Alabaster Blue Sectory 13
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For their children; the tragedies likewise of dangers from them, have been many. And generally, the entering of fathers into suspicion of their children, hath been ever unfortunate. The destruction of Mustapha (that we named before) was so fatal to Solyman's line, as the succession of the Turks, from Solyman until this day, is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood; for that Selymus the Second, was thought to be suppositious. The destruction of Crispus, a young prince of rare towardness, by Constantinus the Great, his father, was in like manner fatal to his house; for both Constantinus and Constance, his sons, died violent deaths; and Constantius, his other son, did little better; who died indeed of sickness, but after that Julianus had taken arms against him. The destruction of Demetrius, son to Philip the Second of Macedon, turned upon the father, who died of repentance. And many like examples there are; but few or none, where the fathers had good by such distrust; except it were, where the sons were up in open arms against them; as was Selymus the First against Bajazet; and the three sons of Henry the Second, King of England.

If the Japanese are a conspicuously emotional race, as is commonly believed, we should naturally expect this characteristic to manifest itself in a marked degree in the relation of the sexes. Curiously enough, however, such does not seem to be the case. So slight a place does the emotion of sexual love have in Japanese family life that some have gone to the extreme of denying it altogether. In his brilliant but fallacious volume, entitled "The Soul of the Far East," Mr. Percival Lowell states that the Japanese do not "fall in love." The correctness of this statement we shall consider in connection with the argument for Japanese impersonality. That "falling in love" is not a recognized part of the family system, and that marriage is arranged regardless not only of love, but even of mutual acquaintance, are indisputable facts.

For the last half of the reign of Henry II we have the advantage of a valuable and in some respects very interesting and attractive chronicle. This is the Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, associated with the name of BENEDICT OF PETERBOROUGH (Rolls Series, 2 vols.). Benedict, however, was not the author, and no certain evidence as to who he was can be derived from any source, nor does the chronicle itself supply many of those incidental indications from which it is often possible to learn much regarding the author of an anonymous book. The tentative suggestion of Bishop Stubbs that it may have been written by Richard Fitz Neal, the author of the Dialogus de Scaccario, is now generally regarded as inadmissible. The work begins in 1170, and from a date a year or two later is evidently contemporaneous to its close in 1192, with perhaps a slight interruption at 1177. It is written in a simple and straightforward way, and with a sure touch, unusual accuracy of statement, and a clear understanding of constitutional details; it suggests an interesting personality in its author, with whom we constantly desire a closer acquaintance. Whoever he was, he possessed good sources of information, though apparently too great consideration for king or court keeps him sometimes from saying all he knows or believes, and he has inserted in his work many letters and important documents.

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