[95] In the celebrated interview between Solon and Crœsus, the sage first offended the king by questioning the power of wealth to produce happiness, and concluded by reading him a long moral lesson, to the purport, that since no man knew what the morrow might produce, no man could be called happy until present prosperity was crowned by a happy death. [96] Herod, i. 86–88. [97] “Ci doivent prendre garde cils qui leur fames mainent avec euls en os, et en batailles, car Daires li rois de Perse, & Antoines, et autre prince terrien manerent leur fames en lor compaignie en os quant il i aloient, & en batailles: et pour ce furent desconfit et occis, Daires par le grant Alexandre, et Antoines par Octavien. Pour ce meismement ne devroient mener nus princes fames en tex besoignes: car elles ne sont fors empecchement.” The language is that of the thirteenth century. Croniques de S. Denys, liv. v. 1. [98] Arrian, iv. 20. [99] In Verrem. Act. ii. lib. v. 30. [100] Plut. in Mar. [101] Dion, lib. xl.—Cæsar, in his Commentaries, slurs this transaction over with the mere notice that Vercingetorix was surrendered (viii. 89). [102] “Valerian for his persecutions was exposed to insult and reproaches, according to what was spoken to Isaiah, saying, ‘They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. I also will choose their delusions, and recompense their sins upon them.’”—_Dionysius of Alexandria, ap. Euseb._, lib. vii. 10. [103] Euseb., Life of Constantine, lib. iv. 11. [104] Tamerlane—a tragedy worth reading, to see the notion which Rowe had of a Tartar chief, and the absurdity produced by treating such subjects with the sentimental bombast of the heroic romance. [105] M. de Masson asserts (it is to be taken on his authority, not on ours) that he knew a lady of the Russian court, in the reign of Catherine II., who kept a slave who was her perruquier shut up in a cage in her own chamber. She let him out every day to arrange her head–dress, and locked him up again with her own hands after the business of the toilet was over. His box was placed at her bed–head, and in this fashion he attended her wherever she went. His fare was bread and water. He passed three years in this captivity, the object of which was to conceal from all the world that the lady wore a wig. The close confinement was a punishment for running away from her service; the meagre diet a measure of revenge, because he could not prevent her growing older and uglier every day.—_Mémoires Secrets sur la Russie._ [106] Rymer, Fœdera, vol. ii. [107] Lord Berners’s Froissart, vol. ii. chap. 203. [108] Froissart. [109] Hist. de M. Boucicaut. [110] “Ains cheurent en la gueule de leurs ennemies, si comme est le fer sur l’enclume.” It is a queer comparison: the only apparent resemblance is in the thorough beating which they and the iron were both destined to undergo. [111] Hist. de M. de Boucicaut; première partie, chaps. xxv. xxvi.