4. ORATION ON THE CROWN-(CONTINUED).

[Of the following extract, Lord Brougham says: "The fame of this noble passage is great and universal. It is of a beauty and a force made for all time and all places."]

OF

F this base and infamous conspiracy and profligacy—or rather, O Athenians, if I am to speak in earnest of this betrayal of Grecian liberty-Athens is by all mankind acquitted, owing to my counsels; and I am acquitted by you. Then do you ask me, Eschines, by what I claim to be honored? I will tell you. Because, while all the statesmen in Greece, beginning with yourself, have been corrupted, formerly by Philip, and now by Alexander, me, neither oppor tunity, nor fair speeches, nor large promises, nor hope, nor fear, nor any thing else, could tempt nor induce to betray aught that I considered just and beneficial to my country.

2. Whatever I have advised my fellow-citizens, I have never advised like you, men, leaning as in a balance to the side of profit; all my proceedings have been those of a soul upright, honest, and incorrupt; intrusted with affairs of greater magnitude than any of my contemporaries, I have administered them all honestly and faithfully. Therefore do I claim to be honored.

3. As to this fortification, for which you ridiculed me-for the well and fosse-I regard them as deserving thanks and praise, and so they are; but I place them nowhere near my acts of administration. Not with stones, nor with bricks, did I fortify Athens; nor is this the ministry on which I most pride myself. Would you view my fortifications aright? You will find arms, and States, and posts, and harbors; and galleys, and horses, and men for their defence. These are the bulwarks with which I protected Attica as far as was possible by human wisdom: with these I fortified our territories, not the circle of Piræus nor the city alone. Nay, more, I was not beaten by Philip in estimates or preparations; far from it;

but the generals and forces of the allies were overcome by his Where are the proofs of this? They are plain and

fortune. evident.

DEMOSTHENES.

5. PUBLIC SPIRIT OF THE ATHENIANS.

[In the speeches against Philip, the eloquence of Demosthenes fused th Athenians, as it were, into one common unit. The whole assembly became as one man-and had but one voice. LET US MARCH AGAINST PHILIP. LET US FIGHT FOR OUR LIBERTIES. LET US CONQUER OR DIE!]

THE

HE Athenians never were known to live contented in a slavish though secure obedience to unjust and arbitrary power. No; our whole history is a series of gallant contests for pre-eminence: the whole period of our national existence has been spent in braving dangers, for the sake of glory and renown. And so highly do you esteem such conduct, as characteristic of the Athenian spirit, that those of your ancestors who were most eminent for it, are ever the most favorite objects of your praise. And with reason: for, who can reflect, without astonishment, on the magnanimity of those men who resigned their lands, gave up their city, and embarked in their ships, rather than live at the bidding of a stranger?

2. The Athenians of that day looked out for no speaker, no general, to procure them a state of easy slavery. They had the spirit to reject even life, unless they were allowed to enjoy that life in freedom. For it was a principle fixed deeply in every breast, that man was not born to his parents only but to his country. And mark the distinction. He who re gards himself as born only to his parents, waits in passive submission for the hour of his natural dissolution. He who considers that he is the child of his country, also volunteers to meet death rather than behold that country reduced to vassalage; and thinks those insults and disgraces which he must endure in a state enslaved, much more terrible than death.

3. Should I attempt to assert that it was I who inspired you

with sentiments worthy of your ancestors, I should meet the just resentment of every hearer. No: it is my point to show that such sentiments are properly your own; that they were the sentiments of my country long before my days. I claim but my share of merit in having acted on such principles dur. ing every part of my administration. He, then, who condemns every part of my administration, he who directs you to treat me with severity, as one who hath involved the State in ter rors and dangers,-while he labors to deprive me of present honors, robs you of the applause of all posterity. For, if you now pronounce that my public conduct hath not been right, it must be thought that you yourselves have acted wrong, not that you owe your present state to the caprice of fortune. But it cannot be.

4. No, my countrymen, it cannot be that you here acted wrong in encountering danger bravely for the liberty and safety of all Greece. No! I swear it by the spirits of our sires, who rushed upon destruction at Marathon !-by those who stood arrayed at Platæa !-by those who fought the sea-fight at Salamis 1-by the men of Artemisium!-by the others, so many and so brave, who now rest in our public sepulchres-all of whom their country judged worthy of the same honor; all, I say, not those only who were victorious. And with reason: what was the part of gallant men, they all performed. Their success was such as the Supreme Ruler of the universe dispensed to each.

DEMOSTHENES.

6. A LAST APPEAL.

MY countrymen, you must be firmly convinced in your minds, that Philip is at war with our State, and has broken the peace; that, while he is inimical and hostile to the whole of Athens, to the ground of Athens, and, I may add, to the gods of Athens (may they exterminate him!), there is nothing which he strives and plots against so much as our

Constitution, nothing in the world that he is so anxious about as its destruction. And thereunto he is driven in some sort by necessity.

2. Consider. He wishes for empire: and believes you to be his only opponents. He has been a long time injuring you, as his own conscience best informs him; for by means of your possessions, which he is able to enjoy, he secures all the rest of his kingdom: had he given up Amphipolis and Potidea, he would not have deemed himself safe even in Macedonia. He knows, therefore, both that he is plotting against you, and that you are aware of it; and, supposing you to have com mon sense, he judges that you detest him as you ought.

3. Besides these important considerations, he is assured that, though he become master of every thing else, nothing can be safe for him while you are under popular government: should any reverse ever befall him (and many may happen to man), all who are now under constraint will come for refuge to you. For you are not inclined yourselves to encroach and usurp dominion; but famous rather for checking the usurper than depriving him of his conquests, ever ready to molest the aspirants for empire, and vindicate the liberty of all nations. He would not like that a free spirit should proceed from Athens, to watch the occasions of his weakness; nor is such reasoning foolish or idle.

4. First, then, you must assume that he is an irreconcilable enemy of our Constitution and democracy; secondly, you must be convinced that all his operations and contrivances are designed for the injury of our State. None of you can be so silly as to suppose that Philip covets those miseries in Thrace (for what else can one call Drongilus, and Cabyle, and Mastira, and the places which he is said now to occupy?), and that to get possession of them he endures hardships, and winters, and the utmost peril, but covets not the harbors of Athens, the docks, the galleys, the silver-mines, the revenues of such value, the place and the glory-never may he or any other man obtain these by the conquest of our city!—or that

he will suffer you to keep these things, while, for the sake of the barley and the millet in Thracian caverns, he win. ters in the midst of horrors. Impossible. The object of that and every other enterprise of Philip is to become master here.

5. You have quitted, O Athenians, the position in which your ancestors left you; you have been persuaded by these politicians, that to stand foremost of the Greeks, to keep a permanent force, and redress injured nations, is all vanity and idle expense; you imagine that to live in quiet, to perform no duty, to abandon one thing after another, and let strangers seize on all, brings with it a marvellous welfare and abundant security. By such means a stranger has advanced to the post which you ought to have occupied, has become prosper ous and great, and made large conquests: naturally enough.

6. A prize there was-noble, great, and glorious-one for which the mightiest States were contending all along; but as the Lacedæmonians were humbled, the Thebans had their hands full through the Phocian war, and we took no regard; he carried it off without competition. The result has been to others terror, to him a vast alliance and extended power; while difficulties so many and so distressing surround the Greeks, that even advice is not easy to be found.

DEMOSTHENES.

T

7. CICERO AND DEMOSTHENES COMPARED.

10 me Demosthenes seems superior to Cicero. I yield to no one in my admiration of the latter. He adorǹs whatever he touches. He lends honor to speech. He uses words as no one else can use them. His versatility is beyond description. He is even concise and vehement when disposed to be so, as against Catiline, against Verres, against Antony. But we detect the embellishments in his discourses. The art is marvellous, but it is not hidden. The orator does