which is employed, in fact, to release the imperial exchequer from expenditure which would otherwise have fallen upon it. This release comes from peace and from local payments, but no relief comes to the tax-payer, who is called upon to contribute a larger sum now than was required early in the century, when communication was far more difficult and expensive than it is now.

The finance of the nineteenth century was begun with an act of iniquitous injustice and excessive folly. Between the years 1798 and 1800 a sum of more than £56,000,000 had been borrowed, and the repayment of this sum was made a special charge upon the incometax imposed by Mr. Pitt in the former year; and it was distinctly arranged that the tax should be continued until that debt was dis charged. This was a fair and honest undertaking. Government proposed to raise the loan, the possessors of incomes in the country gave their guarantee for the payment of it by them. Yet, immediately on the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens, in 1802, Mr. Addington, who had succeeded Mr. Pitt, abolished the income-tax, and transferred this debt of £56,000,000 and its annual charge to the sinking fund, to be paid by the general community out of the general taxes, and thus released the wealthy from a just obligation formally undertaken, by putting the burden on the whole community, who had had their proportionate share of the taxation of the time to bear. Here, by a breach of faith, which is an injustice, the minister saddled all time coming with a debt, for the extinction of which, without pressure on the general community, provision had been made, while he foolishly burdened all future revenue with the charges thence arising, and spread distrust among the lenders of money as well as the tax-payers.

Another item of taxation, which has been handled with a great deal of dexterity to cover the deficit in revenue occasioned by the repeal of the corn laws, are the spirit duties. The spirit duties in England and Scotland have been raised since 1825 from 28. 10d. to 10s., while in England they have been raised within the same period from 78. to 10s. It is to be recollected that these products are in Ireland and Scotland what are called the national beverages, the use of which had become inwoven with the common customary life of the country; and as no corresponding increase of taxation was put upon the national beverage of England, while at the same time enormous reductions were made in the wine import duties on a commodity chiefly used by the rich, there can be no doubt that Ireland and Scotland were dealt with unjustly in this matter. My object in mentioning this case, however, is neither to make much of this favouritism to English customs, nor to enter upon the moral and social questions which arise when the spirit duties are spoken of, but to note the dexterity with which these have been manipulated, so as to replace upon the same class of society a burden in lieu of the taxation remitted by the repeal of the corn laws for the saving of the landed and propertied interests. It is in reality a corn-tax replaced on a corn product.

F.M.

Greek Days and Roman Nights.

No. I.-PLATO'S "PHEDO."

III. The "Dramatis Personce" of the Phado.

The law of parsimony had great power over the Greek drama; the exigencies of the scene required to be controlled by the fact that good actors were scarce, and that complications of plot, how, ever admirable, would, to a simple Hellenic group of spectators, have been incomprehensible, if made more ravelled by a number of persons necessarily draped very much alike; hence it became a rule with the Greek Tragedians, that, however numerous the mutes or the chorus might be, the agonista, or players, permissible on the stage at one time as speakers, should be limited to three; when occasionally a fourth speaking-character was introduced, he was, according to Pollux, the Greek sophist and grammarian, a supernumerary or extra band. One actor might perform more parts than one, but then the drama required to be so constructed that, while the stage was properly occupied by the other players, he should have sufficient time to retire and change his garments and properties. This law of parsimony was also imposed upon Roman dramatists by Horace, in his "Art of Poetry," "Nec quarta loqui persona laboret," 193Let not a fourth character strive to speak. Poets who were desirous of contending for the prizes awarded to successful merit in the drama, had three actors assigned to them, by lot, so that the active personages of the drama, apart from the chorus, were in reality three, as a general rule. The principal character in a drama was called the protagonist, the second deuteragonist, and the third the tritagonist, these latter designations indicating subordinateness of character and importance. The chorus, which consisted in the early days of the Thespian art of one person only, was subsequently greatly enlarged, to gratify the love of the spectacular in which the Hellenic races delighted. The chorus took part or displayed an interest in what was passing on the stage, by dumb show or movement, dance and song, and occasionally shared in the action of the drama, through its chief personage, called the coryphæus. On the stage there were the scenas, the proscenium, and the parascenia (or side-wings). At the back of the scene there were three doors on the stage, one in the centre and one on each side. Pollux describes the middle one as that generally of a palace, or the residence of the protagonist, that on the right hand as the one by which strangers enter, and that on the left as commonly the door of a prison. The prison may be regarded as poetically suggestive of the body,

1870.

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and Socrates of the soul. As from the prison in which Socrates is immured escape for him is only possible by death, so is the soul enclosed in and clogged by the body; and as Socrates refuses to leave his prison on any other terms than those permitted by law, so is suicide forbidden to and rejected by the philosophic thinker, as a means of escape from the woes and trials of the lifeimprisoning body. Socrates, as representing the soul, is surrounded by earth's interests and ties-wife, child, friends, disciples, &c.— and he is exposed to all the soul's trials-fear, love, gratitude, converse, and kindliness-to make him long for life, dislike death, and recoil from the hour of fate. But Socrates possesses his soul in patience, while awaiting the unconquerable event; and so are we perhaps here taught the spirit of man ought to endure and to dare the oncome of the time, when the chillness of death shall pass over the frame, and the enfranchised spirit shall quit the prison of time and sense and body to pass into the new dawn promised by hope to the thoughtful mind. It may have been that Plato chose this prison scene as a suggestive ensemble through which to teach in parable the analogy of life to a prison, the soul to Socrates, and death to enfranchisement unto immortality. The parts of a tragedy, according to Aristotle, are, 1, the prologue; 2, the episodes or incidents; 3, the exode or denouement; and interspersed with these, 4, the choric parts; namely, (i.) parados, or introductory song, (ii.) stasimon, the set or steady by play, (iii.) kommi, lamentations and interjected references. These preliminary observations may enable us to comprehend and trace the wonderfully artistic dramatic form of the Dialogue of the Death of Socrates.

First on the proscenium, here representing Phlius, we see the coryphæus, Phædo, and Echecrates, with perhaps some others of the chorus, standing while the introductory interlocutions go on which place the circumstances and the time before us, and excite in us the plot-interest on which the dramatic dialogue is to rest. While Phædo speaks, the scene opens, and we are in presence of Socrates in prison; and Phædo, as the prologue, describes the dumb show of the situation, Xantippe's grief and retirement under the care of Crito's attendants, the offices of the jailer, the unloosing of the prisoner in the presence of, or by, the eleven, and thereafter glides away to his place among the chorus, which is now upon the scene. The protagonist is sitting on his prison-bed; Simmias and Cebes stand beside him, and scattered around are the chorus, in befitting attitudes and places, on one side the Athenian Socratics, Crito and Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigines, Ctesippus, Apollodorus, Eschines, Antisthenes, and Menexenus, &c.; and on the other the Foreign Socratics, Phædo, Phædondes, Euclid, and Terpsion, and perhaps some others. The dramatis persona being thus arranged with due attention to stage effect, Socrates speaks, and the episodes commence. Our present business is, however, to tell who these are that occupy the scene; and first of the coryphæus

and his coadjutors, and then of the agoniste of this drama of immortal life.

I. Phædo was a native of Elis, of noble birth, who having been, in the fortune of war, made prisoner, was brought to Athens and sold as a slave, while still but a slim youth, about B.c. 400. In his master's service he was compelled to follow evil courses. While listening to Socrates he was attracted with regard towards the great conversational controversialist, and by his look of keen interest in the discussions drew the attention of the Inquisitor of Truth upon himself. At the request of Socrates, one of the wealthy men, probably Crito, who heard him gladly, bought him and set him free. He became an intense admirer of Socrates, and was greatly beloved by him in return. There is much dramatic skill and moral propriety therefore in selecting one so young and 80 endeared to give an account of an event so tragic-one which would be certain to make a deep and lasting impression on the mind of the protégé of the sufferer; while the dialectic skill and subtlety attributed to Phædo as a philosophic instructor in Elis after his master's death, invest the dialogue with great intellectual pertinence. He wrote philosophical dialogues, but these are now lost. He was the founder of the Eliac school, the leading doctrine of which was, that all that is good and true results from reason and intelligence. Plato is reported to have visited him at Elis, and he is said to have expressed surprise at many things attributed to him in the dialogue. That Plato should have named his best philosophical composition after him, shows the high opinion he entertained of the thoughtful and loving disciple of the great master. II. Echecrates, probably a native of Magna Graccia, and a settler in Phlius, in Achaia, who had been, according to Diogenes Laertius, a hearer of the Tarentine Pythagoreans, Philolaus and Eurytus." He expresses himself as one interested in and familiar with philosophy, and is represented as embued with or inclined to Pythagorean opinions. There is in this probably a compliment to the Italic school, with whose speculations the dialogue has some affinity, and a hint that the fate of Socrates was a wound to philosophy felt by all schools and grieved for in all countries, an incident which excited wonder among men, and astonishment that Athens should have been guilty of such treason to truth and investigative thought.

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III. Crito was a wealthy and worthy citizen of Athens, of the same age and belonging to the same district of the city, the Demus Alopece, as Socrates (as well as that of Aristides the Just). Socrates and he were twin yet twain, in thought and heart, they were soul-friends. He is not a philosopher, but a friend who is willing to place his wealth and influence at the disposal of Socrates, not from discipleship but friendship. Socrates lovingly rallies him on his unphilosophic ideas of life and comfort. He had arranged for the escape of Socrates from prison, and had urged him to avail himself of the opportunity. He receives the latest instructions of

Socrates about his family, gets his last_commands, and closes the eyes of the hemlock-dead thinker. Plato attributes a dialogue to him, and evidently thought him a true model of a true friend.*

*

IV. Critobulus was the son of Crito; he, with his father, had attended the trial of Socrates. The patriarch of Greek philosophy esteemed him highly as modest and thoughtful. Xenophon shows us that Socrates admitted him to a close friendship, and gives us a report of a conversation which Crito and Socrates held on that topic. Plato makes him a chief interlocutor in two dialogues. He was a handsome youth, and was known as a disciple of the imprisoned and condemned thinker.

V. Apollodorus was a native of Phaleron, in Attica, a great admirer of Socrates, and a constant attender upon him, a very devoted but not a very enlightened disciple. He was a man of moods and whims, enthusiastic but easily depressed. When Socrates was imprisoned, he kind-heartedly brought him a finer robe to wear than the threadbare cloak he had; but, with a stoicism of principle, Socrates refused to increase the comforts of his last hours on earth, lest he should increase also his fear of death, or his desire of life. He is a speaker in "The Banquet," and is mentioned by Xenophon with favour.

VI. Hermogenes was the son of Hipponicus and brother of Callias, the wealthy Athenian. But as his family were noted for their wealth, and he is mentioned by Xenophon as being in pecuniary straits, he was probably an illegitimate son. In " Cratylus he is the chief speaker, and Xenophon quotes him as his authority for many of the particulars of the death of Socrates. Crito had a son named Hermogenes, but this was the son of the torch-bearer at the Eleusinian mysteries.

VII. Epigenes, a sickly thoughtful youth in whom Socrates felt an interest, whose father, Antephon of Cephisia, was present at the trial. Xenophon devotes a chapter in his "Memorabilia” (iii. 12) to a conversation on gymnastics and health, in which Socrates and Epigenes had engaged. Crito had a son of the same name, but commentators think that he was not the disciple meant in the "Phædo."

VIII. Ctesippus, a youth of the Demus of Paania, as the “ Euthy.

* Crito receives the following honourable testimony to his character from Xenophon. "Crito was also an attendant on Socrates, as well as Cherephon, Chærecrates, Hermocrates, Simmias, Cebes, and Phædondes, who, with others that attended him, did not seek his society that they might be fitted for popular orators or forensic pleaders, but that, becoming honourable and good men, they might conduct themselves irreproachably towards their families, connections, dependants, and friends, as well as towards their country and their fellow-citizens; and no one of all these, whether in youth or at a more advanced age, either was guilty or was accused of any crime."-Memorabilia, B. 1., ii., 48.