“‘He who cannot follow me; he who cannot overtake and pass me,’ said the Genius, ’is unworthy of the name, the most glorious in earth or heaven.  Look up!  Love is yonder, and ready to receive thee.’

    “I looked:  the earth was under me:  I saw only the clear blue sky,
    and something brighter above it.”

There is something most rare and refined and precious in this vision, told as it is with a sweet serenity.  But it does not touch the heart like the AEsop and Rhodope.

Your loving old
G.P.

[Footnote 1:  Born 1775, died 1864.]

20

MY DEAR ANTONY,

I now come to speak of one whose fame was familiar to me as a boy—­the great Lord Brougham.—­for he lived till 1868.  I remember that he was vehemently praised and blamed as a politician, but with such matters others have dealt; in this letter, Antony, we will concern ourselves with the glory of English prose as it poured from Lord Brougham in two of his greatest speeches.

He was an orator whose voice was uplifted throughout a long and strenuous life in condemnation of all the brutalities and oppression of his time, and to whose eloquence the triumphant cause of freedom stands for ever in deep obligation.

His great speech on Law Reform in the House of Commons, in 1828, took six hours to deliver, and the concluding passage, which mounted to a plane of lofty declamation, displayed no sign of exhaustion, and was listened to with strained attention by an absorbed and crowded audience:—­

“The course is clear before us; the race is glorious to run.  You have the power of sending your name down through all times, illustrated by deeds of higher fame, and more useful import, than ever were done within these walls.

“You saw the greatest warrior of the age—­conqueror of Italy—­humbler of Germany—­terror of the North—­saw him account all his matchless victories poor, compared with the triumph you are now in a condition to win—­saw him contemn the fickleness of fortune, while, in despite of her, he could pronounce his memorable boast, ’I shall go down to posterity with the Code in my hand!’

“You have vanquished him in the field; strive now to rival him in the sacred arts of peace!  Outstrip him as a lawgiver, whom in arms you overcame!  The lustre of the Regency will be eclipsed by the more solid and enduring splendour of the Reign.  The praise which false courtiers feigned for our Edwards and Harrys, the Justinians of their day, will be the just tribute of the wise and the good to that monarch under whose sway so mighty an undertaking shall be accomplished.  Of a truth, the holders of sceptres are most chiefly to be envied for that they bestow the power of thus conquering, and ruling thus.

“It was the boast of Augustus—­it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies