ideas crop up again, and we see theory and loyalty comparatively weak motives by the side of love for the waters of the Rhine, or the sacred soil of France. The old world-worn nation becomes a child again in the violence of its passion. Cicero appeals—half poetically it is true, but very beautifully—to the same feelings, when he is claiming for the state the services of its members in peace as well as war. "Our country has not given us birth and reared us without expecting from us in return some 'nurture-fee'; she did not mean only to make herself the slave of our convenience, and furnish us with a safe shelter to be idle in, a quiet spot for our repose: she gave us birth and nurture that she might engage our best energies and talents in her own service, allowing us to use for our own private ends so much, and so much only, as might not be needed for her own." And so says Ben Jonson;
"She is our common mother, and doth claim
The prime part of us."
With the Thebans now the call of patriotism is most pressing. Blind Tiresias, the wise augur, has announced that this night a great assault upon the town may be expected, and against this danger every precaution must be taken. Scouts have been sent out to reconnoitre; and, even while the king is speaking, one of them arrives. He brings tidings that the prophecy of the augur is being already fulfilled. Seven great chiefs are arming, and have sworn a solemn oath over the body of a bull slain on a black-orbed shield, dipping their hands in the blood—
