no need of guides, nor could any one ever miss | the way, if there were but one. But now it appears to me to have many divisions and turnings The well ordered and wise soul, then, both follows and is not ignorant of its present condition; but that which through passion clings to the body, as I before said, having fluttered about it for a long time, and about its visible place (ie., the tomb), after great resistance and suffering is forcibly and with much difficulty led away by its appointed demon. And when it arrives at the place where the others are, impure, and having done any such thing as the committal of unrighteous murders or other like actions kindred to these, and are the deeds of kindred souls, every one shuns it, and turns away from it, and will neither be its fellow-traveller or guide, but it wanders about in every kind of helplessness until certain times have elapsed, and when these are completed it is borne of necessity to its suitable habitation; but the soul which has passed through life purely and moderately, having obtained the gods for its fellow-travellers and guides, settles in the place suitable for it." *

Plato's description of Heaven has many striking similitudes with that in the Revela

tion of St. John.

There

large, and in all parts of the earth, so that to
behold it is a sight for the blessed (wore abri
ἰδεῖν εἶναι θεάμα εὐδαιμόνιον θεατῶν).
are also many other animals and men upon
it, some dwelling in mid-earth, others about
the air as we do about the sea, and others
in islands which the air flows round and which
are nearer the continent. But the seasons are
of such a temperament that they are free from
disease, and live for a much longer time than
those here, and surpass us in sight, hearing,
and smelling, and everything of this kind as
much as air excels water, and ether air in
purity. Moreover, they have abodes and tem-
ples of the gods, in which gods really dwell,
and voices and oracles and sensible visions of
the gods, and such like intercourse with them.
The sun, too, and moon, and stars, are seen
by them such as they really are, and their
felicity in other respects is correspondent with
these things.'

the language of this passage, are contained
Almost every thought, and in some cases,
in the two last chapters of the Book of
heaven and the true earth, and St. John
Revelation. Plato speaks of the true
of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev.
xxi. 1). The agglomeration of colours is
also interlaced in St. John's version, who
gives the same preponderance to white as
does Plato- the bride of the Lamb is
arrayed in fine linen, "clean and white;
for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints" (Rev. xix. 8). Again, "the armies
which were in Heaven followed him
white horses, clothed in fine linen, white
upon
and clean;" the throne also was white.
The same precious stones are mentioned by
both, the sardin, jasper, and emerald; gold
and silver figure largely in both versions.
They shall be free from disease according
to Plato, and St. John says -
-"God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes; and
there shall be no more death, neither sor-
row, nor crying, neither shall there be any
more pain" (Rev. xxi. 4).

"If any one could arrive at its summit, or, becoming winged, could fly up thither, or emerg ing from hence, if his nature were able to endure the contemplation, he would know that that is the true heaven, and the true light, and the true earth It is said to have the appearance of balls covered with twelve different pieces of leather variegated and distinguished with colours, of which the colours found here, and which painters use, are only copies. But there the whole earth is composed of such, and far more brilliant and pure than these, for one part of it is purple and of wonderful beauty, part of a golden colour, and part of white, more white than chalk or snow, and in like manner composed of other colours, and those more in number and more beautiful than any we have ever beheld. In this earth all things that grow, grow in a manner proportioned to its nature, trees, flowers, and fruits; and again, in like manner, its mountains and Plato speaks of their felicity, of their stones possess in the same proportion smooth- having dwellings with the gods and a ness and transparency and more beautiful familiar intercourse with them; so St. John colours, of which the well-known stones here "Behold the tabernacle of God is with that are so highly prized are but fragments-men, and he will dwell with them, and such as sardin stones, jaspers, and emeralds, they shall be his people, and God himself and all of that kind. But there, there is nothing that subsists that is not of this character and more beautiful even than these. But the reason of this is because the stones there are pure, and not eaten up and decayed like those here by rottenness. But that earth is adorned with all these, and moreover with gold and silver and other things of the kind, for they are naturally conspicuous, being numerous and

Phæd. 107 C, seq.

shall be with them, and be their God" (Rev. xxi. 3). "And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants. shall serve Him: and they shall see His face and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle neither light of

*Phæd. 109 C, seq.

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXI. 1406.

"It is nothing but the soul which causes each of us to be in this life what he is, and the body like an image follows each of us, and when we are dead the bodies of the deceased are beautifully said to be image-like forms, and each of us being really immortal, but called by the name of the soul, departs to other gods to render an account (απιεναι δωσοντα λόγον), full of confidence to the good, but very fearful to the bad; and that to this last one there is no great assistance when dead."†

The very phrase "to render an account," 'But for the sake of these things which we and in the same sense, occurs in Romans,

xiv. 12.

In the "Republic" there occurs this ex- dreadful ruin, than Eriphyle did wher. she retraordinary passage, which recalls a well ceived a necklace for her husband's life?"* known portion of the New Testament:

Part of an article from the Christian Observer.

within a space of ten years. No wonder that Pitt's health began to feel the strain. His first serious illness was in 1797; from that time his health became uncertain.

told more upon him. Early hours were abandoned; late hours of rising became his habit. When he was released from office in 1801, it might have been hoped that his health would be restored. Yet it was from this time forward, in the following winter, and in the summer of 1802, that his attacks of illness became more frequent. The Bath waters were resorted to by him. When he appeared in the House of Commons, in May, 1803, an accurate observer describes with painful minuteness the ravages of illness on his physical powers. No longer that grand face, which Gainsborough painted, or the Pitt who was seen by the sculptor on the slopes at Windsor in 1788, just after he had forced his way, in spite of the Court and clique, into the presence of the king, and was met returning with bounding step, the head thrown back and the countenance elate: "his physical powers," says the observer of 1803," are preceptibly impaired; he exhibits strong marks of bad health; though his voice has not lost any of its depth and harmony, his lungs seem to labour in those prodigious sentences, which he once thundered forth without effort."

DEATH OF WILLIAM PITT. RETRACING that life now with the calmness of history, we find it a great tragedy; His habits also changed for the worse. an outset of brilliant promise, marvellous The port wine, which was prescribed to powers, great events, stirring adventures; him in early life by his medical advisers, a fortune that soared to the zenith; then a sudden collapse, and a mournful end. How was it, we ask? Whence came the final blow? Pitt entered Parliament on the 23rd January, 1781, when he had reached his 22nd year; he died on the 23rd January, 1806, in his 47th year. In early life his health was delicate; but the weakness of his constitution seemed to have passed away under a careful regimen. For years he conducted public business in office, and in the House of Commons, through the most critical times, against the ablest opponents, with unabated power. The labours of Sir Robert Peel, when he resumed office in 1841, were as severe perhaps as Pitt's, but he had not the same difficulties to contend with. He had not to provide for the incapacity of the sovereign; nor to meet the horrors of the French revolution; nor to check the contagion of Jacobin principles; nor to confront the dangers of an European war, urged on by the genius of Napoleon, the most ambitious conqueror and the greatest captain of his age. Yet Pitt bore these labours for a time without injury; the best evidence of this is, that his sleep was not disturbed. We remember to have heard, that returning, after an enormous amount of labour, from a late debate, to Dundas's villa at Wimbledon, Pitt went to bed, and Dundas locked the door of his room that no one might disturb him. The Premier slept so soundly, that when Dundas entered his room, at a late hour in the following afternoon, he was still asleep, and was awoke, as they feared he might suffer from want of food. The first time his sleep failed him was when Wilberforce opposed him on the question of the French war, in 1794; and this shows rather the sensibility of his heart than the weakness of his health. But there followed after this a strain which was sufficient to upset any constitution. For the effects of the French Revolution, the mutiny of our seamen at the Nore, a European war, complicated negotiations, the Italian conquests and the rapid rise of Buonaparte, the attempt at peace with France and its mortifying failure, a smouldering disaffection in Ireland ending in rebellion, the tedious negotiations for effecting the Irish Union, were all compressed

It is true that his return to office, as is often the case in vigorous minds, seemed at first to brace and stimulate him. The enemies whom he had to confront, the difficulties he was to face, acted like a tonic. It was the trumpet of battle rousing the war-horse. A sanguine temper, the consciousness of power, made him meet the conflict with delight. Still there were some signs which showed the danger. Lord Castlereagh, in writing to Lord Wellesley in May, 1804, with full confidence in Pitt's intellectual resources, had dropped the ominous words, "if Mr. Pitt's health does not fail him." To Lord Eldon Pitt himself had said, when deserted by Lord Grenville, that he could do without him, but it might cost him his life. But the powers of the statesman, already overtasked, and groaning under the pressure, were to meet with a strain that might have overborne even a firmer frame. The weight thrown upon Pitt's shoulders by Lord Grenville's desertion was great. It was augmented by the disabling illness of Lord Harrowby. It was lightened a little by the

told him of Lord Nelson's death, in the arms of victory, at Trafalgar. At the same time, speaking (it was his last speech) at Guildhall, on the Lord Mayor's day, after he had been drawn to the Mansion House with exultation up Cheapside, his few words, heard by Sir A. Wellesley, spoken in that majestic voice which was never to be heard again, recalled in their patriotism and disinterestedness the character of his life.

union with Addington, in the end of 1804; 1805, he escaped to the Wilderness at but fearfully augmented by the fall of Lord Lord Camden's, and joined a circle of Melville, by the anxieties which preceded friends, his conversation was buoyant still, this event, the excitement of the struggle, and he detailed with his ancient eloquence and the bitter pangs of defeat. This was the emotions with which he had received succeeded by the desertion of Lord Sid- at night and opened the despatches that mouth and his party; and, in spite of Pitt's earnest entreaties, the obstinacy of the king could not be overcome, and the autumn of 1805 saw the struggling minister, who had just passed through a laborious session with scarce any help in debate in the Commons, obliged to look forward to a repetition of the same labours with his shattered forces. Add to this that the year 1804, in which Pitt returned to office, and the following year, in which he had to On the back of all this enormous presbear single-handed the weight of govern- sure came the last thundering blow. The ment, were among the darkest periods of news of the capitulation of Mack in OcEnglish history. For in 1804, Buonaparte, tober, had reached London early in Novemseizing the reins of government as em- ber. But the blow was lightened by the peror, and succeeding in separating Spain from England and uniting her with France, had assumed the crown of Italy, extended his dominion over Holland, and completed his preparations at Boulogne for the invasion of England. The year 1805 was no less formidable. In that year the united fleets of France and Spain, having decoyed Lord Nelson to the West Indies, had for some weeks the command of the English Channel; and Napoleon, standing on tiptoe on the heights of the chalk cliffs of Boulogne, waited only for the signal that his fleet had arrived, to cross the Channel with his gunboats, and throw such a force on the shores of England as we could not have successfully opposed. Worse than all, such at that time was the rancour and blindness of party, that neither Fox nor Addington believed the danger, but treated it as the idle bugbear or the shabby fraud of government. All these dangers to be met, our fleet to be equipped and sent forth, negotiations and loans to be made in order to unite Austria and Russia in a confederacy against France; the whole of this enormous labour, only diversified by the anxious conflicts of eager debate, fell with its full weight on Pitt's shattered frame. With marvellous buoyancy he bore up under the pressure. Anxious for rest, but unable to find a day; longing to retreat to Walmer, but for two years not finding a single interval; urged by his physician to take the waters at Bath, but prevented from following the advice, it was no wonder tha, he felt, and showed in his looks, the unalleviated strain. Yet such was his vigour of mind, that when, in November,

tidings of the victory of Trafalgar, which annihilated Napoleon's fleet, and rescued England from danger by sea. But on the 2nd of December, the great coalition of Russia and Austria, which Pitt had laboriously framed, and from which he expected so much, was crushed on the field of Austerlitz. When he received these despatches, Pitt asked for a map of Europe, and desired to be left alone; and soon after, when he reached his house at Putney Heath, observing a map of Europe hanging on the wall, he said mournfully, but with the prophetic instinct of genius, "Roll up that map; it will not be wanted for ten years!" The effect of this blow on the weakened body was instantaneous; his look was changed; it became wan and sunk; his voice lost its rich melody; the powers of digestion were gone. To a friend his servant said, that from this time he used to hear his master walking up and down his bedroom great part of the night; that at times he had ventured in, and had remonstrated with him; but even when he induced him to go to bed Pitt, kept a light burning near him, and his bed was covered with papers. No wonder that the poor body could not stand such usage. On the 9th of January, 1806, Pitt left Bath, and returned to Putney Heath to die. The villa, which stands near the summit of the Heath, not far from the Telegraph, had been taken by Pitt, when he resumed office in 1804, as a refuge from the labours of London, where, on dry soil and a pure air, the labouring statesman might find rest. Rallying for a moment in consequence of the change, he allowed some of his political friends to visit him, and con