Even in translation—still more in the original—the rhetoric of this passage is imposing; yet we perceive rhetoric to be contagious when Ticknor asserts that "there is nothing of so much dignity in the incantations of Marlowe's _Faustus_." Still more amazing is Ticknor's second appreciation:—"Nor does even Shakspeare demand from us a sympathy so strange with the mortal head reluctantly rising to answer Macbeth's guilty question, as Cervantes makes us feel for this suffering spirit, recalled to life only to endure a second time the pangs of dissolution." The school is decently interred which mistook critics for Civil Service Commissioners, and Parnassus for Burlington House. It is impossible to compare Cervantes' sonorous periods and Marlowe's majestic eloquence, nor is it less unwise to match his moving melodrama against one of the greatest tragedies in the world. His great scene has its own merit as an artificial embellishment, as a rhetorical adornment, as an exercise in bravura; but the episode is not only out of place where it is found—it leads from nowhere to nothing. More dramatic in spirit and effect is the speech declaimed by Scipio when the last Numantian, Viriato, hurls himself from the tower:— "_O matchless action, worthy of the meed Which old and valiant soldiers love to gain! Thou hast achieved a glory by thy deed, Not only for Numantia, but for Spain! Thy valour strange, heroical in deed, Hath robbed me of my rights, and made them vain; For with thy fall thou hast upraised thy fame, And levelled down my victories to shame! Oh, could Numantia gain what she hath lost, I would rejoice, if but to see thee there! For thou hast reaped the gain and honour most Of this long siege, illustrious and rare! Bear thou, O stripling, bear away the boast, Enjoy the glory which the Heavens prepare, For thou hast conquered, by thy very fall, Him who in rising falleth worst of all._"