For he that drinks beyond the proper point
Puts his own sense and judgment out of joint,
Talking outrageous, idle, empty stuff

(The mere effect of wine more than enough);
Telling a thousand things, that on the morrow
He recollects with sober shame and sorrow:
At other times, and in his proper nature,
An easy, quiet, amiable creature.

Now you, Simonides, mind what I say
You chatter in your cups and prate away,
Like a poor slave, drunk on a holiday.

You never can resolve to leave your liquor,
The faster it comes round, you drink the quicker—
There's some excuse- "The slave has fill'd the cup,
A challenge or a pledge"-you drink it up!
""Tis a libation"-and you're so devout,

You can't refuse it !-Manly brains and stout
Might stand the trial, drinking hard and fast,
And keep their sense and judgment to the last.
Farewell! be merry! may your hours be spent
Without a quarrel or an argument,

In inoffensive, easy merriment;

Like a good concert, keeping time and measure,
Such entertainments give the truest pleasure.

We now proceed to his moral and political verses, which (as mankind are usually more ashamed of wisdom than of folly, or from prudential reasons more cautious in concealing it) seem to have been suppressed for a time, and to have been communicated to his most intimate friend under an injunction of secrecy.

IX.

Kurnus, these lines of mine, let them remain
Conceal'd and secret-verse of such a strain

Betrays its author-all the world would know it!
"This is Theognis, the Megarian poet,

So celebrated and renown'd in Greece!"
Yet some there are, forsooth, I cannot please;
Nor ever could contrive, with all my skill,
To gain the common liking and goodwill
Of these my fellow-citizens.-No wonder !
Not even he, the god that wields the thunder,

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(The sovereign all-wise, almighty Jove,)
Can please them with his government above:
Some call for rainy weather, some for dry,
A discontented and discordant cry

Fills all the earth, and reaches to the sky.

In a passage preserved to us by Stobæus, Xenophon, after quoting from the preceding fragment the fourth line of the translation, proceeds to connect it with the fragment which follows; explaining it in his own manner. "These are the verses of Theognis of Megara."—"The subject which the poet seems to me to have had in view appears to have been simply a treatise on the good and bad qualities of mankind. He treats of man in the same manner as a writer would do of any other animal (of horses, for instance); his exordium seems to me a perfectly proper one; for he begins with the subject of breed; considering that neither men nor any other animals are likely to prove good for anything, unless they are produced from a good stock. He illustrates his principle by a reference to those animals in which breed is strictly attended to; these lines, therefore, are not merely an invective against the mercenary spirit of his countrymen, (as the generality of readers imagine,) they seem to me to be directed against the negligence and ignorance of mankind in the management and economy of their own species." Such was the judgment of Xenophon upon this passage; different, as it should seem, from that of his countrymen and contemporaries.

But we must recollect that the maintenance of a physical and personal superiority was considered as a point of paramount importance by all the aristocracies of Doric race. The Spartans, the most perfect type of such an aristocracy, reared no infants who appeared likely to prove defective in form; and condemned their king Archidamus to a fine, for having married a diminutive wife. Xenophon himself speaks of it elsewhere as a well-known fact, that the Spartans were eminently superior in strength and comeliness of person.-As a result of this principle, we can account for what would otherwise appear a very singular circumstance, that the most eminent of the Olympic champions upon record, Diagoras and Milo, were both of the most distinguished families in their native Doric states, Rhodes and Crotona.-Xenophon, therefore, who considered Theognis as belonging to a Doric aristocracy, and who was himself a Dorian in his habits and partialities, interprets him more in a physical than in a moral sense, and considers misalliances as a cause rather than a consequence of the debasement of the higher orders.

X.

With kine and horses, Kurnus! we proceed
By reasonable rules, and choose a breed
For profit and increase, at any price;
Of a sound stock, without defect or vice.
But, in the daily matches that we make,
The price is everything; for money's sake
Men marry; women are in marriage given :
The churl or ruffian that in wealth has thriven
May match his offspring with the proudest race:
Thus everything is mix'd, noble and base !

If then in outward manner, form, and mind,
You find us a degraded, motley kind,

Wonder no more, my friend! the cause is plain,
And to lament the consequence is vain.

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From birth we proceed to education. Here we find Theognis taking the same side with Pindar and Euripides in a question which seems to have been long agitated in the heathen world,Whether Virtue and Vice were innate ? concluding, like them, for the affirmative. This fragment is separated from the preceding. Yet, according to the opinions of those times, there was a connexion between them, and the process of thought is continuous. The existence of the evil had been stated, and the poet proceeds to argue that it is not capable of being remedied by human contrivance. After which, in two succeeding fragments, we shall see him following the cause into its consequences, as exemplified in the degradation of the higher orders, and the comparative elevation of their former inferiors.

XI.

To rear a child is easy, but to teach
Morals and manners is beyond our reach;
To make the foolish wise, the wicked good,
That science never yet was understood.

The sons of Esculapius, if their art
Could remedy a perverse and wicked heart,
Might earn enormous wages! But, in fact,
The mind is not compounded and compact
Of precept and example; human art
In human nature has no share or part.

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Hatred of vice, the fear of shame and sin,
Are things of native growth, not grafted in:
Else wise and worthy parents might correct
In children's hearts each error and defect:
Whereas we see them disappointed still,
No scheme nor artifice of human skill

Can rectify the passions or the will.

We now come to those fragments which must have occasioned the injunctions of secrecy in fragm. IX., and which mark the peculiarity of the author's mind.

He distinctly prognosticates an approaching revolution, originating in the misrule of the party to which he himself naturally belonged; and of which his friend Kurnus was, if not the actual, the anticipated chief; for we shall see him driven from his country at an early age, after having been for some time at the head of the state. He warns him of the rising intelligence and spirit of the lower orders; the feebleness, selfishness, and falsehood of the higher; and the discontent which their mode of government was exciting.

XII.

Our commonwealth preserves its former frame,
Our common people are no more the same:
They that in skins and hides were rudely dress'd,
Nor dreamt of law, nor sought to be redress'd
By rules of right, but in the days of old
Flock'd to the town, like cattle to the fold,
Are now the brave and wise; and we, the rest,
(Their betters nominally, once the best,)
Degenerate, debas'd, timid, and mean!
Who can endure to witness such a scene?
Their easy courtesies, the ready smile,
Prompt to deride, to flatter, and beguile!
Their utter disregard of right or wrong,
Of truth or honour!-Out of such a throng
(For any difficulties, any need,

For any bold design or manly deed)
Never imagine you can choose a just

Or steady friend, or faithful in his trust.

But change your habits! let them go their way!

Be condescending, affable, and gay!

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Adopt with every man the style and tone
Most courteous and congenial with his own;
But in your secret counsels keep aloof
From feeble paltry souls; that, at the proof
Of danger or distress, are sure to fail;
For whose salvation nothing can avail.

XIII.

Our state is pregnant; shortly to produce
A rude avenger of prolong'd abuse.
The commons hitherto seem sober-minded,
But their superiors are corrupt and blinded.
The rule of noble spirits, brave and high,
Never endanger'd peace and harmony.

The supercilious, arrogant pretence
Of feeble minds; weakness and insolence;
Justice and truth and law wrested aside
By crafty shifts of avarice and pride;
These are our ruin, Kurnus!-never dream
(Tranquil and undisturb'd as it may seem)
Of future peace or safety to the state;
Bloodshed and strife will follow soon or late.
Never imagine that a ruin'd land

Will trust her destiny to your command,
To be remodell'd by a single hand.

}

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If expanded into its full dimensions, this passage would stand thus: "The governments by an aristocracy of caste, such as ours, have never been overthrown while they have been directed by men of generous character, and resolute, magnanimous spirits; the danger does not arise till they are succeeded by a poor-spirited, selfish_generation, exercising the same arbitrary authority with mean and mercenary views."

The following examples and warnings are adduced from traditional fable and later history.

XIV.

My friend, I fear it! pride, which overthrew
The mighty Centaurs and their hardy crew,
Our pride will ruin us, your friends, and you.

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