was once Pythagoras, and has since been a king, a beggar, a woman, a horse, and a jack-daw-of all which existences, that of a king was the most miserable; and he assures his master that he is far happier than many of the wealthy and great. This the cobbler doubts; but, the cock having taken him a flying visit to the houses of two of his rich neighbours, where he finds one hoarding his money, and unable to sleep from fear of thieves, and the other cheated and betrayed by his wife and servants, he returns home wiser and more contented with his lot.

Having lived in the second century of the Christian era, Lucian was, no doubt, acquainted with the tenets of the new religion, and he has left an account of the selfimmolation of a disciple named Peregrinus or Proteus, respecting whose claims to the honour of martyrdom the learned are not agreed. Lucian represents him as exercising extraordinary influence over his followers, who, when he was imprisoned for preaching the strange doctrines, brought him food and money, and bribed the jailors to allow them to pray with him. For, Lucian adds, these poor wretches persuade themselves that they shall live for ever, and that they are all brothers; so they hold all their goods in common, and any clever impostor might easily practise upon their credulity.

Many commentators have inferred from these remarks, and from the tone of his description of Peregrinus mounting the burning pile, that Lucian was a scoffer at the new faith as at the old pagan superstitions. It seems, however, more probable that he only imperfectly understood the former, whilst his persistent ridicule of the latter helped to upset their attempted revival in the earlier days of Christianity, and thus cleared the way for its progress and triumph.

GREEK ANTHOLOGY.

HE meaning of Anthology is a collection of Epigrams, or flowers of speech, which have always been highly prized and imitated by scholars; and the space of time over which the writers of such effusions successively flourished may be said to extend to upwards of a thousand years.

Originally and literally the word epigram denoted simply an offering or inscription in a temple, in honour of the deity to whom success in war, or at the public games, was attributed by the victors. Afterwards moral sentences were engraved on statues and memorial columns, as well as records of affection on tombs. The Greeks also imagined natural scenery and objects to be animated by some spiritual essence which could be reverenced and addressed, and these impulses are apparent in many of their votive poems, which embrace a very varied range of topics, and are found scattered among the works of old historians, biographers, and other authors, -the simpler and more natural the composition, if it has genius, the greater the probability that it is ancient and original.

The early Greek epigrams do not aim at wit, or seek to produce surprise, but merely to set forth some fact or feeling in the simplest language, with perfect purity and elegance of diction, beauty being regarded as the true ideal, whether in the statue which enchants the eye, or in the lines which have the power to please the fancy or touch the heart.

The following specimens have been arranged in classes of the same character, as more convenient for comparison and reference than if placed in order of date or authorship.

The first division consists of those which may be called 'Dedicatory or Votive,' either as consecrated to some divine power, or as monumental records of victories and public events; some being actual inscriptions, whilst others are only commemorative verses, as their different construction will indicate.

ON THERMOPYLA, BY SIMONIDES :—
'Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie ;
and,

'Of those at famed Thermopyla who lie,
Glorious the fortune, bright the destiny.
Their tomb an altar is; their noble name
A fond remembrance of ancestral fame.
Their death a song of triumph; neither rust
Nor time, that turns all mortal things to dust,
Shall dim the splendour of that holy shrine,

Where Greece for ever sees her native virtues shine.'

ON THEMISTOCLES :—

'Trace on my tomb the mountains and the sea,

And let the all-seeing sun a witness be;

Trace, too, the streams whose deep and copious course

Xerxes dried up with his unnumbered force.

Add Salamis; and make the shrine that stands
Reared to my memory by Magnesian hands,

Such as Themistocles' high fame demands.'

TO DIANA, BY A VIRGIN ABOUT TO MARRY:-
'Timareté, her wedding-day now near,

To Artemis has laid these offerings here,-
Her tambourine, her pleasant ball, the net
As a safe guardian o'er her tresses set;
Her maiden dolls, in mimic robes arrayed,
Gifts fitting for a maid to give a maid.
Goddess, thy hand upon her kindly lay,
And keep her holy in thy holy way.'

TO APOLLO, BY A YOUNG MAN ENDING HIS BOYHOOD :-
"When first Eudoxus cut the locks he wore,

That charm of boyhood he to Phoebus bore;
Instead of locks, Far-darter, hear his vow,
And let Acharnian ivy wreath his brow.'

BY AN OLD FISHERMAN :—

'Old Cyniras to the Nymphs this net ; no more
His strength can stand the toils that once it bore;
Rejoice, ye fishes, sporting in the sea,
From danger at his hands you now are free.'

TO VENUS, BY LAIS :—

'Venus! take this votive glass,
Since I am not what I was;
What I shall hereafter be,
Venus! let me never see.'

TO THE WATER DEITIES, BY A THIRSTY TRAVELLER :-
'Cool stream, where waters from the cleft rock start,
Forms, too, of Naiads, carved by rustic art,

Ye fountain-heads, and countless spots around,
Made lovely by your rills that here abound,

Farewell! and from a wayfarer receive,

The horn which here he dipped his hot thirst to relieve."

ON A TEMPLE OF VENUS:

'This Venus' favourite haunt; 'tis her delight
To look from land upon the ocean bright,

And speed the sailor's course. The ambient brine
Quails as it sees the image in her shrine.'

Sepulchral' inscriptions form the next division, and the following are selected as specimens of ancient Greek epitaphs :

'Proté, thou art not dead; but thou hast passed
To better lands, whose pleasures ever last-
To bound in joy amidst the fairest flowers
Of the blest isles, Elysium's blooming bowers.
Thee not the summer heat nor winter's chill
Shall e'er annoy-exempt from every ill;
Nor sickness, hunger, thirst again distress;
Nor dost thou long for earthly happiness.
Contented thou, remote from human woes,
In the pure light which from Olympus flows.'
'Here Dicon's son, Acanthian Saon, lies,
In sacred sleep; say not a good man dies.'
'Cruel is death-nay, kind; he that is ta'en
Was old in wisdom, though his years were few.
Life's pleasures hath he lost; escaped life's pain;
Nor wedded joys, nor wedded sorrows, knew.

'Oh, why, my brother-mariners, so near the boisterous wave
Of ocean have ye hollowed out my solitary grave?
"Twere better much that farther off a sailor's tomb should be,
For I dread my rude destroyer-I dread the roaring sea;
But may the smiles of fortune, and may love and peace await
All you who shed a pitying tear for poor Nicetas' fate.'

'Of one who high in Greece precedence held,
Hippias, who all men of his day excelled,
Archedicé the daughter here doth rest;
Her father, brothers, husband, sons, possessed
A princely rank; but in her gentle mind
None could a trace of arrogance e'er find.'

'Manes when living was a slave; dead now,
Great King Darius, he's as great as thou.'

'Aster, in life our morning star, a lovely light you shed;
And now you shine as Hesperus, a star among the dead.'

'View not my tomb with pity, passer by;

No cause for tears o'er me, though doomed to die.
I've seen my children's children; a dear wife,
With me grown old, has cheered my lengthened life.
Three of my offspring, honourably wed,

Have given me grandsons from their fruitful bed,
Who in my lap have oft been lulled to sleep;
For no disease or death e'er called to weep.

These with due honours, blameless to

my rest

Have sent me, in the region of the blest.'

From their Amatory' effusions, which constitute the third division, we learn how keenly alive the Greeks were to personal beauty and graceful accomplishments :

'We reached the grove's deep shadow, and there found
Cythera's son in sleep's sweet fetters bound,

Looking like ruddy apples on their tree :

No quiver and no bended bow had he,

These were suspended on a leafy spray,

Himself in cups of roses cradled lay

Smiling in sleep; while from their flight in air

The brown bees to his soft lips made repair

To ply their waxen task, and leave their honey there.'

'I'll frame, my Heliodora, a garland for thy hair,

Which thou, in all thy beauty's pride, mayst not disdain to wear ;
For I with tender myrtles white violets will twine,-

White violets, but not so pure as that pure breast of thine;