its place, but to change its condition; of a people whose condition becomes extended and ameliorated. The idea of progression, of development, seems to me to be the fundamental idea contained in the word civilization.

What is this progression ? What is this development? Here lies the greatest difficulty we have to encounter.

The etymology of the word seems to answer in a clear and satisfactory manner, it tells us that it means the perfecting of civil life, the development of society properly so called, of the relations of men among themselves.

Such is in fact the first idea that offers itself to the minds of men, when they utter the word civilization: they directly think of the extension, the greatest activity, and the best organization of all social relations; on one hand an increasing production of means of power and prosperity in society; on the other, a more equal distribution, among individuals, of the power and prosperity produced.

Is this all?

Have we exhausted the natural and common meaning of the word civilization? Does it contain nothing more?

This is almost as if we asked: is the human species after all merely an ant-hill, a society where it is merely a question of order and prosperity, where the greater the amount of work done, and the more equitable the division of the fruits of that work, the more the aim is attained, and the progress accomplished?

The instinct of men repels so limited a definition of human destiny. It appears, at the first view, that the word civilization comprehends something more extended, more complex, superior to the mere perfection of social relations, of social power, and prosperity.

Facts, public opinion, the generally received meaning of the term, agree with this instinct.

Take Rome in the prosperous time of the republic, after the second Punic war, at the moment of her greatest power, when she was marching to the conquest of the world, when her social state was evidently progressing. Then take Rome under Augustus, at the time when her fall commenced, at least when the progressive movement of society was arrested, when evil principles were on the point of prevailing. Yet there is no one who does not think and does not say that the Rome of Augustus was more civilized than the Rome of Fabricius or of Cincinnatus.

Let us go elsewhere; let us take the France of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: it is evident, in a social point of view, that as to the amount and distribution of prosperity among individuals, the France of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was inferior to some other countries of Europe, to Holland, and to England, for example. I think that in Holland and in England social activity was greater, was increasing more rapidly, and distributing its fruits better than in France. Yet, consult the judgment of men; that will tell you that France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the most civilized country of Europe. Europe has not hesitated in answering this question. We find traces of this public opinion respecting France in all the monuments of European literature.

We could point out many other states where prosperity is greater, increases more rapidly, and is better divided among individuals than elsewhere, and yet where, by spontaneous instinct, in the judgment of men, the civilization is considered inferior to that of other countries whose purely social relations are not so well regulated.

What is to be said? What do these countries possess, what gives them this privileged right to the name of civilized, which compensates so largely, in the opinion of men, for what they want in other respects?

Another development, besides that of social life, is in them strikingly manifested; the development of individual life, of internal life, the development of man himself, of his faculties, of his sentiments, of his ideas. If society is more imperfect than

homely habitation, and determined to pass the night under the protection of the old cottager, who gave him to understand that her husband, who was a faggot-maker, had gone to the next town to dispose of his merchandise; and that, in all probability, he would not return till next morning, on account of the tempestuous night. Ferdinand sounded the beldame with a thousand artful interrogations, and she answered with such appearance of truth and simplicity, that he concluded his person was quite secure, and, after having been regaled with a dish of eggs and bacon, desired she would conduct him into the chamber where she proposed he should take his repose. He was accordingly ushered up by a sort of ladder into an apartment furnished with a standing bed, and almost half filled with trusses of straw. He seemed extremely well pleased with his lodging, which in reality exceeded his expectation and his kind landlady, cautioning him against letting the candle approach the combustibles, took her leave, and locked the door on the outside.

Fathom, whose own principles taught him to be suspicious, and ever upon his guard against the treachery of his fellow-creatures, could have dispensed with this instance of her care, in confining her guest to her chamber, and began to be seized with strange fancies, when he observed that there was no bolt on the inside of the door, by which he might secure himself from intrusion. In consequence of these suggestions, he proposed to take an accurate survey of every object in the apartment, and, in the course of his inquiry, had the mortification to find the dead body of a man, still warm, who had been lately stabbed, and concealed beneath several bund of straw.

Such a discovery could not fail to fill the breast of our hero with unspeakabl、 horror; for he concluded that he himself would undergo the same fate before morning, without the interposition of a miracle in his favour. In the first transports of his dread, he ran to the window, with a view to escape by that outlet, and found his flight effectually obstructed by divers strong bars of iron. Then his heart began to palpitate, his hair to bristle up, and his knees to totter; his thoughts teemed with passages of death and destruction; his conscience rose up in judgment against him, and he underwent a severe paroxysm of dismay and distraction. His spirits were agitated into a state of fermentation that produced a species of resolųtion akin to that which is inspired by brandy or other strong liquors, and, by an impulse that seemed supernatural, he was immediately hurried into measures for his own preservation.

What upon a less interesting occasion his imagination durst not propose, he now executed without scruple or remorse. He undressed the corpse that lay bleeding among the straw, and, conveying it to the bed in his arms, deposited it in the attitude of a person who sleeps at his ease; then he extinguished the light, took possession of the place from whence the body had been removed, and, holding a pisto. ready cocked in each hand, waited for the sequel with that determined purpose which is often the immediate production of despair. About midnight he heard the sound of feet ascending the ladder; the door was softly opened; he saw the shadow of two men stalking towards the bed, a dark lanthorn being unshrouded. directed their aim to the supposed sleeper, and he that held it thrust a poniard to his heart : the force of the blow made a compression on the chest, and a sort of groan issued from the windpipe of the defunct; the stroke was repeated, without producing a repetition of the note, so that the assassins concluded the work was effectually done, and retired for the present with a design to return and rifle the deceased at their leisure.

Never had our hero spent a moment in such agony as he felt during this operation; the whole surface of his body was covered with a cold sweat, and his nerves were relaxed with an universal palsy. In short, he remained in a trance that, in all

probability, contributed to his safety; for, had he retained the use of his senses, he might have been discovered by the transports of his fear. The first use he made of his retrieved recollection was to perceive that the assassins had left the door open in their retreat, and he would have instantly availed himself of this their neglect, by sallying out upon them at the hazard of his life, had he not been restrained by a conversation he overheard in the room below, importing that the ruffians were going to set out upon another expedition, in hopes of finding more prey. They accordingly departed, after having laid strong injunctions upon the old woman to keep the door fast locked during their absence; and Ferdinand took his resolution without farther delay. So soon as, by his conjecture, the robbers were at a sufficient distance from the house, he rose from his lurking-place, moved softly towards the bed, and rummaging the pockets of the deceased, found a purse well stored with ducats, of which, together with a silver watch and a diamond ring, he immediately possessed himself without scruple; then, descending with great care and circumspection into the lower apartment, stood before the old beldame, before she had the least intimation of his approach.

Accustomed as she was to the trade of blood, the hoary hag did not behold this apparition without giving signs of infinite terror and astonishment, believing it was no other than the spirit of her second guest, who had been murdered; she fell upon her knees and began to recommend herself to the protection of the saints, crossing herself with as much devotion as if she had been entitled to the particular care and attention of Heaven. Nor did her anxiety abate, when she was undeceived in this her supposition, and understood it was no phantom, but the real substance of the stranger, who, without staying to upbraid her with the enormity of her crimes, commanded her, on pain of immediate death, to produce his horse, to which being conducted, he set her upon the saddle without delay, and, mounting behind, invested her with the management of the reins, swearing, in a most peremptory tone, that the only chance she had for her life was in directing him safely to the next town; and that, so soon as she should give him the least cause to doubt her fidelity in the performance of that task, he would on the instant act the part of her executioner.

This declaration had its effects upon the withered Hecate, who, with many supplications for mercy and forgiveness, promised to guide him in safety to a certain village at the distance of two leagues, where he might lodge in security, and be provided with a fresh horse, or other convenience, for pursuing his intended route. On these conditions he told her she might deserve his clemency; and they accordingly took their departure together, she being placed astride upon the saddle, holding the bridle in one hand, and a switch in the other; and our adventurer sitting on the crupper, superintending her conduct, and keeping the muzzle of a pistol close at her ear. In this equipage they travelled across part of the same wood in which his guide had forsaken him; and it is not to be supposed that he passed his time in the most agreeable reverie, while he found himself involved in the labyrinth of those shades, which he considered as the haunts of robbery and assassination.

Common fear was a comfortable sensation to what he felt in this excursion. The first steps he had taken for his preservation were the effects of mere instinct, while his faculties were extinguished or suppressed by despair; but now, as his reflection began to recur, he was haunted by the most intolerable apprehensions. Every whisper of the wind through the thickets was swelled into the hoarse menaces of murder, the shaking of the boughs was construed into the brandishing of poniards, and every shadow of a tree became the apparition of a ruffian eager for blood. short, at each of these occurrences he felt what was infinitely more tormenting than the stab of a real dagger; and, at every fresh fillip of his fear, he acted as a remem

In

brancer to his conductress, in a new volley of imprecations, importing that her life was absolutely connected with his opinion of his own safety.

Human nature could not longer subsist under such complicated terror. At last he found himself clear of the forest, and was blessed with the distant view of an inhabited place. He then began to exercise his thoughts upon a new subject. He debated with himself, whether he should make a parade of his intrepidity and public spirit, by disclosing his achievement, and surrendering his guide to the penalty of the law; or leave the old hag and her accomplices to the remorse of their own consciences, and proceed quietly on his journey to Paris in undisturbed possession of the prize he had already obtained. This last step he determined to take, upon recollecting that, in the course of his information, the story of the murdered stranger would infallibly attract the attention of justice, and, in that case, the effects he had borrowed from the defunct must be refunded for the benefit of those who had a right to the succession. This was an argument which our adventurer could not resist; he foresaw that he should be stripped of his acquisition, which he looked upon as the fair fruits of his valour and sagacity; and, moreover, be detained as an evidence against the robbers, to the manifest detriment of his affairs. Perhaps, too, he had motives of conscience, that dissuaded him from bearing witness against a set of people whose principles did not much differ from his own.

Influenced by such considerations, he yielded to the first importunity of the beldame, whom he dismissed at a very small distance from the village, after he had earnestly exhorted her to quit such an atrocious course of life, and atone for her past crimes, by sacrificing her associates to the demands of justice. She did not fail to vow a perfect reformation, and to prostrate herself before him for the favour she had found; then she betook herself to her habitation, with full purpose of advising her fellow murderers to repair with all dispatch to the village, and impeach our hero, who, wisely distrusting her professions, stayed no longer in the place than to hire a guide for the next stage, which brought him to the city of Chalonssur-Marne.

80.-SCENE FROM OLD FORTUNATUS.

DEKKER.

[THOMAS DEKKER, or DECKER, was one of the numerous band of dramatists that belong to the Shaksperian æra. The exact time of his birth and death is not known. Between Dekker and Ben Jonson there was a fearful feud, and they each satirized the other on the public stage. There is much vigour and dramatic force, with, occasionally, very beautiful poetry, in many of Dekker's plays. Like several of his contemporary dramatists he wrote many plays in union with other writers. The drama of Old Fortunatus' is founded upon the story of Fortunatus's purse; it is very extravagant in parts; but the opening scene is a favourable specimen of the author's power. It commences with the entrance of a Gurdener, a Smith, a Monk, a Shepherd, all crowned; a Nymph with a Globe, another with Fortune's Wheel, then Fortune: after her four Kings with broken Crowns and Sceptres, chained in Silver Gyves, and led by her. The first four come out singing; the four Kings lie down at the feet of Fortune, who treads on their Bodies as she ascends her Chair. After the Kings have uttered laments of her cruelty, and the others have celebrated her might, she selects Fortunatus as the object of her capricious bounty.]

Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches;

Out of my bounty, one of these is thine,

Choose then which likes thee best.

Fort. Oh, most divine!

Jive me but leave to borrow wonder's eye,

To look, amazed, at thy bright majesty.

Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches?
For. Before thy soul (at this deep lottery)
Draw forth her prize, ordained by destiny,
Know that here's no recanting a first choice:
Choose then discreetly (for the laws of Fate
Being graven in steel, must stand inviolate).

Fort. Daughters of Jove and the unblemish'd Night,
Most righteous Parcæ, guide my genius right!
Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches?
For. Stay, Fortunatus, once more hear me speak;

If thou kiss wisdom's cheek and make her thine,

She 'll breathe into thy lips divinity,

And thou, like Phoebus, shalt speak oracle;

Thy heaven-inspired soul, on wisdom's wings,
Shall fly up to the parliament of Jove,

And read the statutes of eternity,

And see what's past, and learn what is to come:

If thou lay claim to strength, armies shall quake
To see thee frown; as kings at mine do lie,

So shall thy feet trample on empery:

Make health thine object, thou shalt be strong proof, 'Gainst the deep searching darts of surfeiting;

Be ever merry, ever revelling:

Wish but for beauty, and within thine eyes

Two naked Cupids amorously shall swim,

And on thy cheeks I'll mix such white and red,
That Jove shall turn away young Ganymede
And with immortal hands shall circle thee:
Are thy desires long life? thy vital thread

Shall be stretched out; thou shalt behold the change
Of monarchies; and see those children die
Whose great-great grandsires now in cradles lie:
If through gold's sacred* hunger thou dost pine;
Those gilded wantons, which in swarms do run
To warm their slender bodies in the sun,
Shall stand for number of those golden piles,
Which in rich piles shall swell before thy feet;
As those are, so shall these be infinite.
Awaken then thy soul's best faculties,

And gladly kiss this bounteous hand of Fate,

Which strives to bless thy name of Fortunate.

Kings. Old man, take heed! her smiles will murder thee.
The others. Old man, she'll crown thee with felicity.
Fort. Oh, whither am I wrapt beyond myself?

More violent conflicts fight in every thought,

Than his, whose fatal choice Troy's downfall wrought.
Shall I contract myself to wisdom's love?

Then I lose riches; and a wise man, poor,

Is like a sacred book that's never read,

To himself he lives, and to all else seems dead:

Sacra is used in the sense of the "Auri sacra fames" of Virgil,