possess a sonorous, vigorous tone, with fine rhetorical power, and great felicity of diction; and have much of the force and fire displayed by his rival, closely approximating to those of Demosthenes in style, while in ability they remain unsurpassed by any but this greatest of orators. We give a brief extract from the oration against Ctesiphon.

FROM THE ORATION AGAINST CTESIPHON.

Now I neither envy the habits of Demosthenes, nor blush for my own; nor would I retract the speeches I have spoken among you; nor had I spoken as he has would I be content to live; for my silence, Demosthenes, has been occasioned by the simplicity of my life. I am satisfied with little, and covet not the dishonest acquisition of more; so that I can be silent, and speak advisedly, and not when constrained by innate extravagance; while you, I should say, are silent when your hand is full, and clamorous when it is empty, and speak, not when you choose, nor what you please, but whenever your employers instruct you; for you are never ashamed of exaggerations which are immediately detected.

You censure me for coming before the city not continuously, but at intervals, and flatter yourself that you can escape detection in propounding this principle, which is not of democracy but a different form of government; for under an oligarchy not he that would, but he that has power, prefers indictments; but under a democracy, whoever chooses, and whenever he thinks proper. Besides, to appear occasionally in public is an indication of a policy suggested by opportunity of advantage; but to make no intermission, even of a day, is the proof of a traitor and a hireling.

And yet, by the Gods of Olympus, of all that I understand Demosthenes intends to say, I am most indignant at what I am going to mention. He compares my talents, it seems, to the Sirens, for their hearers (he says) are not so much enchanted as lured to destruction, and hence the evil reputation of their minstrelsy. In like manner my rhetorical skill and abilities prove the ruin of my hearers. And though I believe no man whatever is justified in any such assertion respecting me- for it is discreditable for an accuser not to be able to prove the truth of his allegations- yet if the assertion must be made, it should not have been by Demoshenes, but by some military commander who had rendered im

portant services to the state, and was deficient in eloquence; and who therefore envied the talents of his adversaries, because he was conscious of his inability to proclaim his achievements, while he saw an adversary capable of representing to his audience what he had never performed as though they were actual achievements.

Yet when a man made up altogether of words,- bitter and superfluously elaborate words,— comes back to the simplicity of facts, who can tolerate it?- a man whose tongue, like that of the flageolet, if you remove, the rest is nothing.

You call yourself fortunate, and so you are, deservedly; and will you accept now a decree that you have been forsaken by fortune and saved by Demosthenes? And the greatest inconsistency of all will you in the same court brand with infamy those who are convicted of bribery, and crown a man of whose political venality you are aware? You fine the judges of the Dionys'ia for deciding partially upon the Cy'clian choruses, and when you are yourselves sitting in judgment, not upon Cy'clian choruses, but upon the laws and political integrity, can you bestow rewards not according to the laws, nor on worthy and deserving objects, but on the successful intriguer? A judge so acting descends from the tribunal, after forfeiting his own power, and establishing that of the orator. In a democratic state the private individual exercises sovereign power by his legislative influence and his suffrage, and whenever he surrenders these to another he forfeits his own power.

THE LATER GRECIAN POETS.

Ir is a notable fact that all the Grecian lyrists of the earlier school, with few exceptions, were born on the coast of Asia Minor, or on the islands of the Ægean sea. "These enchanting islands," says Dr. Gillies, the Grecian historian, were the best adapted to inspire the raptures peculiar to the ode, as well as to excite that voluptuous gayety characteristic of the Grecian song."

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But, like birds of passage, they sought the genial climes and the warm suns of appreciation, which for centuries were to be found only in Athens.

At a later period Sicily became the refuge of many of these delicate-winged singers, and we find a brilliant galaxy gathered at the court of King Hiero of Syracuse, where there basked in the sunlight of the royal favor such poets as Simonides, Pindar and Eschylus.

At a still later epoch, after the conquests of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great, the power and influence of Athens vanished. Though still preserving her comic drama, she no longer offered a congenial home to the

muses.

But at this period Alexandria, the capital of the kingdom of Ptolemy Soter, to whom fell one of the great fragments of the broken empire of Alexander, - became the seat of literature and the arts. This far-seeing monarch invited men of eminence from every part of the Grecian dominions to his court, where he treated them with royal munificence. In this refined court the poets basked in perpetual prosperity, and were placed by their liberal patron

in a position of entire ease and independence. Yet it is not in such sunny calm that the fires of genius burst forth, and we need not seek in the poets of the Alexandrian school the vivid, sparkling powers of Pindar and his associates; but rather a limpid, quiet flow, whose beauties are of the subdued and easy tone.

One of the first acts of these Alexandrian poets was to form themselves into a constellation, which they transferred to the heavens under the name of the Pleiades. This poetic constellation comprised the following seven names: Lyc'ophron, Theoc' ritus, Ara'tus, Nican'der, Ean'tides, Philis'cus and Home'rus.

Of these poets, however, but one or two still shine with any lustre; the others are vanished stars. The only poem of Lyc'ophron which has come down to us is a long epic monologue, called the Cassandra or Alexandra. It is made up of mythologic tales and heroic legends, and in this point of view alone is of any special importance. It has been called the "Dark Poem," on account of the obscurity which pervades it.

Of the works of Aratas, an astronomical poem, called "The Phænomena," was most esteemed. It contains little more than the names and order of the constellations, with some accurate observations upon nature, but is pure and elevated in tone, and has the distinguished honor of having been translated by Cicero, and having been quoted by St. Paul. In the oration of the latter before the Athenians, on Mars Hill, he exclaimed: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being, as certain of your own poets have said; for we are also his offspring."

Aratus is the poet referred to.

But of the poetic Pleiades one star continues of the first magnitude, shining with a lustre which time has never dimmed. This is the idyllic poet Theocrites, whose life and writings demand our fuller attention.

THEOC' RITUS.

BORN ABOUT 300 B.C.

This brightest star of the Alexandrian constellation was a Sicilian by birth, a native of Syracuse. He remained in his native city until he had attained great distinction as a poet. But the court of Hi'ero the Second was not calculated to foster the poetic spirit, like that of his talented predecessor, Hiero the First, who had surrounded himself with the most eminent poets of the age.

Theocritus, therefore, reluctantly left his native land, and sought patronage at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. Here he was received with every mark of honor and distinction, and found himself in an atmosphere of congenial spirits, well calculated to foster his genius. We know very little in regard to his further history, or the date of his death. He is supposed to have returned to Syracuse, where, as Ovid intimates, he was strangled by order of the king, though for what cause is not stated.

The poems of Theocritus were written in the Doric dialect, and were styled by their author "Idyls." This word, signifying "a little picture," is generally taken to designate poems descriptive of the simple scenes of rural life, treated rather in an epic than a lyric vein. Yet the thirty Idyls of Theocritus are not all pastoral in character, and Tennyson's "Idyls of the King" might best be classed among the epics. The use of the word, therefore, is not very strictly defined.

The bucolic poetry of Theocritus seems to have had its origin in the rural festivals of the Dorians. In the feasts of Artemis the custom was for two shepherds, or two parties of them, to contend together in song, usually employing mythical stories, or the scenes of country life. This gradually grew into an art, which was practiced by a set class. of performers, and which formed the germ of the pastoral dialogues of Theocritus.