famous of ancient poets; Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the greatest of ancient philosophers; Leonidas, Aristides, Alcibiades, Themistocles, and many other dis

tinguished generals; Philip and Alexander, renowned conquerors; Praxiteles, the most celebrated of sculp tors; Pericles and Demosthenes, illustrious orators.

The liberties of Greece received a fatal shock in the assumption of supreme authority by Philip of Macedon, after the bloody battle of Charonea, 338, B. C. This passed to his son, Alexander, and, after his death, to his successor. The declining sun of Grecian glory gradually went down, and finally set in the year 146, B. C., when Greece became a Roman province, under the name of Achaia.

But, although Ancient Greece was thus blotted out as an independent country, its glory can never pass away. It has handed down to us many of the finest examples of patriotism and friendship; the noblest specimens of architecture; the most perfect models of sculpture; and specimens of poetry and oratory which are still regarded as master-pieces in these noble arts. The works of the philosophers of Greece have been studied for more than two thousand years as fountains of knowledge; and Plato and Aristotle are regarded, at the present day, as among the master spirits who continue to rule over the thinking world.

To the Greeks we are chiefly indebted for the invention of that ancient mythology of which Jupiter was the head. This had, no doubt, its foundation in real history; but upon a slight basis of reality a most fanciful fabric was reared by the poets. The manner in which poetry may pass into history is easily seen by any one who has recently visited the Highlands of Scotland. When the traveller is conducted over Loch Katrine and its borders, the scene of "The Lady of the Lake," he is told by his guide, "There is the place where Fitz James's gallant gray' fell,- yonder gravelly spot is the silver strand,' where the chieftain first met Ellen, there is Ellen's Isle,' and that gnarled ash is the tree to which she tied her boat. That rugged knoll was Roderick Dhu's castle, and upon the top of it he and Fitz James slept together. There is Ben Venue, and far up, near its top, is the 'Goblin's Cave.' Yonder is Ben Ain, and there is Coilantogle ford, where the two champions elosed in deadly encounter."

6

Such is the account given by the guide, pointing out actual localities, and connecting them with events, which, though the mere invention of the poet, are still spoken of as no less real than the "rocks, mounds, and knolls" which are before the eye. How soon will these guides get to feel that the fictions they repeat are histories, and that Fitz James, Ellen, and Roderick Dhu, were as much realities, as the objects Iwith which the wizard " harp of the north" has associated them! The children of these guides will believe, as real, what their fathers told as fiction; and if we suppose such a process as this to take place in a dark age, when there are no books, we can see how easily the fictions of the poet pass into the received chronicles of the historian.

THE religious beliefs and observances of the Greeks, constituting their mythology, are intimately connected with the fabulous and poetical portion of their history. It has already been stated, that Uranus, his son Saturn, and his grandsons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, appear to have been the chiefs of a colony of Egyptians who settled in Greece at an exceedingly remote period, and that after their death their ignorant posterity came in course of time to regard them as gods, and to pay them divine honors accordingly.

According to the poets, who were the principal

birth

framers and expounders of the Grecian mythology, Jupiter, the chief of the gods, and the ruler of heaven and earth, was the son of Saturn, a god who had been compelled by a powerful and tyrannical brother, named Titan, to promise that he would destroy all his male children. This promise Saturn for s ne time fulfilled, by devouring his sons as soon as they were born; but at last, Rhea, his wife, contrived to concei of Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, who thus e ped the fate of their brethren. On discovering that Saturn had male offspring alive, in contravention of his engagement, Titan deposed him from his authority, and cast him into prison. But Jupiter, having grown up to manhood, overcame Titan in turn, and restored Saturn to his throne. These vicissitudes, it is to be observed, and others that befell the early divinities, were the result of the decrees of Fate; a power over which the heathen gods are represented as having no control.

Notwithstanding this filial conduct of Jupiter, he afterwards quarrelled with his father, whom he dethroned and chased into Italy, where Saturn is said to have passed his time in a quiet and useful manner, occupied solely in teaching the rude inhabitants to cultivate and improve the soil. He was afterwards known -under the name of Chronos as the god of Time, and was usually represented under the figure of an old man, holding in one hand a scythe, and in the other a serpent with its tail in its mouth, in allusion to the de-" structive influence of time, and the endless succession of the seasons. The rule of Saturn in Italy was productive of so much happiness, that this period was ever afterwards called the Golden Age.