and in the dark; its children were not its own--even itself had no
property in self. Sparta incorporated, under the name of freedom, the
worst complexities, the most grievous and the most frivolous
vexations, of slavery. And therefore was it that Lacedaemon
flourished and decayed, bequeathing to fame men only noted for hardy
valour, fanatical patriotism, and profound but dishonourable craft--
attracting, indeed, the wonder of the world, but advancing no claim to
its gratitude, and contributing no single addition to its intellectual
stores. But in Athens the true blessing of freedom was rightly
placed--in the opinions and the soul. Thought was the common heritage
which every man might cultivate at his will. This unshackled liberty
had its convulsions and its excesses, but producing unceasing
emulation and unbounded competition, an incentive to every effort, a
tribunal to every claim, it broke into philosophy with the one--into
poetry with the other--into the energy and splendour of unexampled
intelligence with all. Looking round us at this hour, more than four-
and-twenty centuries after the establishment of the constitution we
have just surveyed,--in the labours of the student--in the dreams of
the poet--in the aspirations of the artist--in the philosophy of the
legislator--we yet behold the imperishable blessings we derive from
the liberties of Athens and the institutions of Solon. The life of
Athens became extinct, but her soul transfused itself, immortal and
immortalizing, through the world.

XVII. The penal code of Solon was founded on principles wholly
opposite to those of Draco. The scale of punishment was moderate,
though sufficiently severe. One distinction will suffice to give us
an adequate notion of its gradations. Theft by day was not a capital
offence, but if perpetrated by night the felon might lawfully be slain
by the owner. The tendency to lean to the side of mercy in all cases