For Plato's fancies what care I? I hope you would not have me die Like simple Cato in the play, For anything that he can say: E'en let him of ideas speak To heathens, in his native Greek. If to be sad is to be wise, I do most heartily despise Whatever Socrates has said, Or Tully writ, or Wanley read. Dear Drift, to set our matters right, Remove these papers from my sight; Burn Mat's Descartes and Aristotle-- Here, Jonathan,--your master's bottle.
In all these poems, let us distinguish the pleasant, the lively, the natural, the familiar--from the grotesque, the farcical, the low, and, above all, the stiff and forced. These various shades are discriminated by the connoisseurs, who alone, in the end, decide the fate of every work.
La Fontaine would sometimes descend to the burlesque style--Phædrus never; but the latter has not the grace and unaffected softness of La Fontaine, though he has greater precision and purity.
These people were originally Huns, who settled near the Volga; and Volgarians was easily changed into Bulgarians.
About the end of the seventh century, they, like all the other nations inhabiting Sarmatia, made irruptions towards the Danube, and inundated the Roman Empire. They passed through Moldavia and Wallachia, whither their old fellow-countrymen, the Russians, carried their victorious arms in 1769, under the Empress Catherine II.
Having crossed the Danube, they settled in part of Dacia and Moesia, giving their name to the countries which are still called Bulgaria. Their dominion extended to Mount Hæmus and the Euxine Sea.
In Charlemagne's time, the Emperor Nicephorus, successor to Irene, was so imprudent as to march against them after being vanquished by the Saracens; and he was in like manner defeated by the Bulgarians. Their king, named Krom, cut off his head, and made use of his skull as a drinking-cup at his table, according to the custom of that people in common with all the northern nations.
It is related that, in the ninth century, one Bogoris, who was making war upon the Princess Theodora, mother and guardian to the Emperor Michael, was so charmed with that empress's noble answer to his declaration of war, that he turned Christian.
The Bulgarians, who were less complaisant, revolted against him; but Bogoris, having shown them a crucifix, they all immediately received baptism. So say the Greek writers of the lower empire, and so say our compilers after them: _"Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."_
