LUCRETIA.

LUCRETIA is a world-renowned type of conjugal faith and chastity. She impersonates Roman matron purity, unable to survive outraged self-respect. Lucretia was the daughter of Spurious Lucretius Tricipitinus; and was married to Lucius Collatinus, a member of the reigning royal family in Rome. Collatinus's relationship to the Tarquins could not preserve him from the injuries of one of its scions; while it ultimately caused his own downfal. Through his wife, Lucretia, he was the victim of Tarquin treachery; in his own person he became a sufferer from Tarquin hatred,—the hatred borne by the people towards the Tarquin race. This wicked brood were signal in crime. Tullia, utterly devoid of womanhood, had taken her sister's husband in marriage, after murdering her own; had instigated the assassination of her father for the attaining of his crown; and had summed her filial infamy by driving her chariot wheels over her parent's scarce-dead body. Tarquin, surnamed Superbus,-from his insolence of pride,—wielded the sceptre he had gained by blood with tyranny and injustice. To stifle the murmurs of the people at his extravagant and reckless expenditure of the public treasury, he engaged his subjects in war. Sextus Tarquin combined those qualities that the son of such a father might naturally inherit. Self-willed, sensual, treach

erous, and cruel, he hesitated at no deed that might secure the gratification of his own evil passions. The history of the period, as related by Livy, and poetically told by Ovid, forcibly pourtrays the character of all those connected with the sad tale of Lucretia's wrongs, besides recording the black event which forms the small but fatal amount of what we know concerning herself.

Tarquinius Superbus, being at war upon Gabii, a Volscian city, the youngest of his three sons, Sextus, made his way into the enemy's camp; and when their swords were raised to destroy him, bade them strike, saying that it would obtain them favour with his barbarous father, who had maltreated and discarded him. He stripped his back to show them evidences of his father's ill-usage, in the lacerations which he himself, with crafty device, had purposely inflicted there. The foes, seeing the young man's condition (Ovid, here, has a beautiful picturesque touch of its being moonlight in the camp, and revealing the scars), returned their swords to the scabbard, commiserated him, bade him stay with them, and take arms in their ranks. The impostor, rejoicing in their simplicity, accepted the offer; and when he found his credit among them confirmed, he despatched a trusty messenger to his father, inquiring how he might best place Gabii within his power. The message was delivered to the king, who returned no answer, but walked up and down his garden, as if in reverie, striking off the heads of the tallest flowers (Livy says "poppies,”—Ovid, แ 'lilies") with a switch he held in his hand. The man went back, recounting that the king had spoken no word, and repeating what he had seen. The wily son perceived the meaning of the wily father. He immediately put to death the principal men in Gabii; and the city, deprived of its chiefs, opened its gates to the Ro

mans.

King Tarquin proceeded with his extravagant outlay in Rome.

But in the midst of these costly works, an ominous event occurred which inspired universal fear. A serpent, issuing from a column of wood, spread consternation amongst the inhabitants of the palace, and put them to flight. The king, at first but little alarmed, conceived nevertheless serious uneasiness respecting the future. The Etruscan soothsayers were usually consulted with regard to those presages which threatened public welfare; but this one, seeming to menace his own family, Tarquinius Superbus resolved to consult the oracle of Delphos, celebrated throughout the world. At the same time, doubtful what might be the answer of the god, he dared not confide to strangers the charge of going to receive it; he therefore sent two of his sons into Greece, across lands then unknown, and over seas even more unknown. The princes, Titus and Aruns, set forth, accompanied by the son of Tarquinia, sister to the king,-Lucius Junius Brutus,-who was of a very different character, in reality, to what he professed to be in public. Aware that the leading men in the state,-his own near relatives among others,―had fallen victims to the sanguinary oppression of Tarquinius Superbus, this young man adopted the course, thenceforth, of allowing nothing to appear either in his character or fortune which might give umbrage to the tyrant, or excite his cupidity; in a word, he sought from the contempt of those around him that security which justice afforded not. He feigned to be half-witted, suffering himself to become the laughing-stock of the king, abandoning all his possessions to his disposal, and accepting the opprobrious surname of Brutus. It was under favor of this title, indicative of brutish incapacity, that the future liberator of Rome awaited the accomplishment of his destiny. Taken to Delphos by the young Tarquins, of whom he was rather the plaything than the companion,-he carried with him a staff of camel-wood, made hollow, and enclosing a wand of gold, which he presented as his