s was allegorically the prophet
when he declared that in the grave of Oedipus was to be found the
sacred guardian and the everlasting defence of the city of Theseus.

FOOTNOTES.

[1] "Cum consuetudine ad imperii cupiditatem trahi videretur."--Nepos
in Vit. Milt., cap. 8.

[2] Corn. Nepos in Vit. Milt., cap. 7.

[3] Nepos. in Vit. Milt., cap. 7.

[4] Herod., lib. vi., cap. cxxxvi.

[5] Nepos says the fine was estimated at the cost of the navy he had
conducted to Paros; but Boeckh rightly observes, that it is an
ignorant assertion of that author that the fine was intended for a
compensation, being the usual mode of assessing the offence.

The case is simply this--Miltiades was accused--whether justly or
unjustly no matter--it was clearly as impossible not to receive the
accusation and to try the cause, as it would be for an English court
of justice to refuse to admit a criminal action against Lord Grey or
the Duke of Wellington. Was Miltiades guilty or not? This we cannot
tell. We know that he was tried according to the law, and that the
Athenians thought him guilty, for they condemned him. So far this is
not ingratitude--it is the course of law. A man is tried and found
guilty--if past services and renown were to save the great from
punishment when convicted of a state offence, society would perhaps be
disorganized, and certainly a free state would cease to exist. The
question therefore shrinks to this--was it or was it not ungrateful in
the people to relax the penalty of death, legally incurred, and
commute it to a heavy fine? I fear we shall find few instances of
greater clemency in monarchies, however mild. Miltiades unhappily
died. But nature slew him, not the Athenian people. And it cannot be
said with greater justice of the Athenians, than of a people no less
illustrious, and who are now their judges, that it was their custom
"de tuer en amiral pour encourager les autres."

[6] The taste of a people, which is to art what public opinion is to
legislation, is formed, like public opinion, by habitual social
intercourse and collision. The more men are brought together to
converse and discuss, the more the principles of a general national
taste will become both diffused and refined. Less to their climate,
to their scenery, to their own beauty of form, than to their social
habits and preference of the public to the domestic life, did the
Athenians, and the Grecian republics generally,