beyond  the  limits  of  our  investigation ;  the  facts  and  results
are  all  that  we  can  pretend  to  fathom.  Ionian  life,  under  the
lovely  skies  of  Western  Asia  and  on  the  isles  that  crown  the
jEgean  deep,  has  already  been  in  part  described.  The  senses
of  the  Ionian  were  keen,  and  his  sensibility  to  beauty,  whether
of  nature  or  of  the  human  form,  was  ever  vivid.  His  clear
and  sunny  spirit  was  kindled  by  an  insatiable  curiosity,  which
made  him,  on  the  one  hand,  a  patient  listener  to  the  long-drawn
6tories  of  the  epic  singers,  and,  on  the  other,  an  acute  observer
of  the  phenomena  of  nature  which  were  witnessed  around  him
in  their  fullest  beauty  and  splendor.  His  external  prosperity
—  until  it  was  overshadowed  by  the  Lydians  and  Persians  —
and  the  freedom  he  enjoyed  in  his  political  relations  gave  full
scope  to  the  natural  and  national  expression  of  his  heart  and
his  passions.  In  the  later  period  of  decline,  the  joyousness  of
the  Ionian  was  tempered  by  the  pale  cast  of  introspective  med-
itation. He  became  a  sorrowful  egotist  and  a  sentimental  vo-
luptuary. He  was  a  good  observer  of  the  actions  of  men,  and
readily  fathomed  their  motives.  The  expression  of  the  indi-
vidual sentiment,  therefore,  and  of  ethical  or  political  wisdom,
or  of  plaintive  woes,  and  despair  most  musical,  most  melan-
choly, took  the  place,  in  Ionia,  of  that  unconscious  reflection  of
the  world  of  nature  and  the  world  of  man  which  so  marked
the  elder  epic.  To  adopt  the  German  phrase,  the  Ionian
passed  from  the  objective  to  the  subjective.
