hich is
nothing else than the doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the
knowledge and contemplation of which at length they repose.

"Such a life as this, my dear Socrates," exclaimed the stranger
Prophetess, "spent in the contemplation of the beautiful, is the life
for men to live; which, if you chance ever to experience, you will
esteem far beyond gold and rich garments, and even those lovely
persons whom you and many others now gaze on with astonishment, and
are prepared neither to eat nor drink so that you may behold and live
forever with these objects of your love! What, then, shall we imagine
to be the aspect of the supreme beauty itself, simple, pure,
uncontaminated with the intermixture of human flesh and colors, and
all other idle and unreal shapes attendant on mortality; the divine,
the original, the supreme, the monoeidic beautiful itself? What must
be the life of him who dwells with and gazes on that which it becomes
us all to seek? Think you not that to him alone is accorded the
prerogative of bringing forth, not images and shadows of virtue, for
he is in contact not with a shadow but with reality; with virtue
itself, in the production and nourishment of which he becomes dear to
the gods, and if such a privilege is conceded to any human being,
himself immortal?"--_From the Banquet, translated by the poet
Shelley._

THE LAST HOURS OF SOCRATES.

(_By Plato._)

"When the dead arrive at the place to which their demon leads them
severally, first of all they are judged, as well those who have lived
well and piously, as those who have not. And those who appear to have
passed a middle kind of life, proceeding to Acheron, and embarking in
the vessels they have, on these arrive at the lake, and there dwell,
and when they are purified, and have suffered punishment for the
iniquities they may have committed, they are set free, and each
receives the reward of his good deeds, according to his deserts; but
those who appear to be incurable, through the magnitude of their
offences, either from having committed many and great sacrileges, or
many unjust and lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these a
suitable destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth.
But those who appear to have been guilty of curable, yet great
offences, such as those who through anger have committed any violence
against father or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life
in a state of penitence, or they who have b