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new world,—of a new civilization. But how, I may be asked, is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do indeed toil; but they too generally do it because they must. Many submit to it as in some sort a degrading necessity; and they desire. nothing so much on earth as escape from it. They fulfill the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit; fulfill it with the muscle, but break it with the mind. To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should fasten, as a chosen and coveted theatre of improvement. But so is he not impelled to do, under the teachings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in his idleness.

This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed to toil, art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy workshop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother Nature has embroidered, 'midst sun and rain, 'midst fire and steam, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to Nature; it is impiety to Heaven; it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat, toil, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, the only true nobility.

THE INFLUENCE OF ATHENS

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

Taken from the conclusion of Macaulay's essay on Mitford's "History of Greece," published in Knight's Quarterly Magazine, November, 1824.

All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Whenever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging, and consoling; by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless bed of Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the scaffold of Sidney.

But who shall estimate her influence on private happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to engage; to how many the studies which took their rise from her have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in sickness, society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain; wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and wait for the dark house and the long sleep,-there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens. This S gift of Athens to man. Her freedom

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and her power have for more than twenty centuries been annihilated; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; her language into a barbarous jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. And when those who have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the scepter shall have passed away from England; when perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in vain labor to decipher on some moldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief, shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple, and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of ten thousand masts,—her influence and her glory would still survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they derived their origin, and over which they exercise their control.

ROME AND CARTHAGE

VICTOR HUGO

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The following extract is taken from a translation of a Fragment d'Histoire," a short historical essay which appeared in 1827. This essay was reprinted in 1834 in the volume of essays and miscellanies entitled "Littérature et Philosophie Mêlées."

Rome and Carthage! behold them drawing near for the struggle that is to shake the world! Carthage,

the metropolis of Africa, is the mistress of oceans, of kingdoms, and of nations; a magnificent city, burdened with opulence, radiant with the strange arts and trophies of the East. She is at the acme of her civilization; she can mount no higher; any change now must be a decline. Rome is comparatively poor. She has seized all within her grasp, but rather from the lust of conquest than to fill her own coffers. She is semi-barbarous, and has her education and her fortune both to get. All is before her, nothing behind.

For a time these two nations exist in view of each other. The one reposes in the noontide of her splendor; the other waxes strong in the shade. But, little by little, air and space are wanting to each, for her development. Rome begins to perplex Carthage, and Carthage is an eyesore to Rome. Seated on opposite banks of the Mediterranean, the two cities look each other in the face. The sea no longer keeps them apart. Europe and Africa weigh upon each other. Like two clouds surcharged with electricity, they impend; with their contact must come the thunder shock. The catastrophe of this splendid drama is at hand. What actors are met! Two races, that of merchants and mariners, that of laborers and soldiers; two nations, the one dominant by gold, the other by steel; two republics, the one theocratic, the other aristocratic. Rome and Carthage! Rome with her army, Carthage with her fleet; Carthage, old, rich, and crafty,— Rome, young, poor, robust; the past, and the future; the spirit of discovery, and the spirit of conquest; the genius of commerce, and the demon of war; the East

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and South on one side, the West and North on the other; in short, two worlds,-the civilization of Africa, and the civilization of Europe.

They measure each other from head to foot. They gather all their forces. Gradually the war kindles. The world takes fire. These colossal powers are locked in deadly strife. Carthage has crossed the Alps; Rome, the seas. The two nations, personified in two men, Hannibal and Scipio, close with each other, wrestle, and grow infuriate. The duel is desperate. It is a struggle for life. Rome wavers; she utters that cry of anguish, "Hannibal at the gates!" But she rallies, collects all her strength for one last, appalling effort, throws herself upon Carthage, and sweeps her from the face of the earth.

A PLEA FOR THE POET ARCHIAS

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

The poet Archias, a native of Antioch, had acquired Roman citizenship in the city of Heraclea in Southern Italy. The records of the city had been destroyed by fire, and Archias was obliged to prove his citizenship in a trial before the prætor. Cicero delivered this famous oration in defense of Archias in 62 B.C. The oration is chiefly a eulogy upon Archias and upon poetry in general.

Shall I not love this man? Shall I not admire him? Shall I not defend him to the utmost of my power? For men of the greatest eminence and learning have taught us that other branches of science. require education, art, and precept; but that the poet