A marked peculiarity of Greek civilization consists in the fact that literature there led all excellence, illustrated and sustained by the harmonious accompaniment of the sister arts. In the East, each work, whatever its kind, stood imperfect and independent of all beside. But in the best age of the best works in the first literary metropolis of the West, it would be nearly, if not quite, impossible to point out a single production that did not refer to the written book, thus furnishing the means of just appreciation, by a comparison with the particular myth or action it was designed to personate. What the writer expressed in words, the correlative artist chanted, painted, sculptured, or built in more material, but not less beautiful forms. The drama most impressively exemplified this fact, using words as a poet, but adding the simultaneous commentary of melody, statuesque motion, pictorial resemblance, and architectural grandeur. This was the absorption of the lyric, the personation of the epic, and the consummation of transcendant dramatic art. Athens was the inventress of learning, and the first great foundation of republican law. Like the motion of a serpent, which the Egyptians made the emblem of intellectual power, or like the path of lightning through murky air, at each actual advance humanity may seem to recede, but every such retrogressive movement really accumulates force to carry itself in advance. True, patriotism loves its object to such a degree, that it is ready to incur any sacrifice in favor of those it would benefit, but ceases to be a virtue when it selfishly reclines enamored of its own visage. Narcissus was not the type of national benefactors, but the great law-givers of Sparta and Athens were, when they traveled far, and at great hazards, to gather knowledge for the education of their countrymen. The illustrious son of Eumonius was the great law-giver of the Doric race, whose institutions have excited much curiosity, but which are involved in an obscurity too dense to be easily removed. He was one of the very few great spirits of Sparta, and like his co-patriot Leonidas, passed through a dubious path from an obscure birth to everlasting fame. In the light of history, the whole life of the latter, especially, lies in a single action, and we can learn nothing authentic of him until the last few days of his career. In the annals of renown, only one proud page is dedicated to the memory of such men, and that contains nothing but an epitaph.