Library Of The World\'s Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 written by Charles Dudley Warner

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LIBRARY OF THE

WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE

ANCIENT AND MODERN

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

EDITOR

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE
GEORGE HENRY WARNER

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Connoisseur Edition

VOL. IV.

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL

* * * * *

CRAWFORD H. TOY, A.M., LL.D.,
Professor of Hebrew,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.

THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D.,
Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.

WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH.D., L.H.D.,
Professor of History and Political Science,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N.J.

BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B.,
Professor of Literature,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.

JAMES B. ANGELL, LL.D.,
President of the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.

WILLARD FISKE, A.M., PH.D.,
Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages
and Literatures, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N.Y.

EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A.M., LL.D.,
Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.

ALCEE FORTIER, LIT.D.,
Professor of the Romance Languages,
TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.

WILLIAM P. TRENT, M.A.,
Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
English and History, UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.

PAUL SHOREY, PH.D.,
Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL.D.,
United States Commissioner of Education,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D.C.

MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A.M., LL.D.,
Professor of Literature in the
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D.C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOL. IV

LIVED
GEORGE BANCROFT--_Continued_: 1800-1891
Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham ('History of the
United States')
Lexington (same)
Washington (same)

JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM 1798-1874
The Publican's Dream ('The Bit of Writin'')
Ailleen
Soggarth Aroon
Irish Maiden's Song

THEODORE DE BANVILLE 1823--1891
Le Cafe ('The Soul of Paris')
The Mysterious Hosts of the Forests ('The
Caryatids': Lang's Translation)
Aux Enfants Perdus: Lang's Translation
Ballade des Pendus: Lang's Translation

ANNA LAEITIA BARBAULD 1743-1825
Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations
A Dialogue of the Dead
Life
Praise to God

ALEXANDER BARCLAY 1475-1552
The Courtier's Life (Second Eclogue)

RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM 1788-1845
As I Laye A-Thynkynge
The Lay of St. Cuthbert
A Lay of St. Nicholas

SABINE BARING-GOULD 1834-
St. Patrick's Purgatory ('Curious Myths of the
Middle Ages')
The Cornish Wreckers ('The Vicar of Morwenstow')

JANE BARLOW 18--
Widow Joyce's Cloak ('Strangers at Lisconnel')
Walled Out ('Bogland Studies')

JOEL BARLOW 1754-1812
A Feast ('Hasty Pudding')

WILLIAM BARNES 1800-1886
Blackmwore Maidens
May
Milken Time
Jessie Lee
The Turnstile
To the Water-Crowfoot
Zummer an' Winter

JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE 1860-
The Courtin' of T'nowhead's Bell ('Auld Licht Idylls')
Jess Left Alone ('A Window in Thrums')
After the Sermon ('The Little Minister')
The Mutual Discovery (same)
Lost Illusions ('Sentimental Tommy')
Sins of Circumstance (same)

FREDERIC BASTIAT 1801-1850
Petition of Manufacturers of Artificial Light
Stulta and Puera
Inapplicable Terms ('Economic Sophisms')

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (by Grace King) 1821-1867
Meditation
Death of the Poor
Music
The Broken Bell
The Enemy
Beauty
Death
The Painter of Modern Life ('L'Art Romantique')
Modernness
From 'Little Poems in Prose': Every One His Own Chimera;
Humanity; Windows; Drink
From a Journal

LORD BEACONSFIELD (by Isa Carrington Cabell) 1804-1881
A Day at Ems ('Vivian Grey')
The Festa in the Alhambra ('The Young Duke')
Squibs from 'The Young Duke': Charles Annesley; The
Fussy Hostess; Public Speaking; Female Beauty
Lothair in Palestine ('Lothair')

BEAUMARCHAIS 1732-1799
Outwitting a Guardian ('The Barber of Seville')
Outwitting a Husband ('The Marriage of Figaro')

FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER 1584-1625
The Faithful Shepherdess
Song
Song
Aspatia's Song
Leandro's Song
True Beauty
Ode to Melancholy
To Ben Jonson, on His 'Fox'
On the Tombs in Westminster
Arethusa's Declaration ('Philaster')
The Story of Bellario (same)
Evadne's Confession ('The Maid's Tragedy')
Death of the Boy Hengo ('Bonduca')
From 'The Two Noble Kinsmen'

WILLIAM BECKFORD 1759-1844
The Incantation and the Sacrifice ('Vathek')
Vathek and Nouronihar in the Halls of Eblis (same)

HENRY WARD BEECHER 1813-1887
Book-Stores and Books ('Star Papers')
Selected Paragraphs
Sermon: Poverty and the Gospel
A New England Sunday ('Norwood')

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (by Irenaeus Stevenson) 1770-1827
Letters: To Dr. Wegeler; To the Same; To Bettina
Brentano; To Countess Giulietta Guicciardi; To the
Same; To His Brothers; To the Royal and Imperial
High Court of Appeal; To Baroness von Drossdick;
To Zmeskall; To the Same; To Stephan v. Breuning

CARL MICHAEL BELLMAN (by Olga Flinch) 1740-1795
To Ulla
Cradle-Song for My Son Carl
Amaryllis
Art and Politics
Drink Out Thy Glass

JEREMY BENTHAM 1748-1832
Of the Principle of Utility ('An Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation')
Reminiscences of Childhood
Letter to George Wilson (1781)
Fragment of a Letter to Lord Lansdowne (1790)

JEAN-PIERRE DE BERANGER (by Alcee Fortier) 1780-1857
From 'The Gipsies'
The Gad-Fly
Draw It Mild
The King of Yvetot
Fortune
The People's Reminiscences
The Old Tramp
Fifty Years
The Garret
My Tomb
From His Preface to His Collected Poems

GEORGE BERKELEY 1685-1753
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America
Essay on Tar-Water ('Siris')

HECTOR BERLIOZ 1803-1869
The Italian Race as Musicians and Auditors ('Autobiography')
The Famous "K Snuff-Box Treachery" (same)
On Gluck (same)
On Bach (same)
Music as an Aristocratic Art (same)
Beginning of a "Grand Passion" (same)
On Theatrical Managers in Relation to Art

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 1091-1153
Saint Bernard's Hymn
Monastic Luxury (Apology to the Abbot William of St. Thierry)
From His Sermon on the Death of Gerard

BERNARD OF CLUNY (by William C. Prime) Twelfth Century
Brief Life Is Here Our Portion

JULIANA BERNERS Fifteenth Century
The Treatyse of Fyssbynge with an Angle

WALTER BESANT 1838-
Old-Time London ('London')
The Synagogue ('The Rebel Queen')

BESTIARIES AND LAPIDARIES (by L. Oscar Kuhns)
The Lion
The Pelican
The Eagle
The Phoenix
The Ant
The Siren
The Whale
The Crocodile
The Turtle-Dove
The Mandragora
Sapphire
Coral

MARIE-HENRI BEYLE (Stendhal) (by Frederic Taber Cooper) 1783-1842
Princess Sanseverina's Interview ('Chartreuse de Parme')
Clelia Aids Fabrice to Escape (same)

WlLLEM BlLDERDIJK 1756-1831
Ode to Beauty
From the 'Ode to Napoleon'
Slighted Love
The Village Schoolmaster ('Country Life')

BION Second Century B.C.
Threnody
Hesper

AUGUSTINE BIRRELL 1850-
Dr. Johnson ('Obiter Dicta')
The Office of Literature (same)
Truth-Hunting (same)
Benvenuto Cellini (same)
On the Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Browning's Poetry (same)

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME IV.

* * * * *

PAGE
Egyptian Hieroglyphics (Colored Plate) Frontispiece
"The Irish Maiden's Song" (Photogravure) 1473
"Milking Time" (Photogravure) 1567
"Music" (Photogravure) 1625
Henry Ward Beecher (Portrait) 1714
"Beethoven" (Photogravure) 1750
Jean-Pierre de Beranger (Portrait) 1784
"Monastic Luxury" (Photogravure) 1824

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

John Banim
Theodore de Banville
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Richard Harris Barham
Jane Barlow
Joel Barlow
James Matthew Barrie
Frederic Bastiat
Charles Baudelaire
Lord Beaconsfield
Beaumarchais
Francis Beaumont
William Beckford
Ludwig van Beethoven
Jeremy Bentham
George Berkeley
Hector Berlioz
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Juliana Berners
Walter Besant
Henri Beyle (Stendhal)
Augustine Birrell

GEORGE BANCROFT (Continued from Volume III)

WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM

From 'History of the United States'

But, in the meantime, Wolfe applied himself intently to reconnoitering
the north shore above Quebec. Nature had given him good eyes, as well as
a warmth of temper to follow first impressions. He himself discovered
the cove which now bears his name, where the bending promontories almost
form a basin, with a very narrow margin, over which the hill rises
precipitously. He saw the path that wound up the steep, though so narrow
that two men could hardly march in it abreast; and he knew, by the
number of tents which he counted on the summit, that the Canadian post
which guarded it could not exceed a hundred. Here he resolved to land
his army by surprise. To mislead the enemy, his troops were kept far
above the town; while Saunders, as if an attack was intended at
Beauport, set Cook, the great mariner, with others, to sound the water
and plant buoys along that shore.

The day and night of the twelfth were employed in preparations. The
autumn evening was bright; and the general, under the clear starlight,
visited his stations, to make his final inspection and utter his last
words of encouragement. As he passed from ship to ship, he spoke to
those in the boat with him of the poet Gray, and the 'Elegy in a Country
Churchyard.' "I," said he, "would prefer being the author of that poem
to the glory of beating the French to-morrow;" and, while the oars
struck the river as it rippled in the silence of the night air under the
flowing tide, he repeated:--

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour--
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o'clock in the
morning of the thirteenth of September, Wolfe, Monckton, and Murray, and
about half the forces, set off in boats, and, using neither sail nor
oars, glided down with the tide. In three quarters of an hour the ships
followed; and, though the night had become dark, aided by the rapid
current, they reached the cove just in time to cover the landing. Wolfe
and the troops with him leaped on shore; the light infantry, who found
themselves borne by the current a little below the intrenched path,
clambered up the steep hill, staying themselves by the roots and boughs
of the maple and spruce and ash trees that covered the precipitous
declivity, and, after a little firing, dispersed the picket which
guarded the height; the rest ascended safely by the pathway. A battery
of four guns on the left was abandoned to Colonel Howe. When Townshend's
division disembarked, the English had already gained one of the roads to
Quebec; and, advancing in front of the forest, Wolfe stood at daybreak
with his invincible battalions on the Plains of Abraham, the
battle-field of the Celtic and Saxon races.

"It can be but a small party, come to burn a few houses and retire,"
said Montcalm, in amazement as the news reached him in his intrenchments
the other side of the St. Charles; but, obtaining better information,
"Then," he cried, "they have at last got to the weak side of this
miserable garrison; we must give battle and crush them before mid-day."
And, before ten, the two armies, equal in numbers, each being composed
of less than five thousand men, were ranged in presence of one another
for battle. The English, not easily accessible from intervening shallow
ravines and rail fences, were all regulars, perfect in discipline,
terrible in their fearless enthusiasm, thrilling with pride at their
morning's success, commanded by a man whom they obeyed with confidence
and love. The doomed and devoted Montcalm had what Wolfe had called but
"five weak French battalions," of less than two thousand men, "mingled
with disorderly peasantry," formed on commanding ground. The French had
three little pieces of artillery; the English, one or two. The two
armies cannonaded each other for nearly an hour; when Montcalm, having
summoned De Bougainville to his aid, and dispatched messenger after
messenger for De Vaudreuil, who had fifteen hundred men at the camp, to
come up before he should be driven from the ground, endeavored to flank
the British and crowd them down the high bank of the river. Wolfe
counteracted the movement by detaching Townshend with Amherst's
regiment, and afterward a part of the Royal Americans, who formed on the
left with a double front.

Waiting no longer for more troops, Montcalm led the French army
impetuously to the attack. The ill-disciplined companies broke by their
precipitation and the unevenness of the ground; and fired by platoons,
without unity. Their adversaries, especially the Forty-third and the
Forty-seventh, where Monckton stood, of which three men out of four were
Americans, received the shock with calmness; and after having, at
Wolfe's command, reserved their fire till their enemy was within forty
yards, their line began a regular, rapid, and exact discharge of
musketry. Montcalm was present everywhere, braving danger, wounded, but
cheering by his example. The second in command, De Sennezergues, an
associate in glory at Ticonderoga, was killed. The brave but untried
Canadians, flinching from a hot fire in the open field, began to waver;
and, so soon as Wolfe, placing himself at the head of the Twenty-eighth
and the Louisburg grenadiers, charged with bayonets, they everywhere
gave way. Of the English officers, Carleton was wounded; Barre, who
fought near Wolfe, received in the head a ball which made him blind of
one eye, and ultimately of both. Wolfe, also, as he led the charge, was
wounded in the wrist; but still pressing forward, he received a second
ball; and having decided the day, was struck a third time, and mortally,
in the breast. "Support me," he cried to an officer near him; "let not
my brave fellows see me drop." He was carried to the rear, and they
brought him water to quench his thirst. "They run! they run!" spoke the
officer on whom he leaned. "Who run?" asked Wolfe, as his life was fast
ebbing. "The French," replied the officer, "give way everywhere."
"What," cried the expiring hero, "do they run already? Go, one of you,
to Colonel Burton; bid him march Webb's regiment with all speed to
Charles River to cut off the fugitives." Four days before, he had looked
forward to early death with dismay. "Now, God be praised, I die happy."
These were his words as his spirit escaped in the blaze of his glory.
Night, silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the sure
inspiration of genius, had been his allies; his battle-field, high over
the ocean river, was the grandest theatre for illustrious deeds; his
victory, one of the most momentous in the annals of mankind, gave to the
English tongue and the institutions of the Germanic race the unexplored
and seemingly infinite West and South. He crowded into a few hours
actions that would have given lustre to length of life; and, filling his
day with greatness, completed it before its noon.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.

LEXINGTON

From 'History of the United States'

Day came in all the beauty of an early spring. The trees were budding;
the grass growing rankly a full month before its time; the bluebird and
the robin gladdening the genial season, and calling forth the beams of
the sun which on that morning shone with the warmth of summer; but
distress and horror gathered over the inhabitants of the peaceful town.
There on the green lay in death the gray-haired and the young; the
grassy field was red "with the innocent blood of their brethren slain,"
crying unto God for vengeance from the ground.

Seven of the men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded; a quarter part
of all who stood in arms on the green. These are the village heroes, who
were more than of noble blood, proving by their spirit that they were of
a race divine. They gave their lives in testimony to the rights of
mankind, bequeathing to their country an assurance of success in the
mighty struggle which they began. Their names are held in grateful
remembrance, and the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and
multiply their praise from generation to generation. They fulfilled
their duty not from the accidental impulse of the moment; their action
was the slowly ripened fruit of Providence and of time. The light that
led them on was combined of rays from the whole history of the race;
from the traditions of the Hebrews in the gray of the world's morning;
from the heroes and sages of republican Greece and Rome; from the
example of Him who died on the cross for the life of humanity; from the
religious creed which proclaimed the divine presence in man, and on this
truth, as in a life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the dark
flood of the Middle Ages; from the customs of the Germans transmitted
out of their forests to the councils of Saxon England; from the burning
faith and courage of Martin Luther; from trust in the inevitable
universality of God's sovereignty as taught by Paul of Tarsus and
Augustine, through Calvin and the divines of New England; from the
avenging fierceness of the Puritans, who dashed the mitre on the ruins
of the throne; from the bold dissent and creative self-assertion of the
earliest emigrants to Massachusetts; from the statesmen who made, and
the philosophers who expounded, the revolution of England; from the
liberal spirit and analyzing inquisitiveness of the eighteenth century;
from the cloud of witnesses of all the ages to the reality and the
rightfulness of human freedom. All the centuries bowed themselves from
the recesses of the past to cheer in their sacrifice the lowly men who
proved themselves worthy of their forerunners, and whose children rise
up and call them blessed.

Heedless of his own danger, Samuel Adams, with the voice of a prophet,
exclaimed: "Oh, what a glorious morning is this!" for he saw his
country's independence hastening on, and, like Columbus in the tempest,
knew that the storm did but bear him the more swiftly toward the
undiscovered world.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.

WASHINGTON

From 'History of the United States'

Then, on the fifteenth of June, it was voted to appoint a general.
Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, nominated George Washington; and as he had
been brought forward "at the particular request of the people of New
England," he was elected by ballot unanimously.

Washington was then forty-three years of age. In stature he a little
exceeded six feet; his limbs were sinewy and well-proportioned; his
chest broad; his figure stately, blending dignity of presence with ease.
His robust constitution had been tried and invigorated by his early life
in the wilderness, the habit of occupation out of doors, and rigid
temperance; so that few equaled him in strength of arm, or power of
endurance, or noble horsemanship. His complexion was florid; his hair
dark brown; his head in its shape perfectly round. His broad nostrils
seemed formed to give expression and escape to scornful anger. His
eyebrows were rayed and finely arched. His dark-blue eyes, which were
deeply set, had an expression of resignation, and an earnestness that
was almost pensiveness. His forehead was sometimes marked with thought,
but never with inquietude; his countenance was mild and pleasing and
full of benignity.

At eleven years old left an orphan to the care of an excellent but
unlettered mother, he grew up without learning. Of arithmetic and
geometry he acquired just knowledge enough to be able to practice
measuring land; but all his instruction at school taught him not so
much as the orthography or rules of grammar of his own tongue. His
culture was altogether his own work, and he was in the strictest sense a
self-made man; yet from his early life he never seemed uneducated. At
sixteen, he went into the wilderness as a surveyor, and for three years
continued the pursuit, where the forests trained him, in meditative
solitude, to freedom and largeness of mind; and nature revealed to him
her obedience to serene and silent laws. In his intervals from toil, he
seemed always to be attracted to the best men, and to be cherished by
them. Fairfax, his employer, an Oxford scholar, already aged, became his
fast friend. He read little, but with close attention. Whatever he took
in hand he applied himself to with care; and his papers, which have been
preserved, show how he almost imperceptibly gained the power of writing
correctly; always expressing himself with clearness and directness,
often with felicity of language and grace.

When the frontiers on the west became disturbed, he at nineteen was
commissioned an adjutant-general with the rank of major. At twenty-one,
he went as the envoy of Virginia to the council of Indian chiefs on the
Ohio, and to the French officers near Lake Erie. Fame waited upon him
from his youth; and no one of his colony was so much spoken of. He
conducted the first military expedition from Virginia that crossed the
Alleghanies. Braddock selected him as an aid, and he was the only man
who came out of the disastrous defeat near the Monongahela, with
increased reputation, which extended to England. The next year, when he
was but four-and-twenty, "the great esteem" in which he was held in
Virginia, and his "real merit," led the lieutenant-governor of Maryland
to request that he might be "commissioned and appointed second in
command" of the army designed to march to the Ohio; and Shirley, the
commander-in-chief, heard the proposal "with great satisfaction and
pleasure," for "he knew no provincial officer upon the continent to whom
he would so readily give that rank as to Washington." In 1758 he acted
under Forbes as a brigadier, and but for him that general would never
have crossed the mountains.

Courage was so natural to him that it was hardly spoken of to his
praise; no one ever at any moment of his life discovered in him the
least shrinking in danger; and he had a hardihood of daring which
escaped notice, because it was so enveloped by superior calmness
and wisdom.

His address was most easy and agreeable; his step firm and graceful;
his air neither grave nor familiar. He was as cheerful as he was
spirited, frank and communicative in the society of friends, fond of the
fox-chase and the dance, often sportive in his letters, and liked a
hearty laugh. "His smile," writes Chastellux, "was always the smile of
benevolence." This joyousness of disposition remained to the last,
though the vastness of his responsibilities was soon to take from him
the right of displaying the impulsive qualities of his nature, and the
weight which he was to bear up was to overlay and repress his gayety
and openness.

His hand was liberal; giving quietly and without observation, as though
he was ashamed of nothing but being discovered in doing good. He was
kindly and compassionate, and of lively sensibility to the sorrows of
others; so that, if his country had only needed a victim for its relief,
he would have willingly offered himself as a sacrifice. But while he was
prodigal of himself, he was considerate for others; ever parsimonious of
the blood of his countrymen.

He was prudent in the management of his private affairs, purchased rich
lands from the Mohawk valley to the flats of the Kanawha, and improved
his fortune by the correctness of his judgment; but, as a public man, he
knew no other aim than the good of his country, and in the hour of his
country's poverty he refused personal emolument for his service.