bust, to this effect: that as the sculptor was forming this effigy of Brutus in marble, he remembered his act of guilt, and refrained. Dum Bruti effigiem sculptor de marmore finxit, In mentem sceleris venit, et abstinnit. Then comes an English nobleman, who fires with resentment at the inscription, and extemporises a counter-irritating distich, to this effect: that the sculptor would have formed a Brutus, but the vast and manifold virtue of the man flashed upon his thought: he stopped and remained in astonished admiration. Brutum effinxisset sculptor, sed mente recursat For Now which, asks Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is the nobler and more moral sentiment, the Italian cardinal's or the English nobleman's? The cardinal would appeal to the doctrine of general consequences, and pronounce the death of Cæsar a murder, and Brutus an assassin. (he would say) "if one man may be allowed to kill another because he thinks him a tyrant, religious or political frenzy may stamp the name of tyrant on the best of kings: regicide will be justified under the pretence of tyrannicide, and Brutus be quoted as authority for the Clements and Ravaillacs. From kings it may pass to generals and statesmen, and from these to any man whom an enemy or enthusiast may pronounce unfit to live. Thus we may have a cobbler of Messina in every city, and bravos in our streets as common as those of Naples, with the name of Brutus on their stilettos." But Coleridge is clear against the cardinal-(it was in S. T. C.'s Morning Post days, when he was all anxiety to secure a Brutus against the then despot of France)-so he pits his Englishman against the scarlet hat, and makes him maul the clause, " because he thinks him a tyrant." No! Coleridge's Englishman would reply,-not because the patriot thinks him a tyrant, but because he knows him to be so, and knows likewise, that the vilest of his slaves cannot deny the fact, that he has by violence raised himself above the laws of his country-because he knows that all good and wise men equally with himself abhor the fact. "As to your Neapolitan bravos, if the act of Brutus who In pity to the general wrong of Rome, authorised by the laws of his country, in manifest opposition to all selfish interests, in the face of the senate, and instantly presenting himself and his cause first to that senate, and then to the assembled commons, by them to stand acquitted or condemned-if such an act as this, with all its vast outjutting circumstances of distinction, can be confounded by any mind, not frantic, with the crime of a cowardly skulking assassin who hires out his dagger for a few crowns to gratify a hatred not his own, or even with the deed of that man who makes a compromise between his revenge and his cowardice, and stabs in the dark the enemy whom he dared not meet in the open field, or summon before the laws of his country-what actions can be so different, that they may not be equally confounded?" If no distinction, Coleridge further argues, full and satisfactory to the conscience and common sense of mankind, be afforded by the detestation and horror excited in all men (even in the meanest and most vicious, if they are not wholly monsters) by the act of the assassin, contrasted with the "fervent admiration felt by the good and wise in all ages when they mention the name of Brutus;" contrasted with "the fact that the honour or disrespect with which that name was spoken of, became an historic criterion of a noble or a base age ;" and if, once more, it is in vain that our own hearts answer to the question of the poet : Is there among the adamantine spheres, Wheeling unshaken thro' the boundless void, When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud And bade the father of his country, hail! If, argues Coleridge, all this be fallacious and insufficient, can we have "No! would the ennobled descendant of our Russells or Sidneys conclude [that is to say, the hypothetical English nobleman who shows fight against the cardinal's distich aforesaid]. No! calumnious bigot! never yet did a human being become an assassin from his own or the general admiration of the hero Brutus; but I dare not warrant, that villains might not be encouraged in their trade of secret murder, by finding their own guilt attributed to the Roman patriot, and might not conclude, that if Brutus be no better than an assassin, an assassin can be no worse than Brutus."+ The same line of argument is an oft-trodden one in Coleridge's contributions to the Courier and Morning Post, when Wanted a Brutus ! was the burden of his strain against the First Consul turned Emperor, and Killing No Murder the apparent terminus ad quem of his rhetoric. Here is another example from another portion of his leading articles, in which he is again trying to reduce to an absurdity the quest of a general rule in tyrannicide cases-each single instance being itself, he contends, a species, to be tried on its own grounds, and resting its whole pretences for acquittal or mitigation of censure, on its peculiarity;besides that in all such cases, men neither act by a rule, nor judge by a rule, but in both one and the other are determined by their feelings. Ravaillac, he then goes on to suggest, was perhaps as sincere and disinterested in his enthusiasm as Brutus: "yet all Europe, both at the time, and ever since, has held the one in abhorrence, while the name of the other was never pronounced without love and honour even in the worst ages by any noble-minded Roman." The feelings of mankind at large, he repeats, have crowned the one and branded the other; and "Mr. Whitbread and the rest, who would teach us to condemn Brutus by a * Akenside, Pleasures of the Imagination, b. ii, rule, are really, though unintentionally, pursuing the same course as those who attempt by another rule to justify tyrannicide in general. Both alike are mooting extreme cases.' If Coleridge's allegation be correct, that the honour or disrespect with which the name of Brutus is spoken of, is an historic criterion of a noble or a base age,―ours, as infected by the Niebuhrs, De Quinceys, Longs, and Merivales, who pronounce so peremptorily against Marcus Junius, can be none of the noblest. * But leaving aside the verdict of the moderns, let us ask if the ancients were quite so unanimous in their enthusiasm as Coleridge makes them appear to be. An excellent summary of their views on the vexed question may be found towards the close of Mr. Merivale's second volume. His report is, that the judgment of the ancients upon this famous deed varied according to their interests and prejudices. If, indeed, the republic had been permanently re-established, its saviour would have been hailed, perhaps, with unmingled applause, and commanded the favour of the Romans to a late posterity. Cicero, though he might have shrunk from participating in the deed, deemed it expedient to justify it, and saluted its authors in exulting accents, as tyrannicides and deliverers.† But the courtiers of the later Cæsars denounced it as a murder, or passed it over in significant silence. Virgil, who ventures to pay a noble compliment to Cato, and glories in the eternal punishment of Catiline, bestows not a word on the exploit of Brutus. Even Lucan, who beholds in it a stately sacrifice to the gods, admits the detestation with which it was generally regarded.§ Augustus, indeed, wisely tolerant, allowed Messala to speak in praise of Cassius; but Tiberius would not suffer Cremutius to call him with impunity the last of the Romans.|| Velleius, Seneca, and, above all, Valerius Maximus, express their abhorrence of the murder in energetic and manly tones. It was the mortification, they said, of the conspirators at their victim's superiority, their disappointment at the slowness with which the stream of honours flowed to them, their envy, their vanity, anything rather than their patriotism, that impelled them to it. "The Greek writers [Dion, Appian, &c.], who had less of prejudice to urge them to palliate the deed, speak of it without reserve as a monstrous and hateful atrocity. Again, while Tacitus casts a philosophic glance on the opinions of others, and abstains from passing any judgment of his own, Suetonius, in saying that Cæsar perished by a just retribution, imputes to him no legal crime, nor extenuates the guilt of his assassins. From Livy and Florus, and the epitomiser of Trogus, we may infer that the sentiments expressed by Plutarch were the same which the most reasonable of the Romans generally adopted; the moralising sage declared that the disorders of the body politic required the establishment of monarchy, and that Cæsar was sent by Providence, as the mildest physician, for its conservation,"** *This was published in the Courier of July 2, 1811. Reprinted in vol. iii. of Coleridge's Essays on His Own Times. † Cic. ad Att., XIV. 4, 6, 14, Philipp. I. 14, De Offic. I. 31, II. 7, III. 4. Virg. Æn., VIII. 668 sq. Lucan, VII. 596; cf. VI. 791, and VIII. 609. Tacit. Ann., IV. 34. Vell., II. 56; Seneca de Ira, III. 30; Val. Max., I. 7, 2, III. 1, 3, &c. ** Dion, XLIV. 1, 20, 21, &c. ; Appian, B. C. IV. 134; Suet. Jul., 76; Seneca, Qu. Nat., V. 18; Flor., IV. 2, 92; Eutrop., VI. fin.; Plut. Cæs., 69 (Merivale, II. xxii.). On the whole, is the retrospective reviewer's conclusion, when we consider the vices of the times, and the general laxity of principle justly ascribed to the later ages of Greek and Roman heathenism, it is interesting to observe how little sympathy was extended by antiquity to an exploit which appealed so boldly to it. As with his act of tyrannicide, so that of suicide on the part of Brutus, has been diversely rated by critics and casuists not a few. The circumstances of it tend to favour scrutiny and stricture. Montaigne complains that Brutus and Cassius threw away the remains of the Roman liberty, of which they were the sole protectors, by the precipitation and temerity wherewith they killed themselves before the proper time and occasion.† Cato, remarks M. Saint-Marc Girardin, in his exposé of Stoicism, Cato slew himself to prevent his being made a slave of; Brutus, because he despaired of virtue. Both of them made the sacrifice rather for their personal honour than for their country's liberty. "C'est là le malheur ou la faiblesse de la philosophie stoïcienne. Elle élève l'homme, mais il semble qu'en l'elevant audessus du monde, elle l'en sépare et le rend inutile aux hommes." With the deaths of Cato and Brutus may be said to have commenced at Rome the history of stoical philosophy :§ they are the proto-martyrs of stoicism, and their martyrdom unavailing. One word more upon Brutus's dying apostrophe to Virtue. We have seen how Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the mystic anythingarian,-let us see how M. Jules Simon, the apostle of natural religion,-regards that exceeding bitter cry. Voilà Brutus arrivé au dernier moment de sa vie. He dies vanquished, and, seeing with his eyes the triumph of Octavius, he cries, "Virtue, thou art nothing but a name." It is an imprecation that escapes his lips, and that history has too greedily grasped at: this single word, if deliberately uttered, blights a whole life of devotion and sacrifice to duty. It was worthy of the soul of Brutus, continues the Philosopher of Duty, to love virtue for itself alone, without hope of recompense. The virtue which asks for a salary, changes its name, and must be called good management (habilité) instead; even when the salary is indefinitely deferred, the virtue that has bargained for it has only been negotiating a bill with a long term to run. Had the masters and martyra of Stoicism come forth from their graves to assist, in M. Simon's phrase. at the last moments of Marcus Junius,-had they appeared within his tent (as, on the eve of Philippi, Cæsar had seemed to do),-this one in the garb of a slave, that one with the instruments of the torture he had undergone, they would have repudiated this pseudo-stoic, ce faux stoïcien, who reckoned himself beaten and lost because fortune sided with vice against virtue. Was it for this mode of estimating virtue versus vice, that he had embraced the philosophy of the Porch? Had Zeno promised him riches and dominion? It was just when virtue displayed herself to him avec un cortège de ruines that Brutus ought to have fallen down and worshipped her. He should have recognised her at once by this august sign. "Sa mort avec une telle parole est indigne de sa vie."|| * See Merivale, Hist. of the Romans under the Empire, vol. ii. pp. 490 sqq.¦ † Essais de Montaigne, livre ii. ch. iii. Cours de Littérature Dramatique, t. i. c. v., Du Suicide, &c. § Essais de Morale, I. 381. Jules Simon, La Religion Naturelle, troisième partie, p. 345. THE ASCENT OF MONT BUÉT. BY A PRIVATE OF 38th (artists), and member of alpine club. UPWARDS of ten thousand feet above the level of the sea rises the Mont Buét. It is the highest mountain in the immediate vicinity of Mont Blanc, and may be seen from many points of view by those whose delight it is to scale the summit of lofty peaks, whether in chase of the chamois-a sport but very little indulged in-or to enjoy the glorious scenery, the refreshing life-giving air, and invigorating exercise on the mountain-tops. I had long wished to make this ascent, from the accounts I had both heard and read of the superb view to be obtained from its summit, and especially the unsurpassed view of Mont Blanc itself. Unsettled weather and other unavoidable circumstances had hitherto prevented me, during my previous Alpine excursions, from carrying my wishes into effect, but, in the summer of 1863, I again found myself upon the glaciers revisiting the Jardin for the fifth time, each visit being under precisely the same bright, cloudless sky, which is somewhat remarkable. I also found myself performing sundry of the grandes courses with my trusty guides, Couttet and Tiarraz. One of my excursions was to the séracs of the Col du Géant, which, in the opinion of Couttet, were utterly impenetrable this year. They were certainly very nearly so last year when we passed through them, as I have already narrated in a previous number, at no small risk to life and limb. We did not venture far into these frozen recesses. They looked awful when thus calmly surveyed. I may here mention that, at the Jardin, we again met our old friends, the two hungry solitary crows, who, as we approached, flew over our heads towards the lofty peaks of the Grande Jorasse, and, swooping round in their flight, perched upon some adjacent rocks, waiting to pounce upon any scraps we might happen to leave for them. There they sat, and Clamoured their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears the raven's cry, and said, Another of my "setting up" tramps (as Alfred Wills calls those grandes courses) was through the séracs of the Glacier des Bossons and Taconnaz, at their point of junction just below the Grand Mulets. I went up through these, starting at daybreak, to meet a large party who had passed the night at the little cabin at the Grand Mulets-one of whom had made a successful ascent of Mont Blanc, while another of the party, a French gentleman, who had tried to reach the summit, failed, on arriving at the "Petit Mulets," where he encountered "un vent terrible -un vent exécrable," as he emphatically informed me. I found no less than four of the guides who had been up severely frostbitten in their hands and ears. One of them (Jean Couttet), who had been one of my own guides up Mont Blanc in 1862, was also slightly frostbitten in his feet. The poor fellows all looked haggard and distressed. |