EPAMINONDAS.

MODEL IN PLASTER.-BRIDAN THE YOUNGER.

EPAMINONDAS, a Theban, descended from one of the most ancient families of the city, but little favoured with the gifts of fortune, applied himself, from his earliest years, to the fine arts, to literature, and the study of wisdom. Devoted, by circumstances, to a military life, his first exploit was the preservation of Pelopidas. From that moment they became friends, and their united efforts delivered their country from the Lacedemonian yoke. Epaminondas was elected general of the Thebans in the war which followed that distinguished action. At Leuctra, in Beœtia, he humbled the pride of the oppressors of Greece, and showed them that they were to be conquered by an inferior force, an event until then unexampled in the history of Lacedemon. They lost in that battle the flower of their army, together with their king, Cleombrotus.

The conqueror, pursuing his advantages, entered Laconia, at the head of 50,000 men; threw the Spartans into the utmost terror; restored liberty to the cities of the Peloponesus, and gave to Sparta new and implacable enemies by recalling into their country the fugitive Messenians. Upon his return to Thebes he was arraigned for retaining the command beyond the time limited. He defended himself, by desiring that he might be put to death, and that they would en

grave upon his tomb that he lost his life for giving to Thebes the sovereignty of Greece, which until then the Spartans possessed. Reinvested with command, he gave battle to the Lacedemonians a second time, under the walls of Mantinea. In this conflict, while endeavouring to secure the victory, he was struck with a lance, part of which remained in the wound. This could not be drawn out without occasioning his death. He ordered his shield to be brought to him, assured himself of the success of the battle, and replied to those who lamented that he should die without leaving any posterity, you are mistaken, I leave behind me two immortal children, Leuctra and Mantinea. They then drew out the weapon, and he expired at the age of forty-eight.

The model of the figure of Epaminondas, the production of a young artist, was exhibited in the year 1803. It is tastefully drawn, modelled upon an extensive scale, and announces considerable study in the artist of the beauties of the antique.

ARISTIDES.

Ir requires only a single stroke of the pencil to depicture Aristides: he was the justest and most virtuous of all the Athenians; he contributed less perhaps to their glory than Themistocles and Pericles, but infinitely more than either to their happiness. His example restrained for some time the depravity of morals, and truly merited that posterity, austere but equitable, should apply his name to those persons who never deviated from the path of probity and justice.

Aristides was born in the village of Alopeces, in Attica, and entered at an early age into the business of the republic. A man of extensive projects, whose genius was at once pliant and vigorous, full of cunning and finesse, and of unbounded ambition, assumed to himself the distinction of governing Athens: this character was Themistocles. The people, whose pretensions he favoured, countenanced all his designs, and elevated him by degrees to the sovereign power. Aristides, the admirer of the laws of Lycurgus, and inclining towards an aristocratical form of government, thwarted by a necessary consequence, the views of Themistocles. The republic frequently suffered by their divisions, for if one proposed any thing for the benefit of the state, the other immediately opposed it; not because it was prejudicial, but because the adoption of the project might augment the credit of the person who conceived it.

This manner of proceeding in Themistocles might