'_Labor improbus
omnia vincit_' tells him not half so much as a tale of the labours of
Hercules; so he will learn more of patience from Job or Griselda; more
of chivalrous courage from Hector or Roland or Launcelot or the tale of
Palamon and Arcite; more of patriotism from the figures in
history--Leonidas, Horatius, Regulus, Joan of Arc, William Tell,
Garibaldi, Gordon--that have translated the Idea back into their own
lives with the noblest simplicity, so that we say of them that they are
"epical figures" or "figures worthy of romance," thereby paying them the
highest compliment in our power: yes and more of Christian simplicity
from my Uncle Toby, Colonel Newcome, even Mr. Pickwick; than from a
hundred copybook maxims concerning these virtues: all these figures
indeed illustrating the tritest copybook maxim of all--that "Example
is better than Precept." Thus Charles Lamb praises the Plays of
Shakespeare as "enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a
withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all
sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity,
generosity, humanity: for," say he, "of _examples_, teaching those
virtues, his pages are full.
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