Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/52

 xliv INTRODUCTION.

refers to Raleigh and Usher ; but it was to Raleigh that she was chiefly indebted, and she follows him very closely. A few parallel passages from her "Poems" and from Raleigh's " History of the World " will prove this, and will show, that, when she apparently gives the result of her own researches among the writers of antiquity, she is only quoting them indirectly through the English historians of her own time.

She thus describes the murder of the philosopher Callis* thenes by Alexander the Great, in her account of the Grecian Monarchy : —

" The next of worth that fuftered after thefe, Was learned, virtuous, wife Calijlheiies, Who lov'd his Mafter more then did the reft, As did appear, in flattering him the leaft ; In his efteem a God he could not be, Nor would adore him for a Dietj : For this alone and for no other caufe, Againft his Sovereign, or againft Jiis Laws, He on the Rack his Limbs in pieces rent. Thus was he tortur'd till his life was fpent. Of this unkinglj adl doth Seneca This cenfure pafs, and not unwifelj fay, Of Alexander this th' eternal crime. Which Ihall not be obliterate by time. Which virtues fame can ne're redeem by far, Nor all felicity of his in war. When e're 'tis faid he thoufand thoufands flew, Yea, and Calijlhcnes to death he drew. The mighty Perjian King he overcame, Yea, and he kill'd Calijlthenes of fame. Ail Countryes, Kingdomes, Provinces, he wan From HelllJ'pont^ to th' farthest Ocean. All tliis he did, wlio knows' not to be true? But yet withal, Calijlhenes he flew.

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