it, they
consulted together, and joining interests, caused it to fall upon
Hyperbolus. Hereupon the people, full of indignation at finding this
kind of punishment dishonoured and turned into ridicule, abolished it
entirely.

The Ostracism (to give a summary account of it) was conducted in the
following manner. Every citizen took a piece of a broken pot, or a
shell, on which he wrote the name of the person he wanted to have
banished, and carried it to a part of the market-place that was enclosed
with wooden rails. The magistrates then counted the number of the
shells; and if it amounted not to six thousand, the Ostracism stood for
nothing: if it did, they sorted the shells, and the person whose name
was found on the greatest number, was declared an exile for ten years,
but with permission to enjoy his estate.

At the time that Aristides was banished, when the people were inscribing
the names on the shells, it is reported that an illiterate burgher came
to Aristides, whom he took for some ordinary person, and, giving him his
shell, desired him to write Aristides upon it. The good man, surprised
at the adventure, asked him "Whether Aristides had ever injured him?"
"No," said he, "nor do I even know him; but it vexes me to hear him
everywhere called _the Just_." Aristides made no answer, but took the
shell, and having written his own name upon it, returned it to the man.
When he quitted Athens, he lifted up his hands towards heaven, and,
agreeably to his character, made a prayer, very different from that of
Achilles; namely, "That the people of Athens might never see the day
which should force them to remember Aristides."

_Plutarch's Lives_.

[Notes: _Aristides_. A prominent citizen of Athens (about the year 490
B.C.) opposed to the more advanced policy of Themistocles, who wished to
make the city rely entirely upon her naval power. He was ostracised in
489, but afterwards restored.

_Marathon_. The victory gained over the Persian invaders, 490 B.C.]

* * * * *

THE VENERABLE BEDE.

Baeda--the venerable Bede as later times styled him--was born about ten
years after the Synod of Whitby, beneath the shade of a great abbey
which Benedict Biscop was rearing by the mouth of the Wear. His youth
was trained and his long tranquil life was wholly spent in an offshoot
of Benedict's house which was founded by his scholar Ceolfrid.
Ba