Arthur Thomas Malkin

“ Vienna has been twice besieged by a Turkish army, and even so recently as the year 1683 owed her deliverance, when abandoned by her sovereign and in the extremity of distress, to the military talents of Sobieski, King of Poland, and the bravery of his subjects. The celebrated battle fought under the very walls of that capital is memorable as having finally delivered Europe from all fear of the Mahometan powers. Austria, since that period, has but ill discharged the debt of gratitude which she contracted under the walls of Vienna! ”

“ Themistocles’ property, when he entered on public life, was valued at three talents; when he fled to Persia his effects were confiscated to the value of eighty or one hundred talents, and yet it is said that his friends saved the greater part, and remitted them into Asia to him. Yet who dare avow that he would choose the wealth and fate of Themistocles in preference to the honourable poverty of Aristides? who, that is not entirely devoted to wealth, could even feel such a preference? ”

“ Few Athenians had recourse to any species of labour, except military service, to gain a subsistence. Of those who had no means, the number, the just claims, and the expectations were alike increased by the Persian invasion; and the events which followed it, first a long and profitable war, secondly the consecutive administrations of Cimon and Pericles, who lavished, the one his own, the other the national resources, to keep the poor in good humour, were well calculated to foster their natural dislike to labour, and equally natural desire to enjoy the produce of other men’s industry. ”

“ One might suppose that the spirit of Leopold had descended on all Austrian statesmen. Within a century of the triumphal entry of Sobieski into Vienna, Poland ceased to be an independent kingdom, and the co-operation of Austria was rewarded with a third of her spoils. It seems vain to expect gratitude in international dealings; yet we might almost have supposed that the recollection of the deliverance of Vienna would have deterred Austria from sharing in so unprovoked and profligate an injustice. The situation and the policy of Europe have altered strangely since the period of which we speak. ”

“ The speedy burial of the dead is commonly one of the great difficulties in time of pestilence. Here it was little felt. There was a class of men called Monatti, professed attendants on the plague, and ever ready for, and rejoicing in the most dangerous and disgusting services. Ripamonte speaks of them as a class well known to everybody, and passes in silence over the origin of the name, and the nature of the reward which tempted, or the tie, whether hereditary or other, which bound them to so desperate a service: curious points on which we have failed to procure information elsewhere. ”

“ The Athenians met their enemy fearlessly, and beat him thoroughly, and they were rewarded for it by obtaining an eminence in war, in literature, in art, and in glory, unequalled and incomparable, considering their population and extent of land. Those more especially who fought and fell in this battle, have their reward in the deathless fame which waits upon their victory. ”

“ The Greeks have long been considered a degraded race: the more civilized, and especially the trading part of them, proverbially mean and dishonest; the mountaineers possessed of the few and capricious virtues, together with the many vices, of barbarians. The time for these general charges is now at an end. From henceforth Greece, we trust, will again rank among the independent nations of Europe: it depends on herself whether she will merit the affection and sympathy which the recollection of her former splendour and long suffering inspires. ”

“ A large body of cavalry, consisting entirely of nobles, who were emulous to achieve the reduction of the Swiss peasants without the aid of the infantry, bore the most formidable aspect. Among all the chiefs none was more conspicuous than Duke Leopold, at that time five-and-thirty years of age; manly, high-minded, full of martial ardour, elate with former victories, revengeful, and eager for the combat. ”

“ A pestilence succeeded to the famine, and carried off in a few weeks some thousands of the inhabitants. Those who survived, overwhelmed with anguish at the dismal scenes which they daily beheld, were scarcely able to perform the mournful office of burying the dead. In this dreadful situation they saw from their walls the flags and sails of the vessels destined for their relief, but had the mortification to perceive that it was utterly impossible for them to approach. ”

“ About this time a pestilence occurred, which almost put an end to the human race. Now it is always probable that daring men will propose some reason to explain those things which come down on us direct from heaven, as persons skilled in such matters love to deal in wonderful causes beyond man’s discovery, and to shape strange schemes of natural philosophy; knowing that what they utter is not sound, but satisfied if they can cheat the vulgar into believing it. But for this particular calamity we can in no way account, either in word or thought, except by referring it to God. ”

“ It is only in cases of clear and unjustifiable oppression, where power has been exerted to the utmost to crush right, where men careless of death in comparison of oppression, weak in numbers, and confident only in the strength of their arms and the goodness of their cause, have met and overthrown the numerous forces of their enemy, that we can fully sympathize with the victor’s triumph. ”

“ To have enough of bread, or of any thing else, was difficult, and was considered a great privilege, so that it was thought that some sick persons met with an untimely end for want of necessaries. To sum up, no robes of state were to be seen in Constantinople, especially while the Emperor himself was ill; but in a city where the court of the whole Roman empire was held, all persons dressed like private men, and remained at home. Such was the course of the pestilence in Constantinople and throughout the empire: it also fell upon the Persians and all other barbarians. ”

“ In this season of the deadly pestilence, Pope Clement VI. made great general indulgences of the punishment of all sins to those who on repentance and confession requested it of their confessors, and died; and in this mortality every Christian, thinking that he was dying, set himself well in order, and with much contrition and repentance they gave up their souls to God. And the few wise men who remained alive expected many things, which through the corruption of sin, turned out otherwise, the very contrary most marvellously coming to pass. ”

“ No claim to public gratitude ought to be allowed to screen a public delinquent from detection; when guilt is proved, past services may fitly be alleged in mitigation or remission of punishment. But we cannot implicitly believe in this virtuous indignation; and are inclined to suspect that if Miltiades had returned with one hundred talents, he would have heard nothing of prosecution, and that the failure, not the attack upon Paros, was the true grievance. During a siege of twenty-six days there was abundant time to recall the fleet, if the enterprise had been disapproved. ”

“ The Athenians, feeling their strength, became haughtier in their conduct, and more harsh in enforcing the same services which grew to be less punctually rendered. Hence rose wars with the defaulters, in which, Athens uniformly prevailing, the fleet of the conquered city was taken from it, and a heavier tribute levied: and since every such contest brought fresh power and wealth to the predominant state, and diminished the resources which could be at the command of any combination among its dependants, Athens, from the leader, became the mistress of her allies. ”

“ To paint this more forcibly, they drew the picture of a tyranny, where the unjust man was in the highest state of felicity, the voluntarily just in the lowest state of depression; and they proved that the former, though outraging every rule of humanity, was loaded with praises, not only those who were conscious of his crimes, but even those who had suffered by them, considering him as a happy man; for if injustice, added they, is ever blamed, the blame proceeds not from the fear of committing it, but from the fear of suffering by it. ”

“ Men of Berne, sons of the conquerors of Laupen, we are now involved in great difficulties; the power of Austria, to which Zuric has basely surrendered, bears hard upon us; numbers of ours have perished within these few days, and our enemies expect great reinforcements from distant parts. We may be overpowered. Dear trusty Confederates, Need is the test of friendship.” [37] The name and recollection of Laupen had power to overrule the suggestions of prudence; the required succours were sent, and the Swiss were victorious. ”

“ Men seek not so fondly to be restored even in death to their native land, when they have deliberately resolved on subjecting it to the miseries of conquest by a foreign, in Grecian language, a barbarian race. That he had so far temporised with Pausanias as to give the Spartans plausible ground for their accusation is probable, and consistent with the tortuous policy which, unfortunately for his glory in honest men’s eyes, he always pursued. ”

“ Mardonius wintered in Thessaly, but, early in the spring, he sent ambassadors to detach, if possible, Athens from the Grecian cause. Xerxes, he said, had ordered him to announce that their offences should be fully forgiven, their territory restored, and increased by any other which they might choose, their temples rebuilt, and their independence secured, if they would only make submission to the king. “Why then,” he added, “are you so frenzied as to continue a war, in which you cannot conquer, nor yet resist for ever? ”

“ The next day, the 23rd of June, the Turks, at daybreak, came on to the assault with great shouts, as if they were going to a victory which it would be impossible to dispute with them. But the Christian soldiers defended themselves with invincible bravery; one would have thought that the certainty of an approaching death which they were to share in common with the knights, had put them on the same level with respect to courage. They advanced to meet the enemy with as much intrepidity as if they had beaten them, and such as could not walk fired on the enemy with their pieces ”

“ By this a man may appreciate the courage of those who met the power of the barbarians at Marathon, and chastised the insolent presumption of all Asia, and there first erected trophies over the barbarians; becoming thus examples and masters to prove the might of Persia not invincible, and show that all multitude and riches yield to valour. ”

“ Justice therefore they considered as the medium between the greatest of blessings, that of committing wrong with impunity, and the greatest evil, which consists in not being able to revenge an injury received; and hence, according to them, was derived the common attachment to justice, not as being a blessing in itself, but because persons being in a capacity to hurt others, oblige them to consider it as such; for he, they continued, who has power in his hands, and is really a man, would never submit to such a convention: it would indeed be complete folly to do so. ”

“ The consequences of this scarcity were soon evident in the vast number of persons without employment or means of subsistence, who were congregated in the streets of Milan. It was the pernicious fashion of that time for the gentry to maintain a number of idle and dissolute followers—men regardless of obligations human or divine, who owned no law except their master’s will, chosen and valued for their readiness to undertake and dexterity to execute his orders, alike unmindful of their guilt or danger. ”

“ But before we pass entirely from this subject, it will be well briefly to relate the further fortunes of those men to whom Athens owed, not only her greatness, but her existence.
The battle of Marathon raised Miltiades to the height of popularity. He availed himself of it to request an armament of ninety ships, with troops and money, not stating the object of his expedition to his countrymen, but merely promising to enrich them, if they would follow him, for that he would lead them to a land whence they should bring home gold without end. ”

“ His son, Cambyses, reduced such parts of Egypt and of Libya as were accessible; and the third, Darius, by land extended the boundary of his empire to Scythia, and with his fleet commanded both the sea and the islands, so that no man deemed himself equal to contend with him. The very minds of all men were enslaved, so many, so great, and so warlike nations had the Persian empire subdued. ”

“ It will be in our power to let in the inundation where we please. We shall see the enemy strangely astonished and confused between the shame of abandoning the siege and the horror of continuing it. But being forced at last to fly, we shall see our own weapons and those of nature conspire together in slaughtering them on all sides ”

“ And many men and women, influenced by this reasoning, and caring for nothing but themselves, abandoned their own cities, their own houses, their habitations, and their relations, and their property, and went to other men’s country establishments, or at least to their own: as if the anger of God, when stirred up to punish the iniquity of men with this pestilence, would not follow them wherever they were, but had only determined to destroy those who were to be found within the walls of their city ”