*

the one great qualification for wrestling strenuously with such difficult contingencies in solitary situations, is the spirit of cheerful hope; but, when any room had been left for apprehending a supernatural curse resting upon their efforts equally in the most thoughtfully pious man and the most crazily superstitious-all spirit of hope would be blighted at once; and the religious neglect would, even in a common human way, become its own certain avenger, through mere depression of spirits and misgiving of expectations. Well, therefore, might Cicero in a tone of defiance demand, "Quam vero Græcia coloniam misit in Ætoliam, Ioniam, Asiam, Siciliam, Italiam, sine Pythio (the Delphic), aut Dodonæo, aut Hammonis oraculo?" An oracular sanction must be had, and from a leading oracle-the three mentioned by Cicero being the greatest; and, if a minor oracle could have satisfied the inaugurating necessities of a regular colony, we may be sure that the Dorian states of the Peloponnesus, who had twenty-five decent oracles at home (that is, within the peninsula), would not so constantly have carried their money to Delphi. Nay, it is certain that even where the colonial counsels of the greater oracles seemed extravagant, though a large discretion was allowed to remonstrance, and even to very homely expostulations, still, in the last resort, no doubts were felt that the oracle must be right. Brouwer, the Belgic scholar, who has so recently and so temperately treated these subjects ("Histoire de la Civilisation Morale et Religieuse chez les Grecs." 6 tomes: Groningue: 1840), alleges a case (which, however, I do not remember to have met) where the client ventured

*To which at one time must be added, as of equal rank, the Oracle of the Branchides, in Asia Minor. But this had been destroyed by the invading Persians, in retaliation of the Athenian outrages--real or pretended--at lardis.

to object:-"Mon roi Apollon, je crois que tu es fou.”* But cases are obvious which look this way, though not going so far as to charge lunacy upon the lord of prophetic vision. Battus, who was destined to be the eldest father of Cyrene, memorable as the first ground† of Greek intercourse with the Libyan shore of the Mediterranean, so often as he consulted the Delphic Oracle in reference to his eyes, which happened to be diseased, was admonished to prepare for colonising Libya. "Grant me patience," would the peppery Battus reply; "here am I getting into years; and never do I consult the Oracle about my precious eyesight, but you, King Phoebus, begin your old yarn about Cyrene. Confound Cyrene! Nobody knows where it is. But, if you are serious, speak to my son: he's a likely young man, and worth a hundred of old rotten hulks like myself." Battus was provoked in good earnest; and it is well known that the whole scheme went to sleep for several years, until King Phoebus sent in a gentle refresher to the peppery Battus and his islanders, in the shape of failing crops, pestilence, and his ordinary chastisements. The people were roused-the colony was founded-and, after utter failure, was again founded-and the results justified the Oracle. But, in all such cases, and where the remonstrances were least respectful, or where the resistance

* "Tu es fou:"-The merely English reader, who is unacquainted with French, must not mistake fou for sot. Sot is the word for fool; and the word fou, though looking too like that opprobrious term, denotes a form of intellectual infirmity—viz., madness—claiming deeper pity, but also deeper awe and respect.

"First ground:"-In our modern geography, Egypt is the first region of Africa to those who enter it from the east. But exactly at that point it is that Grecian geography differs from ours.

The Greek Libya,

as regarded the Mediterranean coast, coincided with our Africa, except precisely as to Egypt, which (Herodotus tells us) was, or ought to be, regarded as a transitional chamber between Asia and Libya.

of inertia was longest, I differ altogether from M. Brouwer in his belief, that the suitors fancied Apollo to have gone distracted. If they ever said so, this must have been merely by way of putting the Oracle on its mettle, and calling forth some plainer—not any different-answer from the god, who was essentially enigmatic; for there it was that the doubts of the clients settled, and on that it was the practical demurs hinged. Not because even Battus, vexed as he was about his precious eyesight, distrusted the Oracle, but because he felt sure that the Oracle had not spoken out freely-that the Oracle was in debt to him as regarded plain dealing in a matter of national interest and a question of life and death; therefore had he and many others in similar circumstances presumed to linger or to demur. Blind obedience was hard to practise in cases which, being clothed in riddles, might (as a long experience had taught them) be too easily deciphered erroneously. A second edition was what they waited for, corrected and enlarged. We have a memorable instance of this policy in the Athenian envoys, who, upon receiving a most ominous doom, but obscurely expressed, from the Delphic Oracle-which politely concluded by saying, "And so get out, you vagabonds, from my temple-don't cumber my decks any longer"—were advised to answer sturdily, "No! we will not get out; we mean to sit here for ever, until you think proper to give us a more reasonable reply." Upon which spirited rejoinder, the priestess saw the policy of revising her truly brutal rescript as it had stood originally.* x

* At first sight, the reader is apt to wonder why it was that insolence so undisguised should have been allowed to prosper. But in fact all religions have been indulgent to insolence, where the known alternative has been sycophantic timidity. Christianity herself encourages men to

same name.

The necessity, indeed, was strong for not acquiescing in the answer of the Oracle, until it had become clearer by revision or by casual illustration. But some were so precipitate as to adopt the first answer in its most literal and apparent sense. As usual, there is a Spartan case of this nature. Cleomenes complained bitterly that the Oracle of Delphi had deluded him, by holding out as a possibility, and under given conditions as a certainty, that he should possess himself of Argos. But the Oracle, agreeably to Pagan casuistry, was justified: there was an inconsiderable place outside the walls of Argos which bore the This was the commonest of dodges amongst the heathen professors of divination. Most readers will remember the case of Cambyses, who had been assured by a legion of oracles that he should die at Ecbatana, generally supposed to be the Hamadan of our days, to which northern city, cooled by Caspian breezes, the Shah of Persia retires when Teheran grows too hot. Suffering, therefore, in Syria from a scratch inflicted upon his thigh by his own sabre, whilst angrily sabring a ridiculous quadruped which the Egyptian priests had put forward as a god, Cambyses felt quite at his ease so long as he remembered his vast distance from the mighty capital of Media, to the castward of the Tigris. The scratch, however, inflamed, for his intemperance had saturated his system with com"take heaven by storm." In that spirit it was that the Pagan deities, in the persons of their representative idols, submitted to be caned and horsewhipped without open mutiny, and continually to be chained up by one leg, in cases where the gods were suspected of meditating flight to the enemy. Universally, insolence was but an offence of manner. Even that might have provoked a shade of displeasure, were it not that, more effectually than any other expression of temper, it cured the one unpardonable offence of insincerity, languishing devotion, decay of burning love-to which love, as the one sole pledge of undying loyalty, all frailties were forgiven.

bustible matter; the inflammation spread; the pulse ran high: and he began to feel twinges of alarm. At length mortification commenced; but still he trusted to the old prophecy about Ecbatana, when suddenly a horrid discovery was made that the very Syrian village at his own head-quarters was known by the pompous name of Ecbatana. Josephus tells a similar story of some man contemporary with Herod the Great. And we must all remember that case in Shakspere, where the first king of the red rose, Henry IV., had long fancied his destiny to be that he should meet his death in Jerusalem; which naturally did not quicken his zeal for becoming a crusader. "All time enough," doubtless he used to say; "no hurry at all, gentlemen!" But at length, finding himself pronounced by the doctor ripe for dying, it became a question whether the prophet were a false prophet, or the doctor an incompetent physician. However, in such a case, it is something to have a collision of opinions-the prophet against the doctor. But, behold, it soon transpired that there was no collision at all. It was the Jerusalem chamber, occupied by the king as a bedroom, and extant even yet, to which the prophet had alluded. Upon which his majesty reconciled himself at once to the ugly necessity at hand"In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."

The last case that of oracular establishments turning out to be accomplices of thieves-is one which occurred in Egypt on a scale of some extent; and is noticed by Herodotus. This degradation argued great poverty in the particular temples; and it is not at all improbable that, amongst a hundred Grecian Oracles, some, under a similar temptation, might fall into a similar disgrace: the poverty must often have existed, but without the thieves; and at Delphi constantly the thieves, but without the poverty.