upon the experiment, by giving to our readers the following paragraph, taken from the article on Pericles. "The internal administration of Pericles is characterized chiefly by the mode in which the public treasures were expended. The funds derived from the tribute of the allies and other sources were devoted to a large extent to the erection of those magnificent temples and public buildings, which rendered Athens the wonder and admiration of Greece. A detailed description of the splendid structures which crowned the Acropolis, belongs rather to an account of Athens. The Propylaea, and the Parthenon, with its sculptured pediments and statue of Athene, exhibited a perfection of art never before seen, and never since surpassed. Besides these, the Odeum, a theatre designed for the musical entertainments which Pericles appended to the festivities of the Panathenaea, was constructed under his direction; and the temples at Eleusis and other places in Attica, which had been destroyed by the Persians, were rebuilt. The rapidity with which these works were finished excited astonishment. The Propylaea, the most expensive of them, was finished in five years. Under the stimulus afforded by these works, architecture and sculpture reached their highest perfection, and some of the greatest artists of antiquity were employed in erecting or adorning the buildings. The chief direction and oversight of the public edifices was entrusted to Pheidias, under whose superintendence were employed his two pupils Alcamenes and Agoracritus, Ictinus and Callicrates the architects of the Parthenon, Mnesicles the architect of the Propylaea, Coroebus the architect who began the temple at Eleusis, Callimachus, Metagenes, Xenocles, and others. These works calling into activity, as they did in various ways, almost every branch of industry and commerce at Athens, diffused universal prosperity while they proceeded. Such a variety of instruments and materials were now needed, that there could hardly be an artisan in the city who would not find scope for his industry and skill; and as every art required the services of a number of subordinate laborers, every class of the laboring citizens found employment and support. This, however, though a most important object, and one which Pericles had distinctly in view, was not the only one which he set before himself in this expenditure. Independently of the gratification of his personal taste, which in this respect accorded with that of the people, his internal and external policy formed parts of one whole. While he raised Athens to that supremacy which in his judgment she deserved to possess, on account both of the natural capabilities of the people and the glorious sacrifices which they had made for the safety and freedom not of themselves only but of Greece, the magnifi cent aspect which the city assumed under his directions was designed to keep alive among the people a present consciousness of their greatness and power. This feature of his policy is distinctly expressed in the speech delivered by him over the slain in the first winter of the Peloponnesian war, a speech equally valuable as an embodiment of his views, whether the sentiments contained in it be, as is most probable, such as he actually delivered, or such as his contemporary Thucydides knew him to entertain. He calls upon the survivors to resolve that the spirit they cherish towards their enemies shall be no less daring than that of those who had fallen; considering not alone the immediate benefit resulting from repelling their enemies, but rather the power of the city, contemplating it in reality daily, and becoming lovers (équorús) of it; and whenever it seems to them to be great, considering that men acquired this magnificence by daring, and judging what was necessary, and maintaining a sense of honor in action. The design of his policy was that Athens should be thoroughly prepared for war, while it contained within itself every thing that could render the citizens satisfied with peace; to make them conscious of their greatness, and inspire them with that self-reliance and elastic vigor, which was a surer safeguard than all the jealous measures resorted to by the Spartans. Nothing could well be further from the truth than the estimate Plato formed of the policy of Pericles, if he makes Socrates express his own views, in saying that Pericles made the Athenians idle, and cowardly, and talkative, and money-loving, by first accustoming them to receive pay. The great object of Pericles was to get the Athenians to set before themselves a great ideal of what Athens and an Athenian ought to be. His commendations of the national characteristics partook quite as much of the nature of exhortation as that of praise. This object, of leading the Athenians to value highly their station and privileges as Athenian citizens, may doubtless be traced in the law which he got passed at an early period, that the privileges of citizenship should be confined to those whose parents were both Athenians; a law which was called into exercise in B. c. 444, on the occasion of a present of corn being sent by Psammetichus from Egypt, to be distributed among the Athenian citizens. At the scrutiny which was set on foot only about 14,000 were found to be genuine Athenians, nearly 5000 being discovered to be aliens. That he had not miscalculated the effect likely to be produced on the minds of his fellow-citizens, is shown by the interest and pride which they took in the progress and beauty of the public works. When it was a matter of discussion in the assembly whether marble or ivory should be used in the construction of the great statue of Athene, the latter was selected, apparently for scarcely any other reason than that it was the more costly. We have already seen that the bare idea of having their name disconnected with the works that adorned their city, was sufficient to induce them to sanction Pericles in his lavish application of the public treasures. Pity, that an expenditure so wise in its ends, and so magnificent in its kind, should have been founded on an act of appropriation, which a strict impartiality cannot justify, though a fair consideration of all the circumstances of the age and people will find much to palliate it. The honesty of the objections raised against it by the enemies of Pericles on the score of its injustice is very questionable. The issue of the opposition of Thucydides and his party has already been noticed. "It was not the mere device of a demagogue anxious to secure popularity, but a part of a settled policy, which led Pericles to provide amusement for the people in the shape of religious festivals and musical and dramatic entertainments. These were at the same time intended to prepare the citizens by cheerful relaxation and intellectual stimulus for enduring the exertions necessary for the greatness and well-being of the state, and to lead them, as they became conscious of the enjoyment as well as dignity of their condition, as Athenian citizens, to be ready to put forth their most strenuous exertions in defending a position which secured to them so many advantages. The impulse that would be given to trade and commerce by the increase of requirements on the part of the Athenians was also an element in his calculations. The drama especially characterized the age of Pericles. From the comic poets Pericles had to sustain numerous attacks. Their ridicule of his personal peculiarity could excite nothing more than a passing laugh. More serious attempts were made by them to render his position suspicious in the eyes of the people. They exaggerated his power, spoke of his party as Peisistratids, and called upon him to swear that he was not about to assume the tyranny. Cratinas threw out insinuations as to the tardiness with which the building of the third long wall to Peiraeus proceeded. His connection with Aspasia was made the ground of frequent sallies. His high character and strict probity, however, rendered all these attacks harmless." We have taken this almost by chance, and as merely a fair specimen of the average style of the articles. We might refer to those on Demosthenes and schines, as containing masterly discussions of the questions between the rival orators and statesmen, and of the historical transactions in which those questions were involved. The notice of Thucydides the historian, embraces an account of that author's life and of his immortal work not surpassed in thoroughness of learning, and luminousness of style, by the admirable sketch in the new edition of K. O. Müller's History of Greek Literature. But to point out all, or one half, of the excellent articles in this work would require more space than we can possibly spare; and we have only to conclude with the remark, that the libraries of all classical scholars and schools will henceforth be considered defective unless they are furnished with these volumes. We are happy to learn that an edition has been printed for the American supply, and is now circulating in this country from the English press, at about one half the price for which the books are sold in London. We see it announced that the same editor has in preparation a Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, which, we presume, will complete the series: a series which will constitute by far the most important contribution to classical learning which our age can boast. ART. VIII. Philo; An Evangeliad. By the Author of "Margaret; A Tale of the Real and Ideal." Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 1850. 12mo. pp. 244. Or the poet, one of the interlocutors in Philo says, "From all, he takes what each man deems his best, The comparison is significant and happy. Man is a poet, a maker, only by courtesy; his creations, whether in art or literature, are simply selections and combinations from preexisting materials, and the maturest fruits of his genius never transcend the modest name of composition, which he was wont to give to his school-boy theme. But there is art and literature too, in which there is no composition, that is, no choice or arrangement of materials. Thus, the painted interiors of kitchens and ale-rooms, the fruit and cattle-pieces of the Dutch school, are not creations even in a subordinate sense, but mere colored drawings; they bear no traces of the painter's mental or moral individuality, and might have been made by a mere draughtsman, if he had only learned to grind and mix colors. The portraits done for admiring rustics by our itinerant Yankee artists, "equally adapted," it has been well said, " to transmit the features of the present generation, and to frighten the crows of the next," are often striking likenesses, because they are literal, unidealized copies, even to the mole on the cheek or the scar on the brow; but the poet-limner becomes so by reducing what is abnormal, enhancing the traits of grace or beauty in the countenance, and assimilating the features which he paints to those of his ideal. There are writers who can barely copy in words, mere draughtsmen of facts or ideas; and, if they can write grammatically, they are useful in compiling annals, guide-books, and some kinds of school-books. But we like not to see a born composer stoop to be a mere copyist; and least of all, do we like to see detailed copies of the grotesque and vulgar alternate in the same work with the splendid combinations of a highly creative genius. The most glaring fault of the author of Margaret and Philo is, that he personates alternately the copyist and the poet. He vaults from the kitchen to the clouds, and leaps from the clouds into the gutter; he paints an angel's face over the tavern-bar, and thrusts a Dominie Sampson into the councils of Olympus. Would he confine himself to the literal description of the homely, gross, and low, he would be unsurpassed as a chronicler of the fast fading features of what rustic life has been in New England. Would he confine himself to the ideal, he might win a place second to none on the catalogue of American poets. But his transitions are so rapid, his proficiency in the art of sinking so thorough, and his extremes of grandeur and of earthiness so far apart with no intervening gradations, that he wearies hist most admiring reader, and puts in suspense the verdict of the most friendly critic. Mr. Judd * means no doubt to be the poet of common life. But, in order to be so, he must "cull the landscape," must select the poetical traits of rural scenes, homes, and manners, or at least, must round off deformities, soften incongruities, polish the coarse, and elevate the low. Wherever * We probably betray nothing that was intended to be kept concealed by naming, as the author of "Margaret" and "Philo," the Rev. Sylvester Judd, of Augusta, Maine |