M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James Watt. 289 



endeavour, for number and novelty, to substitute celebrity, 

 and shall only cite the opinions of Alexander and Pompey, of 

 Caesar and Napoleon. 



The admii-ation of the Macedonian conqueror for Homer is 

 an historical fact. Aristotle, at his command, undertook the 

 revision of the text of the Iliad. This corrected copy became 

 his favom'ite and most esteemed book ; and vphen, in the centre 

 of Asia, amidst the spoils of Darius, a magnificent coffer, of 

 gold, pearls, and precious stones, appeared to excite^the cu- 

 pidity of his lieutenants, — ^" Let it be reserved for me," ex- 

 claimed the conqueror of Arbela, " that I may put my Homer 

 in it. It is the best and most faithful of my counsellors during 

 my military operations ; and it is, moreover, just, that the 

 richest production of the arts should be used for the preserva- 

 sion of the most precious production of the human mind." 

 The sack of Thebes had previously demonstrated more clearly 

 still, the unlimited respect and admiration Alexander enter- 

 tained for literature. One single family alone, of this popu- 

 lous town, escaped death and slavery, and it was the family 

 of Pindar. A solitary mansion remained erect amidst the 

 ruins of temples, palaces, and private dwellings, and it was 

 the house where Pindar — not that where Epaminondas — was 

 born ! 



After the termination of the Mithridatic war, when Pom- 

 pey went to visit the celebrated philosopher Posidonius, he 

 prohibited the lictors from knocking at his door with their 

 rods, according to their practice. Thus bowed, adds Pliny, 

 before the humble dwelling of a sage, the fasces of him who 

 had beheld the east and the west prostrate at his feet ! 



Caesar, whom literature may well claim as her son, has 

 clearly, and in many passages of his immortal Commentaries, 

 indicated the relative places which the various kinds of fa- 

 culties — so largely possessed by himself — held in his estima- 

 tion. How brief and rapid his accounts of combats and bat- 

 tles ! On the contrary, he considers no detail he can lavish 

 upon the description of the famous bridge along which his 

 army so unexpectedly crossed the Rhine as superfluous. And 

 why .'' Because here success depended upon conception alone ; 

 and the designs were all his own. The preference which 



