Character of Coriolanus [pp. 737-738]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
receive him with open arms, and signify their readiness
to do his bidding. An army is placed at his disposal,
with which he invades the Roman territory, and ravaging the country as he passes along, at length draws up
his legions within a few miles of the city, prepared, in
the event of a refusal to comply with his harsh and extravagant requisitions, to whelm friend and foe in one
indiscriminate ruin. Seized with consternation at his
sudden and unexpected approach, the Romans sue for
mercy. Successive deputations, consisting of the friends
who had fought at his side in battle, and of the principal citizens who had stood by him when the decree was
passed for his unjust and cruel banishment, are in vain
sent to intreat him to lay aside his unnatural rebellion.
Nothing can move him until, his wife and mother coming out to the camp, and throwing themselves at his
feet, he reluctantly grants to their prayers and tears the
amnesty which all feebler considerations had not availed
to obtain.
Now suppose, for a moment, that the reprobation
which the Christian code of morals pronounces on the
principle of revenge, be laid out of view; and let it be
granted that Coriolanus had a right to retaliate on the
men who had so deeply injured him; yet how shall we
excuse the design he meditated of involving his innocent friends in the same heavy penalty? When he was
banished, it was by a majority of only three tribes.
The whole body of the Patricians were in his favor,
and profoundly sympathized in his calamity; and he
must have foreseen that if the Volscian soldiery, the
ancient and uncompromising enemies of Rome, were
admitted into the city with Aufidius, his co-equal in
command, at their head, that nothing sacred or venerable would be spared by their rapacious violence-that
the rights of property, the quiet and security of old
men, the purity of virgins and matrons, and the sanctity of temples-in a word, all that age, or innocence,
or religion had consecrated, would be made the inevitable victims of the same ruthless invasion. And all
this he contemplated unmoved. Surely, in the very
conception of an act implicating, in such tragical consequences, not his enemies merely, but his friends also,
and those who should have been dearer to him than his
own life-his family and kindred-there was a monstrous perfidy from which every mind that has not been
too deeply corrupted to appreciate the force of any
moral motive, must revolt with horror.
But it may be asked, "How can Coriolanus be justly
charged with the crime of those consequences which
his clemency prevented?" In estimating character, the
man who has once evinced the inveterate malignity of
his heart, must be branded with eternal infamy, unless
it appears that he subsequently became penetrated with
profound contrition and chlanged his conduct from the
purest and most virtuous motives. Was this true of
Coriolanus? Having contemned the higher claims of
his country, and thrown off her allegiance, his ultimately yielding to the yearning voice of natural affection was a weakness-an amiable weakness, it may be
said-but still a weakness. Such is our mental conformation, that we behold a congruous character with a
degree of complacency, even though the character be a
bad one; and although we may lend a measure of our
sympathy to those good acts of confessedly bad men,
which are the mere gratification of a physical propen
sity, the unbending rigor of reason sternly refuses to
allow any moral excellence to those deeds, or to insult
the majesty of virtue by assigning them as her offspring. We return, however, to a point temporarily
merged, in order to follow up another branch of the
argument. The principle of revenge is wholly, and
under all circumstances, inadmissible. Nor is it a proper reply to this proposition to say, that ours is an age
of moral and intellectual light, and that it is unjust to
apply to one who lived two thousand years ago, the
same rigid rule of judgment to which he would be subjected at the present day. In the trial of questions involving an abstract principle, there should manifestly
be but one standard for all ages and nations. Any
other hypothesis will lead to the most glaring absurdities. For if the moral quality of an action could be
modified by the unimportant circumstances of time or
place, there is no crime in the decalogue which may not
be justified. Modern heathen nations almost universally allow polygamy; in certain portions of the world
murder is deemed innocent; and the ancient Spartan,
we know, regarded theft as the prince of virtues.
Where is the man who would presume to excuse these
practices because they pertain to a barbarous nation, or
to a period of moral darkness? Yet may it as well be
done, as to justify the practice of revenge in the case
under consideration. The ignorance of the age or nation may palliate the conduct of an individual; it cannot justify what is intrinsically wrong; and it would
be in the last degree preposterous to put out the lights
by which we are surrounded, and go to seek the radiant
form of virtue in the dim twilight of heathenism. If
Coriolanus had displayed a fortitude in suffering equal
to his bravery in action-if he had never suffered a
thought of retaliation upon his ingrate country to invade his breast; but, when thrust out from home and
kindred, and all that on earth he held most dear, he had
sought, in the conscious purity of his heart, and, in a
sense of duty discharged, that tranquil happiness which,
to a wise man, is of far higher price than the shouts
and huzzas of the multitude-that mental peace which
can cheer the gloom of solitude, and whose elastic energy can buoy up the soul under the heaviest distresses,
his name would have come down to posterity circumvested with a halo of glory, ever enlarging, ever brightening. As it is, there is a spot upon his fame which
all his splendid achievemnents may not wipe off. The
man who courts toil, and suffering, and danger in his
country's cause, earns well the patriot's meed; but he
who conquers himself, achieves a nobler triumph. He
bequeaths to the generations of all time, in the bright
example he leaves for their emulation, a rarer and richer
legacy.
There may be glory in the might
Which treadeth nations down;
Wreaths for the crimson conqueror,
Pride for the kingly crown;
But nobler is that triumph hour
The disenthralled shall find,
When evil passion boweth down
Unto the Godlike mind.
In his contempt of this sentiment consisted Coriolanus' great error. Alas for his fame, that hlie had not
discerned its truth and acted accordingly!
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