Page:The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon.djvu/32

and trace out the course of worldly affairs. For where is exhibited in a more lively manner the grandeur of heroic men, the wisdom of the prudent, the uprightness of the just, and the moderation of the temperate, than in the series of actions which history records? We find Horace suggesting this, when speaking in praise of Homers story, he says:—

"His works the beautiful and base contain,—
Of vice and virtue more instructive rules
Than all the sober sages of the schools^[1]."

Crantor, indeed, and Chrysippus composed laboured treatises on moral philosophy, while Homer unfolds, as it were in a play^[2], the character of Agamemnon for maganinmity, of Nestor for prudence, of Menelaus for uprightness, and on the other hand portrays the vastness of Ajax, the feebleness of Priam, the wrath of Achilles, and the fraud of Paris; setting forth in his narrative what is virtuous and what is profitable, better than is done in the disquisitions of philosophers.

But why should I dwell on profane literature? See how sacred history teaches morals; while it attributes faithfulness to Abraham, fortitude to Moses, forbearance to Jacob, wisdom to Joseph; and while, on the contrary, it sets forth the injustice of Ahab, the weakness of Oziah, the recklessness of Manasseh, the folly of Roboam. God of mercy, what an effulgence was shed on humility, when holy Moses, after joining with his brother in an offering of sweet-smelling incense to God, his protector and avenger, threw himself into the midst of a terrible danger^[3], and when he shed tears for Miriam^[4], who spoke scornfully of him, and was ever interceding for those who were malignant against him! How brightly shone the light of humanity when David, assailed and grievously tried by the curses, the insults, and

1. Epistles, Book i. Ep. 1.
2. Two of the MSS. read speculo, instead of spectaculo. The version would then be "displays as in a mirror." I have followed the reading given by Petrie as well as by Savile.
3. Numb. xvi. 46.
4. The MSS. and printed editions read "Maria," clearly an error of the transcribers; see Numb. xii. 13.