time. Eschylus regards the life led in the kingdom of the dead as a feeble and miserable state, in which honor can only be obtained through the remembrance of relations yet living upon the earth. Sophocles held that death was the worst of ills for the happy and only a sorry refuge for the miserable. Euripides hoped that there would be no future state. It is plain from their literature that the Greeks must have looked upon the death of their friends with unmixed sorrow. They made no display of fine inscriptions; the commonest epitaph was a simple xaips or farewell. But they expressed themselves rather in sculptures and reliefs like that which we have here. These are parting scenes, in which are simply expressed the sorrow of the survivors and the simple grief of the sufferer. There is no violence, no covering with sack-cloth and ashes; we have only a chastened and modest expression of profound grief. The idea they express is general rather than special. The traveler says of these tombs,-"I feel no curiosity to inquire who these people are-what are their names-even what was the relationship of the deceased. For I am perfectly satisfied with the ideal portrait of the grief of parting." Thucydides in his day said that the tombs are to be found in the fairest suburb of the city. The historian has described with care the ceremonies held in this place, and has put into the mouth of Pericles perhaps the noblest funeral oration ever produced. It was with this oration in mind that Mr. Mahaffy passed westward to the spot through the meanest and most miserable portion of modern Athens. The place itself he found next to the railway station. The tombs lie, as most old ruins do, far below the present level of the ground, and have to be exhumed by digging. When they are dug open they are covered with a rude door, which is placed there to protect the sculptured faces. They were lying about without order close to the spots in which they have been found.

In his comments upon the statues in the museums, Mr. Mahaffy makes a curious and amusing distinction between the archaic and the archaistic. Such works as the "Marathonian Theseus" and the "Stele of Aristion" belong to the period before Pericles. In the age following Pericles there arose a school who preferred the archaic stiffness of these ancient forms to the noble maturity of Pericles. These artists have been called the Preraphaelites of their day. They imitated so closely the

old works that it is often impossible to detect the reality from the counterfeit. The Theseus, however, is certainly archaic. It will be seen that it is a male figure with conventional hair and a very conventional beard. With the exception of the loss of its legs, it seems to be in very good condition. The eyes are now hollow, but were once evidently filled with something different from the marble of which the statue is made. made. The figure is carrying upon its shoulders a bull, which it holds by the four legs. The work is stiff and without expression. In the era of art to which it belonged there was as yet no knowledge or conception of a group. As the man could not be represented with the bull except by making the man carry the bull, the artist has made the bull full-grown in type but has reduced his size to that of a calf. He has not attempted to express the least hostility between them. The "Stele of Aristion is evidently of the same time and style of art.

The book gives a portion of a procession of figures carrying vessels from the frieze of the cella of the Parthenon. It is from the north side. This procession went round all four sides of the Parthenon. Over the western end or rear the preparations of the procession are being made. It then divides into two, goes along the north and south sides, and the two divisions meet again on the east front. The procession on the south side consisted mainly of groups of cantering and curveting horses, men in the act of mounting and striving to curb the rearing horses. It is from this side that the greater number of the pieces carried away by Lord Elgin appear to have been taken. The procession on the north wall is made of figures on foot, carrying vessels, leading victims, and playing pipes. These slabs, the best of which are preserved at Athens, are, perhaps, more beautiful than those representing the equestrian procession, and have the peculiar stamp which makes the age of Pericles the most perfect in the annals of Greek sculpture.

Mr. Mahaffy's acquaintance with the Greek climate and landscape makes the very interesting views which he expresses upon the coloring of statues especially valuable. All through Southern Europe, and particularly in Greece, there is an amount of bright color which prevents any artificial coloring of buildings from being too vivid. Where the air and landscape are bright, we usually find the inhabitants making their dress and

houses bright. Thus, in Italy, they paint their houses yellow and pink. The dress of the people is bright; a festival in Sicily or Greece fills the streets with intense coloring. We know that though the pattern of Greek dress has greatly changed, its color has always been brilliant. We must therefore think of an old Greek crowd as a very white crowd, with patches of scarlet and blue. It is likely that the Greeks felt that a richly colored temple, that pillars of blue and red, that gilt friezes against a white marble background, would be agreeable accompaniment for the Athenian crowd, and the native air, and sun, and landscape. The present color of the Greek remains

art.

sider the notion as barbaric and ridiculous. But it must be remembered, on the other hand, that the Greeks were the most perfect judges of beauty that the world has yet seen, and that they, above all people, abhorred anything tawdry or extravagant in There must then have been good reasons for their preference. One of these Mr. Mahaffy finds in the bright natural coloring of the country. But it is also true that the experience of the Greeks in ruder times had prepared them for the custom. The painting of statues and the use of gold and ivory were derived from an age when all statues were carved in wood. To a public accustomed to such richly colored and

is not at all that which the Greeks gave them. It is the coloring of time. Our eyes have become so used to it, and it is itself so fine, lighting up as it does with such extraordinary richness under the southern sun, that we are shocked on being told that the original color was pure white. It is still more of a shock to be told that great sculptors, with Parian marble at hand, preferred to set up images in gold and ivory, or, still worse, with parts of gold and ivory, and that they thought it right to fill out the eyes with precious stones, and to put gilt wreaths on the colored hair.

With our sentiments and experience of the subject, we are inclined at once to con

decorated images, a pure white marble statue would appear cold and lifeless. So it appears to us when we have become accustomed to the mellow tints of old and weatherstained statues. It should be remembered, also, that the skin surface on Greek statues is not merely the result of age, but of an artificial process; a composition of wax and oil was burnt into the surface and gave it that appearance which so much resembles the texture of human skin. Mr. Mahaffy points to the bronzes found at Herculaneum, and now to be seen in the Museum at Naples, as good examples of the fine effect of coloring statues. The beautiful front of St. Mark's Cathedral at Venice is richly colored.

A remarkable modern example is the monument of the young Indian prince set up recently in Florence. This prince died some five years ago on his voyage homeward after a visit to this country. They have set up to him a richly colored and

TOMB IN THE CERAMEICUS (ATHENS).

gilded baldachin, in the open air and in a quiet wooded park. Under this canopy is a life-sized bust of the prince in his richest dress. The bust is colored to the life. The face is a rich mahogany; the hair, raven black; the turban, white striped with gold; the robe is gold and green, and covered with ornament. From the first moment of seeing it the effect is said to be striking and

beautiful. Mr. Mahaffy does not go the length of advising the use of color by northern sculptors, but he believes the Greeks to have been right in this as in other matters pertaining to art.

The many savage comments which Mr. Mahaffy has to make upon the little care taken by the Greeks of their antiquities, upon the disorder and confusion of their political life, and upon other untoward conditions of Greek society, make more trustworthy his very emphatic testimony as to the generally hopeful state of the country. He says that through the wildest parts of Greece there is a higher state of education and of general intelligence than in many parts of the great kingdoms of Western Europe. He hints by the way, that the Greek subjects of the Porte are vastly more worthy of sympathy and aid than the Servians and Bulgarians. "What," he asks, "have the southern Slavs of Europe to show in comparison with the Greeks? Greece has made the trade of Smyrna and of Alexandria, of Syria, and of Patras. Athens has a fine university, many schools, archæological and classical, periodicals, etc. She has great and just claims upon the world." But the writer also holds that the country is in no condition to support a constitutional monarchy. He would have an intelligent despotism in Greece. Mr. Mahaffy makes one suggestion as to what ought to have taken place sixty years ago, which sets one castle-building. Suppose England in the days of her greatest prestige had taken under her rule, besides Malta and the Ionian Islands, Sicily and Southern Greece! The land would, perhaps, have become a home for consumptives and an abode for Sybarites, the road to India would have lain through Greece, the traveler would have gone direct to Athens by rail, and every antique now lying in rude local museums, or reposing under the soil, would have long ago been dug up and labeled.

WE have the following letters and anecdotes from a lady of Virginia, a great-niece of Washington. This lady lived to celebrate her golden wedding the same year that our nation was rejoicing over its centennial anniversary, and with youthful vigor of, constitution and brightness of intellect is still an ornament to society. Her father, Captain Robert Lewis, was the son of Betty Washington, the only sister of General Washington who lived to womanhood, and it was from his lips she learned all that we record here of his personal intercourse with his uncle, and also the history of the relics in her possession.

Robert Lewis was one of the first president's favorite nephews, and at the early age of nineteen was called to the honored post of private secretary to his uncle, and appointed escort to Mrs. Washington, in her long journey by carriage from Mount Vernon to New York to join her husband there. This journey occupied so much time that they did not reach New York until May 17th, and therefore were not present at the inauguration which took place April 30th. The following letter shows Captain Lewis's appreciation of the favor shown him, and betrays the fact that Washington borrowed his mother's carriage to transport his wife from his home to the seat of government.

FREDERICKSBURG, March 18, 1789. DEAR UNCLE: We received yours of the 15th instant, and are happy to here that all your family are well. I shall ever consider myself under a thousand obligations for the proffered post,

office, Robert determined to keep a record of the daily events of his life, and his daughter still treasures the fragment of a diary in which he began a description of his charming journey to New York. From Mount Vernon to Baltimore his accounts are given regularly and in detail; but once introduced into the gay society that welcomed and fêted Lady The Parable of the Tares. Mat.13.

and think the confinement you speak off rather a pleas. ure, and hope from my assiduous attention to merit that station. I wrote my aunt the proposals you had made, and, at the same time, my readiness to accompany her at a minute's notice. My grandmother was very well disposed to lend the carriage, but on condition that it should be returned when of no further use to my aunt. All the family join in love to you, and believe me in the interim to be yours Very affectionately,

ROBERT LEWIS.

Deeply sensible of the trust committed to him, and of the responsibilities of his

Washington on her slow and stately progress northward, he forgot his good resolutions, and the journal ends abruptly, after telling of their reception in Baltimore, and their determination to rest there a few days.

It was possibly during their stay in New York this year that Washington began to wear on his coat the conch-shell buttons, now in possession of Captain Lewis's daughter. A new fashion in dress, introduced by a president, is worthy of record, especially

when there is an interesting story connected with it. This story, related by Robert Lewis, illustrates two strikingly characteristic traits of Washington-generosity and economy.

A needy sailor with a wheelbarrow of shells accosted the General on the street, and, holding up a number of conch-shells, implored him to buy them. Washington listened with sympathy to the story of his sufferings and want, and kindly replied that he would buy them if he could in any way make use of them. Necessity perhaps sharpened the sailor's wits, and he promptly suggested that they would make lovely buttons for his velvet coat. The General doubtless smiled at the ingenious proposal, but agreed to try them. Carrying home his ocean treasure of pink shells, he sent for a button-maker to know if he could manufacture a useful article out of the pretty playthings with which he found himself encumbered. The workman replied he could make the buttons if he could find an instrument sharp enough to pierce them. Washington would have nothing useless about him, and so the shells were delivered to the manufacturer, who in due time returned them to him in the shape of concave buttons, a little larger than a quarter of a dollar, with a silver drop in the center hiding the spot where the eye is fastened beneath. The President then astonished the republican court by appearing in a coat with pink conch-shell buttons sparkling on its dark velvet surface. Eighty years ago, it seems, fashion ruled in the hearts, or over the costumes, of men and women, just as it does now-for Captain Lewis bears testimony that conch-shell buttons immediately became the rage. The shell-venders' and button-makers' fortunes were made by the General's passion for utilizing everything that came into his possession.

Lewis enjoyed the position of secretary to his uncle but a short time. The belles of New York and Philadelphia who adorned the republican court gave him no mortal heart-wound; but one of the fairest of Virginia's daughters, who had laughingly declared she would never marry "a conceited army officer, tricked out in a flashy uniform," was destined to pierce him with the fatal The following letter tells its own

arrow.

story:

Philadelphia, 10th January, 1791. HONORED UNCLE: In requesting your attention to a subject of the greatest importance to myself, and in begging your permission to communicate it with freedom and confidence, I trust I shall not trespass on the respect which your goodness toward me has deeply impressed on my mind.

My opinions of happiness, and the inclination of my heart, have determined me to change my situation in life. With a view to this great object I declared my regards, when last in Virginia, to a young lady whose beauty and merit had engaged my affection and esteem, and whose worth will, I fondly hope, entitle her to your approbation, which will insure to me every happiness I desire. It was impossible for me to take this determination without thinking of the consequence which might attend my connexion with you, sir. Under that idea, I beg leave to assure you that it is my first wish to remain with you, to profit from a situation so eligible as the patronage of an uncle whom I love with the purest affection; and if the change which I mention may be reconciled to that wish, I shall be perfectly happy; but if that is impossible, I shall hope to carry with me into the retirement of a country life the continuance of your regard which I value far above all price.

To avoid the embarrassment which I apprehended to myself from a personal communication of this matter in the first instance, I have used the desire to learn any particulars, I shall be happy to Should you liberty of addressing you by letter. explain them in a conversation. I entreat you to believe that I shall ever remain your dutiful nephew and Obliged humble servant, ROBERT LEWIS. The President of the United States.

Perfect happiness is not allowed even to the most favored of mortals, and Captain Lewis's assertion that he should be "perfectly happy" if he could marry the lady of his choice and yet retain his position as private secretary, was not tested. The General's love for his nephew could not induce him to change his opinions; his resolution to have only unmarried men for his private secretaries was well known to Captain Lewis, and, as his letter shows, there was a struggle between his affection for his uncle and his ardent love for the beautiful Miss Brown, which made him timid in confessing his engagement. His fears were not without foundation-he won his bride, but he lost his post in the President's household.

In the quiet retirement of a Virginia. planter's life, it was a constant and unfailing source of pleasure to Robert Lewis to recall each incident of his brief public career, and his devotion to his uncle grew stronger and more reverential as years rolled on-and whenever Washington sought rest and refreshment in his own beloved country home, Captain Lewis and his young and beautiful wife were frequent and welcome guests at Mount Vernon.

In August, 1796, after a few delightful days spent with their distinguished relatives, Captain Lewis relates that the following conversation took place at the breakfasttable the morning fixed for their departure.

Washington was, as all the world knows, a man of few words, and while he quietly