force, regained the city for yourselves and freedom for your countrymen, what must have been your situation had you proved unfortunate in the engagement ?

Again compelled to fly, no temples, no altars, could have saved you. The children who accompanied you would have been reduced to the vilest servitude; those whom you left behind, deprived of all help, would, at a mean price, have been sold to your enemies.

But why should I mention what might have happened, not being able to relate what was actually done? For it is impossible for one man, in the course of one trial, to enumerate the means which were employed to undermine the power of this State, the arsenals which were demolished, the temples sold or profaned, the citizens banished or murdered, and whose dead bodies were impiously left disinterred.

Those slaughtered citizens now watch your decree, uncertain whether you will prove accomplices in their death, or avengers of their murder.

I will cease accusing. You have heard, you have seen, you have suffered! It only remains for you to give sentence!

LORD LYTTON

(EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER, BARON

LYTTON)

(1803-1873)

ELEBRATED as he is for his fiction, Lord Lytton in prose composition is perhaps at his best in such addresses as that delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1854. Its style is admirable throughout, and its peroration is worthy of the best tradition of English oratory. He was born at London, May 25th, 1803. Graduating at Cambridge in 1826, he entered Parliament in 1831 and served ten years, returning again in 1852 and serving until 1866,the year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton. In 1858 and 1859 he was Colonial Secretary in Lord Derby's administration. In Parliament he supported Conservative policies, opposing the repeal of the Corn Laws and striving "to elevate the masses in character and in feeling to the standard which Conservatism works in aristocracy." He died at Torquay, January 18th, 1873.

DEMOSTHENES AND THE NOBILITY OF THE CLASSICS (From the Address Delivered to the Associated Societies of the University of Edinburgh, January 18th, 1854)

LL men in modern times, famous for their eloquence, have recognized Demosthenes as their model. Many speakers in

our own country have literally translated passages from his orations and produced electrical effects upon sober English senators by thoughts first uttered to passionate Athenian crowds. Why is this? Not from the style- the style vanishes in translation. It is because thoughts the noblest appeal to emotions the most masculine and popular. You see in Demosthenes the man accustomed to deal with the practical business of men- to generalize details, to render complicated affairs clear to the ordinary understanding-and, at the same time, to connect the material interests of life with the sentiments that warm the breast and exalt the soul. It is the brain of an accomplished statesman in

unison with a generous heart, thoroughly in earnest, beating loud and high-with the passionate desire to convince breathless thousands how to baffle a danger and to save their country.

A little time longer and Athens is free no more. The iron force of Macedon has banished liberty from the silenced Agora. But liberty had already secured to herself a gentle refuge in the groves of the Academy-there, still to the last, the Grecian intellect maintains the same social, humanizing, practical aspect. The immense mind of Aristotle gathers together, as in a treasure-house, for future ages, all that was valuable in the knowledge that informs us of the earth on which we dwell-the political constitutions of States and their results on the character of nations, the science of ethics, the analysis of ideas, natural history, physical science, critical investigation, omne immensum peragravit; and all that he collects from wisdom he applies to the earthly uses of man. Yet it is not by the tutor of Alexander, but by the pupil of Socrates, that our vast debt to the Grecian mind is completed. When we remount from Aristotle to his great master Plato, it is as if we looked from nature up to nature's God. There, amidst the decline of freedom, the corruption of manners just before the date when, with the fall of Athens, the beautiful ideal of sensuous life faded mournfully away-there, on that verge of time, stands the consoling Plato, preparing philosophy to receive the Christian dispensation, by opening the gates of the Infinite, and proclaiming the immortality of the soul. Thus the Grecian genius, ever kindly and benignant, first appears to awaken man from the sloth of the senses, to enlarge the boundaries of self, to connect the desire of glory with the sanctity of household ties, to raise up, in luminous contrast with the inert despotism of the old Eastern World, the energies of freemen, the duties of citizens; and, finally, accomplishing its mission as the visible Iris to States and heroes, it melts into the rainbow, announcing a more sacred covenant, and spans the streams of the heathen Orcus with an arch lost in the Christian's heaven.

I have so exhausted your patience in what I have thus said of the Grecian literature, that I must limit closely my remarks upon the Roman. And here, indeed, the subject does not require the same space. In Greek literature all is fresh and original; its very art is but the happiest selection from natural objects, knit together with the zone of the careless Graces. But Latin literature is borrowed and adapted, and, like all imitations, we per

ceive at once that it is artificial. But in this imitation it has such exquisite taste, in this artificiality there is so much refinement of polish, so much stateliness of pomp, that it assumes an originality of its own. It has not found its jewels in native mines, but it takes them with a conqueror's hand and weaves them into regal diadems. Dignity and polish are the especial attributes of Latin literature in its happiest age; it betrays the habitual influence of an aristocracy, wealthy, magnificent, and learned. To borrow a phrase from Persius, its words sweep along as if clothed with the toga. Whether we take the sonorous lines of Virgil or the swelling periods of Cicero, the easier dignity of Sallust, or the patrician simplicity of Cæsar, we are sensible that we are with a race accustomed to a measured decorum, a majestic self-control, unfamiliar to the more lively impulse of small Greek communities. There is a greater demarcation between the intellect of the writer and the homely sense of the multitude. The Latin writers seek to link themselves to posterity rather through a succession of select and well-bred admirers than by cordial identification with the passions and interests of the profane vulgar. Even Horace himself, so brilliant and easy, and so conscious of his monumentum are perennius, affects disdain of popular applause and informs us, with a kind of pride, that his satires had no vogue in the haunts of the common people. Every bold schoolboy takes at once to Homer, but it is only the fine taste of the scholar that thoroughly appreciates Virgil, and only the experienced man of the world who discovers all the delicate wit, all the exquisite urbanity of sentiment, that win our affection to Horace in proportion as we advance in life. In short, the Greek writers warm and elevate our emotions as men the Latin writers temper emotions to the stately reserve of highborn gentleThe Greeks fire us more to the inspirations of poetry, or, as in Plato and parts of Demosthenes, to that sublimer prose to which poetry is akin; but the Latin writers are, perhaps, on the whole, though I say it with hesitation, safer models for that accurate construction and decorous elegance by which classical prose attains critical perfection. Nor is this elegance effeminate, but, on the contrary, nervous and robust, though, like the statue of Apollo, the strength of the muscle is concealed by the undulation. of the curves. But there is this, as a general result from the study of ancient letters, whether Greek or Roman,-both are the literature of grand races, of free men and brave hearts; both VIII 180

abound in generous thoughts and high examples; both, whatever their occasional license, inculcate, upon the whole, the habitual practice of manly virtues; both glow with the love of country; both are animated by the desire of fame and honor. Therefore, whatever be our future profession and pursuit, however they may take us from the scholastic closet and forbid any frequent return to the classic studies of our youth, still he whose early steps have been led into that land of demigods and heroes will find that its very air has enriched through life the blood of his thoughts, that he quits the soil with a front which the Greek has directed towards the stars, and a step which imperial Rome has disciplined to the march that carried her eagles round the world.

Not in vain do these lessons appeal to the youth of Scotland. From this capital, still as from the elder Athens, stream the lights of philosophy and learning. But your countrymen are not less renowned for the qualities of action than for those of thought. And you whom I address will carry with you, in your several paths to fortune, your national attributes of reflective judgment and dauntless courage. I see an eventful and stirring age expand before the rising generation. In that grand contest between new ideas and ancient forms, which may be still more keenly urged before this century expires, whatever your differences of political opinion, I adjure you to hold fast to the vital principle of civilization. What is that principle? It is the union of liberty with order. The art to preserve this union has often baffled the wisest statesmen in stormy times; but the task becomes easy at once, if the people whom they seek to guide will but carry into public affairs the same prudent consideration which commands prosperity in private business. You have already derived from your ancestors an immense capital of political freedom; increase it if you will,-but by solid investments, not by hazardous speculations. You will hear much of the necessity of progress, and truly,- for where progress ends decline invariably begins, but remember that the healthful progress of society is like the natural life of man: it consists in the gradual and harmonious development of all its constitutional powers, all its component parts, and you introduce weakness and disease into the whole system, whether you attempt to stint or to force the growth. The old homely rule you prescribe to individuals is applicable to a State: "Keep the limbs warm by exercise, and keep the head cool by temperance." But new ideas do not invade only our