The Charleston Daily News

The Classics in Debate.

There is probably no assembly in the world where an apt quotation from the classics is so keenly relished as in the English House of Commons. Many an orator, weak in his logic and uncertain as to his facts, has regained the sympathy of his audience there by a fortunate morsel of Horace, or Juvenal, or Virgil, and many a true man has had the laugh against him in consequence of some lucky hit made by his adversary, or some trip made by himself in the game of quotations.

A curious instance of this fondness for classical citation occurred in the great reform debates of this spring. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe, who has been, perhaps, the ablest opponent of the bill, bandied, on several occasions, the passages in the second book of the Aeneid, relating to the wooden horse by which the Greeks deceived the Trojans. Mr. Gladstone started the game one evening in March, when he was denying that the increased political power of the working classes is fraught with danger:

"We cannot look upon it as the Trojan horse approaching the walls of the sacred city, and filled with armed men bent upon ruin, plunder and confiscation. We cannot join in comparing it with that monstrum infelix—we cannot say—

Scandit fatalis machina muros,

Foeta armis: meditique minans ilabitur urbi."

Or as Dryden has it:

"At length the fatal fabric mounts the walls,

Big with destruction. It enters o'er our heads, and threats the town."

Mr. Lowe, speaking on the following evening, possibly after conning his Virgil a little, saw his way to turn this to account. "The Chancellor of the Exchequer," he said, "has found a quotation describing something, and then says, 'that is not my bill.'"

"Well that was a very apt quotation, but there was a curious felicity about it which he little dreamt of. The House remembers that among other proofs of the degree in which public opinion is enlisted in the cause of reform was this, that this is now the fifth Reform Bill that has been brought in since 1851. Now, just attend to the sequel of the passage quoted by the right honorable gentleman. I am no believer in sortes Virgilianae, and the House will see why in a moment:

"'O Divum domus Ilum, et inclyta bello

Moenia Dardani! quater ipso in limine portae

Substitit, atque utero sonitum quater arma dedere.

[Much cheering and laughter.] But that is not all:

a tInatamus tamen immemores caeci que furore

Et monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce."

"[Cheers.] Well, I abominate the presage contained in the last two lines, but I mix my confidence with fear."

"To follow Dryden's translation again—

'O sacred city, built by hands divine!

O valiant heroes of the Trojan line!

Four times he stuck; as oft the clashing sound

Of arms was heard, and inward groans rebound.

Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate,

We haul along the horse in solemn state.'"

Mr. Gladstone apparently did not think it worth while to follow up his game much further. On the next evening, however, charging Mr. Lowe with denouncing the workingmen, he recurred to his lines first quoted, in a tone of explanation more grave than that which he might have used with effect:

"I said this is no monstrum infelix, no horse charged with armed men, who are to carry fire and desolation to your homes; but my right honorable friend rushed in haste into the trap, and with portentous emphasis exclaimed:

"Instamus tamen immemores, caeci que furore,

Et monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce."

"What is the monstrum infelix? Who are the persons contained in it? The 7-pounders! [Loud cheers.]"

Finally, in the great closing debate of the session, Mr. Lowe rejoined and ended the affair, by a final recurrence to the quotation, in a strain which is striking for its easy raillery and keen sarcasm combined. We confess that we are uncertain whether the "insulting Sinon" of this closing quotation was intended for Mr. Gladstone, whom Mr. Lowe had accused of great indecorum toward the House, or Mr. Bright, who is asserted by the Conservatives to be the real leader, who, at the head of the host of Democracy, stands behind the ministry:

"I have said that I am utterly unable to coincide in the reasons which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before us in support of this bill, but there is happily one common ground left to us, and that is the Second Book of the Aeneid of Virgil. [Hear, and a laugh.] My right hon. friend, like the moth that has singed its wings in the candle, has returned again to the poor old Trojan horse, [a laugh,] and I shall, with the permission of the House, give them one more excerpt from the history of that noble beast; first promising that I shall then turn him out to grass, at all events for the remainder of the season. [Cheers and laughter.]

The passage which I am about to quote, is one which is, I think, worthy the attention of the House, because it contains a description, not only of the invading army of which we have heard so much, but also a slight sketch of its General. [A laugh]:

"Arduus armatos medlis in moenibus adstans

Fundit equus, victorque Sinon incendia miscet

Insultans [cheers and laughter]: portis alli bipatentibus adsunt,

Millia quot magnis nunquam venere Mycenis."

[Cheers.] In other words:

"The fatal horse pours forth the human tide.

Insulting Sinon flings his firebrands wide,

The gates are burst; the ancient rampart falls,

And swarming millions climb its crumbling walls."

After all, however, these quotations lack the fine flavor which some of those long since recorded derive from evidently extemporaneous citation and instant use.

Congressional misquotations from the poets are proverbial. Mr. Clay rarely had occasion to depart from the realm of his affluent imagination; but we have been informed by a former honored editor of the Intelligencer, that on one occasion he essayed to quote from Shakespeare the familiar passage—

"Let the galled jade wince

My withers are unwrung."

He was twice corrected by Mr. Preston, of South Carolina, but had it wrong at last.

The Springfield Republican has a good hit in this wise. We quote:

"SHAKSPEARE IN THE SENATE.—Scripture, Shakespeare and the old Greeks and Romans generally, fare badly when they fall into the hands of Congressmen. There was an amusing illustration of this in the Senate, Thursday, when three distinguished senators tried to give a familiar quotation from Shakespeare, and neither did it correctly.

Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, had been speaking of the different wings of the Republican party: the universal-hanging party, led by Mr. Stevens; the universal-suffrage party, led by Mr. Sumner; the universal-confiscation party, led by Mr. Nye, and the universal-amnesty-in-return-for-universal-suffrage party, led by Mr. Stewart. The attempt to unite these he described by a quotation from Shakespeare, putting it in this way:

"Mingle, mingle, as they say,

Blue spirits and gray."

Mr. Sumner suggested, by way of correction:

"White spirits and gray."

Mr. Cowan said there were no white spirits in it.

Mr. Doolittle did not know; gave it up, and said he was nearer right than either of his critics. Mr. Sumner would trust the reporters to quote it aright. But the reporters did not take the trouble. Mr. Doolittle was nearer right than either of his critics. Mr. Sumner failed to mix the colors correctly, and Mr. Cowan was altogether wrong in insisting upon leaving out the white spirits, though perhaps he meant, by way of joke, to insinuate that all the schemes described by Mr. Doolittle were 'colored' ones. The true rendering of the witches' song is:

"Black spirits and white,

Blue spirits and gray;

Mingle, mingle, mingle,

You that mingle may."