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THE GOLDEN AGE OF ATHENS.

BY A CLERGYMAN OF NEW YORK.

SOME forty-odd years ago there was to be seen in the court-yard of an English nobleman in Park lane, London, a parcel of "mutilated fragments" of marble, that were objects, in one way or another, of the greatest interest to different individuals. The noble lord who claimed to own them, but who in fact had rifled them from the works to which they belonged, wished to crown the vandalism of the deed by the enterprise of a Yankee, and sell them to the English governIment for the round sum of $175,000. Lord Liverpool and his cabinet were very much in doubt whether they were worth so much, and while they were confounded at the din, and surprised at the public excitement which the mass of fragments had created, they were shy of the bargain, and met Lord Elgin's proposals as a Virginian might an invitation to trade, made to him by a gentleman from the eastward with tin and wooden ware. So there they lay in the palace-yard of the nobleman, to be sold-if a purchaser would appear--but meanwhile visited by all classes, and speculated upon by various persons, various moods and tastes. Foolish critics profaned them. Gaping academicians undervalued them. Blundering antiquaries misnamed them. But there was one artist who recognized in them a master's hand. He had recently returned from the Continent, where he had admired the noblest productions of modern art, and having just commenced a painting of his own, he went to see these marbles. Their power over him was electric. He went home, seized his brush, and, in a fury of disgust, dashed out the figure he had begun. And now his thoughts by day and his dreams by night were upon an excellence and perfection that achieved their work more than two thousand years before. For months we find him studying at Lord Elgin's, and, with those marbles before him, drawing fifteen hours daily. Benjamin Robert Hayden was ready to tell the English cabinet that they were not buying wooden nor even marble nutmegs, when bargaining with Lord Elgin.

But whence came these fragments that the traveller now gazes upon, restored in the British Museum to their pedestals, and stretching on along the walls where they have been ranged, like a majestic and sublime vision--the loftiest ideal of the excellence of human art ever made real-whence came they? Let us trace them back to the place where the English nobleman found them.

Passing the Pillars of Hercules, we enter that sea which was the ocean of the ancient worldthe highway of its commerce, the scene of all its naval conflicts. We sweep along almost in sight of ruined Carthage, that once disputed with Rome the supremacy of the world; we leave behind us the dark smoky pillar of cloud that tells us of Etna, clothed in the associations of ancient fable even yet; we pass the Adriatic, which Venice with her commerce claimed as bride; we enter the Grecian Archipelago, and turning towards the north, enter the Saronic Gulf and steer our course for the harbor of the Piræus, once thronged with the sails of commerce, and bristling with life and industry. But a single vessel perhaps lies at the wharf, and a few ruined pillars scattered here and there remind us of the change that has taken place since hundreds of vessels crowded the once broad but now narrow and shoal harbor. We leave behind us the sea gemmed with islands, whose waves, undulating in the light of a Grecian sunset with all various and beautiful colors, seem like a shoal of dying dol. phins, and approach the shore. The poetry of the waters, with the music of their waves, and the purple shadows of their depths, disappear before the commonplace of a harbor as prosaic as the well-slated storehouses and customs offices that line the quays can make it. There is a veritable gin-shop, perhaps, from which only a Byron could extract any poetic elements, and yonder is an omnibus waiting to whirl you along a macadamized road of six miles for a shilling fare. And yet it is a beautiful and pleasant ride, notwithstanding the omnibuses and gin-shops

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and turnpike gates. Nature is there still in all her loveliness, as she was two thousand years ago, when either side of the road was guarded by a lofty wall, on whose broad top two chariots might meet and pass. You reach your destination, and are set down under the shadow of a large structure that seems to you a libel on Grecian taste, but which they tell you is the palace of King Otho. With scarcely a pause, your curiosity leads you to the famed Acropolis, whose rocky heights rise towering before your eye, and which neither time nor the invader have been able to level. From the ruins of the Agora where Paul once stood and preached to the Athenians of the "unknown God whom they ignorantly worshipped," you mount by the same path by which he was conducted, along a flight of steps cut in the rock, trod by the traveller of to-day as they were by Demosthenes or Pericles two thousand years ago, to that summit of Mars' hill,, where Paul addressed the assembled citizens. And here a scene spreads out before your eye, even now, after centuries of time and barbarian hordes have done all in their power to injure and deface it, magnificently impressive.

The beauty of nature and the grandeur of ruined art are all around you. Yonder is the Parthenon-Minerva's temple-glorious even in its desolation; a beauteous shrine which Athenian genius consecrated as a worthy offering to the Goddess of Intellect. On your right is the Agora, or Forum, where Grecian eloquence swayed the "fierce democracy" of Athens. On your left, at a little distance on the plain below, the ruined temple of Theseus, once a perfect model of architectural symmetry and beauty; and still beyond is the ocean where Plato found his Academy and Aristotle his Lyceum, while yonder to the south-east, in lonely and awful grandeur, are the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Olympus-the whole scene embosomed in an amphitheatre of hills and mountains of exceeding beauty, save where, at the west, the waters of the distant harbor sparkle in the sunlight. Some twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants are scattered over the plain at your feet, once thronged by more than a hundred thousand of the most quickwitted and enterprising nation in the world. But let us draw near the Parthenon. Here it is yet, surpassingly beautiful-a monument of the highest art and genius--surviving in finished symmetry all the ruthless vandalism of agesand the friezes of its columns surmounted by the most exquisite sculpture in the world. It was here that the English nobleman stood and or

dered his plunderers to the task, tearing down from their places the beautiful marbles designed by the genius of a Phidias, and executed with a skill that fills all later times with wonder.

But, standing upon this lofty summit, what thoughts of the past come crowding upon our mind! The time was, when the sun in his whole circuit around the globe found no spot so deservedly illustrious for genius and learning and the highest art. The time was, when around yonder Bema thousands of free citizens listened to an eloquence that has never been surpassed if it has been equalled in the history of the world. The orator could not ask a fitter stand, nor a fitter audience. There was an inspiration to stir his very soul in the panorama itself spread out beneath his eye. The city itself, with its crowded streets and splendid temples, the one spot of all the world where freedom found a home: yonder the harbor of the Piræus, alive with vessels that had made the name of Athens a terror to distant coasts, that once in the critical moment of her destiny were her "wooden walls:" and there again, almost in sight, the battle field of Marathon, glorious with memories of which every Athenian was proud; in a word, every object, every hill, every foot of soil, rich with associations that stirred the heart and soul to patriot enthusiasm; all, all conspired to lift the orator above him. self, and make his audience like tinder for his words of fire. In such a day, what must Athens have been! How we should love to call the buried past back from its tomb, and reclothe it in the habiliments of life!

Athens in the days of Socrates interests us most. It was her golden age. Then her riches of art and genius overflowed. She was then to her own past and future, what England was in the days of Cromwell, and Hampden, and Milton, and Bunyan, and Baxter, and Howe, and Owen. It was the harvest-hour of her intellect, it was the maternity of her genius; and we read over with admiration and wonder the list of great and powerful minds that in rapid succession adorn her annals.

Socrates was born in the year 469 B.C., and was contemporary with Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets. His life extends over the period in which Athens attained the culminating point of her greatness. More than one hundred years before his birth, Solon had given the impress of his wisdom to her legisla tion. Soon after, comedy, and a few years later, tragedy, were introduced upon the stage. Only forty years before the birth of Socrates, the free

THE GOLDEN AGE OF ATHENS.

spirit of the Athenian democracy flung off the tyranny of Hipparchus and Hippias. His father Sophroniscus was perhaps a soldier of the republic at the celebrated battle of Marathon, and undoubtedly his heart glowed with the enthusiastic pride of a Grecian patriot when he heard the story of Leonidas and his brave little band of three hundred, withstanding the whole Persian host at the pass of Thermopyle. It is not impossible that he too was on board of the fleet at Salamis, when Athens betook herself to her wooden walls, determined to defeat her foe, or be buried beyond the tyrant's power to disturb her deathrest in her own waters. And now it is in the zenith of her political fame that Athens adds to the laurels of the warrior the more enduring wreaths of talent and of genius. Her Anacreon comes forward to lay upon the altar of her fame the charm of a poetic melody to which the world has given his own name. Philosophy could already boast of distinguished teachers-Thales, Anaximander, Xenophones, Anaximenes, Heraclitus. The enthusiasm of mind communicates itself to mind. The little republic of less than two hundred thousand souls is moved like a single mind by the same interest, and impelled by the same passions. The eminence of one man fires others with ambition to be his rivals-an ambition that had not yet learned to pass the limits fixed by the welfare of the state. The hero of Marathon rouses up and educates the hero of Salamis. Themistocles exclaims that the laurels of Miltiades will not suffer him to sleep. Aristides-known to all after-ages as "the just," who shared with Miltiades the honor of Marathon-hears in his unjust exile the voice of his ungrateful country, and, too great and just to deny her call, hastens back to head her armies. And now Greece is safe, for a time at least, from the overpowering hosts of Xerxes. Her feeble bands have foiled an army that might have deluged her territories, and outnumbered their whole population. Pindar, the sacerdotal poet of Greece, may at once instruct and arouse by lyrics that flatter no tyrant and palliate no vice. Eschylus, with the gloom and power of a Dante, brings before us the lofty and terrible imaginations of a mind familiar with all that is grand or darkly fearful in the sternest mythology of his native land. Leaving the fields of Marathon and Platea, where he bravely fought, he seizes the pen, and in his hand it becomes a magic wand, at whose motion the genius of tragedy springs forth, all perfect, into being-like the fabled Minerva from the head of Jove. Sophocles, with

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a more refined art, with greater purity and simplicity of diction, and with a touching pathos, and Euripides, with an ingenuity and brilliancy never perhaps surpassed, follow with worthy effort the Shakspeare of their age, who by a few years only preceded them. Socrates is yet a boy, when Herodotus-the father of history,' as he has justly been called-returned from his travels in foreign and distant lands, sits down to narrate in that simple and graceful beauty which is his characteristic, the story of what he had seen and learned the story which Greece listened to with wonder, and which we read today with an interest scarcely less than theirs. And soon comes Thucydides, the philosopher contemporary, whose history of the Peloponnesian war is a model of concise and clear and forcible narration the work by which Demosthenes formed and improved his own style. And already there may be seen gathered around the philosopher in the streets and the orator in the Forum, men of whom Athens will be proud, and whose names will live to the latest time in the history of the human intellect. Plato, no unworthy disciple of Socrates, on whom the sage's mantle fell, and the charm of whose genius all after-ages have been constrained to acknowledge-of whom it was said, that if the gods were to speak to men, they would use Plato's language; Aristotle, whose philosophic system was perpetuated through centuries, and held Europe as by a magic power, till the great Bacon broke the spell; Xenophon, the soldier, statesman, philosopher, novelist-these and others link the glory of the age of Socrates and Pericles to that of Demosthenes, whose unrivalled eloquence was for Athens the notes of the dying swan--the unwonted brilliance that illumined the hour of her expiring freedom, and which consoled the agony of her disgrace by a dirge whose power and beauty have challenged the admiration of the world.

It was during this period that intervened between the birth and death of Socrates, that most of the great works of art and taste of which Athenian pride could boast were devised and achieved. It was during his lifetime that the marble palaces and temples, whose ruins to-day fill the traveller with wondering admiration, were planned and constructed. The philosopher must have seen their materials as brought from their native quarry and shaped by skilful hands into forms of grace and beauty. He must have seen Phidias at his work while he fashioned that sculpture for the Parthenon, whose fragments

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now are treasured as prizes of the highest art, in the halls of the British Museum. He must have seen the construction of the third wall to the Piræus, by which the harbor of Athens and her communication with the sea were made secure. He must often have visited the harbor itself, crowded with vessels from Syria, and Egypt, and Lybia, and Italy, and the islands of the Mediterranean. He must have seen the evidences of a commerce unexampled in the whole previous or subsequent history of his adopted city. Often would he witness the spirit of the public assemblies kindled by the pride of country, of prosperity and power; listen to the eloquence of Pericles, second in Grecian history to Demosthenes alone-Pericles, at once the ruler, the general, the stateman, and the orator, under whose sway Athens overflowed with wealth, and saw, as by enchantment, marble palaces and temples spring. ing up around her. It is possible that he may have heard that speech of the great statesman, recorded by Thucydides, which has been pronounced the most remarkable of all the compositions of antiquity; the full transfusion of which into a modern language, in its beauty and power, is an impossibility; in which at once he develope his own intellectual and moral characteristics, and the wisest policy of the Athenian state. He must have visited the theatres when the masterpieces of those tragedians, Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, were produced, and when Aristophanes, that unrivalled master of comedy, turned the tide of popular ridicule upon the philosopher himself. On every side he must have seen the evidences of the prosperity and power of that young republic, at the mention of whose name the Persian tyrant, with all his millions, turned pale and trembled on his throne. Everywhere the marks of luxury and wealth as well as of taste and genius met his eye. The power of Athens was at its height. Her galleys swept the eastern Mediterranean. She was what England was forty years ago-mistress of the sea. Her merchantmen engrossed the traffic of adjacent countries. The magazines of Athens abounded with wood, metal, ivory, ebony, and all the materials of the useful as well as ornamental arts. She saw among her imports, the luxuries of Italy, Sicily, Cyprus, Lydia, Pontus, and Peloponnesus. She worked with increasing profit the silver-mines of Mount Larium. She had just opened the marble veins of Mount Pentelicus. The honey of Hymettus and the fruit of the cultured olive were among her most valuable exports. The people of Athens, successful

in every enterprise, whether against foreign or domestic foes, seemed entitled to reap the fruits of her dangers as well as victories. For the whole space that Pericles was at the head of the government, the city presented a perpetual scene of triumph and festivity. Dramatic entertainments, to which the citizens were passionately addicted, were no longer performed in slight, unadorned edifices, but in stone and marble theatres, embellished with all the beauties of art, as they were erected at enormous expense. The treasury of the state was opened, to provide decorations for this favorite amusement, and make it free to the humblest citizen. The treasure of tributary states and colonies was employed to feast and delight his ear and taste with the combined charms of music and poetry. Innumerable temples, statues, altars, baths, gymnasia, porticoes, satisfied the pride of the Athenian citizen, and gave meaning to the boast that Athens was the eye and light of Greece.

Never before had the world seen such a display of luxury in combination with such genius and taste. The pomp of religious assemblies, which were twice as numerous and costly in Athens as in any other city of Greece; the extravagance of entertainments and banquets which on such occasions always followed the sacrifices, the increased ostentation of private wealth, which naturally accompanied this public profusion, exhibited perhaps as much the flush of plethoric disease, as the glow of health. Instead of the simple fare of bread and herbs which Solon had recommended, the Athenians availed themselves of their wide-spread commerce to import the delicacies of distant lands. The refinements of cookery seasoned and prepared the most luxurious food. The wines of Cyprus were cooled with snow in summer: in winter the most delightful flowers adorned the tables and the persons of wealthy citizens. But to be crowned with roses did not suffice, without being anointed also with the most precious perfumes. Parasites, dancers and buffoons were the usual appendage of every costly entertainment. To all these scenes of brilliant prosperity, might be offset the formidable train of vices that kept them company. And yet no age of the Athenian republic can rival that which Socrates witnessed in his more youthful days. (To be continued.)

A CLEAR conscience is sometimes sold for money, but never bought with it.

THOUGHTS ON THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER.

TO MY INFANT BOY.

BY REV. FREDERICK JANES.

THE shades of thought pass o'er thy brow,
Thou cherub loved, thou spirit fair,
Thou starlike, shining one!
Thy smile is sweet, and true thy vow,
Whose love is won.

We see thee, sweet and darling son,
Now plumed for distant lands,

For dreamlike here's thy stay:
When all thy wondrous work is done,
Thou'lt speed away.

Swiftly gird with high endeavor,

The warp and woof of life to weave; Thine arduous task perform, Then rise to live and love for ever, An angel form.

To love in faith thy Saviour-Lord,

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While thoughts are fresh and heart is pure,
And all thy wish is love,

With beauty rare, divine accord,
In heaven above.

He stoops thy suppliant hand to see,
Thy young aspirings swift to aid,
To draw thee near the skies:
From sparkling joys and lusts now flee,
And upward rise.

Young, hopeful, darling boy!

If fears and griefs around thee spread,
Endure thy cross; above
There are no bitter sighs, but joy,
Sweet peace and love.

Thy valiant warfare early wage;
Let spring-time with thee ever last
Through scenes of doubt and fear :
Ye'll never feel the frost of age,
Who Christ revere.

THOUGHTS ON THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER.

BY CAROLA WILDGROVE.

IT is the dying-day of Summer. The hour of her exit is close at hand. But scarcely will the rosy-cheeked and cherry-lipped queen have let fall her drooping sceptre and breathed out her last warm breath, ere that sceptre shall be fully possessed and her place duly occupied by sobervisaged Autumn. With grave and measured tread he ascendeth the throne of his deceased predecessor, yet so noiseless his step, we hear it not, and at first we are not conscious of a new sovereign's sway in the kingdom of the seasons. Not long, however, will we be in doubt, for soon will his marai ue, the vina, th sto: ms, and the

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tempests, strike the loud march that celebrates his reign; and his faithful standard-bearer, sly Jack Frost, will have hung his monarch's flag in every tree, and summoned the mighty ranks of nature to don that gay uniform of many colors which best indicates true allegiance to the royal power. The clouds, too, will have caught the shadow from his brow, and each of their leaden-hued plates will image to our eye his dark miniature, or fulllength, forbidding portrait. In fact, he will appropriate to himself the whole broad canopy above as one huge picture-gallery, in which he will everywhere hang against its soft azure his own sombre daguerreotypes of every possible size, thus completely shutting back the sweet blue sky from our earnest, passionate gaze. If by chance one little speck of the clear, heavenly cerulean should peep out between the gloomy figures, it will at once be frightened back again to its far retreat by just one glance at his closely knit brow. The bright, laughing sunbeams, terrified by his lowering visage, will betake themselves to their safe hiding-place, nor venture forth at all to encounter his fits of deepest sullenness; while whole troops of animated little beings that basked in their cheering presence, flitted gayly about at Summer's court, living, joying in her smiles, will be frowned out of existence by the austere ruler. Countless myriads of sweet musicians who untiringly tuned their minstrels for their summer-queen, who in merry bands escorted her every step through her kingdom, and in their gladness struck the clear, soul-stirring notes of harmonious strains, or from her spacious orchestra pealed out the thrilling chorussong of joy, and who nightly sang for her a sweet serenade, will by one blast of Autumn's warlike band be stunned into eternal silence. At a peculiar wave of his tyrannical sceptre, the mighty trees, in their haste to do obeisance, shall rudely. shake to the ground their entire foliage, and be left to stand up mere vegetable skeletons, dismantled of all their grace and loveliness. The last acts of his reign shall be to benumb the skipping rille, stiffen the leaping streams, hang icicles in the place of flowers, sprinkle thick amid all nature's locks that silver-gray which betokens old age, rain upon her brow pelting hailstones instead of the refreshing dew, and seal close up all her fountains of life and beauty.

Such is the prospect before us; such will be the deeds, such the reign of the new king. Is it a wonder that we shrink from Autumn's sway! that we cling clo er than ever to our loved maiden que a, t'; bright, warm-hearted Sum

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