'All of its own accord, little Faun, does thy flute go on ringing? Why, with ears to the reed, listenest the livelong day?' Smiling, he holds his peace: an answer maybe had come winging,

Only he pays no heed, rapt in oblivion away.

Nay, not the wax withholds him; his whole soul, charmed with the singing, Gives back silence for meed, silent rewarding the lay.

This fine description of Niobe and her children is the only one of
Meleager's which Mr. Wright gives in this group :-

Daughter of Tantalus! hearken my words-a message to mourn
Hear from my lips the pitiful tale of thy woe!

Loosen thine hair, poor mother, that bared'st for deity's scorn
Many a boy for Phoebus to mark with his bow.

Now not a son is left thee. Fresh horror! for what do I see?
Out and alas! a slaughter that spares not the maid.

One in the arms of her mother, and one as she clings to her knee,
One on the ground, and one at the breast unafraid;

One faces death with a shudder erect; one bends on the dart;

Last, there is one that looks on the daylight alone.

Niobe, she that erewhile loved boasting, with fear at her heart

Stands yet quick-a breathing mother of stone.

But this is the loveliest of the group, full of the care and passion of real grief:

Pericles, Archias' son! To thee they place
-For witness of thy prowess in the chase—
My column, on whose stone the sculptor sets
Thy horse, thy dog, thy spears, thy hunting-nets
Mounted on stakes, and eke the stakes alone-
Ah God! ah God !-for all are only stone!

At twenty years thou sleep'st death's sleep profound,

And undisturbed by beasts that prowl around.

I shall not do the next one of Leonidas about a drunken Anacreon. Here are two pretty ones of Meleager instead about a cup and a picture (v. 171):—

Bright laughs the cup-for 'I have kissed,' it saith,

"Thy lady's laughing mouth.' Too happy cup!

Oh! that, her lips to my lips, at a breath

And (v. 149):

My lady's kiss would drink my spirit up!

Ah! who hath shown my lady unto me,
Her very self, as if she spake ?

Who brought to me one of the Graces three
For friendship's sake?

Full surely brings he me a joyful thing,

And for his grace the grace of thanks I bring.

But I must not give Meleager the lion's share again in this groupthat is almost the last of his I shall be able to put in. These two of Plato's with which Mr. Wright finishes the section are admirably contrasted in tone, and both quite perfect. This is for a ring :

See! five oxen graven on a jasper gem!

To the life! and feeding one and all of them.

Stay-will they not run away-the beasties? No, the fold

Of this golden circlet our little herd shall hold.

It is as fanciful as a nursery rhyme. The other is as joyous and stately as Milton.

Silent! shaggy scaur that Dryads keep.
Silent! rills adown the crags that run.
Silent! mingled bleating of the sheep-
Pan himself the piping has begun.
To his tuneful lip the reed sets he,

Lo! the dance awakens at his call.

Let your young feet trip it merrily,

Waternymphs and woodnymphs one and all!

Mr. Wright's last section contains what I might call the epigrams of thought. The first is Palladas'-(I had almost written Shakespeare's). He was a late writer.

All life's a stage and farce. Or learn to play,
Careless, or bear your sorrows as you may.

And the next two are his also.

Naked to earth was I brought-naked to earth I descend.
Why should I labour for nought, seeing how naked the end?

Breathing the thin breath through our nostrils, we
Live, and a little space the sunlight see-
Even all that live-each being an instrument
To which the generous air its life has lent.

If with the hand one quench our draught of breath,
He sends the stark soul shuddering down to death.
We that are nothing on our pride are fed,
Seeing, but for a little air, we are as dead.

The next beautiful one-quite Tennysonian-is attributed to Æsopus in the Palatine Anthology, though Mr. Wright gives it no master.

Is there no help from life save only death?
Life that such myriad sorrows harboureth
I dare not break, I cannot bear,'-one saith.

'Sweet are stars, sun, and moon, and sea, and earth,

For service and for beauty these had birth,

But all the rest of life is little worth

'Yea, all the rest is pain and grief,' saith he,

'For if it hap some good thing come to me
An evil end befalls it speedily.'

This of Agathias is most charming in its naïveté. Certainly he is the latest of the epigrammatists. But this complaint of girls for secluded life might have been written very few years ago.

Not such your burden, happy youths, as ours-
Poor women children nurtured daintily—
For ye have comrades, when ill fortune lours,
To hearten you with talk and company;
And ye have games for solace, and may roam

Along the streets and see the painters' shows.
But woe betide us if we stir from home-

And there our thoughts are dull enough, God knows!

The next, by Agathias too, is true now-a-days and always.

At this smooth marble table let us sit

And while away the time with dice a bit!
Don't crow, sir, if you win-and then, should I,
Grumble and growl 'It's all that beastly die;'
For in such trifles is man's temper plain,

And the dice test our power to self-restrain.

This one by Poseidippus, some seven hundred years earlier, has been well done by Sir John Beaumont together with its answer, attributed to Metrodorus. I am tempted to do it again though, as it just fits a

sonnet.

Show me some path of life! The market-place
Breeds only quarrel and hard bargainings,
Staying at home incessant worry brings,
Of working in the fields one tires apace,
Who goes to sea a constant dread must face,
And, if one travel, fears for precious things
Torment-if one has none, the lacking stings-
So, rich or poor, hard is the traveller's case.

Married, what care! single, what loneliness!
Children bring sorrow-blank the childless life;
Foolish is youth, and old age listless quite.
Here lies the only choice, I must confess-
Not to be born into this world of strife,

Or straight to die, having but just seen the light.

For this next-Ptolemy's, who lived about two centuries and a half on in the Christian era-I shall borrow a turn of rhyme from Robert Browning.

I know that I am mortal and the creature of a day.
But when I see the stars, like sand, in orbits turn alway,
As that divinest sight I heed, I spurn the earth and say
'Now am I even as Zeus, and feed on his ambrosia.'

This is more familiar. The author is unknown, but the text is as old as Solomon.

Drink and be merry! for what is the future and what is the morrow?
No man answereth thee. Labour not thou, neither run;

Feast as thou may'st, and do good and distribute: but let not life borrow
Any false worth, for 'to be '-'not to be '-lo! 'tis all one!
Yea, what is life? an thou take it, thy thrall. 'Tis the turn of the scale.
But, an thou lose it, another's is all-but thee nought can avail.

The last but one is a poem of Marcus Argentarius, also late, full of a beautiful hedonism.

The golden stars are quiring in the west,

And in their measure will I dance my best,
But in no dance of man.

High on my head a crown of flowers I raise
And strike my sounding lyre in Phoebus' praise,
For this is life's best plan,

And the whole firmament were wrong

Had it no crown, no song.

2

This crown, this song, this 'order' of life was what made Greek humanity divine. There is no more concise expression of the intimacy between daily life and ritual than that little verse contains in the heart of it. It is the most Greek but, perhaps Mr. Wright thought, not the most philosophic strain to end with, and he brings us to a full stop with Philodemus' resolutions.

I loved-and you. I played-who hath not been
Steeped in such play? If I was mad, I ween
"Twas for a god and for no earthly queen.

Hence with it all! Then dark my youthful head,
Where now scant locks of whitening hair, instead,
Reminders of a grave old age, are shed.

I gathered roses while the roses blew.

Playtime is past, my play is ended too.

Awake, my heart! and worthier aims pursue.

There is a note of Herrick again in that. We found one of Philodemus' love-songs in the third group, and noticed its sigh of sadness, 'Poor lovers I and thou.' We saw that he too came from Gadara and was a contemporary of Meleager. It is strange to catch the selfsame notes ringing from the midst of that Syrian culture, which we hear echo our own longings of to-day in the poets of the golden age of Elizabeth.

WILLIAM M. HARDINGE.

2 The allusion in the poem is to the constellations of Orpheus and Ariadne-a lute and crown.

UNIVERSITY WORK IN GREAT TOWNS.

In the prospect of changes which may be initiated by the present Universities Commissions, it is important that public attention should be directed to various forms of useful activity outside the recognised sphere of University work, which have been spontaneously undertaken by the authorities of Oxford and Cambridge during the last few years. It cannot certainly be said that the impulse for reform and development has been communicated to either University wholly from without. Nothing has been more honourably characteristic of both bodies, especially of their younger members, of late, than the desire to find new worlds to conquer, and to claim for the Universities a larger share in the best intellectual and educational movements which are going on in the nation. The establishment at Oxford, mainly at the suggestion of Bishop Temple, of the system of local examinations adapted for schoolboys has had far-reaching and unexpected results. Cambridge was not slow to adopt the same step; girls were soon included in the scheme as well as boys; and the usefulness of the examinations has so grown that in the last year Oxford examined 1,670 boys and 634 girls, and Cambridge no less than 4,681 candidates, of whom 3,002 were boys and 1,679 girls. The influence of these examinations is in no wise measurable by these numbers, or limited to those who are actually presented for examination. Those who best know the interior of the higher schools, both private and public, from which these candidates are drawn, testify that the system has given definiteness to the aims of teachers, revealed deficiencies, and improved methods; has encouraged pupils and given them new motives for exertion; and has done much to raise and ennoble the character of secondary education throughout the country. Cambridge has since gone a step farther, and by means of its higher local examinations for non-resident students above eighteen has placed within the reach of young men, and-what is of still more importance-of women also, a certificate of attainment hardly inferior in value to an ordinary degree. By the establishment of a Joint Board, the Universities have also provided for the inspection and examination of grammar and public schools, and for the award to their pupils of a certificate, which while, relatively to the school life, it shall serve as a terminus ad quem or leaving certificate,