Civilization, among all the changes it has effected in the character and habits of its subjects, has wrought none more remarkable than that in the condition of woman. In savage countries, the degraded slave of continual oppression—in barbarian nations, the dormant medium of sensual felicity—among the semi-civilized, the ignorant and secluded object of idol affection—it was reserved for the refinement of a purer age to reinstate her by the side, and in the heart of man. No longer his passive minister to pleasure, she has risen to share with him the rights and the enjoyments of rational existence. From the object of occasional devotion and general contempt, she has become, in the world where her claims are acknowledged, a guide-star of benign and sanctifying influence.——Pish! sentimentalizing, and on a subject trite as an almanac!——But why not? In my last number, as well my own assertions, as the inconsecutive form of my conceptions, might have been proof convincing that the solstitial airs had pervaded mind and body with their enervating breath. Since then, and while the sun was riding in his more northern tropic, my energies fell before his potent presence with a still lowlier prostration. Yet, as utter oppression will drive even the weakest to resistance, so does trampled Nature rise rebellious against the tyrant, and stand upright even before his summer-throne. The cold airs of the morning send a vigorous life through the limbs, which the toils of yesterday exhausted; and a post-prandial siesta followed by a light repast “of meats and drinks, nature’s refreshment sweet,” prepares the mind for an evening of quiet thought, or rational enjoyment.

This morning is of the loveliest. Each gentle flower turns her fair face to the god of her idolatry, and, like a grateful bride, repays the warmth of his caresses with the perfume of her breath. It would seem as if the wing of relenting Time had dropt a freshening essence on his vassals, as he passed, and atoned, in the face of Nature and the hearts of her children, for the ravages of years. ’Tis not the sacred awe, that falls like a shadow from the stars of midnight, and wakes in the soul an unutterable yearning for a holier home—’tis not the sad solemnity of evening, that fuses into one pervading thought the hopes of the future, and the sorrows of the past, whilst our gaze follows far into his nightly pavilion the golden footsteps of the retreating Day—’tis the freshness, that dwells in the pinion of the eagle, when he springs from his dew-cold aerie in the mountains, and soars, with eye turned direct and unblenching on the morning sun. But to return to the women. It is a lamentable fact—‘horresco referens’—that the old heathen, and the Greeks among them, did not prize very highly these interesting objects. It is true that the exquisite delicacy of female beauty, excited in their breasts a natural thrill of pleasure, and now and then a Sappho or an Aspasia by the united power of wit and loveliness threw a spell of enchantment around the wisest, and bravest, and proudest of their time. But these were exceptions. There is many a smart bit of satire, and many a dull growl of defiance at the sex, scattered through the pages of the Anthology—and these I have hitherto neglected to translate, well knowing that the ladies are not so perfect as to bear sarcasm with patience, and that a portion of their anger might be diverted from the Greeks to me. Whether their being created second entitles them to be considered second-best, it is not my province to decide. At any rate I see not how we could get along without them, and I am perfectly willing to add my experience to that of Mungo Park, and testify that, where they are suffered to have their own way, I have found them uniformly generous and obliging.

A Paraphrase from Palladas the Alexandrian.

Let those who are not satisfied with this mixture of compliment and sarcasm read the following, and see with what yearning anguish a Greek could mourn over the grave of a loved one, who had passed what was, to the ancients, with emphatic truth “the valley of the shadow of death.” It is by Meleager, one of the most delicate and affectingly simple of all the Greek poets.

To the Tettix.

And now, dear reader, thou hast gathered with me a few of the many wild-flowers, which bloom in the Anthology, but are known only to the student, and appreciated only by the scholar. If thou art not interested in them, it is either because thou art not gifted with a love for the simple and the beautiful, or else because that simplicity and beauty have perished in the medium through which thou hast seen them. I am no man-worshipper, and, I hope, no nation-worshipper. Yet I love, admire, and venerate the Greeks; and though I might in liberality allow that there have been minds more mighty than any of the Grecian race, yet it might be shown by the strongest of moral proof—the sentiments of nations, and the evidence of facts—that they were the brightest, simplest, and most classic nation on the earth. I say, it might be shown, and should occasion serve, I will show it. Meanwhile I will content myself with the hope that you may be blessed with an Attic reduplication of wit, a temporal augment in the riches and honors of this world, and a spiritual aspiration after all that is beautiful in knowledge, and all that is generous in deed.

Hermeneutes.