Synopses & Reviews
RICHARD BENTLEY AND OTHER WRITINGS I 1 Y THOMAS DE QUINCEY -- CONTENTS .-- P R E F A C E . IF the problems here treated are not numerous, one of tllenl at least viz., the problem of The Essenes is the most important, and, secondly, from its m steriowness, t he most in teresting but also, thirdly, the most difficult of all known historic problems and so much so, that, in my opinion, this if estimated by any progress made in deciphering it down to the date of my own attempt, would have been classed as the one insoluble case amongst all historic problems yet offered to the investigation of thoughtful men. In the course of that paper, and again of the paper en titled Cicero, there occurs a contemptuouk, but also and in a more earnest tone an indignant notick of two historic personages. who at present hold an equivocal rank in the esteem of mcn-viz., the Pharsalian Pompey, and the Jewish partisan leader, Josephus. With rcspect to the former, the late Dr h o l d, of Rugby, mentions, that, when he was meditating e work on some section I forget what of ancient history, there reached him from one of the Napiers either Sir William it must have been, or the late General Sir hailes, a n admonitory caution to beware of treating Pompey with any harshness or undervaluation, under the common notion that he had been spoiled in youth by unmerited success, hadbeen petted by a most ignorant populace through half-a-century, and halIy coming into collision with the greatest of men, had naturally made a total shipwreck for that, on the contrary, he was rr very great strategist yes, in spite cf Pharsalia and in spite, l presume, of his previous Italian campaign. Now, the Na picrs, a clistinawed family, multumnostrie quie prodercrt viii PREFACE. urbi, and qualified to offer suit and service lam dla ti qzcam dlercurio, have a right to legislate on such a sub ject, have a limited right even to dogmatise, and to rivet their concIusions if at any odd corner shaky, by what Germans term a macht-spruch. Eut the general impression is likely to prevail, until his annals are re-mittenthat, in the fullest sense of that modern sneer, Pompey if any man on the rolls of history was a Sepoy general he earned his reputation too surely, by building on other mens foundations and he prospered in any brilliant degree only so long as he contended with Asiatic antagonists. That famous sneer came round with killing recoil before the play was over, upon those that launched it, like the boomerang of the poor Australian savage in unskilful hands but, it is a sneer, that still tells retrospectively upon the Pompey, that in his morning hours was the pet of ill-distinguishing Rome. A Sepoy general is one to whom the praise of the martinet is the breath of his nostrils who thinks it a bagatelle in a soldier to have the trick of running away, provided he runs with grace and a stately air and, above all, a Sepoy general is one that reaps a perpetual consolation under calamities from the luxury of prospecting malice. I may be beaten, says the gallant man, on the open field of hattle. But what then My secret consolations remain my mind to me a kingdom is. And this mind suggests that, if unable to face my enemy in the daylight, I may yet find the means to murder him at night. Such as these were the habits and the revcrsionary consolations of Pompey. Ancl, I should have suggested to Dr h o l d, that, afier all, since there isno State Paper Office in Rome surviving from classical days, that might contribute new materials when the...