It is necessary that the fullness of invention should precede the refinement of art, legend before history, and poetry before criticism. A long period of traditionary wealth existed between the Trojan war and the arts of peace, upon which the plastic spirit of Greece breathed an energizing originality and independence, creating the variety, beauty, and immortality of unrivaled works. The Hellenic race, children of the beautiful, became veritably a nation, in expressing the first great idea of earth, beauty. This entered into all the elements which composed their interior life, as well as outward expressions, and stamped upon all departments a distinct physiognomy. Uncounted millions had roamed the wilds of Africa and Asia, of whom history takes no account, because they matured no idea; but the true dawn of improvement began at length to appear, and representative individuals stood forth as the aggregate of anterior worth and progenitors of prospective glories. A great age was easily read in a few resplendent proper names. Pericles was the exactest symbol of his age, his character its product, and his career its historian. His advent marked the close of a heroic period in the sudden meridian of fascinating civilization. For forty years he was the ruling genius of that glorious city which it was the ambition of his life to adorn for exhibition, and crown for command. Each individuality fashioned by Homer, expressed some distinct quality of heroic power, and thereby represents a separate class. Grace characterizes Nereus, dignity Agamemnon, impetuosity Hector, massiveness the unswerving prowess of the greater, and velocity the lesser Ajax; perseverance Ulysses, and intrepidity Diomede; but in Achilles alone, all these emanations of energy and elegance, mingle and are combined in one splendid whole. And so the susceptible intellect of Pericles precipitated the world of beauty held in suspense at the period of his birth, and laid every element under contribution to nourish his predilections, supply his resources, and consummate the multifarious splendors which forever glorify the culmination of his power. Democratic freedom had inspired lyric melody, epic grandeur, and dramatic force: that music of painting, and sculpture of poetry. Tragedy was exclusively created by the Athenian mind, and joined all the other great masterpieces of human excellence as they gathered in the order of perfection round the Parthenon. With the epos and drama came the harbingers of philosophical history, and historical philosophy. At the feet of Minerva, on the magnificent terrace of the Acropolis, as in the Portico, Lyceum, or Garden, the Japhetic thinker sat in masterly scrutiny over the greatest mystery, the mycrocosm man, and his eternal destiny. Dignified achievements had given rise to historic literature, ethical disquisition required elaborate rhetoric, political debate in the midst of inflamed parties necessitated