Poor dear Peregrine--or Proteus, as he loved to call himself,--has quite come up to his namesake in Homer. We have seen him under many shapes: countless have been his transformations for glory's sake; and now--'tis his last appearance--we see him in the shape of fire. So vast was his ambition. Yes, Cronius; all that is left of the best of men is a handful of ashes. It's just like Empedocles; only with a difference. That philosopher would fain have sneaked into his crater unobserved: not so our high-souled friend. He bides his time till all Greece is mustered in full force--constructs a pyre of the largest dimensions--and jumps on top in the eyes of all the world, having briefly addressed the nation a few days before on the subject of his daring enterprise! I fancy I see you chuckling away at the old dotard; or rather I hear you blurting out the inevitable comments--'Mere imbecility'--'Mere clap-trap'-'Mere ...' everything else that we are accustomed to attribute to these gentry. But then you are far enough off to be comparatively safe: now _I_ made my remarks before a vast audience, in the very moment of cremation (and before it for that matter), exciting thereby the indignation of all the old fool's admirers, though there were a few who joined in the laugh against him. I can tell you, I was within an ace of being torn limb from limb by the Cynics, like Actaeon among the dogs, or his cousin Pentheus among the Maenads.--But I must sketch you the whole drama in detail. As to our author, I say nothing: you know the man, you know the sublime utterances that marked his earthly course, out-voicing Sophocles and Aeschylus. Well, the first thing I did when I got to Elis was to take a turn in the gymnasium, listening the while to the discordant yells of some Cynic or other;--the usual platitudes, you know;--ringing commendations of Virtue--indiscriminate slaughter of characters--finally, a peroration on the subject of Proteus. I must try and give you the exact words, as far as I can remember them; you will recognize the true Cynic yell, I'll be bound; you have heard it before. 'Proteus,' he cried, 'Proteus vain-glorious? Who dares name the word? Earth! Sun! Seas! Rivers! God of our fathers, Heracles! Was it for this that he suffered bondage in Syria? that he forgave his country a debt of a million odd? that he was cast out of Rome,--he whose brilliance exceeds the Sun, fit rival of the Lord of Olympus? 'Tis his good will to depart from life by fire, and they call it vain-glory! What other end had Heracles? 'Twas the thunderbolt, methinks, that slew Asclepius, Dionysus[5]? 'Twas in the crater that Empedocles sought death?'