and Italy, seem to have been formed by nature, at once to originate, and to enjoy, the creations of art. The modern Greek, even now, after ages of oppression and debasement, is most acute and susceptible. He is keenly alive to outward impulses, and is borne by almost uncontrollable passion towards his object. With quick perceptions, much vanity, a versatility which is only surpassed by his extreme levity and inconstancy of purpose,* an eye ever awake

* An incident in the life of Demosthenes will show that these qualities of the modern Greek were equally characteristic of his ancestors. While living in the exile to which he had been consigned by the influence of the Macedonian faction, the orator found that his countrymen were about to make an effort to recover their national independence, and that, for that purpose, ambassadors had been despatched from Athens to rouse the neighbouring states. Joining and sustaining these ambassadors, he was encountered in Arcadia by Pythias, an Athenian, who had revolted to Antipater. The debate between them soon became warm. "Whenever," said Pythias, "we see asses' milk brought into a family, we conclude that it is distempered; just so when Athenian ambassadors are introduced into any city, we may presume that it labours under disorders." "True," replied Demosthenes; " and as asses' milk is ever brought into a family to restore its health, so the Athenians never send ambassadors to any city but to put an end to the disorders that oppress it." The liveliness of this answer, says the historian, had more effect than all the pathetic remonstrances and entreaties of Demosthe. nes. It delighted the imagination, and flattered the vanity of his countrymen. He was instantly recalled; a ship was despatched to convey him home; and no sooner did he land at the Piræus, than he found himself surrounded by the whole body of his fellow-citizens, and congratulated by their united acclamations.

to the beautiful and picturesque in nature or art, and a hand prompt to do the bidding of his heart, he is now, though without education, a most apt subject for eloquence. What must he have been, then, when trained, as of old, under the republic; when his infant mind was moulded, and his infant taste fixed, by the muse of Homer; when he was early made, at the great festivals and elsewhere, the auditor and critic of the finest compositions of the age, in histo ry, philosophy, poetry, and oratory; and when through life he heard constantly recited the choicest productions of other days?* What must he have been in a community where more than four fifths of all the inhabitants were slaves, and where, of course, the free population, exempt for the most part from the necessity of labouring with their hands, and drawn by their fine climate into the open air and into large groups, would naturally cultivate that taste so

* In an age when books of every kind and degree of merit swarm around us, and are placed promiscuously in every one's hands, it is impossible to conceive the effect on popular taste of familiarity with but a few great works. To this cause, perhaps, more than to any other, especially to the enthusiastic and constant perusal of Homer by all ranks and classes of the ancient Athenians, we must attribute the wonderful accuracy and deli+ cacy of their taste. If Homer could form such a population, what might not be done with the Bible, Shakspeare, and Milton?

C

aptly described by a sacred writer?* Add to this that in Athens woman was a cipher, being reared without education, and immured in her parents' or husband's house, while the other sex resorted for excitement or occupation to the market-place, the courts, or the levees of some accomplised courtezan; that religion, while it cherished the love of beauty, and threw a mystic charm over many of the sentiments, yet lent itself to intense voluptuousness, and raised few thoughts to a world of retribution-and you will have in these few facts the elements of Athenian civilization as it unfolded itself in the individual. It was essentially aesthetical; more so, even, than that of Rome in the age of Augustus, or that of Modern Italy in the times of the Medici. It was a civilization in which taste, imagination, and passion predominated over reason-in which there was much sentiment and but little principle; a civilization, in short, sadly deficient in that deep moral culture, that profound sense of the infinite and invisible, that consciousness of

"For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing."—Acts, xvii., 21. The whole passage, from the 16th verse to the close of the chapter, is full of striking touches illustrative of Athenian character and cultivation.

high and eternal responsibilities, which so tend to chasten, enlarge, and purify the thoughts. Is it surprising that, amid such a people, the elegant arts should flourish, and the most faultless models be framed to satisfy their cravings for the beautiful? Spirits finely touched and modulated to his uses, called the orator to do his utmost. An audience was always ready and eager to listen. It was an audience critically accurate ;* able to appreciate the most finished efforts; never allowing the victorious orator to repose on his laurels, but urging him on to new achievements, and challenging him to surpass even himself. Before we can hope, in modern times, to see speakers like those who "fulmined over Greece," we must supply them with an audience like that of Athens.†

Compare with those fervid "children of the sun" the colder spirits with which the orator has now to deal, in less genial climates. Consid

* Quintilian (viii., 1) relates an anecdote, which forcibly illustrates the exquisite nicety of Attic taste. An Athenian old woman, with whom Theophrastus (a person of elegant language, and one who valued himself as an orator on the purity of his style) was cheapening some wares at a stall, addressed him as a foreigner. Being asked the reason, she replied that his pronunciation of a certain word had been rather broad and affectedly Attic than truly so.

+ It is worthy of remark, that this art never attained to great excellence in any Grecian state except Athens.

and add the Refor. system

er, too, the difference occasioned by the great-
er taste for domestic life now prevalent, and
by the substitution of the printed page for the
public harangue.* The substitution also of free
for slave labour has, on the one hand, enlar-
ged immensely the number of persons partially
educated, and has, on the other, replaced the
almost exclusively æsthetical culture of the
Greeks, by the more practical education of a
business life. Audiences are now less select,
less critical, and more intent on facts. At the
same time, the religion of Christ and of Immor-
tality has developed new habits of thought and
a new sense of responsibility, and made men
less apt to be wrought upon by the strains of
an earthborn eloquence. We may congratulate
ourselves, however, that if these changes seem
at first sight unfriendly to oratory, they are yet
most auspicious to the higher interests of hu-
manity.†

* The influence which has been or is likely to be exerted by
printing and the other arts of copying on oratory, painting, and
sculpture, is an interesting subject, and one which does not seem
to have been fully discussed. Some remarks on the effects of en-
graving, casts, &c., upon the arts of design, will be found in a
late number of the Quarterly Review;* but they do not appear
to me to be conceived in a philosophical spirit.

This is not the proper place for an examination of the real effects of modern civilization on oratory and the fine arts. It is not believed by the writer that its ultimate effects will be oth

* June, 1840,