commanded the

whole fleet to put out, and sailed with it all round the Bay of Naples, steering particularly to those parts of the shore where the danger was greatest, and from whence the affrighted people were endeavouring to escape with the most trepidation.  Thus I happily preserved some thousands of lives, noting at the same time, with an unshaken composure and freedom of mind, the several phenomena of the eruption.  Towards night, as we approached to the foot of Mount Vesuvius, our galleys were covered with ashes, the showers of which grew continually hotter and hotter; then pumice stones and burnt and broken pyrites began to fall on our heads, and we were stopped by the obstacles which the ruins of the volcano had suddenly formed, by falling into the sea and almost filling it up, on that part of the coast.  I then commanded my pilot to steer to the villa of my friend Pomponianus, which, you know, was situated in the inmost recess of the bay.  The wind was very favourable to carry me thither, but would not allow him to put off from the shore, as he was desirous to have done.  We were, therefore, constrained to pass the night in his house.  The family watched, and I slept till the heaps of pumice stones, which incessantly fell from the clouds that had by this time been impelled to that side of the bay, rose so high in the area of the apartment I lay in, that if I had stayed any longer I could not have got out; and the earthquakes were so violent as to threaten every moment the fall of the house.  We, therefore, thought it more safe to go into the open air, guarding our heads as well as we were able with pillows tied upon them.  The wind continuing contrary, and the sea very rough, we all remained on the shore, till the descent of a sulphurous and fiery vapour suddenly oppressed my weak lungs and put an end to my life.  In all this I hope that I acted as the duty of my station required, and with true magnanimity.  But on this occasion, and in many other parts of your conduct, I must say, my dear nephew, there was a mixture of vanity blended with

your virtue which impaired and disgraced it.  Without that you would have been one of the worthiest men whom Rome has over produced, for none excelled you in sincere integrity of heart and greatness of sentiments.  Why would you lose the substance of glory by seeking the shadow?  Your eloquence had, I think, the same fault as your manners; it was generally too affected.  You professed to make Cicero your guide and pattern; but when one reads his Panegyric upon Julius Cæsar, in his Oration for Marcellus, and yours upon Trajan, the first seems the genuine language of truth and Nature, raised and dignified with all the majesty of the most sublime oratory; the latter appears the harangue of a florid rhetorician, more desirous to shine and to set off his own wit than to extol the great man whose virtues he was praising.

Pliny the Younger.—I will not question your judgment either of my life or my writings; they might both have been better if I had not been too solicitous to render them perfect.  It is, perhaps, some excuse for the affectation of my style that it was the fashion of the age in which I wrote.  Even the eloquence of Tacitus, however nervous and sublime, was not unaffected.  Mine, indeed, was more diffuse, and the ornaments of it were more tawdry; but his laboured conciseness, the constant glow of his diction, and pointed brilliancy of his sentences, were no less unnatural.  One principal cause of this I suppose to have been that, as we despaired of excelling the two great masters of oratory, Cicero and Livy, in their own manner, we took up another, which to many appeared more shining, and gave our compositions a more original air; but it is mortifying to me to say much on this subject.  Permit me, therefore, to resume the contemplation of that on which our conversation turned before.  What a direful calamity was the eruption of Vesuvius, which you have been describing?  Don’t you remember the beauty of that fine coast, and of the mountain itself, before it was torn with the violence of those internal

fires, that forced their way through its surface.  The foot of it was covered with cornfields and rich meadows, interspersed with splendid villas and magnificent towns; the sides of it were clothed with the best vines in Italy.  How quick, how unexpected, how terrible was the change!  All was at once overwhelmed with ashes, cinders, broken rocks, and fiery torrents, presenting to the eye the most dismal scene of horror and desolation!

Pliny the Elder.—You paint it very truly.  But has it never occurred to your philosophical mind that this change is a striking emblem of that which must happen, by the natural course of things, to every rich, luxurious state?  While the inhabitants of it are sunk in voluptuousness—while all is smiling around them, and they imagine that no evil, no danger is nigh—the latent seeds of destruction are fermenting within; till, breaking out on a sudden, they lay waste all their opulence, all their boasted delights, and leave them a sad monument of the fatal effects of internal tempests and convulsions.

DIALOGUE VIII.

Fernando Cortez—William Penn.

Cortez.—Is it possible, William Penn, that you should seriously compare your glory with mine?  The planter of a small colony in North America presume to vie with the conqueror of the great Mexican Empire?

Penn.—Friend, I pretend to no glory—the Lord preserve me from it.  All glory is His; but this I say, that I was His instrument in a more glorious work than that performed by thee—incomparably more glorious.

Cortez.—Dost thou not know, William Penn, that with less than six hundred Spanish foot, eighteen horse, and a few small pieces of cannon, I fought and defeated innumerable armies of very brave men; dethroned an emperor who had been raised to the throne by his valour,

and excelled all his countrymen in the science of war, as much as they excelled all the rest of the West Indian nations?  That I made him my prisoner in his own capital; and, after he had been deposed and slain by his subjects, vanquished and took Guatimozin, his successor, and accomplished my conquest of the whole empire of Mexico, which I loyally annexed to the Spanish Crown?  Dost thou not know that, in doing these wonderful acts, I showed as much courage as Alexander the Great, as much prudence as Cæsar?  That by my policy I ranged under my banners the powerful commonwealth of Tlascala, and brought them to assist me in subduing the Mexicans, though with the loss of their own beloved independence? and that, to consummate my glory, when the Governor of Cuba, Velasquez, would have taken my command from me and sacrificed me to his envy and jealousy, I drew from him all his forces and joined them to my own, showing myself as superior to all other Spaniards as I was to the Indians?

Penn.—I know very well that thou wast as fierce as a lion and as subtle as a serpent.  The devil perhaps may place thee as high in his black list of heroes as Alexander or Cæsar.  It is not my business to interfere with him in settling thy rank.  But hark thee, friend Cortez.  What right hadst thou, or had the King of Spain himself, to the Mexican Empire?  Answer me that, if thou canst.

Cortez.—The Pope gave it to my master.

Penn.—The devil offered to give our Lord all the kingdoms of the earth, and I suppose the Pope, as his vicar, gave thy master this; in return for which he fell down and worshipped him, like an idolater as he was.  But