thy Lyre I crown with glory,
And a throne!

[Decoration]

XXIII.

_SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND ART DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY._

Looking back into the past, and exploring by the light of authentic
history, sacred as well as profane, the characteristics of former ages,
the merest tyro in learning cannot fail to perceive that certain epochs
stand prominently out on the "sands of time," and indicate vast activity
and uncommon power in the human mind.

These epochs are so well marked that history has given them a
designation, and to call them by their name, conjures up, as by the wand
of an enchanter, the heroic representatives of our race.

If, for instance, we should speak of the era of Solomon, in sacred
history, the memory would instantly picture forth the pinnacles of the
Holy Temple, lifting themselves into the clouds; the ear would listen
intently to catch the sweet intonations of the harp of David, vocal at
once with the prophetic sorrows of his race, and swelling into sublime
ecstasy at the final redemption of his people; the eye would glisten at
the pomp and pageantry of the foreign potentates who thronged his court,
and gloat with rapture over the beauty of the young Queen of Sheba, who
journeyed from a distant land to seek wisdom at the feet of the wisest
monarch that ever sat upon a throne. We should behold his ships
traversing every sea, and pouring into the lap of Israel the gold of
Ophir, the ivory of Senegambia, and the silks, myrrh, and spices of the
East.

So, too, has profane history its golden ages, when men all seemed to be
giants, and their minds inspired.

What is meant when we speak of the age of Pericles? We mean all that is
glorious in the annals of Greece. We mean Apelles with his pencil,
Phidias with his chisel, Alcibiades with his sword. We seem to be
strolling arm-in-arm with Plato, into the academy, to listen to the
divine teachings of Socrates, or hurrying along with the crowd toward
the theatre, where Herodotus is reading his history, or Euripides is
presenting his tragedies. Aspasia rises up like a beautiful apparition
before us, and we follow willing slaves at the wheels of her victorious
chariot. The whole of the Peloponnesus glows with intellect like a forge
in blast, and scatters the trophies of Grecian civilization profusely
around us. The Parthenon lifts its everlasting columns, and the Venus
and Apollo are moulded into mar