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Ancient examples were quoted: Judith and Holofernes; then, irrationally enough, Lucrece and Sextus; Cleopatra and the hostile generals whom she reduced to abject slavery by a surrender of her charms.
What history becomes under the full sway of the imagination may be seen in the "History of the French Revolution," by Thomas Carlyle, at once a true picture, a philosophical revelation, a noble poem. There is a wonderful passage about Time in Shakespere's "Rape of Lucrece," which shows how he understood history.
Thanks, O Fortune, my mother!" he said, earnestly. The friends all repeated the exclamation, and the slaves waved their torches. "She comes yonder!" he continued, pointing to a galley outside the mole. "What need has a sailor for other mistress? Is your Lucrece more graceful, my Caius?" He gazed at the coming ship, and justified his pride.
It is a great pity, for we have several such treatises, and how interesting an account of indoor games and riddles might have been we may guess from a passage in the Ménagier's version of the story of Lucrece, when he describes the Roman ladies 'some gossiping, others playing at bric, others at qui féry, others at pince merille, others at cards or other games of pleasure with their neighbours; others, who had supped together, were singing songs and telling fables and stories and wagers; others were in the street with their neighbours, playing at blind man's buff or at bric and at several other games of the kind. In those days, before the invention of printing had made books plentiful, medieval ladies were largely dependent for amusement upon telling and listening to stories, asking riddles, and playing games, which we have long ago banished to the nursery; and a plentiful repertoire of such amusements was very desirable in a hostess.
What Will Shakspere had to his literary credit when he died, was men's impressions of the seeing of his acted plays; with their knowledge, if they had any, of fugitive, cheap, perishable, and often bad reprints, in quartos, of about half of the plays. Men also had Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and the Sonnets, which sold very poorly, and I do not wonder at it.
It is extremely probable, that the poetical fame which in the progress of his career he afterwards acquired, greatly contributed to ennoble the stage, and to bring the player's profession into better repute. Even at a very early age he endeavoured to distinguish himself as a poet in other walks than those of the stage, as is proved by his juvenile poems of Adonis and Lucrece.
A veil was drawn, as it were, from before his eyes, and he looked on other women and found them beautiful. It was in 1833, soon after Hugo's play "Lucrece Borgia" had been accepted for production, that a lady called one morning at Hugo's house in the Place Royale.
No country can be a "Sweet Home" to the man who repudiates his own nation's flag. Burr declares himself severed from the human race, and so he is." "You are relentless, Warren," said his sister. "I feel much pity for the man, since his heart-breaking experience of two or three years ago." "Ah, yes; yes," Lucrèce impulsively said; "Theodosia was her father's incentive and his happiness.
In like manner, a picture in oils of Our Lady, which he painted for Messer Enea Savini della Costerella, is much extolled, and also a canvas that he executed for Assuero Rettori of S. Martino, in which is the Roman Lucrece stabbing herself, while she is held by her father and her husband, all painted with much beauty of attitude and marvellous grace in the heads.
I will also play, if you will permit me, an act of "Lucrece Borgia". You see, I am for Rachel; she is an artful one, if you like. See how she checkmates those rascally French actors! She renews her engagements, assures for herself pyrotechnics, vacations, heaps of gold.
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