And in wond'ring expectation all the court grows still as death.

Not alone stood Chunder Ali; by his side Ahmeer was standing,

And his brown hand rested lightly on her shoulder as he smiled

At the sweet young face turned toward him. Then the father's voice commanding Fiercely bade his daughter to him from the dog whose touch defiled.

But she moved not, and she looked not at at her father or the others

As she answered, with her eyes upon the Hindoo's noble face:

"Nay, my father, he defiles not; this kind arm above all others

Is my choosing, and for ever by his side shall be my place.

When you knew not, his dear hand had given many a sweet love-token,

He had gathered all my heartstrings and had bound them round his life;

Yet you tell me he defiles me: nay, my father, you have spoken

In your anger, and not knowing I was Chunder Ali's wife."

MY NATIVE LAND.

It chanced to me upon a time to sail
Across the Southern Ocean to and fro;
And, landing at fair isles, by stream and vale
Of sensuous blessing did we ofttimes go.
And months of dreamy joys, like joys in sleep,
Or like a clear, calm stream o'er mossy stone,
Unnoted passed our hearts with voiceless sweep,
And left us yearning still for lands unknown.

And when we found one,-for 'tis soon to find
In thousand-isled Cathay another isle,-
For one short noon its treasures filled the mind,
And then again we yearned, and ceased to smile.
And so it was, from isle to isle we passed,
Like wanton bees or boys on flowers or lips;
And when that all was tasted, then at last
We thirsted still for draughts instead of sips.

I learned from this there is no Southern land
Can fill with love the hearts of Northern men.
Sick minds need change; but, when in health
they stand

'Neath foreign skies, their love flies home agen. And thus with me it was: the yearning turned From laden airs of cinnamon away,

And stretched far westward, while the full heart burned

With love for Ireland, looking on Cathay!
My first dear love, all dearer for thy grief!
My land, that has no peer in all the sea

For verdure, vale or river, flower or leaf,
If first to no man else, thou'rt first to me.
New loves may come with duties, but the first
Is deepest yet, -the mother's breath and smiles:
Like that kind face and breast where I was nursed
Is my poor land, the Niobe of isles.

MY MOTHER'S MEMORY.

There is one bright star in heaven
Ever shining in my night;
God to me one guide has given,

Like the sailor's beacon-light,
Set on every shoal of danger,

Sending out its warning ray
To the home-bound weary stranger
Looking for the land-locked bay.

In my farthest, wildest wand'rings
I have turned me to that love,
As a diver, 'neath the water,
Turns to watch the light above.

UNSPOKEN WORDS.

The kindly words that rise within the heart
And thrill it with their sympathetic tone,
But die ere spoken, fail to play their part
And claim a merit that is not their own.
The kindly word unspoken is a sin-
A sin that wraps itself in purest guise,
And tells the heart that, doubting, looks within,
That not in speech, but thought, the virtue lies.

But 'tis not so: another heart may thirst
For that kind word, as Hagar in the wild-
Poor banished Hagar-prayed a well might burst
From out the sand, to save her parching child.
And loving eyes that cannot see the mind
Will watch the expected movement of the lip:
Ah! can ye let its cutting silence wind
Around that heart and scathe it like a whip?
Unspoken words like treasures in the mine
Are valueless until we give them birth.
Like unfound gold their hidden beauties shine
Which God has made to bless and gild the earth.
How sad 'twould be to see a master's hand
Strike glorious notes upon a voiceless lute-
But oh, what pain when at God's own command
A heart-string thrills with kindness, but is mute!

Then hide it not, the music of the soul,
Dear sympathy expressed with kindly voice,
But let it like a shining river roll
To deserts dry-to hearts that would rejoice.
Oh let the symphony of kindly words
Sound for the poor, the friendless, and the weak,
And He will bless you. He who struck these chords
Will strike another when in turn you seek.

John Peytland Mahaffy was born on February 26, 1839, at Chafonnaire, near Vevay, in Switzerland. He was brought up in Germany, and received his early education from his parents. In 1856 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, and, after a highly successful undergraduate course, obtained a fellowship in 1864. He was appointed precentor of the college chapel in 1867, and his love and knowledge of music have enabled him to introduce great reforms in the choir. In 1871 he became professor of ancient history in the University, a post he still holds; and in 1873 he was the Donnellan lecturer. His interest in ancient and modern Greece has been recognized by the King of the Greeks, who in 1877 conferred upon him the "Gold Cross of the Order of the Saviour."

Mr. Mahaffy's first work was a translation of Kuno Fischer's well-known work on the great German philosopher, which appeared in 1866 under the title Commentary on Kant. In 1868 were published Twelve Lectures on Primitive Civilization; in 1871, Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Readers; and in the same year, Prolegomena to Ancient History. A subject perhaps less recondite, and certainly more popular, was discussed in Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander, a work which has already passed through several editions. A book on Greek Antiquities followed in 1876, and in the same year appeared the work Rambles and Studies in Greece, from which our quotations are taken. Mr. Mahaffy is, besides, a constant contributor to periodical literature.]

THOUGHTS ON NEARING GREECE.'

A voyage to Greece does not at first sight seem a great undertaking. We all go to and fro to Italy as we used to go to France. A

1 By permission of the author.

look upon these two peninsulas without being struck with the fact that they are, historically speaking, turned back to back; that while the face of Italy is turned westward, and looks towards France and Spain, and across to us, the face of Greece looks eastward, towards Asia Minor and towards Egypt. Every great city in Italy, except Venice, approaches or borders the Western Sea-Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Naples.

All the older history of Rome, its development, its glories, lie on the west of the Apennines. When you cross them you come to what is called the back of Italy; and you feel in that dull country, and that straight coast line, you are separated from the beauty and charm of real Italy. Contrariwise, in Greece, the whole weight and dignity of its history gravitate towards the eastern coast. All its great cities-Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Argos, Sparta are on that side. Their nearest neighbours were the coast cities of Asia Minor and the Cyclades, but the western coasts were to them harbourless and strange. If you pass Cape Malea, they said, then forget your home.

So it happens that the coasts of Italy and Greece, which look so near, are outlying and out-of-the-way parts of the countries to which they belong; and if you want to go straight from real Italy to real Greece, the longest way is that from Brindisi to Corfu, for you must still journey from Naples to Brindisi, and from Corfu to Athens. The shortest way is to take ship at Naples, and to be carried round Italy and round Greece from the centres of culture on the west of Italy to the centres of culture (such as they are) on the east of Greece. But this is no trifling passage. When the ship has left the coasts of Calabria, and steers into the open sea, you feel that you have at last left the west of Europe, and are setting sail for the Eastern Seas. And I may anticipate for a moment here, and say that even now the face of Athens is turned, as of old, to the east. Her trade and her communications

are through the Levant. Her intercourse is with Constantinople and Smyrna, and Syra, and Alexandria, to which a man may sail | almost any day in the week. You can only sail to Italy-I had almost said to Europeon Saturdays, and upon an occasional Thursday.

This curious parallel between ancient and modern geographical attitudes in Greece is, no doubt, greatly due to the now bygone Turkish rule. In addition to other contrasts, Mohammedan rule and eastern jealousy-long unknown in Western Europe-first jarred upon the traveller when he touched the coasts of Greece; and this dependency was once really part of a great Asiatic empire, where all the interests and communications gravitated eastward, and away from the Christian and better civilized West. The revolution which expelled the Turks was unable to root out the ideas which their subjects had learned; and so, in spite of Greek hatred of the Turk, his influence still lives through Greece in a thousand ways.

MARATHON.

The plain of Marathon, as everybody knows, is a long crescent-shaped strip of land by the shore, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, which may be crossed conveniently in three places, but most easily towards the south-west, along the road which we travelled, and which leads directly to Athens. When the Athenians marched through this broad and easy passage, they found that the Persians had landed at the northern extremity of the plain -I suppose because the water was there sufficiently deep to let them land conveniently. Most of the shore, as you proceed southward, is lined on the seaboard by swamps. The Greek army must have marched northwards, along the spurs of Pentelicus, and taken up their position near the north of the plain. There was evidently much danger that the Persians should force a passage through the village of Marathon, towards the north-west. Had they done this, they might have rounded Pentelicus, and descended the main plain of Attica, from the valley below Dekeleia. Perhaps, however, this pass was then defended by an outlying fort, or by some defences at Marathon itself. The site of the battle is absolutely fixed by the great mound, upon which was placed a lion, which has been carried off, no one knows when or whither.

This mound is exactly an English mile from the steep slope of one of the hills, and about half a mile from the sea at present; nor was there, when I saw it, any difficulty in walking right to the shore, though a river flows out there, which shows, by its sedgy banks and lofty reeds, a tendency to create a marshy tract in rainy weather. But the mound is so placed that, if it marks the centre of the battle, the Athenians must have faced nearly north, and, if they faced the sea eastward, as is commonly stated, this mound must mark the conflict on their left wing. The mound is very large-I suppose thirty feet high, altogether of clay, so far as we could see, and bears traces of having been frequently ransacked in search of antiquities.

Like almost every view in Greece, the prospect from this mound is full of beauty and variety-everywhere broken outlines, everywhere patches of blue sea, everywhere silence and solitude. Byron is so much out of fashion now, and. so much more talked about than read-though even that notice of him is fast disappearing-that I will venture to remind the reader of the splendid things he has said of Greece, and especially of this very plain of Marathon. He was carried away by his enthusiasm to fancy a great future possible for the country, and to believe that its desolation and the low condition of the inhabitants were simply the result of Turkish tyranny, and not of many natural causes, conspiring for twenty centuries. He paints the Greek brigand or pirate as many others have painted the "noble savage," with the omission of all his meaner vices. But, in spite of all these faults, who is there who has felt as he the affecting aspects of this beautiful land-the tomb of ancient glory-the home of ancient wisdom-the mother of science, of art, of philosophy, of politics-the champion of liberty-the envy of the Persian and the Roman-the teacher, even still, of modern Europe? It is surely a great loss to our generation, and a bad sign of its culture, that the love of more modern poets has weaned them from the study of one not less great in most respects, but far greater in one at least-in that burning enthusiasm for a national cause, in that red-hot passion for liberty which, even when misapplied, or wasted upon unworthy objects, is ever one of the noblest and most stirring instincts of higher man.

But Byron may well be excused for raving about the liberty of the Greeks, for truly their old conflict at Marathon, where a few thou

sand ill-disciplined men repulsed a larger number of still worse disciplined Orientals, without any recondite tactics-perhaps even without any very extraordinary heroismhow is it that this conflict has maintained a celebrity which has not been equalled by all the great battles of the world, from that day down to our own? The courage of the Greeks, as I have elsewhere shown, was not of the first order. Herodotus praises the Athenians in this very battle for being the first Greeks that dared to look the Persians in the face. Their generals all through history seem never to feel sure of victory, and always endeavour to harangue their soldiers into a fury. Instead of advising coolness, they specially incite to rage-day gooμitμev, says one of them in Thucydides-as if any man not in this state would be sure to estimate the danger fully, and run away. It is, indeed, true that the ancient battles were hand to hand, and therefore parallel to our charges of bayonets, which are said to be very seldom carried out by two opposing lines, as one of them almost always gives way before the actual collision takes place. This must often have taken place in Greek battles, for, at Amphipolis, Brasidas in a battle lost seven men; at a battle at Corinth, mentioned by Xenophon-an important battle, too-the slain amounted to eight; and these battles were fought before the days when whole armies were composed of mercenaries, who spared one another, as Ordericus Vitalis says, "for the love of God, and out of good feeling for the fraternity of arms." So, then, the loss of 192 Athenians, including some distinguished men, was rather a severe one. As to the loss of the Persians, I so totally disbelieve the Greek accounts of such things, that it is better to pass it by in silence.

Perhaps most readers will be astonished to hear of the Athenian army as undisciplined, and of the science of war as undeveloped, in those times. Yet I firmly believe this was so. The accounts of battles by almost all the historians are so utterly vague, and so childishly conventional, that it is evident these gentlemen were not only quite ignorant of the science of war, but could not easily find anyone to explain it to them. We know that the Spartans--the most admired of all Greek warriors-were chiefly so admired because they devised the system of subordinating officers to one another within the same detachment, like our gradation from colonel to corporal. So orders were passed down from officer to officer,

instead of being bawled out by a herald to a whole army. But this superiority of the Spartans, who were really disciplined, and went into battle coolly, like brave men, certainly did not extend to strategy, but was merely a question of better drill. As soon as any real strategist met them they were helpless. Thus Iphicrates, when he devised Wellington's plan of meeting their attacking column in line, and using missiles, succeeded against them, even without firearms. Thus Epaminondas, when he devised Napoleon's plan of massing troops on a single point, while keeping his enemy's line occupied, defeated them without any considerable struggle. As for that general's great battle of Mantinea, which seems really to have been introduced by some complicated strategical movements, it is a mere hopeless jumble in our historians. But these men were in the distant future when the battle of Marathon was being fought.

Yet what signifies all this criticism? In spite of all scepticism, in spite of all contempt, the battle of Marathon, whether badly or well fought, and the troops at Marathon, whether well or ill trained, will ever be more famous than any other battle or army, however im portant or gigantic its dimensions. Even in this very war the battles of Salamis and Platæa were vastly more important and more hotly contested. The losses were greater, the results were more enduring, yet thousands have heard of Marathon to whom the other names are unknown. So much for literary ability-so much for the power of talking well about one's deeds. Marathon was fought by Athenians; the Athenians eclipsed the other Greeks as far as the other Greeks eclipsed the rest of the world, in literary power. This battle became the literary property of the city, hymned by poet, cited by orator, told by aged nurse, lisped by stammering infant; and so it has taken its position, above all criticism, as one of the great decisive battles which assured the liberty of the West against Oriental despotism.

THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS AND THE ROCK OF CASHEL.

It was my good fortune, a few months after I had seen the Acropolis, to visit a ruin in Ireland which, to my great surprise, bore many curious resemblances to it-I mean the Rock of Cashel. Both were strongholds of

religion-honoured and hallowed above all other places in their respective countriesboth were covered with buildings of various dates, each representing their peculiar ages and styles in art. And as the Greeks, I suppose for effect's sake, have varied the posture of their temples, so that the sun illumines them at different moments, the old Irish have varied the orientation of their churches, that the sun might rise directly over against the east window on the anniversary of the patron saint. There is at Cashel the great Cathedral -in loftiness and grandeur the Parthenon of the place; there is the smaller and more beautiful Cormac's Chapel, the holiest of all, like the Erechtheum of Athens. Again, the great sanctuary upon the Rock of Cashel was surrounded by a cluster of other abbeys about its base, which were founded there by pious men on account of the greatness and holiness of the archiepiscopal seat. Of these one remains, like the Theseum at Athens, eclipsed by the splendour of the Acropolis.

The prospect from the Irish sanctuary has, indeed, endless contrasts to that from the Pagan stronghold, but they are suggestive contrasts, and such as are not without a certain harmony. The plains around both are framed by mountains, of which the Irish are probably the more picturesque; and if the light upon the Greek hills is the fairest, the native colour of the Irish is infinitely more rich. So, again, the soil of Attica is light and sandy, whereas the Golden Vale of Tipperary is among the richest in the world. But who would not choose the historic treasures of the former in preference to the bucolic value of the latter? Still, both places were the noblest homes, each in their own country, of religions which civilized, humanized, and exalted the human race; and if the Irish Acropolis is left in dim obscurity by the historical splendour of the Parthenon, on the other hand, the gods of the Athenian stronghold have faded out before the moral greatness of the faith preached upon the Rock of Cashel.

man.

His first engagement was on the staff of the Dublin Nation. He then became editor of a comic periodical-Zozimus-to which he contributed a number of humorous essays; and afterwards he was the chief spirit in another enterprise of the same kind-Ireland's Eye. In 1874 he emigrated to London-the maelstrom which nearly always drags towards it the best literary talent of Ireland and Scotland. He was engaged as a contributor to the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. Among other sketches, he published in that journal "Mr. Andrew O'Rourke's Ramblings." Yorick, a comic paper, which he started and edited, had a brief existence of six months, and it was not till 1879 that Mr. Dowling may be

In

that year Messrs. Tinsley Brothers published The Mystery of Killard. This work had been written in 1875-6, but the author sought then in vain for a publisher. It was, immediately after its appearance, hailed as one of the most striking romances of the year. The central idea of the work—the abnormal nature of a deaf-mute, which leads him to hate his own child because that child can hear and speakis one of the most original in literature, and there is an atmosphere of weirdness about the whole story which deeply impresses the imagination, and lifts one to regions undreamed of by the ordinary three-volume novelist. Many of the scenes, too, show high powers of dramatic conception, and are worked out with great vigour of language.

Mr. Dowling has just published a second three-volume novel, entitled The Weird Sisters; he is the author of On Babies and Ladders, one of the late John Camden Hotten's Shilling Books of Humour; and has, besides, done that heterogeneous work of leaderwriter, versifier, and descriptive correspondent, which falls to the lot of the journalist in our day.]