contained, and in that indolent posture commenced writing. When I had finished, I looked up; the green hills were clasping the hollow round about, at some distance the horses were cropping the white, withered grass, in the middle of the amphitheatre our young philosopher and guide, Demetri, lay fast asleep, and barely shaded by some lentiscus stems my two companions with up-turned faces were travelling in the land of dreams: and to that land was I soon called myself, with my face buried in my arms upon the cool step, and fearless: for the serpents in the city of Esculapius must surely be

innocuous.

I dreamed that Iero rose up again out of the bosom of the earth, with its fair temples and sacred grove of planes and olive-trees, its straggling streets and little agora, and salubrious wells, and hill-side farms. It was summer afternoon, and I roamed all over the place at will. Methought I met a young Athenian, who accosted me, and, when I returned his salutation, he was struck with my accent, and asked me if I were not from Sicily. He showed me where I should find the objects most worth seeing. I wandered towards a little separate village, where dying people and women in labor were removed; for within the sacred precincts of the grove, where the bath and temple were, no person was allowed to die or to be born. It seemed to a Greek a profane thing that a man should die in the hallowed city of

health, and yet was it so curious a way of keeping up the fame of Iero that in a Gothic mind it would provoke amusement. But, quaint homage as it was to the power of health, it was quite in accordance with the Greek genius, whose sense of its earnestness would never be impaired by the equally acute sense of its laughable character. The ancient Greeks, and they alone, were capable of ridicule without impairing earnestness.

Near the village was a funeral pyre erected, and the procession bearing the body of a dead man was gathering round the place. The mourners were clothed in black, and the hair of the women was torn, and the faces of the men wounded in excess of grief. They were chanting the Ololugè, till all the procession was arranged in order round the pyre. The deceased was a young Arcadian hunter, who had got a poisonous thorn into his foot, and the waters of Iero had been essayed in vain. They laid his body on the wood, his brother holding the head; and round the body they placed eighteen jars of Megarian honey, nine on each side of the body, to quicken the burning, Then they brought two fine wolf-like Molossian hounds, the favorites of the departed, and slew them at the foot of the pyre. It was a pitiful sight to see, for the huge dogs when brought to the spot fawned upon their master's brother, as they might have done at the banquet when the chase was over. But at the sight of the dogs, a

woman burst forth from the crowd, screaming, and wounding her face with her nails. It was the mother of the hunter. "O my beautiful Toxilides," she cried, “O my long-haired boy! what hast thou done to anger the dread Erinnyes, holiest of powers? O great Pan, wherefore hast thou not protected thy votary? Did he ever climb our native steeps without first breathing a prayer to thee? Did he ever kill one of thy sacred goats which the priest had marked? Oh! never, never. Surely it is the wrath of Dionysos which hath visited him, because he suffered the sacred goats to bruise the new shoots of the vine, rather than offend thee, O Pan. And thou too, chaste Artemis, why hast thou not been his protectress, his who hath oftimes blessed thy silent visitation on the murky moors, or in the horrible shadowy glens? Oh woe, woe, my beautiful Toxilides, the hunter of Arcadia, is no more! Alas! ye misty uplands of Arcadia, ye will feel his elastic tread no more! Ye beautiful fields, where Ladon ripples with his willowy screen, ye cool brown pools of Ladon, sheltered by the broad-leaved plane, which were the bath of those beautiful limbs, he can come to you no more. He is gone to hunt in the fields of the blessed. Him will the bridal feasts, and the dances of the damsels, and the festal sacrifices of Orchomenos behold no more. Oh! woe is me, woe is me for Toxilides, for Toxilides!" Then the brother made signs to the attendants that they should

remove her; and he set fire to the pile. For two hours there was a deep, dread silence, and the attendants came forward, and slaked the hot, thirsty ashes with red wine.

I turned away, and wandered towards a little temple, surrounded with plane-trees. It was close to the southern gate of the city, and the grove seemed to be a sort of park for the inhabitants of Iero. On a little grassy opening were a band of merry-hearted Athenian children, busy in the dance, and chiding each other with pretty gibes; for they were representing in the woven figures of the dance the mystic wanderings of the island of Delos, driven restlessly upon the waters; and they kept ever blaming one another for inaccuracies; and some old men sat by much pleased, and smiling grave smiles; and, when they chided each other, the children, the little girls especially, would leave the dance and throng round one of the old men, and ask him if it were not so. Yet did they not permit him to be judge; for they all spoke at once and perplexed him with their quick prattle, and, because he did not speak nor understand, they chided him for his old age gently, and laughed at him, and began dancing round him, and then ran away. And the old man sat still upon the thymy bank, and was more pleased than ever.

Some distance beyond, on the steps of a low temple, were two boys and a little girl, whom from

their dress I knew to be Spartans. At a distance were a number of Laconian maidens, practising the Caryatic dance. It was a beautiful sight to see. A tall damsel stood, as motionless as a statue, with a bushy wreath of sedge around her temples, supporting on her head with both her hands a basket full of cakes and flowers. It seemed strange that any living thing should be so utterly without motion as she was; and yet the wonderful grace of her attitude did not allow her stillness to be without beauty and life. Around her were a number of maidens, with their garments gathered up and clasped, and their hands lifted up as though they were bearing baskets, and yet they bore none; and they moved around their motionless companion in a graceful and stately dance, going in and out as though they were twisting a flower-wreath. The two boys and the little girl upon the temple-steps were watching them. Why is it, Anaxandridas," said one of the boys, "that you have been so sad of late, and keep apart?" "Ah, Pheidippus," replied he, "you know not what it is to be left when your sister marries. She and I were ever together. We did all things together, and she was free to go with me wherever I chose; but now that she is married she may not come much into public, and I am alone." "But oh! how happy she must be," said Eudocia, "how very, very happy! She can go about commanding her attendants like a queen, and, if she pleases, she can sit in the portico

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