any form of government as wholly fatal to the development of political excellence. Even in a democracy inborn worth will assert itself and prosper; and Pindar always urges his aristocratic patrons to assert their superiority over the mob by a display of princely virtues and by lavish munificence and hospitality, never by grasping at political privileges, or appearing in the character of "saviours of society," to disturb the balance of a democratically constituted state. Pindar has little in common with such advocates of extreme oligarchical pretensions as the Megarian poet Theognis. He never exhorts a prince or a noble to regard the populace as a natural enemy, who should be overreached and repressed and ill-treated on principle. On the contrary, he applies his theory of "measure in all things" to teach to monarchs and aristocracies lessons against all undue assertion of their prerogative. An ideal ruling class, as he conceives it, is marked out for power by the possession of a natural influence and authority over inferior natures. Legitimate ambition develops this potential greatness into actuality, and discretion confines such ambition to its proper sphere, and guards against those abuses of power which provoke sedition, and often end in the disasters of a revolution.
But now—for we, too, must observe our "measure"—the time has come to take our leave of Pindar. We have learnt (it is to be hoped) to see in him something more than Voltaire's "poet of the prize-ring." We have formed some idea of the qualities which have
