Imperial Plato, piled the palace where All great, true thoughts have found a home forever. --J. STUART BLACKIE.

Pythagoras made some important discoveries in geometry, music, and astronomy. The demonstration of the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid is attributed to him. He also discovered the chords in music, which led him to conceive that the planets, striking upon the ether through which they move in their celestial orbits; produce harmonious sounds, varying according to the differences of the magnitudes, velocities, and relative distances of the planets, in a manner corresponding to the proportion of the notes in a musical scale. Hence the "music of the spheres." From what can be gathered of the astronomical doctrine of Pythagoras, it has been inferred that he was possessed of the true idea of the solar system, which was revived by Coper'nicus and fully established by Newton. With respect to God, Pythagoras appears to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent mind, the first principle of the universe, the source and cause of all animal life and motion, in substance similar to light, in nature like truth, incapable of pain, invisible, incorruptible, and only to be comprehended by the mind. His philosophy and teachings are thus pictured by the poet THOMSON:

Here dwelt the Samian sage; to him belongs The brightest witness of recording fame. He sought Crotona's pure, salubrious air, And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught. His mental eye first launched into the deeps Of boundless ether; where unnumbered orbs, Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky Unerring roll, and wind their steady way. There he the full consenting choir beheld; There first discerned the secret band of love, The kind attraction, that to central suns Binds circling earths, and world with world unites. Instructed thence, he great ideas formed Of the whole-moving, all-informing God, The Sun of Beings! beaming unconfined-- Light, life, and love, and ever active power: Whom naught can image, and who best approves The silent worship of the moral heart, That joys in bounteous Heaven and spreads the joy.

Pythagoras also taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which he probably derived from the Egyptians; and he professed to preserve a distinct remembrance of several states of existence through which his soul had passed. It is related of him that on one occasion, seeing a dog beaten, he interceded in its behalf, saying, "It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognize by its voice." It would seem as if the poet COLERIDGE had at times been dimly conscious of the reality of this Pythagorean doctrine, for he says:

Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

One of our favorite American poets; LOWELL, indulges in a like fancy in the following lines from that dream, like, exquisite fantasy, "In the Twilight," found in the Biglow Papers:

Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dream-land sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere-- Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music once heard by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it-- A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show-- A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago!

And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain-- Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again-- Could I but speak and show it, This pleasure, more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should not lack a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad Long ago.

On the whole, the system of Pythagoras, with many excellencies, contained some gross absurdities and superstitions, which were dignified with the name of philosophy, and which exerted a pernicious influence over the opinions of many succeeding generations.

THE ELEUSIN'IAN MYSTERIES,

Closely connected with the public and private instruction that the philosophers gave in their various systems, were certain national institutions of a secret character, which combined the mysteries of both philosophy and religion. The most celebrated of these, the great festival of Eleusinia, sacred to Ce'res and Pros'erpine, was observed every fourth year in different parts of Greece, but more particularly by the people of Athens every fifth year, at Eleu'sis, in Attica.

What is known of the rites performed at Eleusis has been gathered from occasional incidental allusions found in the pages of nearly all the classical authorities; and although the penalty of a sudden and ignominious death impended over anyone who divulged these symbolic ceremonies, yet enough is now known to describe them with much minuteness of detail. We have not the space to give that detailed description here, but the ceremonies occupied nine days, from the 15th to the 23d of September, inclusive. The first day was that on which the worshippers merely assembled; the second, that on which they purified themselves by bathing in the sea; the third, the day of sacrifices; the fourth, the day of offerings to the goddess; the fifth, the day of torches, when the multitude roamed over the meadows at nightfall carrying flambeaus, in imitation of Ceres searching for her daughter; the sixth, the day of Bacchus, the god of Vintage; the seventh, the day of athletic pastimes; the eighth, the day devoted to the lesser mysteries and celestial revelations; and the ninth, the day of libations.

The language that Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchi'ses, in the Sixth Book of the Æneid, is regarded as a condensed definition of the secrets of Eleusis and the creed of Pythagoras. The same book, moreover, is believed to represent several of the scenes of the mysteries. In the following words the shade of Anchises answers the inquiries of "his godlike son:"

"Know, first, that heav'n, and earth's contracted frame, And flowing waters, and the starry flame, And both the radiant lights, one common soul Inspires and feeds--and animates the whole. This active mind, infused through all the space, Unites and mingles with the mighty mass. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain, And birds of air, and monsters of the main. Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same; And ev'ry soul is fill'd with equal flame-- As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay Of mortal members subject to decay, Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day. From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts, Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts, And grief and joy: nor can the grovelling mind, In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined, Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind: Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains; But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.

"The relics of invet'rate vice they wear And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear. For this are various penances enjoin'd; And some are hung to bleach upon the wind, Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires, Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires. All have their ma'nes, and those manes bear: The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair, And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air. Then are they happy, when by length of time The scurf is worn away of each committed crime; No speck is left of their habitual stains, But the pure ether of the soul remains. But, when a thousand rolling years are past (So long their punishments and penance last), Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god, Compell'd to drink the deep Lethe'an flood, In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares Of their past labors and their irksome years, That, unrememb'ring of its former pain, The soul may suffer mortal flesh again." --Trans. by DRYDEN.

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IV. ARCHITECTURE.

In architecture and sculpture Greece stands pre-eminently above all other nations. The first evidences of the former art that we discover are in the gigantic walls of Tiryns, Mycenæ, and other Greek cities, constructed for purposes of defence in the very earliest periods of Greek history, and generally known by the name of Cyclo'pean, because supposed by the early Greeks to have been built by those fabled giants, the Cyclo'pes.

Ye cliffs of masonry, enormous piles, Which no rude censure of familiar time Nor record of our puny race defiles, In dateless mystery ye stand sublime, Memorials of an age of which we see