From Grote's History of Greece, chap. 80.

THE military merits alone of Epaminondas, had they merely belonged to a general of mercenaries, combined with nothing praiseworthy in other ways, would have stamped him as a man of high and original genius, above every other Greek, antecedent or contemporary. But it is the peculiar excellence of this great man that we are not compelled to borrow from one side of his character in order to compensate deficiencies in another. His splendid military capacity was never prostituted to personal ends; neither to avarice, nor ambition, nor overweening vanity.

Poor at the beginning of his life, he left at the end of it not enough to pay his funeral expenses, having despised the many opportunities for enrichment which his position afforded, as well as the richest offers from foreigners. Of ambition he had so little, by natural temperament, that his friends accused him of torpor. But as soon as the perilous exposure of Thebes required it, he displayed as much energy in her defence as the most ambitious of her citizens, without any of that captious exigence, frequent in ambitious men, as to the amount of glorification or deference due to him from his countrymen. And his personal vanity was so faintly kindled, even after the prodigious success at Leuctra, that we find him serving in Thessaly as a private hoplite in the ranks, and in the city as an ædile, or inferior street-magistrate, under the title of Telearchus. An illustrious specimen of that capacity and good-will, both to command and to be commanded, which Aristotle pronounces to form in their combination the characteristic feature of the worthy citizen.

Idem Latine Redditum.

Si quis vel auxiliorum dux, bello insignis, ceterarum virtutum expers, tantum in re militari profecisset, quantum profecit Epaminondas, ingenio singulari et præclaro omnibus Græcis vel æqualibus vel antiquioribus præstitisset. In hoc viro tamen (id quod rarius accidit) vitia non opus est meritis compensare, quippe qui belli peritissimus neque pecuniæ aut gloriæ studio neque nimiâ arrogantiâ sibi unquam consuluerit.

Tenui enim in loco natus, neglectis quæ ab externis donabantur, tum quæ ipse sibi identidem comparare potuit, ne ad exsequias quidem persolvendas pecuniæ satis moriens idem reliquit. Deinde gloriæ ita naturâ negligens erat, ut amici etiam torporem objicerent: quum tamen pericula Thebanis imminebant, eandem, quam honorum studiosissimi, pro patriâ sedulitatem præstitit, sine ullâ laudis aut observantiæ flagitatione, quâ apud cives famæ cupidi uti solent. Denique adeo superbiæ expers atque ignarus erat, ut post insignem pugnæ Leuctricæ fortunam non modo in Thessaliâ gregarii militis stipendia mereret, sed etiam in urbe minori quodam magistratu, cui nomen тeλapxía, velut ædilis fungeretur. Itaque insigne præbuit exemplum ingenii ad regendum æque ac parendum prompti atque facilis, quod boni civis Aristoteles esse dicit.

He once incurred the displeasure of his fellow-citizens for his wise and moderate policy in Achaia, which they were ill-judged enough to reverse. We cannot doubt also that he was frequently attacked by political censors and enemies-the condition of eminence in every free state; but neither of these causes ruffled the dignified calmness of his political course. As he never courted popularity by unworthy arts, so he bore unpopularity without murmurs, and without any angry renunciation of patriotic duty.

Semel tamen civibus temperato et sagaci in Achaiâ consilio, quod incautius irritum fecerunt, displicuit. Neque dubitandum est quin in republicâ regendâ sæpe ab inimicis reprehenderetur, quod in liberâ civitate præstantissimo cuique solet contingere: quæ tamen animi securitatem et constantiam nunquam turbaverunt; nam non modo populi favori turpiter non studuit, sed etiam invidiam æquo animo ita perpessus est, ut nunquam irâ inductus pietatem erga patriam, ne paullisper quidem, derelinqueret.

THOMAS GEORGIUS STACPOOLE MAHON.

The Influence of Great Men upon their Age, and the Limits

of their Influence.

"A God though in the germ."

BROWNING, Rabbi ben Ezra.

EVERY age presents certain opportunities for distinction, and those who seize and employ them to the fullest advantage are called the great men of the age. The age, however, may of course be either great or little, and in proportion to that greatness or littleness are its opportunities and its heroes. If, therefore, the destiny of the age be high, such are its opportunities and such the greatness it calls forth; and thus it depends in no small measure upon the age itself whether its representatives be great or little. A Martin Luther is not needed every day. It is when the age grants the conditions that the truly great man is the consequence. Further, it is conceivable, humanly speaking, that a great man may arise, as it were, before his time, and therefore be altogether left out from that roll of names for which his particular age is famous, and be destined to reappear only when some maturer generation discover in the past the prototype, as yet unrecognised and premature, of its own riper development. Such were Roger Bacon and Wiclif, men apparently connected by but a slender thread with the generation amongst whom they moved, and whose work was unappreciated till that generation was well-nigh forgotten.

This fact, perhaps, leads us to the solution of another question, namely, how far greatness is due to success. Now