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The bourgeois, when he goes off to the ramparts, embraces his wife in public, and assumes a martial strut as though he were a very Curtius on the way to the pit. Jules is perpetually hugging Jacques, and talking about the altar of his country on which he means to mount.
This chronicler, however, was not only frequently inaccurate in his statements, but had a spite against Duchess Beatrice, whose character and actions he totally misrepresented, while, after Lodovico's fall, his ingratitude towards his former master drew down upon him the bitter reproaches and invective of Lancinius Curtius.
Lancinus Curtius shall live through all the centuries, and visit every shore on earth. Such power have the Muses." The time-worn poet reclines, as though sleeping or resting, ready to be waked; his head is covered with flowing hair, and crowned with laurel; it leans upon his left hand. On either side of his couch stand cupids or genii with torches turned to earth.
This is so true that we read every day, with astonishment, things which we see every day without surprise. We wonder at the intrepidity of a Leonidas, a Codrus, and a Curtius; and are not the least surprised to hear of a sea-captain, who has blown up his ship, his crew, and himself, that they might not fall into the hands of the enemies of his country.
In the centre of the Forum was the plain called the Curtian Lake, where Curtius is said to have cast himself into a chasm or gulf, which closed on him, and so he saved his country.
As a memorial of this battle, they called the place where the horse, after getting out of the deep marsh, first set Curtius in shallow water, the Curtian Lake. This happy peace following suddenly a war so distressing, rendered the Sabine women still dearer to their husbands and parents, and above all to Romulus himself.
Quintus Curtius says that in the deserts of Sogdiana, a fog rising from the earth obscures the light, and the surrounding country seems like a vast sea. The cause of this singular illusion is now fully explained; and, from the observations of the learned Monge, it appears that the mirage will be found in almost every country situated between the tropics where the local circumstances are similar.
Then all the people stood silent; and Curtius, first beholding the temples of the immortal Gods that hung over the market-place and the Capitol, and afterward stretching forth his hands both to heaven above and to this gulf that opened its mouth to the very pit, as it were, of hell, devoted himself for his country; and so being clothed in armor and with arms in his hand, and having his horse arrayed as sumptuously as might be he leapt into the gulf; and the multitude, both of men and women, threw in gifts and offerings of the fruits of the earth, and afterward the earth closed together.
We, at least, cling fondly to our Tarquins; we shudder when the abyss of historic incredulity swallows up the familiar form of Mettus Curtius; we refuse to be weaned from the she-wolf of Romulus.
On his journeys he read books of great variety, such as The Odyssey, Rousseau's Emile, Boswell's Corsica, Swift's Letters, Hoole's Tasso, Robertson's Charles V., Quintus Curtius, Franklin's Letters on Electricity, besides a host of theological works. Like Johnson, too, he was a great dabbler in physic and a reader of medical works. His writings covered a great range.
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