The Comic History of Rome Part 18

Aristocracy had lost its exclusive privileges; but these had only become more objectionable by being spread over a larger surface; for they were now extended to a certain portion of the plebeians, who went by the name of _novi homines_, or upstarts. These were distinguished from the n.o.biles, or, to speak shortly, the n.o.bs, who enjoyed the right of having the images of their ancestors in wax; but this _jus imaginum_, as it was termed, conferred only an imaginary dignity. There was no legal privilege attached to the sort of n.o.bility above described; but those persons who were qualified by the possession of the waxen forms of their fathers, were looked upon as men making in society a highly respectable figure.

Notwithstanding the liberty which is declared by republicans to be inseparable from the Republican form of Government, laws were pa.s.sed to restrain the liberty of private action in the days of the Roman Commonwealth. By the Orchian law, made in the year of the city 572 (B.C.

181), the number of guests that might sit down to dinner was limited: and as a further ill.u.s.tration of republican freedom, it may be mentioned that the entertainer was obliged to keep open his doors, so that all who were freely-and-easily inclined might enter his house to see that the law was complied with. Twenty years later, it was decreed by the law of Fannius, that no entertainment should cost more than one hundred a.s.ses, or six s.h.i.+llings and five-pence farthing, on high days and holidays; on ten other days in the month, the meal was not to exceed thirty a.s.ses, or one and eleven-pence farthing; but on ordinary occasions seven-pence farthing was the figure to which even the richest man was to limit the cost of his dinner. The law not only interfered with the bill of expenses, but with the bill of fare; and, under the Consuls.h.i.+p of M. Scaurus, the dormouse was excluded from the dinner-table as an enervating luxury. Vegetables were allowed to any extent, and bread might be eaten at--or even beyond--discretion.

To such a ridiculous extent did the Romans carry their interference with the private expenditure of each other, that when Cra.s.sus and Cn.

Demetrius were Censors, they endeavoured in the most absurd manner to damage each other's popularity. Demetrius publicly charged Cra.s.sus with having been guilty of extravagance for going into mourning on the death of a favourite fish; and Cra.s.sus retorted by declaring that Demetrius had lost three wives without exhibiting signs of mourning for any one of them.[64]

FOOTNOTE:

[64] Macrobius, Saturnal., lib. ii., c. 1.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD

THE GRACCHI AND THEIR MOTHER. RISE AND FALL OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS.

A people trained to live chiefly on spoils taken from others must be continually spoiling itself for any peaceful occupation; and those whose chief support is the sword, must be always destroying the food they live upon. When foreign means are exhausted, it becomes necessary to look at home, and those who have existed by robbing strangers, are no sooner deprived of their external sources of support, than they begin to rob each other. Such was the order--or rather the disorder--of things in Rome, where wealth had got into the hands of the few, and the social fabric, like a building too heavy at the top, was in immediate danger of a downfall. There were large cla.s.ses of persons who were a.s.sured that they were perfectly free; but, though enjoying the freedom of air itself, they found in it no element of comfort, when they had nothing more substantial than the air to live upon. Deprived of every inch of land, there was but a flatulent sort of satisfaction in the enjoyment of the atmosphere, nor could the most long-winded of orators impress the people with the idea that life could be maintained by simply imbibing the breath of liberty. They were informed that they were the lords of the earth;[65] but this mockery of respect was simply insulting the emptiness of their mouths by a scarcely less empty t.i.tle. The plebeians were like a number of ciphers without a preliminary figure, and, though possessing all the materials of strength in their vast body, were powerless until a head could be found for them. This at length appeared in the person of Tib. Semp.r.o.nius Gracchus, the grandson of the elder Scipio, and as two heads are said to be better than one, Tib. united his brother Caius with him in the office of leader to the great plebeian movement.

The elder Gracchus had been tutored by his mother Cornelia--one of the earliest members of the ancient and honourable order of blue-stockings.

She had superintended the education of her children, and had personally tutored them in eloquence; an art of which the female tongue is peculiarly capable. Her own house was the resort of some of the first philosophers of the day, who, like many modern philosophers, were thoroughly impressed with the idea that the way to penetrate the youthful mind, is to continue for ever boring it. In this manner the understandings of the young Gracchi had been thoroughly drilled, and the treasures of science had been admitted at so many apertures, that the only fear was lest the treasures, through some of the numerous openings by which they had got into the mind, might find their way out again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Mother of the Gracchi._]

Tib. had already won some reputation in Spain, and was returning home, when he saw the Etrurian estates of the wealthy being cultivated by foreign slaves in chains, whose bonds not only bore the seal of degradation for themselves, but were the means of fettering native industry. These slaves were housed and huddled together in places called Ergastula, which were literally workhouses, but practically, prisons.

They are said to have been built under-ground in the shape of vaults; but, in giving this account of their construction, there has perhaps been some misconstruction on the part of Columella, who is the chief authority for the statement.

We must now return to Tib. Gracchus, who had, by this time, returned to Rome, and had formed the n.o.ble resolution of remedying abuses, though he knew that loud abuse of himself would be the inevitable consequence. He had seen that the aristocracy had got possession of nearly all the land, allowing the plebeians to have no share in it, except the ploughshare, and even this was often denied them by the employment of slaves instead of the free agricultural labourer. Tib. was learned in the law, and recollected the existence in the books of the old statute of Licinius, which had fallen into disuse, and the renewal of which he thought might put new life into the plebeian body. By this law, no one was allowed to occupy more than 500 jugera--about 330 English acres--of the land of the state; but the state of the land exhibited a very different distribution of the public property.

The poorer occupants of the soil had been compelled by their necessities to sell to the richer, and Tiberius made the popular but scarcely honest proposal, that those who had bought should give back to those who had sold--a suggestion which was hailed by the ma.s.ses as the happy inspiration of a patriot. The idea was simple enough, and if simplicity is an element of grandeur, the notion was so far a great one; though, as it is based on the principle, that when a man has sold everything he possesses, the purchaser or the possessor should hand the property back to the original vendor, the project is not well adapted to business purposes. The suggestion was, however, one which enabled a patriot to go to the country with a "cry," and though the end proposed was laudable enough, the means, which involved an interference with the means of the wealthy, could not command the general approval. It is true that much of the property had been unfairly obtained, and that much more was held in illegal quant.i.ties; but some had been the subject of regular sale, and the general confiscation proposed was but a Procrustean measure of justice.

The plan was of course opposed, and the term of "selfish aristocrat" was liberally, or illiberally--for they are unfortunately too much alike, sometimes, in their political sense--bestowed on every one who did his utmost to protect what the law had allowed him to regard for years as his own property. Common sense, however, began so far to prevail over clamour, that the proposal of Tib. Gracchus was modified to some extent, and the distribution of the surplus land was confided to a permanent commission of three men, who were called the Triumviri. In order to give something like consistency to the measure, it provided, that the land which had been taken away from its old possessors should not be sold by the new; and thus a sort of uniformity was observed by robbing the former, and restricting the latter; so that the principle of not being able to do what one likes with one's own, was affirmed in each instance.

The injustice of the whole proceeding was so palpable, notwithstanding the "popularity" of the scheme, that a compensation clause was introduced to indemnify those who had built houses at their own expense upon the ground; but nothing was awarded to those who had only built upon it their hopes of being allowed to continue in quiet possession of the property.

Party feeling ran, of course, exceedingly high, or, in other words, its proceedings were extremely low on both sides. Tib. Gracchus was lauded by the people as the essence of everything n.o.ble, and denounced by the patricians as the incarnation of everything contemptible. On one side he was hailed as a patriot, and on the other side he was hooted as a fraudulent demagogue; so that if everything that went in at one ear went out at the other, his head must have been a thoroughfare for every kind of vehicle of abuse and flattery. The Senate took the meanest means of revenge, and reduced his official salary to one denarius and a half, or about a s.h.i.+lling a day in English money. Tiberius, thus curtailed of the means on which he lived, declared there was a conspiracy against his life, and rather prematurely went into mourning for himself, to excite the public sympathy. Putting his children into black, he took them with him from house to house, requesting that they might be taken in as orphans; but the public refused to be taken in by a trick so obvious.

False accusations were, however, brought against him; and a next-door neighbour stood up in the Senate, declaring that he had that morning observed a diadem and a scarlet robe delivered at the back door, which proved that Tiberius intended to usurp the regal authority. In order to obtain the weight of an official position for his reforms, Tiberius got himself elected tribune of the people, and the apparently inevitable effects of taking office were at once shown in his introduction of a modified edition of the measure he had previously clamoured for.

The aristocratic party set every engine and every old pump at work to throw cold water on his project, and they at length persuaded one of his colleagues, named Octavius, who was played upon as easily as an octave flute, to take part against him. The mode of opposition resorted to by Gracchus was rather more effective than const.i.tutional, for he called upon the people to dismiss his colleague--an arrangement almost as equitable as it would be for one judge to insist upon the dismissal of another, who might refuse to announce himself submissively as "of the same opinion" with his learned brother. When, however, the people are once fairly off, in a certain or uncertain course, they seldom think how unfairly their precipitancy may operate. They had set their hearts on a particular measure, and they refused to be guided by their heads; but without deliberation, drove away every obstacle that impeded the accomplishment of their wishes. As Octavius still held his position, Gracchus gave notice that he had a resolution to propose, and, on the following day, he moved the removal of his colleague. Octavius, however, met the proposed resolution by a remarkable display of resolution on his own part, and he declared that he should stick to his office, notwithstanding the other's unfriendly offices. These means having failed, Tiberius made a personal appeal to his colleague, and pointed out to him the gracefulness of a voluntary resignation; but Octavius, who rated himself very highly, objected altogether to the voluntary principle. Tiberius next attempted to starve his colleague out by sealing up the treasury; but the sealing made no impression on Octavius, who retained his official seat until it was drawn from under him by the mob, and he fell to the ground, between the two stools of himself and his unscrupulous colleague. A client or creature of the Gracchi was elected in the place of the deposed Tribune, who had been got rid of by upsetting one of the most important forms of the const.i.tution--that form being no other than the bench occupied by one of the highest officers of the government. Octavius was hurried out among the mob, who thrust him about in every direction; but, when it came to the push, Tiberius Gracchus endeavoured to pull him through his difficulties. The effort was almost vain; and Octavius owed his life to a faithful slave, who lost an eye in seeing his master through the dangers that surrounded him. After this manifestation of the popular opinion, no Tribune ventured to have an opinion of his own--or, if he had, he kept it to himself, with a prudent regard to his personal safety.

The new bill for distributing the soil became at once the law of the land, and the two Gracchi--Tib. and Caius--with Appius Claudius, the father-in-law of the former, became a permanent triumvirate. This desire of the temporary holders of power to change their tenancy at will to a life estate, has been in all ages conspicuous. The stability of authority is so desirable, that a fixed executive seems to be everywhere a natural want; but the mushroom might as well seek to subst.i.tute itself for the oak, whose roots have struck deep into the soil, as the mere chief of a revolution might hope, without any hold on the affections of a nation, to become the founder of a dynasty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tib. Gracchus canva.s.sing.]

Tib. Gracchus, in the true spirit of a patriot by profession, proposed limiting every power but his own, which he sought to render as extensive as possible. When his term of office had legally expired, he declared that the safety of the republic required his re-election, and he accordingly forced himself on the attention of the electors as the only desirable candidate. On the day previous to the election, he spent all the afternoon in the mourning he had already bought, and leading his children by the hand, he exhibited himself and them as the "un-happy family," in the public thoroughfares. The election had already commenced, on the following day, when the Conservative party objected to it on the ground of illegality. The proceedings were already opened, when Tib. Gracchus set out on a canva.s.s, expecting that his canva.s.s would enable him to reach the desired point with a wet sail and flying colours. Not content with going alone to solicit the electors, he took one of his own boys in his hand, and he got all the mothers on his side, by introducing what may be termed child's play into his electioneering movements. In the afternoon, the candidate doubted whether he would go personally to the poll, when his friends--some of them from whom he would have been glad to have been saved--a.s.sured him that he had better go, for there was no danger. Taking their advice, he had got as far as the area in front of the Capitol, when he was seized with the irresolution of an area-sneak, and hanging about the spot, he refused to go further. A debate was in progress among the senators, when one of them, P. Scipio Nasica, called upon the house to come to the door, and save the republic by sacrificing Tiberius. The whole a.s.sembly rushed upon its legs and its crutches; some of the members seized hold of sticks, others s.n.a.t.c.hed up their clubs, and declared that the vengeance of the clubs should fall on Tiberius. In this spirit they sallied forth, and looking for Gracchus, they soon knocked dissension on the head, by one of those blows which disposed of any pretensions he might have had to a crown when they first encountered him. His brother, Caius Gracchus, fell politically with his relative; but without resigning his office, he abandoned his post, and he withdrew to a little place he had in the country, though neglecting to give up his place in the triumvirate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Melancholy End of Tib. Gracchus.]

Scipio aemilia.n.u.s was on his return from Spain to Rome when he heard of the death of his brother-in-law; and, quoting a line from Homer, to the effect that

"All thus perish who such deeds perform,"

he declared that his relative Tib. had met with such a fate as his antecedents warranted. Scipio at once a.s.sumed the leaders.h.i.+p of the Conservatives, or rather of the destructives; for their Conservatism consisted merely in a desire to keep all they had unfairly got, while their policy tended to break all the bonds of mutual interest and goodwill, which can alone permanently bind society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Scipio aemilia.n.u.s cramming himself for a Speech after a hearty Supper.]

The plebeian party became quite as unreasonable on one side of the question, as the patricians had been on the other; and C. Papirius Carbo, a demagogue, who had got the place of tribune, proposed that the people should have the right of re-electing the same person to the tribunes.h.i.+p over and over again,--a suggestion designed to render his own position permanent. Scipio aemilia.n.u.s opposed the measure to the utmost; and after going home one night, he had no sooner finished his supper, than he began to cram himself for a speech, with which he contemplated coming out on the day following. He was, however, found dead in his bed; and, though probability points to apoplexy as the cause, the historians have--without much, indeed, of evidence--returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against C. P. Carbo. We have no hesitation in acquitting him of this dreadful crime; but we cannot say that we shall be able to allow him to quit these pages without a stain on his character. It is to be regretted that the Senate had not the courage to inst.i.tute an inquiry at the time when the occurrence took place, and when only the real facts could have been ascertained; for such a course would have saved considerable trouble to those chroniclers who are always ready to frame an entirely new set of circ.u.mstances of their own, to replace those which contemporaneous investigation has omitted to supply us with.

Caius Semp.r.o.nius Gracchus was getting daily more tired of his thoroughly retired life; and, being an excellent spokesman, he began to flatter himself that the commonweal might profit by his services. He is said to have been urged on by his brother's ghost; but there is reason to believe that he was impelled by a more commendable spirit. This fraternal shade is stated to have appeared to him in his dreams; but the matters he now began to take in hand were not those which he could afford to go to sleep over.

In republics, where he who is the humble servant of the people to-day, may be, to-morrow, the people's master, talent is looked upon with jealousy by the governing power, which, while ostensibly employing an able instrument, may be, in fact, promoting a dangerous rival. Thus, when the head of a nation is removable, it is reluctant to employ the best men, lest they prove better than the head itself, and aspire to the very highest position.

Where the form of government is monarchical, it is to the interest of the ruler to avail himself of the ablest a.s.sistance he can obtain; for, being himself irremovable, he becomes the fixed centre towards which the glories and successes of his ministers and servants continually gravitate.

It was on the principle of getting rid of a dangerous rival, that the republican government had sent away Caius Gracchus from Rome,--where he might have been everything--to Sardinia, where he would almost inevitably sink to nothing. He was himself apprehensive of this result, and he consequently returned to Rome, leaving Sardinia without the leave of any one. His duty should have kept him abroad, but ambition urged him home; and, in a republic, there is little to insure the fidelity of one who, though the servant of the Government to-day, may be its master to-morrow. Leaving the interests of his country in Sardinia to take care of themselves, this professed patriot came to look after his own interests in Rome, and took his talents into the political market. He immediately stood for the tribunes.h.i.+p; and though he had abandoned one post--that of Quaestor in Sardinia--he was elected to the more important post, which might, indeed, be termed the chief pillar of popular liberty.

Though he had, of course, solicited and obtained his high office on purely public grounds, he at once endeavoured to use it for the gratification of personal animosities. His first two measures were proposed with a view to avenging his brother's death; and he sought to give the intended new laws a retrospective effect, for the purpose of gratifying his private enmity. He introduced a law to prevent a person deprived by the people of any office, from being appointed to the public service again; but this exalted patriot withdrew the bill to please his mother. He carried various measures of more or less value, and among them was a law for the establishment of granaries for supplying the poor with corn at a very low price; but though this might have been very attractive to buyers, and insured a brisk demand, it does not seem calculated to encourage growers and sellers to such an extent that a supply could always be relied upon. Of course, the deficiency had to be made good from the pockets of the public; and therefore the process amounted to little more than receiving with one hand what had been paid by the other.

The privilege of purchasing cheap corn was not limited, as some[66] have supposed, to the poor; but every citizen could claim his share; and even Piso, a Consul--though perhaps he was one of the greatly reduced Consuls--had been shabby enough to demand the privilege. Piso had been an opponent of the law; and Gracchus, seeing him among the crowd receiving a bushel of the cheap grain, taunted him with his inconsistency in taking advantage of a corn measure which he had set his face against. The answer of Piso was sensible and just; for, said he, "though I had a strong objection to your giving away my property, I think I have a right to try to get my share of it." Another of his enactments vested the right of putting a Roman citizen to death, in the people themselves, a measure that was no doubt theoretically attractive, though practically inconvenient. To vest in the public at large the privilege of applying the sentences to the highest offences, would really be giving a nation so much rope, that business would be suspended very often, instead of the criminals.

Caius Gracchus next applied himself to Law Reform with considerable zeal; but it was not so much the law itself, as those who administered it, that required amendment. Those who held the scales of justice, used to weigh only the gold of the suitors; and the judges were so far impartial, that they had no bias towards any particular side, but favoured that which was the most liberal in bribing them. Many of the defendants had been guilty of extortion, which was a common practice with the judges themselves; and therefore a rude sort of honour, commonly known as honour among thieves, was not altogether banished from the judgment-seat. Caius Gracchus, however, caused a law to be pa.s.sed, in which we trace the origin of that glorious inst.i.tution, familiarly known as "twelve men in a box," so dear to the hearts, and sometimes, also, to the pockets of Englishmen. The law alluded to, provided for the trial of causes by a middle cla.s.s of equites or knights, who were, literally speaking, men who could keep a horse, and who, on the same principle adopted in modern times as to the keepers of gigs,[67] were considered to be respectable.

The Senators had made a practice of acquitting all criminals of their own cla.s.s, and, by acquitting themselves thus shamefully, they had become guilty of the grossest corruption; but the equites were frequently regardless of equity, and were found leaning with undue leniency towards offenders of their own order. Gracchus had now become the popular idol, but he never had an idle hour, and was always busy in building up a reputation for himself by the construction of works of permanent utility. He knew that general occupation is necessary to public content, and he felt that as long as he could keep the hands of the mult.i.tude employed on bricks and mortar, he was, in reality, cementing his own power. This policy placed considerable patronage at his command, and he rallied round him a crowd of contractors and artificers, who, but for his power of giving them something better to do, would, perhaps, have been contracting the bad habit of political agitation, or resorting to every kind of revolutionary artifice.

The greatest political work of Caius was that in which he did the least; and his legislative successes sink into insignificance by the side of the real grandeur of his extensive failure. This was his attempt to extend the franchise to all the Italians, and the other allies; but Rome refused to aid him in the grand design, and determined to rivet upon Italy those Italian irons with which Rome at a future period was destined to burn her fingers. So popular was Caius Gracchus, that, upon his re-election to office, the people, who could not get near enough to the Campus Martius on account of the crowd, voted for him from the tops of houses or unfinished buildings; and many came up to the poll by climbing an adjacent scaffold.

He who would keep himself constantly sailing before the wind raised by the breath of public applause, must be for ever on some new tack; for no airs are more variable than those which the people are apt to give themselves. Caius Gracchus was soon destined to discover the fact that, amid the storms of political life, the highest point can be safely occupied by none but the political weatherc.o.c.k. He had too much rigid inflexibility to turn with every breeze; and instead of being moved by each pa.s.sing gust, he was simply dis-gusted by the vacillation exhibited.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rash Act of Caius Gracchus.]

The aristocratic party, perceiving this, resolved to beat him with his own weapons; and they prevailed upon M. Livius Drusus, his colleague in the tribunes.h.i.+p, to outbid him by all sorts of extravagances for the prize of popularity. When Gracchus proposed to distribute land among the poor at a small fixed rental, Drusus moved, by way of amendment, that they should have it for nothing at all; and as to the corn in the public granaries, if Gracchus said the people ought to have it at half price, Drusus would insist upon their right to be paid for the trouble of walking away with it. The people, as a matter of course, followed the man who was most profuse in his promises, rather than him who had been the most liberal in his performances. Caius Gracchus was, in the mean time, induced to go to Africa to mark out the ground for a new city. The reporters of the period--who were, no doubt, in the pay of his opponents--circulated all kinds of ill-natured stories, in which it was alleged that the omens had been unfavourable; that the flags had been blown down, or the pavement blown up; and that the wolves had eaten up every flag-staff--a thing not very easy to swallow. On his return to Rome, from which he had been absent only seventy days, he found Drusus amazingly popular, and every nose turned up at himself, which induced him to recognise a general snub in the faces of many of his old followers. He offered himself a third time for the tribunes.h.i.+p, but he was at the bottom of the poll, and an election row commenced, when an officious lictor lost, first, his fasces; secondly, his securis--which he had done his utmost to secure; and ultimately his life, in the scuffle. Caius Gracchus, who had mainly endeavoured to keep the peace, knew he would be accused of breaking it, and he accordingly ran as fast as he could; but in scaling a wall to get into another street, he unfortunately sprained his ankle. His friends continued to carry him until, moved by a sudden instinct of self-preservation, they dropped an acquaintance it would have been no longer safe to keep up, and poor Caius was left alone with a single manservant. His pursuers being at his heels, the ex-tribune desired the faithful attendant to stab him, and the man was too much in the habit of obeying his master's orders to hesitate. Having respectfully run his employer through, he found himself so terribly out of place in the world, that, apologising for the liberty, he finished himself off with the same dagger.

A reward of its weight in gold had already been offered for the head of Caius Gracchus, when one Septimulcius, having picked it up, carried it home, and plumbed it with lead before he took it to the authorities.

Opimius, the Consul, weighed it, and exclaiming, "Bless me! seven pounds and a half!" threw down in exchange for the head, the same quant.i.ty of the precious metal. His customer having gone away, Opimius proceeded at his leisure to examine his bargain. "Well!" said he, "I don't know that it's worth its weight in gold, but the offer was my own, and I must make the best of it." On a minuter inspection, he detected the trick that had been played, and though he had looked upon Caius as somewhat leaden-headed, he at once perceived that nature had not been the only plumber employed in this disgraceful transaction.

All the friends of Gracchus were cast into prison and slain; but it was astonis.h.i.+ng to observe how contracted his circle became when it was known that ruin awaited every member of it. They who had been his intimates made the sudden discovery that they had never known him at all, and others, who had been too frequently in his company to repudiate the acquaintance, declared that they had been grievously mistaken in his character. Several of his radical a.s.sociates joined the aristocratic party, and his friend Carbo was so severely bantered on his having gone over to the other side, that after trying both sides, he took refuge in suicide as the only side left for him.

Rome owed much to the Gracchi; but it paid them both off in a most unsatisfactory manner. Tiberius was an orator of such power, that, to prevent his voice from being too loud, he took with him a piper--paying the piper out of his own pocket--to prevent him from pitching it too strong when he was addressing the mult.i.tude. Tiberius Gracchus was the first orator who introduced the graces of action into the art of public speaking; and he was in the habit of rolling, as it were, from side to side, which gave him great sway with his audience.

Caius Gracchus was a man of action, rather than of words, and was the first to divide distance into portions of one thousand paces, each of which he called a mile, and which was one of his really useful measures.

He was also the inventor of milestones, and of those stations for awkward equestrians, which enabled many to ride the high horse, who would otherwise have been placed on their own humble footing.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The two Gracchi owed, no doubt, to the teaching of their mother, much of their success--if, at least, that can be called success which ended in the violent death of both of them. Cornelia was, however, a little too much addicted to making prodigies of her sons; and it is said of her, that, on one occasion, when receiving a visit from a Campanian lady, who came to display her jewels, the mother of the Gracchi, having privately sent for the children, exclaimed, as they stole gently in with their nurse, "These are my jewels: what do you think of them?" So maudlin was her maternal sensibility, that she never spoke of her sons without tears, which were always responded to by the infants themselves, with sympathetic, but uncomfortable, moisture. Nothing, however, can damp parental love; and, to a fond mother's feelings, childhood has no unpleasant features; though it is different to him who, if approaching them at all, prefers looking at them in a drier aspect.

FOOTNOTES: