Ideal Commonwealths | Page 3

of science. He was born in Calabria in 1568, and died in 1639. He
entered the Dominican order when a boy, but had a free and eager
appetite for knowledge. He urged, like Bacon, that Nature should be
studied through her own works, not through books; he attacked, like
Bacon, the dead faith in Aristotle, that instead of following his
energetic spirit of research, lapsed into blind idolatry. Campanella

strenuously urged that men should reform all sciences by following
Nature and the books of God. He had been stirring in this way for ten
years, when there arose in Calabria a conspiracy against the Spanish
rule. Campanella, who was an Italian patriot was seized and sent to
Naples. The Spanish inquisition joined in attack on him. He was
accused of books he had not written and of opinions he did not hold; he
was seven times put to the question and suffered, with firmness of mind,
the most cruel tortures. The Pope interceded in vain for him with the
King of Spain. He suffered imprisonment for twenty-seven years,
during which time he wrote much, and one piece of his prison work
was his ideal of "The City of the Sun."
Released at last from his prison, Campanella went to Rome, where he
was defended by Pope Urban VIII. against continued violence of attack.
But he was compelled at last to leave Rome, and made his escape as a
servant in the livery of the French ambassador. In Paris, Richelieu
became Campanella's friend; the King of France gave him a pension of
three thousand livres; the Sorbonne vouched for the orthodoxy of his
writings. He died in Paris, at the age of seventy-one, in the Convent of
the Dominicans.
Of Campanella's "Civitas Solis," which has not hitherto been translated
into English, the translation here given, with one or two omissions of
detail which can well be spared, has been made for me by my old pupil
and friend, Mr. Thomas W. Halliday.
In the works (published in 1776) of the witty Dr. William King, who
played much with the subject of cookery, is a fragment found among
his remaining papers, and given by his editors as an original piece in
the manner of Rabelais. It seems never to have been observed that this
is only a translation of that part of Joseph Hall's "Mundus Alter es
Idem," which deals with the kitchen side of life. The fragment will be
found at the end of this volume, preceded by a short description of the
other parts of Hall's World which is other than ours, and yet the same.
H.M.
March 1885.

PLUTARCH'S
LIFE OF LYCURGUS.

LIFE OF LYCURGUS.
Of Lycurgus the lawgiver we have nothing to relate that is certain and
uncontroverted. For there are different accounts of his birth, his travels,
his death, and especially of the laws and form of government which he
established. But least of all are the times agreed upon in which this
great man lived. For some say he flourished at the same time with
Iphitus, and joined with him in settling the cessation of arms during the
Olympic games. Among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who alleges
for proof an Olympic quoit, on which was preserved the inscription of
Lycurgus's name. But others who, with Eratosthenes and Apollodorus,
compute the time by the succession of the Spartan kings, place him
much earlier than the first Olympiad. Timæus, however, supposes that,
as there were two Lycurguses in Sparta at different times, the actions of
both are ascribed to one, on account of his particular renown; and that
the more ancient of them lived not long after Homer: nay, some say he
had seen him. Xenophon too confirms the opinion of his antiquity,
when he makes him contemporary with the Heraclidæ. It is true, the
latest of the Lacedæmonian kings were of the lineage of the Heraclidæ;
but Xenophon there seems to speak of the first and more immediate
descendants of Hercules. As the history of those times is thus involved,
in relating the circumstances of Lycurgus's life, we shall endeavour to
select such as are least controverted, and follow authors of the greatest
credit.
Simonides the poet, tells us, that Prytanis, not Eunomus, was father to
Lycurgus. But most writers give us the genealogy of Lycurgus and
Eunomus in a different manner; for, according to them, Sous was the
son of Patrocles, and grandson of Aristodemus, Eurytion the son of
Sous, Prytanis of Eurytion, and Eunomus of Prytanis; to this Eunomus
was born Polydectes, by a former wife, and by a second, named

Dianassa, Lycurgus. Eutychidas, however, says Lycurgus was the sixth
from Patrocles, and the eleventh from Hercules. The most distinguished
of his ancestors was Sous, under whom the Lacedæmonians made the
Helotes their slaves, and gained