|
|
Corpasenti Webulance Directory 18
Page 07
The generous policy of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus in B.C. 179[58] had secured for Spain a long period of tranquillity. But in B.C. 153, the inhabitants of Segeda having commenced rebuilding the walls of their town, which was forbidden by one of the articles in the treaty of Gracchus, a new war broke out, which lasted for many years. The Celtiberians in general espoused the cause of Segeda, and the Consul Q. Fabius Nobilior made an unsuccessful campaign against them. His successor, the Consul M. Claudius Marcellus, grandson of the Marcellus who was celebrated in the Second Punic War, carried on the war with vigor, and concluded a peace with the enemy on very fair terms (B.C. 152). The Consul of the following year, L. Lucinius Lucullus, finding the Celtiberians at peace, turned his arms against the Vaccaei, Cantabri, and other nations as yet unknown to the Romans.
Many of the smaller species of fishes, upon leaving these winter resorts, ascend small, clear brooks in large numbers for the purpose of depositing their eggs; as, when hatched in such a place, the young will be comparatively free from the attacks of the larger carnivorous forms. Among the lowest vertebrate often found in numbers in early spring in these meadow rills and brooks is the lamprey, _Ammocoetes branchialis_ (L.), or "lamper eel," as it is sometimes called. It has a slender eel-like body, of a uniform leaden or blackish color, and with seven purse-shaped gill openings on each side. The mouth is fitted for sucking rather than biting, and with it they attach themselves to the bodies of fishes and feed on their flesh, which they scrape off with their rasp-like teeth. Later in the season they disappear from these smaller streams, probably returning in midsummer to deeper water. Thoreau, who studied their habits closely, says of them: "They are rarely seen on their way down stream, and it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature to the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare's description of the sea floor."
A volume might be filled with stories of the strange and exciting incidents that grew out of this pretended popish plot. Its consequences extended disastrously through many years, and involved a vast number of innocent persons in irretrievable ruin. The true character of Oates and his accomplices was, however, at length fully proved, and they themselves suffered the fate at last which they had brought upon others. The whole affair was a disgrace to the age. There is no circumstance connected with it which can be looked upon with any pleasure except King Charles's fidelity to his injured wife in refusing to abandon her, though he no longer loved her. His defense of her innocence, involving, as it did, a continuance of the matrimonial tie, which bound them together when all the world supposed that he wished it sundered, seems to have resulted from a conscientious sense of duty, and implies certain latent traits of generosity and nobleness in Charles's character, which, though ordinarily overpowered and nullified by the influences of folly and vice, still always seem to have maintained their hold, and to come out to view from time to time, in the course of the gay monarch's life, whenever any emergency occurred sufficient to call them into action.
|
