and noble, it was only when they thus, without ever enjoying a day of ceased to be Lacedæmonians, that they health or pleasure, drags on its existbecame great men. Brasidas, among ence to a doting and debilitated old age. the cities of Thrace, was strictly a The Spartans purchased for their democratical leader, the favourite government a prolongation of its minister and general of the people. existence by the sacrifice of happiness The same may be said of Gylippus, at home and dignity abroad. They at Syracuse. Lysander, in the Hel- cringed to the powerful; they tramlespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, were pled on the weak; they massacred liberated for a time from the hateful their helots; they betrayed their alrestraints imposed by the constitution lies; they contrived to be a day too of Lycurgus. Both acquired fame late for the battle of Marathon; they abroad; and both returned to be attempted to avoid the battle of Sawatched and depressed at home. This lamis; they suffered the Athenians, is not peculiar to Sparta. Oligarchy, to whom they owed their lives and wherever it has existed, has always liberties, to be a second time driven stunted the growth of genius. Thus from their country by the Persians, it was at Rome, till about a century that they might finish their own fortibefore the Christian era: we read of fications on the Isthmus; they atabundance of consuls and dictators who tempted to take advantage of the diswon battles, and enjoyed triumphs; tress to which exertions in their cause but we look in vain for a single man had reduced their preservers, in order of the first order of intellect, for a to make them their slaves; they strove Pericles, a Demosthenes, or a Hannibal. to prevent those who had abandoned The Gracchi formed a strong demo- their walls to defend them, from recratical party; Marius revived it; the building them to defend themselves; foundations of the old aristocracy they commenced the Peloponnesian were shaken; and two generations fer- war in violation of their engagements tile in really great men appeared. with Athens; they abandoned it in Venice is a still more remarkable in-violation of their engagements with stance: in her history we see nothing their allies; they gave up to the sword but the state; aristocracy had destroyed every seed of genius and virtue. Her dominion was like herself, lofty and magnificent, but founded on filth and weeds. God forbid that there should ever again exist a powerful and civilised state, which, after existing through thirteen hundred eventful years, shall not bequeath to mankind the memory of one great name or one generous action.

Many writers, and Mr. Mitford among the number, have admired the stability of the Spartan institutions; in fact, there is little to admire, and less to approve. Oligarchy is the weakest and the most stable of governments; and it is stable because it is weak. It has a sort of valetudinarian longevity; it lives in the balance of Sanctorius; it takes no exercise; it exposes itself to no accident; it is seized with an hypochondriac alarm at every new sensation; it trembles at every breath; it lets blood for every inflammation: and

whole cities which had placed themselves under their protection; they bartered, for advantages confined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives of those who had served them most faithfully; they took with equal complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained from no injury; and they revenged nones. Above all, they looked on a citizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy. These are the arts which protract the existence of government.

Nor were the domestic institutions of Lacedæmon less hateful or less contemptible than her foreign policy. A perpetual interference with every part of the system of human life, a constant struggle against nature and reason, characterised all her laws. violate even prejudices which have taken deep root in the minds of a people is scarcely expedient; to think

To

of extirpating natural appetites and ferula of Dr. Pangloss; for his metapassions is frantic: the external symp- physics are clearly those of the castle toms may be occasionally repressed; of Thunder-ten-tronckh: "Remarquez but the feeling still exists, and, de- bien que les nez ont été faits pour barred from its natural objects, preys porter des lunettes, aussi avons nous on the disordered mind and body of des lunettes. Les jambes sont visiits victim. Thus it is in convents- blement instituées pour être chaussées, thus it is among ascetic sects-thus it et nous avons des chausses. Les cowas among the Lacedæmonians. Hence chons étant faits pour étre mangés, arose that madness, or violence ap-nous mangeons du porc toute l'année." proaching to madness, which, in spite At Athens the laws did not conof every external restraint, often ap- stantly interfere with the tastes of the peared among the most distinguished people. The children were not taken citizens of Sparta. Cleomenes termi- from their parents by that universal nated his career of raving cruelty by step-mother, the state. They were not cutting himself to pieces. Pausanias starved into thieves, or tortured into seems to have been absolutely insane; bullies; there was no established table he formed a hopeless and profligate at which everyone must dine, no estabscheme; he betrayed it by the osten-lished style in which everyone must tation of his behavour, and the impru- converse. An Athenian might eat dence of his measures; and he alien- whatever he could afford to buy, and ated, by his insolence, all who might talk as long as he could find people to have served or protected him. Xeno- listen. The government did not tell phon, a warm admirer of Lacedæmon, the people what opinions they were to furnishes us with the strongest evidence hold, or what songs they were to sing. to this effect. It is impossible not to Freedom produced excellence. Thus observe the brutal and senseless fury philosophy took its origin. Thus were which characterises almost every Spar- produced those models of poetry, of tan with whom he was connected. oratory, and of the arts, which scarcely Clearchus nearly lost his life by fall short of the standard of ideal exhis cruelty. Chirisophus deprived cellence. Nothing is more conducive his army of the services of a faith- to happiness than the free exercise of ful guide by his unreasonable and the mind in pursuits congenial to it. ferocious severity. But it is needless This happiness, assuredly, was enjoyed to multiply instances. Lycurgus, Mr. far more at Athens than at Sparta. Mitford's favourite legislator, founded The Athenians are acknowledged even his whole system on a mistaken prin- by their enemies to have been distinciple. He never considered that guished, in private life, by their courgovernments were made for men, and teous and amiable demeanour. Their not men for governments. Instead of levity, at least, was better than Spartan adapting the constitution to the people, sullenness, and their impertinence, he distorted the minds of the people than Spartan insolence. Even in to suit the constitution, a scheme courage it may be questioned whether worthy of the Laputan Academy of they were inferior to the LacedæmoProjectors, And this appears to Mr. nians. The great Athenian historian Mitford to constitute his peculiar has reported a remarkable observation title to admiration. Hear himself: of the great Athenian minister. Peri"What to modern eyes most strikingly cles maintained that his countrymen, sets that extraordinary man above all other legislators is, that in so many circumstances, apparently out of the reach of law, he controlled and formed to his own mind the wills and habits of his people." I should suppose that this gentleman had the advantage of receiving his education under the

without submitting to the hardships of a Spartan education, rivalled all the achievements of Spartan valour, and that therefore the pleasures and amusements which they enjoyed were to be considered as so much clear gain. The infantry of Athens was certainly not equal to that of Lacedæmon; but this

reine.

seems to have been caused merely by | Broad Stone of Honour, and all the other wise men who think, like him, that God made the world only for the use of gentlemen. But they spring in general from utter heartlessness. No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all interchange of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient, but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hand of the potter.

want of practice: the attention of the Athenians was diverted from the discipline of the phalanx to that of the triThe Lacedæmonians, in spite of all their boasted valour, were, from the same cause, timid and disorderly in naval action. But we are told that crimes of great enormity were perpetrated by the Athenian government, and the democracies under its protection. It is true that Athens too often acted up to the full extent of the laws of war, in an age when those laws had not been mitigated by causes which have operated in later times. This accusation is, in fact, common to Athens, to Lacedæmon, to all the states of Greece, and to all states similarly situated. Where communi- It is true that among the dependenties are very large, the heavier evils of cies of Athens seditions assumed a chawar are felt but by few. The plough-racter more ferocious than even in boy sings, the spinning-wheel turns France, during the reign of terrorround, the wedding-day is fixed, whe- the accursed Saturnalia of an accursed ther the last battle were lost or won. bondage. It is true that in Athens In little states it cannot be thus; every itself, where such convulsions were man feels in his own property and per- scarcely known, the condition of the son the effect of a war. Every man is higher orders was disagreeable; that a soldier, and a soldier fighting for his they were compelled to contribute large nearest interests. His own trees have sums for the service or the amusement been cut down-his own corn has been of the public; and that they were burnt-his own house has been pil- sometimes harassed by vexatious inlaged-his own relations have been formers. Whenever such cases occur, killed. How can he entertain towards Mr. Mitford's scepticism vanishes. The the enemies of his country the same "if," the "but," the "it is said," the feelings with one who has suffered no- "if we may believe," with which he thing from them, except perhaps the qualifies every charge against a tyrant addition of a small sum to the taxes or an aristocracy, are at once abanwhich he pays. Men in such circum-doned. The blacker the story, the stances cannot be generous. They have firmer is his belief, and he never fails too much at stake. It is when they to inveigh with hearty bitterness are, if I may so express myself, playing against democracy as the source of for love, it is when war is a mere game every species of crime. at chess, it is when they are contending for a remote colony, a frontier town, the honours of a flag, a salute, or a title, that they can make fine speeches, and do good offices to their enemies. The Black Prince waited behind the chair of his captive; Villars interchanged repartees with Eugene; George II. sent congratulations to Louis XV., during a war, upon occasion of his escape from the attempt of Damien : and these things are fine and generous, and very gratifying to the author of the

The Athenians, I believe, possessed more liberty than was good for them. Yet I will venture to assert that, while the splendour, the intelligence, and the energy of that great people were peculiar to themselves, the crimes with which they are charged arose from causes which were common to them with every other state which then existed. The violence of faction in that age sprung from a cause which has always been fertile in every political and moral evil, domestic slavery.

Lacedæmon, cursed with a system of slavery more odious than has ever existed in any other country, avoided this evil by almost totally annihilating private property. Lycurgus began by an agrarian law. He abolished all professions except that of arms; he made the whole of his community a standing army, every member of which had a common right to the services of a crowd of miserable bondmen; he secured the state from sedition at the expense of the Helots. Of all the parts of his system this is the most creditable to his head, and the most disgraceful to his heart.

The effect of slavery is completely to | singular that Mr. Mitford should perdissolve the connection which naturally petually reprobate a policy which was exists between the higher and lower the best that could be pursued in such classes of free citizens. The rich spend a state of things, and which alone saved their wealth in purchasing and main- Athens from the frightful outrages taining slaves. There is no demand which were perpetrated at Corcyra. for the labour of the poor; the fable of Menenius ceases to be applicable; the belly communicates no nutriment to the members; there is an atrophy in the body politic. The two parties, therefore, proceed to extremities utterly unknown in countries where they have mutually need of each other. In Rome the oligarchy was too powerful to be subverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies, though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest against men who possessed the whole property of the state. Hence the necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society, and to take These considerations, and many away every motive of industry; the others of equal importance, Mr. Mitabolition of debts, and the agrarian ford has neglected; but he has yet a laws-propositions absurdly condemned heavier charge to answer. He has by men who do not consider the cir- made not only illogical inferences, but cumstances from which they sprung. false statements. While he never They were the desperate remedies of a states, without qualifications and obdesperate disease. In Greece the oli-jections, the charges which the earliest garchical interest was not in general so and best historians have brought deeply rooted as at Rome. The multi- against his favourite tyrants, Pisistratude, therefore, often redressed by force tus, Hippias, and Gelon, he transcribes, grievances which, at Rome, were com- without any hesitation, the grossest monly attacked under the forms of the abuse of the least authoritative writers constitution. They drove out or against every democracy and every massacred the rich, and divided their demagogue. Such an accusation should property. If the superior union or not be made without being supported; military skill of the rich rendered them and I will therefore select one out of victorious, they took measures equally many passages which will fully substanviolent, disarmed all in whom they tiate the charge, and convict Mr. Mitcould not confide, often slaughtered ford of wilful misrepresentation, or of great numbers, and occasionally ex- negligence scarcely less culpable. Mr. pelled the whole commonalty from the Mitford is speaking of one of the city, and remained, with their slaves, greatest men that ever lived, Demosthethe sole inhabitants. nes, and comparing him with his rival, Eschines. Let him speak for himself.

"In earliest youth Demosthenes earned an opprobrious nickname by the effeminacy of his dress and manner.' Does Mr. Mitford know that Demosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in a perfectly different manner ?* And, if he knew

From such calamities Athens and Lacedæmon alone were almost completely free. At Athens the purses of the rich were laid under regular contribution for the support of the poor; and this, rightly considered, was as much a favour to the givers as to the receivers, since no other measure could possibly have saved their houses from pillage and their persons from violence. It is marchus.

* See the speech of Eschines against Ti

may be able to judge what degree of credit ought to be given to the vague abuse of such a writer. "The cowardice of Demosthenes in the field afterwards became notorious." Demosthenes was a civil character; war was not his business. In his time the division between military and political offices was beginning to be strongly marked; yet the recollection of the days when every citizen was a soldier was still recent. In such states of society a certain degree of disrepute always attaches to sedentary men; but that any leader of the Athenian democracy could have been, as Mr. Mitford says of Demosthenes, a few lines before, remarkable for "an extraordinary deficiency of personal courage," is absolutely impossi

it, should he not have stated it? He proceeds thus:" On emerging from minority, by the Athenian law, at fiveand-twenty, he earned another opprobrious nickname by a prosecution of his guardians, which was considered as a dishonourable attempt to extort money from them." In the first place, Demosthenes was not five-and-twenty years of age. Mr. Mitford might have learned, from so common a book as the Archæologia of Archbishop Potter, that at twenty Athenian citizens were freed from the control of their guardians, and began to manage their own property. The very speech of Demosthenes against his guardians proves most satisfactorily that he was under twenty. In his speech against Midias, he says that when he undertook that ble. What mercenary warrior of the prosecution he was quite* a boy. His time exposed his life to greater or youth might, therefore, excuse the step, more constant perils? Was there a even if it had been considered, as Mr. single soldier at Charonea who had Mitford says, a dishonourable attempt more cause to tremble for his safety to extort money. But who considered than the orator, who, in case of deit as such? Not the judges who con- feat, could scarcely hope for mercy demned the guardians. The Athe- from the people whom he had misled nian courts of justice were not the or the prince whom he had opposed? purest in the world; but their decisions Were not the ordinary fluctuations of were at least as likely to be just as the popular feeling enough to deter any abuse of a deadly enemy. Mr. Mitford coward from engaging in political conrefers for confirmation of his statement flicts? Isocrates, whom Mr. Mitford to Eschines and Plutarch. Eschines extols, because he constantly employed by no means bears him out; and Plu- all the flowers of his school-boy rhetoric tarch directly contradicts him. "Not to decorate oligarchy and tyranny, long after," says Mr. Mitford," he took avoided the judicial and political meetblows publicly in the theater" (I pre-ings of Athens from mere timidity, serve the orthography, if it can be so and seems to have hated democracy called, of this historian) "from a petu-only because he durst not look a populant youth of rank, named Meidias." lar assembly in the face. Demosthenes Here are two disgraceful mistakes. In was a man of a feeble constitution: the first place, it was long after; eight his nerves were weak; but his spirit years at the very least, probably was high; and the energy and enthumuch more. In the next place, the siasm of his feelings supported him petulant youth, of whom Mr. Mitford through life and in death. speaks, was fifty years old.† Really Mr. Mitford has less reason to censure the carelessness of his predecessors than to reform his own. After this monstrous inaccuracy, with regard to facts, we

Now for

So much for Demosthenes. the orator of aristocracy. I do not wish to abuse Eschines. He may have been an honest man. He was certainly a great man; and I feel a reverence, of which Mr. Mitford seems to have no notion, for great men of every party. But, when Mr. Mitford says that the private character of Eschines was without stain, does he remember what Eschines has himself confessed in his