f
Alexander; he set out in a great undertaking to civilise mankind; he
delivered the vast continent of Asia from the stupidity and degradation
of the Persian monarchy: and, though he was cut off in the midst of his
career, we may easily perceive the vast effects of his project. Grecian
literature and cultivation, the Seleucidae, the Antiochuses, and the
Ptolemies followed, in nations which before had been sunk to the
condition of brutes. Alexander was the builder, as notoriously as the
destroyer, of cities."

"And yet, sir, I am afraid that the pike and the battle-axe are not the
right instruments for making men wise. Suppose it were admitted that
the lives of men were to be sacrificed without remorse if a paramount
good were to result, it seems to me as if murder and massacre were but a
very left-handed way of producing civilisation and love. But pray, do
not you think this great hero was a sort of a madman? What now will you
say to his firing the palace of Persepolis, his weeping for other worlds
to conquer, and his marching his whole army over the burning sands of
Libya, merely to visit a temple, and persuade mankind that he was the
son of Jupiter Ammon?"

"Alexander, my boy, has been much misunderstood. Mankind have revenged
themselves upon him by misrepresentation, for having so far eclipsed the
rest of his species. It was necessary to the realising his project, that
he should pass for a god. It was the only way by which he could get a
firm hold upon the veneration of the stupid and bigoted Persians. It was
this, and not a mad vanity, that was the source of his proceeding. And
how much had he to struggle with in this respect, in the unapprehending
obstinacy of some of his Macedonians?"

"Why then, sir, at last Alexander did but employ means that all
politicians profess to use, as well as he. He dragooned men into wisdom,
and cheated them into the pursuit of their own happiness. But what is
worse, sir, this Alexander, in the paroxysm of his headlong rage, spared
neither friend nor foe. You will not pretend to justify the excesses of
his ungovernable passion. It is impossible, sure, that a word can be
said for a man whom a momentary provocation can hurry into the
commission of murders--"

The instant I had uttered these words, I felt what it was that I had
done. There was a magnetical sympathy between me and my patron, so that
their effect was not sooner produced upon him, than my own mind
reproached me with the