of the
two men were widely dissimilar--yet what is the intrinsic difference
between them? Very great indeed; the one acted according to his lights
and his country, not so the other. Tamerlane was a heathen, and acted
according to his lights; he was a robber where all around were robbers,
but he became the avenger of God--God's scourge on unjust kings, on the
cruel Bajazet, who had plucked out his own brothers' eyes; he became to a
certain extent the purifier of the East, its regenerator; his equal never
was before, nor has it since been seen. Here the wild heart was
profitably employed, the wild strength, the teeming brain. Onward, Lame
one! Onward, Tamur--lank! Haggart . . . .

But peace to thee, poor David! why should a mortal worm be sitting in
judgment over thee? The Mighty and Just One has already judged thee, and
perhaps above thou hast received pardon for thy crimes, which could not
be pardoned here below; and now that thy feverish existence has closed,
and thy once active form become inanimate dust, thy very memory all but
forgotten, I will say a few words about thee, a few words soon also to be
forgotten. Thou wast the most extraordinary robber that ever lived
within the belt of Britain; Scotland rang with thy exploits, and England,
too, north of the Humber; strange deeds also didst thou achieve when,
fleeing from justice, thou didst find thyself in the Sister Isle; busy
wast thou there in town and on curragh, at fair and race-course, and also
in the solitary place. Ireland thought thee her child, for who spoke her
brogue better than thyself?--she felt proud of thee, and said, 'Sure,
O'Hanlon is come again.' What might not have been thy fate in the far
west in America, whither thou hadst turned thine eye, saying, 'I will go
there, and become an honest man!' But thou wast not to go there,
David--the blood which thou hadst shed in Scotland was to be required of
thee; the avenger was at hand, the avenger of blood. Seized, manacled,
brought back to thy native land, condemned to die, thou wast left in thy
narrow cell, and told to make the most of thy time, for it was short: and
there, in thy narrow cell, and thy time so short, thou didst put the
crowning stone to thy strange deeds, by that strange history of thyself,
penned by thy own hand in the robber tongue. Thou mightest have been
better employed, David!--but the ruling passion was strong with thee,
even in the jaws of death. Thou mightest have bee