Kircher was more than ordinarily addicted to the study of the hieroglyphical characters, and if he could not always find a true meaning for them, he contrived the most plausible in his power. As his rage for hieroglyphics was justly esteemed ridiculous, some young scholars, it is said, had a mind to divert themselves at his expense with this view they engraved some unmeaning fantastic characters, or figures, upon a shapeless piece of stone, and had it buried in a place which was shortly to be dug up; then they carried it to Kircher, as a most singular curiosity in the antique way, who, quite in raptures, applied himself instantly to explain the hieroglyphics, and made it at length the most intelligible thing in the world. If this story was not true, there is no doubt that it might have been; and if Kircher had been made a dupe in the science of antiques, so have ten thousand beside him. Among Kircher's other works are "Ars Magnesia;" Lingua Egyptiaca restituta; Obeliscus Pamphilius" "Iter extaticum cœleste;" "Iter extati cum terrestre ;" "Mundus subterraneus, in quo universæ naturæ majestas et divitiæ demonstrantur;" "Arcæ Noe;" "Turris Babel;" "Organon mathematicum ad disciplinas mathematicas facili methodo addiscendas;" "Ars magna sciendi in duodecim libros digesta." For this last work he was commended by the fanatic Kuhlman, who was as great a visionary in religious, as Kircher was in learned matters, and therefore rather more ridiculous.

66

LEONIDAS.

LEONIDAS, the son of Anaxandrides, ascended the throne of Sparta upon the death of Cleomenes, who died without leaving any male issue. He was descended from the family of the Agida.

Distinguished for courage, and eminent for his talents in war, this prince was chosen commander of the Greeks at Thermopyla, the only passage by which the innume rable army of Xerxes could penetrate into Greece. He set out with 7000 men, according to the calculation of M. Barthelemé, the learned author of the Travels of Anacharsis,-devoting himself to certain death for the safety of his country. As he quitted Sparta for the battle, his wife asked him, if he had any injunction to give her. "No," he replied; "except, after my death, that you marry a man of virtue and honour, who may raise children deserving of the name of your first husband."

This skilful general placed his army adjoining Anthela, and waited the approach of the enemy. He had scarcely finished his preparations when Xerxes displayed his columns on the plain of Trachinia. He then dispatched an officer to reconnoitre the Greeks; and his surprise was extreme, when the person entrusted with the commission, being only able to discern a portion of the soldiers of Leonidas, declared their number not to exceed 300 men. Xerxes waited some days, in the hope that they

would surrender without fighting. "If you will submit," said he, in a letter to the Lacedæmonian general, "I will give you the empire of Greece." The proposition of the Persian monarch, was that of a chief of a band of slaves; the reply of Leonidas worthy of the first magistrate of a free people: "I would rather die for my country, than enslave it." Another letter of the Persian king only contained these words: "Deliver your arms." Leonidas wrote underneath: "Come and take them."

They then prepared for battle. Xerxes ordered the Medes to bring him, alive, such of the Greeks who had wounded his pride. Some soldiers ran to Leonidas, saying, "The Persians are near to us." "Say, rather, that we approach the Persians," he coolly replied; and at the same instant rushed amid their ranks, and put them to route. He overthrew and destroyed the legion known by the name of the ten thousand immortals; and strewing the plain with dead bodies, caused Xerxes, who witnessed the defeat of his army, to tremble upon his throne.

But stratagem and treason flew to the assistance of weakness and cowardice. An inhabitant of the mountains, Ephialtes, a Trachinian, offered to conduct a detachment of the Persians by a secret path, and to deliver into their hands their redoubtable enemies, surrounded on every side. Xerxes, transported with joy, loaded the wretch with presents. He set out, and the next morning by break of day the body of sinvincibles surprised the Greeks, and prepared to overwhelm them in their defiles. Boedt 1. f! a mob 13 740 7655 won wedt rob erbind

Leonidas, informed of their progress, formed then the