le of rousing themselves from the fond reveries of moral
theory, even when the strongest motives are presented to them.
Hamlet hesitates to act, though his father's spirit hath come from
death to incite him; and Sardanapalus derides the achievements that
had raised his ancestors to an equality with the gods.

Thou wouldst have me go
Forth as a conqueror.--By all the stars
Which the Chaldeans read! the restless slaves
Deserve that I should curse them with their wishes
And lead them forth to glory.

Again:

The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur
Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
To dry into the deserts' dust by myriads,
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges,
Nor decimated them with savage laws,
Nor sweated them to build up pyramids
Or Babylonian walls.

The nothingness of kingly greatness and national pride were never
before so finely contemned as by the voluptuous Assyrian, and were
the scorn not mitigated by the skilful intermixture of mercifulness
and philanthropy, the character would not be endurable. But when the
same voice which pronounced contempt on the toils of honour says,

Enough
For me if I can make my subjects feel
The weight of human misery less,

it is impossible to repress the liking which the humane spirit of
that thought is calculated to inspire. Nor is there any want of
dignity in Sardanapalus, even when lolling softest in his luxury.

Must I consume my life--this little life--
In guarding against all may make it less!
It is not worth so much--It were to die
Before my hour to live in dread of death. . . .
Till now no drop of an Assyrian vein
Hath flow'd for me, nor hath the smallest coin
Of Nineveh's vast treasure e'er been lavish'd
On objects which could cost her sons a tear.
If then they hate me 'tis because I hate not,
If they rebel 'tis because I oppress not.

This is imagined in the true tone of Epicurean virtue, and it rises
to magnanimity when he adds in compassionate scorn,

Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres,
And mow'd down like the grass, else all we reap
Is rank abundance and a rotten harvest
Of discontents infecting the fair soil,
Making a desert of fertility.

But the graciousness in the conception of the character of
Sardanapalus, is not to be found only in these sentiments of his
meditations, but in all and every situation in which the character is
placed. When Salamenes bids him no