who died in the year before Christ five hundred and twentynine, offers little, confidered in itself, that merits our regard but when combined with that of Greece, it becomes particularly interefting. The monarchs who fucceeded Cyrus, gave an opportunity to the Greeks to exercise those virtues, which the freedom of their government had created and confirmed,

115. Sparta remained under the influence of Lycurgus' inftitutions: Athens had juft recovered from the tyranny of the Pifistratida, a family who had trampled on the laws of Solon, and ufurped the fupreme power. Such was their fituation, when the luft of univerfal empire, which feldom fails to torment the breaft of tyrants, led Darius (at the inftigation of Hippias, who had been expelled from Athens, and on account of the Athenians burning the city of Sardis,) to fend forth his numerous armies into Greece.

116. But the Perfians were no longer those invincible foldiers, who, under Cyrus, had conquered Afia. Their minds were enervated by luxury and fervitude. Athens, on the contrary, teemed with great men, whofe minds were nobly animated by the late recovery of their freedom. Miltiades, in the plains of Marathon, with ten thousand Athenians, overcame the Perfian army of a hundred thousand foot, and ten thousand cavalry.

117. His countrymen, Themiftocles and Ariftides, the first celebrated for his abilities, the fecond for his virtue, gained the next honors to the general. It does not fall within our plan to mention the events of this war, which, as the nobleft monuments of virtue over force, of courage over numbers, of liberty over fervitude, deferve to be read at length in ancient writers.

118. Xerxes, the fon of Darius,. came in perfon into Greece, with an immenfe army, which, according to Herodotus, amounted to two millions and one hundred thoufand men. This account has been justly confidered, by fome ingenious modern writers, as incredible.

119. The truth connot now be afcertained: but that the army of Xerxes was extremely numerous, is the more probable, from the great extent of his empire, and from the abfurd practice of the eastern nations, of encumbering their camp with a fuperfluous multitudę.

120. Whatever the numbers of his army were, he was every where defeated, by fea and land, and efcaped to Afia in a fishing boat. Such was the fpirit of the Greeks, and fo well did they know that "wanting virtue, life is pain and woe; that wanting liberty, even virtue mourns, and looks around for happiness in vain.”

121. But though the Perfian war concluded glorioufly for the Greeks, it is, in a great meafure, to this war, that the fubfequent misfortunes of that nation are to be attributed. It was not the battles in which they fuffered the lofs of fo many brave men, but those in which they acquired an immenfity of Perfian gold;

122. It was not their enduring fo many hardships in the courfe of the war, but their connection with the Perfians, after the conclufion of it, which fubverted the Grecian ef tablishments, and ruined the most virtuous confederacy that ever exifted on earth.

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123. The Greeks became haughty after their victories: delivered from the common enemy, they began to quarrel with one another their quarrels were fomented by Persian gold, of which they had acquired enough to make them defirous of more. Hence proceeded the famous Pelopon nefian war, in which the Athenians and Lacedæmonians acted as principals, and drew after them the other states of Greece.

124. They continued to weaken themselves by these inteftine divifions, till Philip king of Macedon (a country till this time little known, but which, by the active and crafty genius of this prince, became important and powerful,) rendered himself the abfolute mafter of Greece, by the bat tle of Cheronæa.

125. But this conqueft is one of the first we meet in hif tory which did not depend on the event of a battle. Philip had laid his fchemes fo deeply, and by bribery, promises, and intrigues, gained over fuch a number of confiderable perfons in the feveral states of Greece to his interest, that another day would have put in his poffeffion what Cheronaa had denied him. The Greeks had loft that virtue, which was the bafis of their confederacy.

126. Their popular governments ferved only to give a fanction to their licentiouinefs and corruption. The princi

pal orators, in most of their states, were bribed into the fervice of Philip; and all the eloquence of a Demofthenes, affifted by truth and virtue, was unequal to the mean, but more feductive arts of his opponents, who, by flattering the people, ufed the fureft method of winning their affections.

127. Philip had propofed to extend the boundaries of his empire beyond the narrow limits of Greece. But he did not long furvive the battle of Cheronea. On his de cease, his fon Alexander was chofen general against the Perfians, by all the Grecian ftates, except the Athenians and Thebans.

128. These made a feeble effort for expiring liberty But they were obliged to yield to fuperior force. Secure ou the fide of Greece, Alexander fet out on his Perfian expedition, at the head of thirty thousand foot, and five thou fand horfe.

129. The fuccefs of this army in conquering the whole force of Darius, in three pitched battles, in over-running and fubduing not only the countries then known to the Greeks, but many parts of India, the very names of which had never reached an European ear, has been described by many authors both ancient and modern, and conftitutes a fingular part of the hiftory of the world.

-130. Soon after this rapid career of victory and fuccefs, Alexander died at Babylon. His captains, after facrificing all his family to their ambition, divided among them his dominions. This gives rife to a number of æras and events too complicated for our prefent purpose, and even too uninterefting.

131. After confidering therefore the fate of arts and fciences in Greece, we fhall pass over to the Roman affairs, where the historical deduction is more fimple, and alfo more important.

132. The bare names of illuftrious men, who flourished in Greece from the time of Cyrus to that of Alexander, would fill a large volume. During this period, all the arts were carried to the highest pitch of perfection; and the improvements we have hitherto mentioned, were but the dawnings of this glorious day.

133. Though the eastern nations had raifed magnificent and ftupendous structures, the Greeks were the first people

in the world, who, in their works of architecture, added beauty to magnificence, and elegance to grandeur. The temples of Jupiter Olympus, and the Ephefian Diana, are the first monuments of good taste.

134. They were erected by the Grecian colonies, who fettled in Afia Minor, before the reign of Cyrus. Phidias, the Athenian, who died in the year before Chrift four hundred and thirty-two, is the firft fculptor whofe works have been immortal. Zeuxis, Parrhafius, and Timantheus, during the fame age, firft difcovered the power of the pencil, and all the magic of painting.

135. Compofition, in all its various branches, reached a degree of perfection in the Greek language, of which a modern reader can hardly form an idea. After Hefiod and Homer, who flourished one thousand years before the chriftian æra, the tragic poets Æfchylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, were the first confiderable improvers of poetry. Herodotus gave fimplicity and elegance to profaic writing. 136. Ifocrates gave it cadence and harmony, but it was left to Thucydides and Demofthenes, to discover the full force of the Greek tongue. It was not however in the finer arts alone that the Greeks excelled. Every fpecies of philofophy was cultivated among them with the utmost fuccefs.

137. Not to mention the divine Socrates, the virtue of whofe life, and the excellence of whofe philosophy, juftly entitled him to a very high degree of veneration; his three difciples, Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon, may, for strength of reafoning, juftness of fentiment, and propriety of expreffion, be put on a footing with the writers of any age or country.

138. Experience, indeed, in a long courfe of years, has taught us many fecrets in nature, with which thefe philofophers were unacquainted, and which no ftrength of genius. could divine. But whatever fome vain empirics in learning may pretend, the most learned and ingenious men, both in France and England, have acknowledged the fuperiority of the Greek philofophers; and have reckoned themselves happy in catching their turn of thinking, and manner of expreffion.

139. But the Greeks were not lefs diftinguished for their tive than for their speculative talents. It would be end

lefs to recount the names of their famous statesmen and warriors, and it is impoffible to mention a few without doing injustice to a greater number. War was first reduced into a fcience by the Greeks.

140. Their foldiers fought from an affection to their country, and an ardor for glory, and not from a dread of their fuperiors. We have feen the effect of this military vir tue in their wars against the Perfians: the cause of it was the wife laws which Amphictyon, Solon, and Lycurgus had established in Greece.

141. But we must now leave this nation, whose history, both civil and philofophical, is as important as their territory was inconfiderable, and turn our attention to the Roman affairs, which are still more interefting, both on their own account, and from the relation in which they ftand to those of modern Europe.

142. The character of Romulus, the founder of the Roman ftate, when we view him as the leader of a few lawlefs and wandering banditti, is an object of extreme infignificance. But when we confider him as the founder of an empire as extenfive as the world, and whose progrefs and decline have occafioned the two greatest revolutions that ev er happened in Europe, we cannot help being interested in

his conduct.

143. His difpofition was extremely martial; and the political state of Italy, divided into a number of small but independent diftricts, afforded a noble field for the display of -military talents. Romulus was continually embroiled with one or other of his neighbors; and war was the only employment by which he and his companions expected not only to aggrandize themfelves, but even to fubfift.

144. In the conduct of his wars with the neighboring people, we may obferve the fame maxims by which the Romans afterwards became masters of the world. Instead of

destroying the nations he had fubjected, he united them to the Roman ftate, whereby Rome acquired a new acceffion of ftrength from every war she undertook, and became pow. erful and populous from that very circumftance which ruins and depopulates other kingdoms.

145. If the enemies, with which he contended, had, by means of the art or arms they employed, any confiderable