|
|
Dividend Two Directory 12
Page 10
"Sir Humphry Davy?" said Mr. Brooke, over the soup, in his easy smiling way, taking up Sir James Chettam's remark that he was studying Davy's Agricultural Chemistry. "Well, now, Sir Humphry Davy; I dined with him years ago at Cartwright's, and Wordsworth was there too--the poet Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular. I was at Cambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him--and I dined with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright's. There's an oddity in things, now. But Davy was there: he was a poet too. Or, as I may say, Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two. That was true in every sense, you know."
On one occasion a gentleman was returning home from a fatiguing journey, and became very drowsy. He fell asleep, and, strange to say, he also fell from his saddle, but in so easy a manner that the tumble did not rouse him, and lay sleeping on where he alighted. His faithful steed, on being eased of his burden, instead of scampering home as one might have expected, stood by his prostrate master, and kept a strict watch over him. Some laborers at sunrise found him very contentedly snoozing on a heap of stones. They wished to approach the gentleman, that they might awaken him, but every attempt on their part was resolutely opposed by the grinning teeth and ready heels of his determined and faithful guardian. They called out loudly, and the gentleman awoke and was very much surprised at his position, while his faithful horse showed his pleasure by neighing and scraping his feet on the ground. The gentleman then mounted, and they galloped away at great speed, both glad to be able to make up for lost time.
Tarquin commenced his reign without any of the forms of election. One of his first acts was to abolish all the privileges which had been conferred upon the Plebeians by Servius. He also compelled the poor to work at miserable wages upon his magnificent buildings, and the hardships which they suffered were so great that many put an end to their lives. But he did not confine his oppressions to the poor. All the senators and patricians whom he mistrusted, or whose wealth he coveted, were put to death or driven into exile. He surrounded himself with a body-guard, by whose means he was enabled to carry out his designs. But, although a tyrant at home, he raised the state to great influence and power among the surrounding nations, partly by his alliances and partly by his conquests. He gave his daughter in marriage to Octavius Mamilius, of Tusculum, the most powerful of the Latins, by whose means he acquired great influence in Latium. Any Latin chiefs like Turnus Herdonius, who attempted to resist him, were treated as traitors, and punished with death. At the solemn meeting of the Latins at the Alban Mount, Tarquin sacrificed the bull on behalf of all the allies, and distributed the flesh to the people of the league.
|