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Though not so wretched: there he yields to me,
The first of men in sovereign misery!

Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace
The Scourge and ruin of my realm and race :
Suppliant my children's murderer to implore,
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their

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These words soft pity in the chief inspire, Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire. Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay) The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away. Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe; And now the mingled tides together flow: This low on earth, that gently bending o'er, A father one, and one a son, deplore: But great Achilles different passions rend, And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend. Th' infectious softness through the heroes ran; One universal solemn shower began;

They bore as heroes, but they felt as man.

Satiate at length with unavailing woes,
From the high throne divine Achilles rose;
The reverend monarch by the hand he raised;
On his white beard and form majestic gazed;
Not unrelenting: then serene began
With words to soothe the miserable man.

!

So saying, Mercury vanish'd up to heaven:
And Priam then alighted from his chariot,
Leaving Idæus with it, who remain'd

Holding the mules and horses; and the old man
Went straight in doors, where the beloved of Jove,
Achilles, sat, and found him. In the room
Were others, but apart; and two alone,
The hero Automedon, and Alcimus,

A branch of Mars, stood by him. They had been

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At meals, and had not yet removed the board.
Great Priam came without their seeing him,
And, kneeling down, he clasp'd Achilles' knees,
And kiss'd those terrible, homicidal hands,
Which had deprived him of so many sons.
And as a man who is press'd heavily
For having slain another flies away

To foreign lands, and comes into the house
Of some great man, and is beheld with wonder,
So did Achilles wonder to see Priam;

And the rest wonder'd, looking at each other.

But Priam, praying to him, spoke these words:

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God-like Achilles, think of thine own father!

To the same age have we both come, the same

Weak pass; and though the neighbouring chiefs may vex
Him also, and his borders find no help,

Yet, when he hears that thou art still alive,
He gladdens inwardly, and daily hopes

To see his dear son coming back from Troy.
But I, bereaved old Priam! I had once
Brave sons in Troy, and now I cannot say
That one is left me. Fifty children had I,

When the Greeks came; nineteen were of one womb;
The rest my women bore me in my house.

The knees of many of these fierce Mars has loosen'd;
And he who had no peer, Troy's prop and theirs,
Him hast thou kill'd now, fighting for his country—--
Hector; and for his sake am I come here
To ransom him, bringing a countless ransom.
But thou, Achilles, fear the gods, and think
Of thine own father, and have mercy on me :
For I am much more wretched, and have borne
What never mortal bore, I think, on earth,
To lift unto my lips the hand of him
Who slew my boys."

He ceased; and there arose

Sharp longing in Achilles for his father;

And, taking Priam by the hand, he gently
Put him away; for both shed tears to think
Of other times; the one, most bitter ones
For Hector, and with wilful wretchedness
Lay right before Achilles; and the other,
For his own father now, and now his friend;

And the whole house might hear them as they moan'd
But when divine Achilles had refresh'd

His soul with tears, and sharp desire had left
His heart and limbs, he got up from his throne,
And raised the old man by the hand, and took
Pity on his gray head and his gray chin.

LEIGH HUNT.

344.-The Ways of God.

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JOHN SCOTT.

[DR. JOHN SCOTT, the Author of The Christian Life,' from which the following is an extract, was born in Wiltshire, in 1638, died in 1694. He was a Canon of Windsor.]

The goods and evils which befall us here are not so truly to be estimated by themselves as by their effects and consequents. For the Divine Providence, which runs through all things, hath disposed and connected them into such a series and order, that there is no single event or accident (but what is purely miraculous) but depends upon the whole system, and hath innumerable causes antecedent to it, and innumerable consequents attending it; and what the consequents will be, whether good or bad, singly and apart by itself, yet in conjunction with all those consequents that will most certainly attend it, the best event, for aught we know, may prove most mischievous, and the worst most beneficial to us. So that for us boldly to pronounce concerning the good or evil of events, before we see the train of consequents that follow them, is very rash and inconsiderate. As, for instance, you see a good man oppressed with sorrows and afflictions, and a bad man crowned with pleasures and prosperities; and, considering these things

apart by themselves, you conclude that the one fares very ill, and the other very well; but did you at the same time see the consequents of the one's adversity and the other's prosperity, it is probable you would conclude the quite contrary, viz., that the good man's adversity was a blessing, and the bad man's prosperity a curse. For I dare boldly affirm that good men generally reap more substantial benefit from their afflictions than bad men do from their prosperities. The one smarts, indeed, at present, but what follows? Perhaps his mind is cured by it of some disease that is ten times worse to him than his outward affliction; of avarice and impatience, of envy or discontent, of pride or vanity of spirit; his riches are lessened, but his virtues are improved by it; his body is impaired, but his mind is grown sound and hale by it, and what he hath lost in health, or wealth, or pleasure, or honour, he hath gained with vast advantage in wisdom and goodness, in tranquillity of mind and self-enjoyment, and methinks no man who believes he hath a soul should grudge to suffer any tolerable affliction for bettering of his mind, his will, and his conscience.

On the other hand, the bad man triumphs and rejoices at the present; but what follows? His prosperity either shrivels him into miserableness, or melts him into luxury; the former of which impoverishes, and the latter diseases him; for, if the former be the effect of his prosperity, it increases his needs, because before he needed only what he had not, but now he needs both what he hath not and what he hath, his covetous desires treating him as the falconer doth his hawk-luring him off from what he hath seized, to fly at new game, and never permitting him to prey upon his own quarry; and if the latter be the effect of his prosperity, that is, if it melts him into luxury, it thereby wastes his health to be sure, and commonly his estate too, and so whereas it found him poor and well, it leaves him poor and diseased, and only took him up from the plough, and sets him down at the hospital. In general, while he is possessed of it, it only bloats and swells him, makes him proud and insolent, griping and oppressive; pampers and enrages his lust, stretches out his desires into insatiable feeling, sticks his mind full of cares, and his conscience of guiles, and by all those woeful effects it inflames his reckoning with God, and treasures up wrath for him against the day of wrath; so that, comparing the consequences of the good man's adversity with those of the bad man's prosperity, it is evident that the former fares well even in his worst

condition, and the latter ill, in his best. "It is well for me," saith David, "that I was afflicted, for before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept thy commandments." But, on the contrary, when the wicked spring as the grass, saith the same author, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, then is it that they shall be destroyed for ever! If, then, in the consequents of things, good men are blessed in their afflictions, and bad men plagued in their prosperities, as it is apparent they generally are, these unequal distributions are so far from being an argument against Providence, that they are a glorious instance of it. For wherein could the divine Providence better express its justice and wisdom together, than by benefiting the good, and punishing the bad, by such cross and unprobable methods?"

345. THE DEATH OF SOCRATES.

[FROM TAYLOR'S TRANSLATION OF THE 'PHÆDON.']

PLATO.

WHEN he had thus spoken, "Be it so, Socrates," said Criton; "but what orders do you leave to those who are present, or to myself, either respecting your children, or anything else, in the execution of which we should most gratify you?" "What I always do say, Criton (he replied), nothing new: that if you pay due attention to yourselves, do what you will, you will always do what is acceptable to myself, to my family, and to your own selves, though you should not now promise me anything. But if you neglect yourselves, and are unwilling to live following the track, as it were, of what I have said both now and heretofore, you will do nothing the more, though you should now promise many things, and that with earnestness.” "We shall take care, therefore," said Criton, " so to act. But how would you be buried?". “Just as you please (said he), if you can but catch me, and I do not elude your pursuit." And at the same time gently laughing, and addressing himself to us, "I cannot persuade Criton," he said, "my friends, that I am that Socrates who now disputes with you, and methodizes every part of the discourse; but he thinks that I am he whom

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