CRITICAL NOTICES.
PHILOTHEA.
Philothea: A Romance. By Mrs. Child, Author of the Mother's Book, &c. Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co. New York: George Dearborn.
Mrs. Child is well known as the author of “Hobomok,” “The American Frugal Housewife,” and the “Mother's Book.” She is also the editor of a “Juvenile Miscellany.” The work before us is of a character very distinct from that of any of these publications, and places the fair writer in a new and most favorable light. Philothea is of that class of works of which the Telemachus of Fenelon, and the Anarcharsis of Barthelemi, are the most favorable specimens. Overwhelmed in a long-continued inundation of second-hand airs and ignorance, done up in green muslin, we turn to these pure and quiet pages with that species of gasping satisfaction with which a drowning man clutches the shore.
The plot of Philothea is simple. The scene is principally in ancient Athens, during the administration of Pericles; and some of the chief personages of his time are brought, with himself, upon the stage. Among these are Aspasia, Alcibiades, Hippocrates, Anaxagoras of Clazomenœ, Plato, Hermippus the comic writer, Phidias the Sculptor, Artaxerxes of Persia, and Xerxes his son. Philothea, the heroine of the tale, and the grand-daughter of Anaxagoras, is of a majestic beauty, of great purity and elevation of mind. Her friend, Eudora, of a more delicate loveliness, and more flexile disposition, is the adopted daughter of Phidias, who bought her, when an infant, of a goat-herd in Phelle—herself and nurse having been stolen from the Ionian coast by Greek pirates, the nurse sold into slavery, and the child delivered to the care of the goat-herd. The ladies, of course, have lovers. Eudora is betrothed to Philæmon. This Athenian, the son of the wealthy Cherilaus, but whose mother was born in Corinth, has incurred the dislike of Aspasia, the wife of Pericles. She procures the revival of an ancient law subjecting to a heavy fine all citizens who married foreigners, and declaring all persons, whose parents were not both Athenians, incapable of voting in the public assemblies, or of inheriting the estates of their fathers. Philæmon, thus deprived of citizenship, prevented from holding office, and without hope of any patrimony, is obliged to postpone, indefinitely, his union with Eudora. The revival of the obnoxious law has also a disastrous effect upon the interests of Philothea. She is beloved of Paralus, the son of Pericles, and returns his affection. But in marrying, she will bring upon him losses and degradation. Pericles, too, looks with an evil eye upon her poverty, and the idea of marriage is therefore finally abandoned.
Matters are thus situated, when Philothea, being appointed one of the Canephoræ, (whose duty it is to embroider the sacred peplus, and to carry baskets in the procession of the Panathenaia,) is rigidly secluded by law, for six months, within the walls of the Acropolis. During this time, Eudora, deprived of the good counsel and example of her friend, becomes a frequent visitor at the house of Aspasia, by whose pernicious influence she is insensibly affected. It is at the return of Philothea from the Acropolis that the story commences. At the urgent solicitation of Aspasia, who is desirous of strengthening her influence in Athens by the countenance of the virtuous, Anaxagoras is induced to attend, with his grand-daughter, a symposium at the house of Pericles. Eudora accompanies them. The other guests are Hermippus, Phidias, the Persian Artaphernes, Tithonus a learned Ethiopian, Plato, Hipparete the wife of Alcibiades, and Alcibiades himself. At this symposium Eudora is dazzled by the graces of Alcibiades, and listens to his seductive flattery—forgetful of the claims of Hipparete, the wife of Alcibiades, and of Philæmon, her own lover. The poison of this illicit feeling now affects all the action of the drama. Philothea discovers the danger of her friend, but is sternly repulsed upon the proffer of good advice. Alcibiades is appointed a secret interview by Eudora, which is interrupted by Philothea—not however before it is observed by Philæmon, who, in consequence, abandons his mistress, and departs, broken-hearted, from Athens. The eyes of Eudora are now opened, too late, to the perfidy of Alcibiades, who had deceived her with the promise of marriage, and of obtaining a divorce from Hipparete. It is Hipparete who appeals to the Archons for a divorce from Alcibiades, on the score of his notorious profligacy; and, in the investigations which ensue, it appears that a snare has been laid by Aspasia and himself, to entrap Eudora, and that, with a similar end in view, he has also promised marriage to Electra, the Corinthian.
Pericles seeks to please the populace by diminishing the power of the Areopagus. He causes a decree to be passed, that those who denied the existence of the Gods, or introduced new opinions about celestial things, should be tried by the people. This, however, proves injurious to some of his own personal friends. Hermippus lays before the Thesmothetæ Archons an accusation of blasphemy against Anaxagoras, Phidias, and Aspasia; and the case is tried before the fourth assembly of the people. Anaxagoras is charged with not having offered victims to the Gods, and with having blasphemed the divine Phœbus, by saying the sun was only a huge ball of fire,—and is condemned to die. Phidias is accused of blasphemy, in having carved the likeness of himself and Pericles on the shield of heaven-born Pallas, of having said that he approved the worship of the Gods merely because he wished to have his own works adored, and of decoying to his own house the maids and matrons of Athens, under the pretence of seeing sculpture, but in fact, to administer to the profligacy of Pericles. He is also adjudged to death. Aspasia is accused of saying that the sacred baskets of Demeter contained nothing of so much importance as the beautiful maidens who carried them; and that the temple of Poseidon was enriched with no offerings from those who had been wrecked, notwithstanding their supplications—thereby implying irreverent doubts of the power of Ocean's God. Her sentence is exile. Pericles, however, succeeds in getting the execution of the decrees suspended until the oracle of Amphiaraus can be consulted. Antiphon, a celebrated diviner, is appointed to consult it. He is absent for many days, and in the meantime Pericles has an opportunity of tampering with the people, as he has already done with Antiphon. The response of the oracle opportunely declares that the sentences be reconsidered. It is done—Phidias and Anaxagoras are merely banished, while Aspasia is acquitted. These trials form perhaps the most interesting portion of the book.