Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

for nothing-but marrying a Jew's widow who sold sausages-honest dick Johnson's soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats another man put in his knapsack!-!-these are misfortunes, cried Trim, pulling out his handkerchief, these are misfortunes, may it please your honour, worth lying down and crying over.

[blocks in formation]

FEATURES OF WAR.

IT has for some time been a generally received opinion, that a military man is not to enquire whether a war be just or unjust; he is to execute his orders. All princes who are disposed to become tyrants must probably approve of this method, and be willing to establish it. But is it not a dangerous one? Since, on that principle, if the tyrant commands his army to attack and destroy, not only an unoffending neighbour nation, but even his own subjects, the army is bound to obey.

FRANKLIN. Works. Essays, p. 175.

I HAVE never us'd

My soldiers to demand a reason of my actions.

DRYDEN.
All for Love, act iii.

MANY are of opinion, (and there is reason for

the opinion) that no two things can be more incongruous and dissimilar than a civil and a military life. A civil habit is considered as improper

and cumbersome by him who would be ready for

the

the execution of every sort of violence. Civil habits are soft and effeminate: and for a man whose business it is to look big, and hector and fright the whole world, it would scarcely be consistent to behave with the usual gentleness and complacency of other men.

MACHIAVEL.

Art of War: Preface.

THROUGH fraud in all other actions be abomi

nable, in matters of war it is laudable and glorious.

IDEM.

Discourses, b. iii. cb. xl.

He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious.

War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.

IDEM.

Art of War, b. i. ch. ii.

WAR suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated.

BURKE.

Letter to Sheriffs of Bristol, p. 22.

WHEN war begins hell gates are set open.

OLD ITALIAN PROVERB,

Pur together all the vices of all ages and places, and never will they come up to the mischiefs and enormities of only one campaign.

VOLTAIRE.

[blocks in formation]

1

WAR is death's feast.

OLD SPANISH PROVERB.

Charles. Pray, dear papa, let us have a very

pretty story.

Father. With all my heart-what shall it be?
Ch. A bloody murder, papa!

Fa. A bloody murder! Well then-Once upon

a time, some men dressed all alike

...

Ch. With black crapes over their faces?

Fa. No; they had steel caps on :-having crossed a dark heath, wound cautiously along the skirts of a deep forest ....

Ch. They were ill-looking fellows, I dare say. Fa. I cannot say so; on the contrary they were tall, personable men as most one shall see :leaving on their right hand an old ruined tower on the hill

Ch. At midnight, just as the clock struck twelve; was it not, papa?

Fa. No, really; it was on a fine balmy summer's morning :- and moved forwards, one be. bind another

[ocr errors]

...

Ch. As still as death, creeping along under the hedges?

Fa. On the contrary, they walked remarkably upright; and so far from endeavouring to be hushed and still they made a loud noise as they came along, with several sorts of instruments.

Ch. But, papa, they would be found out immediately.

Fa. They Fa. They did not seem to wish to conceal themselves: on the contrary, they gloried in what they were about-they moved forwards, I say, to a Large plain, where stood a pretty village, which they set on fire

....

Ch. Set a village on fire? wicked wretches! Fa. And while it was burning, they murdered twenty thousand men.

Ch. O fie! papa! you do not intend I should believe this! I thought all along you were making up a tale, as you often do; but you shall not catch me this time. What! they lay still, I suppose, and let these fellows cut their throats!

Fa. No, truly they resisted as long as they could.

Ch. How should these men kill twenty thousand people, pray?

Fa. Why not? the murderers were thirty thou. sand.

Ch. O, now I have found you out! you mean

a BATTLE.

Fa. Indeed I do. I do not know of any murders half so bloody.

BARBAULD AND AIKIN.
Evenings at Home, vol. i.

A SOLDIER is a being hired to kill in cold blood as many of his own species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »