456 JAMES WATT. 



officers, the conqueror of Arbela exclaimed : " Let that 

 be reserved for me ; it shall contain my Homer. It is 

 the best and most faithful counsellor I have in my mili- 

 tary affairs. Besides, it is but just that the richest pro- 

 duction of art should preserve the most precious work of 

 the human mind." 



The sacking of Thebes had already shown, still more 

 clearly, the unlimited respect and admiration that Alex- 

 ander entertained for letters. Only one family out of 

 that populous city escaped death and slavery : this was 

 the family of Pindar. Only one house remained intact 

 amidst the ruined temples, palaces, and private dwellings : 

 this was the house where Pindar was born, not Epami- 

 nondas ! 



When Pompey, after finishing the war against Mithri- 

 dates, went to visit the celebrated philosopher Posidonias, 

 he prohibited the lictors from knocking at the door with 

 their sticks, as was the custom. Thus, says Pliny, were 

 the fasces of the man who had seen the East and the 

 West prostrated before him, lowered before the humble 

 dwelling of a learned man ! 



Caesar, who may also be claimed as a man of letters, 

 allows us to perceive, in at least twenty places in his im- 

 mortal Commentaries, what rank was occupied in his own 

 esteem by the various faculties with which nature had so 

 liberally endowed him. How brief he is, how rapid in 

 relating combats and battles ! See, on the contrary, 

 whether he thinks any detail superfluous in the descrip- 

 tion of the temporary bridge by means of which his army 

 crossed the Rhine. It is because success depended here 

 on the conception, and the conception was exclusively 

 his own. 



It has also been already remarked, that the part which 



