Is life, then, a dream and delusion? and where shall the dreamer awake?
Is the world seen like shadows on water? and what if the mirror break?
Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone
From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone?
XII.
Is there naught in the heaven above, whence the hail and the levin are hurled,
But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world—
The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep,
With the dirge and the sounds of lamenting, and voices of women who weep?
—The Cornhill Magazine.
What a commentary on all this doubt and despondency are the meditations of the Christian, who, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust," approaches his grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams!
—BRYANT.
II. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE.
The earliest reliable information that we possess of the country called Greece represents it in the possession of a number of rude tribes, of which the Pelas'gians were the most numerous and powerful, and probably the most ancient. Of the early character of the Pelasgians, and of the degree of civilization to which they had attained before the reputed founding of Argos, we have unsatisfactory and conflicting accounts. On the one hand, they are represented as no better than the rudest barbarians, dwelling in caves, subsisting on reptiles, herbs, and wild fruits, and strangers to the simplest arts of civilized life. Other and more reliable traditions, however, attribute to them a knowledge of agriculture, and some little acquaintance with navigation; while there is a strong probability that they were the authors of those huge structures commonly called Cyclopean, remains of which are still visible in many parts of Greece and Italy, and on the western coast of Asia Minor.
Argos, the capital of Ar'golis, is generally considered the most ancient city of Greece; and its reputed founding by In'achus, a son of the god O-ce'anus, 1856 years before the Christian era, is usually assigned as the period of the commencement of Grecian history. But the massive Cyclopean walls of Argos evidently show the Pelasgic origin of the place, in opposition to the traditionary Phoenician origin of Inachus, whose very existence is quite problematical. Indeed, although many of the traditions of the Greeks point to a contrary conclusion, the accounts usually given of early foreign settlers in Greece, who planted colonies there, founded dynasties, built cities, and introduced a knowledge of the arts unknown to the ruder natives, must be taken with a great degree of abatement. The civilization of the Greeks and the development of their language bear all the marks of home growth, and probably were little affected by foreign influence. Still, many of these traditions are exceedingly interesting, and have attained great celebrity. One of the most celebrated is that which describes the founding of Athens, one of the renowned Grecian cities.
THE FOUNDING OF ATHENS.
Ce'crops, an Egyptian, is said to have led a colony from the Delta to Greece, about the year 1556 B.C. Two years later he proceeded to Attica, which had been desolated by a deluge a century before, and there he is said to have founded, on the Cecropian rock—the Acrop'olis—a city which, under the following circumstances, he called Athens, in honor of the Grecian goddess Athe'na, whom the Romans called Minerva.