we consider merely the subtlety of
disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance
of expression which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, we
must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say
when we reflect that from hence have sprung directly or indirectly, all
the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the
vast accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero; the withering
fire of Juvenal; the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour of
Cervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supreme
and universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and
genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age,
have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made
a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason,
there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging,
consoling;--by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless bed of
Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the
scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence on private
happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser,
happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind
to engage: to how many the studies which took their rise from her
have been wealth in poverty,--liberty in bondage,--health in
sickness,--society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at
the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools of
philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles
sorrow, or assuages pain,--wherever it brings gladness to eyes which
fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the
long sleep,--there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal
influence of Athens.

The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to his
comrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, while he retained
the casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at
one glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no
exaggeration to say that no external advantage is to be compared with
that purification of the intellectual eye which gives us to contemplate
the infinite wealth of the mental world, all the hoarded treasures of
its primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored
mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her p