His discourse was most exactly logical. Xenophon, his disciple, a man who knew the world, and who afterwards sacrificed to the wind, in the retreat of the ten thousand, took Socrates by the sleeve, and said to him: "Your discourse is admirable; you have spoken better than an oracle; you are lost; one of these honest people to whom you speak is a butcher, who sells sheep and geese for sacrifices; and the other a goldsmith, who gains much by making little gods of silver and brass for women. They will accuse you of being a blasphemer, who would diminish their trade; they will depose against you to Melitus and Anitus, your enemies, who have resolved upon your ruin: have a care of hemlock; your familiar spirit should have warned you not to say to a butcher and a goldsmith what you should only say to Plato and Xenophon." Some time after, the enemies of Socrates caused him to be condemned by the council of five hundred. He had two hundred and twenty voices in his favor, which may cause it to be presumed that there were two hundred and twenty philosophers in this tribunal; but it shows that, in all companies, the number of philosophers is always the minority. Socrates therefore drank hemlock, for having spoken in favor of the unity of God; and the Athenians afterwards consecrated a temple to Socrates--to him who disputed against all temples dedicated to inferior beings. SOLOMON. Several kings have been good scholars, and have written good books. The king of Prussia, Frederick the Great, is the latest example we have had of it: German monarchs will be found who compose French verses, and who write the history of their countries. James I. in England, and even Henry VIII. have written. In Spain, we must go back as far as Alphonso X. Still it is doubtful whether he put his hand to the "Alphonsine Tables." France cannot boast of having had an author king. The empire of Germany has no book from the pen of its emperors; but Rome was glorified in Cæsar, Marcus Aurelius, and Julian. In Asia, several writers are reckoned among the kings. The present emperor of China, Kien Long, particularly, is considered a great poet; but Solomon, or Solyman, the Hebrew, has still more reputation than Kien Long, the Chinese. The name of Solomon has always been revered in the East. The works believed to be his, the "Annals of the Jews," and the fables of the Arabs, have carried his renown as far as the Indies. His reign is the great epoch of the Hebrews. He was the third king of Palestine. The First Book of Kings says that his mother, Bathsheba, obtained from David, the promise that he should crown Solomon, her son, instead of Adonijah, his eldest. It is not surprising that a woman, an accomplice in the death of her first husband, should have had artifice enough to cause the inheritance to be given to the fruit of her adultery, and to cause the legitimate son to be disinherited, who was also the eldest.