stood ready, received the cup and bore it to the ambassadors, who, beginning with the eldest, (they were three,) drank to the glory of Seleucus and the beauty of Stratonice. A pyramidal figure placed upon a pedestal, in the centre between the king and queen on the one side and the guests on the other, and carefully veiled over, was now uncovered by concealed machinery, which carried off the covering out of sight in an instant, and the Athenian ambassadors beheld with delighted eyes the long-lost statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, their swords wreathed in myrtle, as when they slew the tyrant of Athens. A curtain drawn on the left hand of the throne next displayed a splendid theatre. Leucolene stood at the front of the stage, holding her lyre; and immediately behind her a group of youths clad in the garb of Athenian warriors, their swords concealed with myrtle leaves, their bucklers resting close to their bosoms, in the attitude which precedes the onset, and their spears pointing upwards in their right hands. After a short symphony, Leucolene sang, with the accompaniment of her lyre, one of those simple songs of Harmodius and Aristogiton which the Athenians loved in their convivial meetings, and were sung even in the grand Panathenean procession of Minerva Polias. The song chosen on this occasion turned upon the private wrong which chiefly moved Harmodius to enter into the conspiracy against the Pisistratida. Harmodius loved, and was beloved of, a young Athenian virgin, who surpassed the fairest of Athens, and even of Greece, in talents and beauty. When returning with her mother from the temple of Ceres, the young men of Athens watched, with respectful admiration, the casual raising of her veil by the breeze; and on the following morning her door was hung with wreaths of flowers, and the trees growing before her father's house had inscribed on them by different hands "Callirhoe is beautiful, there is no beauty like Callirhoe-Callirhoe is amiable, there is no one amiable as Callirhoe." Finding her one day in tears, Harmodius asked and learned the cause. It was some days before the grand Panathenean procession, in which a select number of Athenian virgins, chosen for their high rank, for those accomplishments over which Minerva presided, and for their beauty, which should be so bright as to attract all eyes, carried baskets of sacred sweetmeats, fruits, and flowers. All Athens named Callirhoe for the place of honour in this lovely assemblage; but the son of Pisistratus caused her to be excluded, in order to make room for a virgin of his own family. "Weep not, my life and soul," said Harmodius: "although you do not bear the sacred fruits and flowers, yet will the Panathenean feast consummate the felicity and glory of us both." The unhappy girl, who thought of no felicity or glory but that of being united with her lover, and who dreaded that the disgrace of her exclusion might alienate his affection, supposed he alluded to the ceremony of their marriage. But Harmodius's thoughts were of sacrificing the tyrant to vindicate his country and his beloved one. He slew the victim, but was himself overpowered by the tyrant's guards. The following are the verses.

SONG OF HARMODIUS.

Why wreathes the myrtle round
The young Harmodius' sword?
His brow with myrtle crown'd.
Why smiles my bosom's lord?

It is, it is the nuptial hour,

He bids me to the nuptial bower.
I come, my love, I come. Oh! joy divine,
My virgin vow, my virgin kiss, be thine!

What doth the tyrant here?

What breathes that bond-slave in his ear ?*
Aristogiton draws his sword,
Harmodius,-my soul's adored.-

They strike, they strike, the tyrant falls,
"To Athens liberty" Harmodius calls.
Oh! lovelier look'st thou to these eyes, this heart,
As thus with tyrant-blood besprent thou art,
Than young Endymion on a bed of roses
When on his face fond Dian's glance reposes.

Ha impious slaves! they kill my love;
His life-blood gushes from his bosom gored.-
But still to thee my truth I prove.

Thus dying with thee-thus-my soul's adored.

Here she dropped lifeless into the arms of one of the chorus. The rest sing the pæan, beating their bucklers with their lances, and dancing the pyrrhic dance.

Sing we the pæan of the free,

To vengeance and to liberty;

And let us dance the pyrrhic dance,
And strike the buckler with the lance,
And on the recreant foe advance,

For Athens, and for liberty.t

The charming tones of Leucolene's voice and lyre, the wild yet graceful energy of movement which followed, the clangor of the bucklers struck with the spears, the quick time and martial cadence of the music which governed the performance at the close excited an enthusiasm which would have been almost delirious, were it not softened and subdued by the picturesque attitude and pathetic expression of the bride of Harmodius seeming dead in the arms of the Chorus.

This enchanting girl excelled not only in music, but in those dances of her country whose mute eloquence wakes emotions beyond the most powerful declamation. An Ionian girl at Athens, in the time of Pericles, and who had been brought from Miletus by his consort, the celebrated Aspasia, won the prize from the most famed rhapsodist of

A person whispered something to Hipparchus-the conspirators thought themselves betrayed, and struck instantly.

+ Several fragments of these songs of Harmodius and Aristogiton have been preserved. One is given in the Memoirs of the French Academy, from Athenæus. The French version is given in prose without the original, and professes to be literal. It is from it that I translate as follows:

Song of Harmodius and Aristogiton.

"I'll wear my sword covered with myrtle-leaves, as did Harmodius and Aristogiton, when they slew the tyrant, and established at Athens the equality of the laws.

"Dear Harmodius, thou art not dead. They say thou art in the Isles of the Blessed, with swift-footed Achilles, and Diomede the valiant son of Tydeus.

"I'll wear my sword covered with myrtle-leaves, as did Harmodius and Aristogiton, when they slew the tyrant, in the time of the Panathenaa.

"Eternal be your glory, dear Harmodius, dear Aristogiton! for you slew the tyrant, and established at Athens the equality of the laws." (Trans.)

Greece, during a public procession in which it was the custom to recite verses from Homer. One of the passages chosen for trial, was the lamentation of Helen over the body of Hector. What is there, for situation and sentiment, in history or in fiction, so nobly and at the same time so tenderly moving? The rhapsodist read it with a nobleness of action and purity of intonation which the women confessed by their tears, the men by their applause. The dancing girl followed:-she looked for a moment at the body of the slain hero-her bosom heaved -her tears flowed-a series of moving pictures in her looks, her tears, her neglected tresses, the lightning movements of her countenance and limbs, told the whole scene-the reproaches of the brothers, the scorn of the sisters, the cutting unkindness of the motherqueen-contrasted with the noble magnanimity of Hector, who, though more than all exposed, by her misconduct, to danger and fatigue-yet, not only never gave her an unkind word, but protected her from insult, and rebuked those who gave her pain! There was now no applause; but manhood sobbed, and beauty forgot the disfigurement of its features in the sincerity of its emotion. Another dancer, also of Ionia, produced effects so terrible, in the temple of Apollo, during the celebration of the Pythian games, as to be prohibited from repeating the performance. The subject was the memorable pride and punishment of Niobe. The transition of Niobe from childless agony to marble horror, was so heart-rending to the spectators, that the presiding magistrates interfered to arrest the performance.

Why is it that mute signs, necessarily so imperfect and vague, have this superiority over language? May not their very vagueness be the cause? Language expresses thoughts precisely and in detail, leaving comparatively little for the imagination. But the mute play of countenance and gesture presents only a glimpse, or sketch, which the imagination completes, far beyond the utmost power of detailed and palpable expression. It was to this surpassing power of the imagination that Timanthes left the painting of the father's grief, when he represented Agamemnon at the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, with his face hidden in his robe. The same principle applies to poetry. Perhaps a poet, endued in his art, with the genius and felicity of Timanthes in painting, would have also flung a mantle over the figure of a sufferer, in the same or a kindred situation-and left the imagination no visible materials but the convulsive heavings of agony from beneath it. But to return.

The music gradually died away; the curtain was drawn forward, and the spectacle vanished like a dream. One of the ambassadors then spoke these words: "O Seleucus, the Athenians have placed your statue in the porch of the Academy: is there any thing else by which Athens can honour the friendship of Seleucus Nicanor?" O ambassadors," said Seleucus, "I am grateful to the Athenians for having placed my statue in the porch of the Academy. There is one thing more by which Athens will complete my happiness and glory: let an inscription on the pedestal which receives the images of these two heroes, tell posterity that Seleucus Nicanor, who reigned over Upper Asia, and built thirty-four cities of men therein, was the friend of the Athenians." Next day the king and the ambassadors sanctified their hospitality anew, by a joint sacrifice to Jupiter the preserver, and to

Castor and Pollux. After that, the king offered separate sacrifice to Minerva Polias, in honour of the Athenians; and the ambassadors sacrificed in return to Apollo, who, as will hereafter appear, was reputed the father of Seleucus. Having received the books, statues, and other objects from the hands of Seleucus, the Athenians departed. It may be well to relate here, for the greater glory of these two heroic assertors of Athenian freedom, and for the sake of virtue among men, that upon the ship's putting in at Rhodes, the statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton were received with the honours of public hospitality, and placed in the temple of Apollo, upon sacred cushions, near that column of the temple which bears inscribed the ode of Pindar, in which Rhodes is called "the daughter of Venus, and Apollo's bride."

In the mean time Combabus surrendered himself wholly to the captivating illusions which had constantly surrounded him since his arrival at the court of Antioch. It was yet but three days, and he had forgotten all that he had known and seen-Athens and the Isles of Greecethe bonds of friendship, and the dearer reminiscences of love. He forgot all but the place that held the divine Stratonice ;-like those who have eaten of the Lotus-tree. Unthinking one! he must soon awake to the perils that already surround him, and the trials to which he is doomed. But we will not anticipate the order of time.

ADELGITHA.

BY T. CAMPBELL.

The ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded,
And sad pale Adelgitha came,

When forth a valiant champion bounded,

And slew the slanderer of her fame.

She wept, delivered from her danger;

But when he knelt to claim her glove

"Seek not," she cried, "oh! gallant stranger,
For hapless Adelgitha's love.

"For he is in a foreign far land

Whose arm should now have set me free;

And I must wear the willow garland

For him that's dead, or false to me."

"Nay! say not that his faith is tainted !”—
He rais'd his vizor-At the sight
She fell into his arms and fainted,
It was indeed her own true knight.

THE POETRY OF PLEADING.

The Lawyers have as complete a mythology of their own as the old poets, and every trial has as regular a machinery as the Iliad.-ESPRIELLA'S LETTERS.

COURTEOUS reader! albeit thou be of the weaker sex, and as my Lord Coke hath it "of roseat beauty," let not thy judgment so misinterpret these "mine own simple labours," as to turn away thine eyes in displeasure from what thou imaginest to be merely a dusty and unintelligible disquisition. For know it is not here intended to delight merely the eyes of "grave men and singularly well learned," but so to treat of these lofty matters as that the lay-gents (for so the ancient text-books do denominate all those persons who are not skilled in the learning of the laws)-that the lay-gents shall understand the exposition of the things herein treated of, and understanding, shall admire. Nor shall I so far "follow the scent of high-swelling phrases," as by the introduction of jaw-breaking words, vocabula artis as our Lord Chief Justice hath termed them, to endeavour after admiration through the ignorance of the uninitiated. Do not then, I pray thee, gentle reader, so far vilipend mine efforts as to think I would load the delectable pages of this work with the mere caput mortuum of legal research; and if perforce thou findest me travelling some little way into the realms of a more antique learning, yet pardon me," for assuredly out of the old fields must spring and grow the new corn."

As the grave judgment of man is ever accompanied with some portion of imagination, so hath every science and pursuit a poetry of its own, where a loose is given to the fancy and the imagination, which are permitted to run riot over the ground wherein the judgment hath no jurisdiction. It is in this sense, that worthy Dr. Warton hath affirmed Titus Livy to be a great poet, whereas, in strict parlance, he never wrote a stave of poetry; and it is in this sense that some one whom I forget hath said that "dancing is the poetry of motion;" in this sense also it is that I intend the Poetry of Pleading. Until this latter century or two, there was a vast portion of poetry intermingled with every science. He was the best astronomer who could imagine the most improbable systems, and the best chemist who could feign more marvellous effects of his art than others; and truly to read the volumes of this ancient lore, no small portion of the imagination was expended in these sciences. That great arch-enemy of fiction, Sir Isaac Newton, Knight, robbed the celestial sciences of these their poetic ornaments, while a similar progress hath been proceeding in almost every other branch of human inquiry:-nay, even the vaulted chambers of the earth have been deprived of their awe-inspiring mysteries, and the dull reality of his fire-lamp enableth Sir Humphrey Davy to work as great wonders as ever Aladdin did. 'Tis a melancholy sight, and a dismal one, thus to behold the great dominions of Fancy gradually surrounded, hemmed in, and apportioned, by her enemies; and it is with a true and perfect satisfaction that mine eyes can turn to one of her richest provinces yet whole and undisturbedthe great province of Legal Fancy. Whatever other disastrous attacks have laid waste her territories, whatever other pretended reformations have been wrought, this portion of the great fairy-land is still safe. No sacrilegious hand hath ever yet attempted to deprive the law of its