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The wet clay-lands had, for the most part, no drainage, save the open furrows which were as old as the teachings of Xenophon; indeed, it will hardly be credited, when I state that it is only so late as 1843 that a certain gardener, John Reade by name, at the Derby Show of the Royal Agricultural Society, exhibited certain cylindrical pipes, which he had formed by wrapping damp clay around a smooth billet of wood, and with which he "had been in the habit of draining the hot-beds of his master."
All the captains who heard Xenophon cordially concurred in his suggestion, and desired him to take the lead in executing it. One captain alone Apollonidês, speaking in the Boeotian dialect protested against it as insane; enlarging upon their desperate position, and insisting upon submission to the King as the only chance of safety. "How?
Among the Greeks was a volunteer named Xenophon, who had been persuaded to go by his friend Proxenus, a general in the army of Cyrus. Xenophon, as we shall see, eventually saved his countrymen from destruction, and became not only the leader, but the historian of the expedition.
Everybody knows what Gibbon said about the advantage to the historian of the Roman Empire of having been a member of the English parliament and a captain in the Hampshire grenadiers. Thucydides commanded an Athenian squadron, and Tacitus filled the offices of prætor and consul. Xenophon, Polybius, and Sallust, were all men of affairs and public adventure.
"To the study of poetry, should be joined that of the three arts of imitation. The antients represented the passions, by gests, colors and sounds. Xenophon tells us of some wonderful effects of the Grecian dances, and how they moved and expressed the passions. We have now lost the perfection of that art; all that remains, is only what is necessary to give a handsome action and airs to a young gentleman. This ought not to be neglected, because upon the external figure and appearance, depends often the regard we have to the internal qualities of the mind. A
He learnt easily, and, when he was with Socrates, would talk as well and wisely as any philosopher of them all; and Socrates really seems to have loved the bright, beautiful youth even more than his two graver and worthier pupils, Plato and Xenophon, perhaps because in one of Alkibiades’ first battles, at Delium, he had been very badly wounded, and Socrates had carried him safely out of the battle on his broad shoulders.
We have the civil history of that people, as Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch have given it; a very sufficient account of what manner of persons they were and what they did. We have the same national mind expressed for us again in their literature, in epic and lyric poems, drama, and philosophy; a very complete form.
If facts are required to prove the possibility of combining weighty performances in literature with full and independent employment, the works of Cicero and Xenophon among the ancients; of Sir Thomas More, Bacon, Baxter, or to refer at once to later and contemporary instances, Darwin and Roscoe, are at once decisive of the question."
The greatest Italian Wits have applied themselves to the Writing of this latter kind of Fables: As Spencer's Fairy-Queen is one continued Series of them from the Beginning to the End of that admirable Work. If we look into the finest Prose Authors of Antiquity, such as Cicero, Plato, Xenophon, and many others, we shall find that this was likewise their Favourite Kind of Fable.
His "Levities" are by their title exempted from the severities of criticism, yet it may be remarked in a few words that his humour is sometimes gross, and seldom sprightly. Of the Moral Poems, the first is the "Choice of Hercules," from Xenophon.
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