idle opinion? Do not you know," said he, "that Jupiter is represented to have Justice and Law on each hand of him, to signify that all the actions of a conqueror are lawful and just?" With these and the like speeches, Anaxarchus indeed allayed the king's grief, but withal corrupted his character, rendering him more audacious and lawless than he had been.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR THE POWER OF

MUSIC.

AN ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

BY JOHN DRYDEN.

[JOHN DRYDEN: An English poet; born August 9, 1631; educated under Dr. Busby at Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. The son of a Puritan, he wrote eulogistic stanzas on the death of Cromwell; but his versatile intellect could assume any phase of feeling, and he wrote equally glowing ones on the Restoration of 1660. His "Annus Mirabilis" appeared in 1667, and in 1668 he was made poet laureate. His "Essay on Dramatic Poesy" is excellent; but as a dramatist, though voluminous, he has left nothing which lives. His satire "Absalom and Achitophel" is famous; and his "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" is considered the finest in the language.]

'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won,

By Philip's warlike son:

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were placed around;

Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound:
So should desert in arms be crowned.

The lovely Thais by his side

Sat, like a blooming eastern bride,

In flower of youth and beauty's pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

Timotheus placed on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove;

Who left his blissful seats above,
(Such is the power of mighty love!)
A dragon's fiery form belied the god :
Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,
When he to fair Olympia pressed,

*

And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound.

A present deity! they shout around:

A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound.
With ravished ears,

The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung;

Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young;

The jolly god in triumph comes;

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums:
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face.

Now give the hautboys breath. He comes, he comes!

Bacchus, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain:

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,

Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure;

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain;

Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.

The master saw the madness rise;

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes:

And while he heaven and earth defied,

Changed his hand and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse

Soft pity to infuse :

He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate,

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood:
Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast look the joyless victor sat,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of fate below;

And now and then a sigh he stole;
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled, to see
That love was in the next degree;
"Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War he sung is toil and trouble;
Honor but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O, think it worth enjoying!
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So love was crowned, but music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair,

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again :

At length with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound

Has raised up his head;
As awaked from the dead,
And amazed he stares around.

Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,

See the furies arise!

See the snakes that they rear,

How they hiss in their hair!

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain :
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud, with a furious joy;

And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Thus, long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,

While organs yet were mute;

Timotheus to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT.'

BY J. P. MAHAFFY.

(From "Greek Life and Thought.")

[JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY: Irish classical scholar and historian; born at Chapponnaire, Switzerland, February 26, 1839. In 1871 he became professor of ancient history at Trinity College, Dublin. He has published "Social Life in Greece," "Rambles and Studies in Greece," "Greek Life and Thought," "Greece under Roman Sway," "History of Greek Classical Literature," "The Empire of the Ptolemies," and other historical works, nearly all of which have gone through several editions.]

THERE was no king throughout all the Eastern world in the third century B.C. who did not set before him Alexander as the ideal of what a monarch ought to be. His transcendent figure so dominates the imagination of his own and the following age, that from studying his character we can draw all the materials for the present chapter. For this purpose the bril liant sketch of Plutarch, who explicitly professes to write the life and not the history of the king, is on the whole more instructive than the detailed chronicle of Arrian. From both we draw much that is doubtful and even fabulous, but much also which is certain and of unparalleled interest, as giving us a picture of the most extraordinary man that ever lived. The astonishing appearance of this lad of twenty, hurried to the throne by his father's death, in the midst of turmoil within and foes without, surrounded by doubtful friends and timid advisers, without treasury, without allies—and yet at once and without hesitation asserting his military genius, defeating his bravest enemies, cowing his disloyal subjects, crushing sedition, and then starting to conquer Asia, and to weld together two continents by a new policy-this wonder was indeed likely to fascinate the world, and if his successors aped the leftward inclination of his head and the leonine sit of his hair, they were sure enough to try to imitate what was easier and harder― the ways of his court and the policy of his kingdom.

Quite apart from his genius, which was unique, his position in Greece was perfectly novel, in that he combined Hellenic training, language, and ideas with a totally un-Hellenic thing -royalty. For generations, the Macedonian kings had been trying to assert themselves as real Greeks. They had suc1 By permission of the publishers, Macmillan & Co., Ltd.