Says the historian from whose work the speech of Pericles is taken: "Such was the funeral solemnity which took place this winter, with the expiration of which the first year of the war was brought to a close." DR. ERNST CURTIUS comments as follows on the oration: "With lofty simplicity Pericles extols the Athenian Constitution, popular in the fullest sense through having for its object the welfare of the entire people, and offering equal rights to all the citizens; but at the same time, and in virtue of this its character, adapted for raising the best among them to the first positions in the state. He lauds the high spiritual advantages offered by the city, the liberal love of virtue and wisdom on the part of her sons, their universal sympathy in the common weal, their generous hospitality, their temperance and vigor, which peace and the love of the beautiful had not weakened, so that the city of the Athenians must, in any event, be an object of well-deserved admiration both for the present and for future ages. Such were the points of view from which Pericles displayed to the citizens the character of their state, and described to them the people of Athens, as it ought to be. He showed them their better selves, in order to raise them above themselves and arouse them to self-denial, to endurance, and to calm resolution. Full of a new vital ardor they returned home from the graves, and with perfect confidence confronted the destinies awaiting them in the future." [Footnote: "The History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 66; by Dr. Ernst Curtius.] THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. In the spring of 430 B.C. the Spartans again invaded Attica, and the Athenians shut themselves up in Athens. But here the plague, a calamity more dreadful than war, attacked them and swept away multitudes. This plague, which not only devastated Athens, but other Grecian cities also, is described at considerable length, with a harrowing minuteness of detail, by the Latin poet LUCRETIUS. His description is based upon the account given by Thucydides. We give here only the beginning and the close of it: A plague like this, a tempest big with fate, Once ravaged Athens and her sad domains; Unpeopled all the city, and her paths Swept with destruction. For amid the realms Begot of Egypt, many a mighty tract Of ether traversed, many a flood o'erpassed, At length here fixed it; o'er the hapless realm Of Cecrops hovering, and the astonished race Dooming by thousands to disease and death. * * * * *