DEMOSTHENES TO THE ATHENIANS. When the wicked are confounded, Prostrate, all my guilt discerning, Day of weeping, when from ashes 457 SUCH, DEMOSTHENES TO THE ATHENIANS. (UCH, O men of Athens! were your ancestors: so glorious in the eye of the world; so bountiful and munificent to their country; so sparing, so modest, so self-denying to themselves. What resemblance can we find, in the present generation, of these great men? At a time when your ancient competitors have left you a clear stage; when the Lacedæmonians are disabled, the Thebans employed in troubles of their own; when no other State whatever is in a condition to rival or molest you; in short, when you are at full liberty; when you have the opportunity and the power to become once more the sole arbiters of Greece; you permit, patiently, whole provinces to be wrested from you; you lavish the public money in scandalous and obscure uses; you suffer your allies to perish in time of peace, whom you preserved in time of war; and, to sum up all, you yourselves, by your mercenary court, and servile resignation to the will and pleasure of designing, insidious leaders, abet, encourage, and strengthen the most dangerous and formidable of your enemies. Yes, Athenians, I repeat it, you yourselves are the contrivers of your own ruin. Lives there a man who has confidence enough to deny it? Let him arise, and assign, if he can, any other cause of the success and prosperity of Philip. "But," you reply, "what Athens may have lost in reputation abroad, she has gained in splendor at home. Was there ever a greater appearance of prosperity, a greater face of plenty? Is not the city enlarged? Are not the streets better 458 PARRHASIUS. paved, houses repaired and beautified?" Away with such trifles! Shall I be paid with counters? An old square new-vamped up! a fountain! an aqueduct! are these acquisitions to brag of? Cast your eyes upon the magistrate under whose ministry you boast these precious improvements. Behold the despicable creature. raised, all at once, from dirt to opulence; from the lowest obscurity to the highest honors. Have not some of these upstarts built private houses and seats vieing with the most sumptuous of our public palaces? And how have their fortunes and their power increased, but as the commonwealth has been ruined and impoverished? To what are we to impute these disorders; and to what cause assign the decay of a state so powerful and flourishing in past times? The reason is plain. The servant is now become the master. The magistrate was then subservient to the people; punishments and rewards were properties of the people; all honors, dignities, and preferments, were disposed by the voice and favor of the people; but the magistrate now has usurped the right of the people, and exercises an arbitrary authority over his ancient and natural lord. You, miserable people! (the meanwhile, without money, without friends,) from being ruler, are become the servant; from being the master, the dependant: happy that these governors, into whose hands you have thus resigned your own power, are so good and so gracious as to continue your allowance to see plays! THE PARRHASIUS.-N. P. WILLIS. HE golden light into the painter's room From the dark pictures radiantly forth, And, in the soft and dewy atmosphere, Like forms and landscape magical they lay. The vulture at his vitals, and the links Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh; And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim PARRHASIUS. Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl Were like the winged god's, breathing from his flight. "Bring me the captive, now! My hand feels skillful, and the shadows lift Upon the bended heavens-around me play "Ha! bind him on his back! Look!-as Prometheus in my picture here! Press down the poisoned links into his flesh! "So, let him writhe! How long Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now! Ha! gray-haired and so strong! How fearfully he stifles that short moan! 66 6 "Pity' thee! So I do! I pity the dumb victim at the altar But does the robed priest for his pity falter? A thousand lives were perishing in thine— "Ay, there's a deathless name! A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, Consumed my brain to ashes as it won me- 459 460 PARRHASIUS. "Ay-though it bid me rifle. My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst- The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, "All-I would do it all Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot- O heavens! but I appall Your heart, old man!-forgive-ha! on your lives “Vain—vain—give o'er. His eye Glazes apace. He does not feel you now- But for one moment-one-till I eclipse "Shivering! Hark! he mutters Brokenly now that was a difficult breath- Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head! How like a mounting devil in the heart |