"Oho!" answered the secretary, "if the matter is to be settled by our reviling of each other, then can I cast in thy teeth thy father was but a clownish peasant of the Spessart, and though in thy home and in thy family there be many famous blockheads, yet thou hast made thyself yet lower, seeing that thou art become an unreasoning calf." So I answered: "Thou art right; 'tis even that that that I would maintain; namely, that the virtues of the parents descend not always to the children, and that therefore the children be not always worthy of their parent's titles of honour. For me it is no shame to have become a calf, seeing that in such case I have the honour to follow the great king Nebuchadnezzar. Who knoweth whether it may not please God that I, like him, may again become a man, yea, and a far greater one than my dad? Yet do I praise those only that by their own virtues do make themselves nobles." "Let it be so for the sake of argument," said the secretary, "that the children should not always inherit the titles of their parents, yet thou must acknowledge that they are worthy of all praise which do earn their nobility by a good conduct: and if that be so, it followeth that we do rightly honour the children for the parents' sake, since the apple falleth not far from the tree. And who would not honour in the descendants of Alexander the Great, if such there were to hand, their ancient forefather's high courage in the wars. For this man shewed in his youth his desire for fighting, in that he wept (though not yet able to bear arms) grieving lest his father might conquer all and leave him nothing to subdue. Did not he before the thirtieth year of his age overcome all the world and wish for another to conquer? Did not he in a battle against the Indians, when he was deserted by his men, for sheer rage sweat blood? And was he not so terrible to look upon (as though he were all begirt with flames of fire) that even the savages must flee before him in battle? Who would not esteem him higher and nobler than other men, of whom Quintus Curtius tells that his breath was like perfume and his sweat like musk and that his dead body smelt of precious spiceries? Here could I cite the case of Julius Cæsar and Pompeius, of whom the one, besides the victories which he won in the civil wars, did fifty times engage in pitched battles, and defeated and slew 1,520,000 men: while the other, besides the taking of 940 ships from the pirates, did from the Alps to the uttermost parts of Spain capture and subdue 376 cities and towns. Lucius Siccius, the Roman people's tribune, was engaged in 120 pitched battles, and did eight times conquer them that challenged him: he could shew forty-five scars on his body, and those all in front and none behind: with nine generals-in-chief did he enter Rome in their triumphs, which they did clearly earn by their courage. Yea, and Manlius Capitolinus's honour in war were no less had he not at the end of his life himself abased his