Vicious as had been the public conduct of Pericles, his private life was unstained. Of stern probity and spotless honor, money could not purchase him; and though it was the instrument with which he conquered opposition, and revolutionized our government, in his own person he was safe from its influences. He was untainted by avarice, (that twin-demon of absolute power,) and although he had the most ample means of increasing his private fortune, he added not one drachm to it. Preserving his patrimonial estate by the closest economy, its profits were expended not in selfish gratification, but in relieving the distresses of the poor. Frank, brave, passionately attached to the glory of Attica, faithful and generous, can we wonder at the mastery he exercised over the affections of the Athenian people? But now in the acme of his power, when his private life beamed forth in unsullied innocence, its lustre became suddenly dimmed, and its purity forever soiled by his unfortunate connexion with the courtezan Aspasia.

Lured from her voluptuous home by the reputation of the luxury and elegance of our city, Aspasia, in the full bloom of womanhood, made her appearance in Athens. Born in the licentious city of Miletus, so remarkable for the genius of its sons and daughters, her manuers and intellect strongly contrasted with the simple modesty and shrinking reserve of the Athenian women. Faultless in beauty, learned, eloquent, skilled in the seductive arts of the courtezan, and resistless by the blended union of genius to female loveliness, she soon won the homage of many of our first citizens. Attracted by her rare endowments of person and intellect her social circle was thronged. Here might be seen listening with rapture to her instructive discourse and sparkling wit, Anaxagoras, Zeno, Protagoras, and many of the philosophers, who were known to be averse to the religious opinions of the state, while mingled in the brilliant circle were also poets, artists, men of letters and statesmen.

Among the first who fell a victim to her wiles was Pericles. The union between him and his virtuous wife was disturbed, and though she had borne him two sons, he soon separated from her, attaching himself to Aspasia by the strongest ties which the laws suffered him to contract with a foreign woman. The abject slave of this shameless courtezan, all his actions were controlled by her. She instructed him in rhetoric, and aided him in the preparation of the orations which he often delivered in the public assemblies, and it was believed that from her vivid genius and cultivated taste came those lofty conceptions and winged words which gave such vigor and beauty to his matchless eloquence. Reckless of the infamy which soiled him he bent his neck to the yoke, and when he fell, vice, no longer restrained by his example, raised its frightful head. Licentiousness spread itself far and wide, and the youth of our city in the race of profligacy became effeminate and rotten at heart. By his unfortunate connexion with Aspasia, Pericles degraded the dignity of female chastity-that only true preservative of social happiness and national prosperity, and thus broke down the safest barriers which Liberty gives to the land of the freeman. Her influence over Pericles led us into the Samian war. It was natural that, in the contest between the Milesians and Samians, her feelings should be with the land of her birth. Pericles readily entered into all her sympathies, and pretexts for hostilities on our side were easily found. With a large fleet he sailed for the beautiful and fertile island of Samos, which, from the enterprise of its sons, was beginning to rival us in the dominion of the seas. Falling an easy conquest to his skill and courage, he abolished its oligarchial form of government, and in its place established a government

founded on democratic principles. He had barely reached home, when a revolt broke out. Returning, he won the glorious naval engagement off Tragie, and beseiged the city of Samos. Learning that a Phoenician fleet was on its way to the relief of the besieged, he steered for the Mediterranean to meet it. No sooner had he departed, than our army was defeated by the Samians, and many of our ships destroyed. On receiving the tidings of these disasters Pericles hastily returned, and in a pitched battle completely defeated the Samians. Careful of the lives of his soldiers, he did not attempt to carry the city by assault, but with admirable military foresight built a wall around it. In nine months the proud and insolent city surrendered to our arms. Its walls were razed, its ships carried off, and heavy contributions were laid on it by Pericles. The funeral obsequies of those who fell in this war were celebrated with great pomp at Athens; and when Pericles, who had been appointed to deliver the eulogium, finished the eloquent discourse, he was crowned by the Athenian women with chaplets of flowers.

You well know (during the few years of peace that followed the Samian war) how rapidly our city increased in extent, wealth and population, while a luxury softer than that of Persia stole upon us-Pericles still continued to scatter with a prodigal hand the public treasure, refusing to give any reply to the murmurs of the people concerning his extravagant expenditures. A decree was proposed by Dracontides, requiring him to give an account of the public money before the Prytanes. To avoid the dishonor which would attend this inquiry, and to draw off from it the attention of the people, he began with zeal and energy to advocate a war with the Lacedemonians. A thousand reasons readily presented themselves to his aid. A deep seated jealousy of our power and glory was felt by most of the states of Greece, and on many occasions they had taken sides with our revolted territories. Yet they sought to arrange the numerous difficulties which had arisen, by a resort to negotiation, and the Lacedemonian ambassadors were heard before the assembly of the people. Their propositions for a peace, alike advantageous and honorable to us, might have been accepted; but the powerful eloquence of Pericles kindled into a blaze the slumbering heroism of Athens, and with one accord we surrendered ourselves to him. He told us that these ambassadors came not to expostulate-but to order; that if we yielded to them in the smallest matter, they would increase in their demands; that the states who threatened us had no ability to prosecute the war with speed or vigor; that we were the mistress of the seas; that we had nothing to fear from the contest, every thing to hope. In glowing colors he sketched our abilities and resources, and in thrilling tones he appealed to our patriotism and courage. Thus commenced the war in which we are now engaged, hurried on, because Pericles dared not state his accounts to the people! Accursed power of gold! Such are thy triumphs, and such are some of the consequences which nations feel, when both rulers and people are thy slaves!

On the call of Pericles, great numbers flocked into the city from all parts of Attica, enrolling themselves in the ranks, while the most active preparations were made in equipping our ships of war. But one feeling animated our people—and that was a determination to prosecute the war, reckless of life and treasure. The honor of our country was at stake, and in Athens there was no traitor-heart which dared to sneer at the country's cause! None speculated about the causes of the war-none desired the peace of dishonor, but with one accord the old and the young prepared for the conflict.

The Lacedemonians and their confederates with a large army having invaded and laid waste our soil, encamped at Acharnæ, near the city. Despite the popular murmurs, Pericles refused to convene an assembly of the people, for fear he might be compelled to act against his own opinion, and engage the enemy. In every shape and form he was attacked by vilification and obloquy. His prudence was termed cowardice, and he was even charged by some with a design to betray his country. Self-possessed and firm, he resisted every appeal, and sternly submitted to the cloud of disgrace which was thickening around him. On single battle he would not risk the safety of the state and the destiny of his country. To allay the popular excitement, he made a distribution of money and lands among the people; and when the enemy retired, (after vainly attempting to provoke a battle,) by meaus of our fleet he carried the war into their own country, and also into that of the confederates.

About this period broke out that terrific pestilence, the plague, which decimated our city. I have no taste to recall its wide-spread horrors. You witnessed it, and over the utter destitution of sympathy and charity which it produced, let us forever draw a veil Starting from Ethiopia, and spreading desolation on its way, it found a full harvest of death in the multitude which had flocked into Athens on the first alarm of invasion. Joyous youth, elastic manhood and temperate age, were alike its victims, and each family found more than one vacant place around their hearths. To cheer the drooping spirits of the people, Pericles fitted out large fleet for the purpose of harrassing the enemy, and soon laid siege to the sacred city of Epidamus. Here he was defeated, not by the enemy, but by a fearful pestilence which prevailed in his army. Returning to Athens, discomfited and unfortunate, he encountered the public resentment, and although with accustomed eloquence he justified his conduct, and endeavored to console the people under their defeat, and to animate them to renewed exertion, he was yet condemned, deprived of command, and a heavy fine imposed on him.

To this sentence, alike sudden and unexpected, were added the domestic afflictions which now fell on him. Most of his early and fast friends, who bad aided him in the administration of the government, had fallen by the plague, and he was alone. Yet he surrendered not his dignity of soul until the death of Paralus, his only remaining legitimate son; and when placing the garland upon the head of his dead child, he broke into loud and womanly lamentations.

Ere a year had passed by, the people invited him to resume the direction of the civil and military affairs of Athens. He had lived in the closest re-, tirement, and when Alcibiades and his other friends persuaded him to make his appearance before the people, he did not hesitate. Forgetting the sentence imposed on him, he calmly heard them, and resumed the reins of government with a firm and steady hand. How short was the period, ere death removed him from us!

*

The eloquence of Pericles was the philtre by which he seduced the heart of Athens, and money was the instrument with which, for more than forty years, he held over us a monarch's power. His oratory had been formed on the best models, and it was perfected by constant practice. Who that ever heard him could forget his manner, gesture or delivery, or the living thought which fell from his lips? Like a rare strain of music, it forever haunted the memory of the heart, and could not be forgotten. Whatever cause he advocated, succeeded, and seldom was he defeated. On the trial

of Aspasia for impiety and immorality of life, he appeared in the defence, and on this occasion only was his forensic skill fruitless. She was acquitted by a majority of her judges, not by his eloquence, but only when that strong and gifted man, around whose brow clustered the glories of Athens, gave way to a flood of unmanly tears. At the Ceramicas, on the end of the first campaign of the present war, over the ashes of those who were there interred, he delivered that beautiful and matchless oration, the brilliant truths and lofty patriotism of which have become to us as household words, and which, so long as our language exists, can never perish, With what thrilling power did he allude to the heroic men who had given their lives for their country? Their glory was not buried-but treasured up. The whole earth was to them a sepulchre. Happiness was only in liberty, and they, her sons, had protected her by valor and virtue. No one in that vast assembly but caught the enthusiasm of the orator, and with swelling pride listened to his eulogium on Athens and the Athenians, and to the priceless blessings freedom gives only to the good and brave. We once had these blessings, but gold has expelled them forever from us. Athens will add one more page to the history of those republics which have fallen in the contest between liberty and money. In such a conflict liberty has never conquered. How false then were these professions of the orator, and what a satire on a people degraded by luxury and enslaved by corruption! Yet, deluded by his eloquence, we believed ourselves free, and foolishly dreamed that the republic of our fathers had not withered unto death, and that liberty had never fled from her chosen dwelling-place on earth-our own heavenkissed Attica?

THE PROVERB.

FROM THE FRENCH OF BERANGER.

ALAIN a princess did admire,

But saw his hopes defeated;
Ignobly born, a simple squire,

He like a serf was treated.
The princess had her stately dame,
A flower whose bloom had fleeted;
Alain to her transports his flame,
But like a serf is treated.

The dame, too, had her waiting-maid,
Who none but nobles greeted;
In vain to her his court he paid;

He like a serf was treated.

But when her under-maid be meets,
She finds her bliss completed;
Surprised, since her so well he treats,
That he like serf was treated.

The waiting-maid for him does burn;
She hears his charms repeated;
The dame now courts him in her turn;
He's like a baron treated.

At last the princess, with less pride,
To him her favours meted;

Then was the proverb cast aside,
"He like a serf is treated."

FAITH.

A POEM IN THREE PARTS.

"In Faith, everything depends on the fact of believing;
What is believed is perfectly indifferent."-GOETHE.

I.

These four lines are a literal translation from Lamartine. An allusion to the official despatch of a Russian general, which appeared translated at length in the Moniteur, concluding with: "l'ordre règne à Varsovie."