GREECE. (NOVEMBER 1824.)

back on Waterloo. Jupiter calls a | Charlotte, to spare him. The Prince is council of the gods, and commands that inclined to do so; when, looking on his none shall interfere on either side. breast, he sees there the belt of the Mars and Neptune make very eloquent Duke of Brunswick. He instantly speeches. The battle of Waterloo draws his sword, and is about to stab commences. Napoleon kills Picton the destroyer of his kinsman. Piety and Delancy. Ney engages Ponsonby and hospitality, however, restrain his and kills him. The Prince of Orange hand. He takes a middle course, and is wounded by Soult. Lord Uxbridge condemns Napoleon to be exposed on a flies to check the carnage. He is desert island. The King of France reseverely wounded by Napoleon, and enters Paris; and the poem concludes. only saved by the assistance of Lord Hill. In the meantime the Duke makes a tremendous carnage among the French. He encounters General ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF Duhesme and vanquishes him, but spares his life. He kills Toubert, who kept the gaming-house in the Palais Royal, and Maronet, who loved to spend whole nights in drinking champagne. Clerval, who had been hooted from the stage, and had then become a captain in the Imperial Guard, wished that he had still continued to face the more harmless enmity of the Parisian pit. But Larrey, the son of Esculapius, whom his father had nstructed in all the secrets of his art, and who was surgeon-general of the French army, embraced the knees of the destroyer, and conjured him not to give death to one whose office it was to give life. The Duke raised him, and bade him live.

But we must hasten to the close. Napoleon rushes to encounter Wellington. Both armies stand in mute amaze. The heroes fire their pistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that of Wellington, formed by the hand of Vulcan, and primed by the Cyclops, wounds the Emperor in the thigh. He flies, and takes refuge among his troops. The flight becomes promiscuous. The arrival of the Prussians, from a motive of patriotism, the poet completely passes

over.

BOOK XII.

THINGS are now hastening to the catastrophe. Napoleon flies to London, and, seating himself on the hearth of the Regent, embraces the household gods and conjures him, by the venerable age of George III., and by the opening perfections of the Princess

THIS is. a book which enjoys a great and increasing popularity: but, while it has attracted a considerable share of the public attention, it has been little noticed by the critics. Mr. Mitford has almost succeeded in mounting, unperceived by those whose office it is to watch such aspirants, to a high place among historians. He has taken a seat on the dais without being challenged by a single seneschal. To oppose the progress of his fame is now almost a hopeless enterprise. Had he been reviewed with candid severity, when he had published only his first volume, his work would either have deserved its reputation, or would never have obtained it. "Then," as Indra says of Kehama, "then was the time to strike." The time was neglected; and the consequence is that Mr. Mitford, like Kehama, has laid his victorious hand on the literary Amreeta, and seems about to taste the precious elixir of immortality. I shall venture to emulate the courage of the honest Glendoveer—

and his defects, is a love of singularity. |

That a

Almost all the modern historians of He has no notion of going with a mul- Greece have shown the grossest ignotitude to do either good or evil. An rance of the most obvious phenomena exploded opinion, or an unpopular of human nature. In their represenperson, has an irresistible charm for tations the generals and statesmen of him. The same perverseness may be antiquity are absolutely divested of all traced in his diction. His style would individuality. They are personificanever have been elegant; but it might tions; they are passions, talents, opiat least have been manly and perspi- nions, virtues, vices, but not men. cuous; and nothing but the most Inconsistency is a thing of which elaborate care could possibly have these writers have no notion. made it so bad as it is. It is dis- man may have been liberal in his tinguished by harsh phrases, strange youth and avaricious in his age, cruel collocations, occasional solecisms, fre- to one enemy and merciful to another, quent obscurity, and, above all, by a is to them utterly inconceivable. If peculiar oddity, which can no more be the facts be undeniable, they suppose described than it can be overlooked. some strange and deep design, in order Nor is this all. Mr. Mitford piques to explain what, as every one who has himself on spelling better than any of observed his own mind knows, needs his neighbours; and this not only in no explanation at all. This is a mode ancient names, which he mangles in of writing very acceptable to the muldefiance both of custom and of reason, titude who have always been accusbut in the most ordinary words of the tomed to make gods and dæmons out English language. It is, in itself, a of men very little better or worse matter perfectly indifferent whether than themselves; but it appears conwe call a foreigner by the name which temptible to all who have watched he bears in his own language, or by the changes of human character-to that which corresponds to it in ours; all who have observed the influence of whether we say Lorenzo de Medici, time, of circumstances, and of assoor Lawrence de Medici, Jean Chauvin, ciates, on mankind-to all who have or John Calvin. In such cases estab- seen a hero in the gout, a democrat in lished usage is considered as law by all the church, a pedant in love, or a writers except Mr. Mitford. If he were philosopher in liquor. This practice always consistent with himself, he might of painting in nothing but black and be excused for sometimes disagreeing white is unpardonable even in the with his neighbours; but he proceeds drama. It is the great fault of Alon no principle but that of being un- fieri; and how much it injures the like the rest of the world. Every child effect of his compositions will be obhas heard of Linnæus; therefore Mr. vious to every one who will compare Mitford calls him Linné: Rousseau is his Rosmunda with the Lady Macbeth known all over Europe as Jean of Shakspeare. The one is a wicked Jacques; therefore Mr. Mitford be- woman; the other is a fiend. stows on him the strange appellation only feeling is hatred; all her words of John James. are curses. We are at once shocked and fatigued by the spectacle of such raving cruelty, excited by no provocation, repeatedly changing its object, and constant in nothing but in its inextinguishable thirst for blood.

Her

Had Mr. Mitford undertaken a history of any other country than Greece, this propensity would have rendered his work useless and absurd. His occasional remarks on the affairs of ancient Rome and of modern In history this error is far more Europe are full of errors: but he disgraceful. Indeed, there is no fault writes of times with respect to which which so completely ruins a narrative almost every other writer has been in in the opinion of a judicious reader. the wrong; and, therefore, by reso- | We know that the line of demarcation lutely deviating from his predecessors, between good and bad men is so he is often in the right. faintly marked as often to elude the

political liberty, because it secures the persons and the possessions of citizens; because it tends to prevent the extravagance of rulers, and the corruption of judges; because it gives birth to useful sciences and elegant arts; because it excites the industry and increases the comforts of all classes of society. These theorists imagined that it possessed something eternally and intrinsically good, distinct from the blessings which it generally produced. They considered it not as a means but as an end; an end to be attained at any cost. Their favourite heroes are those who have sacrificed, for the mere name of freedom, the prosperity-the securitythe justice-from which freedom derives its value.

most careful investigation of those and patriotism, from the same cause who have the best opportunities for which leads monks to talk more judging. Public men, above all, are ardently than other men about love surrounded with so many temptations and women. A wise man values and difficulties that some doubt must almost always hang over their real dispositions and intentions. The lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk, Clarendon, Marlborough, Burnet, Walpole, are well known to us. We are acquainted with their actions, their speeches, their writings; we have abundance of letters and well-authenticated anecdotes relating to them: yet what candid man will venture very positively to say which of them were honest and which of them were dishonest men? It appears easier to pronounce decidedly upon the great characters of antiquity, not because we have greater means of discovering truth, but simply because we have less means of detecting error. The modern historians of Greece have forgotten this. Their heroes and villains are as consistent in all their sayings and doings as the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins in an allegory. We should as soon expect a good action from giant Slay-good in Bunyan as from Dionysius; and a crime of Epaminondas would seem as incongruous as a faux-pas of the grave and comely damsel called Discretion, who answered the bell at the door of the house Beautiful.

This error was partly the cause and partly the effect of the high estimation in which the later ancient writers have been held by modern scholars. Those French and English authors who have treated of the affairs of Greece have generally turned with contempt from the simple and natural. narrations of Thucydides and Xenophon to the extravagant representations of Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius, and other romancers of the same class, men who described military operations without ever having handled a sword, and applied to the seditions of little republics speculations formed by observation on an empire which covered half the known world. Of liberty they knew nothing. It was to them a great mystery-a superhuman enjoyment. They ranted about liberty

There is another remarkable characteristic of these writers, in which their modern worshippers have carefully imitated them-a great fondness for good stories. The most established facts, dates, and characters are never suffered to come into competition with a splendid saying, or a romantic exploit. The early historians have left us natural and simple descriptions of the great events which they witnessed, and the great men with whom they associated. When we read the account which Plutarch and Rollin have given of the same period, we scarcely know our old acquaintance again; we are utterly confounded by the melo-dramatic effect of the narration, and the sublime coxcombry of the characters.

These are the principal errors into which the predecessors of Mr. Mitford have fallen; and from most of these he is free. His faults are of a completely different description. It is to be hoped that the students of history may now be saved, like Dorax in Dryden's play, by swallowing two conflicting poisons, each of which may serve as an antidote to the other.

The first and most important difference between Mr. Mitford and those who have preceded him is in his narration. Here the advantage lies, for the most

part, on his side. His principle is to The errors of both parties arise from follow the contemporary historians, to an ignorance or a neglect of the fundalook with doubt on all statements mental principles of political science. which are not in some degree confirmed The writers on one side imagine popular by them, and absolutely to reject all government to be always a blessing; which are contradicted by them. While Mr. Mitford omits no opportunity of he retains the guidance of some writer assuring us that it is always a curse. in whom he can place confidence, he The fact is, that a good government, goes on excellently. When he loses it, like a good coat, is that which fits the he falls to the level, or perhaps below body for which it is designed. A man the level, of the writers whom he so who, upon abstract principles, promuch despises he is as absurd as they, nounces a constitution to be good, and very much duller. It is really without an exact knowledge of the amusing to observe how he proceeds people who are to be governed by it, with his narration when he has no judges as absurdly as a tailor who better authority than poor Diodorus. should measure the Belvidere Apollo He is compelled to relate something; for the clothes of all his customers. yet he believes nothing. He accompanies every fact with a long statement of objections. His account of the administration of Dionysius is in no sense a history. It ought to be entitled "Historic doubts as to certain events, alleged to have taken place in Sicily."

The demagogues who wished to see Portugal a republic, and the wise critics who revile the Virginians for not having instituted a peerage, appear equally ridiculous to all men of sense and candour.

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy. Neither the inclination nor the know

This scepticism, however, like that of some great legal characters almost as sceptical as himself, vanishes when-ledge will suffice alone; and it is ever his political partialities interfere. difficult to find them together. He is a vehement admirer of tyranny and oligarchy, and considers no evidence as feeble which can be brought forward in favour of those forms of government. Democracy he hates with a perfect hatred, a hatred which, in the first volume of his history, appears only in his episodes and reflections, but which, in those parts where he has less reverence for his guides, and can venture to take his own way, completely distorts even his narration.

Pure democracy, and pure democracy alone, satisfies the former condition of this great problem. That the governors may be solicitous only for the interests of the governed, it is necessary that the interests of the governors and the governed should be the same. This cannot be often the case where power is intrusted to one or to a few. The privileged part of the community will doubtless derive a certain degree of advantage from the general prosperity In taking up these opinions, I have of the state; but they will derive a no doubt that Mr. Mitford was in-greater from oppression and exaction. fluenced by the same love of singularity The king will desire an useless war which led him to spell island without for his glory, or a parc-aux-cerfs for an s, and to place two dots over the last his pleasure. The nobles will demand letter of idea. In truth, preceding monopolies and lettres-de-câchet. In historians have erred so monstrously proportion as the number of governors on the other side that even the worst is increased the evil is diminished. parts of Mr. Mitford's book may be There are fewer to contribute, and useful as a corrective. For a young more to receive. The dividend which gentleman who talks much about his each can obtain of the public plunder country, tyrannicide, and Epaminondas, becomes less and less tempting. But this work, diluted in a sufficient quan- the interests of the subjects and the tity of Rollin and Barthelemi, may be rulers never absolutely coincide till the a very useful remedy. subjects themselves become the rulers,

that is, till the government be either im- | mean time, it is dangerous to praise or mediately or mediately democratical.

condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, from the despotism of St. Petersburg to the democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a form of government which might not, at least in some hypothetical case, be the best possible.

If, however, there be any form of government which in all ages and all nations has always been, and must always be, pernicious, it is certainly that which Mr. Mitford, on his usual principle of being wiser than all the rest of the world, has taken under his especial patronage pure oligarchy. This is closely, and indeed inseparably, connected with another of his eccentric tastes, a marked partiality for Lacedæmon, and a dislike of Athens. Mr. Mitford's book has, I suspect, rendered these sentiments in some degree popular; and I shall, therefore, examine them at some length.

But this is not enough. "Will without power," said the sagacious Casimir to Milor Beefington, "is like children playing at soldiers." The people will always be desirous to promote their own interests; but it may be doubted, whether, in any community, they were ever sufficiently educated to understand them. Even in this island, where the multitude have long been better informed than in any other part of Europe, the rights of the many have generally been asserted against themselves by the patriotism of the few. Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular. It may be well doubted, whether a liberal policy with regard to our commercial relations would find any support from a parliament elected by universal suffrage. The republicans on the other side of the Atlantic have re-racter strike the eye more rapidly than cently adopted regulations of which the consequences will, before long, show us, "How nations sink, by darling schemes

oppressed,

When vengeance listens to the fool's request."

The people are to be governed for their own good; and, that they may be governed for their own good, they must not be governed by their own ignorance. There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular government as to abolish all the restraints in a school, or to untie all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.

Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in which supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name of a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of the people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give them every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render it safe to trust them with absolute power. In the

The shades in the Athenian cha

those in the Lacedæmonian: not because they are darker, but because they are on a brighter ground. The

law of ostracism is an instance of this. Nothing can be conceived more odious than the practice of punishing a citizen, simply and professedly, for his eminence;--and nothing in the institutions of Athens is more frequently or more justly censured. Lacedæmon was free from this. And why? Lacedæmon did not need it. Oligarchy is an ostracism of itself,-an ostracism not occasional, but permanent,-not dubious, but certain. Her laws prevented the development of merit, instead of attacking its maturity. They did not cut down the plant in its high and palmy state, but cursed the soil with eternal sterility. In spite of the law of ostracism, Athens produced, within a hundred and fifty years, the greatest public men that ever existed. Whom had Sparta to ostracise? She produced, at most, four eminent men, Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus. Of these, not one rose to distinction within her jurisdiction. It was only when they escaped from the region within which the influence of aristocracy withered everything good