them, said, that he wondered they should commend and take notice of things which were as much owing to fortune as to anything else, and had happened to many other commanders, and at the same time, should not speak or make mention of that which was the most excellent and greatest thing of all. "For," said he, no Athenian, through my means, ever wore mournning."

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Our admiration is indeed his due, not only for the 39 equitable and patient temper, which throughout a busy life, and amidst great animosities, he maintained; but also for the high spirit and feeling which made him regard it the best of all his honours, that, in the exercise of such great power, he never had gratified his jealousy or his passion, nor ever had treated any enemy as irreconcilably opposed to him. And it appears to me that this one thing gives that otherwise childish and arrogant title a fitting and becoming significance; so dispassionate a temper, a life so pure unblemished in authority, might well be called Olympian, in accordance with our conceptions of the divine beings, to whom, as the natural authors of all good and of nothing evil, we ascribe the rule and government of the world. Not as the poets represent, who, while confounding us with their ignorant fancies, are themselves confuted by their own poems and fictions; and call the place indeed where they say the gods make their abode a secure and quiet seat, untroubled with winds or clouds, and equally through all time illumined with a soft serenity and a pure light, as though such were a home most agreeable for a blessed and immortal nature; and yet, in the meanwhile, affirm that

Alcibiades. (From the Vatican.)

THE first founder of the family of Alcibiades was, it is said, Eurysaces, the son of Ajax; and he was also descended from Alcmæon, Dinomache, his mother, being a daughter of Megacles. His father, Clinias, having fitted out a galley at his own expense, gained great honour in the sea-fight at Artemisium, and was afterwards killed B.c. 480. in the battle of Coronea, fighting against the Boeotians. B.C. 447. Pericles and Ariphron, the sons of Xanthippus, nearly related to him, became the guardians of Alcibiades. It has been said not untruly, that the friendship and affection which Socrates felt for him, has much contributed to his general fame; and certain it is, that though we have no account from any writer concerning the mother of Nicias or Demosthenes, of Lamachus or Phormion, of Thrasybulus or Theramenes, notwithstanding these

the gods themselves are full of trouble and enmity and anger and other passions, which no way become or belong to even men that have any understanding. But this may, perhaps, seem fitter for another time and place. The course of public affairs after his death soon produced a lively sense of the loss of Pericles. Those who, while he lived, resented an authority, which obscured themselves, upon trial, when he was gone, of other orators and popular leaders, confessed there never had existed a character more moderate and reasonable in its ambition, or more noble and impressive in its gentleness. And that invidious power, which once they had called monarchy and tyranny, was then felt to have been a bulwark of public safety; so much corruption, and such a flood of mischief and vice followed, which he, keeping weak and low, had withheld from notice, and prevented from attaining through impunity any incurable height.

ALCIBIADES.

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