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Enatum inde monumentum aere perennius, licet passim appareant sinistre dicta, minus perfecta, veritati non satis consentanea. Videmus quidem ubique fere studium scrutandi veritatemque scribendi maximum: tamen sine Tillemontio duce ubi scilicet hujus historia finitur saepius noster titubat atque hallucinatur.
Short as the moment of his resolve might be, it was, like all great moments, a moment of immortality, and the desire to say of it exegi monumentum oere perennius was the only sentiment that would satisfy his mind. The modern aesthetic man would, of course, easily see the emotional opportunity; he would vow to chain two mountains together.
But what need has Cervantes of "such weak witness of his name;" or what could a monument do in his case except testify to the self-glorification of those who had put it up? Si monumentum quoeris, circumspice. The nearest bookseller's shop will show what bathos there would be in a monument to the author of "Don Quixote."
Paul's is as its surroundings echoes and whispers, inaudible songs, invisible mosaics, wet footmarks crossing and recrossing the floor. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice: it points us back to London. There was no hope of Helen here. Henry was unsatisfactory at first. That she had expected. He was overjoyed to see her back from Swanage, and slow to admit the growth of a new trouble.
But of the Union movement it might well be said: Si monumentum requiris circumspice. The spirit behind the movement passed with the war, but it left the old traditional party system in ruins.
In the streets of Athens a singular spectacle was exhibited; there might be seen the conqueror learning of the vanquished; Romans, of exalted rank and unbounded power, had become the disciples of Grecian philosophers. Nevertheless, when Rome possessed orators and poets, each of whom has raised "Monumentum aere perennius,"
He has a monumentum aere perennius in the speech of his old friend urging the senate to vote him a public funeral and a statue, as one who had laid down his life for his country. We must now turn to consider how the mischievous side of the new Greek culture, in combination with other tendencies of the time, found its way into weak points in the armour of the Roman aristocracy.
Horace, in the ardour of youth, and when his bosom beat high with the raptures of fancy, had, in the pursuit of Grecian literature, drunk largely, at the source, of the delicious springs of Castalia; and it seems to have been ever after his chief ambition, to transplant into the plains of Latium the palm of lyric poetry. Nor did he fail of success: Exegi monumentum aere perennius. Carm. iii. 30.
Unhappily, echo, and not the park guide-book, answers. There is, indeed, a bust, and, in a general sense, "Si monumentum" may serve for a reply. From that point of view, indeed, Westminster Abbey, as the monument of English heroes in letters and arms, in the Church and the State, would be superfluous.
There was the usual tall box with its bleached rattling tenant; there were jars in rows where "interesting cases" outlived the grief of widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality, for your "preparation-jar" is the true "monumentum aere perennius"; there were various semipossibilities of minute dimensions and unpromising developments; there were shining instruments of evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, flat-headed, variegated with dull bands, one of which partially encircled the neck like a collar, an awful wretch to look upon, with murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyphics.
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