[257] {542}[The Cleopatra whose mummy is preserved in the British Museum was a member of the Theban Archon family. Her date was circ. A.D. 100.]
[258] [According to Strabo (Rerum Geog., xvii. ed. 1807, ii. 1127), Ptolemæus Soter brought Alexander's body back from Babylon, and buried it in Alexandria, in the spot afterwards known as the Soma. There it lay, in Strabo's time, not in its original body-mask of golden chase-work, which Ptolemæus Cocces had stolen, but in a casket of glass. Great men "turned to pilgrims" to visit Alexander's grave. Augustus crowned the still life-like body with a golden laurel-wreath, and scattered flowers over the tomb: Caligula stole the breastplate, and wore it during his pantomimic triumphs; Septimius Severus buried in the sarcophagus the writings of the priests, and a clue to the hieroglyphics. Finally, the sarcophagus and its sacred remains disappear, and Alexander himself passes into the land of fable and romance. In 1801 a sarcophagus came into the possession of the English Army, and was presented by George III. to the British Museum. Hieroglyphics were as yet undeciphered, and, in 1805, the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke published a quarto monograph (The Tomb of Alexander, etc.), in which he proves, to his own satisfaction, that "this surprising sarcophagus in one entire block of green Egyptian breccia," had once contained the ashes of Alexander the Great. Byron knew Clarke, and, no doubt, respected his authority (see letter December 15, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 308); and, hence, the description of "Alexander's urn" as "a show." The sarcophagus which has, since 1844, been assigned to its rightful occupant, Nectanebus II. (Nekht-neb-f), is a conspicuous object in the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. It is a curious coincidence that in the Ethiopic version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander is said to have been the son of Nectanebus II., who threw a spell over Olympias, the wife of Philip of Macedon, and won her love by the exercise of nefarious magic. (See the Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., F.S.A., Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, 1896, i, ix.)]
[259] {543}[Arrian (Alexand. Anabasis, vii. i, 4, ed. 1849, p. 165) says that Alexander would never have rested content with what he had acquired; "that if he had annexed Europe to Asia, and the British Isles to Europe, he would have sought out some no-man's-land to conquer." So insatiable was his ambition, that when the courtly philosopher Anaxarchus explained to him the theory of the plurality of worlds he bemoaned himself because as yet he was not master of one. "Heu me, inquit, miserum, quod ne uno quidem adhuc potitus sum."—Valerius Maximus, De Dictis, etc., lib. viii. cap. xiv. ex. 2. See, too, Juvenal, x. 168, 169. Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy, 1893, i. 64) denies that this was spoken like a prince, but, as wise Seneca censures him [on another occasion, however], 'twas vox iniquissima et stultissima, "'twas spoken like a bedlam fool.">[
[260] [Compare Werner, [act iii. sc. 1, lines 288, 289], "When he [Sesostris] went into the temple or the city, his custom was to cause the horses to be unharnessed out of his chariot, and to yoke four kings and four princes to the chariot-pole."—Diodori Siculi Bibl. Hist., lib. i. p. 37, C, ed. 1604, p. 53.]
[261] {544}[In a speech delivered in the House of Commons, February 17, 1800, "On the continuance of the War with France," Pitt described Napoleon as the "child and champion of Jacobinism." Coleridge, who was reporting for the Morning Post, took down Pitt's words as "nursling and champion" (unpublished MS. note-book)—a finer and more original phrase, but substituted "child" for "nursling" in his "copy." (See Letters of S. T. Coleridge, 1895, i. 327, note i.) The phrase was much in vogue, e.g. "All that survives of Jacobinism in Europe looks up to him as its 'child and champion.'"-Quarterly Review, xvi. 48.]
[dx] Lines 55-58 not in MS.
[262] [O'Meara, under the dates August 19, September 5, September 7, 13, etc. (see Napoleon in Exile, 1888, i. 95, 96, 114, 121, etc.), reports complaints on the part of Napoleon with regard to the reduction of expenses suggested or enforced by Sir Hudson Lowe, and gives specimens of the nature and detail of these reductions. For a refutation of O'Meara's facts and figures (as given in Napoleon in Exile, 1822, ii. Appendix V.), see the History of the Captivity of Napoleon, by William Forsyth, Q.C., 1853, iii. 121, sq.; see, too, Sir Hudson Lowe and Napoleon, by R. C. Seaton, 1898. It is a fact that Sir Hudson Lowe, on his own responsibility, increased the allowance for the household expenses of Napoleon and his staff from £8000 to £12,000 a year, and it is also perfectly true that opportunities for complaint were welcomed by the ex-Emperor and his mimic court. It was la politique de Longwood to make the worst of everything, on the off-chance that England would get to hear, and that Radical indignation and Radical sympathy would gild, perhaps unbar, the eagle's cage. It is true, too, that a large sum of money was spent on behalf of a prisoner of war whom the stalwarts of the Tory party would have executed in cold blood. But it is also true that Napoleon had no need to manufacture complaints, that he was exposed to unnecessary discomforts, that useless and irritating precautions were taken to prevent his escape, that the bottles of champagne and madeira, the fowls and the bundles of wood were counted with an irritating preciseness, inconsistent with the general scale of expenditure, which saved a little waste, and covered both principals and agents with ridicule. It is said that O'Meara, in his published volumes, manipulated his evidence, and that his own letters give him the lie; but there is a mass of correspondence, published and unpublished, between him and Sir Thomas Reade, Sir Hudson Lowe, and Major Gorrequer (see Addit. MSS. Brit. Mus. 20,145), which remains as it was written, and which testifies to facts which might have been and were not refuted on the spot and at the moment. With regard to "disputed rations," the Governor should have been armed with a crushing answer to any and every complaint. As it was, he was able to show that champagne was allowed to "Napoleon Buonaparte," and that he did not exceed his allowance.]
[263] {545}[In his correspondence with Lord Bathurst, Sir Hudson Lowe more than once quotes "statements" made by Dr. O'Meara (vide post, [p. 546]). But the surgeon may be William Warden (1777-1849), whose Letters written on board His Majesty's Ship the Northumberland, and at St, Helena, were published in 1816.]
[264] [Henry, Earl of Bathurst (1762-1834), Secretary for War and the Colonies, replied to Lord Holland's motion "for papers connected with the personal treatment of Napoleon Buonaparte at St. Helena," March 18, 1817. Parl. Deb., vol. 35, pp. 1137-1166.]
[265] [A bust of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, had been forwarded to St. Helena. O'Meara (Napoleon in Exile, etc., 1822, i. p. 100) says "that it had been in the island fourteen days, during several of which it was at Plantation House," before it was transferred to Longwood. Forsyth (History of Napoleon in Captivity, 1853, ii. 146) denies this statement. It was, no doubt, detained on board ship for inspection, but not at Plantation House.]