among the languid voluptuaries of the Senate." They probably voted
Fulvius a brute, but they no more thought of questioning the legality of
his conduct than they did of imitating it. Law was one thing, opinion
another. If he liked to play Lucius Junius, well and good; but they had
no taste for the part. They felt much as we used to feel in
Fugitive-Slave-Law times: we did not question the law, but we would have
nothing to do with its execution.

Modern fathers have had no such powers as were held by those of Rome,
and if an Englishman of Red-Rose views had killed his son for setting
off to join Edward IV. when he had landed at Ravenspur, no one would
think of praising the act. What was all right in a Roman of the year 1
of the Republic would be considered shocking in a Christian of the
fifteenth century, a time when Christianity had become much diluted from
the inter-mixture of blood. In the next century, poor Lady Jane Grey
spoke of the torments which she had endured at the hands of her parents,
who were of the noblest blood of Europe, in terms that ought to make
every young woman thankful that her lot was not cast in the good old
times. Roger Ascham was her confidant. He had gone to Brodegate, to take
leave of her, and "found her in her chamber alone, reading Phædo
Platonis in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentlemen would
read a merry tale of Boccace"; and as all the rest of the Greys were
hunting in the park, the schoolmaster inquired why she should lose such
pastime. The lady answered, that the pleasure they were having in the
park was but the shadow of that pleasure she found in Plato. The
conversation proceeding, Ascham inquired how it was that she had come to
know such true pleasure, and she answered,--"I will tell you, and tell
you a truth which perchance ye may marvel at. One of the greatest
benefits God ever gave me is that he sent me so sharp and severe parents
and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father