Seneca, the celebrated Roman (Stoic) philosopher, was born at or very near the time of our Saviour's birth. There are legends of his acquaintance with Paul, at Rome, but though he wrote able and quotable treatises On Consolation, On Providence, On Calmness of Soul, and On the Blessed Life, there is no direct evidence that the savor of Christian faith ever qualified his works or his personal principles. He was a man of grand ideas and inspirations, but he was a time server and a flatterer of the Emperor Nero, who, nevertheless, caused his death when he had no further use for him.
His compulsory suicide occurred A.D. 65, the year in which St. Paul is supposed to have suffered martyrdom.
“THE BREAKING WAVES DASHED HIGH.”
Sitting at the tea-table one evening, near a century ago, Mrs. Hemans read an old account of the “Landing of the Pilgrims,” and was inspired to write this poem, which became a favorite in America—like herself, and all her other works.
The ballad is inaccurate in details, but presents the spirit of the scene with true poet insight. Mr. James T. Fields, the noted Boston publisher, visited the lady in her old age, and received an autograph copy of the poem, which is seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.
The breaking waves dashed high, on a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky, their giant branches tossed,
And the heavy night hung dark, the hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came;