_To this land of the steed, O stranger, To the goodliest homes on earth, Thou hast come—to the white Colonus, Fond haunt of the nightingale, Where her clear voice trills its sorrow In the green of the leafy dell...._ a lyric which won such admiration that he left the court, as it [Sidenote: B] might have been the theatre, amid the applause and cheers of the audience. A little epigram, admitted to be by Sophocles, contains the words: _Five years and fifty Sophocles had seen, Ere for Herodotus he wrought a song._ Take Philemon, the comic poet, and Alexis. They were still putting plays upon the stage, still winning crowns, when death overtook them. Take Polus, the tragedian. Eratosthenes and Philochorus inform us that, shortly before his end, and when [Sidenote: C] he was seventy, he acted eight tragedies in four days. Is it, I say, creditable that old men of the platform should show a poorer spirit than old men of the stage? That they should retire from the sacred contests—for ‘sacred’ these veritably are—and give up the rôle of the public man in exchange for goodness knows what other part? From king, say, to farmer is a descent indeed. Demosthenes calls it cruel treatment of the _Paralus_, to make that sacred warship carry cargoes of timber, vine-stakes, and cattle for Meidias. But suppose a public man abandons the Presidentship of Games, his seat on the Federal Board, his high place in the Sacred League, and is found [Sidenote: D] measuring out barley-meal and olive-cake, or shearing sheep. It cannot but look as if he were needlessly courting the status of ‘old worn-out horse’. As for leaving a public career to engage in vulgar and petty trade, one might as well take some self-respecting lady, strip off her gown, give her an apron, and keep her in a tavern. Turn public ability to mere business and money-making, and its rank and character [Sidenote: E] are lost.