tude, as sometimes not even to touch the ground, but to be borne aloft by the concourse round him: some following close upon him with loud acclamations, others leaping with exultation and raising their hands to heaven; others again throwing garlands and fillets at the man-as soon as he was able to approach, inquired, What this tumultuous assemblage of people was doing? and, What had happened? The man replied, "I have gained the victory, Diogenes! over the runners in the Stadium." 2. "What is the nature of this victory?" said he. "Your understanding, I presume, has acquired not even the slenderest improvements from your superiority of speed over your competitors; nor are you become more temperate and continent than before; nor less timorous, nor less a prey to melancholy: nor, peradventure, will you live henceforward with more moderate desires, or under greater freedom from uneasiness and vexation of spirit." 66 3. Be that as it may," the man rejoins, "I excel all the other Greeks in the swiftness of my feet.". "But," said Diogenes, "you are not swifter than the hares, nor the stags; and yet these creatures, though the swiftest of all others, are at the same time the most timorous, afraid both of men, and birds of prey, and of dogs; so as to lead a life of uninterrupted misery. 4. Indeed you must be aware, are you not, that speed is in reality a symptom of timidity? for the most timid animals are also invariably the swiftest. In conformity with this dispensation of nature, Hercules was slower of foot than most men; and, from his consequent inability of laying hold on his antagonists by speed, was accustomed to carry a bow and arrows, and thus arrest a flying adversary with his weapons.' 99 5. "Yes," said the man: "but the poet tells us, how Achilles,t the swift-footed, was a warrior likewise of incomparable fortitude." ""And whence," replied Diogenes, "can we infer the celerity of Achilles? for we find him incapable of overtaking Hector, after a pursuit of an entire day. However, are you not ashamed of priding yourself on that property, in which you must acknowledge your inferiority to the meanest animals? Nay, I suppose, that you would not be able to outstrip even a fox in speed. But, after all, at what a distance did you leave your competitors behind ?"" 6. "A very small distance, Diogenes! and this very circum stance makes my victory so admirably glorious." "It seems, *Fillet, a band to tie up the hair. + The bravest of the Greeks in the Trojan war. 1 then," said Diogenes, "that your triumph and felicity depended on a single step."- "No wonder: we were all the fleetest runners imaginable.”. -"By how great an interval do you think a lark would have gone over the Stadium before you all ?" "But they have wings, and fly." "Well!" replied Diogenes: "if swiftness then be a proof of excellence, it were better to be a lark than a man: so that our commiseration for larks and lapwings, because they were metamorphosed* from men into birds, as mythologists inform us, is unseasonable and unnecessary. 7. "But I," said the victorious racer," who am a man myself, am the swiftest of mankind." "Yes!" replied Diogenes: "and is it not probable, that among ants, also, one is swifter than another? Yet are the ants objects of admiration to their fellows on that account? Or would you not think it a laughable absurdity in any man to admire an ant for his speed? Suppose again, that all your competitors had been lame, would you have prided yourself, as on some masterly achievement, for outstripping the lame, when you were not lame like the rest?" 8. By such conversation as this, he produced in many of his hearers a supreme contempt for the boasted accomplishment in question and the man too departed, under no little mortification and humiliation, from this interview with Diogenes. Nor was the philosopher of little service to society in this respect, by reducing to a smaller compass and assuaging the tumors of a senseless infatuation, as swellings on the body subside from scarification and puncture, wherever he saw any man inflated with a frivolous conceit of unsubstantial excellence, and carried beyond the limits of sober sentiment by qualities utterly destitute of intrinsic worth. LESSON CXXI. Diversity in the Human Character.-POPE. But Heaven's great view is one,-and that the whole. Pronounced Met-a-mor-fus'd, changed. ✦ Goal, the end which a person aims to reach or accomplish. 2. That counterworks each folly and caprice; 3. Heaven, forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 4. What'er the passion, knowledge, fame or pelf, The starving chimist in his golden views 5. See some strange comfort ev'ry state attend, 7. Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays, E'en mean self-love becomes, by force divine, LESSON CXXII. On the Pursuits of Mankind.-POPE. 1. HONOR and shame from no condition rise; Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow: 2. Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece : Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood: Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. 3. Look next on greatness-say where greatness lies? "Where, but among the heroes and the wise?" Brocade, a silk stuff variegated with gold and silver. † Cowl, a hood worn by a monk. : Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed, Not one looks backward; onward still he goes; All sly slow things with circumspective eyes. 4. But grant that those can conquer; these can cheat; 5. What's fame? a fanci'd life in other's breath, Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart; 6. In parts superior what advantage lies? Above life's weakness, and its comforts too. 7. Bring then these blessings to a strict account; Make fair deductions, see to what they 'mount; Alexander the Great. + Charles XII. king of Sweden, born A. D. 1682. His whole reign was one continued scene of warfare. He was killed at the siege of Fredericks hall, in Norway, December, 1718. A Roman emperor in A. D. 161. Marcellus, an eminent Roman, banished by Julius Cesar to Asia, and Bacalled by Augustus Cesar. |