A FRAGMENT.


- The town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there,
trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the
vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons,
conspiracies, and assassinations,--libels, pasquinades, and
tumults, there was no going there by day--'twas worse by night.

Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the
Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole
orchestra was delighted with it: but of all the passages which
delighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginations than
the tender strokes of nature which the poet had wrought up in that
pathetic speech of Perseus, O Cupid, prince of gods and men! &c.
Every man almost spoke pure iambics the next day, and talked of
nothing but Perseus his pathetic address,--"O Cupid! prince of gods
and men!"--in every street of Abdera, in every house, "O Cupid!
Cupid!"--in every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet
melody which drop from it, whether it will or no,--nothing but
"Cupid! Cupid! prince of gods and men!"--The fire caught--and the
whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself to Love.

No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,--not a single
armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death;--Friendship
and Virtue met together, and kiss'd each other in the street; the
golden age returned, and hung over the town of Abdera--every
Abderite took his eaten pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her
purple web, and chastely sat her down and listened to the song.