The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-29

hlllu Ol QSCidlildIuiy lulIklllS, OIe Ol ! the numerous writers who have dwelt on the traits of MT. Gladstone has hit l the mark, I believe, in attributing to him, as an ingrained quality, the pas sion of the orator. Eminent as his tal- ents were and versatile his acquire ments, there lay in this rare gift a snare. D'Israeli's sarcasm, that he was | inebriated by his own eXuberant vo- | cabulary- an ungracious remark for a i political rival to make--is clever as a caricature. Historical writers may be 1 carried away by their own fluency. It is pity for painter to have on his palette only two colors, white and 1 black. How Macaulay delights to pelt l the men whom he sets in his pillory. How, for example, he inveighs against l Cranmer! One feels that he would twit l St. Peter with his timidity that he showed in the judgment-hall of Gaia phas. In a few lines, Ranke furnishes the key to Cranmers characteristic 1 source of his weakness and of his ca l pacity for service along with it. With many excellent traits, he was one of those natures. not bad in themselves, | that need backing and lack the pow CT to breast masterful will. But after a retreat there was left in him always 1 the mind to rally, and thus to save the ! cause to which in his inmost heart he i was committed. Where the rhetorical 1 turn of mind prevails other tenden
 cies, of course, may help to foster the l spirit of exaggeration--a spirit that is 1 apt to show itself in unbridled invec- 1 tive. There may be an almost savage in | tn1a1-o of nf bor anta i formed to the authors favorite type. I will refer for an illustration to the wholesale disparagement of Cicero now ! somewhat common, especially among 1 the idolaters of Julius Caesar Even Mommsen has set an example that writers of less distinction have not been slow to follow: He was valiant" writes Mommsen, "in opposition to sham attacks" By nature he had the talent of a journalist in the worst sense of the term" He is declared to be de- ! spicable as statesman, and as an au- ! thor to be nothing but a dexterous sty- | list-with much more in the same vein. ' If 1 might venture to express my own 1 feeling, should say of this passage of ! Mommsen himself, that 1t illustrates i the manner of "a journalist in the worst sense of the term" A far more fair and dispassionate view of Cicero is to be found on the pages of lime. The fotbles of Cicero are apparent enough, l for he has laid bare in his correspond ence, as none of his contemporaries have done respecting themselves, his inmost thoughts and feelings He has himself depicted his varying moods | with inc of is from Cicero himself that we learn that he kept silence at sessions of the senate, lest, when it adjourned, Caesar should dun him for borrowed money
 Yet, when all is said that can be sad
 we always feel, as NJiebuhr expresses it, that Cicero's failings are the faults of a friend. He was a more modern man in the type of his culture than any other of the encients If he vacillated in the contests between Caesar and Pompey it was for the reason given in his own letter to Atticus Tt is the consideration of my duty that distracts me, and has from the beginning" He clung to the republic, yet feared that the success of its champion would be followed by a repetition of the cruel ties of Sulla. Richard Baxter said, in defense of himself. that when he re- membered who 1t was that said "Bless- ed are peace-makers, he was willing to be called a trimmer Cicero was bent on peace as long as the least hope re- mained that peace could be preserved
 As for the inordinate hunger for fame, now and then there was one, like the great Stoic Marcus Aurelius who was not possessed with it. But the passion for glory, and especially for posthum- ous fame-a passion checked in the Middle Ages by the influence of Christi ianity--ran to excess in the great men of antiquity.
 Room, even in a brief catalogue of misleading influences must be given to special temptation-the delight in paradox. In travelling over ground al- ready trodden by numerous predeces- sors, the desire springs up to say something novel, and ambition to ex- hibit an original view. Some fresh theory must be invented. This will ex- plain often attempts to silver over characters doomed, and justly So, to in 1 fanny. Sensationalism is not a tempta- tion of preachers alone. It invades our department as well as other provinces
 We see the maxim verified, that there is no one without a friend A number of ingenious attempts have been made
 to vindicate the character of Judas Is- cariot. DeQuincy is one of those who have tried to show that the motive of Judas in the betrayal of his Master was
 to compel Him to a public and trium- phant declaration of His Messiahship
 These intrepid apologists are somewhat embarrassed by the circumstance of the
 thirty pieces of silver, and by the
 statement in one of the documentary sources: This he said, not because he cared for the poor, but because he had the bag and bare what was put therein
 The English Reformation had long beer pretty familiar ground. Its leaders
 were pretty well understood. Unless 8 revolutionary hypothesis could be start
 ed it was not so easy to captivate readers. I am 10th to say that delib-
 crate motive of this sort actuated that
 master of the literary art MT. Froude
 It is, however, hard to account for the
 manner in which he has dealt with evi-
 dence. and hardly less for the incon- sistencies in his narrative. Why arc
 Thomas Moore and Cromwell praised tC | the foot of the scaffold, and then pu
 under the ban? Why are the Englsf Protestant exiles, who went over to the