xample. When the
Thebans in their jealousy condemned Pindar to the payment of a fine
for having praised the Athenians too highly, our citizens erected a
statue of bronze to him.

_Leontion._ Jealousy of Athens made the Thebans fine him; and jealousy
of Thebes made the Athenians thus record it.

_Epicurus._ And jealousy of Pindar, I suspect, made some poet persuade
the archons to render the distinction a vile and worthless one, by
placing his effigy near a king's--one Evagoras of Cyprus.

_Ternissa._ Evagoras, I think I remember to have read in the
inscription, was rewarded in this manner for his reception of Conon,
defeated by the Lacedemonians.

_Epicurus._ Gratitude was due to him, and some such memorial to record
it. External reverence should be paid unsparingly to the higher
magistrates of every country who perform their offices exemplarily;
yet they are not on this account to be placed in the same degree with
men of primary genius. They never exalt the human race, and rarely
benefit it; and their benefits are local and transitory, while those
of a great writer are universal and eternal.

If the gods did indeed bestow on us a portion of their fire, they seem
to have lighted it in sport and left it; the harder task and the
nobler is performed by that genius who raises it clear and glowing
from its embers, and makes it applicable to the purposes that dignify
or delight our nature. I have ever said, 'Reverence the rulers.' Let,
then, his image stand; but stand apart from Pindar's. Pallas and Jove!
defend me from being carried down the stream of time among a shoal of
royalets, and the rootless weeds they are hatched on!

_Ternissa._ So much piety would deserve the exemption, even though
your writings did not hold out the decree.

_Leontion._ Child, the compliment is ill turned: if you are ironical,
as you must be on the piety of Epicurus, Atticism requires that you
should continue to be so, at least to the end of the sentence.

_Ternissa._ Irony is my abhorrence. Epicurus may appear less pious
than some others, but I am certain he is more; otherwise the gods
would never have given him----

_Leontion._ What? what? let us hear!

_Ternissa._ Leontion!

_Leontion._ Silly girl! Were there any hibiscus or broom growing near
at hand, I would send him away and whip you.

_Epicurus._ There is fern, which is better.

_Leontion._ I was not speaking to you: but now you shall have
something to answer for yourself. A