escape most ingeniously from the penalty of death by pleading so appropriately, as we shall see immediately.

We had spent plenty of time on the Acropolis, the glory of the Grecian art-the depository the most splendid which human genius has ever produced in architecture and in sculpture. We had examined the ruins of its prime ornament, THE PARTHENON, or virgin temple of Minerva, within which was the masterpiece of the art of statuary by Phidias. Minerva in ivory, thirty-nine feet in height, and entirely covered with pure gold, to the value of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling. From this commanding position we had gazed on the other scenes on the plain below, sacred in the eyes of posterity by the classical associations to which they gave rise. The place of the Academy, according to tradition, where Plato taught, was pointed out, about three quarters of a mile to the north of the town. The place of the Lyceum, where Aristotle diffused the light of science, and which from him became the seat of the Academic School, was full in view, as supposed to be on the north side of the city, beyond the river Ilissus. Near it was seen the locality of the Cynic School: the alleged place of the Portico, called Pæcile, where Zeno lectured; and the garden within the walls, where Epicurus probably taught, were not forgotten in this bird's-eye view of Athens. The Prytaneum, or the senate-house, the Pnyx, or forum, in which the sovereign people of Athens met to deliberate, were carefully picked up by the keen eye of curiosity, and by the help of the keeper of the place, who evidently felt a pride and a pleasure in directing our attention to everything we were so desirous to notice. At last we inquired for the hill of Areopagus; but a gloom came over his countenance; and, after some apparent meditation, he shook his head, as if he had never heard of the locality. We knew that he could not be ignorant of so celebrated a place, and we tried to put the question once more in the most classical Greek we could

speak. But again we failed to make ourselves understood, and was about to give up the effort in despair, when we began to point our finger to one of the rocky eminences below, and asked if that was the Areopagus. He answered, "Areopagus," with a loud, a long, and strong emphasis on the alpha. We looked so earnestly on the sacred spot that we felt as if we could have thrown ourselves down upon it. The spot where St. Paul preached with power-on that throne of eloquence where Demosthenes harangued, and on that judgmentseat where Socrates sat, as if he had been a criminal, in silent submission, where his enemies accused, and his judges condemned him to drink the poisonous cup. We left the Acropolis with a mixture of reluctance and intense anxiety, and passing by the Agora, now silent and solitary, but in the times of St. Paul so crowded and noisy, and with our heart fluttering like a bird just imprisoned in a cage, we ascended the Areopagus immediately from the Agora by steps hewn out of the rock-those very steps by which the judges, the orators, the clients, the criminals, the philosophers, and the citizens were wont to crowd up to this the hill of Mars, on many a great occasion in days of old, thousands of years since. It is but a little rock, and a small platform, with no aspect of its own to interest an ignorant traveller in the least degree. The steps, sixteen in number, are but rudely cut out of the limestone rock, and the seats of the judges, who sat in the open air, are but coarsely hewn. At the top of the steps, on the level of the hill, there is a rude bench of stone excavated in the rock, forming three sides of a quadrangle facing the south. This is supposed to have been the tribunal. On the east side of this stone bench is a rude block of stone, and on the west side of it there is another similar in every respect. From very early times the one of these stones seems to haye been assigned to the accuser, and the other to the criminal, in the cause about to be tried in court. But no indication seems to have been transmitted either by Euri

pides or Pausanias, which was the stone of the accuser, and which that of the accused. The traveller who is desirous to ascertain the exact spot on which St. Paul may have stood on this interesting occasion, finds himself therefore on the horns of a little dilemma, neither of which he feels himself competent to choose. But he may rest assured in the perfect certainty that this is the hill of Mars, the Areopagus-the most impressive court of justice from time immemorial—a spot regarded by the Athenians, and Normans too, with superstitious reverence, with which the dread recollections of four thousand years have been associated, and the steps of which every solitary traveller mounts with an interest somewhat awful. On reaching the top of the temple of Mars, which once stood on the southern brow of the eminence immediately above the Agora, we thought not of the Eponyme, or of the statue of Demosthenes; we cared not for the sanctuary of the Furies in the broken cliff of the rock immediately below the judge's seat; we remembered not at all the legendary trial of Mars, which gave to the place the name mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, Mars' hill. We never thought that the innocent and inoffensive Socrates was here arraigned and condemned. But the grand absorbing idea which filled our mind was the indisputable fact that we had reached the very spot where St. Paul made his most magnificent defence where he excelled the greatest in oratory, and where he was surrounded by the most acute, and learned, and philosophic audience he ever addressed. Confined as the top of this celebrated craggy lump of coarse unpolished and impure marble is, the curious antiquary from the utmost bounds of western Europe, and from the isles afar off, can with perfect safety narrow the locality still more; namely, to the south-east angle of the small area at the top of the stone steps of the stair in the midst of the hill. Nay, more, pointing to one of two raised rough blocks, he can say with much probability, here or there is the

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identical spot where St. Paul spoke thus:-" Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them." (Acts xvii. 22-34.)

We are inclined to believe that the Athenians meant something more serious against St. Paul on this occasion than merely to gratify their curiosity by hearing what the babbler would say next as to the mysteries of his religion.