No More Learning

But never have I known a woe like this.
For other ills I bore full patiently,
But as for dear Orestes, my sweet charge,
Whom from his mother I received and nursed
And then the shrill cries rousing me o' nights,
And many and unprofitable toils
For me who bore them. For one needs must rear
The heedless infant like an animal,
(How can it else be ? ) as his humor serve
For while a child is yet in swaddling clothes,
It speaketh not, if either hunger comes,
Or passing thirst, or lower calls of need;
And children's stomach works its own content.
And I, though I foresaw this, call to mind,
How I was cheated, washing swaddling clothes,
And nurse and laundress did the selfsame work.
I then with these my double handicrafts,
Brought up Orestes for his father dear;
And now, woe's me! I learn that he is dead,
And go to fetch the man that mars this house;
And gladly will he hear these words of mine.
From Plumptre's Translation of The Libation-Pourers. )
THE DECREE OF ATHENA
H
?
EAR ye my statute, men of Attica -
Ye who of bloodshed judge this primal cause;
Yea, and in future age shall Ægeus's host
Revere this court of jurors. This the hill
Of Ares, seat of Amazons, their tent,
What time 'gainst Theseus, breathing hate, they came,
Waging fierce battle, and their towers upreared,
A counter-fortress to Acropolis ;-
To Ares they did sacrifice, and hence
This rock is titled Areopagus.
Here then shall sacred Awe, to Fear allied,
By day and night my lieges hold from wrong,
Save if themselves do innovate my laws,
If thou with mud, or influx base, bedim
The sparkling water, nought thou'lt find to drink.
Nor Anarchy, nor Tyrant's lawless rule
Commend I to my people's reverence;-
Nor let them banish from their city Fear;


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200
ÆSOP
For who 'mong men, uncurbed by fear, is just ?
Thus holding Awe in seemly reverence,
A bulwark for your State shall ye possess,
A safeguard to protect your city walls,
Such as no mortals otherwhere can boast,
Neither in Scythia, nor in Pelops's realm.
Behold! This Court august, untouched by bribes,
Sharp to avenge, wakeful for those who sleep,
Establish I, a bulwark to this land.
This charge, extending to all future time,
I give my lieges. Meet it as ye rise,
Assume the pebbles, and decide the cause,
Your oath revering. All hath now been said.
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of (The Eumenides.
ÆSOP
(Seventh Century B. C. )
BY HARRY THURSTON PECK
an
PIKE Homer, the greatest of the world's epic poets, Æsop
(Æsopus), the most famous of the world's fabulists, has
been regarded by certain scholars as a wholly mythical
personage. The many improbable stories that are told about him
gain some credence for this theory, which is set forth in detail by
the Italian scholar Vico, who says:-"Æsop, re-
garded philosophically, will be found not to have
been an actually existing man, but rather
abstraction representing a class,”— in other words,
merely a convenient invention of the later Greeks,
who ascribed to him all the fables of which they
could find no certain author.
The only narrative upon which the ancient
writers are in the main agreed represents Æsop
as living in the seventh century before Christ. As
with Homer, so with Æsop, several cities of Asia
Æsop
Minor claimed the honor of having been his birth-
place. Born a slave and hideously ugly, his keen
wit led his admiring master to set him free; after which he trav-
eled, visiting Athens, where he is said to have told his fable of
King Log and King Stork to the citizens who were complaining of
the rule of Pisistratus. Still later, having won the favor of King


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ÆSOP
201
Cræsus of Lydia, he was sent by him to Delphi with a gift of
money for the citizens of that place; but in the course of a dispute
as to its distribution, he was slain by the Delphians, who threw him
over a precipice.
The fables that bore his name seem not to have been committed
by him to writing, but for a long time were handed down from gen-
eration to generation by oral tradition; so that the same tables are
sometimes found quoted in slightly different forms, and we hear of
men learning them in conversation rather than from books. They
were, however, universally popular. Socrates while in prison amused
himself by turning some of them into verse. Aristophanes cites
them in his plays; and he tells how certain suitors once tried to win
favor of a judge by repeating to him some of the amusing stories of
Æsop. The Athenians even erected a statue in his honor. At a
later period, the fables were gathered together and published by the
Athenian statesman and orator, Demetrius Phalereus, in B. C. 320,
and were versified by Babrius (of uncertain date), whose collection is
the only one in Greek of which any substantial portion still sur-
vives. They were often translated by the Romans, and the Latin
version by Phædrus, the freedman of Augustus Cæsar, is still pre-
served and still used as a school-book. Forty-two of them are like-
wise found in a Latin work by one Avianus, dating from the fifth
century after Christ. During the Middle Ages, when much of the
classical literature had been lost or forgotten, Æsop, who was called
by the medievals "Isopet,” was still read in various forms; and in
modern times he has served as a model for a great number of imita-
tions, of which the most successful are those in French by Lafon-
taine and those in English by John Gay.
Whether or not such a person as Æsop ever lived, and whether
or not he actually narrated the fables that are ascribed to him, it is
certain that he did not himself invent them, but merely gave them
currency in Greece; for they can be shown to have existed long
before his time, and in fact to antedate even the beginnings of Hel-
lenic civilization. With some changes of form they are found in the
oldest literature of the Chinese; similar stories are preserved on the
inscribed Babylonian bricks; and an Egyptian papyrus of about the
year 1200 B. C. gives the fable of The Lion and the Mouse' in its
finished form. Other Æsopic apologues are essentially identical with
the Jatakas or Buddhist stories of India, and occur also in the great
Sanskrit story-book, the Panchatantra,' which is the very oldest
monument of Hindu literature.
The so-called Æsopic Fables are in fact only a part of the primi-
tive folk-lore, that springs up in prehistoric times, and passes from
country to country and from race to race by the process of popular


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202
ÆSOP
an
story-telling. They reached Greece, undoubtedly through Egypt and
Persia, and even in their present form they still retain certain Ori-
ental, or at any rate non-Hellenic elements, such as the introduction
of Eastern animals, — the panther, the peacock, and the ape. They
represent the beginnings of conscious literary effort, when man first
tried to enforce some maxim of practical wisdom and to teach some
useful truth through the fascinating medium of a story. The Fable
embodies a half-unconscious desire to give concrete form to
abstract principle, and a childish love for the picturesque and strik-
ing, which endows rocks and stones and trees with life, and gives
the power of speech to animals.
That beasts with the attributes of human beings should figure in
these tales involves, from the standpoint of primeval man, only a
very slight divergence from probability. In nothing, perhaps, has
civilization so changed us as in our mental attitude toward animals.
It has fixed a great gulf between us and them - a gulf far greater
than that which divided them from our first ancestors. In the early
ages of the world, when men lived by the chase, and gnawed the
raw flesh of their prey, and slept in lairs amid the jungle, the purely
animal virtues were the only ones they knew and exercised. They
adored courage and strength, and swiftness and endurance. They
respected keenness of scent and vision, and admired cunning. The
possession of these qualities was the very condition of existence, and
they valued them accordingly; but in each one of them they found
their equals, and in fact their superiors, among the brutes. A lion
was stronger than the strongest man. The hare was swifter. The
eagle was more keen-sighted. The fox was more cunning. Hence,
so far from looking down upon the animals from the remotely supe-
rior height that a hundred centuries of civilization have erected for
us, the primitive savage looked up to the beast, studied his ways,
copied him, and went to school to him. The man, then, was not in
those days the lord of creation, and the beast was not his servant;
but they were almost brothers in the subtle sympathy between them,
like that which united Mowgli, the wolf-nursed shikarri, and his hairy
brethren, in that most weirdly wonderful of all Mr. Kipling's inven-
tions - the one that carries us back, not as his other stories do, to
the India of the cities and the bazaars, of the supercilious tourist and
the sleek Babu, but to the older India of unbroken jungle, darkling
at noonday through its green mist of tangled leaves, and haunted by
memories of the world's long infancy when man and brute crouched
close together on the earthy breast of the great mother.
The Æsopic Fables, then, are the oldest representative that we
have of the literary art of primitive man. The charm that they have
always possessed springs in part from their utter simplicity, their


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1
203
ÆSOP
naiveté, and their directness; and in part from the fact that their
teachings are the teachings of universal experience, and therefore
appeal irresistibly to the consciousness of every one who hears them,
whether he be savage or scholar, child or sage. They are the liter-
ary antipodes of the last great effort of genius and art working upon
the same material, and found in Mr. Kipling's Jungle Books. The
Fables show only the first stirrings of the literary instinct, the Jungle
Stories bring to bear the full development of the fictive art, — creative
imagination, psychological insight, brilliantly picturesque description,
and the touch of one who is a daring master of vivid language; so
that no better theme can be given to a student of literary history
than the critical comparison of these two allied forms of composition,
representing as they do the two extremes of actual development.
The best general account in English of the origin of the Greek
Fable is that of Rutherford in the introduction to his Babrius?
(London, 1883). An excellent special study of the history of the
Æsopic Fables is that by Joseph Jacobs in the first volume of his
Æsop' (London, 1889). The various ancient accounts of Æsop's life
are collected by Simrock in 'Æsops Leben' (1864). The best sci-
entific edition of the two hundred and ten fables is that of Halm
(Leipzig, 1887). Good disquisitions on their history during the Mid-
dle Ages are those of Du Méril in French (Paris, 1854) and Bruno
in German (Bamberg, 1892 ). See also the articles in the present
work under the titles Babrius,' Bidpai, John Gay, Lafontaine,
Lokman,' (Panchatantra,' Phædrus,' Reynard the Fox. '
(
(
(
(
(
H. J. Peck
(
THE FOX AND THE LION
The
W . ,
he first time the Fox saw the Lion, he fell down at his feet,
and was ready to die of fear. The second time, he took
courage and could even bear to look upon him. The third
time, he had the impudence to come up to him, to salute him,
and to enter into familiar conversation with him.
THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN
N
,
N Ass, finding the skin of a Lion, put it on; and, going into
the woods and pastures, threw all the flocks and herds into
a terrible consternation. At last, meeting his owner, he
would have frightened him also; but the good man, seeing his


## p. 204 (#230) ############################################

204
ÆSOP
long ears stick out, presently knew him, and with a good cudgel
made him sensible that, notwithstanding his being dressed in a
Lion's skin, he was really no more than an Ass.
THE ASS EATING THISTLES
AN
he
n Ass was loaded with good provisions of several sorts, which,
in time of harvest, he was carrying into the field for his
master and the reapers to dine upon. On the way
met with a fine large thistle, and being very hungry, began to
mumble it; which while he was doing, he entered into this
reflection :- How many greedy epicures would think themselves
happy, amidst such a variety of delicate viands as I now carry!
But to me this bitter, prickly thistle is more savory and relishing
than the most exquisite and sumptuous banquet. ”
THE WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
A
WOLF, clothing himself in the skin of a sheep, and getting
in among the flock, by this means took the opportunity to
devour many of them. At last the shepherd discovered
him, and cunningly fastening a rope about his neck, tied him up
to a tree which stood hard by. Some other shepherds happening
to pass that way, and observing what he was about, drew near,
and expressed their admiration at it. “What! ” says one of them,
“brother, do you make hanging of a sheep? " "No," replied the
other, “but I make hanging of a Wolf whenever I catch him,
though in the habit and garb of a sheep. ” Then he showed
them their mistake, and they applauded the justice of the exe-
cution.
THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE SNAKE
A
VILLAGER, in a frosty, snowy winter, found a Snake under a
hedge, almost dead with cold. He could not help having
a compassion for the poor creature, so brought it home,
and laid it upon the hearth, near the fire; but it had not lain
there long, before (being revived with the heat) it began to erect
itself, and fly at his wife and children, filling the whole cottage
with dreadful hissings. The Countryman heard an outcry, and
perceiving what the matter was, catched up a mattock and soon


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ÆSOP
205
dispatched him; upbraiding him at the same
same time in these
words:- “Is this, vile wretch, the reward you make to him that
saved your life? Die as you deserve; but a single death is too
good for you. "
THE BELLY AND THE MEMBERS
N FORMER days, when the Belly and the other parts of the body
enjoyed the faculty of speech, and had separate views and
designs of their own, each part, it seems, in particular for
himself, and in the name of the whole, took exception to the
conduct of the Belly, and were resolved to grant him supplies no
longer. They said they thought it very hard that he should lead
an idle, good-for-nothing life, spending and squandering away,
upon his own ungodly guts, all the fruits of their labor; and
that, in short, they were resolved, for the future, to strike off his
allowance, and let him shift for himself as well as he could. The
Hands protested they would not lift up a finger to keep him from
starving; and the Mouth wished he might never speak again if
he took in the least bit of nourishment for him as long as he
lived; and, said the Teeth, may we be rotten if ever we chew a
morsel for him for the future. This solemn league and covenant
was kept as long as anything of that kind can be kept, which
was until each of the rebel members pined away to skin and
bone, and could hold out no longer. Then they found there was
no doing without the Belly, and that, idle and insignificant as he
seemed, he contributed as much to the maintenance and welfare
of all the other parts as they did to his.
THE SATYR AND THE TRAVELER
A ,
Satyr, as he was ranging the forest in an exceeding cold,
snowy season, met with a Traveler half-starved with the
extremity of the weather. He took compassion on him,
and kindly invited him home to a warm, comfortable cave he had
in the hollow of a rock. As soon as they had entered and sat
down, notwithstanding there was a good fire in the place, the
chilly Traveler could not forbear blowing his fingers' ends. Upon
the Satyr's asking why he did so, he answered, that he did it to
warm his hands. The honest sylvan having seen little of the
world, admired a man who was master of so valuable a quality as


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206
ÆSOP
that of blowing heat, and therefore was resolved to entertain him
in the best manner he could. He spread the table before him
with dried fruits of several sorts; and produced a remnant of
cold wine, which as the rigor of the season made very proper, he
mulled with some warm spices, infused over the fire, and pre-
sented to his shivering guest.
But this the Traveler thought fit
to blow likewise; and upon the Satyr's demanding a reason why
he blowed again, he replied, to cool his dish. This second an-
swer provoked the Satyr's indignation as much as the first had
kindled his surprise: so, taking the man by the shoulder, he
thrust him out of doors, saying he would have nothing to do
with a wretch who had so vile a quality as to blow hot and cold
with the same mouth.
THE LION AND THE OTHER BEASTS
T".
(
HE Lion and several other beasts entered into an alliance,
offensive and defensive, and were to live very sociably to-
gether in the forest. One day, having made a sort of an
excursion by way of hunting, they took a very fine, large, fat
deer, which was divided into four parts; there happening to be
then present his Majesty the Lion, and only three others. After
the division was made, and the parts were set out, his Majesty,
advancing forward some steps and pointing to one of the shares,
was pleased to declare himself after the following manner:
This I seize and take possession of as my right, which devolves
to me, as I am descended by a true, lineal, hereditary succession
from the royal family of Lion. That (pointing to the second] I
claim by, I think, no unreasonable demand; considering that all the
engagements you have with the enemy turn chiefly upon my
courage and conduct, and you very well know that wars are too
expensive to be carried on without proper supplies. Then [ nod-
ding his head toward the third] that I shall take by virtue of my
prerogative; to which, I make no question but so dutiful and
loyal a people will pay all the deference and regard that I can
desire. Now, as for the remaining part, the necessity of our
present affairs is so very urgent, our stock so low, and our credit
so impaired and weakened, that I must insist upon your granting
that, without any hesitation or demur; and hereof fail not at
your peril. ”


## p. 207 (#233) ############################################

ÆSOP
207
THE ASS AND THE LITTLE DOG
TH
,
CHE Ass, observing how great a favorite the little Dog was
with his Master, how much caressed and fondled, and fed
with good bits at every meal; and for no other reason, as
he could perceive, but for skipping and frisking about, wagging
his tail, and leaping up into his Master's lap: he was resolved to
imitate the same, and see whether such a behavior would not
procure him the same favors. Accordingly, the Master was no
sooner come home from walking about his fields and gardens,
and was seated in his easy-chair, but the Ass, who observed him,
came gamboling and braying towards him, in a very awkward
manner. The Master could not help laughing aloud at the odd
sight. But his jest was soon turned into earnest, when he felt
the rough salute of the Ass's fore-feet, who, raising himself upon
his hinder legs, pawed against his breast with a most loving air,
and would fain have jumped into his lap. The good man, terri-
fied at this outrageous behavior, and unable to endure the weight
of so heavy a beast, cried out; upon which, one of his servants
running in with a good stick, and laying on heartily upon the
bones of the poor Ass, soon convinced him that every one who
desires it is not qualified to be a favorite.
THE COUNTRY MOUSE AND THE CITY MOUSE
AN
N HONEST, plain, sensible Country Mouse is said to have
entertained at his hole one day a fine Mouse of the Town.
Having formerly been playfellows together, they were old
acquaintances, which served as an apology for the visit. How-
ever, as master of the house, he thought himself obliged to do
the honors of it in all respects, and to make as great a stranger
of his guest as he possibly could. In order to do this he set
before him a reserve of delicate gray pease and bacon, a dish of
fine oatmeal, some parings of new cheese, and, to crown all with
a dessert, a remnant of a charming mellow apple. In good man-
ners, he forbore to eat any himself, lest the stranger should not
have enough; but that he might seem to bear the other company,
sat and nibbled a piece of a wheaten straw very busily. At last,
says the spark of the town: “Old crony, give me leave to be a
little free with you: how can you bear to live in this nasty,


## p. 208 (#234) ############################################

208
ÆSOP
dirty, melancholy hole here, with nothing but woods, and mead-
ows, and mountains, and rivulets about you? Do not you prefer
the conversation of the world to the chirping of birds, and
the splendor of a court to the rude aspect of an uncultivated
desert ? Come, take my word for it, you will find it a change
for the better. Never stand considering, but away this moment.
Remember, we are not immortal, and therefore have no time to
lose. Make sure of to-day, and spend it as agreeably as you can:
you know not what may happen to-morrow. ” In short, these
and such like arguments prevailed, and his Country Acquaintance
was resolved to go to town that night. So they both set out
upon their journey together, proposing to sneak in after the close
of the evening. They did so; and about midnight made their
entry into a certain great house, where there had been an extra-
ordinary entertainment the day before, and several tit-bits, which
some of the servants had purloined, were hid under the seat of
a window. The Country Guest was immediately placed in the
midst of a rich Persian carpet: and now it was the Courtier's
turn to entertain; who indeed acquitted himself in that capacity
with the utmost readiness and address, changing the courses as
elegantly, and tasting everything first as judiciously, as any
clerk of the kitchen. The other sat and enjoyed himself like a
delighted epicure, tickled to the last degree with this new turn
of his affairs; when on a sudden, a noise of somebody opening
the door made them start from their seats, and scuttle in con-
fusion about the dining-room. Our Country Friend, in particular,
was ready to die with fear at the barking of a huge mastiff or
two, which opened their throats just about the same time, and
made the whole house echo. At last, recovering himself:-
"Well,” says he, “if this be your town-life, much good may you
do with it: give me my poor, quiet hole again, with my homely
but comfortable gray pease. ”
THE DOG AND THE WOLF
A
LEAN, hungry, half-starved Wolf happened, one moonshiny
night, to meet with a jolly, plump, well-fed Mastiff; and
after the first compliments were passed, says the Wolf:-
"You look extremely well. I protest, I think I never saw
more graceful, comely person; but how comes it about, I beseech
you, that you should live so much better than I ? I may say,
а


## p. 208 (#235) ############################################



## p. 208 (#236) ############################################


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## p. 209 (#239) ############################################

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
209
(
(C
>
without vanity, that I venture fifty times more than you do;
and yet I am almost ready to perish with hunger. ” The Dog
answered very bluntly, "Why, you may live as well, if you will
do the same for it that I do. ”. « Indeed ? what is that ? " says
he. — "Why,
“Why,” says the Dog, "only to guard the house a-nights,
and keep it from thieves. ” — "With all my heart,” replies the
“
Wolf, «for at present I have but a sorry time of it; and I
think to change my hard lodging in the woods, where I endure
rain, frost, and snow, for a warm roof over my head, and a
bellyful of good victuals, will be no bad bargain. ”—“True,"
says the Dog; "therefore you have nothing more to do but to
follow me. ” Now, as they were jogging on together, the Wolf
spied a crease in the Dog's neck, and having a strange curiosity,
could not forbear asking him what it meant. « Pooh! nothing,”
says the Dog. — “Nay, but pray – ” says the Wolf. — “Why,”
says the Dog, “if you must know, I am tied up in the daytime,
because I am a little fierce, for fear I should bite people, and
am only let loose a-nights. But this is done with design to make
me sleep a-days, more than anything else, and that I may watch
the better in the night-time; for as soon as ever the twilight
appears, out I am turned, and may go where I please. Then
my master brings me plates of bones from the table with his
own hands, and whatever scraps are left by any of the family,
all fall to my share; for you must know I am a favorite with
everybody. So you see how you are to live. Come, come along:
what is the matter with you ? ” — “No,” replied the Wolf, “I
beg your pardon: keep your happiness all to yourself. Liberty
is the word with me; and I would not be a king upon the terms
you mention. ”
»
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
(1807-1873)
T FIRST, when a
mere boy, twelve years of age,” writes the
great Swiss naturalist, "I did what most beginners do.
I
picked up whatever I could lay my hands on, and tried, by
such books and authorities as I had at my command, to find the
names of these objects. My highest ambition at that time, was to
be able to designate the plants and animals of my native country
1-14


## p. 210 (#240) ############################################

210
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
correctly by a Latin name, and to extend gradually a similar knowl-
edge in its application to the productions of other countries. This
seemed to me, in those days, the legitimate aim and proper work of
a naturalist. I still possess manuscript volumes in which I entered
the names of all the animals and plants with which I became ac-
quainted, and I well remember that I then ardently hoped to acquire
the same superficial familiarity with the whole creation. I did not
then know how much more important it is to the naturalist to under-
stand the structure of a few animals than to command the whole field
of scientific nomenclature. Since I have become a teacher, and have
watched the progress of students, I have seen that they all begin in
the same way. But how many have grown old in the pursuit, with-
out ever rising to any higher conception of the study of nature,
spending their life in the determination of species, and in extending
scientific terminology! Long before I went to the university, and
before I began to study natural history under the guidance of men
who were masters in the science during the early part of this cen-
tury, I perceived that though nomenclature and classification, as then
understood, formed an important part of the study, being, in fact, its
technical language, the study of living beings in their natural ele-
ment was of infinitely greater value. At that age— namely, about
fifteen-I spent most of the time I could spare from classical and
mathematical studies in hunting the neighboring woods and meadows
for birds, insects, and land and fresh-water shells. My room became
a little menagerie, while the stone •basin under the fountain in our
yard was my reservoir for all the fishes I could catch. Indeed, col-
lecting, fishing, and raising caterpillars, from which I reared fresh,
beautiful butterflies, were then my chief pastimes. What I know
of the habits of the fresh-water fishes of Central Europe I mostly
learned at that time; and I may add, that when afterward I obtained
access to a large library and could consult the works of Bloch and
Lacépède, the only extensive works on fishes then in existence, I
wondered that they contained so little about their habits, natural
attitudes, and mode of action, with which I was so familiar. ”
It is this way of looking at things that gives to Agassiz's writings
their literary and popular interest. He was born in Mortier, Canton
Fribourg, May 28th, 1807, the son of a clergyman, who sent his gifted
son to the Universities of Zürich, Heidelberg, and Munich, where he
acquired reputation for his brilliant powers, and entered into the
enthusiastic, intellectual, and merry student-life, taking his place in
the formal duels, and becoming known as a champion fencer. Agas-
siz was an influence in every centre that he touched; and in Munich,
his room and his laboratory, thick with clouds of smoke from the
long-stemmed German pipes, was a gathering-place for the young


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JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
21
scientific aspirants, who affectionately called it “The Little Academy. ”
At the age of twenty-two, he had published his 'Fishes of Brazil,' a
folio that brought him into immediate recognition. Cuvier, the great-
est ichthyologist of his time, to whom the first volume was dedicated,
received him as a pupil, and gave to him all the material that he
had been collecting during fifteen years for a contemplated work on
Fossil Fishes. In Paris Agassiz also won the friendship of Humboldt,
who, learning that he stood in need of money, presented him with so
generous a sum as to enable the ambitious young naturalist to work
with a free and buoyant spirit.
His practical career began in 1832, when he was installed at Neuf-
châtel, from which point he easily studied the Alps. Two years later,
after the Poissons fossiles) (Fossil Fishes) appeared, he visited Eng-
land to lecture. Then returning to his picturesque home, he applied
himself to original investigation, and through his lectures and publi-
cations won honors and degrees. His daring opinions, however,
sometimes provoked ardent discussion and angry comment.
Agassiz's passion for investigation frequently led him into dangers
that imperiled both life and limb. In the summer of 1841, for exam-
ple, he was lowered into a deep crevasse bristling with huge stalac-
tites of ice, to reach the heart of a glacier moving at the rate of
forty feet a day. While he was observing the blue bands on the
glittering ice, he suddenly touched a well of water, and only after
great difficulty made his companions understand his signal for rescue.
These Alpine experiences are well described by Mrs. Elizabeth Cary
Agassiz, and also by Edouard Desors in his Séjours dans les Gla-
ciers' (Sojourn among the Glaciers: Neufchâtel, 1844). Interesting
particulars of these glacial studies ('Études des Glaciers') were soon
issued, and Agassiz received many gifts from lovers of science,
among whom was numbered the King of Prussia. His zoölogical and
geological investigations were continued, and important works on
Fossil Mollusks, Tertiary Shells,' and Living and Fossil Echino-
derms' date from this period.
He had long desired to visit America, when he realized this wish
in 1846 by an arrangement with the Lowell Institute of Boston,
where he gave a series of lectures, afterwards repeated in various
cities. So attractive did he find the fauna and flora of America, and
so vast a field did he perceive here for his individual studies and
instruction, that he returned the following year. In 1848 the Prussian
government, which had borne the expenses of his scientific mission,
-a cruise along our Atlantic coast to study its marine life. --- released
him from further obligation that he might accept the chair of geol-
ogy in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard l'niversity. His
cruises, his explorations, and his methods, combined with his attractive


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212
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
personality, gave him unique power as a teacher; and
many of
his biographers think that of all his gifts, the ability to instruct was
the most conspicuous. He needed no text-books, for he went directly
to Nature, and did not believe in those technical, dry-as-dust terms
which lead to nothing and which are swept away by the next gener-
ation. Many noted American men of science remember the awaken-
ing influence of his laboratories in Charleston and Cambridge, his
museum at Harvard, and his summer school at Penikese Island in
Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, where natural history was studied
under ideal conditions. It was here that he said to his class :-"A
laboratory of natural history is a sanctuary where nothing profane
should be tolerated. ” Whittier has left a poem called “The Prayer
of Agassiz, describing
( The isle of Penikese
Ranged about by sapphire seas. ”
Just as he was realizing two of his ambitions, the establishment
of a great museum and a practical school of zoölogy, he died, Decem-
ber 14th, 1873, at his home in Cambridge, and was buried at Mount
Auburn beneath pine-trees sent from Switzerland, while a bowlder
from the glacier of the Aar was selected to mark his resting-place.
Agassiz was greatly beloved by his pupils and associates, and was
identified with the brilliant group — Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, and
Lowell, - each of whom has written of him. Lowell considered his
Elegy on Agassiz,' written in Florence in 1874, among his best
verses; Longfellow wrote a poem for “The Fiftieth Birthday of
Agassiz,' and Holmes A Farewell to Agassiz) on his departure for
the Andes, whose affectionate and humorous strain thus closes:-
(
« Till their glorious raid is o'er,
And they touch our ransomed shore !
Then the welcome of a nation,
With its shout of exultation,
Shall awake the dumb creation,
And the shapes of buried æons
Join the living creatures' pæans,
While the mighty megalosaurus
Leads the palæozoic chorus,
God bless the great Professor,
And the land its proud possessor,
Bless them now and evermore ! )
Numerous biographies and monographs of Agassiz exist in many
languages, a complete list of which is given in the last published
'Life of Agassiz,' by Jules Marcou (New York and London, 1896),
and also in the Life of Agassiz,' by Charles F. Holder (New York,


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JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
213
1893). Complete lists of Agassiz's works are also given in these bio-
graphies, and these titles show how versatile was his taste and how
deep and wide his research. His principal contributions to science
are in French and Latin, but his most popular books appeared in
English. These include “The Structure of Animal Life,' Methods of
Study,' (Geological Sketches,' and Journey in Brazil,' the latter
written with Mrs. Agassiz. His Contributions to the Natural History
of the United States,' planned to be in ten large books, only reached
four volumes.
In his Researches concerning Fossil Fishes,' Agassiz expressed
the views that made him a lifelong opponent of the Darwinian
theories, although he was a warm friend of Darwin. Considering
the demands upon his time as teacher, lecturer, and investigator,
the excellence not less than the amount of the great naturalist's
work is remarkable, and won such admiration that he was made a
member of nearly every scientific society in the world. One of his
favorite pastimes was deep-sea dredging, which embraced the excite-
ment of finding strange speciinens and studying their singular habits.
Of his love and gift for instructing, Mrs. Agassiz says in her
+Life(Boston, 1885): –
Teaching was a passion with him, and his power over his pupils might
be measured by his own enthusiasm. He was, intellectually as well as socially,
a democrat in the best sense. He delighted to scatter broadcast the highest
results of thought and research, and to adapt them even to the youngest and
most uninformed minds. In bis later American travels he would talk of gla-
cial phenomena to the driver of a country stage-coach among the mountains,
or to some workman splitting rock at the roadside, with as much earnestness
as if he had been discussing problems with a brother geologist; he would
take the common fisherman into his scientific confidence, telling him the inti-
mate secrets of fish-culture or fish-embryology, till the man in his turn grew
enthusiastic and began to pour out information from the stores of his own
rough and untaught habits of observation. Agassiz's general faith in the
susceptibility of the popular intelligence, however untaught, to the highest
truths of nature, was contagious, and he created or developed that in which
he believed. )
The following citations exhibit his powers of observation, and that
happy method of stating scientific facts which interests the specialist
and general reader alike.


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214
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
THE SILURIAN BEACH
From (Geological Sketches
W
ITH what interest do we look upon any relic of early
human history! The monument that tells of a civiliza-
tion whose hieroglyphic records we cannot even decipher,
the slightest trace of a nation that vanished and left no sign of
its life except the rough tools and utensils buried in the old site
of its towns or villages, arouses our imagination and excites our
curiosity. Men gaze with awe at the inscription on an ancient
Egyptian or Assyrian stone; they hold with reverential touch the
yellow parchment-roll whose dim, defaced characters record the
meagre learning of a buried nationality; and the announcement
that for centuries the tropical forests of Central America have
hidden within their tangled growth the ruined homes and tem-
ples of a past race, stirs the civilized world with a strange, deep
wonder.
To me it seems, that to look on the first land that was ever
lifted above the wasted waters, to follow the shore where the
earliest animals and plants were created when the thought of God
first expressed itself in organic forms, to hold in one's hand a bit
of stone from an old sea-beach, hardened into rock thousands of
centuries ago, and studded with the beings that once crept upon
its surface or were stranded there by some retreating wave, is
even of deeper interest to men than the relics of their own race,
for these things tell more directly of the thoughts and creative
acts of God.
The statement that different sets of animals and plants have
characterized the successive epochs is often understood as indi-
cating a difference of another kind than that which distinguishes
animals now living in different parts of the world. This is a mis-
take. They are so-called representative types all over the globe,
united to each other by structural relations and separated by
specific differences of the same kind as those that unite and sep-
arate animals of different geological periods. Take, for instance,
mud-flats or sandy shores in the same latitudes of Europe and
America: we find living on each, animals of the same structural.
character and of the same general appearance, but with certain
specific differences, as of color, size, external appendages, etc.
They represent each other on the two continents. The American
wolves, foxes, bears, rabbits, are not the same as the European,
-


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JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
215
but those of one continent are as true to their respective types as
those of the other; under a somewhat different aspect they repre-
sent the same groups of animals. In certain latitudes, or under
conditions of nearer proximity, these differences may be less
marked. It is well known that there is a great monotony of
type, not only among animals and plants but in the human races
also, throughout the Arctic regions; and some animals character-
istic of the high North reappear under such identical forms in
the neighborhood of the snow-fields in lofty mountains, that to
trace the difference between the ptarmigans, rabbits, and other
gnawing animals of the Alps, for instance, and those of the
Arctics, is among the most difficult problems of modern science.
And so is it also with the animated world of past ages: in
similar deposits of sand, mud, or lime, in adjoining regions of
the same geological age, identical remains of animals and plants
may be found; while at greater distances, but under similar cir-
cumstances, representative species may occur. In very remote
regions, however, whether the circumstances be similar or dis-
similar, the general aspect of the organic world differs greatly,
remoteness in space being thus in some measure an indication of
the degree of affinity between different faunæ. In deposits of
different geological periods immediately following each other, we
sometimes find remains of animals and plants so closely allied to
those of earlier or later periods that at first sight the specific dif-
ferences are hardly discernible. The difficulty of solving these
questions, and of appreciating correctly the differences and simi-
larities between such closely allied organisms, explains the antago-
nistic views of many naturalists respecting the range of existence
of animals, during longer or shorter geological periods; and the
superficial way in which discussions concerning the transition of
species are carried on, is mainly owing to an ignorance of the
conditions above alluded to. My own personal observation and
experience in these matters have led me to the conviction that
every geological period has had its own representatives, and that
no single species has been repeated in successive ages.
The laws regulating the geographical distribution of animals,
and their combination into distinct zoological provinces called fau-
næ, with definite limits, are very imperfectly understood as yet;
but so closely are all things linked together from the beginning
till to-day, that I am convinced we shall never find the clew
to their meaning till we carry on our investigations in the


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216
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
past and the present simultaneously. The same principle accord-
ing to which animal and vegetable life is distributed over the
surface of the earth now, prevailed in the earliest geological
periods. The geological deposits of all times have had their
characteristic fauna under various zones, their zoölogical prov.
inces presenting special combinations of animal and vegetable
life over certain regions, and their representative types repro-
ducing in different countries, but under similar latitudes, the
same groups with specific differences.
Of course, the nearer we approach the beginning of organic
life, the less marked do we find the differences to be; and for a
very obvious reason. The inequalities of the earth's surface, her
mountain-barriers protecting whole continents from the Arctic
winds, her open plains exposing others to the full force of the
polar blasts, her snug valleys and her lofty heights, her table-
lands and rolling prairies, her river-systems and her dry deserts,
her cold ocean-currents pouring down from the high North on
some of her shores, while warm ones from tropical seas carry
their softer, influence to others, - in short, all the contrasts in the
external configuration of the globe, with the physical conditions
attendant upon them, are naturally accompanied by a correspond-
ing variety in animal and vegetable life.
But in the Silurian age, when there were no elevations higher
than the Canadian hills, when water covered the face of the
earth with the exception of a few isolated portions lifted above
the almost universal ocean, how monotonous must have been the
conditions of life! And what should we expect to find on those
first shores? If we are walking on a sea-beach to-day, we do not
look for animals that haunt the forests or roam over the open
plains, or for those that live in sheltered valleys or in inland
regions or on mountain-heights. We look for Shells, for Mussels
and Barnacles, for Crabs, for Shrimps, for Marine Worms, for
Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, and we may find here and there a
fish stranded on the sand or strangled in the sea-weed.
remember, then, that in the Silurian period the world, so far as
it was raised above the ocean, a beach; and let us seek
there for such creatures as God has made to live on seashores,
and not belittle the Creative work, or say that He first scattered
the seeds of life in meagre or stinted measure, because we do
not find air-breathing animals when there was no fitting atmo-
sphere to feed their lungs, insects with no terrestrial plants to
Let us
was


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JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
217
live upon, reptiles without marshes, birds without trees, cattle
without grass,— all things, in short, without the essential con-
ditions for their existence.
I have spoken of the Silurian beach as if there were but one,
not only because I wished to limit my sketch, and to attempt
at least to give it the vividness of a special locality, but also
because a single such shore will give us as good an idea of the
characteristic fauna of the time as if we drew our material from
a wider range.
There are, however, a great number of parallel
ridges belonging to the Silurian and Devonian periods, running
from east to west, not only through the State of New York, but
far beyond, through the States of Michigan and Wisconsin into
Minnesota; one may follow nine or ten such successive shores in
unbroken lines, from the neighborhood of Lake Champlain to the
Far West. They have all the irregularities of modern seashores,
running up to form little bays here, and jutting out in promonto-
ries there.
Although the early geological periods are more legible in
North America, because they are exposed over such extensive
tracts of land, yet they have been studied in many other parts
of the globe. In Norway, in Germany, in France, in Russia, in
Siberia, in Kamchatka, in parts of South America, - in short,
wherever the civilization of the white race has extended, Silurian
deposits have been observed, and everywhere they bear the same
testimony to a profuse and varied creation. The earth was
teeming then with life as now; and in whatever corner of its
surface the geologist finds the old strata, they hold a dead fauna
as numerous as that which lives and moves above it. Nor do we
find that there was any gradual increase or decrease of any
organic forms at the beginning and close of the successive
periods. On the contrary, the opening scenes of every chapter
in the world's history have been crowded with life, and its last
leaves as full and varied as its first.
VOICES
From Methods of Study in Natural History)
T
HERE is a chapter in the Natural History of animals that has
hardly been touched upon as yet, and that will be especially
interesting with reference to families. The voices of ani-
mals have a family character not to be mistaken. All the


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218
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
was
Canida bark and howl! - the fox, the wolf, the dog, have the
same kind of utterance, though on a somewhat different pitch.
All the bears growl, from the white bear of the Arctic snows to
the small black bear of the Andes. All the cats meow, from our
quiet fireside companion to the lions and tigers and panthers of
the forests and jungle. This last may seem a strange assertion;
but to any one who has listened critically to their sounds and
analyzed their voices, the roar of the lion is but a gigantic meow,
bearing about the same proportion to that of a cat as its stately
and majestic form does to the smaller, softer, more peaceful
aspect of the cat. Yet notwithstanding the difference in their
size, who can look at the lion, whether in his more sleepy mood,
as he lies curled up in the corner of his cage, or in his fiercer
moments of hunger or of rage, without being reminded of a
cat ? And this is not merely the resemblance of one carnivorous
animal to another; for no one ever reminded of a dog or
wolf by a lion.
Again, all the horses and donkeys neigh; for the bray of a
donkey is only a harsher neigh, pitched on a different key, it is
true, but a sound of the same character—as the donkey himself
is but a clumsy and dwarfish horse. All the cows low, from the
buffalo roaming the prairie, the musk-ox of the Arctic ice-fields,
or the yak of Asia, to the cattle feeding in our pastures.
Among the birds, this similarity of voice in families is still
more marked. We need only recall the harsh and noisy parrots,
so similar in their peculiar utterance. Or, take as an example
the web-footed family: Do not all the geese and the innumerable
host of ducks quack? Does not every member of the crow fam-
ily caw, whether it be the jackdaw, the jay, or the magpie, the
rook in some green rookery of the Old World, or the crow of
our woods, with its long, melancholy caw that seems to make the
silence and solitude deeper? Compare all the sweet warblers of
the songster family — the nightingales, the thrushes, the mocking-
birds, the robins; they differ in the greater or less perfection of
their note, but the same kind of voice runs through the whole
group.
These affinities of the vocal systems among the animals form
a subject well worthy of the deepest study, not only as another
character by which to classify the animal kingdom correctly, but
as bearing indirectly also on the question of the origin of ani-
mals. Can we suppose that characteristics like these have been
--
--
-
-


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JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
219
communicated from one animal to another ? When we find that
all the members of one zoological family, however widely scat-
tered over the surface of the earth, inhabiting different continents
and even different hemispheres, speak with one voice, must we
not believe that they have originated in the places where they
now occur, with all their distinctive peculiarities? Who taught
the American thrush to sing like his European relative ? He
surely did not learn it from his cousin over the waters. Those
who would have us believe that all animals originated from com-
mon centres and single pairs, and have been thence distributed
over the world, will find it difficult to explain the tenacity of
such characters, and their recurrence and repetition under circum-
stances that seem to preclude the possibility of any communication,
on any other supposition than that of their creation in the differ-
ent regions where they are now found. We have much yet to
learn, from investigations of this kind, with reference not only to
families among animals, but to nationalities among men also. . .
The similarity of motion in families is another subject well
worth the consideration of the naturalist: the soaring of the birds
of prey, — the heavy flapping of the wings in the gallinaceous
birds, the floating of the swallows, with their short cuts and an-
gular turns, -- the hopping of the sparrows,— the deliberate walk of
the hens and the strut of the cocks,- the waddle of the ducks and
geese, - the slow, heavy creeping of the land-turtle, -the graceful
flight of the sea-turtle under the water, — the leaping and swim-
ming of the frog,- the swift run of the lizard, like a flash of
green or red light in the sunshine, - the lateral undulation of the
serpent,--the dart of the pickerel, - the leap of the trout, - the
rush of the hawk-moth through the air, — the fluttering flight of
the butterfly,— the quivering poise of the humming-bird, — the
arrow-like shooting of the squid through the water,--the slow
crawling of the snail on the land, - the sideway movement of
the sand-crab,- the backward walk of the crawfish,—the almost
imperceptible gliding of the sea-anemone over the rock, – the
graceful, rapid motion of the Pleurobrachia, with its endless
change of curve and spiral. In short, every family of animals
has its characteristic action and its peculiar voice; and yet so lit-
tle is this endless variety of rhythm and cadence both of motion
and sound in the organic world understood, that we lack words to
express one-half its richness and beauty.


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220
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
FORMATION OF CORAL REEFS
From Methods of Study in Natural History)
or a long time it was supposed that the reef-builders inhabited
even
sounding-lines from a depth of many hundreds or
thousands of feet, and it was taken for granted that they must
have had their home where they were found: but the facts
recently ascertained respecting the subsidence of ocean-bottoms
have shown that the foundation of a coral-wall
may
have sunk
far below the place where it was laid. And it is now proved,
beyond a doubt, that no reef-building coral can thrive at a depth
of more than fifteen fathoms, though corals of other kinds occur
far lower, and that the dead reef-corals, sometimes brought to
the surface from much greater depths, are only broken fragments
of some reef that has subsided with the bottom on which it was
growing But though fifteen fathoms is the maximum depth at
which any reef-builder can prosper, there are many which will
not sustain even that degree of pressure; and this fact has, as
we shall see, an important influence on the structure of the reef.
Imagine now a sloping shore on some tropical coast descending
gradually below the surface of the sea. Upon that slope, at a
depth of from ten to twelve or fifteen fathoms, and two or three
or more miles from the mainland, according to the shelving of
the shore, we will suppose that one of those little coral animals,
to whom a home in such deep waters is congenial, has established
itself. How it happens that such a being, which we know is
immovably attached to the ground, and forms the foundation of
a solid wall, was ever able to swim freely about in the water till
it found a suitable resting-place, I shall explain hereafter, when
I say something of the mode of reproduction of these animals.
Accept, for the moment, my unsustained assertion, and plant our
little coral on this sloping shore, some twelve or fifteen fathoms
below the surface of the sea.
The internal structure of such a coral corresponds to that of
the sea-anemone. The body is divided by vertical partitions from
top to bottom, leaving open chambers between; while in the
centre hangs the digestive cavity, connected by an opening in the
bottom with all these chambers. At the top is an aperture serv-
ing as a mouth, surrounded by a wreath of hollow tentacles, each
1


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JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
22 1
one of which connects at its base with one of the chambers, so
that all parts of the animal communicate freely with each other.
But though the structure of the coral is identical in all its parts
with the sea-anemone, it nevertheless presents one important
difference. The body of the sea-anemone is soft, while that of
the coral is hard.
It is well known that all animals and plants have the power
of appropriating to themselves and assimilating the materials they
need, each selecting from the surrounding elements whatever
contributes to its well-being. Now, corals possess in an extraor-
dinary degree, the power of assimilating to themselves the lime
contained in the salt water around them; and as soon as our little
coral is established on a firm foundation, a lime deposit begins to
form in all the walls of its body, so that its base, its partitions,
and its outer wall, which in the sea-anemone remain always soft,
become perfectly solid in the polyp coral, and form a frame as
hard as bone.
It may naturally be asked where the lime comes from in the
sea which the corals absorb in such quantities. As far as the
living corals are concerned the answer is easy, for an immense
deal of lime is brought down to the ocean by rivers that wear
away the lime deposits through which they pass. The Mississippi,
whose course lies through extensive lime regions, brings down
yearly lime enough to supply all the animals living in the Gulf of
Mexico. But behind this lies a question, not so easily settled, as
to the origin of the extensive deposits of limestone found at the
very beginning of life upon earth. This problem brings us to the
threshold of astronomy; for the base of limestone is metallic in
character, susceptible therefore of fusion, and may have formed a
part of the materials of our earth, even in an incandescent state,
when the worlds were forming. But though this investigation as
to the origin of lime does not belong either to the naturalist or the
geologist, its suggestion reminds us that the time has come when
all the sciences and their results are so intimately connected that
no one can be carried on independently of the others. Since the
study of the rocks has revealed a crowded life whose records are
hoarded within them, the work of the geologist and the naturalist
has become one and the same; and at that border-land where the
first crust of the earth was condensed out of the igneous mass of
materials which formed its earliest condition, their investigation
mingles with that of the astronomer, and we cannot trace the


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2 2 2
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ
limestone in a little coral without going back to the creation of
our solar system, when the worlds that compose it were thrown
off from a central mass in a gaseous condition.
When the coral has become in this way permeated with lime,
all parts of the body are rigid, with the exception of the upper
margin, the stomach, and the tentacles. The tentacles are soft
and waving, projected or drawn in at will; they retain their flex-
ible character through life, and decompose when the animal dies.
For this reason the dried specimens of corals preserved in
museums do not give us the least idea of the living corals, in
which every one of the millions of beings composing such a com-
munity is crowned by a waving wreath of white or green or
rose-colored tentacles.
As soon
as the little coral is fairly established and solidly
attached to the ground, it begins to bud. This may take place
in a variety of ways, dividing at the top or budding from the
base or from the sides, till the primitive animal is surrounded by
a number of individuals like itself, of which it forms the nucleus,
and which now begin to bud in their turn, each one surrounding
itself with a numerous progeny, all remaining, however, attached
to the parent. Such a community increases till its individuals are
numbered by millions, and I have myself counted no less than
fourteen millions of individuals in a coral mass of Porites meas-
uring not more than twelve feet in diameter. The so-called coral
heads, which make the foundation of a coral wall, and seem by
their massive character and regular form especially adapted to
give a strong, solid base to the whole structure, are known in
our classification as the Astræans, so named on account of the
little [star-shaped] pits crowded upon their surface, each one of
which marks the place of a single more or less isolated individual
in such a community.
Selections used by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Publishers.


## p. 223 (#253) ############################################

223
AGATHIAS
(536-581)
EGATHIAS tells us, in his Proæmium,' that he was born at
Myrina, Asia Minor, that his father's name was Memnonius,
and his own profession the law of the Romans and practice
in courts of justice. He was born about A. D. 536, and was educated
at Alexandria. In Constantinople he studied and practiced his pro-
fession, and won his surname of “Scholasticus,” a title then given to a
lawyer. He died, it is believed, at the age of forty-four or forty-five.
He was a Christian, as he testifies in his epigrams. In the sketch
of his life prefixed to his works, Niebuhr collates the friendships he
himself mentions, with his fellow-poet Paulus Silentiarius, with Theo-
dorus the decemvir, and Macedonius the ex-consul. To these men
he dedicated some of his writings.
Of his works, he says in his Proæmium that he wrote in his
youth the Daphniaca,' a volume of short poems in hexameters, set
off with love-tales. His Anthology,' or 'Cyclus,' was a collection of
poems of early writers, and also compositions of his friend Paulus
Silentiarius and others of his time. A number of his epigrams, pre-
served because they were written before or after his publication of
the Cyclus,' have come down to us and are contained in the "An-
thologia Græca. ' His principal work is his Historia,' which is an
account of the conquest of Italy by Narses, of the first war between
the Greeks and Franks, of the great earthquakes and plagues, of the
war between the Greeks and Persians, and the deeds of Belisarius in
his contest with the Huns, — of all that was happening in the world
Agathias knew between 553 and 558 A. D. , while he was a young
man. He tells, for instance, of the rebuilding of the great Church of
St. Sophia by Justinian, and he adds:- “If any one who happens to
live in some place remote from the city wishes to get a clear notion
of every part, as though he were there, let him read what Paulus
(Silentiarius) has composed in hexameter verse. ”
The history of Agathias is valuable as a chronicle. It shows that
the writer had little knowledge of geography, and was not enough of
a philosopher to look behind events and trace the causes from which
they proceeded. He is merely a simple and honest writer, and his
history is a business-like entry of facts. He dwells upon himself and
his wishes with a minuteness that might seem self-conscious, but is
really naif; and goes so far in his outspokenness as to say that if
for the sake of a livelihood he took up another profession, his taste
would have led him to devote himself to the Muses and Graces.


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224
GRACE AGUILAR
He wrote in the Ionic dialect of his time. The best edition of his
(Historia” is that of Niebuhr (1828). Those of his epigrams pre-
served in the Greek anthology have not infrequently been turned
into English; the happiest translation of all is that of Dryden, in his
(Life of Plutarch. '
ON PLUTARCH
C
HERONEAN Plutarch, to thy deathless praise
Does martial Rome this grateful statue raise;
Because both Greece and she thy fame have shar'd
(Their heroes written, and their lives compar'd);
But thou thyself could'st never write thy own:
Their lives have parallels, but thine has none.
GRACE AGUILAR
(1816-1847)
FI
IFTY years ago a Jewish writer of English fiction was a new
and interesting figure in English literature. Disraeli, indeed,
had flashed into the literary world with “Coningsby,' that
eloquent vindication of the Jewish race. His grandiose (Tancred'
had revealed to an astonished public the strange life of the Desert,
of the mysterious vastness whence swept forth the tribes who became
the Moors of Spain and the Jews of Palestine. Disraeli, however,
stood in no category, and established no precedent. But when Miss
Aguilar's stories began to appear, they were
eagerly welcomed by a public with whom
she had already won reputation and favor
as the defender and interpreter of her faith.
The youngest child of a rich and refined
household, Grace Aguilar was born in 1816
at Hackney, near London, of that historic
strain of Spanish-Jewish blood which for
generations had produced not only beauty
and artistic sensibility, but intellect. Her
ancestors were refugees from persecution,
and in her burned that ardor of faith which
GRACE AGUILAR
persecution kindles. Fragile and sensitive,
she was educated at home, by her cultivated
father and mother, under whose solicitous training she developed an
alarming precocity. At the age of twelve she had written a heroic

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GRACE AGUILAR
225
drama on her favorite hero, Gustavus Vasa.