mound of detritus with great boulders, crossing the Portillo valley, which, there can hardly be a doubt, once formed a huge moraine; and Mr. D. Forbes informs me that he found in various parts of the Cordillera, from lat. 13° to 30° S., at about the height of 12,000 feet, deeply-furrowed rocks, resembling those with which he was familiar in Norway, and likewise great masses of detritus, including grooved pebbles. Along this whole space of the Cordillera true glaciers do not now exist even at much more considerable heights. Further south, on both sides of the continent, from latitude 41° to the southernmost extremity, we have the clearest evidence of former glacial action, in numerous immense boulders transported far from their parent source.

From these several facts, namely, from the glacial action having

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/357


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/358

 extended all round the northern and southern hemispheres — from the period having been in a geological sense recent in both hemispheres — from its having lasted in both during a great length of time, as may be inferred from the amount of work effected — and lastly, from glaciers having recently descended to a low level along the whole line of the Cordillera, it at one time appeared to me that we could not avoid the conclusion that the temperature of the whole world had been simultaneously lowered during the Glacial period. But now, Mr. Croll, in a series of admirable memoirs, has attempted to show that a glacial condition of climate is the result of various physical causes, brought into operation by an increase in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. All these causes tend towards the same end; but the most powerful appears to be the indirect influence of the eccentricity of the orbit upon oceanic currents. According to Mr. Croll, cold periods regularly recur every ten or fifteen thousand years; and these at long intervals are extremely severe, owing to certain contingencies, of which the most important, as Sir C. Lyell has shown, is the relative position of the land and water. Mr. Croll believes that the last great glacial period occurred about 240,000 years ago, and endured, with slight alterations of climate, for about 160,000 years. With respect to more ancient glacial periods, several geologists are convinced, from direct evidence, that such occurred during the miocene and eocene formations, not to mention still more ancient formations. But the most important result for us, arrived at by Mr. Croll, is that whenever the northern hemisphere passes through a cold period the temperature of the southern hemisphere is actually raised, with the winters rendered much milder, chiefly through changes in the direction of the ocean currents. So conversely it will be with the northern hemisphere, while the southern passes through a glacial period. This conclusion throws so much light on geographical distribution that I am strongly inclined to trust in it; but I will first give the facts which demand an explanation.

In South America, Dr. Hooker has shown that besides many closely allied species, between forty and fifty of the flowering plants of Tierra del Fuego, forming no inconsiderable part of its scanty flora, are common to North America and Europe, enormously remote as these areas in opposite hemispheres are from each other. On the lofty mountains of equatorial America a host of peculiar species belonging to European genera occur. On the Organ Mountains of Brazil some few temperate European, some Antarctic and some Andean genera were found by Gardner which do not exist in the low intervening hot countries. On the Silla of Caraccas,

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/358


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/359

 the illustrious Humboldt long ago found species belonging to genera characteristic of the Cordillera.

In Africa, several forms characteristic of Europe, and some few representatives of the flora of the Cape of Good Hope, occur on the mountains of Abyssinia. At the Cape of Good Hope a very few European species, believed not to have been introduced by man, and on the mountains several representative European forms are found which have not been discovered in the intertropical parts of Africa. Dr. Hooker has also lately shown that several of the plants living on the upper parts of the lofty island of Fernando Po, and on the neighbouring Cameroon Mountains, in the Gulf of Guinea, are closely related to those on the mountains of Abyssinia, and likewise to those of temperate Europe. It now also appears, as I hear from Dr. Hooker, that some of these same temperate plants have been discovered by the Rev. R.T. Lowe on the mountains of the Cape Verde Islands. This extension of the same temperate forms, almost under the equator, across the whole continent of Africa and to the mountains of the Cape Verde archipelago, is one of the most astonishing facts ever recorded in the distribution of plants.

On the Himalaya, and on the isolated mountain ranges of the peninsula of India, on the heights of Ceylon, and on the volcanic cones of Java, many plants occur either identically the same or representing each other, and at the same time representing plants of Europe not found in the intervening hot lowlands. A list of the genera of plants collected on the loftier peaks of Java, raises a picture of a collection made on a hillock in Europe! Still more striking is the fact that peculiar Australian forms are represented by certain plants growing on the summits of the mountains of Borneo. Some of these Australian forms, as I hear from Dr. Hooker, extend along the heights of the peninsula of Malacca, and are thinly scattered on the one hand over India, and on the other hand as far north as Japan.

On the southern mountains of Australia, Dr. F. Müller has discovered several European species; other species, not introduced by man, occur on the lowlands; and a long list can be given, as I am informed by Dr. Hooker, of European genera, found in Australia, but not in the intermediate torrid regions. In the admirable "Introduction to the Flora of New Zealand," by Dr. Hooker, analogous and striking facts are given in regard to the plants of that large island. Hence, we see that certain plants growing on the more lofty mountains of the tropics in all parts of the world, and on the temperate plains of the north and south, are either the same species or varieties of the same species. It should, however, be observed

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/359


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/360

 that these plants are not strictly arctic forms; for, as Mr. H. C. Watson has remarked, "in receding from polar toward equatorial latitudes, the Alpine or mountain flora really become less and less Arctic." Besides these identical and closely allied forms, many species inhabiting the same widely sundered areas, belong to genera not now found in the intermediate tropical lowlands.

These brief remarks apply to plants alone; but some few analogous facts could be given in regard to terrestrial animals. In marine productions, similar cases likewise occur; as an example, I may quote a statement by the highest authority, Prof. Dana, that "it is certainly a wonderful fact that New Zealand should have a closer resemblance in its crustacea to Great Britain, its antipode, than to any other part of the world." Sir J. Richardson, also, speaks of the reappearance on the shores of New Zealand, Tasmania, &c., of northern forms of fish. Dr. Hooker informs me that twenty-five species of Algæ are common to New Zealand and to Europe, but have not been found in the intermediate tropical seas.

From the foregoing facts, namely, the presence of temperate forms on the highlands across the whole of equatorial Africa, and along the Peninsula of India, to Ceylon and the Malay Archipelago, and in a less well-marked manner across the wide expanse of tropical South America, it appears almost certain that at some former period, no doubt during the most severe part of a Glacial period, the lowlands of these great continents were everywhere tenanted under the equator by a considerable number of temperate forms. At this period the equatorial climate at the level of the sea was probably about the same with that now experienced at the height of from five to six thousand feet under the same latitude, or perhaps even rather cooler. During this, the coldest period, the lowlands under the equator must have been clothed with a mingled tropical and temperate vegetation, like that described by Hooker as growing luxuriantly at the height of from four to five thousand feet on the lower slopes of the Himalaya, but with perhaps a still greater preponderance of temperate forms. So again in the mountainous island of Fernando Po, in the Gulf of Guinea, Mr. Mann found temperate European forms beginning to appear at the height of about five thousand feet. On the mountains of Panama, at the height of only two thousand feet, Dr. Seemann found the vegetation like that of Mexico, "with forms of the torrid zone harmoniously blended with those of the temperate."

Now let us see whether Mr. Croll's conclusion that when the northern hemisphere suffered from the extreme cold of the great Glacial period, the southern hemisphere was actually warmer, throws

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/360


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/361

 any clear light on the present apparently inexplicable distribution of various organisms in the temperate parts of both hemispheres, and on the mountains of the tropics. The Glacial period, as measured by years, must have been very long; and when we remember over what vast spaces some naturalised plants and animals have spread within a few centuries, this period will have been ample for any amount of migration. As the cold became more and more intense, we know that Arctic forms invaded the temperate regions; and from the facts just given, there can hardly be a doubt that some of the more vigorous, dominant and widest-spreading temperate forms invaded the equatorial lowlands. The inhabitants of these hot lowlands would at the same time have migrated to the tropical and subtropical regions of the south, for the southern hemisphere was at this period warmer. On the decline of the Glacial period, as both hemispheres gradually recovered their former temperature, the northern temperate forms living on the lowlands under the equator, would have been driven to their former homes or have been destroyed, being replaced by the equatorial forms returning from the south. Some, however, of the northern temperate forms would almost certainly have ascended any adjoining high land, where, if sufficiently lofty, they would have long survived like the Arctic forms on the mountains of Europe. They might have survived, even if the climate was not perfectly fitted for them, for the change of temperature must have been very slow, and plants undoubtedly possess a certain capacity for acclimatisation, as shown by their transmitting to their offspring different constitutional powers of resisting heat and cold.

In the regular course of events the southern hemisphere would in its turn be subjected to a severe Glacial period, with the northern hemisphere rendered warmer; and then the southern temperate forms would invade the equatorial lowlands. The northern forms which had before been left on the mountains would now descend and mingle with the southern forms. These latter, when the warmth returned, would return to their former homes, leaving some few species on the mountains, and carrying southward with them some of the northern temperate forms which had descended from their mountain fastnesses. Thus, we should have some few species identically the same in the northern and southern temperate zones and on the mountains of the intermediate tropical regions. But the species left during a long time on these mountains, or in opposite hemispheres, would have to compete with many new forms and would be exposed to somewhat different physical conditions; hence, they would be eminently liable to modification, and would generally now exist as varieties or as representative species; and this is the

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/361


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/362

 case. We must, also, bear in mind the occurrence in both hemispheres of former Glacial periods; for these will account, in accordance with the same principles, for the many quite distinct species inhabiting the same widely separated areas, and belonging to genera not now found in the intermediate torrid zones.

It is a remarkable fact, strongly insisted on by Hooker in regard to America, and by Alph. de Candolle in regard to Australia, that many more identical or slightly modified species have migrated from the north to the south, than in a reversed direction. We see, however, a few southern forms on the mountains of Borneo and Abyssinia. I suspect that this preponderant migration from the north to the south is due to the greater extent of land in the north, and to the northern forms having existed in their own homes in greater numbers, and having consequently been advanced through natural selection and competition to a higher stage of perfection, or dominating power, than the southern forms. And thus, when the two sets became commingled in the equatorial regions, during the alternations of the Glacial periods, the northern forms were the more powerful and were able to hold their places on the mountains, and afterwards migrate southward with the southern forms; but not so the southern in regard to the northern forms. In the same manner, at the present day, we see that very many European productions cover the ground in La Plata, New Zealand, and to a lesser degree in Australia, and have beaten the natives; whereas extremely few southern forms have become naturalised in any part of the northern hemisphere, though hides, wool, and other objects likely to carry seeds have been largely imported into Europe during the last two or three centuries from La Plata and during the last forty or fifty years from Australia. The Neilgherrie Mountains in India, however, offer a partial exception; for here, as I hear from Dr. Hooker, Australian forms are rapidly sowing themselves and becoming naturalised. Before the last great Glacial period, no doubt the intertropical mountains were stocked with endemic Alpine forms; but these have almost everywhere yielded to the more dominant forms generated in the larger areas and more efficient workshops of the north. In many islands the native productions are nearly equalled, or even outnumbered, by those which have become naturalised; and this is the first stage towards their extinction. Mountains are islands on the land; and their inhabitants have yielded to those produced within the larger areas of the north, just in the same way as the inhabitants of real islands have everywhere yielded and are still yielding to continental forms naturalised through man's agency.

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/362


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/363

 The same principles apply to the distribution of terrestrial animals and of marine productions, in the northern and southern temperate zones, and on the intertropical mountains. When, during the height of the Glacial period, the ocean-currents were widely different to what they now are, some of the inhabitants of the temperate seas might have reached the equator; of these a few would perhaps at once be able to migrate southwards, by keeping to the cooler currents, while others might remain and survive in the colder depths until the southern hemisphere was in its turn subjected to a glacial climate and permitted their further progress; in nearly the same manner as, according to Forbes, isolated spaces inhabited by Arctic productions exist to the present day in the deeper parts of the northern temperate seas.

I am far from supposing that all the difficulties in regard to the distribution and affinities of the identical and allied species, which now live so widely separated in the north and south, and sometimes on the intermediate mountain ranges, are removed on the views above given. The exact lines of migration cannot be indicated. We cannot say why certain species and not others have migrated; why certain species have been modified and have given rise to new forms, while others have remained unaltered. We cannot hope to explain such facts, until we can say why one species and not another becomes naturalised by man's agency in a foreign land; why one species ranges twice or thrice as far, and is twice or thrice as common, as another species within their own homes.

Various special difficulties also remain to be solved; for instance, the occurrence, as shown by Dr. Hooker, of the same plants at points so enormously remote as Kerguelen Land, New Zealand, and Fuegia; but icebergs, as suggested by Lyell, may have been concerned in their dispersal. The existence at these and other distant points of the southern hemisphere, of species, which, though distinct, belong to genera exclusively confined to the south, is a more remarkable case. Some of these species are so distinct, that we cannot suppose that there has been time since the commencement of the last Glacial period for their migration and subsequent modification to the necessary degree. The facts seem to indicate that distinct species belonging to the same genera have migrated in radiating lines from a common centre; and I am inclined to look in the southern, as in the northern hemisphere, to a former and warmer period, before the commencement of the last Glacial period, when the Antarctic lands, now covered with ice, supported a highly peculiar and isolated flora. It may be suspected that before this flora was exterminated during the last Glacial epoch, a few forms had

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/363


text:
Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/435

406 state of things can form any right judgment of the whole system. In Perth or Fremantle so many of the residents are in Government employ that payments in money are far more frequent than in the country districts, and prices are, in consequence, far lower than in the little inland towns. Moreover even in the inland districts competition has arisen during the last few years, and new stores have been established wherever there appeared to be a good opening, so that prices have been considerably lowered in comparison to what they were ten or twelve years ago. At that date the storekeeper in each country district enjoyed a virtual monopoly. His prices were fixed, not so much by any consideration of the actual cost of his goods to himself, as by the distance of his nearest competitor and the amount of profit which that competitor was charging.

From eighty to a hundred per cent, upon the larger and heavier goods, up to even a hundred and fifty per cent, upon smaller articles, was commonly charged, as profit upon the London invoices, in the country stores, so that he who had nothing to offer in exchange, but was obliged to pay in money for all his supplies, soon found his store bills run up in a manner which his fixed income as a Government employé was by no means calculated to meet. In short I think that all those who have ever lived for a few years in the country districts in Western Australia will agree with me in saying that it is by no means a colony in which a small fixed income, such as the two hundred or two hundred and fifty a year received by the chaplains, can be depended upon to procure anything more than the very barest necessaries of life.

title: Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/435


text:
Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/364

 been already widely dispersed to various points of the southern hemisphere by occasional means of transport, and by the aid, as halting-places, of now sunken islands. Thus the southern shores of America, Australia, and New Zealand may have become slightly tinted by the same peculiar forms of life.

Sir C. Lyell in a striking passage has speculated, in language almost identical with mine, on the effects of great alternations of climate throughout the world on geographical distribution. And we have now seen that Mr. Croll's conclusion that successive Glacial periods in the one hemisphere coincide with warmer periods in the opposite hemisphere, together with the admission of the slow modification of species, explains a multitude of facts in the distribution of the same and of the allied forms of life in all parts of the globe. The living waters have flowed during one period from the north and during another from the south, and in both cases have reached the equator; but the stream of life has flowed with greater force from the north than in the opposite direction, and has consequently more freely inundated the south. As the tide leaves its drift in horizontal lines, rising higher on the shores where the tide rises highest, so have the living waters left their living drift on our mountain summits, in a line gently rising from the Arctic lowlands to a great latitude under the equator. The various beings thus left stranded may be compared with savage races of man, driven up and surviving in the mountain fastnesses of almost every land, which serves as a record, full of interest to us, of the former inhabitants of the surrounding lowlands.

title: Page:Origin of Species 1872.djvu/364


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/115

 Rh Nations. In that work, following the lines laid down by Max Müller, the author endeavoured to interpret the stories current among the Indo-European nations as expansions of metaphors which were conceived as part of the original stock of expressions belonging to the race before its separation into the tribes that ultimately peopled India, Persia, and Europe. The metaphors in question were alleged to have been used of the phenomena of day and night, sunrise and sunset, summer and winter, and to have been misunderstood in the course of ages by the decay of language and from other causes, and so to have become crystallised into phrases that formed the foundation of tales of heroic action and suffering. In the Vedas, the earliest written poems of the Aryan race, these metaphors and phrases were found in the process of change, but as yet undisguised to the extent appearing in later times and among kindreds long severed from the original home and parentage. Cox’s work was followed at no great interval by that of Professor De Gubernatis on zoological mythology. The theory which, in the hands of Max Müller and his disciple Cox was kept within moderate, if not exactly reasonable, limits fairly ran riot in the pages of the Florentine professor; and it became obvious that, with the exercise of no great amount of ingenuity, every event of history might be resolved, and every phrase of poetry might be developed, into a sun-myth. It was time, even for those who were most dazzled by the learning and ability displayed by these advocates of the philological method of interpretation, to pause and ask whether investigation in some other direction, and in a more strictly scientific manner, might not yield results of a more solid character. Dr. Tylor had already shown the way by the publication of his great work on Primitive Culture, in which he had dealt with a few savage myths in connection with the beliefs and practices of the people who told them, and had compared both these stories and these practices with those which have survived from an unknown past among the least


text:
Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/436

Rh To the labouring man, to the settler with moderate capital, or to the merchant, Swan River offers fair prospects of success, but to those who possess merely education without money to back up their acquirements, to the clergyman, the banker's clerk, the struggling and disappointed man of business for whom competition has been too severe at home, to such as these the colony is unsuited, and they would have a far better chance of eventually doing well in England.

Of the value of the colony as a settlement within easy reach of India, and admirably suited for the establishment of a Sanitarium for our troops, much has been said and written, and it is to be hoped, in the course of time, these discussions may bear their legitimate fruit.

In conclusion, I will only add that if I were asked what I thought would benefit one whose lungs were weak but as yet undiseased, I should recommend a twelvemonth's visit to Western Australia as a probable means of averting consumption, but I should advise that the time was spent amongst the homes of the colonists in the bush rather than in the towns. A stranger would meet much hospitality in either place, but the same causes which render the petty provincial towns of England notorious for dullness and gossip exist in far greater force in the embryo cities of a colony, whilst the fact that the habits of life in vogue are framed after the English pattern brings more strikingly into notice the colonial backwardness of thought and education as compared with recollections of the mother country.

But life in the bush has an original character of its own, and although books are scarcer there than in the towns,

title: Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/436


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/116

110 classes in modern Europe. The clue thrown down by Tylor was, after a while, taken up; and we owe it chiefly to the eloquence, wit, and erudition of Mr. Andrew Lang that the sun-myth has at length fallen, discredited and overwhelmed with sarcasm, and that more rational and surer methods have been generally adopted to discover the origin and meaning of folk-tales.

Meanwhile the study of Sanskrit literature has produced another theory. Benfey, in his introduction to the German version of the Panchalauten, had, years ago, pointed out the resemblance between the fables contained in that book and many of those passing under the name of Æsop. He deemed the resemblance too great to be accidental, and insisted that it could only be accounted for by transmission. On the whole he was disposed to give the palm of originality to the Greek fables; but a further acquaintance with Buddhist writings has induced a number of scholars to argue that it is to the popularity given to parable by the teaching of Buddha and his early followers that we must trace the diffusion of stories found, in one form or another, among so many different nations. This theory has obtained advocates of great force in Professor Rhys Davids in England, and M. Cosquin in France. Moreover, the large collections of analogues, chiefly in literary form, by Mr. Clouston, have been made vehicles for conveying to the minds of his readers an impression of the strength of the case.

And, indeed, it may be admitted that direct transmission has played a considerable part in the diffusion of folk-tales, and that many stories found in modern Europe in the mouths of the peasantry have analogues astonishingly close in Sanskrit literature, as well as in Indian tradition still living. The question is how far transmission can be traced by written records, or fairly inferred from the closeness of the analogy between the tales in question, and from the historical connection between the people where borrowing is alleged. This is one of the most difficult problems with


text:
Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/168

148 Failing Mrs. Elliott, Sir William Codrington gives us a vivid picture of prison life. Codrington is the man who made the strange bet with Pigott in 1770. A boon companion of the Prince of Wales, he was disinherited by his father (M.P. for Tewkesbury in 1769), who twice paid heavy debts for him, the second time on condition of his renouncing all claim to the estates. These went to a cousin, who fancied he inherited the baronetcy also. Codrington retired to Brittany, and his father's death in 1792 made him Sir William. I give in the Appendix the interesting letter received from him by friends in London in February 1795, and privately printed by his grandson, to whom I am indebted for a copy. Written just after his release, it is entitled to entire confidence. All that need be added is that he continued to reside in France, married Eleanor Kirke, and died in 1816. His son received £23,000 compensation after the peace, and his grandson still inhabits Brittany.

The Temple Luttrell, an ex-M.P., mentioned by Codrington as a fellow-captive, was a son of the Earl of Carhampton, whose daughter married the Duke of Cumberland. Luttrell's arrest was triumphantly announced as that of the King of England's brother, because his sister was the King's sister-in-law. The Colonel Luttrell seated for Middlesex in


text:
Page:Shaving Made Easy 1905.djvu/84

 which may be obtained at any drug store. This is soothing to the face and allays the burning.

Sometimes the trouble is due to an excess of alkali or potash in the soap. The best shaving soaps are especially prepared and have antiseptic and demulcent properties, which render them practically non-irritating. After shaving, take care to remove all the soap from the face; for during the process, the lather has been worked into the pores of the skin, and only by means of a thorough washing can it all be removed.

Irritations resulting from constitutional disease, or impurity of the blood, should, of course, be treated by a physician.

Some men are more subject to irritation of the skin than others. Those who have a thin and tender skin and a heavy and stiff beard, are especially liable, but with care, even these may prevent most of the trouble.

title: Page:Shaving Made Easy 1905.djvu/84


text:
Page:Shaving Made Easy 1905.djvu/67

 Reach over the head with the left hand and with the fingers draw the skin upward, thus making a smooth shaving surface. The illustration shows the proper position. Shave downward until about half of the right cheek is shaved, then slide the left hand still further over until the fingers rest in the middle of the cheek and again pull the skin upward. Now continue to shave downward until the entire right side of the face is shaved clean, as far as the middle of the chin and well under the jaw.

title: Page:Shaving Made Easy 1905.djvu/67


text: Page:Shaving Made Easy 1905.djvu/65

title: Page:Shaving Made Easy 1905.djvu/65


text:
Template:Anon/doc

Purpose
Provides a link to Portal:Anonymous texts which lessens the opportunity to create wikilink to a separate Author page for Anonymous.

Note: While it could be used for the  field, better options exist for handling unknown or unrecorded translators.

Usage
In cases where a anonymous title was provided, then that title can be piped for presentation purposes

Templatedata
{	"params": { "text": { "aliases": [ "1"			],			"label": "text", "description": "alternate display text", "example": "a signalman", "type": "string" }	},	"description": "Standard link for works by unknown authors to Portal:Anonymous texts. Categorises works to Category:Works by unknown authors", "format": "inline" }

title: Template:Anon/doc


text: Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day/William Morris


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/193

 Rh was called to be a biographer, but it is to his loyalty to his people that we owe his "Parallel Lives." In their composition he was guided by the desire to show the arrogant Romans and the later Greeks in whose midst he lived, that a great Hellenic man of affairs could be put in worthy comparison with every outstanding Roman general and statesman.

SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHIC BIOGRAPHY IN ANTIQUITY Biography in antiquity was a branch of science and also a branch of philosophy. Scientific biography was interested in facts as such, in the collocation of miscellaneous information about persons. It laid claim to objectivity of details, but left free room for individuality to display itself in their selection. The principle of choice might be pruriency, political, class, or philosophic animosity, or mere love of scandal. Such biography might be with or without style, with or without painstaking: it was commonly without critical method. The precipitate of much lost scientific biography lies before us in the "Lives of the Twelve Caesars" by Plutarch's contemporary, Suetonius. In Plutarch's "Parallel Lives," we have, on the other hand, the precipitate of much lost philosophic biography. He stands for us at the end of a long development, in the course of which many contemporary, or approximately contemporary, biographies were produced, each to be superseded perhaps by its successor, as they all were finally superseded and destroyed by those of Plutarch. The plundering of the countless books and pamphlets, plays, and memoirs, cited in the "Parallel Lives," the culling of the multitude of anecdotes and bons mots with which they are set and enlivened, were by no means the personal work of Plutarch. Many, if not most, of them he found gathered for him by his nameless predecessors. He was under no professional sense of duty to look up and verify his references, and he regularly omitted to do it. Mistakes abound in Plutarch's "Lives." But even the historian finds them pardonable when he has the assurance that the materials in conjunction with which they appear were taken by men of greater patience and leisure than Plutarch from works, many of them lost, reaching back over the centuries to the earliest Greek literature.


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/194

 184 PLUTARCH'S OWN CONTRIBUTION TO HIS "LIVES"

The "Lives" of Plutarch are thus in a sense the product of many ages and of many minds. But, like mediæval cathedrals, they have unity of design and style. This is not wholly the result of their origin in a community of philosophic biographers. It is in large part the result of Plutarch's own architectonic powers. He was far from being a colorless and characterless compiler. His "Lives" seldom seem "lumpy." They reveal, throughout, the quaint personality of the author. His philosophic standpoint is betrayed in almost every line of criticism they contain. His mastery of literary technique is never wanting. The quiet humor, unobtrusive and delicate, is unmistakably his. Piquancy is a Greek trait, and Plutarch was a Greek. He is never indecent, as his contemporaries understood that term, but he never forgot the natural human interest in the intimate relations of men and women. His dramatic sense needs no more than mention: Shakespeare's debt to Plutarch in his "Julius Cæsar," "Coriolanus," and "Antony and Cleopatra" speaks volumes on this point. Yet, when everything has been said in praise of his fine qualities, it is still true that his mind, like that of the philosophic biographers who preceded him, was an unfortunate medium for the great men of affairs of antiquity to have to pass through on their way to us. They were all sicklied over by the pale cast of ethical interpretation. Men of flesh and blood, actuated by all the reasons and passions of which human beings of diverse but distinguished endowments were capable, tend to appear as puppets exemplifying laudable virtues and deterrent vices. Man whose natures are truly revealed only in the work which they accomplished are isolated from their societies, and characterized by what they did or said at insignificant moments. Trivialities serve Plutarch's purpose of ethical portraiture as well as or better than the historic triumphs and failures of his heroes. Trite ethical considerations are made decisive for the formation of policies and the reaching of decisions instead of the realities of each historical situation. Hence one of the chief duties of modern historians and modern historical biographers has been to murder "Plutarch's men," and put in their stead the real statesmen and generals of ancient


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/195

 Rh times. The latter part of their task, however, they could not even attempt without the materials Plutarch furnishes to them. As for the difficulty of the former, it is well disclosed by the story Mahaffy tells of the illiterate Irish peasant who said of a certain fortunate neighbor that "he had as many lives as Plutarch."


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/196

 III. BENVENUTO CELLINI

HE Italian Renaissance produced many works, such as the polemics of the humanists upon subjects that have long since lost their significance, which are interesting rather as illustrations of cultural conditions than for their intrinsic value. Compositions like the pastoral romance of Sannazzaro, or the dramas based upon Senecan or upon Plautine and Terentian models, acquire importance as revivals of ancient literary types and as the seeds from which later great masterpieces were to be evolved. Much smaller is the number of works in which, as in the sonnets of Michelangelo, the absolute value preponderates over the historical. Still fewer, such as the writings of Machiavelli, have the distinction of possessing an equal interest archæologically and in themselves, and to this class the "Autobiography" of Benvenuto Cellini belongs. No other production of the period embodies more vividly the tendencies of the Renaissance or enjoys a more universal and enduring appeal. We can best appreciate it by considering it under these two aspects.

CELLINI AS A TYPE OF RENAISSANCE INDIVIDUALISM Its great importance as a document for the study of contemporary Italian life is obvious to the reader, but its temper also is strikingly related to certain spiritual movements of the day. Of the two determinative characteristics of the Renaissance, humanism, or the devotion to antiquity, and individualism, or the devotion to self-development, Benvenuto emphasizes the latter. The very natural transition from a study of self to the study of other personalities gave rise to the genre known as biography, eminent instances of


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/197

 Rh which are Vespasiano da Bisticci's "Lives of Illustrious Men," and Giorgio Vasari's more renowned "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects." Autobiography, however, is an even more pronounced manifestation of individualism, and as the composer of the first great and definite example of this literary form in modern times, Benvenuto stands forth as a brilliant exponent of his age. It is possible, doubtless, for an author to exhibit in an autobiography little of his own individuality, confining himself largely, like Trollope, to a narrative of events and a discussion of his books; but such was not the spirit of the sixteenth century, and Benvenuto even exceeds his time. He strips to the very soul. Unblushingly he lays bare alike his virtues and his vices, his public and his most private actions, his loves and hatreds. He seems unconscious of modesty's existence, and takes a palpable delight, which, by the magic of his style, he causes the reader to share, in analyzing his own passions and in recounting his own deeds and misdeeds; typical and widely varying examples are the affair with the Sicilian girl, Angelica, the terrible revenge for his brother's assassination, the celestial visions experienced in his long and gruesome incarceration.

THE CORRECTNESS OF HIS ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF Hand in hand with this attitude struts an exalted opinion of his own charms, prowess, and artistic superiority. In his conceit (for it is only a heroic form of this defect), he embodies not only individualism but also the concurrent phenomenon of humanism, which resurrected from ancient Rome such self-appreciation as appears so disagreeably in Cicero. With his high estimate of his own art modern criticism does not unqualifiedly agree. Of his labor as goldsmith so little that is certainly authentic remains that judgment is difficult; the chief extant example, the saltcellar of Francis I. now in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna, is unpleasant in composition and too ornate. In his few plastic works on a large scale, one of which, the bronze bust of Bindo Altoviti, America is fortunate enough to possess in the wonderful collection of Mrs. John L.


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/198

188 Gardner, Boston, he is perhaps less affected than most of his rivals by the degeneration into which Italian sculpture lapsed in the second and third quarters of the Cinquecento; but in comparison to the productions of the earlier Renaissance, or of his contemporary Michelangelo, his profound affection and admiration for whom form one of his noblest traits, he betrays too close a dependence upon the antique, a tendency to excessive nicety and elaboration, derived from his training as a jeweler but unsuited to the broader manner of monumental statuary, a leaning toward ostentatious and luxuriant decoration, and a fatal predilection for sacrificing æsthetic considerations to the display of virtuosity in composition and in processes. All these characteristics are exemplified in what remains from his work, and may also be read between the lines of the "Autobiography." The inclination to a display of skill is especially evident in the absorbing and famous description of the casting of the Perseus. Over his whole art, as indeed over most of the art of the later sixteenth century, there broods a certain deadness and a sense of the perfunctory, which are strangely contrasted with the spontaneity that runs from his pen. The somewhat unjustifiable braggadocio about this phase of his activity arouses suspicions as to the veracity of the tales about his courage and other achievements. Some of the details, such as the worm that he vomited forth after his long sickness, or the sight of the demons in the Colosseum, seem hardly credible, but it must be remembered that we are dealing with a man of a high-strung, nervous temperament, whose imagination easily materializes the visions of his mind. Other episodes, like the various brawls and homicides in which he engaged, or the escape from the Castel Sant' Angelo, are improbable from our standpoint, but not in an epoch of extravagances like the Renaissance or for one of those supermen of Cellini's caliber, in which the period was so rich. Much of the "Autobiography" receives confirmation from contemporary documents, and its main fabric is certainly trustworthy, though highly colored, doubtless to increase its artistic worth and to set off to advantage the central figure of the writer.

I have spoken of Benvenuto as a superman, and herein, too, he is


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/199

Rh a result of the astounding development of the individual witnessed by the Renaissance. In his versatility he is second only to such giants of universal talent as Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo. He excels equally as musician, goldsmith, and sculptor; he is an adept with the sword and with the musket; his skill as a diplomatist is paralleled only by his merriness as a jester; a languishing lover one day, he is a fierce murderer the next; a part of his imprisonment he spends in devising a miraculous escape, and the rest in mystic religious trances; he can write you passable occasional sonnets and respectable treatises on art; and finally he bequeaths to the world what is probably the most remarkable autobiography in existence.

CELLINI'S MORALITY

Much of his activity is far from Christian. Benvenuto vies with Pietro Aretino for notoriety as an exponent of that Paganism which was a consequence, on one hand, of the indiscriminate acceptance of all that was ancient, even the license of decadent Rome, and, on the other, of the inevitable degeneration of self-development into self-gratification. The loose morals of the Renaissance have been much exaggerated by such writers as John Addington Symonds, who base their assertions too confidently upon the prejudiced Protestant accounts of the north and upon the short stories or novelle of the period, which magnify current abuses for humorous purposes. The ethical condition of Italy had still remained fairly sound in the fifteenth century, and it was not until now in the sixteenth that a debased humanism and individualism were developed to the bitter end with an effect that was baneful, but not so entirely fatal as is very commonly supposed. Almost every page of the "Autobiography," however, betrays the absence of any adequate moral standard. Cellini fathers an illegitimate child or cuts down an enemy as lightly as he sallies forth on a hunting expedition. There is little or no realization of sin; religion he has, but a religion which, however fervent, is divorced from morality and consists chiefly in an emotional mysticism and an observance of lovely and impressive ceremonies. He has shaken off the Christian curb upon the passions, and emulating the Paganism, not of the great days of antiquity, but of the Greek and Roman decline, he gives free rein to self.


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/200

190 VALUE OF THE "AUTOBIOGRAPHY" The historical importance of the work, then, lies, not only in its painting of contemporary life, but also in its lively presentation of the individualism, the versatility, and the Paganism of the late Renaissance; its intrinsic value is proved by an almost unique and widespread popularity from among so much Italian literature of the sixteenth century that is forgotten or known only to specialists. Benvenuto has succeeded in transfusing it with the magnetism of his own personality. So intimate is the manner which he adopts that we seem to be, not readers, but a company of boon companions listening to good tales, half the attraction of which is afforded by the very force and charm of the speaker's genial character. The matter is often such as should be bruited only in this society; the style is distinctly that of an easy conversationalist, full of picturesque Tuscan idioms, colloquial to the last degree, frequently lapsing into the loose grammar that is permitted to the raconteur. Behind this apparent facility, however, is concealed the art of a supreme master of narrative, who knows how to choose the piquant episodes and details and to exclude the irrelevant; who dexterously avoids monotony by contrasts of high lights and shadows; who is all the greater because he nowhere reveals the methods of his craft, but appears always the clever and spontaneous entertainer.


text: Portal:Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

title: Portal:Elizabeth Garrett Anderson


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/221

   do not even beg permission to bow at his feet and mingle our tears with those who have ever been his political adherents—we do [not] beg this permission, we claim it as a right, though we feel it as a privilege. Henry Clay belonged to his country—to the world; mere party cannot claim men like him. His career has been national, his fame has filled the earth, his memory will endure to the last syllable of recorded time.

 Henry Clay is dead! He breathed his last on yesterday, at twenty minutes after eleven, in his chamber at Washington. To those who followed his lead in public affairs, it more appropriately belongs to pronounce his eulogy and pay specific honors to the memory of the illustrious dead. But all Americans may show the grief which his death inspires, for his character and fame are national property. As on a question of liberty he knew no North, no South, no East, no West, but only the Union which held them all in its sacred circle, so now his countrymen will know no grief that is not as wide-spread as the bounds of the confederacy. The career of Henry Clay was a public career. From his youth he was devoted to the public service, at a period, too, in the world's history justly regarded as a remarkable era in human affairs. He witnessed in the beginning the throes of the French Revolution. He saw the rise and fall of Napoleon. He was called upon to legislate for America, and direct her policy when all Europe was the battle-field of contending dynasties, and when the struggle for supremacy imperiled the rights of all neutral nations. His voice spoke war and peace in the contest with Great Britain.

 When Greece rose against the Turks and struck for liberty, his name was mingled with the battle-cry of freedom. When South America threw off the thraldom of Spain, his speeches were read at the head of her armies by Bolivar. His name has been, and will continue to be, hallowed in two hemispheres, for it is

 * " One of the few, the immortal names
 * That were not born to die!"

 To the ardent patriot and profound statesman, he added a quality possessed by few of the gifted on earth. His eloquence has not been surpassed. In the effective power to move the heart of man, Clay was without an


text:
Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/201

N ALL the literature of fact—as distinguished from the literature of fiction—hardly any kind of book surpasses a good biography in its power to interest and instruct. It combines the suspense of the novel with the actuality of history. It fills in the detail without which history would be too impersonal, and it shows us how people, not at all points unlike ourselves, have ordered their lives what their guiding principles have been, and how principles have sometimes been modified to meet circumstances. Especially in the case of autobiography is all this true, for here we have the pleasure of feeling that the record is both authentic and intimate. The best of biographers, however learned, vivid, or philosophical, leaves between us and the past an interval which only a good autobiography can span. Such an autobiography may possess great historical value if its author was intimately connected with significant events and had some capacity to perceive their causes and their effects. But if the writer happens to be earnest about his career, free from self-consciousness, and blest with a good prose style, we have sufficient reasons for valuing the record of his life even though the historical importance of it may be quite secondary. Such is the basis of our permanent regard for autobiographies like those of Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) and John Woolman (1720–1772).

Neither Franklin nor Woolman would have been at home among the makers of the literature which is most significant of America before their time. The latter as a Quaker, the former as a person whose general attitude may be indicated by his casually uttered remark that he was usually too busy to go to church, would have been either punished or cast out (if not both) by most New England


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/390

HE first two books on our list are a veritable triumph for folk-lore, and especially for that conception of the science which has been consistently advocated by the Folk-Lore Society. Here we have two books dealing with the primitive religion of the two great groups of nations from which civilisation has obtained its chief spiritual material, and both avowedly appeal to folk-lore for methods of investigation and for corroborative criteria. Both use freely the analogy of savage custom and ritual to explain those of Semites and Aryans. Both apply with confidence the method of “survivals”, in order to reconstruct the primitive systems from which the “survivals” derive. The two books deal with the deepest problems of human thought, and neither disdain, in seeking for their solution, the light that may be obtained from folk-tales, superstitions, and even games, those seemingly trivial remnants of older ways of thinking which folk-lore collects or investigates. As some justification for claiming the works of Prof. Smith and Mr. Frazer for our science, I think it would be generally admitted that there is no English specialist


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/222

   equal, and the heaven-born endowment, in the spirit of its origin, has been most conspicuously exhibited against intestine feud. On at least three important occasions he has quelled our civil commotions by a power and influence which belonged to no other statesman of his age and times. And in our last internal discord, when this Union trembled to its centre, in old age he left the shades of private life, and gave the death-blow to fraternal strife, with the vigor of his earlier years, in a series of senatorial efforts which in themselves would bring immortality by challenging comparison with the efforts of any statesman in any age. He exorcised the demon which possessed the body politic, and gave peace to a distracted land. Alas! the achievement cost him his life. He sank day by day to the tomb—his pale but noble brow bound with a triple wreath, put there by a grateful country. May his ashes rest in peace, while his spirit goes to take its station among the great and good men who preceded him.

While it is customary and proper upon occasions like the present to give a brief sketch of the life of the deceased, in the case of Mr. Clay it is less necessary than most others; for his biography has been written and rewritten, and read and reread, for the last twenty-five years; so that, with the exception of a few of the latest incidents of his life, all is as well known as it can be. The short sketch which I give is, therefore, merely to maintain the connection of this discourse.

Henry Clay was born on the twelfth day of April, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia. Of his father, who died in the fourth or fifth year of Henry's age, little seems to be known, except that he was a respectable man and a preacher of the Baptist persuasion. Mr. Clay's education to the end of life was comparatively limited. I say "to the end of life," because I have understood that from time to time he added something to his


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/223

 education during the greater part of his whole life. Mr. Clay's lack of a more perfect early education, however it may be regretted generally, teaches at least one profitable lesson: it teaches that in this country one can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will, he can acquire sufficient education to get through the world respectably. In his twenty-third year, Mr. Clay was licensed to practise law, and emigrated to Lexington, Ky. Here he commenced and continued the practice till the year 1803, when he was first elected to the Kentucky legislature. By successive elections he was continued in the legislature till the latter part of 1806, when he was elected to fill a vacancy of a single session in the United States Senate. In 1807 he was again elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, and by that body chosen Speaker. In 1808 he was reelected to the same body. In 1809 he was again chosen to fill a vacancy of two years in the United States Senate. In 1811 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, and on the first day of taking his seat in that body he was chosen its Speaker. In 1813 he was again elected Speaker. Early in 1814, being the period of our last British war, Mr. Clay was sent as commissioner, with others, to negotiate a treaty of peace, which treaty was concluded in the latter part of the same year. On his return from Europe he was again elected to the lower branch of Congress, and on taking his seat in December, 1815, was called to his old post—the Speaker's chair, a position in which he was retained by successive elections, with one brief intermission, till the inauguration of John Quincy Adams, in March, 1825. He was then appointed Secretary of State,


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/391

 Rh journal in which they could be more appropriately reviewed than in. Would that the suitability of the review were matched by the capacity of the reviewer!

Of the two books, we may deal with Prof. Smith’s first, as it appeared earlier, and is, perhaps, the more important. Though professedly dealing with the Religion of the Semites, it is mainly concerned with a hypothetical history of the ritual practices of the early Arabs in their relations to those of the Old Testament. Assyriological evidence is rejected as of too advanced and hieratic a character to throw light on origins. The evidence relating to Phœnicians and Syrians is too scanty and precarious to be of much value, though Prof. Smith refers to it now and again. So that, practically, all we have to go upon for the religion of the Semites is provided by the Old Testament and the traditions of Arabia in the times of ignorance before Mahomet. With regard to the latter, the evidence is very late, being mainly derived from the songs and anecdotes of pre-Islamite Arabs contained in the Hamasa and the Kitab Al Aghani. To these are added a few notices in the commentators and geographers, as well as those contained in classical sources. One of the latter, indeed, an account of the habits of the Sinaitic Arabsjn the fourth century A.D. by Nilus, does Prof. Smith yeoman’s service, as we shall see.

It is thus obvious, by a recital of Prof. Smith’s sources, that he adopts fully one of the main principles of the anthropological method. He seeks for origins among the primitive conditions of savage or quasi-savage life, and does not go on the assumption that the earlier in date is necessarily the earlier in development His implicit assumption throughout his book is, that the practices of the nomad Arabs, even though recorded much later, are more primitive and nearer the common source than the customs of the sessile and more civilised Hebrews. It need scarcely be said that such an assumption will meet with no demurrer in the pages of or from any


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/224

 and occupied that important station till the inauguration of General Jackson, in March, 1829. After this he returned to Kentucky, resumed the practice of law, and continued it till the autumn of 1831, when he was by the legislature of Kentucky again placed in the United States Senate. By a reëlection he was continued in the Senate till he resigned his seat and retired, in March, 1848. In December, 1849, he again took his seat in the Senate, which he again resigned only a few months before his death.

By the foregoing it is perceived that the period from the beginning of Mr. Clay's official life in 1803 to the end of 1852 is but one year short of half a century, and that the sum of all the intervals in it will not amount to ten years. But mere duration of time in office constitutes the smallest part of Mr. Clay's history. Throughout that long period he has constantly been the most loved and most implicitly followed by friends, and the most dreaded by opponents, of all living American politicians. In all the great questions which have agitated the country, and particularly in those fearful crises, the Missouri question, the nullification question, and the late slavery question, as connected with the newly acquired territory, involving and endangering the stability of the Union, his has been the leading and most conspicuous part. In 1824 he was first a candidate for the Presidency, and was defeated; and although he was successively defeated for the same office in 1832 and in 1844, there has never been a moment since 1824 till after 1848 when a very large portion of the American people did not cling to him with an enthusiastic hope and purpose of still elevating him to the Presidency.


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/392

386 follower of Dr. Tylor. And equal welcome will be accorded to Prof. Smith’s practice in resorting for confirmatory evidence to savage nations among non-Semites; it would have been well, indeed, if he had had more frequent recourse to this class of evidence.

On the subject of sources, it is strange that Prof. Smith has not had more frequent recourse to the Talmud and kindred literature of the later Hebrews. Here, if anywhere, we should expect to find “survivals” of archaic custom; and much of Talmudic ritual carries on the face of it evidence of more archaic practice than the more ideal codes of Ezekiel and the Pentateuch. Prof. Smith rightly praises the works of Spencer and Selden in the seventeenth century, but he would have done well to have followed their example in using the Talmud. He would, besides, have been able by this means to test the current hypothesis of the sequence of the three codes into which the Pentateuch has been divided by the Dutch and German critics. If these point to a development in a certain direction, we ought to find that development carried still further in the same direction in Talmudic times. As a matter of fact, literary analysis is of little use in archaeological research, and is scarcely mentioned more than once or twice by Prof. Smith.

Another point in which Prof. Smith adopts the methods of the anthropological school, is, that he seeks for his origines in early practice rather than in early thought or theory. In other words, he looks for the religion of the primitive Semites in the ritual of Semites less primitive, and not in their creed, if indeed any ancient religion can be said to have a creed. Thus the present instalment of his work deals in the main with the ritual of Sacrifice, and its meaning among the primitive Semites; and the subject of Semitic mythology is left for the second series of the Burnett Lectures. Here again Prof. Smith is at one with Mr. Spencer, Dr. Tylor, Mr. Lang, and all those who have


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/393

 Rh treated of early religion from an anthropological stand-point.

So much for method, which is entirely that of the English schools. It is scarcely a year ago since I expressed a hope in these pages (Arch. Rev., iii) that Biblical Archæology would be treated by anthropological methods, and even as I wrote, Prof. Smith was applying those methods with signal mastery. I need not say how cordially I welcome Prof. Smith’s weighty contribution to Biblical Archæology, and if in the sequel I demur to some of his conclusions, it is on the understanding that in a field of such complexity and precarious footing the first and foremost thing is right method, and herein—let me emphasise the fact from the start—Prof. Smith has found salvation.

The subject of this first series is, as I have said, mainly the ritual of Semitic sacrifice and its meaning. Prof. Smith has a few preliminary lectures on the nature of the Semitic gods, in which he has an ingenious suggestion explaining the Baalim as divine lords of the manor, so to speak, and a still more ingenious application of the Jinn (the Genii of our youth and of the Arabian Nights) as “potential totems” of the waste places of the desert. But all this is only introduced to emphasise the conception of the Semitic gods being regarded as of the same kin as their worshippers, and so to lead on to Prof. Smith’s theory of Semitic sacrifice.

This is, briefly, that sacrifice is a common meal of the god and his worshippers, by which their community of blood (in a literal sense) should be reinforced from time to time. Prof. Smith shows that a similar conception governs the blood-bond made between two individuals. He gives instances where blood is used on the altar or sprinkled on the worshipper. He minimises the importance of vegetable offerings, and sees in them the quite late and advanced modes of approaching the god. Except, however, in the one instance given by Nilus, and referred to above, he fails


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/394

 388 to find an actual sacred meal in which the absorption of blood into the worshippers seems part of the rites. Nor has he been able to show any analogous rites with such an avowed object among savages. Mr. Frazer, indeed, in his new book gives numerous examples of such meals, but none in which the object is to restore communion between god and worshipper. The whole idea of communion seems to me too theologically abstract to be at the basis of savage rites of sacrifice. For these we must look to some utilitarian motive, based, it may be, on some savage and seemingly absurd idea, but logically deduced from it. Now, it is difficult to see what advantage a savage can derive from being made one with his god, by eating the same flesh as he. One could understand the use of “eating the god”, by which to obtain the divine qualities and powers: Mr. Frazer gives many examples of this. But what is the use of eating the same thing as the god?

Even in the totem systems there does not seem to be any attempt to renew a tribal bond with the totem, though there is, in initiatory ceremonies, an attempt to give blood-communion with the fellow-tribesmen (Frazer, Totemism, 45-6). At the basis of Prof. Smith’s views, indeed, there is an assumption of the existence of totemism among the primitive Semites, the evidence for which he has brought forward in his Kinship and Marriage in Ancient Arabia. Now, this is a question still sub judice, and there are extremely few judices. I cannot think of more than four men in Europe who are competent, from knowledge of pre-historic Arabia, to pass judgment on the success of Prof. Smith’s attempt to prove totemism in Arabia; and of these, two, Wellhausen and Goldziher, are adverse to his claims. But even assuming Arabic totemism to be proved, Prof. Smith has still to show that in totemistic


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/225

 With other men, to be defeated was to be forgotten; but with him defeat was but a trifling incident, neither changing him nor the world's estimate of him. Even those of both political parties who have been preferred to him for the highest office have run far briefer courses than he, and left him still shining high in the heavens of the political world. Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Polk, and Taylor all rose after, and set long before him. The spell—the long-enduring spell—with which the souls of men were bound to him is a miracle. Who can compass it? It is probably true he owed his preeminence to no one quality, but to a fortunate combination of several. He was surpassingly eloquent; but many eloquent men fail utterly, and they are not, as a class, generally successful. His judgment was excellent; but many men of good judgment live and die unnoticed. His will was indomitable; but this quality often secures to its owner nothing better than a character for useless obstinacy. These, then, were Mr. Clay's leading qualities. No one of them is very uncommon; but all together are rarely combined in a single individual, and this is probably the reason why such men as Henry Clay are so rare in the world.

Mr. Clay's eloquence did not consist, as many fine specimens of eloquence do, of types and figures, of antithesis and elegant arrangement of words and sentences, but rather of that deeply earnest and impassioned tone and manner which can proceed only from great sincerity, and a thorough conviction in the speaker of the justice and importance of his cause. This it is that truly touches the chords of sympathy; and those who heard Mr. Clay never failed to be moved by it,


text: Talk:Berlin Declaration (2007)

title: Talk:Berlin Declaration (2007)


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/395

 Rh communities sacrifice is of the character of a communion. The blood-communion between god and worshipper cannot be regarded as a vera causa till it has been shown to exist among savage tribes with the avowed object of restoring communion between the totem or god and his worshipper.

With regard to the application of Prof. Smith’s theory to the Semites, there is the further difficulty that those Semites whose ritual we know best the Hebrews were rigidly scrupulous in avoiding the taste of blood. No reason is given for this tabu, and this is just one of those seemingly irrational practices that are most likely to be primitive, or at least archaic. And on the ordinarily accepted view of the origin of sacrifice—which regards it as a gift to propitiate a superior being—this can be easily understood as the avoidance of the worshipper of taking what belongs especially to the god, the essence of the victim’s life, the blood. In a similar way, almost all the practices of Hebrew ritual may be explained on the tributary theory of sacrifice, where we do have a utilitarian basis for the practice. As a savage, I give the most precious gift I can to the god, my own blood, the life of an animal, or the most precious food I know, in order to prevent him injuring me, or to induce him to do me good. The analogy is with a tribute to a king, not, as Prof. Smith would have it, with a carouse with a comrade.

It will thus be seen that Prof. Smith’s theory traces religion to a sort of friendship rather than, as on the older tributary theory of sacrifice, to a feeling of fear. “It is not with a vague fear of unknown powers,” he says, p. 55, “but with a loving reverence for known gods, who


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/226

 or ever afterward forgot the impression. All his efforts were made for practical effect. He never spoke merely to be heard. He never delivered a Fourth of July oration, or a eulogy on an occasion like this. As a politician or statesman, no one was so habitually careful to avoid all sectional ground. Whatever he did he did for the whole country. In the construction of his measures, he ever carefully surveyed every part of the field, and duly weighed every conflicting interest. Feeling as he did, and as the truth surely is, that the world's best hope depended on the continued Union of these States, he was ever jealous of and watchful for whatever might have the slightest tendency to separate them.

Mr. Clay's predominant sentiment, from first to last, was a deep devotion to the cause of human liberty—a strong sympathy with the oppressed everywhere, and an ardent wish for their elevation. With him this was a primary and all-controlling passion. Subsidiary to this was the conduct of his whole life. He loved his country partly because it was his own country, and mostly because it was a free country; and he burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity, and glory, because he saw in such the advancement, prosperity, and glory of human liberty, human right, and human nature. He desired the prosperity of his countrymen, partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show to the world that free men could be prosperous.

That his views and measures were always the wisest needs not to be affirmed; nor should it be on this occasion, where so many thinking differently join in doing honor to his memory. A free people in times of peace and quiet—when pressed


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/396

 390 are knit to their worshippers by strong bonds of kinship, there religion in the true sense of the word begins.” That is an attractive picture, but it scarcely answers to what we know of savage practice and feeling about the higher beings. It does not answer, for the matter of that, to the feeling of the majority of men who are not savages. And it is met by the further difficulty of the facts of magic which are certainly worship, and are as certainly dominated by fear. To this Prof. Smith objects that magic is never religion nor its source. But surely its simplest explanation is that it is the survival of an older religion, and its gloomy aspect is due to its antinomianism with regard to the later and generally purer creed.

Another obstacle that stands in the way of Prof. Smith’s theory is the fact of human sacrifice. That cannot be a common meal of god and worshippers, and accordingly Prof. Smith has to make the most ingenious hypotheses to explain the late origin of human sacrifices among the Semites, among whom it certainly existed. But if ever a practice bore on the face of it the marks of primitiveness it is that of human sacrifice, and its existence stands in the way of the loving reverence for a kindred god postulated by Prof. Smith’s theory.

Finally, it would not be impossible to explain away much of the crucial significance attached by Prof. Smith to Nilus’s account of the morning rites of the Sinaitic Arabs. Thus the importance attached to the completion of the sacrificial meal between the rising and disappearance of the day-star seems to point to some form of astral worship which we know to have been current among the Northern Arabs. And even with regard to the blood-drinking, I notice an important discrepancy in Prof. Smith’s account. On p. 263, the flesh was eaten “half raw, and merely softened over the fire”. On p. 320, the company “hack off pieces and devour them raw”; in the former case the significance of blood is practically nil.

Thus altogether for these reasons I cannot consider that


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/227

 by no common danger—naturally divide into parties. At such times the man who is of neither party is not, cannot be, of any consequence. Mr. Clay therefore was of a party. Taking a prominent part as he did, in all the great political questions of his country for the last half century, the wisdom of his course on many is doubted and denied by a large portion of his countrymen; and of such it is not now proper to speak particularly. But there are many others about his course, upon which there is little or no disagreement amongst intelligent and patriotic Americans. Of these last are the war of 1812, the Missouri question, nullification, and the now recent compromise measures. In 1812 Mr. Clay, though not unknown, was still a young man. Whether we should go to war with Great Britain being the question of the day, a minority opposed the declaration of war by Congress, while the majority, though apparently inclined to war, had for years wavered, and hesitated to act decisively. Meanwhile British aggressions multiplied, and grew more daring and aggravated. By Mr. Clay more than any other man the struggle was brought to a decision in Congress. The question, being now fully before Congress, came up in a variety of ways in rapid succession, on most of which occasions Mr. Clay spoke. Adding to all the logic of which the subject was susceptible that noble inspiration which came to him as it came to no other, he aroused and nerved and inspired his friends, and confounded and bore down all opposition. Several of his speeches on these occasions were reported and are still extant, but the best of them all never was. During its delivery the reporters forgot their vocations, dropped