all that was merciful, to receive a compensation in money, and not to let his life pay the forfeit of his guilt. My answer was this: "your life is forfeited, and that forfeit must be paid, not to me, but to the city's law. That law you have violated, preferring to it your own guilty pleasures: the choice of your actions lay in your own hand; and that choice has been to heap the most unpardonable of wrongs upon me and mine, and not to shew obedience to the laws by a life of temperance and virtue." For what followed, let it suffice to say, gentlemen, that it was in strict obedience to the laws, and as befits delinquents of this kind; and as to any allegations, which the other party may put forward of violence or impiety, as that Eratosthenes was forced into the house from the public road, or that he was dragged from an altar, to which he had fled for refuge, I deny them all flatly.'

This the orator proceeds to prove, but we can follow him no farther: when the reader recollects that such speeches as have just been quoted were the daily and hourly fare upon which the commonest Greek banqueted, as well from necessity as choice, he will see one of the principal sources of that strict and severe taste, which was his distinguishing characteristic, and which must excuse the cultivators of ancient literature, for being at times somewhat fastidious in their judgment of more modern writers.

Having devoted so many pages to the purposes of information, we may now be excused for giving one to those of curiosity.

Among the sixty speeches, collected in the volumes of M. Augier, as the property of Demosthenes, two have found a place, to which much better critics* than ourselves have decided, that the great orator has not the most distant claim. They are devoted (and more particularly the first) to the partial exposition of a person's character, who, from very humble beginnings, had found his way into the ranks of the public orators, and consequently to the administration of public affairs; and whose very name (Aristogeiton) will possess a charm for the indiscriminate admirers of ancient republicanism. To us, indeed, who have no great taste for assassination, even though executed by a sword hid in the myrtleboughs which graced one of the most beautiful of Grecian processions; to us, with whom the song of Harmodius and Aristogeiton,' though written in better metre than the Marseillois Hymn,' and in language less vulgar than the Tragala, perro' of modern days, is not a whit the less a vile revolutionary song, giving the noblest of names to one of the most detestable of deeds, originating in the most infamous of motives; to persons of this way of thinking, the first wearer of the name had left an abomination upon it, which it required no successor to the appellation to augment. And can the most patient of men read the speech, to

* Harpocration and Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
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which

which we now solicit a few moments attention, without an accumulation of hatred for the name of Aristogeiton? Fortunately for the feelings, it is but what the ancients called a dEUTEPOλoyia, that is, a speech where the orator followed a preceding speaker. The preceding speaker had in this case been the terrible Lycurgus; and though his harangue has not come down to us, we may rest assured, that neither in quantity nor in quality had he abridged the sum or the enormity of the offender's delinquencies. Had both the speeches reached us, there can be little doubt that they would have furnished proof that Mr. Hope has been as correct in his description of the modern Greek, (for national character never changes,) as we happen to know him to be in his delineation of eastern scenery, and his historical facts-things which will make 'Anastasius' a work of valuable reference, when its points, its scoffs and its sarcasms are forgiven or forgotten.

But though there seems great reason to doubt that we are indebted to Demosthenes for the original and darker Anastasius, there can be no doubt that the speech belongs to one of his contemporaries, and we very readily close in with those critics who ascribe it to his contemporary, Hyperides. It does not, indeed, exhibit that full proof of powers, which the splendid eulogies of Longinus had led us to expect from that emineut speaker and eater of fish; but it is satisfactory to think, that one single specimen of his oratory is yet in our hands. In high and reverential feeling for the laws, Hyperides very much resembles his great contemporary; and he expresses that feeling with a grandeur of language,+ which Demosthenes himself might not have disdained, but which Demosthenes would have woven into the current of his speech with less ostentation than Hyperides has done. In the manners there is a force or rather a harshness of colouring, in which Demosthenes never indulges; and the philosophical disquisitions, which are occasionally thrown into the piece, have, to our minds, much of the air of a second-rate genius, anxious to say something new and recondite, instead of travelling along the broad high road, as Demosthenes does, where the learned and the simple can equally accompany him.

But the hero of the piece is, in our present view of things, of at least as much importance as its author; and we hasten to lay be

Athenæus, lib. viii.

In the following passage of Hyperides, aided by the noble expressions of the Greek dramatists, Hooker, a man of profound learning, probably found some of the materials for his own masterly definition of law. ότι πας εςι νομος εύρημα μεν και δωρον θεών, δογμα δ' ανθρωπων φρονιμων, επανόρθωμα δε των έκεσιων καὶ ακεσιων ἁμαρτημάτων, πολεως δε συνθήκη κοινης καθ ̓ ἣν παει προσηκει ζην τοις εν τη πολεί.

fore

fore the reader that part of the oration which brings both him and his tutor upon the canvass. There is considerable address in the manner with which the painter provides that none of the dicasts should imagine the lineaments to be derived from themselves; an additional proof that the oration does not belong to the bold and plain speaking Demosthenes.

What I am now to touch upon, is not without danger or difficulty in it: for I wish to address myself to those persons, with whom these proceedings make Aristogeiton rather an object of affection than aversion; and what sort of persons those must be, I leave your judgments to determine. I shall content myself with observing, that by becoming his friends, they must be content to be thought no friends to sobriety and good sense. And let it not be supposed, that in this list I include any one of those, whom I have now the honour to address. It would be as inconsistent with my interest as with honour or propriety, so to speak or so to think of any member of this Honourable Court. That may draw our city's disgrace into as small a compass as possible, let us suppose Aristogeiton's scholar, or if you will his tutor, Philocrates, to be the only friend and adherent he has; (and oh that there were the smallest warrant for such a supposition! Heaven knows there is a body of them!)-but a connexion, which from feelings of shame and respect I hesitate to impute to this Court, I do not feel justified in attaching to the great body of the citizens; and after all, what is applied to one, will serve as a mark for the whole class.

I

'How nature would act in the formation of a real friend and partizan of Aristogeiton, I shall not inquire very minutely; such an investigation would oblige me to enter into details which the decorum of language could scarcely admit. What I say is this-if Aristogeiton be a mere simple scoundrel, rancorous at heart, false at the lips, and turning out just what his appearance promises; why let the matter pass, Philocrates! (the orator turns to Philocrates then in court) you are welcome to your friend's acquittal-let not the city be without two of a sort-provided the other citizens have a sound way of thinking, and observe the laws strictly, no great harm can ensue. But if he is one of those traders in wickedness, who make a profit of their wares in the small as well as in the great, at once retailers, wholesale dealers, and hucksters; if he goes about almost with scale and weight in his hands, turning to profit every action of his life; what is there in all this to command the affection of Philocrates, or why must Philocrates be continually sharpening and whetting him to his purpose? Driveller and dolt, (the orator again turns to Philocrates) have you yet to learn, that a kitchen-artist makes no use of a knife which will not cut; or that an informer, whose venal accusations are always to be bought off, is useless to a man, whose object, like your own, is to create mischief, misery and confusion to the whole world?

Ει δε κάπηλος εςι πονηρίας και παλιγκάπηλος και μεταβολευς κ. τ. λ. The whole speech abounds with similar turns of expression, which can hardly be rendered without a peri, phrasis, and which are very unlike the strong yet unaffected diction of Demosthenes.

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'That

"That Aristogeiton is this venal informer, Philocrates, I will soon convince you, though you are too well aware of the fact already. The information against Hegemon, I appeal to your memory-he gave it up for a sum of money:-the state charges against Demades-I appeal to your knowledge-he abandoned them for a like consideration. And his recent exploit with Agathon, the olive-dealer!-at first there was no end to his vociferations, his bellowings, and his tragic quotations:the ecclesia was absolutely confounded with his cries for torture and the rack!—but a sum of money, no matter what, applied, our accuser is present at the very acquittal of Agathon, and yet behold him speechless, tongue-tied! And the accusation, which, like a dart,* was levelled at Damocles, into what path was that turned? A thousand other instances might be mentioned: but to me the task would be tedious, and to Philocrates it would be needless-he has a register of them all at home, for he it was who let him out the jobs.

'Who is there, virtuous or not, that will wish the preservation of such a person as this, whom habit makes a traitor to his associates, and whom nature and birth have alike made an enemy to the good? Some one of you may perhaps in his agricultural wisdom think, that an informer and a scoundrel are a sort of root and plant, of which the very constitution of our government naturally requires the preservation and protection. Let me tell you, gentlemen, (and that too with the utmost solemnity,) that such way of thinking is neither just, nor decent. I can never persuade myself that these courts of justice were built as hot-beds, in which plants of this kind might be propagated and raised; but rather as places for rooting them out, as places where wickedness might receive such a chastisement as to leave in others neither envy nor desire to follow a similar course of life. Surely, surely there is in guilt something which no human efforts can stop or subdueor what remains to be said or done in a town, where such a man as Aristogeiton, instead of being dead long ago for his crimes, wilful and acknowledged crimes, is only now upon his trial?'

The Athenians, it has been elsewhere remarked, liked to see characters in robust situations, and the preceding orator, we are assured, had gathered in the great harvest of Aristogeiton's guilt; little, therefore, was left to Hyperides but the gleanings of his hero's vivacity; yet even among these we find prison-breaking, seduction, desertion, perjury, debt to the public treasury, the sale of his own sister, beating his parents while alive, and not merely denying them a grave when dead, but bringing an action against those who found them one; that sort of worldly wisdom, of which

In the original: την κατα Δημοκλεας εισαγγελιαν ΑΝΑΣΕΙΣΑΣ που ετρεψεν; Schneider interprets avaosoag, durch bewegung der hände, vorhalten der waffen drohen, Reiske says, avaosoas, simile ductum de stragulis, quæ succutiuntur, agitantur. Either of these images, (and we are not sure that we are right in selecting the first) was too bold for the meridian of Paris; and M. Augier accordingly softens, as he does most of the other imagery in the speech, into the following passage: Quelle a été l'issue de cette action pour crime d'état, si vivement commencée contre Démoclès ?

the

the prudent Mr. Inkle has hitherto been thought the best model, and a ferocity in combat, which even the American gouger might envy: for he does not eat the organ he destroys. The orator makes up in general reflections for what he wanted in particular

matter.

'There are in this town of ours about 20,000 citizens, all of whom frequent the public place, and each of whom has something wherewith to occupy him; the public concerns or his own. But for this fellow, I defy him to show any occupation, mean or noble, in which he is engaged. He abstains from every occupation which might benefit the city, from mechanical arts, from agriculture, from commerce-he has no ties of interest or friendship which bind him with individuals or corporations. He makes his way through the agora, like a serpent or a scorpion, his sting erect, and himself darting first to this and then to that side of the road, searching whom he may pierce with his calumnies, where he may scatter calamity, falsehood and mischief, and work out of terror and consternation a little money for himself. He is to be seen in none of the ordinary resorts of other citizens, the perfumers' shops, and other such places-he is a solitary animal, without a hearth, without a friend or common acquaintance; he has no knowledge of any one comfort or blessing of ordinary intercourse; and his only companions are those which painters associate with the damned-Imprecation, Blasphemy, Envy, Contention, and Discord!'

How Aristogeiton fared under these animated attacks of Hyperides, we know not; but they certainly did not cost him his life. Man, as Alfieri observes, is in free countries a strong plant; and accordingly we find Aristogeiton green and flourishing under the hands of the orator Deinarchus, long after this assault; and such little outlets, as that angry declaimer could spare from the torrent of his abuse upon Demosthenes, were not likely to disturb the strong roots of Aristogeiton; for why? he was the people's dog;' and though even in his dog's estate not quite immaculate,† in a republic like Athens, he was still worth the pre

servation.

We must now pause awhile-our readers may want breath, though we must not:-for our work, in truth, is little more than begun. Even of the legal oratory, many minor branches yet remain unnoticed, none without interest in themselves, and all of more or less consequence to those who wish to have an exact and precise knowledge of antiquity. We have not been among the

The French editor traces him finally to a prison, and to death by hemlock: • Mais enfin il périt dans la prison, condamné à boire la cigue. Avant de mourir, il envoya chercher Phocion, voulant lui parler. Les amis de Phocion le détournèrent d'y aller: Dans quel endroit, leur dit-il, parlerais-je plus volontiers à Aristogiton?'

A pretty dog truly,' adds the orator, as he follows up the annunciation; those whom he charges with being wolves, he takes care not to bite; and the sheep, which he professes to guard, he is the very first to devour!? Z 4

usurers,