erical, it is because the mind
of one man must needs have been too weak to bring into shape and order
the chaos, social and economic, which he saw around him. M. de
Lamartine, in his brilliant little life of Fenelon, does not hesitate to
trace to the influence of "Telemaque," the Utopias which produced the
revolutions of 1793 and 1848. "The saintly poet was," he says, "without
knowing it, the first Radical and the first communist of his century."
But it is something to have preached to princes doctrines till then
unknown, or at least forgotten for many a generation--free trade, peace,
international arbitration, and the "carriere ouverte aux talents" for all
ranks. It is something to have warned his generation of the dangerous
overgrowth of the metropolis; to have prophesied, as an old Hebrew might
have done, that the despotism which he saw around him would end in a
violent revolution. It is something to have combined the highest
Christian morality with a hearty appreciation of old Greek life; of its
reverence for bodily health and prowess; its joyous and simple country
society; its sacrificial feasts, dances, games; its respect for the gods;
its belief that they helped, guided, inspired the sons of men. It is
something to have himself believed in God; in a living God, who, both in
this life and in all lives to come, rewarded the good and punished the
evil by inevitable laws. It is something to have warned a young prince,
in an age of doctrinal bigotry and practical atheism, that a living God
still existed, and that his laws were still in force; to have shown him
Tartarus crowded with the souls of wicked monarchs, while a few of kingly
race rested in Elysium, and among them old pagans--Inachus, Cecrops,
Erichthon, Triptolemus, and Sesostris--rewarded for ever for having done
their duty, each according to his light, to the flocks which the gods had
committed to their care. It is something to have spoken to a prince, in
such an age, without servility, and without etiquette, of the frailties
and the dangers which beset arbitrary rulers; to have told him that
royalty, "when assumed to content oneself, is a monstrous tyranny; when
assumed to fulfil its duties, and to conduct an innumerable people as a
father conducts his children, a crushing slavery, which demands an heroic
courage and patience."

Let us honour the courtier who dared speak such truths; and still more
the saintly celibate who had sufficient catholicity o