A few days in Athens being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum

Footnote 1:

Je ne veux pas de savans dans mes etats, je veux de bons sujets, was the dictum of the Austrian Autocrat to an Italian Professor.

The original MS. fell into the hands of my erudite correspondent in the autumn of the year 1817. From that period until the commencement of last winter, all his leisure hours were devoted to the arduous task of unrolling the leaves, and decyphering the half defaced characters. The imperfect condition of the MS. soon obliged him to forego his first intention of transcribing the original Greek; he had recourse, therefore, to an Italian version, supplying the chasms, consisting sometimes of a word, sometimes of a line, and occasionally of a phrase, with a careful and laborious study of the context. While this version was printing at Florence, a MS. copy was transmitted to me in Paris, with a request that I would forthwith see it translated into the English and French languages. The former version I undertook myself, and can assure the reader that it possesses the merit of fidelity. The first erudite translator has not conceived it necessary to encumber the volume with marginal notes; nor have I found either the inclination or the ability to supply them. Those who should wish to refer to the allusions scattered through the old classics to the characters and systems here treated of, will find much assistance from the marginal authorities of the eloquent and ingenious Bayle.

I have only to add, that the present volume comprises little more than a third of the original MS.; it will be sufficient, however, to enable the public to form an estimate of the probable value of the whole.

A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS.

“Oh! monstrous,” cried the young Theon, as he came from the portico of Zeno. “Ye Gods! and will ye suffer your names to be thus blasphemed? Why do ye not strike with thunder the actor and teacher of such enormities? What! will ye suffer our youth, and the youth of after ages, to be seduced by this shameless Gargettian? Shall the Stoic portico be forsaken for the garden of Epicurus? Minerva, shield thy city! Shut the ears of thy sons against the voice of this deceiver!”

Thus did Theon give vent to the indignation which the words of Timocrates had worked up within him. Timocrates had been a disciple of the new school; but, quarrelling with his master, had fled to the followers of Zeno; and to make the greater merit of his apostacy, and better to gain the hearts of his new friends, poured forth daily execrations on his former teacher, painting him and his disciples in the blackest colors of deformity; revealing, with a countenance distorted as with horror, and a voice hurried and suppressed as from the agonies of dreadful recollections, the secrets of those midnight orgies, where, in the midst of his pupils, the philosopher of Gargettium officiated as master of the accursed ceremonies of riot and impiety.

Full of these nocturnal horrors the young Theon traversed with hasty steps the streets of Athens, and, issuing from the city, without perceiving that he did so, took the road to the Piræus. The noise of the harbor roused him to recollection, and feeling it out of tune with his thoughts, he turned up the more peaceful banks of Cephisus, and, seating himself on the stump of a withered olive, his feet almost washed by the water, he fell back again into his reverie. How long he had sat he knew not, when the sound of gently approaching footsteps once more recalled him. He turned his head, and, after a start and gaze of astonishment, bent with veneration to the figure before him. It was of the middle size, and robed in white, pure as the vestments of the Pythia. The shape, the attitude, the foldings of the garment, were such as the chisel of Phidias would have given to the God of Elocution. The head accorded with the rest of the figure; it sat upon the shoulders with a grace that a painter would have paused to contemplate—elevated, yet somewhat inclining forward, as if habituated gently to seek and benevolently to yield attention. The face a poet would have gazed upon, and thought he beheld in it one of the images of his fancy embodied. The features were not cast for the statuary; they were noble but not regular. Wisdom beamed mildly from the eye, and candor was on the broad forehead: the mouth reposed in a soft, almost imperceptible smile, that did not curl the lips or disturb the cheeks, and was seen only in the serene and holy benignity that shone over the whole physiognomy: It was a gleam of sunshine sleeping on a lucid lake. The first lines of age were traced on the brow and round the chin, but so gently as to mellow rather than deepen expression: the hair indeed seemed prematurely touched by time, for it was of a pure silver, thrown back from the forehead, and fringing the throat behind with short curls. He received benignly the salutation of the youth, and gently with his hand returning it—“Let me not break your meditations; I would rather share than disturb them.” If the stranger’s appearance had enchanted Theon, his voice did now more so: never had a sound so sweet, so musical, struck upon his ear.

“Surely I behold and hear a divinity!” he cried, stepping backwards, and half stooping his knee with veneration.

“From the groves of the academy, I see,” said the sage, advancing and laying his hand on the youth’s shoulder.

Theon looked up with a modest blush, and encouraged by the sweet aspect of the sage, replied, “No; from the Stoic portico.”

“Ah! I had not thought Zeno could send forth such a dreamer. You are in a good school,” he continued, observing the youth confused by this remark, “a school of real virtue; and, if I read faces well, as I think I do, I see a pupil that will not disgrace its doctrines.”

Theon’s spirit returned; the stranger had that look, and voice, and manner, which instantly give security to the timid, and draw love from the feeling heart. “If you be man, you exert more than human influence over the souls of your fellows. I have seen you but one moment, and that moment has laid me at your feet.”

“Not quite so low, I hope,” returned the sage with a smile; “I had always rather be the companion than the master.”

“Either, both,” said the eager youth, and seizing the half-extended hand of the sage, pressed it respectfully to his lips.

“You are an enthusiast, I see. Beware, my young friend! such as you must be the best or the worst of men.”

“Then, had I you for a guide, I should be the best.”

“What! do you a stoic ask a guide?”

“I, a stoic! Oh! would I were! I yet stand but on the threshhold of the temple.”

“But standing there you have at least looked within and seen the glories, and will not that encourage you to advance? Who that hath seen virtue doth not love her, and pant after her possession?”

“True, true; I have seen virtue in her noblest form—Alas! so noble, that my eyes have been dazzled by the contemplation. I have looked upon Zeno with admiration and despair.”

“Learn rather to look with love. He who but admires virtue, yields her but half her due. She asks to be approached, to be embraced—not with fear, but with confidence—not with awe but with rapture.”

“Yet who can gaze on Zeno and ever hope to rival him?”

“You, my young friend: Why should you not? You have innocence; you have sensibility; you have enthusiasm; you have ambition—With what better promise could Zeno begin his career? Courage! courage! my son!” stopping, for they had insensibly walked towards the city during the dialogue, and laying his hand on Theon’s head, “We want but the will to be as great as Zeno.”

Theon had drawn his breath for a sigh, but his action and the look that accompanied it, changed the sigh to a smile. “You would make me vain.”

“No; but I would make you confident. Without confidence Homer had never written his Iliad—No; nor would Zeno now be worshipped in his portico.”

“Do you then think confidence would make all men Homers and Zenos?”

“Not all; but a good many. I believe thousands to have the seeds of excellence in them, who never discover the possession. But we were not speaking of poetry and philosophy, only of virtue—all men certainly cannot be poets or philosophers, but all men may be virtuous.”

“I believe,” returned the youth with a modest blush, “if I might walk with you each day on the borders of Cephisus, I should sometimes play truant at the portico.”

“Ye gods forbid (exclaimed the sage playfully) that I should steal a proselyte! From Zeno too? It might cost me dear.—What are you thinking of?” he resumed, after a pause.

“I was thinking,” replied Theon, “what a loss for man that you are not teacher in the gardens in place of the son of Neocles.”

“Do you know the son of Neocles?” asked the sage.

“The gods forbid that I should know him more than by report! No, venerable stranger; wrong me not so much as to think I have entered the gardens of Epicurus. It is not long that I have been in Athens, but I hope, if I should henceforth live my life here, I should never be seduced by the advocate of vice.”

“From my soul I hope the same. But you say you have not long been in Athens—You are come here to study philosophy.”