it is impossible to carry on such great
things as he did within the strict rules of justice; such as he are to be
judged in gross by the main end of their actions. The ruin of Thebes and
Persepolis, the murder of Menander and of Ephistion's physician, the
massacre of so many Persian prisoners at one time, of a troop of Indian
soldiers not without prejudice to his word, and of the Cossians, so much
as to the very children, are indeed sallies that are not well to be
excused. For, as to Clytus, the fault was more than redeemed; and that
very action, as much as any other whatever, manifests the goodness of his
nature, a nature most excellently formed to goodness; and it was
ingeniously said of him, that he had his virtues from Nature, his vices
from Fortune. As to his being a little given to bragging, a little too
impatient of hearing himself ill-spoken of, and as to those mangers,
arms, and bits he caused to be strewed in the Indies, all those little
vanities, methinks, may very well be allowed to his youth, and the
prodigious prosperity of his fortune. And who will consider withal his
so many military virtues, his diligence, foresight, patience, discipline,
subtlety, magnanimity, resolution, and good fortune, wherein (though we
had not had the authority of Hannibal to assure us) he was the first of
men, the admirable beauty and symmetry of his person, even to a miracle,
his majestic port and awful mien, in a face so young, ruddy, and radiant:

"Qualis, ubi Oceani perfusus Lucifer unda,
Quem Venus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes,
Extulit os sacrum coelo, tenebrasque resolvit;"

["As when, bathed in the waves of Ocean, Lucifer, whom Venus loves
beyond the other stars, has displayed his sacred countenance to the
heaven, and disperses the darkness"--AEneid, iii. 589.]

the excellence of his knowledge and capacity; the duration and grandeur
of his glory, pure, clean, without spot or envy, and that long after his
death it was a religious belief that his very medals brought good fortune
to all who carried them about them; and that more kings and princes have
written his actions than other historians have written the actions of any
other king or prince whatever; and that to this very day the Mohammedans,
who despise all other histories, admit of and honour his alone, by a
special privilege: whoever, I say, will seriously consider these
particulars, will confess tha