PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club the LIVING Age with another periodical. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of: LITTELL & GAY. Soft woos the zephyr and low laughs the Ah, Spring's defects, and October's losses ! ripple, Warm glows the rich light of the sun, But oh, at his brightest, he slopes to the west-In Fair hope, sad memory!—but grieve not thou; leafless dells, look, what emerald mosses; Nay, secret buds on the wintry bough. Athenæum. W. A. From Fraser's Magazine. THE STRIVINGS OF ANCIENT GREECE BY F. W. NEWMAN. THE movements of modern nationalities for larger unions give interest to the history of attempted union in ancient Greece and compulsory union of ancient Italy. Of course only a bare outline can be aimed at in these pages. or blame, perhaps without admiration or contempt; we must largely lose sympathy, and with sympathy insight. We cannot reasonably censure or deplore what is, unless we believe that something else might be. Greece strove for political union, and failed; narrowly failed, it may seem; so much depended on single minds. In discussing this subject, information concerning ancient Greece will be superfluous to many of our readers; yet for the sake of others, they will kindly forgive some introductory explanation. Let an apology for speculation on events be first admitted. More than half the interest of history would be lost, if it were forbidden to speculate about what might have been, but was not. When a state or a Greece Proper is a highly mountainous prince does some evil or stupid deed, we country, with sharp natural divisions. It cry, Alas! or, What a pity! and we con- has a very long sea-coast, and very nusider how matters would have gone if a merous islands; and the Greek colonies few men had been wiser. In such reason- were nearly all upon the coasts of neighings we are liable to much error. We can bouring countries. In the historical era, never really know what would have been. Greeks were sharply divided by dialect Our hypotheses and our wishes are often into Ionian and Dorian: but although simple impossibilities. Physical geogra- the difference of dialect was strong phy and other outward circumstances enough to be of great political importenormously affect national action, and goance, it was not so great as to forbid the far to impress the necessity of a certain Greeks understanding one another's career. The limits of moral ability are speech. What the Lancashire dialect is often much narrower than we think to us, such may coarse Doric have been nevertheless, not to reason at all concern- to an Athenian. The people were really ing them is to sacrifice all study of the one nation. They were proud of the causes of events. In any complexity, if we same Homer, and loved to recite his are to debate how far one event was influ- verses. They had the same notions of enced by another, we must necessarily in religion, worshipped gods of the same imagination take things separately, even name and attributes, and revered the things which may have been inseparable. same oracles. They had the same susThus the most rigid metaphysicians intro- ceptibility to music and poetry, the same duce hypotheses which they know to be love of solemn and graceful dancing, and human impossibilities, such as, that we they celebrated like festivals. Moreover should have perception without desires, from the earliest times they had been acor perfect sight but no muscular power. customed to assemble in popular conAgain, in studying the life of a man, we course and by representative ambassanot only learn what he did, but speculate dors on certain high days; which ason what he was capable of doing. To sembling eminently kept up the conscious have had some force in reserve, capacity relationship of States and tribes. If we beyond one's opportunities, and therefore believe the Hymn (called Homeric) to beyond one's achievement, is a cumulus Delian Apollo, even the women and of honour. Here again we may much children of Ionia assembled statedly at mistake; as Tacitus says of Galba, that the little island of Delos; which was if he never had been put to the trial, all crowded with ships of the visitors coming would have judged him eminently com- to honour Apollo, the peculiar god of petent for the post of emperor. Yet unless we encounter the risk of such mistake, and speculate as to what might have been, we must read history without praise Greece. Besides the greater festivals and the great games, there were many smaller and closer unions of tribes under various names. All were of importance with its garden - where Julie folded up | lost after all. The young couple began the linen which had been hung out to dry, and gathered strawberries, and filled the boy-student's soul with dreams. Here is the beginning of the Amorum the story of this pure and gentle love: AMORUM. 1796. : Sunday, 10th April. I saw her for the first time. Saturday, 10th August. I went to her house, when they lent me the "Novelli Morali di Soavi." Saturday, 3d September. — I took back the "Novelli;" they gave me my choice in their library. I took "Madame Deshouliers." I was alone with her for a minute. Sunday, 4th September. I walked home with the two sisters after mass. I took back the first volume of Bernardin. She told me that she would be alone; her mother and sister their married life humbly in the Rue Mercier in Lyons, with, however, the kindly refuge of the two village houses behind them, especially that of Julie's mother, now a widow. They were poor, but they were happy. Andre's pupils, however, did not afford a sure maintenance for the little family when increased by the child who was in his turn to make himself well known to the world - the antiquarianhistorian, Jean Jacques Ampère; and André decided to accept an appointment in Bourg, twelve leagues off (they talk of this as if it had been thousands of miles away), where his income was fixed at the modest sum of two thousand and six francs - about eighty pounds — which he did his best to increase by means of private pupils, hoping always to bring himself into notice, and to obtain a post in the Lycée which was to be established at Lyons. Julie, whose health never seems to have been re-established Thus the journal goes on. On Satur- after the birth of her child, was not alday the 17th September he "begins to lowed by her doctor to accompany her open my heart." On the following Mon- husband; and for the two years followday he completes his declaration, bring- ing André lived in a state of exile from ing back "feeble hopes, and an order not all he loved best, making hurried visits in to go back before the return of her moth- the holidays to his wife and child; living er." After this, several occasions occur the most laborious and frugal life away in which he met her "without daring to from them, and thinking of them night speak to her." Sometimes Julie is un- and day. All his efforts, all his labours kind, and bids him come not so often. and hopes, are directed to the one point "Elle me rembourra bien" is another of getting this much-longed-for appointcomplaint. But, nevertheless, progress ment in Lyons, which would restore him is made. There are few protestations, to Julie and her family, and his own. which were unnecessary in Ampère's brief memoranda, and none of the sentimental épanchements du cœur which make us half despise Madame Craven's too eloquent hero. There is, however, nothing but her. "I ate a cherry which she had dropped: I kissed a rose which she had touched," the lad says in the following June. "When we were walking, I twice gave her my hand to cross a stile. Her mother made a place for me on the bench between her and Julie. As we returned, I said to her that I had scarcely ever passed so happy a day, but that it was not the sight of nature that had most charmed me. She talked to me with grace and kindness." Another time she deigned to hold a long conversation" with the happy youth. It was not, however, till three years after their first meeting that the shy Julie and her care ful parents allowed themselves to be persuaded to accord her to her eager lover. He was only twenty-three or twentyfour, so that there was not much time Our space will permit us to quote only a few of the ceaseless letters which the young mathematician, in the intervals of his perpetual lessons, calculations, and chemical experiments, found opportunity to write to his poor young wife, sick and ailing, but always hopeful, in the gloomy little house in the Rue Mercier. Here is one which shows the young savant in the middle of his work: problem of my own invention which I could Seven years ago I proposed to myself a not solve by direct means, but to which by chance I found a solution which I saw was right without being able to demonstrate it. This has often returned to my mind, and twenty times have I sought, without finding, the direct solution of my problem. A few days since my idea took once more possession of me, and at last, I know not how, I have of curious and novel ideas upon the theory of succeeded in grasping it, along with a theory probabilities. As I believe that there are few mathematicians in France who will solve this problem in a shorter time, I do not doubt that its publication in a pamphlet of twenty pages would be a good way of attaining to a mathematical chair. I will finish the day after tomorrow this little essay of pure algebra, in which there is no need of figures; but will keep it to revise and correct it until next week, when I will send it to you by Pochon, with the checked waistcoat, the woollen stockings, and the six louis of which I have spoken. As soon as the MS. arrives at Lyons it must be printed. The six louis for this month and the seven for next must be used for this, and I shall be certain of the place at Lyons. Perhaps we may sell some copies, but first of all I think many must be given to the learned in Paris. I trouble you with my commissions, but it will not last long. The future offers us a happy perspective; health for you, a good place at Lyons, our delightful child, and the still sweeter thought that you love me always. Here is another, in which the love comes uppermost, the young philosopher having ses vacances, and giving himself up entirely to thoughts of Julie: How I sigh for the bring us together again! the holidays come ! Bourg, Wednesday, moment which shall Four o'clock. This exclamation had just come from my lips when I was seized with a sudden fancy which you will think odd. I made up my mind to go back with your packet of letters to the field behind the hospital, where I had gone to read them before my journey to Lyons with so much pleasure. I meant to renew there the gentle recollections of which I made provision before, and I have gathered sweeter still for another time. How sweet your letters are ! the afternoon, from three to four, I give my The answers sent by the young wife to these letters are more graceful and sprightly in style, and not less tender and simple. She pities her pauvre ami, who has nothing but physics and chemistry to console him. "You go on making those villanous drugs," she cries, half smiling, half in dismay; "and your poor book is no nearer finished than ever." She is anxious and troubled about his "cloth trousers," which she bids him send her, lest the rats should eat them; and tells him to take care of his waistcoats and breeches, and to wear the coarse aprons with strings which she sends him. Many and often repeated are her counsels about his personal appearance. "I beg of you not to unrip the lining of your sleeves," she says; "take care to have your cravats clean, to be bien chaussé; take care of your trousers, your waistcoats, your stockings." After a little quarrel he has had with his landlady on going to dinner with hands stained black with some acid, she addresses him with mingled vexation and sympathy. "I approve your leaving Madame Beauregard after her politeness," she says; "but I wish this would make you a little more careful of your selves what she has the rudeness to say. person, many may think within themHere is a list of my daily occupations [he If you pay any visits, do try to have the writes at a later period]. M. Clere works aspect of a respectable man, to please with me from six o'clock in the morning till your poor wife, who has not too many ten; Gripier from half-past eleven to one. In pleasures." Nor does Julie confine her One must have a mind like yours to write things which go thus to the heart, with out design or study. I remained till two o'clock seated under a tree, with a meadow at my right hand, the river to the left and in front of me, the buildings of the hospital behind. You may suppose that I had taken the precaution before thus indulging myself to leave word at Madame Beauregard's that I should not dine there to-day. She supposes have gone out to dinner; but as I had breakfasted well, I was all the better for having no dinner but love. At two I felt so calm and easy in mind, in place of the weariness that oppressed me this morning, that I took the fancy of walking and botanizing. . . . I write all sorts of nonsense to you, to give you an idea of the state of my mind. It is certain that my long walk, these dear recollections, the success of my experiments and of my lessons, have singularly tranquillized the mind which was so much excited eight days ago. for |