were they at all incapable of
pursuing laborious researches, or wanting in persevering application and
industry, notwithstanding Plutarch's assertion to the contrary. The
circumstances of every-day life in Attica, the conditions which
surrounded the Athenian from childhood to age, were such as to call for
the exercise of these qualities of mind in the highest degree. Habits of
patient industry were induced in the Athenian character by the poverty
and comparative barrenness of the soil, demanding greater exertion to
supply their natural wants. And an annual period of dormancy, though
unaccompanied by the rigors of a northern winter, called for prudence in
husbanding, and forethought and skill in endeavoring to increase their
natural resources. The aspects of nature were less massive and
awe-inspiring, her features more subdued, and her areas more
circumscribed and broken, inviting and emboldening man to attempt her
conquest. The whole tendency of natural phenomena in Greece was to
restrain the imagination, and discipline the observing and reasoning
faculties in man. Thus was man inspired with confidence in his own
resources, and allured to cherish an inquisitive, analytic, and
scientific spirit. "The French, in point of national character, hold
nearly the same relative place amongst the nations of Europe that the
Athenians held amongst the States of Ancient Greece." And whilst it is
admitted the French are quick, sprightly, vivacious, perhaps sometimes
light even to frivolity, it must be conceded they have cultivated the
natural and exact sciences with a patience, and perseverance, and
success unsurpassed by any of the nations of Europe. And so the
Athenians were the Frenchmen of Greece. Whilst they spent their "leisure
time"[36] in the place of public resort, the porticoes and groves,
"hearing and telling the latest news" (no undignified or improper mode
of recreation in a city where newspapers were unknown), whilst they are
condemned as "garrulous," "frivolous," "full of curiosity," and
"restlessly fond of novelties," we must insist that a love of study, of
patient thought and profound research, was congenial to their natural
temperament, and that an inquisitive and analytic spirit, as well as a
taste for subtile and abstract speculation, were inherent in the
national character. The affluence, and fullness, and flexibility, and
sculpture-like finish of the language of the Attics, which leaves far
behind not only the la