of all ages of the world."

"Ah, sir! it is a fine thing for us to sit here and compose his
panegyric. But shall I forget what a vast expense was bestowed in
erecting the monument of his fame? Was not he the common disturber of
mankind? Did not he over-run nations that would never have heard of him
but for his devastations? How many hundred thousands of lives did he
sacrifice in his career? What must I think of his cruelties; a whole
tribe massacred for a crime committed by their ancestors one hundred and
fifty years before; fifty thousand sold into slavery; two thousand
crucified for their gallant defence of their country? Man is surely a
strange sort of creature, who never praises any one more heartily than
him who has spread destruction and ruin over the face of nations!"

"The way of thinking you express, Williams, is natural enough, and I
cannot blame you for it. But let me hope that you will become more
liberal. The death of a hundred thousand men is at first sight very
shocking; but what in reality are a hundred thousand such men, more than
a hundred thousand sheep? It is mind, Williams, the generation of
knowledge and virtue, that we ought to love. This was the project of
Alexander; he set out in a great undertaking to civilise mankind; he
delivered the vast continent of Asia from the stupidity and degradation
of the Persian monarchy: and, though he was cut off in the midst of his
career, we may easily perceive the vast effects of his project. Grecian
literature and cultivation, the Seleucidae, the Antiochuses, and the
Ptolemies followed, in nations which before had been sunk to the
condition of brutes. Alexander was the builder, as notoriously as the
destroyer, of cities."

"And yet, sir, I am afraid that the pike and the battle-axe are not the