"Happier shalt thou be, nor less glorious, than even she, the truly beloved, for whose return to the distaff and the lyre the portals of Tænarus flew open. In the woody dells of Ismarus, and when she bathed among the swans of Strymon, the nymphs called her Eurydicè. Thou shalt behold that fairest and that fondest one hereafter. But first thou must go unto the land of the lotos, where famine never cometh, and where alone the works of man are immortal.' "O my child! the undeceiving Fates have uttered this. Other powers have visited me, and have strengthened my heart with dreams and visions. We shall meet again, my Rhodopè in shady groves and verdant meadows, and we shall sit by the side of those who loved us."

He was rising: I threw my arms about his neck, and, before I would let him go, I made him promise to place me, not by the side, but between them; for I thought of her who had left us. At that time there were but two, O Æsop!

You ponder you are about to remove my assurance in having thus repeated my own praises. I would have omitted some of the words, only that it might have disturbed the measure and cadences, and have put me out. They are the very words my dearest father sang; and they are the last. Yet, shame upon me! the nurse (the same who stood listening near, who attended me into this country) could remember them more perfectly: it is from her I have learned them since; she often sings them, even by herself.

Esop. So shall others. There is much both in them and in thee to render them memorable.

Rhodope. Who flatters now?

Esop. Flattery often runs beyond Truth, in a hurry to embrace her; but not here. The dullest of mortals, seeing and hearing thee, would never misinterpret the prophecy of the Fates.

If, turning back, I could overpass the vale of years, and could stand on the mountain top, and could look again far before me at the bright ascending morn, we would enjoy the prospect together; we would walk along the summit. hand in hand, O Rhodopè! and we would only sigh at last when we found ourselves below with others.

ANACREON AND POLYCRATES

POLYCRATES. Embrace me, my brother poet.

Anacreon. What have you written, Polycrates?

Polycrates. Nothing. But invention is the primary part of us; and the mere finding of a brass ring in the belly of a dogfish has afforded me a fine episode in royalty. You could not have made so much out of it.

Anacreon. I have heard various stories this morning about the matter: and, to say the truth, my curiosity led me hither.

Polycrates. It was thus. I ordered my cook to open, in the presence of ten or twelve witnesses, a fat mullet, and to take out of it an emerald ring, which I had laid aside from the time when, as you may remember, I felt some twitches of the gout in my knuckle.

Anacreon. The brass ring was really found in a fish some time ago: might not a second seem suspicious? And with what object is this emerald one extracted from such another mine?

Polycrates. To prove the constancy and immutability of my fortune. It is better for a prince to be fortunate than wise people know that his fortune may be communicated, his wisdom not; and, if it could, nobody would take it who could as readily carry off a drachma. In fact, to be fortunate is to be powerful, and not only without the danger of it, but without the displeasure.

Anacreon. Ministers are envied, princes never; because envy can exist there only where something (as people think) may be raised or destroyed. You were proceeding very smoothly with your reflections, Polycrates; but, with all their profundity, are you unaware that mullets do not eat such things?

Polycrates. True; the people, however, swallow anything; and, the further out of the course of nature the action is, the greater name for good fortune, or rather for the favor of Divine providence, shall I acquire.

Anacreon. Is that the cook yonder?

Polycrates.

same gifts.

Yes; and he also has had some share of the I have rewarded him with an Attic talent: he seems to be laying the gold pieces side by side, or in lines and quincunxes, just as if they were so many dishes.

Anacreon. I go to him and see.- By Jupiter! my friend, you have made no bad kettle of fish of it to-day. The fellow does not hear me. Let us hope, Polycrates, that it may not break in turning out. If your cook was remunerated so magnificently, what must you have done for the fisherman!

Polycrates. He was paid the price of his fish.

Anacreon. Royally said and done! Your former plan was more extensive. To feign that a brazen ring was the ring of Gyges is indeed in itself no great absurdity; but to lay claim to the kingdom of Lydia by the possession of it was extravagant. Croesus is unwarlike and weak, confident and supercilious; and you had prepared the minds of his officers by your liberality, not to mention the pity and sorrow we put together over our wine, ready to pour it forth on the bleeding hearts of his subjects treated so ungenerously for their fidelity. Yet your own people might require, at least once a year, the proof of your invisibility in public by putting on the brazen ring.

Polycrates. I had devised as much; nothing is easier than an optical deception, at the distance that kings on solemn occasions keep from the people. A cloud of incense rising from under the floor through several small apertures, and other contrivances were in readiness. But I abandoned my first design, and thought of conquering Lydia instead of claiming it from inheritance. For the ring of a fisherman would be too impudent a fabrication, in the claim of a kingdom or even of a village, and my word upon other occasions might be doubted. Croesus is superstitious; there are those about him who will persuade him not to contend with a man so signally under the protection of the gods. Anacreon. Cannot you lay aside all ideas of invasion, and rest quiet and contented here?

Polycrates. No man, O Anacreon, can rest anywhere quiet in his native country, who has deprived his fellow-citizens of their liberties. Contented are they only who have taken

nothing from another; and few even of those. As, by eating much habitually, we render our bodies by degrees capacious of more and uncomfortable without it, so, after many

acquisitions, we think new ones necessary. Hereditary kings invade each other's dominions from the feelings of children, the love of having and of destroying; their education being always bad, and their intellects for the most part low and narrow. But we who have great advantages over them in our mental faculties, these having been constantly exercised and exerted, and in our knowledge of men, wherein the least foolish of them are quite deficient, find wars and civil tumults absolutely needful to our stability and repose.

Anacreon. By Hercules! you people in purple are very like certain seafowls I saw in my voyage from Teios hither. In fine weather they darted upward and downward, sidelong and circuitously, and fished and screamed as if all they seized and swallowed was a torment to them: again, when it blew a violent gale, they appeared to sit perfectly at their ease, buoyant upon the summit of the

waves.

Polycrates. After all, I cannot be thought to have done any great injury to my friends, the citizens of Samos. It is true I have taken away what you ingenious men call their liberties: but have you never, my friend Anacreon, snatched from a pretty girl a bracelet or locket, or other such trifle?

Anacreon.

lent.

Not without her permission, and some equiva

Polycrates. I likewise have obtained the consent of the people, and have rendered them a great deal more than an equivalent. Formerly they called one another the most opprobrious names in their assemblies, and sometimes even fought there; now they never do. I entertained from the very beginning so great a regard for them, that I punished one of my brothers with death and the other with banishment, for attempting to make divisions among them, and for impeding the measures I undertook to establish unanimity and order. My father had consented to bear alone all the toils of government; and filial piety induced me to

imitate his devotion to the commonwealth. The people had assembled to celebrate the festival of Juno, and had crowded the avenues of her temple so unceremoniously and indecorously, that I found it requisite to slay a few hundreds to her glory. King Lygdamus of Naxos lent me his assistance in this salutary operation, well knowing that the cause of royalty in all countries, being equally sacred, should be equally secure.

Anacreon. My sweet Polycrates! do not imagine that I, or any wise man upon earth, can be interested in the fate of a nation that yields to the discretion of one person. But pray avoid those excesses which may subject the Graces to the Tempests. Let people live in peace and plenty, for your own sake; and go to war then only when beauteous slaves are wanting. Even then it is cheaper to buy them of the merchant, taking care that at every importation you hire a philosopher or poet to instruct them in morality and religion. The one will demonstrate that obedience is a virtue: the other, that it is a pleasure. If age stimulates the senses, or if youth is likely to return (as the ring did), not a syllable can I add against the reasonableness of conquests to assuage the wants of either. Polycrates. The people in all state of activity: for men in grow restive by standing still. to be patted, ridden, and whipped. The riding is the essential thing; the patting and whipping are accessories, and few are very careful or expert in timing them.

countries must be kept in a cities, and horses in stables, It is the destination of both

Anacreon. In courts, where silliness alone escapes suspicion, we must shake false lights over the shallows, or we shall catch nothing. But, O Polycrates! I am not in the court of a prince: I am in the house of a friend. I might flatter you, if flattery could make you happier; but, as you have neglected nothing which could render my abode with you delightful, I would omit no precaution, no suggestion, which may secure and prolong my blessings. Do not believe that every poet is dishonest, because most are. Homer was not; Solon is not: I doubt at times whether I myself am, in despite of your inquisitive eye. My opinion of your wisdom is only shaken by your assumption of royalty, since I cannot think