ing in his griefs; we cannot even feel angry with him for his follies and vices, but we mourn over them as we should over those of our own familiar friend, wishing it were in our power to warn him of their effects, or to expose to him their unworthiness.

It is not now our aim to investigate the causes for this partiality. We are not sufficiently metaphysicians to decide, whether it arise from the shadow which coming events throw before them, from the sympathy which we naturally feel, from the foreknowledge of the darkness into which so much light is to be plunged; or whether rather it be, that the mind of youth, itself open to every impulse, naturally inclines to a character, which, like that of the Athenians, knows no second thought, but, all ardent, deems it an easy task 'to pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,' if such be the ruling passion of the hour? Such, we say, is not our object. We would rather endeavour, and we feel how weak our endeavour is, to trace the causes which led a people, naturally endued with so brilliant an array of noble qualities, to commit many, very many errors-some crimes, perhaps, unsurpassed by any which history brings forward.

Now we do not conceive the circumstance of their acting almost invariably upon impulse, sufficient to account for this; though we well know, that human nature, when not guided by any religious principle, is all but certain to be led into faults by this habit. We fancy that, when free from the incubus of evil counsel, and of evil fashion, which arose from that counsel, the impulse of the Athenian mind was to

act generously and well. It was, then, evil counsel, acting upon a peculiarly quick and sensitive temperament, that we must deem the cause; but it was only the proximate cause. It remains yet to be seen, by what class of men this influence for evil was possessed, and how it came to pass that they possessed it.

Let us go back some thirteen hundred years of time, and let us, with six thousand Athenians, enter the Pnyx, for the purpose of joining in determining on the fate of the Mytilenian prisoners. The sacrifices have been offered, order has been proclaimed, and throughout the vast assembly every sound is hushed, as with impudent air, and swaggering gait, a coarse butcher-looking fellow leaves his seat, and hastens across to the bema. He begins with no appeal to the OεOLEKρ who stand around, or to the Minervas which look down upon him. The monuments of Athenian art, which face him, lend no enthusiasm to his speech: Salamis, and her ever-living glories, are purposely unnoticed: they would remind the people of the great generals and wise statesmen of former time, of Aristides and Themistocles. No; at once he bursts into a torrent of calumnious and vulgar invective. Mytilene must perish: the authority of Athens over her allies requires it; the injured majesty of the Athenian people demands it; and thus the demagogue goes on, watching every shade of feeling manifested by the assembly, agreeing with and going beyond it, till he sees them goaded into the state of fury which he requires, and till the people of Athens answer, as with one voice, "Death to Mytilene !"

All

The fruit of this speech is the murder, in the very

city of Athens, of one thousand defenceless persons:the speaker is Cleon, the son of Cleænetus, the tannerruler of Athens.

Such were the measures which the demagogues delighted in-we say demagogues, for Cleon, though the greatest, was not the only one:-pity that their influence was sufficiently powerful to carry them through, against the better feelings of the people. And yet these last were by no means unaware of the character of the men to whom they submitted; even the grave Thucydides tells us with what zest the Athenians kept Cleon up to the vaunt he had made, that in twenty days he would reduce Pylos; and every page of Aristophanes contains some sarcastic allusion to the origin, or the cowardice, or the selfishness of this man. We know what an effect the comic stage had upon the Athenian mind: How was it then, that, if they possessed the good feelings which we have asserted, they did not shake themselves free from this evil influence? We think we can elucidate this also. Towards the end of the life of the great and good Pericles he who so well deserved the appellation of Ppv-an accusation was laid against him, which well nigh threw him from his high position: this accusation appears to have originally sprung from the insinuations of the comic poets, that he was aiming at the sovereign power; amongst other satirical remarks, his friends were stigmatized by the odious name of Pisistratids. This one word we think the key to all the influence of demagogues-which last is synonymous with the ruin of Athens.

(To be continued.)

F. T.

LINES.

Believe me, O believe me, though

the

many still may sneer
At high and holy courage, and at all-enduring love :
Believe me, some possess them; some are yet afraid to fear
The scoffing of the worldling; some look to things above.

I call not courage that, which drives men onward to their fate,
As they say, for home and country, for wife and children's sake:
They fight for worldly honours, for a name among the great;
Some get them, and some perish:-'tis a game, and life's the stake.

I call not love that passion, which the lisping coxcomb feigns
'Midst music's wreath'd entrancement, or the madness of the dance;
When the smile, so freely given, overpowers his shallow brains,
And, all-panoplied in vanity, he conquers at a glance.

There's a better, stouter courage, which from duty never swerves, But mocks the tempter's cunning still, and dares his baffled ire: Which, through the life-long struggle, its native worth preserves, And crushes every sinful wish, and every base desire.

'Tis a purer love which, silent within the inmost breast,
Can view, without an envious thought, another's happiness;
Which secret hopes and secret pangs in semblance calm has drest,
Yet joys but in the loved one's joy; but mourns in her distress.

Believe me, O believe me, that within our ancient towers

There are some-God speed them-who possess such courage and such love;

Who think on parents' warnings, and on childhood's holy hours: Small need have they of boyhood's praise-they look to things

above.

F. T.

ON THE

RECENT CHARITIES IN BEHALF OF THE IRISH.

By the smooth Liffey's osiered tide
I slept, and dreamed of Erin
Her children wandering from her side,
Her glory disappearing.

Methought I saw a waving elm,

Whose branches reached the sky;
A graceful vine around her stem
Was twined submissively.

The sun was warm, the breezes soft,
The foliage lightly dancing;
The climbing vine peeped up aloft,
'Neath her tendrils coyly glancing.

I looked again: The sky was dark,
From the blast the elm was bending:

I saw the vine enclasp the bark,

And it saved the trunk from rending.

Thou, Erin, art that elm, I said,

And a lovely vine creeps o'er thee;

When Famine's storms rolled round thy head,
"Twas charity upbore thee.

R. B.