A GRECIAN SUNSET.

BY LORD BYRON.

[1788-1824.]

SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;

Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light:

O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows.
On old Ægina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile:
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve his palest beam he cast,
When, Athens! here thy wisest breathed his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered sage's latest day!
Not yet not yet Sol

pauses on the hill, The precious hour of parting lingers still: But sad his light to agonizing eyes,

And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seems to pour -
The land where Phoebus never frowned before:
But ere he sunk below Citharon's head,
The cup of woe was quaffed- the spirit fled:
The soul of him who scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The queen of night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapor, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form.
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
Where the white column greets her grateful ray,

And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and somber 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, one solitary palm:
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye,
And dull were his who passed them heedless by.

Again the Ægean, heard no more from far,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

BY CICERO.

[MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, the greatest of Roman orators and perhaps the second of all time, was born в.c. 106, of the nobility. Trained for the bar, his first important case obliged him to go into exile for fear of the dictator Sulla. Returning after Sulla's death, he became the leader of the bar and high in political life; rose to be consul, B.C. 63, and gained great credit for suppressing Catiline's conspiracy. Later, he was again exiled for taking sides against the tribune Clodius, and again recalled in a storm of popular enthusiasm. He sided with Pompey against Cæsar, but made peace with the latter after Pharsalia. After the murder of Cæsar, Cicero sided with Octavius, and thundered against Antony, who on his coalition with Octavius demanded Cicero's life as the price of the junction; Octavius consented, and Cicero was assassinated by an officer whose life he had once saved at the bar. His orations, his letters saved and published by his freedman Tiro, and his varied disquisitions, keep his fame unfailingly bright.]

THIS tyrant [Dionysius] showed himself how happy he really was; for once, when Damocles, one of his flatterers, was dilating in conversation on his forces, his wealth, the greatness of his power, the plenty he enjoyed, the grandeur of his royal palaces, and maintaining that no one was ever happier, "Have you an inclination," said he, "Damocles, as this kind of life pleases you, to have a taste of it yourself and to make a trial of the good fortune that attends me?" And when he said that he should like it extremely, Dionysius ordered him to be laid on a bed of gold with the most beautiful covering,

embroidered and wrought with the most exquisite work, and he dressed out a great many sideboards with silver and embossed gold. He then ordered some youths, distinguished for their handsome persons, to wait at his table, and to observe his nod in order to serve him with what he wanted. There were ointments and garlands; perfumes were burned; tables provided with the most exquisite meats, - Damocles thought himself very happy. In the midst of this apparatus Dionysius ordered a bright sword to be let down from the ceiling, suspended by a single horsehair, so as to hang over the head of that happy man. After which he neither cast his eye on those handsome waiters, nor on the well-wrought plate; nor touched any of the provisions; presently the garlands fell to pieces. At last, he entreated the tyrant to give him leave to go, for that now he had no desire to be happy. Does not Dionysius, then, seem to have declared there can be no happiness for one who is under constant apprehensions? But it was not now in his power to return to justice, and restore his citizens their rights and privileges; for, by the indiscretion of his youth, he had engaged in so many wrong steps, and committed such extravagances, that had he attempted to have returned to a right way of thinking he must have endangered his life.

Yet, how desirous he was of friendship, though at the same time he dreaded the treachery of friends, appears from the story of those two Pythagoreans: one of these had been security for his friend, who was condemned to die; the other, to release his security, presented himself at the time appointed for his dying: "I wish," said Dionysius, "you would admit me as the third in your friendship." What misery was it for him to be deprived of acquaintance, of company at his table, and of the freedom of conversation, especially for one who was a man of learning, and from his childhood acquainted with liberal arts, very fond of music, and himself a tragic poet, how good a one is not to the purpose, for I know not how it is, but in this way, more than any other, every one thinks his own performances excellent, I never as yet knew any poet (and I was very intimate with Aquinius), who did not appear to himself to be very admirable. The case is this: you are pleased with your own works, I like mine. But to return to Dionysius: he debarred himself from all civil and polite conversation, and spent his life among fugitives, bondmen, and barbarians, for he was persuaded that no one could be his friend who was worthy of liberty or had the least desire of being free.

DAMON AND PYTHIAS.

BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.

[CHARLOTTE M. YONGE, English novelist, was born in 1823. Her first celebrated novel, "The Heir of Redclyffe," was published in 1853; the equally well known "Daisy Chain" in 1856; she has written many other and popular historical sketches. Her "Book of Golden Deeds" appeared in 1864.]

MOST of the best and noblest of the Greeks held what was called the Pythagorean philosophy. This was one of the many systems framed by the great men of heathenism, when by the feeble light of nature they were, as St. Paul says, "seeking after God, if haply they might feel after Him," like men groping in the darkness. Pythagoras lived before the time of history, and almost nothing is known about him, though his teaching and his name were never lost. There is a belief that he had traveled in the East, and in Egypt, and as he lived about the time of the dispersion of the Israelites, it is possible that some of his purest and best teaching might have been crumbs gathered from their fuller instruction through the Law and the Prophets. One thing is plain, that even in dealing with heathenism the Divine rule holds good, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Golden deeds are only to be found among men whose belief is earnest and sincere, and in something really high and noble. Where there was nothing worshiped but savage or impure power, and the very form of adoration was cruel and unclean, as among the Canaanites and Carthaginians, there we find no true self-devotion. The great deeds of the heathen world were all done by early Greeks and Romans before yet the last gleams of purer light had faded out of their belief, and while their moral sense still nerved them to energy; or else by such later Greeks as had embraced the deeper and more earnest yearnings of the minds that had become a "law unto themselves."

The Pythagoreans were bound together in a brotherhood, the members of which had rules that are now not understood, but which linked them so as to form a sort of club, with common religious observances and pursuits of science, especially mathematics and music. And they were taught to restrain their passions, especially that of anger, and to endure with patience all kinds of suffering; believing that such self

restraint brought them nearer to the gods, and that death would set them free from the prison of the body. The souls of evil doers would, they thought, pass into the lower and more degraded animals, while those of good men would be gradually purified, and rise to a higher existence. This, though lamentably deficient, and false in some points, was a real religion, inasmuch as it gave a rule of life, with a motive for striving for wisdom and virtue. Two friends of this Pythagorean sect lived at Syracuse, in the end of the fourth century before the Christian era. Syracuse was a great Greek city, built in Sicily, and full of all kinds of Greek art and learning; but it was a place of danger in their time, for it had fallen under the tyranny of a man of strange and capricious temper, though of great abilities, namely, Dionysius. He is said to have been originally only a clerk in a public office, but his talents raised him to continually higher situations, and at length, in a great war with the Carthaginians, who had many settlements in Sicily, he became general of the army, and then found it easy to establish his power over the city.

This power was not according to the laws, for Syracuse, like most other cities, ought to have been governed by a council of magistrates; but Dionysius was an exceedingly able man, and made the city much more rich and powerful; he defeated the Carthaginians, and rendered Syracuse by far the chief city in the island, and he contrived to make every one so much afraid of him that no one durst attempt to overthrow his power. He was a good scholar, and very fond of philosophy and poetry, and he delighted to have learned men around him, and he had naturally a generous spirit; but the sense that he was in a position that did not belong to him, and that every one hated him for assuming it, made him very harsh and suspicious. It is of him that the story is told, that he had a chamber hollowed in the rock near his state prison, and constructed with galleries to conduct sounds like an ear, so that he might overhear the conversation of his captives; and of him, too, is told that famous anecdote which has become a proverb, that on hearing a friend, named Damocles, express a wish to be in his situation for a single day, he took him at his word, and Damocles found himself at a banquet with everything that could delight his senses, delicious food, costly wine, flowers, perfumes, music; but with a sword with the point almost touching his head, and hanging by a single horse