which was set up in the Pompeion. Anytus in exile, entering Heraclea, was warned out of town that very day.

The Athenians have had the same experience not only in Socrates's case, but with many others. Indeed, it is stated that they fined Homer as a madman, and adjudged Tyrtæus to be crazy. Euripides reproves them in the "Palamedes," saying

"Ye have slain, ye have slain the all-wise, the harmless nightingale of the Muses."

That is so. But Philochorus says Euripides died before Socrates. Socrates and Euripides were both disciples of Anaxagoras. It appears to me, too, that Socrates did talk on natural philosophy. In fact, Xenophon says so, though he states that Socrates held discourse only upon moral questions. Plato indeed, in the "Apology," mentioning Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers, himself says of them things whereof Socrates denies any knowledge; yet it is all áscribed to Socrates.

Aristotle states that a certain mage from Syria came to Athens, and among other prophecies concerning Socrates foretold that his death would be a violent one.

The following verses upon him are our own:

Drink, in the palace of Zeus, O Socrates, seeing that truly
Thou by a god wert called wise, who is wisdom itself.
Foolish Athenians, who to thee offered the potion of hemlock,
Through thy lips themselves draining the cup to the dregs!

EXAMPLES OF GREEK WIT AND WISDOM.

BIAS.

The ves

ONCE he was on a voyage with some impious men. sel was overtaken by a storm, and they began to call upon the gods for aid. But Bias said, "Be silent, so they may not discover that you are aboard our ship!"

He declared it was pleasanter to decide a dispute between his enemies than between friends. "For of two friends," he explained, "one is sure to become my enemy; but of two enemies I make one friend."

PLATO.

It is said Socrates, in a dream, seemed to be holding on his knees a cygnet, which suddenly grew wings and flew aloft, singing sweetly. Next day Plato came to him; and Socrates said he was the bird.

It is told that Plato, once seeing a man playing at dice, reproved him. "The stake is but a trifle," said the other. "Yes, but," responded Plato, "the habit is no trifle."

Once when Xenocrates came into Plato's house, the latter bade him scourge his slave for him, explaining that he could not do it himself, because he was angry. Again he said to one of his slaves, "You would have had a beating if I were not angry."

ARISTIPPUS.

Dionysius once asked him why it is that the philosophers are seen at rich men's doors, not the rich men at the doors of the sages. Aristippus replied, "Because the wise realize what they lack, but the rich do not." On a repetition of the taunt on another occasion he retorted, "Yes, and physicians are seen at sick men's doors; yet none would choose to be the patient rather than the leech!"

Once when overtaken by a storm on a voyage to Corinth, he was badly frightened. Somebody said to him, "We ordinary folk are not afraid, but you philosophers play the coward." "Yes," was his reply, " we are not risking the loss of any such wretched life as yours."

Some one reproached him for his extravagance in food. He answered, "If you could buy these same things for threepence, would n't you do it?"-"Oh yes."-"Why, then, 't is not I who am too fond of the luxurious food, but you that are over-fond of your money!"

ARISTOTLE.

When asked, "What is Hope?" he answered, "The dream of a man awake." Asked what grows old quickest, he replied, "Gratitude." When told that some one had slandered him in his absence, he said, "He may beat me too-in my absence!" Being asked how much advantage the educated have over the ignorant, he replied, "As much as the living over the dead."

Some one asked him why we spend much time in the society of the beautiful. "That," he said, "is a proper question for a blind man!" [Cf. Emerson's "Rhodora."]

Once being asked how we should treat our friends, he said, "As we would wish them to treat us." Asked what a friend is, he answered," One soul abiding in two bodies."

THEOPHRASTUS.

To a man who at a feast was persistently silent, he remarked, "If you are ignorant, you are acting wisely; if you are intelligent, you are behaving foolishly."

DEMETRIUS.

It was a saying of his that to friends in prosperity we should go when invited, but to those in misfortune unbidden.

When told that the Athenians had thrown down his statues, he answered, "But not my character, for which they erected them."

ANTISTHENES.

Some one asked him what he gained from philosophy. He replied, "The power to converse with myself.”

He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were horses. When they thought that irrational, he said, "But certainly your generals are not such because they have learned anything, but simply because you have elected them!"

DIOGENES.

He used to say that when in the course of his life he saw pilots, and physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the most sensible of animals; but when he saw interpreters of dreams, and soothsayers, and those who paid attention to them, and those puffed up by fame or wealth, he believed no creature was sillier than man.

Some said to him, "You are an old man. Take life easy now." He replied, "And if I were running the long-distance race, should I when nearing the goal slacken, and not rather exert myself?"

When he saw a child drink out of his hands, he took the cup out of his wallet and flung it away, saying, " A child has beaten me in simplicity."

He used to argue thus, "All things belong to the gods. The wise are the friends of the gods. The goods of friends are common property. Therefore all things belong to the wise."

To one who argued that motion was impossible, he made no answer, but rose and walked away.

When the Athenians urged him to be initiated into the Mys

teries, assuring him that in Hades those who were initiated have the front seats, he replied, "It is ludicrous, if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are to abide in the mud, and some ignoble wretches who are initiated are to dwell in the Isles of the Blest!"

Plato made the definition "Man is a two-footed featherless animal," and was much praised for it. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into his school, saying, "This is Plato's man!" So the addition was made to the definition, "with broad nails."

When a man asked him what was the proper hour for lunch, he said, "If you are rich, when you please; if you are poor, when you can get it."

He used often to shout aloud that an easy life had been given' by the gods to men, but they had covered it from sight in their search for honey-cakes and perfumes and such things.

The musician who was always left alone by his hearers he greeted with "Good morning, cock!" When the other asked him the reason, he said, "Because your music starts everybody up."

When an exceedingly superstitious man said to him, "With one blow I will break your head!" he retorted, "And with a sneeze at your left side I will make you tremble."

When asked what animal had the worst bite, he said, "Of wild beasts the sycophant; and of tame creatures the flatterer." Being asked when was the proper time to marry, he responded, "For young men, not yet; and for old men, not at all.”

When he was asked what sort of wine he enjoyed drinking, he answered, "Another man's." [Of a different temper was Dante, who knew too well "how salt the bread of others tastes!"]

Some one advised him to hunt up his runaway slave. But he replied, "It is ridiculous if Manes lives without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot without Manes."

When asked why men give to beggars, but not to philosophers, he said, "Because they expect themselves to become lame and blind; but philosophers, never!"

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ISAAC DISRAELI.

DISRAELI, ISAAC, an English writer; born at Enfield, near London, in 1766; died in 1848. His father, a Venetian, moved to England in 1748. Isaac was intended for commercial pursuits, and he was sent to a college at Amsterdam, from which he returned at the age of eighteen, prepared to publish a poem against commerce. His parents then sent him to travel in France. He spent much of the time in libraries and with literary men, and on his return, in 1789, published a satire, "On the Abuse of Satire." Through the influence of Mr. Pye, the elder Disraeli was persuaded to cease opposing the literary tastes of his son, who, in 1790, produced a "Defence of Poetry," of which he afterward destroyed all the copies he could obtain. In 1791-1834 he published "The Curiosities of Literature," in six volumes. "Miscellanies, or Literary Recreations," appeared in 1796. This work was followed by "Vaurien, or Sketches of the Times" (1797); "Romances," a volume of prose tales (1799); "Narrative Poems" (1803); "Flimflams, or the Life and Errors of my Uncle and the Amours of my Aunt" (1805); "Despotism, or the Fall of the Jesuits," a novel (1811); "The Calamities of Authors" (1812-13); "The Quarrels of Authors" (1814); and "The Literary Character, or the History of Men of Genius" (1795). "The Life and Reign of Charles I." (1828-31) gained for him from Oxford the degree of D. C. L. A selection from his manuscripts was published in 1841 under the title of "The Amenities of Literature."

PALINGENESIS.

(From "Curiosities of Literature.")

NEVER was a philosophical imagination more beautiful than that exquisite Palingenesis, as it has been termed from the Greek, or a re-generation or rather, the apparitions of animals, and plants. Shoot, Kircher, Gaffarel, Borelli, Digby, and the whole of that admirable school, discovered in the ashes of plants their primitive forms, which were again raised up by the force of heat. Nothing, they say, perishes in nature; all is but a con