FRANCIS, a man who holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England, was born in the year 1662, at Middleton in Buckinghamshire, a parish of which his father was rector. Francis was educated at Westminster School, and carried thence to Christ Church a stock of learning which, though really scanty, he through life exhibited with such judicious ostentation that superficial observers believed his attainments to be immense. At Oxford, his parts, his taste, and his bold, contemptuous, and imperious spirit soon made him Atterbury conspicuous. Here he published, at twenty, his first work, a translation of the noble poem of Absalom and Ahithophel into Latin verse. Neither the style nor the versification of the young scholar was that of the Augustan age. In English composition he succeeded much better. In 1687 he distinguished himself among many able men who wrote in defence of the Church of England, then persecuted by James II., and calumniated by apostates who had for lucre quitted her communion. Among these apostates none was more active or malignant than Obadiah Walker, who was master of University College, and who had set up there, under the royal patronage, a press for printing tracts against the established religion. In one of these tracts written apparently by Walker himself, many aspersions were thrown on Martin Luther. Atterbury undertook to defend the great Saxon reformer, and performed that task in a manner singularly characteristic. Whoever examines his reply to Walker will be struck by the contrast between the feebleness of those parts which are argumentative and defensive, and the vigour of those parts which are rhetorical and aggressive. The Papists were so much galled by the sarcasms and invectives of the young polemic, that they raised a cry of treason, and accused him of having, by implication, called King James a Judas.

After the Revolution, Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to the new government. In no long time he took holy orders. He occasionally preached in London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, and soon had the honour of being appointed one of the royal chaplains. But he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he took an active part in academical business, directed the classical studies of the under-graduates of his college, and was the chief adviser and assistant of Dean Aldrich, a divine now chiefly remembered by his catches, but renowned among his contemporaries as a scholar, a Tory, and a high-churchman. It was the practice, not a very judicious practice, of Aldrich, to employ the most promising youths of his college in editing Greek and Latin books. Among the studious and well-disposed lads who were, unfortunately for themselves, induced to become teachers of philology when they should have been content to be learners, was Charles Boyle, son of the Earl of Orrery, and nephew of Robert Boyle, the great experimental philosopher. The task assigned to Charles Boyle was to prepare a new edition of one of the most worthless books in existence. It was a fashion among those Greeks and Romans who cultivated rhetoric as an art, to compose epistles and harangues in the names of eminent men. Some of these counterfeits are fabricated with such exquisite taste and skill, that it is the highest achievement of criticism to distinguish them from originals. Others are so feebly and rudely executed that they can hardly impose on an intelligent schoolboy. The best specimen which has come down to us is perhaps the oration for Marcellus, such an imitation of Tully's eloquence as Tully would himself have read with wonder and delight. The worst specimen is perhaps a collection of letters purporting to have been written by that Phalaris who governed Agrigentum more than 500 years before the Christian era. The evidence, both internal and external, against the genuineness of these letters is overwhelming. When, in the fifteenth century, they emerged, in company with much that was far more valuable, from their obscurity, they were pronounced spurious by Politian, the greatest scholar of Italy, and by Erasmus, the greatest scholar on our side of the Alps. In truth, it would be as easy to persuade an educated Englishman, that one of Johnson's Ramblers was the work of William Wallace, as to persuade a man like Erasmus, that a pedantic exercise, composed in the trim and artificial Attic of the time of Julian, was a despatch written by a crafty and ferocious Dorian who roasted people alive many Atterbury years before there existed a volume of prose in the Greek language. But though Christ Church could boast of many good Latinists, of many good English writers, and of a greater number of clever and fashionable men of the world than belonged to any other academic body, there was not then in the college a single man capable of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotation of Greek literature. So superficial indeed was the learning of the rulers of this celebrated society, that they were charmed by an essay which Sir William Temple published in praise of the ancient writers. It now seems strange, that even the eminent public services, the deserved popularity, and the graceful style of Temple, should have saved so silly a performance from universal contempt. Of the books which he most vehemently eulogized his eulogies proved that he knew nothing. In fact, he could not read a line of the language in which they were written. Among many other foolish things, he said that the letters of Phalaris were the oldest letters and also the best in the world. Whatever Temple wrote attracted notice. People who had never heard of the Epistles of Phalaris began to inquire about them. Aldrich, who knew very little Greek, took the word of Temple who knew none, and desired Boyle to prepare a new edition of these admirable compositions which, having long slept in obscurity, had become on a sudden objects of general interest.

The edition was prepared with the help of Atterbury, who was Boyle's tutor, and of some other members of the college. It was an edition such as might be expected from people who would stoop to edit such a book. The notes were worthy of the text; the Latin version worthy of the Greek original. The volume would have been forgotten in a month, had not a misunderstanding about a manuscript arisen between the young editor and the greatest scholar that had appeared in Europe since the revival of letters, Richard Bentley. The manuscript was in Bentley's keeping. Boyle wished it to be collated. A mischief-making bookseller informed him that Bentley had refused to lend it, which was false, and also that Bentley had spoken contemptuously of the letters attributed to Phalaris, and of the critics who were taken in by such counterfeits, which was perfectly true. Boyle, much provoked, paid, in his preface, a bitterly ironical compliment to Bentley's courtesy. Bentley revenged himself by a short dissertation, in which he proved that the epistles were spurious, and the new edition of them worthless; but he treated Boyle personally with civility as a young gentleman of great hopes, whose love of learning was highly commendable, and who deserved to have had better instructors.

Few things in literary history are more extraordinary than the storm which this little dissertation raised. Bentley had treated Boyle with forbearance; but he had treated Christ Church with contempt; and the Christ-Churchmen, wherever dispersed, were as much attached to their college as a Scotchman to his country, or a Jesuit to his order. Their influence was great. They were dominant at Oxford, powerful in the Inns of Court and in the College of Physicians, conspicuous in parliament and in the literary and fashionable circles of London. Their unanimous cry was, that the honour of the college must be vindicated, that the insolent Cambridge pedant must be put down. Poor Boyle was unequal to the task, and disinclined to it. It was, therefore, assigned to his tutor Atterbury.

The answer to Bentley, which bears the name of Boyle, but which was, in truth, no more the work of Boyle than the letters to which the controversy related were the work of Phalaris, is now read only by the curious, and will in all probability never be reprinted again. But it had its day of noisy popularity. It was to be found not only in the studies of men of letters, but on the tables of the most brilliant drawing-rooms of Soho Square and Covent Garden. Even the beau and coquette of that age, the Wildairs and the Lady Lurewells, the Mirabels, and the Millamants, congratulated each other on the way in which the gay young gentlemen, whose erudition sat so easily upon him, and who wrote with so much pleasantry and good breeding about the Attic dialect and the anapaestic measure, Sicilian talents and Thericlean eyes, had bantered the queer prig of a doctor. Nor was the applause of the multitude undeserved. The book is, indeed, Atterbury's masterpiece, and gives a higher notion of his powers than any of those works to which he put his name. That he was altogether in the wrong on the main question, and on all the collateral questions springing out of it, that his knowledge of the language, the literature, and the history of Greece, was not equal to what many freshmen now bring up every year to Cambridge and Oxford, and that some of his blunders seem rather to deserve a flogging than a refutation, is true; and therefore it is that his performance is, in the highest degree, interesting and valuable to a judicious reader. It is good by reason of its exceeding badness. It is the most extraordinary instance that exists of the art of making much show with little substance. There is no difficulty, says the steward of Molière's miser, in giving a fine dinner with plenty of money: the really great cook is he who can set out a banquet with no money at all. That Bentley should have written excellently on ancient chronology and geography, on the development of the Greek language, and the origin of the Greek drama, is not strange. But that Atterbury should, during some years, have been thought to have treated these subjects much better than Bentley, is strange indeed. It is true that the champion of Christ Church had all the help which the most celebrated members of that society could give him. Smalridge contributed some very good wit; Friend and others some very bad archaeology and philology. But the greater part of the volume was entirely Atterbury's: what was not his own was revised and retouched by him; and the whole bears the mark of his mind, a mind inexhaustibly rich in all the resources of controversy, and familiar with all the artifices which make falsehood look like truth, and ignorance like knowledge. He had little gold; but he beat that little out to the very thinnest leaf; and spread it over so vast a surface, that to those who judged by a glance, and who did not resort to balances and teats, the glittering heap of worthless matter which he produced seemed to be an inestimable treasure of massy bullion. Such arguments as he had placed in the clearest light. Where he had no arguments, he resorted to personalities, sometimes serious, generally ludicrous, always clever and cutting. But, whether he was grave or merry, whether he reasoned or succored, his style was always pure, polished, and easy.

Party-spirit then ran high: yet, though Bentley ranked among Whigs, and Christ Church was a stronghold of Toryism, Whigs joined with Tories in applauding Atterbury's volume. Garth insulted Bentley, and extolled Boyle in lines which are now never quoted except to be laughed at. Swift, in his Battle of the Books, introduced with much pleasantry Boyle, clad in armour, the gift of all the gods, and directed by Apollo in the form of a human friend, for whose name a blank is left which may easily be filled up. The youth, so accoutred and so assisted, gains an easy victory over his uncourtous and boastful antagonist. Bentley, meanwhile, was supported by the consciousness of an immeasurable superiority, and encouraged by the voices of the few who were really competent to judge the combat. "No man," he said, justly and nobly, "was ever written down but by himself." He spent two years in preparing a reply, which will never cease to be read and prized while the literature of ancient Greece is studied in any part of the world. This reply proved not only that the letters ascribed to Phalaris were spurious, but that Atterbury, with all his wit, his eloquence, his skill in controversial fence, was the most audacious pretender that ever wrote about what he did not understand. But to Atterbury this exposure was matter of Atterbury's indifference. He was now engaged in a dispute about matters far more important and exciting than the laws of Zaleucus and the laws of Charondas. The rage of religious factions was extreme. High church and low church divided the nation. The great majority of the clergy were on the high church side; the majority of King William's bishops were inclined to latitudinarianism. A dispute arose between the two parties touching the extent of the powers of the Lower House of Convocation. Atterbury thrust himself eagerly into the front rank of the high-churchmen. Those who take a comprehensive and impartial view of his whole career, will not be disposed to give him credit for religious zeal. But it was his nature to be vehement and pugnacious in the cause of every fraternity of which he was a member. He had defended the genuineness of a spurious book simply because Christ Church had put forth an edition of that book; he now stood up for the clergy against the civil power simply because he was a clergyman, and for the priests against the episcopal order, simply because he was as yet only a priest. He asserted the pretensions of the class to which he belonged in several treatises written with much wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony. In this, as in his first controversy, he was opposed to antagonists whose knowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his; but in this, as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by bold assertion, by sarcasm, by declamation, and, above all, by his peculiar knack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make it look like a great deal. Having passed himself off on the world as a greater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now passed himself off as a greater master of ecclesiastical learning than Wake or Gibson. By the great body of the clergy he was regarded as the ablest and most intrepid tribune that had ever defended their rights against the oligarchy of prelates. The Lower House of Convocation voted him thanks for his services; the University of Oxford created him a doctor of divinity; and soon after the accession of Anne, while the Tories still had the chief weight in the government, he was promoted to the deanery of Carlisle.

Soon after he had obtained this preferment, the Whig party rose to ascendancy in the state. From that party he could expect no favour. Six years elapsed before a change of fortune took place. At length, in the year 1710, the prosecution of Sacheverell produced a formidable explosion of high-church fanaticism. At such a moment Atterbury could not fail to be conspicuous. His inordinate zeal for the body to which he belonged, his turbulent and aspiring temper, his rare talents for agitation and for controversy were again signalized. He bore a chief part in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the accused divine pronounced at the bar of the Lords, and which presents a singular contrast to the absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very unwisely been honoured with impeachment. During the troubled and anxious months which followed the trial, Atterbury was among the most active of those pamphleteers who inflamed the nation against the Whig ministry and the Whig parliament. When the ministry had been changed and the parliament dissolved, rewards were showered upon him. The Lower House of Convocation elected him prolocutor. The Queen appointed him Dean of Christ Church on the death of his old friend and patron Aldrich. The college would have preferred a gentler ruler. Nevertheless, the new head was received with every mark of honour. A congratulatory oration in Latin was addressed to him in the magnificent vestibule of the hall; and he in reply professed the warmest attachment to the venerable house in which he had been educated, and paid many gracious compliments to those over whom he was to preside. But it was not in his nature to be a mild or an equitable governor. He had left the chapter of Carlisle distracted by quarrels. He found Christ Church at peace; but in three months his despotic and contentious temper did at Christ Church what it had Atterbury done at Carlisle. He was succeeded in both his deaneries by the humane and accomplished Smalridge, who gently complained of the state in which both had been left. "Atterbury goes before, and sets everything on fire. I come after him with a bucket of water." It was said by Atterbury's enemies that he was made a bishop because he was so bad a dean. Under his administration Christ Church was in confusion, scandalous altercations took place, opprobrious words were exchanged; and there was reason to fear that the great Tory college would be ruined by the tyranny of the great Tory doctor. He was soon removed to the bishopric of Rochester, which was then always united with the deanery of Westminster. Still higher dignities seemed to be before him. For, though there were many able men on the episcopal bench, there was none who equalled or approached him in parliamentary talents. Had his party continued in power, it is not improbable that he would have been raised to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The more splendid his prospects, the more reason he had to dread the accession of a family which was well known to be partial to the Whigs. There is every reason to believe that he was one of those politicians who hoped that they might be able, during the life of Anne, to prepare matters in such a way that at her decease there might be little difficulty in setting aside the Act of Settlement and placing the Pretender on the throne. Her sudden death confounded the projects of these conspirators. Atterbury, who wanted no kind of courage, implored his confederates to proclaim James III., and offered to accompany the heralds in lawn sleeves. But he found even the bravest soldiers of his party irresolute, and exclaimed, not, it is said, without interjections which ill became the mouth of a father of the church, that the best of all causes and the most precious of all moments had been pusillanimously thrown away. He acquiesced in what he could not prevent, took the oaths to the House of Hanover, and at the coronation officiated with the outward show of zeal, and did his best to ingratiate himself with the royal family. But his servility was requited with cold contempt. No creature is so revengeful as a proud man who has humbled himself in vain. Atterbury became the most factious and pertinacious of all the opponents of the government. In the House of Lords his oratory, lucid, pointed, lively, and set off with every grace of pronunciation and of gesture, extorted the attention and admiration even of a hostile majority. Some of the most remarkable protests which appear in the journals of the peers were drawn up by him; and, in some of the bitterest of those pamphlets which called on the English to stand up for their country against the aliens who had come from beyond the seas to oppress and plunder her, critics easily detected his style. When the rebellion of 1715 broke out, he refused to sign the paper in which the bishops of the province of Canterbury declared their attachment to the Protestant succession. He busied himself in electioneering, especially at Westminster, where as dean he possessed great influence; and was, indeed, strongly suspected of having once set on a riotous mob to prevent his Whig fellow-citizens from polling.

After having been long in indirect communication with the exiled family, he, in 1717, began to correspond directly with the Pretender. The first letter of the correspondence is extant. In that letter Atterbury boasts of having, during many years past, neglected no opportunity of serving the Jacobite cause. "My daily prayer," he says, "is that you may have success. May I live to see that day, and live no longer than I do what is in my power to forward it." It is to be remembered that he who wrote thus was a man bound to set to the church of which he was overseer an example of strict probity; that he had repeatedly sworn allegiance to the House of Brunswick; that he had assisted in placing Atterbury, the crown on the head of George I., and that he had abjured James III., "without equivocation or mental reservation, on the true faith of a Christian."

It is agreeable to turn from his public to his private life. His turbulent spirit, wearied with faction and treason, now and then required repose, and found it in domestic endearments, and in the society of the most illustrious of the living and of the dead. Of his wife little is known; but between him and his daughter there was an affection singularly close and tender. The gentleness of his manners when he was in the company of a few friends was such as seemed hardly credible to those who knew him only by his writings and speeches. The charm of his "softer hour" has been commemorated by one of those friends in imperishable verse. Though Atterbury's classical attainments were not great, his taste in English literature was excellent; and his admiration of genius was so strong that it overpowered even his political and religious antipathies. His fondness for Milton, the mortal enemy of the Stuarts and of the church, was such as to many Tories seemed a crime. On the sad night on which Addison was laid in the chapel of Henry VII., the Westminster boys remarked that Atterbury read the funeral service with a peculiar tenderness and solemnity.

The favourite companions, however, of the great Tory prelate were, as might have been expected, men whose politics had at least a tinge of Toryism. He lived on friendly terms with Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. With Prior he had a close intimacy, which some misunderstanding about public affairs at last dissolved. Pope found in Atterbury not only a warm admirer, but a most faithful, fearless, and judicious adviser. The poet was a frequent guest at the episcopal palace among the elms of Bromley, and entertained not the slightest suspicion that his host, now declining in years, confined to an easy chair by gout, and apparently devoted to literature, was deeply concerned in criminal and perilous designs against the government.

The spirit of the Jacobites had been cowed by the events of 1715. It revived in 1721. The failure of the South Sea project, the panic in the money market, the downfall of great commercial houses, the distress from which no part of the kingdom was exempt, had produced general discontent. It seemed not improbable that at such a moment an insurrection might be successful. An insurrection was planned. The streets of London were to be barricaded; the Tower and the Bank were to be surprised; King George, his family, and his chief captains and councillors were to be arrested, and King James was to be proclaimed. The design became known to the Duke of Orleans, regent of France, who was on terms of friendship with the House of Hanover. He put the English government on its guard. Some of the chief malcontents were committed to prison; and among them was Atterbury. No bishop of the Church of England had been taken into custody since that memorable day when the applauses and prayers of all London had followed the seven bishops to the gate of the Tower. The Opposition entertained some hope that it might be possible to excite among the people an enthusiasm resembling that of their fathers, who rushed into the waters of the Thames to implore the blessing of Sancroft. Pictures of the heroic confessor in his cell were exhibited at the shop windows. Verses in his praise were sung about the streets. The restraints by which he was prevented from communicating with his accomplices were represented as cruelties worthy of the dungeons of the Inquisition. Strong appeals were made to the priesthood. Would they tamely permit so gross an insult to be offered to their cloth? Would they suffer the ablest, the most eloquent member of their profession, the man who had so often stood up for their rights against the civil power, to be treated like the vilest of mankind? There was considerable excitement; but it was allayed by a temperate and artful letter to the clergy, the work, in all probability, of Bishop Gibson, who stood high in the favour of Walpole, and shortly after became minister for ecclesiastical affairs.

Atterbury remained in close confinement during some months. He had carried on his correspondence with the exiled family so cautiously that the circumstantial proofs of his guilt, though sufficient to produce entire moral conviction, were not sufficient to justify legal conviction. He could be reached only by a bill of pains and penalties. Such a bill the Whig party, then decidedly predominant in both houses, was quite prepared to support. Many booted members of that party were eager to follow the precedent which had been set in the case of Sir John Fenwick, and to pass an act for cutting off the bishop's head. Cadogan, who commanded the army, a brave soldier, but a headstrong politician, is said to have exclaimed with great vehemence: "Fling him to the lions in the Tower." But the wiser and more humane Walpole was always unwilling to shed blood; and his influence prevailed. When parliament met, the evidence against the bishop was laid before committees of both houses. Those committees reported that his guilt was proved. In the Commons a resolution, pronouncing him a traitor, was carried by nearly two to one. A bill was then introduced which provided that he should be deprived of his spiritual dignities, that he should be banished for life, and that no British subject should hold any intercourse with him except by the royal permission.

This bill passed the Commons with little difficulty. For the bishop, though invited to defend himself, chose to reserve his defence for the assembly of which he was a member. In the Lords the contest was sharp. The young Duke of Wharton, distinguished by his parts, his dissoluteness, and his versatility, spoke for Atterbury with great effect; and Atterbury's own voice was heard for the last time by that unfriendly audience which had so often listened to him with mingled aversion and delight. He produced few witnesses, nor did those witnesses say much that could be of service to him. Among them was Pope. He was called to prove that, while he was an inmate of the palace at Bromley, the bishop's time was completely occupied by literary and domestic matters, and that no leisure was left for plotting. But Pope, who was quite unaccustomed to speak in public, lost his head, and, as he afterwards owned, though he had only ten words to say, made two or three blunders.

The bill finally passed the Lords by eighty-three votes to forty-three. The bishops, with a single exception, were in the majority. Their conduct drew on them a sharp taunt from Lord Bathurst, a warm friend of Atterbury and a zealous Tory. "The wild Indians," he said, "give no quarter, because they believe that they shall inherit the skill and prowess of every adversary whom they destroy." Perhaps the animosity of the right reverend prelates to their brother may be explained in the same way.

Atterbury took leave of those whom he loved with a dignity and tenderness worthy of a better man. Three fine lines of his favourite poet were often in his mouth:

"Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon: The world was all before him, where to choose His place of rest, and providence his guide."

At parting he presented Pope with a Bible, and said with a disingenuousness of which no man who had studied the Bible to much purpose would have been guilty: "If ever you learn that I have any dealings with the Pretender, I give you leave to say that my punishment is just." Pope at this time really believed the bishop to be an injured man. Arbuthnot seems to have been of the same opinion. Swift, a few months later, ridiculed with great bitterness, in the Voyage to Lapute, the evidence which had satisfied the two houses of parliament. Soon, however, the most partial friends of the banished prelate ceased to assert his innocence, and contented themselves with lamenting and excusing what they could not defend. After a short stay at Brussels, he had Atterbury taken up his abode at Paris, and had become the leading man among the Jacobite refugees who were assembled there. He was invited to Rome by the Pretender, who then held his mock court under the immediate protection of the Pope. But Atterbury felt that a bishop of the Church of England would be strangely out of place at the Vatican, and declined the invitation. During some months, however, he might flatter himself that he stood high in the good graces of James.

The correspondence between the master and the servant was constant, Atterbury's merits were warmly acknowledged, his advice was respectfully received, and he was, as Bolingbroke had been before him, the prime minister of a king without a kingdom. But the new favourite found, as Bolingbroke had found before him, that it was quite as hard to keep the shadow of power under a vagrant and mendicant prince as to keep the reality of power at Westminster. Though James had neither territories nor revenues, neither army nor navy, there was more faction and more intrigue among his courtiers than among those of his successful rival. Atterbury soon perceived that his counsels were disregarded, if not distrusted. His proud spirit was deeply wounded. He quitted Paris, fixed his residence at Montpelier, gave up politics, and devoted himself entirely to letters. In the sixth year of his exile he had so severe an illness that his daughter, herself in very delicate health, determined to run all risks that she might see him once more. Having obtained a license from the English Government, she went by sea to Bordeaux, but landed there in such a state that she could travel only by boat or in a litter. Her father, in spite of his infirmities, set out from Montpelier to meet her; and she, with the impatience which is often the sign of approaching death, hastened towards him. Those who were about her in vain implored her to travel slowly. She said that every hour was precious, that she only wished to see her papa and to die. She met him at Toulouse, embraced him, received from his hand the sacred bread and wine, and thanked God that they had passed one day in each other's society before they parted for ever. She died that night.

It was some time before even the strong mind of Atterbury recovered from this cruel blow. As soon as he was himself again he became eager for action and conflict; for grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless. The Pretender, dull and bigoted as he was, had found out that he had not acted wisely in parting with one who, though a heretic, was, in abilities and accomplishments, the foremost man of the Jacobite party. The bishop was courted back, and was without much difficulty induced to return to Paris and to become once more the phantom minister of a phantom monarchy. But his long and troubled life was drawing to a close. To the last, however, his intellect retained all its keenness and vigour. He learned, in the ninth year of his banishment, that he had been accused by Oldmixon, as dishonest and malignant a scribbler as any that has been saved from oblivion by the Dunciad, of having, in concert with other Christ Churchmen, garbled Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. The charge, as respected Atterbury, had not the slightest foundation; for he was not one of the editors of the History, and never saw it till it was printed. He published a short vindication of himself, which is a model in its kind, luminous, temperate, and dignified. A copy of this little work he sent to the Pretender, with a letter singularly eloquent and graceful. It was impossible, the old man said, that he should write anything on such a subject without being reminded of the resemblance between his own fate and that of Clarendon. They were the only two English subjects that had ever been banished from their country and debarred from all communication with their friends by act of parliament. But here the resemblance ended. One of the exiles had been so happy to bear a chief part in the restoration of the Royal house. All that the other could now do was to die asserting the rights of that house to the last. A few weeks after this letter was written Atterbury died. He had just completed his seventieth year.

His body was brought to England, and laid, with great privacy, under the nave of Westminster Abbey. Only three mourners followed the coffin. No inscription marks the grave. That the epitaph with which Pope honoured the memory of his friend does not appear on the walls of the great national cemetery is no subject of regret; for nothing worse was ever written by Colley Cibber.

Those who wish for more complete information about Atterbury may easily collect it from his sermons and his controversial writings, from the report of the parliamentary proceedings against him, which will be found in the State Trials; from the five volumes of his correspondence, edited by Mr Nichols, and from the first volume of the Stuart papers, edited by Mr Glover. A very indulgent but a very interesting account of the Bishop's political career will be found in Lord Mahon's valuable History of England. (T.B.M.)

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**ATTICA,** An ancient kingdom of Greece, situated between the Strait of Euripus or Negropont on the north-east, and the Gulf of Saron or Ægina on the south-west. It may be considered as forming a triangle, the base of which constituted the conterminous boundary with Boeotia, while the two other sides, washed by the sea, had their vertex at the promontory of Sunium or Cape Colonno. The prolongation of the south-western side northward till it reached the extremity of the base at the foot of Mount Citharoon served as the line of demarcation between the Athenian territory and that belonging to the small state of Megara. Hence Attica may be described generally as bounded on the north-east by the channel of Negropont; on the south-west by the Gulf of Ægina and part of Megara; and on the north-west by the territory which formed the ancient Boeotia; including, within these limits an area or superficies of about 750 square miles.

The soil of Attica was not so unsuited to the purposes of agriculture as has commonly been supposed. It was, indeed, stony and uneven in many places; a considerable part consisted of bare rock, on which little or nothing could be grown; but even the less fertile portion produced barley and wheat—the latter, it is true, with difficulty; and the mildness of the climate allowed all the more valuable products of the earth to ripen the earliest and go out of season the latest. Every kind of plant and animal thrived notwithstanding the poverty of the soil; and the advantages which nature had denied were, in a great measure, compensated by the effects of skill and industry. It seldom happens that the richest countries are the most productive, or that the bounty of nature, where it has been profusely lavished, is improved by corresponding exertions on the part of man. Repugnant to labour where labour can be dispensed with, it is necessity alone that compels him to earn his bread with the sweat of his brow, and to torture the ungrateful soil for its scanty products. But habits of exertion being once formed, a variety of causes gradually contribute to stimulate his activity and extend his resources. He naturally aspires to improve his condition and circumstances by all the means in his power. Experience soon teaches him better modes of exerting his industry;—as society advances, the natural reward of labour and skill is increased;—and if... the public policy of the state be wisely directed to accelerate the operation of natural causes, the most striking results may be produced, and countries originally barren covered with well-cultivated fields, teeming with abundant harvests. Such seems to have been the progression of improvement in Attica; which, though one of the least fertile of the Grecian provinces, was, by the industry and skill of its inhabitants, rendered ultimately one of the most productive in proportion to its extent, and the portion of its surface which was susceptible of cultivation.

The chief cities in the ancient kingdom of Attica were Athens, the capital, of which a full description has been given under that head (see article Athens); Eleusis, situated on the gulf of the same name, at an equal distance from Megara and the Peiraeus, where the greater mysteries of Demeter were quadrennially celebrated; and, lastly, Rhamnus, famous for the temple of Amphiarus, and a statue of the goddess Nemesis, executed by Phidias.

The history of Attica, like that of nearly every state of Greece, is almost entirely mythical down to the beginning of the Olympiads—that is, down to the year B.C. 676. All that is related concerning the period previous to that era, consists partly of fictions and partly of traditions, which no doubt have a certain historical foundation, but have been so much modified and embellished by poets and late writers that it is now impossible to say what is historical and what is not. As regards chronology in particular, it is useless to attempt to fix the exact date of any event before the commencement of the Olympiads. As, however, the legends of early Attic history are frequently alluded to by poets and other authors, they cannot be altogether passed over in any account of the history of Attica.

Ogyges had the reputation of being the first king of Attica; and ancient chroniclers even undertook to fix the date of his reign, which has been variously set down at 150 and 200 years before the arrival of Cecrops. But we have no assurance that even the name of Ogyges was known to the older Grecian authors; and if anything can be gathered from the traditions concerning this fabulous personage, reported by later writers, it is, that at some very remote period, a flood, having desolated the rich fields of Boeotia, over which he reigned, drove many of the inhabitants to establish themselves in the adjoining district of Attica, which, though hilly, rocky, and little fruitful, was yet judged preferable to a plain country, surrounded on all sides by mountainous tracts, and consequently exposed to a recurrence of the calamity by which so many of them had been overwhelmed. We may therefore safely consign this legendary monarch to that primitive obscurity in which his existence, his origin, and his achievements, are equally involved.

There was a time when it was generally believed that Attica, and Greece in general, had received the first elements of civilization from Egypt. This belief was founded upon the tradition, that about 150 years after the time of Ogyges, Cecrops came from Egypt to Attica, and not only gave his name to the land, but founded the city of Athens, on the rock which, down to the latest times, was often called the Cecropian rock, or the Cecropian city. He is said to have introduced among the savage natives of Attica a new and simple religion, and the institution of marriage, so that, in fact, the elements of civilized life were traced to this Egyptian immigrant. But his Egyptian origin, to say the least, is extremely doubtful; for the early Greek poets and historians appear to have known nothing about him; and when at a later period Cecrops began to be spoken of, he is frequently described as a native of the Attic soil (αἰτωλός). After the time of Cecrops, two other Egyptian settlers, Erechtheus and Peteus, are said to have arrived in Attica. But the fact is that all these personages are utterly fictitious, and that the traditions about them belong entirely to a home-sprung Attic fable. But although we must reject these stories about Cecrops and Erechtheus as fabulous, we are not on that account obliged to reject the tradition of an Egyptian settlement in Attica. Even if we admit that at some time or another a band of Egyptians settled among the ancient inhabitants of Greece, it is not easy to conceive how they could have affected the national character of those among whom they established themselves. The Greek language, at least, bears no trace of any such influence; and the question how far the religion and the arts were derived from Egypt, is one which cannot be satisfactorily answered until the religion of both the Greeks and Egyptians shall be much better known and understood than they are at present. The resemblance between the early works of art among the Greeks and those of Egypt can prove nothing, for the rude beginnings of the arts are more or less the same among all nations.

The list of the successors of Cecrops down to Theseus is a mere compilation, in which some of the names appear to have been invented merely to fill up a gap; others are purely mythical, and not one can safely be pronounced historical. In the reign of Erechtheus, the Athenians are said to have been involved in a war with the Thracian Eumolpus, who had established himself as sovereign at Eleusis. Erechtheus fell in battle, whereupon Eleusis concluded a treaty, in which it acknowledged the supremacy of Athens. Erechtheus was succeeded by a second Cecrops, who left his throne to his son Pandion. This last king was expelled from Attica, but found a place of refuge in Megara, where he married the king's daughter, and succeeded him on the throne. He there became the father of four sons, the eldest of whom, Ægeus, on his father's death, entered Attica at the head of an army, and recovered his patrimony. For a long time he remained childless, until some mysterious oracle led him to Troezen, where he became, by Æthra, the father of Theseus, the greatest hero in Athenian story. Theseus spent the first years of his life at Troezen, and then repaired to Athens to claim Ægeus for his father, who recognized him by certain tokens, and by his valour. This Theseus, whom some writers regard as the real founder of the Athenian state, is to Athens what Hercules is to Greece in general. All the deeds and exploits which are ascribed to him cannot have been accomplished by one man, but are probably representations of what was done in the course of several generations, or even centuries. But the life of Theseus may be regarded as composed of three main acts—his journey from Troezen to Athens, his victory over the Minotaur, and the political reforms which he is said to have effected in Attica. On his way to Athens from Troezen, he cleared the wild roads which were infested by monsters and savage men, who by their robberies had almost broken off all communication between Attica and Troezen. Amid the greatest difficulties he forced his way to his father. After being recognized by him, and purified from all his bloodshed, he went to Crete to deliver Athens from a disgraceful tribute of boys and maidens, who had to be sent annually to Minos, king of Crete, and were devoured by a monster called Minotaur. On his return to Athens, his father Ægeus died. Passing over a variety of other legends, we shall proceed to consider the political institutions ascribed to Theseus. Attica is said originally to have been divided into a number of small independent states, which, under Cecrops, formed a confederacy among themselves against the inroads of foreign enemies. On that occasion, Attica is reported to have been divided into twelve districts, and Athens, under the name of Cecropia, was probably at the head of this league. Besides this division into twelve districts, another is mentioned,

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1 Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 148. Attica, according to which the whole country was divided into four tribes, which at different times had different names. The latest of these are ascribed to Ion, the reported founder of the Ionian race, who is said to have called the four tribes after his four sons, Telemutes (Geleontes, Geleontes), Hopletes, Agriecores, and Argades. Some of these names are descriptive of occupations, while others are of uncertain import. These four tribes seem to have been so many distinct communities, separated by descent, situation, pursuits, and religion, yet still connected by affinities of blood and language, and the occasional need of mutual assistance. Their ultimate union with Athens, as their natural head and centre, is generally described as the work of Theseus, who is thus regarded as the founder of the national unity, and of the future greatness of Athens. The legend represents him as having thus for ever put an end to the discord and hostility which had until then prevented the inhabitants of Attica from considering themselves as one people. On that occasion the greater part of the nobles probably removed to Athens, which had become the seat of government, and they there occupied the same position and rank which they had formerly held in their respective districts. The union was cemented by religion, and by the institution of national solemnities which were periodically celebrated, such as the Synoecia and the Panathenaea, in honour of the tutelary divinity Athena. The city of Athens, which until then had occupied little more than the Cecropian rock, was enlarged by the formation of new habitations at the foot and around the rock.

The constitution which Theseus is said to have given to his country remained for many centuries after him rigidly aristocratical; and he is said to have promised all the nobles an equal share in the government, reserving for himself only the command in war and the administration of justice. Although the later Greeks were fond of describing Theseus as the founder of their democratic institutions, it is quite clear that his object was to institute a gradation of ranks, and a proportionate distribution of power. Accordingly, he distributed the people into three classes, the nobles (Estratégoi), husbandmen (γεωπόνοι), and artisans (δημόσιοι); the first of which possessed all the political power and influence, and the right of interpreting the laws, both human and divine. The king himself was only the first among his equals, and the four kings of the ancient tribes were his perpetual assessors or colleagues. The people of Athens, that is the δήμος, had, no doubt, the right of meeting, but they do not appear to have exercised any political influence; and the first internal struggles of which we hear at Athens were not between the king and the people, but between the king and the nobles. Theseus himself is said to have been compelled by a conspiracy of the nobles to go into exile with his family, and to leave the throne to Menestheus, a descendant of the ancient kings. Theseus is said to have died in the island of Scyrus.

Menestheus reigned twenty-four years. He lost his life at the siege of Troy, and was succeeded by Demophon, one of the sons of Theseus by Phaedra, who was likewise present at the siege, but had the good fortune to return in safety. Demophon was succeeded by his son or brother Oxyntes, who again was succeeded by his son Aphydes; and this last was murdered by a natural brother of the name of Thymortes. But the bastard usurper discovered many base qualities unworthy of the station he had assumed, and was at last deposed by his subjects on account of the flagrant cowardice he had displayed on a critical occasion.

Thymortes was appropriately succeeded by a foreign adventurer called Melanthus, who, after a long reign of thirty-seven years, left the kingdom to his son Codrus. The latter reigned twenty-one years, during which period the Dorians and Heraclidae had regained all Peloponnesus, and were upon the point of invading Attica. Codrus, being informed that the oracle had promised them victory provided they did not kill the king of the Athenians, immediately came to the resolution to die for his country. Disguising himself, therefore, as a peasant, he went into the enemy's camp, and having quarrelled with some of the common soldiers, was killed in a brawl. On the morrow the Athenians, knowing what had happened, sent to demand the body of their king, at which the invaders were so terrified that they decamped without striking a blow.

Upon the death of Codrus, a dispute among his sons concerning the succession furnished the nobles with a pretence for ridding themselves of their kings, and changing the monarchical into a republican form of government. It was highly improbable, they said, that they should ever again have so good a king as Codrus; and, to prevent their having a worse, they resolved to have none. That they might not, however, appear ungrateful to the family of Codrus, they made his son Medon their supreme magistrate, with the title of archon; an office which was afterwards rendered decennial, but nevertheless continued in the family of Codrus. But the extinction of the Medontide having at last left the nobles without restraint, they not only made this office annual, but at the same time created nine archons. By the latter expedient they provided against the exorbitant power of a single person, as by the former they took away all apprehension of the archons having time to establish themselves, so as to be able to change the constitution. In a word, they now attained what they had long sought after, namely, rendering the supreme magistracy accessible to all the nobles. The name of the first of these nine annual archons (ἀρχαῖος ἐκλεκτός) was, like that of the consuls at Rome, used to mark the year in which any event happened. The second bore the title of king (ἀρχαῖος βασιλεύς), and represented the former kings in their capacity of high priest of the nation.

There has been handed down to us an enumeration of Archons; these archons for upwards of six centuries, beginning with Draco, Creon, who lived in 682 B.C., and coming down to Herodes, who lived only sixty years prior to the Christian era. The first archon of whom we hear anything really worthy of notice was Draco. He governed Athens in the year 624 B.C., when he promulgated his written laws; but although his name is very frequently mentioned in history, no connected account can be found either of the lawgiver or of his institutions. We only know generally that his laws were excessively severe, awarding the punishment of death for the smallest offences no less than for the most heinous crimes; and that, as Demades remarked of them, they seemed to have been written with blood. For this extraordinary and indiscriminating severity he gave no other reason, than that the smallest faults appeared to him to be worthy of death, and that he could find no higher punishment for the greatest. He was far advanced in years when he legislated for Athens; and he appears to have endeavoured to act as a mediator between the people and the oppressive nobles. His laws were called sanctions (θεραπεία). The Athenians, however, soon grew weary both of the sanctions and their author; upon which Draco was obliged to retire to Eginia, where he was received in the most flattering manner. But the favour of the inhabitants of this place proved more fatal to him than the hatred of the Athenians; for coming one day into the theatre, the audience, to evince their regard for the exiled legislator, are said to have thrown their cloaks upon him, and fairly stifled the old man to death with their kindness.

1 It is remarkable, that Athenian and Roman superstition should have agreed so exactly in the extraordinary circumstance that, after the abolition of royalty among both, and while the very name of king was abhorred as a title of civil magistracy or military command, yet equally the title and the office were scrupulously retained for the administration of religious ceremonies. Not long after the expulsion of Draco, we find the republic engaged in a war with the Mitylenians about the city Sigeum, situated near the mouth of the river Scamander. The Athenian army was commanded by Phrynon, and that of the Mitylenians by Pittacus, one of the seven sages of Greece; but the generals, thinking the honour of their respective countries concerned, and being at the same time desirous to spare the effusion of blood, agreed to settle the dispute by single combat. They met accordingly; but the sage, trusting more to cunning than to courage, concealed behind his shield a net, wherewith he suddenly entangled his antagonist, and easily slew him. This, however, not putting an end to the war, Periander of Corinth interposed; and both parties having submitted to his arbitration, he decreed that Sigeum should belong to the Athenians.

About seven years after the Mitylenian war, 612 B.C., a conspiracy was entered into by Cylon, son-in-law of Thaegenes, prince of Megara, for the purpose of seizing on the sovereignty of Athens. The people would have readily submitted to his rule to escape from the oppression of the many nobles. But having consulted the Delphic oracle as to the most proper time, and received directions to make the attempt while the citizens of Athens were engaged in celebrating the great festival of Zeus, Cylon and his associates made themselves masters of the citadel by a coup-de-main, at the time when the greater part of the citizens had repaired to Elis to witness the celebration of the Olympic games. But being instantly besieged by Megacles, who was at that time archon, and soon reduced to great distress from want of water, the chief conspirator and his brother contrived to effect their escape; upon which the remainder fled for safety to the temple of Athena, where they were barbarously massacred by order of Megacles, in virtue of one of those sophistical quibbles by means of which men sometimes reconcile their minds to the perpetration of the foulest and bloodiest deeds.

At this period of confusion the Megarians attacked and took both Nisaia and Salamis. The former was a place of little or no importance to any, the latter one of the very greatest in every view; but so completely were the Athenians routed in every attempt to retake it, that a law was at last passed, declaring it capital for any one to propose the recovery of Salamis. About the same time the city was disturbed by reports of frightful appearances, and filled with superstitious fears, for it was believed that the crime of Megacles was the cause of all disasters. The oracle at Delphi was therefore consulted, and an answer returned that the city must be purified by certain expiatory rites. This was accordingly done under the superintendence of one Epimenides, a Cretan, who prescribed the sacrifice of white and black sheep, and also caused many temples and chapels to be erected, including one dedicated to Contumely, and another to Impudence! This man, after looking wistfully for a long time to the port of Munychia, spoke as follows to those that were near him: "How blind is man to the future! For, did the Athenians know what mischief will one day be derived to them from this place, they would eat it with their teeth." This prediction was thought to have been accomplished 270 years after, when Antipater constrained the Athenians to admit a Macedonian garrison into that place.

About 604 years B.C., Solon, the famed Athenian legislator, began to show himself to his countrymen. He is said to have been lineally descended from Codrus, but left by his father in circumstances rather necessitous, which obliged him to apply himself to merchandise. From the first he appeared in the character of a patriot. The shameful decree, that none under pain of death should propose the recovery of Salamis, grieved him so much, that having composed an elegy such as he thought calculated to inflame the minds of the people, he ran into the market-place as if he had been insane, repeating his verses. A crowd soon collected around the pretended madman; his kinsman Peisistratus mingled with the people, and observing them moved with Solon's words, agreed to second the patriotic poet with all the eloquence he was master of; and at length they prevailed so far as to have the law rescinded, war declared against the people of Megara, and an expedition immediately fitted out for the recovery of Salamis; which was ultimately effected by a stratagem more creditable to the ingenuity than the bravery of the Athenians.

The success of this enterprise at once established the reputation of Solon; who, on his return to Athens, was greatly honoured by the people, and soon afforded them another occasion of admiring that wisdom for which they had already given him credit. The inhabitants of Cirrha, a town situated in the Bay of Corinth, having repeatedly committed acts of extortion and violence against pilgrims proceeding to Delphi, at last besieged the capital itself, with a view of making themselves masters of the treasures contained in the temple of Apollo. Advice of this intended sacrilege having been sent to the Amphictyons, Solon advised that the matter should be universally resented, and that all the states should join in punishing the Cirrhaeans, and in saving the Delphic oracle. This suggestion was adopted, and a general war against Cirrha declared, B.C. 594. Cleisthenes, prince of Sicyon, commanded in chief, and the Athenian contingent was under the orders of Alcmaeon. Solon accompanied the expedition as assistant or counsellor to Cleisthenes, and under his direction the war was conducted to a prosperous issue. According to Pausanias, the city was reduced by a singular stratagem, said to have been invented by Solon. He caused the river Pleistus, which flowed through Cirrha, to be turned into another channel, hoping thereby to distress the inhabitants for want of water; but finding they had many wells within the city, and were not to be reduced by that means, he caused a vast quantity of roots of hellebore to be thrown into the river, which was then suffered to return into its former bed. The inhabitants, overjoyed at the sight of running water, came in troops to drink of it; the consequence of which was, that an epidemic flux ensued, and the citizens being no longer able to defend the walls, the town was easily captured. This, as far as we know, is the only instance on record of a town taken by physic.

On his return to Athens after the hellebore achievement, Solon found things again in the utmost confusion. The great remnant of Cylon's faction gave out that all sorts of misfortunes had befallen the republic on account of the impiety of Megacles and his followers; and this clamour was heightened by the retaking of Salamis about the same time by the Megarians. Solon interposed, and persuading those who were styled "excusable" to abide a trial, three hundred persons were chosen to judge them. The issue was, that the whole of Megacles' party who were alive were sent into perpetual exile, and the bones of such as had died were dug up and sent beyond the limits of their country. But although this decision restored tranquillity for the time, the people were still divided into three factions, contending about the proper form of government. These were called the Diacrii, Peidici, and Parali; the first of whom, consisting of the inhabitants of the hilly country, declared for democracy; the second, dwelling in the low country, and far more opulent than the former, were in favour of an oligarchy, wishing to keep the government in their own hands; whilst the third party, who inhabited the sea-coast, were people of moderate principles, and therefore friendly to a mixed government. But besides these agitations, disturbances of a much more serious character arose, in consequence of the lamentable condition to which the people or Demos had been reduced, in consequence of the severity of the law of debt. According to Plutarch, the poor having become indebted to the rich, either filled their grounds and paid them the sixth part of the produce, or impignorated their persons for their debts, so that many were made slaves at home, and not a few as such into foreign countries; while some were even obliged to sell their children to pay their debts, and others in despair quitted Attica altogether. The greater part, however, were for throwing off the yoke, and began to look about for a leader, openly declaring that they intended to change the form of government, to introduce a more equitable distribution of power, and to modify the law of debt.

In this extremity the eyes of all were turned to Solon, and some were for offering him the sovereignty at once; but, perceiving the intentions of these misjudging persons, he refused the sovereignty tendered to him, and preferring the substance to the shadow, quietly took upon himself, without any pomp or pageantry, the unqualified exercise of the supreme authority of the state, in all its branches, and wielded it with an absolutism which would have been intolerable, had it not been conferred upon him by the unanimous consent of the people. He was chosen archon (594 B.C.) without having recourse to the ballot, an anomaly of which there is no other example; and, after his election, he proved the wisdom of the choice by disappointing the interested expectations of all parties. It was a fundamental maxim with Solon, that those laws will be best observed which power and justice equally support. Hence, wherever he found the old constitution in any measure consonant to justice, he refused to make any alteration at all, and was at extraordinary pains to show the reason of such changes as were actually introduced. In a word, being a consummate judge of mankind generally, and, above all, thoroughly conversant with the character of his countrymen, he sought to rule only by showing the people that it was their interest to obey, and contented himself with giving them such institutions as they were prepared to receive, instead of forcing upon them those which might be esteemed theoretically the most perfect. Hence, to one who inquired whether he had given the Athenians the best laws in his power, he replied, "I have established the best which they could receive."

With reference to the main cause of discontent, namely, the oppressed state of the meaner class, Solon removed it by a scheme which he called seisachtheia, or discharge. Ancient authors, however, are not agreed as to the precise nature of this contrivance. Some say that he cancelled all debts then in existence, and prohibited the seizure of any man's person in default of payment of a debt for the future; whilst others affirm that the poor were relieved, not by cancelling the debts, but by lowering the interest, and increasing the value of money, so that a mina, which before was equal to seventy-three drachmas only, was by him made equal to a hundred. The more probable opinion is, that the seisachtheia was a general disburdening ordinance, which relieved the debtor partly by a reduction of the rate of interest, and partly by lowering the standard of the coinage, whereby a debtor saved more than 25 per cent. in every payment. He also released the mortgaged lands from their encumbrances, and restored them to their owners. He then abolished the cruel law, by which a creditor might enslave his debtor, and restored to freedom those who were pining in bondage. These may seem measures of extreme violence; but it must be borne in mind that the whole people had conferred upon him unlimited power, on the understanding that they would acquiesce in his legislative regulations.

But in the midst of all the glory which Solon acquired by these measures, an accident occurred which for a time clouded his reputation, and almost entirely ruined his schemes. Having, it seems, consulted Conon, Clinias, and Hipponicus, three of his friends, on an oration he had prepared with a view to engage the people's consent to the seisachtheia, these worthies, thus apprized of the contemplated measure, availed themselves of their knowledge to borrow large sums of money before the law was promulgated, with the intention to take advantage of its provisions, and refuse to repay the lenders. We cannot wonder that Solon himself was at first believed to have been cognizant of the scheme, and a partner in this fraudulent adventure. But, happily for his credit, these suspicions were obliterated when it was discovered that the lawgiver was a creditor to a large extent, and likely to become a considerable loser by the operation of his own law. His friends, however, never recovered their credit, but were ever afterwards stigmatized with the opprobrious appellation of chrioepipides or delti-sinders.

Solon now set himself to the arduous task of compiling a body of laws for the people of Attica; and having at last completed his task in the best manner he could, or at least code, in the best manner that the character of the people would admit, he caused them to be duly ratified, and declared to be in force for a century from the date of their publication. Those which related to private actions were preserved on parallelograms of wood, with cases which reached from the ground, and turned upon a pin like a wheel, whence the appellation of axones; and were placed, first in the Acropolis, and afterwards in the Prytaneum, that all the subjects of the state might have access to consult them whenever they chose. Such concerned public institutions and sacrifices were inscribed on triangular tablets of stone called cybeles. The Athenian magistrates were sworn to observe both. With regard to the axones, or jus privatum of Solon, our information is exceedingly imperfect; but if it be true that the decemviral constitutions at Rome were principally borrowed from this portion of his code, the fragments which remain of these celebrated laws are certainly calculated to give us no mean idea of his fitness for the task which circumstances as well as inclination had induced him to undertake.

Nor will our opinion of the legislator be lowered by attending to his system of public law; concerning which more exact details have been preserved, and some account will be given when we come to speak of the Athenian government. We may, however, here remark in general, that Solon had abolished the ancient aristocratic government, in which all rights and privileges had been determined by birth, and that he substituted a timocracy, that is, a form of government in which a man's property forms the standard by which his rights and duties are determined.

After the promulgation of his code, Solon found himself obliged to leave Athens, to avoid being continually teased for explanations and emendations of his laws. He therefore pretended an inclination to merchandise, and obtained leave to withdraw himself for ten years, in the hope that during his absence his laws would grow familiar to the people. From Athens he accordingly travelled into Egypt, where he is said to have conversed with Psamenophis of Heliopolis and Sesochris of Sais, the most learned priests of that age, from whom he learned the situation of the island Atlantis, and wrote an account of it in verse, which Plato afterwards continued. Leaving Egypt, he is reported to have visited Cyprus, where he was well received by one of the petty kings, and assisted in the foundation of a new city, the site of which he had pointed out, and which, out of gratitude to the Athenian legislator, was called Soli.

But while Solon was thus travelling in quest of wisdom, his countrymen were again divided into three factions. Lycurgus was at the head of what may be called the country party; Megacles the son of Alcmaeon swayed those who lived on the sea-coast; and Peisistratus appeared as the champion of the demes, under the pretence of protecting them from tyranny, but in reality with the view of seizing on the sovereignty for himself. In the midst of all this confusion the legislator returned about 562 B.C. Each of the factions affected to receive him with the deepest reverence and respect, beseeching him to resume his authority, and compose the disorders to which they themselves had given birth. But Solon declined this hollow invitation, on the ground that his age rendered him unable to speak and act as formerly for the good of his country; he sent however for the chiefs of each party, and entreated them in the most pathetic manner not to ruin their common parent, but to prefer the public good to their own private interest; sound advice, doubtless, but entirely thrown away on those to whom it was administered.

Peisistratus, who of all the chiefs had unquestionably the least intention of following Solon's advice, appeared to be the most affected with his discourses; but perceiving that he affected popularity by all possible methods, Solon easily penetrated into his design of assuming the sovereign power. This he spoke privately to Peisistratus himself; but as he saw that his admonitions had no effect, he unveiled the designs of this ambitious chief, that the public might be on their guard against him and his artful machinations. But all the wise discourses of Solon were lost upon the Athenians. Peisistratus had got the lower class entirely at his devotion, and therefore resolved to cheat them out of the liberty which they were incapable of appreciating. With this view he wounded himself, then drove into the marketplace, and there showed his bleeding body, imploring the protection of the people against those whom his kindness to them had rendered his implacable enemies. It was for being their declared friend, he said, that he had thus suffered. They saw it was no longer safe for a man to be a friend to the people; they saw it was no longer safe for a man to live in Attica, unless they would take him under that protection which he implored. A crowd being instantly collected, Solon came amongst the rest, and, suspecting the deceit, openly taxed Peisistratus with his perfidious conduct; but to no purpose. A general assembly of the people was summoned, wherein it was moved that Peisistratus should have a guard. Solon alone had resolution enough to oppose this measure; the richer Athenians remaining silent through fear of the multitude, which implicitly followed Peisistratus, and applauded everything he said. A guard of 400 men was then unanimously decreed to Peisistratus; and with this inconsiderable body he managed, partly by stratagem and partly by force, to possess himself of the supreme power n.c. 560. Solon inveighed bitterly against the meanness of his countrymen, in thus tamely surrendering their liberties, and attempted to rouse them to take up arms in defense of the constitution and the laws; but finding his efforts unavailing, he withdrew, remarking that he had done his utmost for his country. He submitted to the tyranny of Peisistratus merely because he had no choice between a tyranny and anarchy.

Peisistratus, having thus obtained the sovereignty, did not overturn the laws of Solon, but on the contrary used his power with the greatest moderation, and even courted the friendship and asked the advice of Solon. It was not in the nature of things, however, that the Athenians could long remain satisfied with this form of government. On the usurpation of Peisistratus, Megacles and his family had retired from Athens, ostensibly in order to save their own lives; but having entered into a treaty with Lycurgus, whom they brought, along with his party, into a scheme for deposing the usurper, they concerted matters so skilfully, that Peisistratus was soon after obliged to withdraw from the city; and, on his departure, the Athenians ordered his goods to be confiscated. But Megacles had no sooner succeeded in his project against Peisistratus, than, finding his ally Lycurgus intractible, he changed sides, and began to plot the return of the very man whom he had just succeeded in expelling as a tyrant and usurper. This counter project was at length effected by means of a trick worthy of the parties engaged in this little political drama. Having found out a woman of the name of Phya, of a mean family and fortune, but of great stature and very handsome person, they dressed her in armour, placed her in a chariot, and having disposed things so as to make her appear to the utmost advantage, they conducted her towards the city, sending heralds before, with orders to address the people in the following terms: "Give a kind reception, O Athenians, to Peisistratus, who is so much honoured above all other men by Athena that she herself condescends to bring him back to the citadel." The report being universally spread that Athena was bringing back Peisistratus, and the ignorant multitude believing this woman to be the goddess, addressed their prayers to her, and received Peisistratus with the utmost joy. When he had recovered the sovereignty, Peisistratus married the daughter of Megacles, in fulfillment of a stipulation made between them to that effect, and also gave the mock goddess as a wife to his son Hipparchus. This last statement renders the whole story, which in itself is extremely childish, altogether improbable.

Peisistratus did not long enjoy the authority to which he had been thus restored. He had indeed married the daughter of Megacles according to treaty; but having children by a former marriage, and remembering that the whole family of Megacles were execrated by the Athenians, he thought it expedient to suffer his new spouse to remain in a state of perpetual widowhood. This the lady bore patiently for some time; but at last acquainting her mother with the state in which she was compelled to live, the affront was highly resented; and Megacles immediately entered into a treaty with the malcontents. Peisistratus, apprised of this step on the part of his father-in-law, and perceiving that a new storm was gathering, voluntarily quitted Athens and retired to Eretria; where, having consulted with his sons, he resolved to reduce Athens, and repossess himself of power by force of arms. With this view he applied to several of the Greek states, including that of Thebes, which furnished him with the troops he desired; and at the head of a considerable force he returned to Attica,—reduced Marathon, the inhabitants of which had taken no measures for their defence,—surprised and routed the republican forces, which had marched out of Athens to attack him,—and finally, after an absence of about ten years, re-established himself in power, by using victory with his accustomed moderation.

Peisistratus being thus reinstated once more in the sovereignty, took a method of securing himself in power directly opposite to that which Theseus had adopted. For, instead of collecting the inhabitants from the country into towns, as his predecessor had done, Peisistratus made them retire from the towns into the country, in order to apply themselves to agriculture; and thus prevented their meeting together in bodies and caballing against him as they had hitherto been accustomed to do. By this means also the territory of Athens was greatly ameliorated, and extensive plantations of olives were reared over all Attica, which had hitherto been not only destitute of corn, but also naked and bleak in appearance from the total want of trees. And had he stopped here it would have been well. But actuated by that partiality for sumptuary laws which seems to have been the foible of nearly all the ancient legislators, he commanded his subjects in the city to wear a kind of sheepskin frock reaching to the knees, and appears to have set great store by this absurd enactment, which was doubtless intended to restore the simplicity of ancient manners. The Athenians, however, vehemently resented this interference with their habits; and so odious did the sheepskin garment become, that in succeeding times the frock or jacket of Peisistratus was a sort of by-word for the badge or garb of slavery. Experience shows that it is comparatively an easy matter to rob men of their liberty, and trample both on their political and civil rights; but an interference with their private habits or the adornment of their persons is almost always dangerous. As prince of Athens, Peisistratus exacted for the service of the state the tenth part of every man's revenue, and even of the fruits of the earth; a heavy tax, undoubtedly, and one which might well justify a little grum- bling on the part of those who had to pay it; nor could all the magnificence with which the public revenue was expended reconcile the Athenians to the heavy burdens they were called upon to bear. Indeed they not unnaturally fancied themselves oppressed by tyranny, and indulged in perpetual complaints from the time Peisistratus first ascended the throne to the day of his death; which happened in 527 B.C., about thirty-three years after he had first assumed the sovereignty, of which period, according to Aristotle, he reigned about seventeen years.

In taking a retrospect, however, of the government and character of this celebrated man, it is impossible to doubt that the one was enlightened and the other humane. The ancient writers are all agreed that he made no change of any consequence in the Athenian constitution. All the laws continued in force; the general assembly, the council of state, the courts of justice, and the magistracies, respectively retained their constitutional powers; and it is known that the usurper himself obeyed a citation from the Areopagus upon a charge of murder. His land, it is true, lay heavy on the purses of the people in the matter of taxation. But the sums which he raised were religiously expended in the decoration and improvement of the capital, or in works of public utility; and it cannot be questioned that, although he resorted to iniquitous or contemptible expedients to obtain power, he never abused it, either for the gratification of selfishness or revenge. "Take away only his ambition," said Solon; "cure him of the lust of reigning, and there is not a man more naturally disposed to every virtue, nor a better citizen than Peisistratus." He embellished the city with a great variety of edifices; he improved and strengthened its defences; he enlarged and ameliorated its harbours; and by various acts of taste and magnificence, not less than by his attention to the cultivation of the public mind, he may be said to have fixed the muses at Athens. In a word, if he was ambitious he was also enlightened and humane; and although no one can justify the modes which he took to possess himself of power, his use of it was characterized by a moderation and patriotism which have never as yet been exemplified by any other usurper, ancient or modern; insomuch that, reviewing his character and conduct, we are almost tempted to subscribe to the sentiment expressed by the poet Claudian, *Nuncquam gravior extat libertas, quam sub regi pio.*

Peisistratus left behind him three sons, Hipparchus, Hippias, and Thessalus, all men of abilities, who shared the government among them, and behaved for a time with lenity and moderation. But though, by the mildness of their government, the family of the Peisistratidae seemed to be fully established on the throne of Athens, a conspiracy was unexpectedly formed against the brothers, by which Hipparchus was slain, and Hippias narrowly escaped death. There were at that time living in Athens two young men, called Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The former being remarkable for his personal beauty, was, on that account, it is said, unnaturally beloved by the other, and also by Hipparchus, who, if we may believe Thucydides, actually forced him. This was vehemently resented by Aristogeiton, who, in consequence, determined on revenge, which another circumstance contributed to accelerate. Hipparchus, finding that Harmodius endeavoured on all occasions to shun him, publicly affronted the youth, by refusing permission to his sister to carry the offering of Athena, as if she had been a person unworthy of that distinction. The two young men, not daring to show any public signs of resentment, consulted privately with their friends, amongst whom it was resolved, that at the approaching festival of the great Panathenaia, when the citizens were allowed to appear in arms, they should attempt to restore Athens to its former liberty; and in this they imagined they would be seconded by the whole body of the people. But when the appointed day arrived, they perceived one of their number talking familiarly with Hippias; wherefore, dreading a discovery, they immediately fell upon Hipparchus, and despatched him with many wounds, 514 B.C. In this exploit, however, the people were so far from aiding the conspirators, that they suffered Harmodius to be killed by the guards of Hipparchus; and seizing Aristogeiton, delivered him up to the vengeance of Hippias. But they soon had reason to change their opinion, and some time afterwards paid the most extravagant honours to the memory of these conspirators; causing their praises to be sung at the great Panathenaia, forbidding any citizen to call a slave by either of their names, and erecting brazen statues to them in the agora or market-place. Several immunities and privileges were also granted to the descendants of these (so-called) patriots, and all possible means were taken to render their memory respected and revered by posterity.

Hippias being now sole master of Athens, and burning cruelty of revenge the murder of his brother, began by torturing Hippias, Aristogeiton, in order to force him to disclose his accomplices. But this proved fatal to his own friends; for Aristogeiton impeaching such only as he knew to be best affected to the government of Hippias, the latter were instantly put to death without further inquiry; and when he had exhausted his list, he at last told Hippias, that he now knew of none who deserved to suffer death except the tyrant himself. Hippias next vented his rage on a woman named Leaina, who had been kept by Aristogeiton, and who was put to the torture; which, however, she had the courage to endure without making any confession. After the conspiracy was thought to be crushed, Hippias set about strengthening his government by every means he could think of. With this view he contracted alliances with foreign princes; he increased his revenues by different expedients; married his only daughter, Archedice, to Eantides, son of Hippocles, tyrant of Lampsacus; and endeavoured, by affecting various arts of popularity, to conciliate that public opinion which his excessive severities had so rudely shocked. But all these precautions proved fruitless. The lenity of the government of Peisistratus had alone supported it; and although Hippias had fewer difficulties to contend with than his father, the vehemence of his resentment on account of his brother's murder betrayed him into courses repugnant alike to sound policy and to the interests of his family, and at last proved the cause of his expulsion from power in rather less than four years after the death of Hipparchus, 510 B.C. This revolution was principally brought about by the party of the Alcmaeonidae, or adherents of Megacles. Hippias retired to Sigeum, an appanage of his family, where he contrived by every means in his power to recover his lost position at Athens, and in the end, seeing that his plans could not succeed, even assisted the Persians in the war against his native city.

After the expulsion of the Peisistratidae, the Athenians did not long enjoy the tranquillity which they had promised Athena.

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1 The government of Peisistratus, as we have seen, resolves itself into three distinct periods, interrupted by two exiles. Aristotle and Herodotus both agree in this. Larcher, Clavier, and Du Fresnoy, rightly give the two exiles at 5-11 = 16 years; but they differ materially in the duration of the first and last tyranny; nor on this point is it easy to decide between them. (Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, Appendix, No. ii. p. 180; Oxford, 1824, 4to.)

2 The Peisistratidae were expelled before the fourth year of Hippias was completed, eighteen years after the death of Peisistratus, twenty years before the battle of Marathon, and a hundred years before the constitution of the Four Hundred. (Herodotus, v. 55; Thucydides, vi. 59, and viii. 68; Plato, Hipparch, p. 229; Schol. Lysias, 619; Fasti Hellenici, 10.)