deliverance for their several cities at our hands, is now battling,
no more for the leadership of Greece, but for the ground on which it
stands. And these things have befallen us since Demosthenes took
the direction of our policy. The poet Hesiod will interpret such a
case. There is a passage meant to educate democracies and to
counsel cities generally, in which he warns us not to accept
dishonest leaders. I will recite the lines myself, the reason, I
think, for our learning the maxims of the poets in boyhood being
that we may use them as men:--

"Oft hath the bad man been the city's bane;
Oft hath his sin brought to the sinless pain:
Oft hath all-seeing Heaven sore vexed the town
With dearth and death and brought the people down;
Cast down their walls and their most valiant slain,
And on the seas made all their navies vain!"

Strip these lines of their poetic garb, look at them closely, and I
think you will say these are no mere verses of Hesiod--that they are
a prophecy of the administration of Demosthenes, for by the agency
of that administration our ships, our armies, our cities have been
swept from the earth. ... "O yes," it will be replied, "but then he
is a friend of the constitution." If, indeed, you have a regard
only to his delicacy you will be deceived as you were before, but
not if you look at his character and at the facts. I will help you
to estimate the characteristics which ought to be found in a friend
of the constitution; in a sober-minded citizen. I will oppose to
them the character that may be looked for in an unprincipled
revolutionist. Then you shall draw your comparison and consider on
which part he stands--not in his language, remember, but in his