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and the distant fires of Lemnos, the fierce in- | say a word about Diana, having been educated in habitants subdued by pity, the remorseless be- great fear of her: but surely the treatment of trayer, and the various emotions of his retiring Marsyas by Apollo was bordering on severity." friends. Her reign is boundless, but the fairer "Not a whit," cried my father, "if underand the richer part of her dominions lies within stood rightly." the Odyssea. Painting by degrees will perceive her advantages over Sculpture; but if there are paces between Sculpture and Painting, there are parasangs between Painting and Poetry. The difference is that of a lake confined by mountains, and a river running on through all the varieties of scenery, perpetual and unimpeded. Sculpture and Painting are moments of life; Poetry is life itself, and everything around it and above it.

"His assent to the request of Phaeton," continued the young man, knowing (as he did) the consequences, seems a little deficient in that foresight which belongs peculiarly to the God of prophecy."

My father left me abruptly, ran to the font, and sprinkled first himself, then me, lastly the guest, with lustral water.

"We mortals," continued he gravely, "should not presume to argue on the Gods after our own inferior nature and limited capacities. What appears to have been cruel might have been most kindly provident."

"The reasoning is conclusive," said the youth;

"But let us turn back again to the position we set out from, and offer due reverence to the truest diviners of the Gods. Phidias in ten days is capable of producing what would outlive ten thousand years, if man were not resolved to be" you have caught by the hand a benighted and the subverter of man's glory. The Gods themselves will vanish away before their images." O Cleone! this is painful to hear. I wish Pericles, and I too, were somewhat more religious: it is so sweet and graceful.

LXXIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA.

She, O Aspasia, who wishes to be more religious, hath much religion, although the volatility of her imagination and the velocity of her pursuits do not permit her to settle fixedly on the object of it. How could I have ever loved you so, if I believed the Gods would disapprove of my attachment, as they certainly would if you underrated their power and goodness! They take especial care both to punish the unbeliever, and to strike with awe the witnesses of unbelief. I accompanied my father, not long since, to the temple of Apollo; and when we had performed the usual rites of our devotion, there came up to us a young man of somewhat pleasing aspect, with whose family ours was anciently on terms of intimacy. After my father had made the customary inquiries, he conversed with us about his travels. He had just left Ephesus, and said he had spent the morning in a comparison between Diana's temple and Apollo's. He told us that they are similar in design; but that the Ephesian Goddess is an ugly lump of dark-coloured stone; while our Apollo is of such transcendent beauty that, on first beholding him, he wondered any other God had a worshipper. My father was transported with joy at such a declaration.

"Give up the others," said he; "worship here, and rely on prosperity."

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"Were I myself to select," answered he, "any deity in preference to the rest, it should not be an irascible, or vindictive, or unjust one.' "Surely not," cried my father. . "it should be Apollo; and our Apollo! What has Diana done for any man, or any woman? I speak submissively . . with all reverence. . I do not question."

The young man answered, "I will forbear to

wandering dreamer, and led him from the brink of a precipice. I see nothing left now on the road-side but the skin of Marsyas, and it would be folly to start or flinch at it."

My father had a slight suspicion of his sincerity, and did not invite him to the house. He has attempted to come, more than once, evidently with an earnest desire to explore the truth. Several days together he has been seen on the very spot where he made the confession to my father, in deep thought, and, as we hope, under the influence of the Deity.

I forgot to tell you that this young person is Thraseas, son of Phormio, the Coan.

LXXIV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

If ever there was a youth whose devotion was ardent, and whose face (I venture to say, although I never saw it) was prefigured for the offices of adoration, I suspect it must be Thraseas, son of Phormio, the Coan.

Happy the man who, when every thought else is dismissed, comes last and alone into the warm and secret foldings of a letter !

LXXV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

Alcibiades entered the library one day when I was writing out some verses. He discovered what I was about, by my hurry in attempting to conceal them.

"Alcibiades!" said I "we do not like to be detected in anything so wicked as poetry. Some day or other I shall perhaps have my revenge, and catch you committing the same sin with more pertinacity.”

"Do you fancy," said he, " that I can not write a verse or two, if I set my heart upon it?"

"No," replied I, "but I doubt whether your heart, in its lightness and volubility, would not roll off so slippery a plinth. We remember your poetical talents, displayed in all their brightness on poor Socrates."

"Do not laugh at Socrates," said he. "The you have not touched the part where pain lies. man is by no means such a quibbler and impostor Were it possible that a creature so perfect could as some of his disciples would represent him, love me, I would reprove her indiscretion; I making him drag along no easy mule-load, by would recall to her attention what surely her eyes Hercules! no summer robe, no every-day vesture, might indicate at a glance, the disparity of our no nurse of an after-dinner nap, but a trailing, ages; and I would teach her, what is better taught troublesome, intricate piece of sophistry, inter- by friendship than by experience, that youth alone woven with flowers and sphynxes, stolen from an is the fair price of youth. However, since there is Egyptian temple, with dust enough in it to blind on either side nothing but pure amity, there is no all the crocodiles as far as to the cataracts, and to necessity for any such discourse. My soul could dry up the Nile at its highest overflow. He is hardly be more troubled if there were. Her rather fond of strangling an unwary interloper health is declining while her beauty is scarcely with a string of questions, of which it is difficult yet at its meridian. I will not delay you, O to see the length or the knots, until the two ends Cleone! nor will you delay me. Rarely do I enter are about the throat; but he lets him off easily the temples; but I must enter here before I sleep. when he has fairly set his mark on him. Anaxa- Artemis and Aphroditè may perhaps hear me: goras tells me that there is not a school in Athens but I entreat you, do you also, who are more pious where the scholars are so jealous and malicious, than I am, pray and implore of their divine while he himself is totally exempt from those goodness, that my few years may be added to worst and most unphilosophical of passions; that hers; the few to them any, the sorrowful (not the parasitical weed grew up together with their then so) to the joyous." very root, and soon overtopped the plant, but that it only hangs to his railing. Now Anaxagoras envies nobody, and only perplexes us by the admiration of his generosity, modesty, and wisdom.

"I did not come hither to disturb you, Aspasia! and will retire when I have given you satisfaction, or revenge; this, I think, is the word. Not only have I written verses, and, as you may well suppose, long after those upon the son of Sophroniscos, but verses upon love."

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Are we none of us in the secret?" said I.
You shall be," said he; "attend and pity."
I must have turned pale, I think, for I shud-
dered. He repeated these, and relieved me.

I love to look on lovely eyes,
And do not shun the sound of sighs,
If they are level with the ear;
But if they rise just o'er my chin,
O Venus! how I hate their din!

My own I am too weak to bear.

LXXVI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA.

Do you remember little Artemidora, the mild and bashful girl, whom you compared to a white blossom on the river, surrounded by innumerable slender reeds, and seen only at intervals as they waved about her, making way to the breeze, and quivering and bending? Not having seen her for some time, and meeting Deiphobos who is intimate with her family, I ventured to ask him whether he had been lately at the house. He turned pale. Imprudent and indelicate as I am, I accused him instantly, with much gaiety, of love for her. Accused! O Aspasia, how glorious is it in one to feel more sensibly than all others the beauty that lies far beyond what they ever can discern! From their earthly station they behold the Sun's bright disk: he enters the palace of the God. Externally there is fire only pure inextinguishable æther fills the whole space within, and increases the beauty it displays.

"Cleone!" said he, "you are distressed at the apprehension of having pained me. Believe me,

He clasped my hand: I withdrew it, for it burnt me. Inconsiderate and indelicate before, call me now (what you must ever think me) barbarous and inhuman.

LXXVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

The largest heart, O Cleone, is that which only one can rest upon or impress; the purest is that which dares to call itself impure; the kindest is that which shrinks rather at its own inhumanity than at another's. Cleone barbarous ! Cleone inhuman! Silly girl! you are fit only to be an instructress to the sillier Aspasia. In some things (in this for instance) I am wiser than you. I have truly a great mind to make you blush again, and so make you accuse yourself a second time of indiscretion. After a pause, I am resolved on it. Now then. Artemidora is the very girl who preferred you to me both for manners and beauty. Many have done the same, no doubt, but she alone to my face. When we were sitting, one evening in autumn, with our feet in the Mæander, her nurse conducted her toward us. We invited her to sit down between us, which at first she was afraid of doing, because the herbage had recovered from the drought of summer and had become succulent as in spring, so that it might stain her short white dress. But when we showed her how this danger might be quite avoided, she blushed, and, after some hesitation, was seated. Before long, I inquired of her who was her little friend, and whether he was handsome, and whether he was sensible, and whether he was courageous, and whether he was ardent. She answered all these questions in the affirmative, excepting the last, which she really did not understand. At length came the twilight of thought and showed her blushes. I ceased to persecute her, and only asked her which of us she liked the best and thought the most beautiful. "I like Cleone the best," said she," and think her the most beautiful, because she took my hand and pitied my confusion when such very strange questions were put to me."

However, she kissed me when she saw I was concerned at my impropriety: may-be a part of the kiss was given as à compensation for the severity of her sentence.

LXXVIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

We are but pebbles in a gravel walk,
Some blacker and some whiter, pebbles still,
Fit only to be trodden on.

These words were introduced into a comedy lately written by Polus, a remarkably fat person, and who appears to have enjoyed life and liberty as much as any citizen in Athens. I happen to have rendered some services to Philonides the actor, to whom the speech is addressed. He brought me the piece before its representation, telling me that Polus and his friends had resolved to applaud the passage, and to turn their faces toward Pericles. I made him a little present, on condition that, in the representation, he should repeat the following verses in reply, instead of the poet's.

Fair Polus!

Can such fierce winds blow over such smooth seas!
I never saw a pebble in my life

So richly set as thou art now, by Jove,
He who would tread upon thee can be none
Except the proudest of the elephants,
The tallest and the surest-footed beast
In all the stables of the kings of Ind.

The comedy was interrupted by roars of laughter the friends of Polus slunk away, and he himself made many a violent effort to do the same; but Amphicydes, who stood next, threw his arms round his neck, crying,

"Behold another Codrus! devoting himself for his country. The infernal Powers require no black bull for sacrifice; they are quite satisfied. Eternal peace with Boeotia! eternal praise to her! what a present! where was he fatted?"

We had invited Polus to dine with us, and now condoled with him on his loss of appetite. The people of Athens were quite out of favour with him. "I told them what they were fit for," cried he, "and they proved it. Amphicydes.. I do not say he has been at Sparta. . I myself saw him, no long time ago, on the road that leads to Megara.. that city rebelled soon after. His wife died strangely: she had not been married two years, and had grown ugly and thin: he might have used her for a broom if she had hair enough.. perhaps he did; odd noises have been heard in the house. I have no suspicion or spite against any man living.. and, praise to the Gods! I can live without being an informer."

We listened with deep interest, but could not understand the allusion, as he perceived by our looks. "You will hear to-morrow," said he, "how unworthily I have been treated. Wit draws down Folly on us, and she must have her fling. It does not hit; it does not hit."

Slaves brought in a ewer of water, with several napkins. They were not lost upon Polus, and he declared that those two boys had more sagacity and intuition than all the people in the theatre.

"In your house and your administration, O Pericles, everything is timed well and done well, without our knowing how. Dust will rise," said he, "dust will rise; if we would not raise it we must never stir. They have begun with those who would reform their manners; they will presently carry their violence against those who maintain and execute the laws." Supper was served.

"A quail, O best Polus !

"A quail, O wonderful! may hurt me; but being recommended.."

It disappeared.

"The breast of that capon.."

Capons, being melancholic, breed melancholy within."

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"Coriander-seed might correct it, together with few of those white plump pine-seeds." "The very desideration!"

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"Alas! indeed it is declining. Tunny! tunny! I dare not, O festoon of the Graces! I dare not verily. Chian wine alone can appease its seditions." They were appeased.

Some livers were offered him, whether of fish or fowl, I know not, for I can hardly bear to look at that dish. He waved them away, but turned suddenly round, and said, "Youth! I think I smell fennel."

"There is fennel, O mighty one!" replied the slave, "and not fennel only, but parsley and honey, pepper and rosemary, garlick from Salamis, and.."

"Say no more, say no more; fennel is enough for moderate men and brave ones. It reminds me of the field of Marathon."

The field was won; nothing was left upon it.

Another slave came forward, announcing loudly and pompously, "Gosling from Brauron! Sauce.. prunes, mustard-seed, capers, fenu-greek, sesamum, and squills."

"Squills!" exclaimed Polus, "they soothe the chest. It is not every cook that is deep in the secrets of nature. Brauron! an ancient city: I have friends in Brauron: I will taste, were it only for remembrance of them."

He made several essays, several pauses. "But when shall we come to the squills?" said he, turning to the slave; "the qualities of the others are negative."

The whole dish was, presently.

"Our pastry," said I, "O illustrious Polus! is the only thing I can venture to recommend at table; the other dishes are merely on sufferance, but really our pastry is good: I usually dine entirely upon it."

"Entirely!" cried he, in amaze.

* O best! O wonderful! O lady! &c. Ω βέλτιστε: Ω θαυμασιε: Ω δεσποινα. Conversation was never carried on without these terms, even among philosophers, as we see in Plato, &c.

"With a glass of water," added I, "and some grapes, fresh or dry."

LXXIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

"To accompany you, O divine Aspasia ! though Anaxagoras is the true, firm, constant friend of in good truth this said pastry is but a sandy sort Pericles; the golden lamp that shines perpetually of road; no great way can be made in it." on the image I adore. Yet sometimes he speaks The diffident Polus was not a bad engineer how-severely. On one of these occasions, Pericles took ever, and he soon had an opportunity of admiring the workmanship at the bottom of the salver.

Two dishes of roast meat were carried to him. I know not what one was, nor could Polus easily make up his mind upon it: experiment following experiment. Kid however was an old acquaint

ance.

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him by the hand, saying,

"O Anaxagoras! sincere and ardent lover of Truth! why do not you love her in such a manner as never to let her see you out of humour?"

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Because," said Anaxagoras, "you divide my affections with her, much to my shame." Pericles was called away on business; I then said: "O Anaxagoras! is not Pericles a truly great man?"

He answered, "If Pericles were a truly great

Those who kill kids "said he "deserve well of their country, for they grow up mischievous: the Gods, aware of this, make them very eatable. They require some management, some skill, some reflec-man, he would not wish to appear different from tion: mint, shalot, dandelion, vinegar: strong coercion upon them. Chian wine, boy!"

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What does Pericles eat?"

"Do not mind Pericles. He has caten of the quails, and some roast fish, besprinkled with bayleaves for sauce."

"Fish! ay, that makes him so vigilant. Cats.." Here he stopped, not however without a diversion in his favour from me, observing that he usually dined on vegetables, fish, and some bird: that his earlier meal was his longest, confectionary, honey, and white bread, composing it.

"And Chian or Lesbian?"

"He enjoys a little wine after dinner, preferring the lighter and subacid."

"Wonderful man!" cried he; "and all from such fare as that!"

When he rose from table he seemed by his countenance to be quiet again at heart; nevertheless he said in my ear with a sigh, "Did I possess the power of Pericles, or the persuasion of Aspasia, by the Immortals! I would enrich the galleys with a grand dotation. Every soul of them should . I, yes, every soul of them.. monsters of ingratitude, hypocrites, traitors, they should for Egypt, for Carthage, Mauritania, Numidia. He will find out before long what dogs he has been skimming the kettle for.'

It required an effort to be perfectly composed, at a simile which I imagine has never been used in the Greek language since the days of Medea; but I cast down my eyes, and said consolatorily, "It is difficult to do justice to such men as Pericles and Polus."

He would now have let me into the secret, but others saved me.

Our farmers, in the number of their superstitions, entertain a firm belief that any soil is rendered more fertile by burying an ass's head in it. On this idea is founded the epigram I send you it raised a laugh at dinner.

Leave me thy head when thou art dead,
Speusippus! Prudent farmers say

An ass's skull makes plentiful

The poorest soil; and ours is clay.

what he is; he would know himself, and make others know him; he seems to guard against both. Much is wanting to constitute his greatness. He possesses, it is true, more comprehensiveness and concentration than any living; perhaps more than any since Solon; but he thinks that power over others is better than power over himself; as if a mob were worth a man, and an acclamation were worth a Pericles."

"But," said I," he has absolute command over himself; and it is chiefly by exerting it that he has obtained an ascendancy over the minds of others." 'Has he rendered them wiser and more virtuous?" said he.

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"You know best," replied I, "having lived much longer among them."

"Perhaps," said Anaxagoras, "I may wrong him ; perhaps he has saved them from worse disasters." "You think him then ambitious?" said I, with some sadness.

"Ambitious!" cried he; "how so! He might have been a philosopher, and he is content to be a ruler."

I was ill at ease.

"Come," said I, " Anaxagoras! come into the garden with me. It is rather too warm indeed out of doors, but we have many evergreens, high and shady, and those who, like you and me, never drink wine, have little to dread from the heat."

Whether the ilexes and bays and oleanders struck his imagination, and presented the simile, I can not tell, but he thus continued in illustration of his discourse,

"There are no indeciduous plants, Aspasia ! the greater part lose their leaves in winter, the rest in summer. It is thus with men. The generality yield and are stripped under the first chilly blasts that shake them. They who have weathered these, drop leaf after leaf in the sunshine. The virtues by which they arose to popularity, take another garb, another aspect, another form, and totally disappear. Be not uneasy; the heart of Pericles will never dry up, so many streams run into it."

He retired to his studies; I spoke but little that evening, and slept late.

VOL. II.

CC

LXXX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

How can I ever hope to show you, in all its brightness, the character of my friend? I will tell you how; by following Love and Truth. Like most others who have no genius, I do not feel the want of it, at least not here.

"I find not a word about him in any one of them," replied he, "although we have the works of Cadmus and Phocylides, the former no admirable historian, the latter an indifferent poet, but not the less likely to mention him; and they are supposed to have lived within three centuries of his age. Permit my first question to you, in my

A shallow water may reflect the sun as perfectly search after truth, to be this; whether his age were as a deeper.

The words of Anaxagoras stuck to me like thistles. I resolved to speak in playfulness with the object of our conversation. First I began to hint at enemies. He smiled.

"The children in my orchard," said he, "are not yet grown tall enough to reach the fruit; they may throw at it, but can bring none down."

"Do tell me, O Pericles!" said I, "now we are inseparable for ever, how many struggles with yourself (to say nothing of others) you must have had, before you attained the position you have taken."

"It is pleasanter," answered he, "to think of our glory than of the means by which we acquired it. "When we see the horses that have won at the Olympian games, do we ask what oats they have eaten to give them such velocity and strength? Do those who swim admirably, ever trouble their minds about the bladders they swam upon in learning, or inquire what beasts supplied them? When the winds are filling our sails, do we lower them and delay our voyage, in order to philosophise on the particles of air composing them, or to speculate what region produced them, or what becomes of them afterward?"

LXXXI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA.

At last, Aspasia, you love indeed. The perfections of your beloved interest you less than the imperfections, which you no sooner take up for reprehension, than you admire, embrace, and defend. Happy, happy, Aspasia! but are you wise and good and equable, and fond of sincerity, as formerly! Nay, do not answer me. The Gods forbid that I should force you to be ingenious, and love you for it. How much must you have lost before you are praised for that!

Archelaüs, of all our philosophers the most quiet man, and the most patient investigator, will bring you this. He desires to be the hearer of Anaxagoras.

LXXXII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

not much earlier?"

"This is not the only question," said Anaxagoras, "on which you will hear from me the confession of my utter ignorance. I am interested in everything that relates to the operations of the human mind; and Pericles has in his possession every author whose works have been transcribed. The number will appear quite incredible to you: there can not be fewer than two hundred. I find poetry to which is attributed an earlier date than to Homer's; but stupidity and barbarism are no convincing proofs. I find Cretan, Ionian, Laconian, and Boeotian, written certainly more than three centuries ago; the language is not copious, is not fluent, is not refined. Pericles says it is all of it inharmonious of this I can not judge; he can. Dropides and Mimnermus wrote no better verses than the servant-girls sing upon our staircases. Archilocus and Aleman, who lived a century earlier, composed much grander; but where there is at once ferocity and immodesty, either the age must have been barbarous or the poet must have been left behind it. Sappho was in reality the reviver of poetry, teaching it to humanise and delight; Simonides brought it to perfection. The muse of Lesbos, as she is called, and Alcæus, invented each a novel species of strophe. Aspasia prefers the poetry of Sappho and the metre of Alcæus, which however, I think she informs us, is less adapted to her subjects than her own is."

"It appears to me," said I, "that everyone who felt strong in poetry was ambitious of being an inventor in its measures. Archilochus, the last of any note, invented the iambic."

"True, O Aspasia !" said Pericles, "but not exactly in the sense usually received. He did not invent, as many suppose, the senarian iambic, which is coeval almost with the language itself, and many of which creep into the closest prose composition, but he was the first who subjoined a shorter to it, the barb to the dart, so fatal to Cleobule and Lycambes."

"His first," said I, "is like the trot of a mastiff, his second is like the spring at the throat.

"Homer alone has enriched the language with sentences full of harmony. How long his verse I received our countryman with great pleasure. was created, how long his Gods had lived, before He was obliged to be my hearer for several hours: him, how long he himself before us, is yet uncerI hope his patience will never be so much tried tain, although Herodotus* is of opinion that he is by Anaxagoras. I placed them together at table; nearer to us than Pericles and Anaxagoras admit. but Anaxagoras would not break through his cus-But these two philosophers place sun, moon, and tom; nothing of philosophy. Our repast would stars, beyond all reasonable limits; I know not have been even less talkative than usual, had not how far off." Anaxagoras asked our guest whether the earlier Milesian authors, poets or historians, had mentioned Homer.

*The Life of Homer, appended to the works of Herodotus, is spurious.

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