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MARCELLUS.

A CONQUEROR that weeps for victory won!-
O glorious soul, that mid the patriot fight
Raged as an Ajax in his ruthless might,
Then turn'd to mourn the havoc he had done!
So wept Marcellus, Rome's heroic son,

(When haughty Syracuse had fall'n, despite Her strength in Archimedes,)—and with care Strove-not to butcher foemen, but-to spare:

Stop we not here; for ev'n a brighter act Claims deeper homage: when avail'd not all

Thy pious care, but those fierce legions sack'd The helpless city in its last dread fall,

When thy worst foe, thy subtlest, met his doom,
Thy nobler praise was Archimedes' tomb.

The classical reader will, immediately on seeing the name Marcellus, bring to mind one of the most spirited and touching passages in all Virgil. Æn. vi. sub. fin. the "Tu Marcellus eris;" but will quickly perceive from the sonnet, that the subject of this eulogy was a different character, and one, which, though perhaps less known, was more illustrious. The magnificent conduct of M. C. Marcellus at the siege of Syracuse, B. C. 212, is the topic of our present praises. After three years of disappointed patriotism and ambition, during which the science of Archimedes almost single-handed-(see a remarkable parallel in Ecclesiastes, ix. 14, 15)-had burnt his navies, destroyed his engines, baffled the skill of Rome's best general,-one who had even conquered Hannibal, and mocked at the prowess of Rome's best soldiers, those who had heretofore triumphed over half the world,-when, after all this he had taken the city by storm during the festival of Diana, and he knew that, according to the military laws, it must be given up to a ferocious soldiery, so far from delighting in a bloodthirsty revenge over the fall of a cruel and haughty enemy, Marcellus,—with better motives than a Xerxes,-wept aloud. More than this, he offered great rewards for the safety of Archimedes,

and commanded his house to be spared from the universal ruin; as the Spartans in the case of Pindar; and Alexander in the same case, of which our Milton makes mention,

"The great Emathian conqueror bid spare

The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground."

But his exertions were vain: the philosopher, either unwilling to survive the fall of his country,—(for Syracuse never rose again to her former honours,)—-or distrustful of the mercies of the Roman so long abused, or, as Plutarch says, actually so buried in his mathematical studies, that he knew not friends from foes, neglected the opportunities of safety, and was killed in mistake by a common soldier. How then did Marcellus act?-in a manner that at once proved the nobility of his soul, and the delicacy of his feelings. Archimedes had discovered certain relations subsisting between the sphere and the cylinder, and prided himself upon the discovery as a crowning effort of his mind: Marcellus knowing this, and wishing to honour fallen greatness irrespective of personal feelings, caused at his own expense a fine monument to be raised to his memory, sculptured with the sphere and the cylinder. It is a remarkable instance of retributive moral justice, that when at length, years after, Marcellus fell on the field of battle before the Carthaginian arms, Hannibal his conquerer honoured him in turn with

a grand military funeral, and sent his ashes to Rome in a silver urn.

In one respect, and one only, Marcellus affords us a parallel with the ruthless Napoleon: namely, in having seized on all works of art, and sent them to enrich his native city but here he pleaded the same patriotism which excessive charity might also impute to the more rapacious Spoiler of palaces: we must remember that the latter was a Corsican, and that the France of his affections was no more than the vast ramifications of himself. In all other respects the parallels lie with the bravest and best of heroes, -with the generous Hector, pitiful to a fallen foe; the pure and noble-minded Scipio; the gallant Alcibiades; the modest Fabius,-all wont "Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." But why stop here? What shall we say of our own Nelson,-who, in the proper humane spirit of modern warfare,—(so it be not on Spanish ground,)-sent his boats to save the perishing crew of the Orient, and thrice spared the Trinidada? or what, of that immortal reply made by the most illustrious man of our day, to the question put by some flippant person, "Is it not a most delightful thing to gain a victory?" "I know nothing more dreadful, except a defeat."

HIPPARC H U S.

IN spirit as I roam with thee by night
Threading the galaxy on fancy's wing,
Oft, as I reach a star more sweetly bright,
My hope will rise and in a rapture sing
Fair planet, can I ever be thy king,

A sainted monarch in thy halls of light?

For there are many mansions, mighty thrones, Glories, and sceptres, praise and golden zones, Reward, and homage, crowns, and shining robes : Ambition's boldest dream, and wildest flight

Hath yet to be borne out; ecstatic soul

Shall soar triumphant to those burning globes
That round essential God sublimely roll,

The life, the sun, the centre of the whole!

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