262. The Black Hole of Calcutta (I.).

Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed. The English captives were left to the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison-a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The place was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and the constant waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. MACAULAY.

263. The Black Hole of Calcutta (II.).

They expostulated; they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them. Nothing in history or fiction approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, the first in rank among the prisoners, who even in that extremity retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without the Nabob's orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire upon them.

264. The Black Hole of Calcutta (III.).

The gaolers in the meantime held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke.

The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses, on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, one hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered up.

265. Nemesis (IV.).

On the night before the battle of Plassey, Clive was unable to sleep. It is not strange that even his stout heart should now and then have sunk, when he reflected against what odds, and for what a prize, he was in a few hours to contend. Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful. His mind, at once weak and stormy, was distracted by horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the greatness and nearness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dreading every one who approached him, dreading to be left alone, he sat gloomily in his tent, haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the furies of those who had cursed him with their last breath in the Black Hole.

266. Death of the Nabob (V.).

Fleeing from the field of battle which decided the fate of India, the Nabob was taken prisoner, and brought before Meer Jaffier (whom the English had placed on the throne of Bengal). There he flung himself on the ground in convulsions of fear, and with tears and loud cries implored the mercy he had never shown. Meer Jaffier hesitated; but his son, Meeran, a youth of seventeen, who in feebleness of brain and savageness of nature greatly resembled the wretched captive, was implacable. Surajah Dowlah was led into a secret chamber, to which in a short time the ministers of death were sent. In this act the English bore no part; and Meer Jaffier understood so much of their feelings, that he thought it necessary to apologise to them for having avenged them on their most malignant enemy. MACAULAY.

267. The Lark—an example.

I have seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises and hopes to get to heaven, and climb

above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the vibration and frequent weighing of its wings, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned music from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air, about his ministries here below. So is the prayer of a good man. JEREMY TAYLOR.

268. Lord Falkland.

From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had never been used to; yet, being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor, he resisted those indispositions (i.e., reluctance to fight). When there was an overture, or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it. This made some think, or pretend to think, "that he was so much enamoured on peace, that he would have been glad the king should have bought it at any price," which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honour, could have wished the king to have committed a trespass against either. CLARENDON.

269. Mimes.

C. Decimus Laberius, a Roman knight, attached to the old Republican government had, as we have already had occasion to observe, employed his leisure in the occasional composition of these rude dramatic sketches. Julius Cæsar, whose object it was to crush the spirit of the Roman aristocracy, and especially of those among them whose regrets and affections lingered with former liberty and independence, offered him 500,000 sesterces to perform his own Mimes. He complied; apparently less on account of the inducement held out to him, than through fear of offending the dictator. When, however, he had consented to appear on the stage, the infamy of his

concession came on his mind in all its deformity, and he expressed the bitterness of wounded honour in an indignant prologue, preserved by Macrobius, to whom we are indebted for this part of our history, in which he contrasted his former life with the situation in which he was placed by the Dictator's authoritative request whose persuasive eloquence he panegyrised in a vein of the deepest irony. ENCYCL. METROP.

270. Fictitious Speeches.

Not even Tacitus could overcome the habit of regarding history as a literary composition, intended to satisfy the expectations of professed critics, and to promote the literary fame of the writer. Hence the excessive ornament of his language; and hence also those idle specimens of rhetoric which are introduced as the pretended speeches of different persons mentioned in his history. But it is absurd to argue as some have done, that one who inserts a fictitious speech into his history, can no longer be relied on with confidence in any part of his work, although we may not have the means of proving him false. It was never pretended that these speeches were genuine, nor was any reader likely to be so simple as to mistake them for such. Although we see at once that Galgacus' speech to his countrymen is fictitious; it does not follow that Tacitus described from imagination the facts of the Caledonian war. ENCYCL. METROP.

271. "Worship of Sorrow."

Small is it that thou canst trample the earth with its injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee; thou canst love the earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for this a greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent. Knowest thou that "Worship of Sorrow"? The Temple thereof, founded some eighteen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation of doleful creatures; nevertheless, venture forward; in a low crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the altar still there, and its sacred lamp perennially burning. CARLYLE.

272. "Butchered to make a Roman holiday."

There is extant a letter from Cicero to Marius, in which the writer gives an account of the entertainments presented at Rome in the

All

year of the city 698, which, as curiously illustrative of the state of the Roman drama at the time, we shall here partially quote, "If you ask how the games were got up, I must say most splendidly; not at all, however, to your taste, so far as I may judge from mine. the pleasure of the audience was engrossed in the contemplation of the pageantry; pageantry, the absence of which, I can well conceive, you would not have deeply regretted. What amusement indeed is afforded by 600 mules in the Tragedy of Clytemnestra, or 3000 targeteers in the " Trojan Horse," or the ornamented armour of cavalry and infantry in action. These things command the admiration of the mob, but could have afforded no pleasure to you. And where is the pleasure a cultivated mind can derive from seeing a defenceless man mangled by a powerful beast, or a generous beast transfixed upon a hunting spear? On the last day was the battle of the elephants; where there was enough for the mob to admire, but little to be pleased with. Indeed there was a feeling of pity arising from the persuasion that there is some natural sympathy between that animal and man." ENCYCL. METROP.

273. The Spaniards in sight of Mexico.

But these feelings of admiration were soon followed by others of a very different complexion; as they saw in all this the evidences of a civilisation and power far superior to anything they had yet encountered. The more timid, disheartened by the prospect, shrunk from a contest so unequal, and demanded, as they had done on some former occasions, to be led back again to Vera Cruz. Such was not the effect produced on the sanguine spirit of the general. His avarice was sharpened by the dazzling spoil at his feet; and, if he felt a natural anxiety at the formidable odds, his confidence was renewed, as he gazed on the lines of his veterans, whose weather-beaten visages and battered armour told of battles won and difficulties surmounted, while his old barbarians, with appetites whetted by the view of their enemies' country, seemed like eagles on the mountains, ready to pounce upon their prey. PRESCOTT.

274. The Imprisoned Starling.

I was interrupted in the hey-day of this soliloquy with a voice which I took to be that of a child, which complained "it could not get out". I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out through the passage. In my