ore you affirm upon a
judicial punishment of death (as then it was) cruelty in the adviser or
ignobility in the approver. Escaping from these painful scenes at the
threshold of his public life, we find Heraclius preparing for a war, the
most difficult that in any age any hero has confronted. We call him the
earliest of Crusaders, because he first and _literally_ fought for the
recovery of the Cross. We call him the most prosperous of Crusaders,
because he first--he last--succeeded in all that he sought, bringing
back to Syria (ultimately to Constantinople) that sublime symbol of
victorious Christianity which had been disgracefully lost at Jerusalem.
Yet why, when comparing him not with Crusaders, but with Caesars, do we
pronounce him the noblest? Reader, which is it that is felt by a
thoughtful man--supposing him called upon to select one act by
preference before all others--to be the grandest act of our own
Wellesley? Is it not the sagacious preparation of the lines at Torres
Vedras, the self-mastery which lured the French on to their ruin, the
long-suffering policy which reined up his troops till that ruin was
accomplished? '_I bide my time_,' was the dreadful watchword of
Wellington through that great drama; in which, let us tell the French
critics on Tragedy, they will find _the most_ absolute unity of plot;
for the forming of the lines as the fatal noose, the wiling back the
enemy, the pursuit when the work of disorganization was perfect, all
were parts of one and the same drama. If he (as another Scipio) saw
another Zama, in this instance he was not our Scipio or Marcellus, but
our Fabius Maximus:

'Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.'--'Ann.' 8, 27.

Now, such was the Emperor Heraclius. He also had his avenging Zama. But,
during a memorable interval of eleven years, he held back; fiercely
reined up his wrath; brooded; smiled often balefully; watched in his
lair; and then, when the hour had struck, let slip his armies and his
thunderbolts as no Caesar had ever done, except that one who founded the
name of Caesar.

[26] A brutal outrage on a Captain Jenkins--i.e., cutting off his
ears--was the cause of a war with Spain in the reign of George II.--ED.

_XVIII. NATIONAL MANNERS AND FALSE JUDGMENT OF THEM._

Anecdotes illustrative of manners, above all of national manners, will
be found on examination, in a far larger proportion than might be
supposed, rank falsehoods. Malice is the secret foundation