bility to
divide exactly the seventy years of the Jewish captivity among the
successive kings of Babylon. Had he been not merely a disciple of the
great scholars of his age, but himself a pioneer, his dissertations and
conclusions would equally have been drowned in the flood of later
knowledge. His information is become superannuated. The metaphysical
subtleties which he loved to introduce no longer delight or surprise.
With all this there is much in the work which can never be obsolete, or
cease to interest and charm. He himself is always near at hand,
sometimes in front. He does not shun to be discerned in the evening of a
tempestuous life, crippled with wounds aching and uncured. He does not
repress, he hails, opportunities for sallying outside his subject. He is
easily tempted to tell of the tactics by which the Armada was
vanquished, and how the battle might have had another issue had Howard
been misled by malignant fools that found fault. He recollects how he
won Fayal. He pauses in his narrative of Alexander's victories to
glorify English courage. He does homage to the invincible constancy of
Spain, and avows her right to all its rewards, if she would 'but not
hinder the like virtue in others.' The story suddenly gleams with
flashes of natural eloquence and insight. Nowhere is there stagnation.
His characters are very human, and very dramatic. King Artaxerxes is
shown wearing a manly look when half a mile off, till the Greeks, for
whom the bravery was not meant, espied his golden eagle, and drew rudely
near. Queen Jezebel is visible and audible, with her paint, which more
offended the dogs' paunches than her scolding tongue troubled the ears
of Jehu, struggling in vain with base grooms, who contumeliously did
hale and thrust her. There Demetrius revels, discovering at length in
luxurious captivity the happiness he had convulsed the world with
travail and bloodshed to attain. Pyrrhus is painted to the life, flying
from one adventure to another, which was indeed the disease he had,
whereof not long after he died in Argos. Characters are drawn with an
astonishing breadth, depth, and decision. Nothing in Tacitus surpasses
the epitaph on Epaminondas, the worthiest man that ever was bred in that
nation of Greece. Everywhere are happy expressions, with wisdom beneath.
It is a history for the nurture of virtuous citizens and generous kings,
for the confusion of sensuality and selfishness.

[Sidenote: _The Moral._]

The