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the Peloponnesian wars had commenced, affords melancholy proof of the extent to which profanation had gradually arrived in Greece. The Spartans, as we have seen, were accessories before the fact to the plunder of the temple of Delphi, the Athenians and Corinthians became subsequently the allies of the sacrilegious Phocians. It is no doubt true, that the Thebans and Thessalians, in their first attack on the Phocians, used religion as a mere pretext to hide private malice; but the profanation of Delphi was an outrage to the national religion which would not have found defenders, if the religion itself had not previously sunk into neglect and decay.

The treasures stolen from Delphi, thrown suddenly into circulation, disorganized the currency in all the Grecian states; but it wrought a more fatal change, by rendering the employment of mercenary troops almost universal-a custom not less fatal to morality than it was to valour and patriotism. No states rested so much on morals as the Grecian, for none were more completely self-governed, both in legislation and administration. Private life was identified with public, law entered into every part of social and domestic existence. Hence moral corruption at once produced political degradation and anarchy. Two causes chiefly produced this demoralization,-war, and the spirit of faction, which, if not engendered, was fearfully aggravated by war. It was because he witnessed the growing corruption produced by war, that Aristophanes so strenuously recommended peace to his countrymen; but his exertions were vain; the war continued, until the fearful conception which he had placed before the eyes of his

countrymen-the demon of war pounding cities and states to atoms in a mortar,* was realized to its utmost

* This extraordinary passage is rendered lyrically by Mitchell. specimen of the scene will explain its nature to the general reader.

SCENE-HEAVEN.

A

A great bowl, or mortar, is seen on the stage; leeks, garlic, and cheese -as emblems of Prasiæ, Megara, and Sicily, menaced with ruin by the course of the war- -lie around it.

WAR-slowly and solemnly.

Laceration,

Maceration,

Grief and scorning,

Woe and mourning,

Past all curing;

I do scan,

Unto man,

The much enduring.

Aches and pains,

Rack his joints

And fire his brains.

TRYGÆUS.

Shield me, great Phœbus, 'tis indeed a mortar
Vast beyond vastness!—then this monster's visage !
Pain, mischief, misery, are upon his front.

And do my eyes indeed take witness of him,
The god whose very sight creates a solitude!
The truculent, the iron-faced, still settling
Upon his legs, as if for fight preparing.

WAR.

Double, double,

Woe and trouble,

Triple trine

And nine to nine,

Nine and ten,

And nine again,

I do see

For Prasiæ.

Hapless state!

See now thy doom is seal'd, and ratified thy fate.

extent, and Grecian glory was ended because Grecian

virtue was no more.

But in this general ruin everything did not perish : the hope of regeneration was never wholly lost in Greece; and though trampled down by the Macedonians, yet a noble effort was made by the Achæan league, and thus "the splendid noon" of the greatness of Greece was followed by a still more splendid evening. Intellectual preeminence remained after political supremacy was destroyed; and Greece, though vanquished, won the respect and obtained the homage of her conquerors. Thus indestructible are the triumphs of mind, thus enduring the glory of having advanced civilization:

Like the vase in which roses have once been distill'd,
You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.

CHAPTER VI.

ROMAN CIVILIZATION.

FROM the very imperfect records of the early history of Rome, it is scarcely possible to obtain a plausible account of the real origin of the state and city. It is, however, probable that the Roman, like the Spartan constitution, was primarily based on an aristocracy of conquest; and it is certain that it very early had assumed such a form, though not quite so rigidly and exclusively as the Spartan system. The Dorians, who conquered Laconia, were a single people; the military adventurers who established themselves on the banks of the Tiber, were a mixture of several races, like those who accompanied the Norman conqueror when he invaded England. In the Roman language two elements are very distinguishable; that is, a substratum of Greek, to which belong the grammatical inflections, the terms relating to agriculture and domestic life, and what we may generally call, the staple of the language: intermingled with this is the Oscan, to which belong most of the terms relating to arms, war, rule, and conquest. Hence it may reasonably be inferred that the Latins were a mixed people, arising from a conquest of the Pelasgians by the Oscans. It may further be inferred that the Pelasgians were the more civilized, and the Oscans the more warlike people; and it is probable that the latter were a race of mountaineers, who were

tempted to conquest by the wealth of those who lived in the plains.* There is no difficulty in the fact that the Oscans soon abandoned their original name; in less than a century after the Norman conquest, the name of Norman had fallen into disuse, though the difference of language still remained, and as Sir Walter Scott has shewn, this difference in our existing mixed tongue still marks the circumstances of the conquest.†

Whether the Sabines, who joined the Romans either when the city was founded, or immediately after, be* Virgil describes the aborigines as mountain-tribes civilized by Saturn:

A race untaught, and bred on mountains wild,

Awed by his wholesome laws, became more mild.

The passage to which I allude occurs in Ivanhoe; and though one of the most humorous in the romance, contains in it a very curious and important philological dissertation.

"Truly, Gurth," said Wamba, "I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else than to be converted into Normans before morning, to thy no small ease and comfort."

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"The swine turned to Normans to my comfort!" quoth Gurth; expound that to me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to read riddles."

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Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on four legs?" demanded Wamba.

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'Swine, fool, swine,” said the herd, "every fool knows that."

"And swine is good Saxon," said the jester; "but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn and quartered, and hung up by the heels like a traitor?"

"Pork," answered the swineherd.

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I am very glad that every fool knows that, too," said Wamba; " and pork, I think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the castle-hall to feast among the nobles."-Ivanhoe, vol. i. 14.

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