[26] Stimulus, or correction,--one hardly knows which to ask for first,
as more salutary for our own slumbersome, yet so self-willed, northern
temperaments. Perhaps all genuine fire, even the Heraclitean fire, has
a power for both. "Athens," says Dante,

--Athens, aye and Sparta's state
That were in policy so great,
And framed the laws of old,
How small a place they hold,
How poor their art of noble living
Shews by thy delicate contriving,
Where what October spun
November sees outrun!
Think in the time thou canst recall,
Laws, coinage, customs, places all,
How thou hast rearranged,
How oft thy members changed!
Couldst thou but see thyself aright,
And turn thy vision to the light,
Thy likeness thou would'st find
In some sick man reclined;
On couch of down though he be pressed,
He seeks and finds not any rest,
But turns and turns again,
To ease him of his pain.
Purgatory: Canto VI: Shadwell's Translation.

Now what Dante says to Florence, contrasting it with Athens and Sparta
as he conceives them, Plato might have said to Athens, in contrast with