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THE MASQUE OF CUPID.

An holy-water-sprinkle, dipp'd in dew,
With which she sprinkled favours manifold
On whom she list, and did great liking shew,-
Great liking unto many, but true love to few.

9 And after them Dissemblance and Suspect
March'd in one rank, yet an unequal pair;
For she was gentle and of mild aspéct,
Courteous to all and seeming debonair,
Goodly adorned and exceeding fair;

Yet was that all but painted and purloin'd,

And her bright brows were deck'd with borrow'd hair;
Her deeds were forged and her words false coin'd,
And always in her hand two clews of silk she twined:

10 But he was foul, ill-favouréd and grim,
Under his eyebrows looking still askance;
And ever, as Dissemblance laugh'd on him,
He lour'd on her with dangerous eye-glance,
Showing his nature in his countenance :
His rolling eyes did never rest in place,

But walk'd each where for fear of hid mischance,

Holding a lattice still before his face,

Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace.

11 Next him went Grief and Fury match'd yfere ;*
Grief all in sable sorrowfully clad,

Down hanging his dull head with heavy cheer,"
Yet inly being more than seeming sad :

A pair of pincers in his hand he had,

With which he pinchèd people to the heart,

That from thenceforth a wretched life they lad,
In wilful languor and consuming smart,

Dying each day with inward wounds of dolour's dart.

12 But Fury was full ill apparelléd

In rags, that naked nigh she did appear,

4 Yfere is together, or in company with.

Cheer is, in old language, face, look, or countenance.

With ghastly looks and dreadful drearihead;"
And from her back her garments she did tear,
And from her head oft rent her snarled hair:
In her right hand a firebrand she did toss
About her head, still roaming here and there;
As a dismayèd deer in chase emboss'd,
Forgetful of his safety, hath his right way lost.

13 After them went Displeasure and Pleasance,
He looking lumpish and full sullen sad,
And hanging down his heavy countenance;
She cheerful, fresh, and full of joyance glad,
As if no sorrow she ne felt ne drad;
That evil-matched pair they seem'd to be:
An angry wasp th' one in a vial had,

Th' other in hers an honey-lady-bee.

Thus marched these six couples forth in fair degree.

EDMUND SPENSER: 1553-1598

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES.

THE sentence of death passed against him, by what majority we do not know. But Socrates neither altered his tone nor manifested any regret for the language by which he had himself seconded the purpose of his accusers. On the contrary, he told the Dikasts, in a short address prior to his departure for the prison, that he was satisfied both with his own conduct and with the result. The divine sign, he said, which was wont to restrain him, often on very small occasions, both in deeds and in words, had never manifested itself once to him throughout the whole day.

The tacit acquiescence of this infallible monitor satisfied him not only that he had spoken rightly, but that the sentence passed was in reality no evil to him; that to die now was the best thing which

Drearihead is the old substantive form of dreary, meaning dreariness, or dismalness. Many words formerly ended in hed, head or hood, which now end in ness; as drowsihed for drowsiness, livelihood for liveliness.

7 That is, entangled, as a skain of silk.

* In old hunters' language, an animal is said to be embossed when it foams at the mouth, from weariness or rage.

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could befall him. Either death was tantamount to a sound, perpetual, and dreamless sleep, which in his judgment would be no loss, but rather a gain; or else, if the common myths were true, death would transfer him to a second life in Hades, where he would find all the heroes of the Trojan War, and of the past generally, so as to pursue in conjunction with them the business of mutual cross-examination, and debate on ethical progress and perfection.

There can be no doubt that the sentence really appeared to Socrates in this point of view, and to his friends also after the event had happened, though doubtless not at the time when they were about to lose him. He took his line of defence advisedly, and with full knowledge of the result. It supplied him with the fittest of all opportunities for manifesting, in an impressive manner, both his personal ascendency over human fears and weakness, and the dignity of what he believed to be his divine mission. It took him away in his full grandeur and glory, like the setting of the tropical Sun, at a moment when senile decay might be looked upon as close at hand. He calculated that his defence and bearing on the trial would be the most emphatic lesson which he could possibly read to the youth of Athens; more emphatic, probably, than the sum total of those lessons which his remaining life might suffice to give, if he shaped his defence otherwise.

This anticipation of the effect of the closing scene of his life, setting the seal on all his prior discourses, manifests itself in portions of his concluding words to the Dikasts, wherein he tells them that they will not, by putting him to death, rid themselves of the importunity of the cross-examining Elenchus ; that numbers of young men, more restless and obtrusive than he, already carried within them that impulse, which they would now proceed to apply; his superiority having hitherto kept them back.

9

It was thus the persuasion of Socrates, that his removal would be ⚫the signal for numerous apostles, putting forth with increased energy that process of interrogatory test and spur to which he had devoted

• Elenchus is trial, or proof; especially proof used for refutation. What has come to be styled the Socratic method of investigation proceeds by interrogating the opponent, and drawing out his ideas or opinions, and then subjecting them to the logical torture called reductio ad absurdum. The shortest and surest way of putting a sophister to shame, or of making him ashamed of himself. - Dikast was the Greek term for judge, or rather juror. By the Constitution of Athens, in trials like that of Socrates, a number of jurors was im panelled, from certain classes of the citizens, and the final decision of the cause lay with them.

his life, and which doubtless was to him far dearer and more sacred than his life. Nothing could be more effective than his lofty bearing on his trial, for inflaming the enthusiasm of young men thus predisposed; and the loss of life was to him compensated by the missionary successors whom he calculated on leaving behind.

Under ordinary circumstances, Socrates would have drunk the cup of hemlock in the prison, on the day after his trial. But it so happened that the day of his sentence was immediately after that on which the sacred ship started on its yearly ceremonial pilgrimage from Athens to Delos, for the festival of Apollo. Until the return of this vessel to Athens, it was accounted unholy to put any person to death by public authority.

Accordingly Socrates remained in prison-and, we are pained to read, actually with chains on his legs - during the interval that this ship was absent, thirty days all together. His friends and companions had free access to him, passing nearly all their time with him in the prison; and Crito had even arranged a scheme for procuring his escape, by a bribe to the jailer. This scheme was only prevented from taking effect by the decided refusal of Socrates to become a party in any breach of the law, a resolution which we should expect as a matter of course, after the line which he had taken in his defence. His days were spent in the prison in discourse respecting ethical and human subjects, which had formed the charm and occupation of his previous life.

It is to the last of these days that his conversation on the immortality of the soul is referred in the Platonic Dialogue called Phadon. Of that conversation the main topics and doctrines are Platonic rather than Socratic. But the picture which the dialogue presents of the temper and state of mind of Socrates, during the last hours of his life, is one of immortal beauty and interest, exhibiting his serene and even playful equanimity, amidst the uncontrollable emotions of his surrounding friends; the genuine unforced persuasion, governing both his words and his acts, that the sentence of death was no calamity to him; and the unabated maintenance of that earnest interest in the improvement of man and society which had for so many years formed both his paramount motive and his active occupation.

The details of the last scene are given with minute fidelity, even down to the moment of his dissolution; and it is consoling to re

USES OF POETRY AND ART.

335

mark that the cup of hemlock produced its effects by steps far more exempt from suffering than any natural death which was likely to befall him. Those who have read what has been observed respecting the strong religious persuasions of Socrates will not be surprised to hear that his last words, addressed to Crito immediately before he passed into a state of insensibility, were, "Crito, we owe a cock to Esculapius: discharge the debt, and by no means omit it."

GEORGE GROTE; 1794-1871.

USES OF POETRY AND ART.

If we wish men to practise virtue, it is worth while trying to make them love virtue, and feel it an object in itself, and not a tax paid for leave to pursue other objects. It is worth training them to feel, not only actual wrong and meanness, but the absence of noble aims and endeavours, as not merely blamable but also degrading; to have a feeling of the miserable smallness of mere self in the face of this great Universe, of the collective mass of our fellowcreatures, in the face of past history and of the indefinite future; the poorness and insignificance of human life, if it is to be all spent in making things comfortable for ourselves and our kin, and raising ourselves and them a step or two on the social ladder.

Now, of this elevated tone of mind the great source of inspiration is poetry, and all literature so far as it is poetical and artistic. We may imbibe exalted feelings from Plato, or Demosthenes, or Tacitus, but it is in so far as those great men are not solely philosophers, or orators, or historians, but poets and artists. Nor is it only loftiness, only the heroic feelings, that are bred by poetic cultivation. Its power is as great in calming the soul as in elevating it, in fostering the milder emotions, as the more exalted. It brings home to us all those aspects of life which take hold of our nature on its unselfish side, and lead us to identify our joy and grief with the good or ill of the system of which we form a part; and all those solemn or pensive feelings which, without having any direct application to conduct, incline us to take life seriously, and predispose us to the reception of any thing which comes before us in the shape of duty. Who does not feel a better man after a course of Dante, or of Wordsworth, or after brooding over Gray's Elegy, or Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual Beauty?