483) with his accustomed dignity.

His last words on leaving his native city were characteristic of his generous and lofty nature.

"May the Athenian people," he said, "never know the day which shall force them to remember Aristides!"-- A wish, fortunately alike for the exile and the people, not realized.

That day, so patriotically deprecated, soon came, glorious equally to Athens and Aristides, and the reparation of wrong and the triumph of liberty found a common date.
The singular institution of the ostracism is often cited in proof of the ingratitude of a republic, and the fickleness of a people; but it owed its origin not to republican disorders, but to despotic encroachment--not to a people, but to a tyrant.

If we look throughout all the Grecian states, we find that a tyranny was usually established by some able and artful citizen, who, attaching himself either to the aristocratic, or more frequently to the popular party, was suddenly elevated into supreme power, with the rise of the faction he had espoused.