lists with verse, and invented a peculiar dance of syllables, by which the free speech was first reduced to harmonious discourse, and propriety of language was transformed into eloquence. Here, for the first time, art became the centre of all the efforts of genius, and as the altar of Vesta united all the citizens of the same town, so the altar of art gathered together all the higher minds, in every species of intellectual action. Here philosophy founded a more venerable sanctuary, which united earth and heaven, where the graces of persuasion and of harmony, with the sister graces of poetry, the laughing satyrs, and the inspired Eros, danced around the flaming altar of wisdom. Thus, too, history grew up anew on this classic soil, moulded to a form of greater loftiness and dignity. The Attic history of Thucydides bears the same relation to the Ionic of Herodotus, that Attic tragedy bears to the Ionian Epos. Like tragedy, the Attic history renounces the free episodic movement; she seeks not to supply a pastime for the moment, but deep lessons for all coming times; she no longer desires to represent the world, but man, and the Providence that rules the world. If the Ionic history and Epopee resemble the smooth mirror of a broad and silent lake, from whose depth a serene sky, with its soft and sunny vault, and the varied nature along its smiling shores, are reflected in transfigured beauty, the Attic drama and history may be compared to a mighty stream, which noiselessly flows along within its steadfast banks, sweeps every obstacle in its strength away, no where turns aside from its onward course, salutes with equal dignity the flowery and the melancholy margin, and, after a long and majestic career, mingles with the ocean at last. As in the earlier periods, so, in this epoch also of the fullest bloom, art aims at a perfect harmony between the outward form and the inner substance. The Attic dialect united in itself all the excellences of the others, without sharing their defects. Having no less life than the kindred Ionic, it shuns the loose constructions of the latter, and shares the fulness and strength of the Doric, without its hardness and roughness. With the culture of manhood and the freshness of youth, rich and harmonious, delicate and lithe, equally adapted to seriousness and mirth, it shapes itself to every form, and weds itself, with impartial love, to poetry and eloquence. As the Attic drama is the loftiest summit of ancient poetry, the Attic dialect is the flower of the Greek language, and alike fitted to describe external nature, and to give utterance to the deepest feelings of the soul. Thus it became of necessity the language of finished art, and could not but remain so while the perfection of art was understood and acknowledged. But lyric poetry, even in Attica, preserved the Doric form, so that, even in the lyric portion of the drama, a softened Dorian tone evermore prevailed. So, too, the epos, and the elegy, which shares with the epos the character of lingering detail, continued to be Ionic. Neither Thus, therefore, it came to pass, that the various dialects of the Greek language, so far as their nature allowed, were cultivated to a classical excellence, and several along with each other, each in its own department, even beyond the time of their actual use in life. of these results was the work of chance; on the contrary, here as well as elsewhere were displayed the peculiar sense of the Greeks for the harmony of all the parts of an organic whole, and their scrupulous reluctance to disturb the old, when that had become consecrated by art. Far from them was the evil habit of setting the new above the ancient, and the newest above the new. Forms, that once stood forth in perfect excellence and beauty, were immovably fixed for all time; and even the use of different dialects, in their proper departments, helped to make the internal character of each particular species sacred and inviolable, as the outward form was kept unchanged. That deep and delicate perception, which is so wonderfully declared in the phenomenon here explained, as in all the departments of Grecian art, is one of the excellent qualities by which that nation, for ever to be admired, was distinguished before all other people. In them, if any where, is manifested the highest perfection of taste, which is itself in turn the last and purest flower of human genius. To gather this flower, to sow its seeds in our own minds, the garden of the Hellenic muses is opened before us. No other nation holds up a like example of perfection in such various forms, nor a like harmonious blending and combination of the most diversified elements in the same works; even the German, which, in other conditions requisite for art, might vie among the foremost with the Greeks, here falls below them. It is deficient in the natural development, which fell to the portion of the Greeks; and, instead of turning all its vigor to the care of the generous natural growth, it exhausts the greatest part of its strength in guarding against the foreign element, that is perpetually striving to gain a foothold. In spite, therefore, of resemblance in other particulars, nothing can form a stronger contrast, than the assured career of Grecian, and the wavering march of German art; while the former was only drawn towards the goal of perfection, the latter is each moment disturbed in its career by every accidental influence that approaches it. Hence, it has hitherto been impossible to unfold in Germany the inner sense of beauty and perfection with precision and certainty; hence, our neighbors, educated in a narrower sphere, but on surer principles, may be pardoned in this respect, for thinking that we have not yet quite outgrown the state of barbarism. But if there has ever been a point of time, when the hope might be entertained, of seeing fulfilled the desire, so often disappointed, that a reign of science and art may be securely founded in Germany, and thereby a livelier sense for the beautiful and the great excited, and firmly established, that time is the present. The powerful movement, which shakes to its centre the intellectual province of the sciences, throughout all its borders; the mutual attraction of its various elements, once so divided; the ever-growing ardor of the aspiration felt by the best minds after something higher; the universal diffusion of a love for art;-these, and other causes, lead us to look to the future for a more finished intellectual education. We may also add, that the various misfortunes which the people have suffered, have increased, instead of weakening, the elasticity of their character, and have inflamed their desire, by rallying them closer around the banner of their language, to gain those laurels in the intellectual world, which have been torn from them in the struggle for temporal possessions. |