n Shakespeare. Both he and Shakespeare were
patronized, or, at least, countenanced by James the First, and both died
many years before their patron. More than two centuries by a good deal
have therefore passed away since he spoke, but this is the emphatic
testimony which even at that time, wanting the political experience
superadded, he bore to the peace and consequently to the civilization
won for his country by this divine maxim, this _lex trabalis_ (as so
powerfully Casaubon calls it) of hereditary succession, the cornerstone,
the main beam, in the framework of Gallic polity. These are the words:
'_Occidebant et occidebantur_' (_i.e._, in those days of Roman Caesars)
'_immanitate pari; cum in armis esset jus omne regnandi_'--in the sword
lay the arbitration of the title. He speaks of the horrid murderous
uniformity by which the Western Empire moved through five centuries (for
it commenced in murder 42 years B.C. and lasted for 477 after Christ).
But why? Simply by default of any conventional rule, and the consequent
necessity that men should fall back upon the title of the strongest. For
that ridiculous plausibility of Kant's superscribed with _Detur
meliori_, it should never be forgotten, is so far from having any
pacific tendencies, that originally, according to the eldest of Greek
fables, it was [Greek: Eris], Eris, the goddess of dissension, no
peace-making divinity, who threw upon a wedding-table the fatal apple
thus ominously labelled. _Meliori_! in that one word went to wreck the
harmony of the company. But for France, for the famous kingdom of the
Fleur-de-lys, for the first-born child of Christianity, always so prone
by her gentry to this sword-right, Nature herself had been silenced
through a long millennium by this one almighty amulet. 'Inde' (that is,
from this standing appeal made to personal vanity or to ambition
amongst Roman nobles)--'_inde_ haec tam spissa principatuum mutatio: qua
re nulla alia miseris populis ne dici quidem aut fingi queat
perniciosior.' So often, he goes on to say, as this dreadful curse
entailed upon Rome Imperial comes into my mind, so often 'Franciae patriae
meae felicitatem non possim non praedicare; quae sub imperio Regum
sexaginta trium (LXIII)--non dicam CLX annos' (which had been the upshot
of time, the 'tottle,' upon sixty-three Imperatores) sed paullo minus
CIO (one clear thousand, observe) 'et CC--rem omnibus seculis
inauditam!--egit beata; fared prosperously; et egisset