orals.'

'I think, of the ancients,' said Cadurcis; 'Alcibiades and Alexander
the Great are my favourites. They were young, beautiful, and
conquerors; a great combination.'

'And among the moderns?' inquired Herbert.

'They don't touch my fancy,' said Cadurcis. 'Who are your heroes?'

'Oh! I have many; but I confess I should like to pass a day with
Milton, or Sir Philip Sidney.'

'Among mere literary men,' said Cadurcis; 'I should say Bayle.'

'And old Montaigne for me,' said Herbert.

'Well, I would fain visit him in his feudal chateau,' said Cadurcis.
'His is one of the books which give a spring to the mind. Of modern
times, the feudal ages of Italy most interest me. I think that was a
springtide of civilisation, all the fine arts nourished at the same
moment.'

'They ever will,' said Herbert. 'All the inventive arts maintain a
sympathetic connection between each other, for, after all, they are
only various expressions of one internal power, modified by different
circumstances either of the individual or of society. It was so in
the age of Pericles; I mean the interval which intervened between
the birth of that great man and the death of Aristotle; undoubtedly,
whether considered in itself, or with reference to the effects which
it produced upon the subsequent destinies of civilised man, the most
memorable in the history of the world.'

'And yet the age of Pericles has passed away,' said Lord Cadurcis
mournfully, 'and I have gazed upon the mouldering Parthenon. O
Herbert! you are a great thinker and muse deeply; solve me the
problem why so unparalleled a progress was made during that period
in literature and the arts, and why that progress, so rapid and so
sustained, so soon received a check and became retrograde?'

'It is a problem left to the wonder and conjecture of posterity,' said
Herbert. 'But its solution, perhaps, may principally be found in the
weakness of their political institutions. Nothing of the Athenians
remains except their genius; but they fulfilled their purpose. The
wrecks and fragments of their subtle and profound minds obscurely
suggest to us the grandeur and perfection of the whole. Their language
excels every other tongue of the Western world; their sculptures
baffle all subsequent artists; credible witnesses assure us that their
paintings were not inferior; and we are only accustomed to consider
the painters of Italy as those who have brought the art to its highest
perfection, beca