Inonday Fab. 25, 01889, ESSAY VIII. HEROISM. IN the elder English dramatists, and mainly in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a constant recognition of gentility, as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the society of their age, as color is in our American population. When any Rodrigo, Pedro, or Valerio enters, though he be a stranger, the duke or governor exclaims, This is a gentleman,-and proffers civilities without end; but all the rest are slag and refuse. In harmony with this delight in personal advantages, there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of character and dialogue, as in Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, the Double Marriage, wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial, and on such deep grounds of character, that the dialogue, on the slightest additional incident in the plot, rises naturally into poetry. Among many texts, take the following. The Roman Martius has conquered Athens,-all but the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martius, and he seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles will not ask his life, although assured that a word will save him, and the execution of both proceeds. Valerius. Bid thy wife farewell. Soph. No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen, Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown, My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. Dor. Stay, Sophocles,-with this, tie up my sight; Let not soft nature so transformed be, And lose her gentler sexed humanity, To make me see my lord bleed. So, 't is well; Will I behold before my Sophocles: Farewell; now teach the Romans how to die. And therefore, not what 't is to live; to die An old, stale, weary work, and to commence Deceitful knaves for the 'T is to leave society Of gods and goodness. Thou, thyself, must part At last, from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs, And prove thy fortitude what then 't will do. Val. But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus? Soph. Why should I grieve or vex for being sent To them I ever loved best? Now I'll kneel, But with my back toward thee; 'tis the last duty Mar. Strike, strike, Valerius, Or Martius' heart will leap out at his mouth: Val. What ails my brother? Soph. Martius, oh Martius, Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. Dor. O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak Fit words to follow such a deed as this? Mar. This admirable duke, Valerius, By Romulus, he is all soul, I think; He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved; I do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or oration, that our press vents in the last few years, which goes to the same We have a great many flutes and flageolets, but not often the sound of any fife. Yet, tune. Wordsworth's Laodamia, and the ode of Dion," and some sonnets, have a certain noble music; and Scott will sometimes draw a stroke like the portrait of Lord Evandale, given by Balfour of Burley. Thomas Carlyle, with his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns has given us a song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies, there is an account of the battle of Lutzen, which deserves to be read. And Simon Ockley's History of the Saracens, recounts the prodigies of individual valor with admiration, all the more evident on the part of the narrator, that he seems to think that his place in Christian Oxford requires of him some proper protestations of abhorrence. But if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epaminondas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his “Lives" is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. |