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The Newgate Calendar of Paris contains as many illustrious names as the index to Plutarch's Lives; and I believe there are now many Brutus's and Gracchus's in durance vile, besides a Mutius Scaevola condemned to twenty years imprisonment for an unskilful theft. A man of Amiens, whose name is Le Roy, signified to the public, through the channel of a newspaper, that he had adopted that of Republic.
Who has not heard the Fulvian heroes sung Dentatus' scars, or Mutius' flaming hand? How Manlius saved the capitol? the choice Of steady Regulus? Dyer. The Carthagin'ians being thus successful, were desirous of a new treaty for peace, hoping to have better terms than those insisted upon by Reg'ulus.
The Muti family counts Mutius Scævola among its ancestors. This nobility, whether authentic or not, is at all events very ancient, and is of independent origin. It has not been hatched under the robes of the Popes. The second category is of Pontifical origin. Its titles and fortunes have their origin in nepotism.
Who will say there was no Divine inspiration in Mutius burning his own hand because it had failed in the blow wherewith he had thought to deliver Rome? Who will say of Torquatus, who sentenced his own son to death from love to the Public Good, that he could have endured this without a Divine Helper? Who will say this of the Brutus before mentioned?
The story of Horatius Cocles and that of Mutius Scævola are well known: how the one withstood the enemy on the bridge while it was being cut down, and the other thrust his hand into the fire in punishment of the mistake made when he sought the life of Porsenna the Etruscan king. To each of these two, in requital of their splendid deeds, two ploughgates only of the public land were given.
From that moment many people regarded him as predestined, and said that the hand of God was upon him. Meanwhile political events were developing themselves around the boy, and their seriousness made him a man before the age of manhood. Napoleon weighed upon Germany like another Sennacherib. Staps had tried to play the part of Mutius Scaevola, and had died a martyr.
When Mutius Scaevola held his hand in the fire, he was as much acting under the influence of necessity, caused by interior motives, that urged him to this strange action, as if his arm had been held by strong men; pride, despair, the desire of braving his enemy, a wish to astonish him, an anxiety to intimidate him, &c. were the invisible chains that held his hand bound to the fire.
In the municipal body, the majority is composed of an incompetent lot, some of them being journeymen-spinners or thread twisters, and others second-hand dealers or shopkeepers, "incapable," "without means," with a few crack-brains among them: one, "his brain being crazed, absolutely of no account, anarchist and Jacobin;" another, "very dangerous through lack of judgment, a Jacobin, over-excited;" a third, "an instrument of tyranny, a man of blood capable of every vice, having assumed the name of Mutius Scoevola, of recognized depravity and unable to write."
'And Spuraena; and Caius Mutius, who wrote three epics in a year could Horace do that, or Virgil either said Lepidus. 'Those old poets all fell into the mistake of copying sculpture instead of painting. Simplicity and repose that was their notion; but we moderns have fire, and passion, and energy we never sleep, we imitate the colors of painting, its life, and its action. Immortal Fulvius!
The power of opposing volitions is best exemplified in the story of Mutius Scævola, who is said to have thrust his hand into the fire before Porcenna, and to have suffered it to be consumed for having failed him in his attempt on the life of that general.
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