I would not repair my fortune by hammering on the anvil in the Agora: I would not (pardon my application of our proverb at Clazomenai) make my purse of swine's ears. Such is the occupation of those who intend to profit by a public auditory. Often had I been solicited by the worthier of the citizens to appear in public, and to take a part, if not in the administration of affairs, at least in the debates. It ill suited my temper and turn of mind. Ours, like most free cities, was divided into two factions, the aristocratical and democratical. While others were making their way forward to the head of them, I sat quietly at home, and, to relax my mind occasionally from its sustained and fixed position for loftier and purer speculations, meditated on the advantages and disadvantages of each government. No small quantity had I written at last of remarks and aphorisms: behold a specimen: In most cities the majority is composed of the ignorant, the idle, and the profligate. In most cities, after a time, there are enough of bad citizens to subvert good laws. Immoral life in one leader of the people is more pernicious than a whole streetful of impurities in the lower quarters of the community, seeing that streams, foul or fair, can not flow upward.' Be sure, Aspasia, I never promulgated such perilous doctrines. To prove that I was erroneous in the two first positions, the citizens would have poisoned or stoned me, and their orators would clearly show my unfitness to give advice, in my attempting to demonstrate no more important or novel a truth than that water can not run up a mountain. Such is the employment, such the ingenuity and sincerity of eloquence. truth from them, if truth it be, and told them only what I thought it was their interest, and would surely be their intention, to perform. They rewarded me by suffering me to depart in peace, unanswered and unnoticed. We might imagine that advice, like manure, is only good and applicable when it has lain a long while by. He reasons ill who reasons with a bad reasoner he walks on chaff, and tires himself without progress and without impression. I never expostulate with the self-sufficient; but on this occasion I desired a friend of theirs to inquire of them whether they thought a conflagration in Clazomenai would only warm their baths and cook their dinners. Had I been willing to abuse my faculties, it would have been an easy matter for me to have swept them from their places, and to have assumed the highest; for the rapacious has no hold upon the people, and vulgar manners in the candidate for office are no recommendation even to vulgar men. Here ended my life in my own country. CXCVI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. It has been wisely said that Virtue hath only to be seen to be beloved : but unwisely, that Vice hath only to be seen to be hated. Certain it is that the more habituated we are to the contemplation of a pure and placid life, the more do we delight in it. I wish it were equally so that every glance at Vice loosens a feather from her plumage, and that on a nearer approach and more stedfast observation she grows hideous. Proofs to the contrary come before us every day. Eupolis and Mnesilochos and Callias and Cratinos, like most other authors, are indifferent to any result from their writings but popularity and I was inclined to the democracy, because I emolument. And we are informed here at Miletus knew that all government ought to be chiefly that several of your philosophers are now employfor the advantage of the many; but when I con- ing a language, on the powers and provinces of love, sidered long and attentively its operations and far more seductive to the passions of their youthful effects, I began to doubt whether the people are auditors than the most indecent of theatrical more likely to know their interests than the ribaldry. For surely there is little seductive in aristocracy are to promote them. Immovable a boisterous jocularity, that seizes and holds down property is the only sure pledge for political equity, and the holders are not at all times ready to offer it. Merchants are the worst of adventurers and gamesters, because their native land is not their country. They are the sucklings of an alien, and love her best who gives them nutriment. Their preponderance in a state will invariably be its subversion. I intended to speak of myself, but you see I can not keep to my theme; it soon tires me . . soon escapes me. The scanty streamlet has run but a little way, and is lost among the sands. A few words more, however. Before I left my country, I offered some brief observations on important matters, then in discussion, to persons in authority. Do I much over-estimate my solidity of intellect, my range of comprehension, or my clearness of discernment, in believing that all these qualities in me, however imperfect, are somewhat more than equivalent to theirs? I concealed this the hand from the painfully blushing forehead, and forces the eyes to see what they would shun. Ionian manners, I am afraid, are as licentious as the Athenian: but ours are become so by our intercourse with the Persians, the Athenian by theirs with the Philosophers. It is only of late that such poisonous perfumery has had this influence on the brain; it is only since the departure of the sedate unostentatious Anaxagoras, that syllogists have snapped their fingers at experiment. Against such men the arrows of ridicule are well directed: but these arrows fall harmlessly from flowing robes; and indeed the purple dye is everywhere a panaces. CXCVII. ANAXAGORAS TO PERICLES. Thanks, O Pericles, for your provident care of me! Povident do I say? no, anything but that: kind, generous, profuse; but if you really saw the extent of my wants, you would only send me notice that you and those about you are well and happy. The fever which has broken out in your city will certainly spare you if you reside in the Acropolis and yet you tell me that you are resolved on taking no such precaution, lest you should appear to claim an exemption from the common peril. What prudent men were my enemies in Athens, to send me back hither! they would not let me live nor die among them! You have little curiosity to know anything about private men and retired places. Nevertheless I will tell you and Aspasia what is Lampsacos. CXCVIII. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. One true and solid blessing I owe to my popu larity. Seldom is it that popularity has afforded any man more than a fallacious one. Late wisdom, and dearly bought, is mine, Aspasia! But I am delaying your delight, at one moment by the hurry of my spirits, at another by the intensity of my reflections. Our Pericles is Athenian in privileges as in birth. I have obtained a law to revoke a former one enforced by me.. and felt no shame. If I could hope that other statesmen would take example from my faults, if I could hope that at any future time they would cease to be opinionative, imperious, and self-willed, mistaking the eminence of station for the supremacy of wisdom, I would entreat them to urge no measure in which might be traced the faintest sign of malice or resentment, whether in regard to parties or private men. But alas! the inferior part of man is the stronger: we cannot cut the centaur in twain: we must take him as we find him composed, and derive all the advantage we can both from his strength and his weakness. I am growing the politician again, when I should be the husband and father. The odious law, the weight of which I drew upon my own head,* is abrogated. The children of women not Athenian are declared free citizens. Many good men, many good mothers, have mourned the degradation of theirs through my severity. Shrimps and oysters are the lower order of the inhabitants: and these, it is pretended, have reason to complain of the aristocracy above them. The aristocracy on their side contend that such complaints are idle and unfounded; that they are well fed and well clothed, and that the worst that ever happens to them is to be taken out of their beds, and to be banded, marshalled, and embarked, in the service of their country. In few more words, we all are either fishermen or vine-dressers. I myself am a chief proprietor: my tenement is small, but my vineyard is as spacious as any about. It is nearly a hundred of my paces broad: its length I cannot tell you, for in this direction it is too steep for me to walk up it. My neighbours have informed me that there is a fine spacious view of the Hellespont and headlands from the summit. I only know that there is a noble God, a century old at the least.. he who protects our How dear, above the sweetest of Spring, are the gardens and vines. An image of him stands blossoms that appear in the less genial hours of either at the top or the bottom of every avenue in winter! how dear, above earth, above all things the vicinity. He frowns in many of them; yet, upon earth (Aspasia will pardon this, whether true amid all his threats, there is in his good-humoured or false), is our little Pericles! Am I dreaming gravity something like a half-invitation. The when I imagine I see this beautiful boy, with boys and girls write verses under him, very dero- Health and Hope beside him, kneeling on the gatory to his power and dignity. They usually border of the tomb, and raising up from it a whole write them, I understand, in one another's name; family, in long perspective! We were gone, I just as if he could not find them out, and would thought, we were lost for ever. The powerful not punish them in due season. Enough of this: father merged his whole progeny in utter darkness; I have somewhat less to say about myself. The an infant shall reclaim it. people love me, for I am no philosopher here, and have scarcely a book in the house. I begin to find that eyes are valuables and books utensils. Sitting at my door, I am amused at the whistle of curlews, and at their contentions and evolutions, for a better possession than a rabble's ear. Sometimes I go down, and enjoy a slumber on the soft deep sands; an unexpected whisper and gentle flap on the face from the passing breeze awakens me, or a startling plash from the cumbersome wave as it approaches nearer. Idleness is as dear to me, reflection as intense, and friendship as warm as ever. Yes, Pericles! Friendship may pause, may question, may agonize, but her semblance alone can perish. My moon is in the last quarter, and my days ought now to be serene: they are so. Be yours no less; yours and Aspasia's! No longer is there a cloud upon my brow! no longer is there, I am apt to think, a pestilence in Athens. *It is stated in every Life of Pericles that he obtained the enactment of it. This is incorrect. The law was an ancient one, and required fresh vigour and vigilant observance at a time when hostilities were imminent, and when many thousands were residing in the city who would otherwise have claimed a right to vote as citizens, while their connexions were to be found among the inveterate enemies or the seceding allies of Athens. Long antecedently to the administration of Pericles, it appears that at a certain age the illegitimate were assembled at Cynosarges, in the wrestling-ring dedicated to Hercules, who himself was in that predicament: and these alone entered it. On which occasion Themistocles, his mother being a Thracian, gave the earliest proof of his astuteness, by inviting some of unmixed blood and aristocratical lineage to wrestle with him. It is far from improbable that Pericles insisted the rather on the execution of this law in opposition to Cimon, whose father Miltiades had married the daughter of Oloros, a prince of Thrace, and who himself was descended also from a ruler of that nation. CXCIX. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. Blessings on the generosity of the Athenians! blessings a thousand-fold on the paternal heart of Pericles! O Pericles! how wrong are all who do not for ever follow Love, under one form or other! There is no God but he, the framer, the preserver of the world, the pure Intelligence! All wisdom that is not enlightened and guided by him is perturbed and perverted. He will shed, O my husband, his brightest tints over our autumnal days. Were we ever happy until now? Ah yes, we were . . but undeserving. A fresh fountain opens before us, subject to no droughts, no overflowings. How gladly, how gratefully, do I offer to immortal Love the first libation! Come hither, my sweet child! come hither to my heart! thou art man, thou art Athenian, thou art free. We are now beyond the reach, beyond the uttermost scope and vision, of Calamity. CC. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. Alcibiades is grown up to the highest beauty of adolescence. I think I should be enamoured of him were I a girl, and disengaged. No, Cleone! the so easy mention of him proves to me that I never should be. He is petulant, arrogant, impetuous, and inconsistent. Pericles was always desirous that he should study oratory, in order that it might keep him at home, gratify his vanity the most perfectly and compendiously, and render him master of his own thoughts and those of others. He plainly told Pericles that he could learn little from him except dissimulation. "Even that," replied Pericles, "is useful and necessary: it proceeds from self-command. Simulation, on the contrary, is falsehood, and easily acquired by the meanest intellect. A powerful man often dissembles: he stands erect in the course of glory, with open brow but with breath supprest: the feebler mind is ready to take refuge in its poverty, under the sordid garb of whining simulation." He then remarked to Pericles, that his oratory was somewhat like his economy, wanting in copiousness and display. creetly there is a fair presumption that, neglect- "Aristides died poor: but Aristides never was Alcibiades, in several parts of this discourse, had given signs of weariness and impatience. Pericles perceived it, and reverted to Aristides. At every word that was now spoken he grew more and more animated: at the close he sprang up, seized the hand of Pericles, and told him he would listen as long as he went on in that manner. "Speak to the purpose, as you have begun to do, and about Aristides, and I shall like you better than Aspasia. I think, after all, I may perhaps let you be my teacher." He said this laughing. My husband replied, "I will not undertake it, Alcibiades! Peradventure I may offer you, from time to time, a little at once, some serviceable observations, some fruits of my experience: but it is only to grace and beauty that your restless intractable mind is obedient for an hour." "Alcibiades!" said my husband, "it is particularly this part of it which I could wish you to adopt. In oratory there are few who can afford to be frugal in economy there are few who can afford to act otherwise than frugally. I am a public man, and it little becomes me to leave room for suspicion that, by managing ill my own small affairs, I may be negligent in the greater of the commonwealth. There are kingdoms in Thrace and Asia, where the cares of government are consigned to ministers or satraps, and where it shall be thought honourable and glorious in one of these functionaries to die in debt, after "Go and ride into the country," said my husmanaging the treasury. But surely there is in band, as he was rising. "If you retain your high this no proof whatever that he managed it dis-opinion of me on your return, you will find me at "Call me anything, do anything, or nothing," said the youth, "if you will only give me such a smile again." leisure to continue. I leave you, for the present, with Aristides." Away he went, without a word more to either of us. When he was out of the apartment, Pericles said, after a thoughtful and serious pause, "He is as beautiful, playful, and uncertain, as any half-tamed young tiger, feasted and caressed on the royal carpets of Persepolis: not even Aspasia will ever quite subdue him." CCI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. I shall never more be in fear about you, my Aspasia Frolicsome and giddy as you once appeared to me, at no time of your life could Aleibiades have interested your affections. You will be angry with me when I declare to you that I do not believe you ever were in love. The renown and genius of Pericles won your imagination: his preference, his fondness, his constancy, hold, and will for ever hold, your heart. The very beautiful rarely love at all. Those precious images are placed above the reach of the Passions: Time alone is permitted to efface them; Time, the father of the Gods, and even their consumer. CCII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. Angry! yes indeed, very angry am I but let me lay all my anger in the right place. I was often jealous of your beauty, and I have told you so a thousand times. Nobody for many years ever called me so beautiful as Cleone; and when some people did begin to call me so, I could not believe them. Few will allow the first to be first; but the second and third are universal favourites. We are all insurgents against the despotism of excellence. Ah Cleone! if I could divide my happiness with you, I do think I should have much to give you. I would demand a good deal of your sound judgment for it; but you should have it. We both of us value our beauty, I suspect, less than we used to do, which is certainly wrong; for whatever we may be told, or may tell ourselves, we have rather a scantier store of it. However, we are not yet come to the last loaf in the citadel. I did not see Alcibiades again, that day or the following. When he came to me, he told me he was ashamed of having said an uncivil thing. "Of which are you ashamed?" said I, "O Alcibiades! for there were several not distinguished for courtesy." "As usual, in good humour, which always punishes me," said he. "But I remember I made a rude observation on what lies within your department." "Economy?" said I. Before he could answer me, Pericles, informed that Alcibiades had inquired for him, entered the apartment. "I am glad you are come in," cried he, "for, although I have taken two days to collect my courage and words, I think I shall have more of both, now you are present." He then began his apology, which Pericles thus interrupted. "Be prepared for chastisement: I shall impose a heavy mulct on your patience: I shall render an account to you of my administration, and I hope you will permit it to pass. "I have a son, as you know, in whose character parsimony is not among the more prominent qualities. I am unwilling to shock him by it, which is always apt to occasion a rebound to the opposite side and I am equally unwilling to offer My own character will permit neither. I never an example or pretext for luxury and expense. gave a splendid feast: I never gave a sparing entertainment: I never closed my dining-room to a I have not the ample fortune of our cousin Cimon, man of elegant manners or of sound information. who always used it magnificently: and glad am Í that I have it not; for it would oblige me to receive many who must disgust me, and who would occupy more hours of my leisure than I can spare. My system of domestic life has produced me contentment and happiness. May yours, my dear Alcibiades, whether like it or unlike it, do the same!" "Thank you!" said he carelessly, and added, "But your manner of speaking, which we first began to talk about, the other day, is proper only for yourself: in any other man it would be ridiculous. Were I to employ it, people would believe I assumed the character of Jupiter or Hermes walking among mortals. Aspasia's is good enough for me. Many think her language as pure and elegant as yours: and I have never known it enrage and terrify men as yours does." "Study then Aspasia in preference," said he. "You possess already some of her advantages. A beautiful mouth is always eloquent: its defects are taken for tropes and figures. Let us try together which can imitate her best. Neither of us hath ever seen her out of temper, or forgetful what argument to urge first and most forcibly. When we have much to say, the chief difficulty is to hold back some favourite thought, which presses to come on before its time, and thereby makes a confusion in the rest. If you are master of your temper, and conscious of your superiority, the words and thoughts will keep their ranks, and will come into action with all their energy, compactness, and weight. Never attempt to alter your natural tone of voice; never raise it above its pitch: let it at first be somewhat low and slow. This appears like diffidence; and men are obliged to listen the more attentively, that they may hear it. Beginning with attention, they will retain it during the whole speech: but attention is with difficulty caught in the course of one. "I am intruding a little on the province of Aspasia. If she approves of my advice, pursue it; if she disapproves, be sure I have spoken inconsiderately; although I fancy I have observed such effects on several occasions." He ceased: I enforced as well as I could his admonition. But Alcibiades, with grace nearly equal, wants his gravity; and, if ever he should be his successor in the administration of the Republic, he must become so by other methods. CCIII. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. Before Proxenos is sailing back to Massilia. he left us, he collected a large cargo of Inscriptions, chiefly poetical. In Massilia these matters are curiosities. The people, who can not have them fresh, are glad to accept them dry, although, according to Proxenos, they are little acute in relishing or distinguishing them. In his last conversation with me, he gave evidence that, should he ever fail as a merchant, he hopes to make his fortune as a critic. Among his remarks was this. "I can not for my life imagine why Zephyr is such a favourite with the poets." I answered that we Ionians were always shy of him; but that in other parts, and especially toward Gaul and Italy, he certainly was better behaved. "Better behaved!" cried Proxenos. "By the Twins! he hath split my sail more than once." To comfort him, I replied: " He has done that with his best friends, O Proxenos!" "And no longer ago," continued he, "than last Boedromion, he carried off my nether garment that was drying upon deck." "Ah! there," said I, "mischievous as he is, he could not do the same to them without homicide: few of them have one to spare." At the recollection of his superior wealth and dignity, he grew composed again. The Gods grant him a prosperous voyage! Ere this letter shall reach Athens, he must be almost as far as Cythera. What labours and perils do seafaring men undergo! What marvels are ships! They travel in a month farther than the fleetest horse can do; to such perfection have they been brought, and such confidence is there now in human courage and skill. As there hath been little or no improvement in them for some centuries, we may suppose that, contrary to all other inventions, the ingenuity of mortals can do nothing more for them. I forgot to mention of Proxenos, what may-be it were better not to mention at all, that he is reported to have broken off the extremity of a leaf or two on some curious old vases, and a particle of a volute * from a small column at the corner of a lane. Nothing can so distinctly prove, say the Lampsacenes, that Proxenos has a few drops of barbarian blood in him. Genuine Greeks may travel through all the world, and see every vase, every column, every statue, worth seeing in its whole circumference, without a thought of mutilation. Those people who can not keep their hands from violating the purest works of ancient days, ought, if there are not too many of them, to be confined in separate cages, among the untameable specimens of zoology. The Lampsacenes, you see by this, are not averse to protect the Arts. CCIV. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. I have found eight verses, of which I send you only the four last. So entirely do they express what I have felt, it seems as if I myself had composed them. They who tell us that love and grief are without fancy and invention, never knew invention and fancy, never felt grief and love. The thorns that pierce most deep are prest And tears alone are balm to grief! You perhaps will like these better, Aspasia! though very unlike in sentiment and expression. Pyrrha your smiles are gleams of sun Pyrrha! your tears are short sweet rain Pyrrha! both anguish me: do please CCV. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. Ships are passing and repassing through the Hellespont all hours of the day; some of them from the Piræus, urging the allies of Athens to come forward in her defence; others from the Peloponese, inciting them to rise up in arms, and at once to throw off allegiance. Would there be half this solicitude in either of the belligerents to be virtuous and happy, sup1 posing it possible to persuade the one or the * One Eyles Irwin, who was not poor nor quite unedu-other that she might be, and without an effort! cated, tells us in his Travels that he broke off a volute as a relic from what was called Pompey's Pillar. This happened so lately as the last century. We are, it seems, about to remove from Egypt the obelisk named Cleopatra's Needle. Do we believe that Egypt is never to come to life again? It may be some hundreds, it may be some thousands of years: but these are to the glories of Egypt as pounds are to our national debt.. itself so glorious, and of which the formation has constituted our glorious men Are we sure that the Genius who created these eternal works, derives no portion of his beatitude from the hourly contemplation of them, in the country where they were formed and fixed? supposing it, in other words, to be quite as easy and pleasant to receive a truth as an untruth. Would these mariners and soldiers, and those statesmen who send them out, exert half the anxiety, half the energy and prowess, to extinguish the conflagration of a friend's house in the neighbourhood, as they are exerting now to lay in ashes all the habitations that lie beyond it? And such rulers of the world! Well hath it been said by are brave men, such are wise men, such are the some old poet, |