D E M 



616 



DEN 



Demo.the- melancholy exile on the island of iEgina. On the death 

 nefc of Alexander, Avhen a new confederacy was planned 

 " » l— ' by the Grecian states, Demosthenes ventured to leave 

 the island, and, attending the Athenian deputies from 

 city to city, made such efforts for the common cause, 

 that his countrymen thought fit to recal him. A pub- 

 lic galley was sent to bring him home ; and on the road 

 from the Piraeus to Athens, he was met, and welcomed 

 in triumph, by the whole body of citizens. As his fine 

 could not be legally remitted, an equal sum was set 

 aside to relieve him, on pretext of paying his charges, 

 as conductor of the sacrifices to Jupiter the Preserver. 

 But the victory of Antipater over the confederated 

 Greeks at Cranon, in Thessaly, dispelled all the hopes 

 of their cause, and Athens was obliged to purchase 

 peace by the sacrifice of her ten public speakers, among 

 whom Demosthenes was included. On the motion of 

 Demades, a decree passed, condemning them to death. 

 Demosthenes fled to the island of Calauria, and there 

 took shelter in the temple of Neptune. But he was pur- 

 sued thither by Archias, one of the instruments of An- 

 tipater's vengeance, attended by a party of soldiers. 

 Archias, who had been formerly a tragedian, affected to 

 look on his victim with commiseration, and gave him 

 hopes of pardon and safety. Demosthenes coldly and 

 contemptuously replied, " Your acting never affected 

 me, nor can your promises make the least impression." 

 When Archias began to speak in more peremptory 

 terms, " Now," said Demosthenes, " you pronounce 

 the very dictates of the Macedonian oracle, before you 

 had but acted a part. I desire but a moment's respite, 

 that I may send some directions to my family." He 

 then retired, and seemed employed in writing; but 

 when Archias and the soldiers returned, they found 

 him with his head bowed down and covered. Impu- 

 ting his behaviour to fear, they desired him to rise; 

 Jbut he had swallowed poison, and feeling its deadly ef- 

 fects coming on, he uncovered his head, and fixing Ms 

 eyes on Archias, " Now," said he, " you need not 

 scruple to act the part of Creon in the tragedy, and to 

 cast out this corpse unburned ;" (alluding to a speech 

 in the Antigone of Sophocles, in which Creon orders, 

 that the body of Polyniees should be exposed to dogs 

 and birds of prey.) " Oh ! gracious Neptune," he then 

 exclaimed, " I will not defile thy temple ; while I yet 

 live, I retire from this holy place, which Antipater and 

 the Macedonians have not left unpolluted." He then 

 rose, and desired to be supported, but as he passed 

 the altar, sunk down and expired with a groan.— 

 He died at the age of sixty, and his fickle country- 

 men regretting his fate, among other honours paid to 

 his memory, erected a statue to him with an inscription, 

 importing, that if his arm could have seconded his 

 counsels, Greece would not have bowed down to Ma- 

 eedon. 



The oratorial character of Demosthenes is one of the 

 few points of taste in which the affectation of singula- 

 rity, or the love of paradox, has hardly ventured to esta- 

 blish a dissentient opinion. The occasional preference of 

 Cicero is established on a predilection for excellence of 

 a different kind, not of a higher degree. The orations 

 of the Roman orator, it seems to be generally agreed, 

 form a larger and more luxuriant treat to the reader; 

 but for giving an idea of consummate pleading, those 

 o£ Demosthenes are preferred. His style is acknow- 

 ledged to have a kind of magic, peculiar to himself, 

 even in the Greek language, and which is not to be 

 transfused into translation ; in the matter, even when 

 he may be suspected of labouring in the weaker cause. 



there is a neatness of delusive reasoning, a subtlety of Demostr.t 

 insinuation avoiding assertion, but calculated to infuse nes ' 

 belief without pledging the speaker ; even his silence, De " h| g |: - 

 it has been remarked, is frequently pregnant with ._ s "^ 

 meaning. That characteristic of eloquence, which Quin- 

 tilian (from the Greek) calls htvatris, is not perhaps to 

 be translated by the single term aggravation — it is in 

 him the power of arraying truth in majestic terror — of 

 alarming and electrifying the attending mind. Even 

 at this day, a reader who, in cooler moments, may well 

 question the general policy of his system towards Ma- 

 cedon, opens one of his Philippics with tacit reflection? 

 on the insolence and tyranny of Athens, and the mag- 

 nanimity of Philip, but as he proceeds, feels his sympa- 

 thy carried on, to i participate in the passions of jea- 

 lousy, disdain, and impatience for action, which he in- 

 fuses into the breasts of his audience. The opinions of 

 Cicero and Quintilian on the supremacy of his powers, 

 are in themselves splendid passages of eloquence, which 

 have been often cited. It may be added, that elo- 

 quence by no means comprises tire sum of his charac- 

 ter ; Lord Bolingbroke justly j remarks, in speculating 

 on the part which he acted in history, that " haranguing 

 was at this time the least part of the business of De- 

 mosthenes; and eloquence, neither the sole nor the 

 principal talent, as the style of writers would induce us 

 to believe, on which his success depended. He must 

 have been master of other arts, subservient to which 

 his eloquence was employed; and must have had a 

 thorough knowledge of his own state, and of the other 

 states of Greece, of their dispositions and of their in- 

 terests relatively to one another, and relatively to their 

 neighbours — to the Persians particularly, with whom 

 he had correspondence not much to his honour, — I say 

 he must have been master of many other arts, and have 

 possessed an immense fund of knoAvledge, to make his 

 eloquence in every case successful, and even pertinent 

 and seasonable in some, as well as to direct it and fur- 

 nish it with matter whenever he thought fit to employ 

 that weapon." (ii) 



DENBIGHSHIRE, is an inland county of North 

 Wales. It runs parallel to Flintshire, but it is much 

 more extensive. Although we have denominated it an 

 inland county, yet in one point it just touches on the 

 Irish Sea. On the north-east, it is bounded by Flint- 

 shire and Cheshire; on the south-east by Shropshire; 

 on the north-west by Montgomery, Merioneth, and 

 Caernarvon. From Merioneth it is separated by the Be- 

 reryn Mountains ; and from Caernarvon by the river 

 Conway. The promontory of the Great Ormes-head ; 

 however, which is on the eastern side of this river, is in 

 Caernarvonshire. Denbighshire, from Llandwst, on the 

 Conway, to Holt, on the river Dee, measures 36 miles ; 

 and from St Asaph to Ysbytty Eran, 19 miles: in its 

 narrowest breadth over the vale of Clwyd, it is but nine 

 miles. The climate of this county, like that of the other 

 parts of North Wales, is of three kinds : that of the 

 vales, the hills, and the mountains. Frequently when 

 it rains in the vallies, sleet falls on the hills, and snow 

 on the mountains. In some parts of the mountainous 

 district of Denbighshire, oats are frequently seen in 

 the month of October quite green. The time of har- 

 vest in the vallies is August; on the hills, September, 

 or the beginning of October. The most constant winds 

 are from the east, prevailing during the frosts in winter 

 and the backward cold springs. But the wind blows 

 much more frequently from the west or south-west, 

 though not with such steadiness and constancy. These 

 winds have been observed to prevail nearly three- fourths 



