such attempts had hitherto naturally been in vain; but when the Dominican promised him that by submitting to be baptized, the death of torture purposed for him should be commuted for the milder form of strangulation, he yielded, and went through the ceremony, and received baptism by the name of Juan de Atahualpa, in honour of S. John the Baptist, on whose day the event took place. He immediately suffered death by the garute, a mode of punishment by strangulation used for criminals in Spain. Atahualpa was, at the time of his death, about thirty years of age, well made, and handsome, but that his eyes which were blood-shot, gave an expression of fierceness to his features. His frame was muscular and well-proportioned, his air commanding, and his deportment in the Spanish quarters had a degree of refinement, the more interesting that it was touched with melancholy. He is described, and it is the description of enemies, as bold, high-minded, and liberal. He showed great penetration and quickness of perception. His exploits as a warrior had placed his valour beyond dispute. The best homage to his talents and power over the minds of his people, is shewn in the reluctance of the Spaniards to set him at liberty. They dreaded him as an enemy, and they had done him too many wrongs to think he could be their friend-yet his conduct towards them from the first had been friendly, and they repaid it with imprisonment, robbery, and death. How little the Spaniards thought of the cruelty and iniquity of which they had been guilty, may be shown by two instances. Garcilasso says, 'But now to consider ⚫ that an Indian, who was an idolater, and who had been guilty ' of such horrible cruelties as Atahualpa had been, should re'ceive the sacrament of baptism at the hour of his death, can 'be esteemed no otherwise than as an effect of the infinite mercy of God towards so great sinners as he was, and as I 'am.' And Sancho, Pizarro's private secretary, seems to think that the Peruvians must have regarded his funeral honours as an ample compensation to Atahualpa for any wrongs the Spaniards might have done him, since they at once raised him to a level with the Spaniards. Such was the end of the tragedy of Atahualpa. It would not be easy to find another instance of a change of fortune so sudden and so unprepared, as that which hurled this monarch from the secure throne of a magnificent empire, in the short space of a few months, to prison and a malefactor's death. Here was no long succession of reverses, no series of defeats from a long-dreaded rival, no gradual decay or corruption preceding the fall of this empire; but, in the height of its pride and strength, dwelling apart and secure, behind its natural rampart of mountains, having no intercourse with, or knowledge of any power without, and no dissensions (at the time) within, a population of millions fell before four hundred strangers, who had come among them they knew not how or whence, as though dropt from the clouds. By the side of the exploits of Pizarro we cease to wonder at Thermopyla and Marathon, or that 30,000 Macedonians should have sufficed to conquer Asia; but it is necessary to be on our guard against allowing the splendour of the achievement to seduce us into forgetfulness of the iniquity, cruelty, and avarice, which animated and guided the adventurers, and the selfish passions to which this signal exertion of moral energy was made subservient. 95 ART. V.—1. Anthologia Oxoniensis, Decerpsit GULIELMUS LINWOOD, M.A. Edis Christi Alumnus, Londini. 2. Arundines Cami, sive, Musarum Cantabrigiensium Lusus Canori, Collegit atque edidit HENRICUS DRURY, A.M. Cantabr. A THIRD edition of the elegant Arundines Cami bears witness to a growing reaction in favour of humane studies, and a widening diffusion of classical taste and feeling. We augur equal success for the newly published sister work-rival we will not call it the Oxford Anthologia, edited by Mr. Linwood of Christ Church, a scholar acknowledged to be as sound as he is brilliant. Why should Mr. Linwood think it necessary to anticipate, or worth while to disclaim, as he does in his preface, the charge of unworthy (pravo studio) imitation? If the example set by Mr. Drury was good, how can the following it be discreditable either to Mr. Linwood or to Oxford? As for a certain outward resemblance in the size, type, and general 'getting up' of the two books, (each being an édition de luxe in the prevailing taste,) these are matters which publishers may be left to settle, without exposing editors to a charge of plagiarism. At all events, the public has nothing to complain of. We have two good books instead of one. And as there is ample room and verge enough' for both, we wish them both fair speed-Arcadas ambo-cantare pares. Were the prize of song to be awarded by our arbitration between the competing minstrels of Isis and Cam, we should be as much puzzled as Virgil's Shepherd, and like him we should have to pronounce a special verdict: et tu dignus, et hic.' For if in the Arundines we find more of airiness and variety, the Anthologia is not inferior in poetical spirit; while in classical purity and correctness it has perhaps a slight advantage. We venture, however, to prophesy, that, when the Anthologia shall have reached a third edition, it will be freed from the only defect now imputable to it, having enlisted a larger corps of contributors in various departments of classical composition. Collections such as those before us, free-will offerings at the shrine of the ancient Muse, are, we frankly own, more to our taste than University Prize Poems, good as many of these undoubtedly are. The good Prize Poem in general (for there are some favourable exceptions) is good in parts rather than as a whole; the seams are too visible; the 'junctura' is wanting. A prescribed subject is often against the grain; and a defined length sometimes cramps, sometimes leads to diffusiveness. The grace and zest of freedom are seen in the unlicensed compositions of the truly elegant scholar. But whether the poetical spirit of our present academic youth exhale in Prize Poems or in Prolusions, it may be thankful to have escaped times when a forced and false or maudlin loyalty was the sole inspiration of our Universities; when on notable public occasions every University man who could, by possibility, ferruminate half-a-dozen verses in Latin or Greek, Hebrew or Syriac, Persian or Arabic, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, or English, was laid under contribution and forced into print, for his own and his Alma Mater's very questionable honour. We have three portly folios on our shelves full of these academical lucubrations, in the shape of Epicedia, Gratulationes, Plausus, Epinicia, Strenæ Natalitiæ, and the like. These, too, were, in their day and in their way, éditions de luxe, 'Chartæ regiæ, novi libri'— issuing the earlier (of Oxford) e Theatro Sheldoniano,—the later e Typographeo Clarendoniano, illustrated with frontispieces of those buildings, and sometimes with trite allegorical engravings, as of Apollo slaying Python, of Fame blowing her trumpet, &c. They extend from the reign of Charles II. to that of George I., awkward times for loyal poetry, and attended indeed with no little awkwardness to the poets themselves, and to the Universities imprinting and endorsing their effusions. A few specimens, by the way, of this curious and now little remembered literature may not be unamusing to our readers. Among the earliest of these collections we find Epicedia on the death of a personage, whom, at this distance of time, we regard only as the fortunate instrument of a great providential work, which his profound dissimulation and keen perception of self-interest peculiarly fitted him to accomplish. We speak of George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, restorer of the English monarchy in the person of Charles II. Dying ten years after his great achievement, in enjoyment of the wealth, rank, and honours he had thus earned, Monk's glorification was a mark of loyal devotion to the re-established throne and sovereign. Accordingly, the introductory verses by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, (Dr. Mews of St. John's,) 'in obitum invictissimi herois Georgii Ducis Albemarliæ,' are inscribed ad Regem.' Although the well-paid services of this 'most unconquered hero' after the abdication of Richard Cromwell are, naturally enough, the chief theme of eulogy, his petty exploits in the needless and fruitless Dutch wars are swelled into mighty triumphs; an exaggeration for which our Oxford poets might plead the example of Dryden's Annus Mirabilis. The Puritans, of course, are castigated with 6 a vigour and unction which might have given Butler a few good hints for his Hudibras. The Vice-Chancellor calls the Rump Parliament infamis cauda Senatûs,'-Cromwelli proceres, fungosa propago, Quos vulgi sentina dabat Lernæque paludes :' the Regius Professor of Divinity (Allestree), adding false quantity to false taste, speaks of democraticæ fæces, tenebrionum 'perduellium cœtus, et hypocritarum sancta turba latronum.' But we are particularly amused by the rich variety of appellations under which the defunct hero figures in Latin. Monkus, Monkius, Monkæus, (eminently ludicrous in the Vocatives, Monke, Monki, Monkæe,) Monachus, Monnachius, Georgius, Albemarlus, Albemarlius, Aumerlus, Aumalius, thrice the tria nomina of a noble Roman. The death of a reigning sovereign is an event of sadness and joy; the sorrows of memory are tempered with the pleasures of hope; the parted luminary must be followed with tears, the rising sun must be worshipped with smiles; 'le roi est mort, vive le roi,' said and wrote M. de Chateaubriand; and in a like epigrammatic spirit, 140 years before him, Dr. Beeston, Warden of New College, thus concluded his loyal effusion on the death of Charles, and accession of James the Second: 'Flevimus amissum; vivum venerabimur: Angli We have spoken of these compositions as inspired, for the most part, by a false or maudlin loyalty. And what milder judgment may we pass on lines so fulsome as the following, applied, not by a grandiloquent schoolboy, but by the Public Orator of the University, to one of the most immoral sovereigns that ever sullied the British throne? 'Ingens et clemens! dominator maximus orbis with much more in the like strain. The pensioner of France ingens ! The puppet of Louis XIV. dominator maximus orbis !' The licentious Charles dominator sui! Faugh! 6 One and the same Vice-Chancellor, Gilbert Ironside, had the rare felicity of prefacing and presenting the poetical compliments of Oxford on two occasions very distinct in character, though near in time; namely, in 1688, Strenæ Natalitiæ in Natalem Serenissimi Principis Walliæ;' in 1689, Vota Oxoniensia pro Serenissimis Guilhelmo rege et Maria regina.' On the former occasion it was Dr. Ironside's ill fate to have concluded his own verses thus: |