Matthias Corvinus

“ Késmárk is one of the oldest and most important Saxon settlements in the north of Hungary, and became a royal free town at the end of the 13th century, In 1440 it became the seat of the counts of Szepes (Ger., Zips) , and in 1464 it was granted new privileges by King Matthias Corvinus. During the 16th century, together with the other Saxon towns in the Szepes county, it began to lose both its political and commercial importance. It remained a royal free town until 1876. ”

“ Ladislas, shortly before his death, had proposed to send an embassy to Rome for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation, and Calixtus III. had asked of Podiebrad to gratify his vehement desire of seeing Rokyzana, whose high reputation was well known in Rome. Podiebrad, moreover, caused himself to be crowned according to the Roman rite; having no bishop of his own, he{557} borrowed from his son-in-law, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, those of Raab and Bacs, to perform his consecration ”

“ Matthias originally intended him for the Church, but on losing all hope of offspring from his consort Queen Beatrice, determined, towards the end of his life, to make the youth his successor on the throne. He loaded him with honours and riches, till he was by far the wealthiest magnate in the land. ”

“ I part from you, as I have lived with you, in peace,' 'Not so,' replied Corvinus, now purple in the face with fury; 'but-'"
The boy's countenance became crimsoned, his voice quivered, his body trembled, and, half-choked, he sobbed out, "I cannot go on; I dare not tell the rest!"
"I entreat you, for God's sake, and for the love you bear your father's memory," said the mother, placing her hand upon her son's head, "conceal nothing from me. I shall never again have rest if you tell me not all. What further said or did Corvinus?" ”

“ Some have derided Corvinus as a mere gormandiser with an appetite for all kinds of books. Some have blamed him for risking such inestimable treasures upon a dangerous frontier. It is admitted that he worked hard to dispel the thick darkness that surrounded the Hungarian people. He kept thirty scribes continually employed at Buda, besides four permitted to work at Florence by the [83] courtesy of Lorenzo de' Médici. The whole library may be regarded as in some sense a Florentine colony. ”

“ From a distance Corvinus saw the group, and pausing, asked the superintendent the names of those who composed it. He enumerated them readily; then added, "You may as well take that old man, if you like; for he is not worth his keep so far as work goes."
"Thank you," replied Corvinus; "a pretty figure he would cut in the amphitheater. The people are not to be put off with decrepit old creatures, whom a single stroke of a bear's or tiger's paw kills outright. They like to see young blood flowing, and plenty of life struggling against wounds and blows before death comes to decide the contest. ”

“ He did not think it necessary to explain that all the magic he had employed had been to enter as if in attendance upon Madonna Bianca de' Fioravanti, and then to slip silently behind the black arras with which, to serve his purposes of deception, Messer Corvinus hung his walls.
But the magician was not duped. Who makes the image does not worship it. The truth—the precise truth—of magic was known undoubtedly to Corvinus, and it therefore follows that he could not for a moment suppose that the means by which the Duke had gained admittance had been other than perfectly natural ones. ”

“ As in the human body the veins should not swell too high, nor the bones and sinews appear too prominent; but its form is then most graceful, when a pure and temperate blood gives animation [i] to the whole frame; when the muscles have their proper play, and the colour of health is diffused over the several parts. I am not willing to disturb the memory of Corvinus Messala [k] . If he did not reach the graces of modern composition, the defect does not seem to have sprung from choice. The vigour of his genius was not equal to his judgement. ”

“ CXII An exploit of Messalinus, in the first campaign of this war, happy in the issue, as well as resolute in the effort, deserves to be recorded. This man, more noble in spirit than even in birth, most worthy of having Corvinus for his father, and of leaving his surname to his brother Cotta, being appointed to command in Illyricum, and, in a sudden insurrection, being surrounded by an army of the enemy, and having with him only the twentieth legion, which had then but half its complement of men, routed and put to flight a force of twenty thousand ”

“ Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, but it did not suit his cautious intellect to fall in with any prevailing scepticism of his host. Satisfied in his mind that Mateo was concealing something from him, and equally satisfied that he would sooner or later find it out, he grinned diabolically in the face of that worthy man, and sought the meditation of his miraculous couch. ”

“ He had discovered an elixir vitae that preserved him still young and vigorous at the prodigious age of two thousand years, which he claimed to have attained; and another elixir, called Acqua Celeste—a very complex and subtle distillation this—that would reduce an old man's age by fifty years, and restore to him his lost youth.
All this and much more was known to Corvinus the Thrice-Mage, although certain folk of Sadducaic mind have sought to show that the sum of his knowledge concerned the extent to which he could abuse the credulity of his contemporaries and render them his dupes. ”

“ But rare delight breeds ever new desire." Hodgson.
SATIRE XII.
This day, Corvinus, is a more joyful one to me than even my own birthday; [772] in which the festal altar of turf [773] awaits the animals promised to the gods.
To the queen of the gods we sacrifice a snow-white [774] lamb: a similar fleece shall be given to her that combated the Mauritanian [Pg 136] Gorgon. [775] But the victim reserved for Tarpeian Jupiter, shakes, in his wantonness, his long-stretched [776] rope, and brandishes his forehead. Since he is a sturdy calf ”

“ He suggested that he had in youth some skill in imparting knowledge, and might teach a country school. But in case he should die before he arrived at home, he asked that no costly monument should be placed above him, and that a simple stone should bear only this inscription: “Thomas Corwin, born July 29, 1794; died ——. Dearly beloved by his family; universally despised by Democrats; useful in life only to knaves and pretended friends.”
The greatest smoker in Europe died at Rotterdam, and left behind him the most curious of wills. ”

“ The music filled Corbin with desperate longing and regret. It was so truly the translation of his own feelings that he was alternately touched with self-pity and inspired to fresh resolve. It seemed to assure him that love such as his could not endure without some return. It emboldened him to make still another and a final appeal. Mrs. Warriner, with all the other people in the room, was watching Edouard, and so, unobserved, and hidden by the flowers upon the table, Corbin leaned toward Miss Warriner and bent his head close to hers. ”

“ The first proof he had given of this very philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome, whither he betook himself to be consecrated. In crossing the Apennines he was attacked by brigands. They robbed him, but he made no pursuit. And so, encouraged by example and by the impunity of lesser thieves, the greater ones soon took part in the robberies. Amurath seized part of Hungary. Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria, and Frederic consoled himself for these usurpations by repeating the maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure for the losses we suffer. ”

“ Before Corbin entered Harvard Miss Warriner and he had belonged to the same dancing-class. Later she had danced with him at four class-days, and many times between. When he graduated, she had gone abroad with her mother, and he had joined the Somerset Club, and played polo at Pride's Crossing, and talked vaguely of becoming a lawyer, and of re-entering Harvard by the door of the Law School, chiefly, it was supposed, that he might have another year of the football team. He was very young in spirit, very big and athletic, very rich, and without a care or serious thought. ”

“ At the close of the meeting I was requested by the committee in charge to take Mr. Corwin in a buggy to Bucyrus. This I cheerfully did. I noticed that Mr. Corwin was very glum and silent, and to cheer him up I spoke of his speech and of the meeting. He turned upon me, and with some show of feeling, said that all the people who heard him would remember only his jokes, and warned me to keep out of politics and attend to my law. He told me that he knew my father, and was present at his death at Lebanon, where he, Mr. Corwin, lived. ”

“ I spent the 4th of July—that great day in the United States—at Mount Vernon, the estate of Washington, with Miss Lynch, Mr. Andrews, and Mr. Corvin, the senator from Ohio. Mr. Corvin is one of this country's “self-made men:” his father was a poor farmer; and the son enjoyed merely a common school education, but has, through his own means, educated and trained himself till he is one of the most celebrated popular orators; and, what is still more, a universally esteemed politician, against whom nobody has anything to say, excepting that sometimes he is too good. ”

“ Corbin is the rich man of the family—and a very clever fellow is Corbin—clever in every acceptation of the word. I have a very great admiration for his character. We have never seen his baby, but hear much of its beauty and of Nannie's devotion. . . . We are all broken up; but we will not want. The old State, by-and-by, will recuperate, and her sons with her. The transition from slave to free labour will be attended with many inconveniences at first; but we will soon accommodate ourselves to our new condition. The future of the negro is a most interesting problem. ”

“ Corbin, who would have been sought after as a chaperone, and who would have stood up in her cart when he played polo and shouted at him across the field to “ride him off.”
Miss Warriner, on the contrary, was much older than he in everything but years, and was conscious of the fact. She was a serious, self-centred young person, and satisfied with her own thoughts, unless her companion gave her better ones. She concerned herself with the character and ideas of her friends. If a young man lacked ideas, the fact that he possessed wealth and good manners could not save him. ”

“ He encountered Corbigny in the vast stone kitchen, at table with the persons of his household. These consisted of his elderly steward, Fougereot, the latter's wife, their two stalwart sons and a plump, comely young woman euphoniously named Filomène, who was responsible for the domestic comforts of the impoverished nobleman. Corbigny, himself, a man of thirty, fitted into his environment as if made for it. In dress he was almost a peasant, in dignity and courtesy a gentleman, whilst in speech and in countenance, with his lofty brow and sombre wistful eyes, he suggested the scholar and poet. ”

“ Never before this time did any barbarian or Greek devise such a plan against his enemies nor, do I fancy, will another such ever be seen in our lifetime. When he reached Corfu, it was as if he had reached some mountain ridge and peak of refuge in this Corfu, and was now safe, so he arose from the dead and left the corpse-bearing coffin there and basked in more sunlight and breathed purer air and wandered about the town of Corfu. And the inhabitants seeing him in his foreign and barbaric garb asked his lineage and his fortune, and who he was, whence he came and to whom he was going. ”

“ I assure you, citizen, that the gravest consequences might follow upon an unsubstantiated attack upon Corbigny. In Poussignot all know the stalwart republicanism of his principles; all know the unpretentious simplicity of his existence, and all love him. That is not a man to be lightly accused. For your own sake, Citizen-Representative, and for ours, you would do well to be fully armed with particulars of Corbigny's incivisme before you demand of us his arrest.”
If the argument did not suffice to turn Chauvinière from his purpose, it sufficed to make him temporize. ”

“ Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
14 ¶ [146] And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand:
15 There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. ”

“ After all, I don’t think Corvino cared for the carbonero’s daughter. It was only a short-lived fancy, because the girl showed sweet upon him. This of the sindico’s chicken is a very different affair; for I know he’s fond of going in that direction, and shouldn’t wonder if we get into danger by it. Danger or no danger, he’ll have her sooner or later, take my word for it.”
“I don’t wonder at his fancy; she a sweet-looking girl. One likes her all the better for being so proud upon it.”
“Her pride will have a fall, once Corvino gets her in his clutches. ”