mcmorials of his friendship or his vengeance ? Mr. Cowley seemed to me not to take much The gold of Spain, the steel of Sweden, the ten amiss what Mr. Milton had said touching that thousand sails of Holland, availed nothing thankless court, which had indeed but poorly against him. While every foreign state trem- reaited his own good service. He only said, bled at our arms, we sat secure from all as- therefore, “Another rebellion ! Alas! alas! sault. War, which often so strangely troubles Mr. Milton. If there be no choice but between both husbandry and commerce, never silenced despotism and anarchy, I prefer despotism." the song of our reapers, or the sound of our " Many men,” said Mr. Milton, “have floridly looms. Justice was equally administered; God and ingeniously compared anarchy and despot. was freely worshipped.

ism ; but they who so amuse themselves do but “Now look at that which we have taken in look at separate parts of that which is truly exchange. With the restored king have come one great whole. Each is the cause and the over to us vices of every sort, and most the effect of the other;-the evils of either are the basest and most shameful-lust, without love evils of both. Thus do stales move on in the -servitude, without loyalty,-foulness of same eternal cycle, which, from the remotest speech-dishonesty of dealing-grinning con- point, brings them back again to the same sad tempt of all things good and generous. The starting-post: and till both those who govern throne is surrounded by men whom the former and those who obey shall learn and mark this Charles would have spurned from his footstool. great truth, men can expect little through the 'The altar is served by slaves whose knees are future, as they have known little through the supple to every being but God. Rhymers, pasi, save vicissitude of extreme evils, alter. whose books the hangman should burn, pan- nately producing and produced. ders, actors, and buffoons, these drink a health “When will rulers learn, that where liberty and throw a main with the king; these have is not, security and order can never be? We stars on their breasts and gold sticks in their talk of absolute power, but all power hath hands; these shut out from his presence the limits, which, if not fixed by the moderation of best and bravest of those who bled for his the governors, will be fixed by the force of the house. Even so doth God visit those who governed. Sovereigns may send their opposers know not how to value freedom. He gives to dungeons; they may clear out a senatethem over to the tyranny which they have de- house with soldiers; they may enlist armies sired, “Jγα παντες εταυρωνται βασιληος.”

of spies; they may hang scores of the disaf“I will not,” said Mr. Cowley, "dispute with fected in chains at every cross-road; but what you on this argumeni. But if it be as you say, power shall stand in that frightful time when how can you maintain that England hath been rebellion hath become a less evil than endurso greatly advantaged by the rebellion ?” ance ?

Who shall dissolve that terrible tribu“Understand me rightly, sir,” said Mr. Mil- nal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed, ton. “This nation is not given over to slavery denounces against the oppressor the doom of and vice. We tasted, indeed, the fruits of its wild justice? Who shall repeal the law of liberty before they had well ripened. Their self-defence? What arms or discipline shall flavour was harsh and bitter, and we turned resist the strength of famine and despair ? How from them with loathing to the sweeter poisons often were the ancient Cæsars dragged from of servitude. This is but for a time. England their golden palaces, stripped of their purple is sleeping on the lap of Dalilah, traitorously robes, mangled, stoned, defiled with filth, chained, but not yet shorn of strength. Let the pierced with hooks, hurled into the Tiber! cry be once heard—the Philistines be upon How often have the Eastern Sultans perished thee; and at once that sleep will be broken, and by the sabres of their own Janissaries, or the those chains will be as flax in the fire. The bow-strings of their own mutes! For no power great Parliament hath left behind it in our which is not limited by laws can ever be prohearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just tected by them. Small, therefore, is the wis. knowledge of our rights, a scorn of vain and dom of those who would fly to servitude as if it deluding names; and that the revellers of were a refuge from commotion; for anarchy Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is dark- is the sure consequence of tyranny. That goened, but it is only for a moment: it is but an vernments may be safe, nations must be free. eclipse; though aii birds of evil omen have Their passions must have an outlet provided, begun to scream, and all ravenous beasts have lest they make one. gone forth to prey, thinking it to be midnight. “When I was at Naples, I went with Signor Wo to them if they be abroad when the rays Manso, a gentleman of excellent parts and again shine forth.

breeding, who had been the intimate friend of “'The king hath judged ill. Had he been that famous poet Torquato Tasso, to see the wise he would have remembered that he owed burning mountain Vesuvius. I wondered tow his restoration only to confusions which had the peasants could venture to dwell so fear. wearied us out, and made us eager for repose. lessly and cheerfully on its sides, when the He would have known that the folly and per- lava was flowing from its summit, but Manso fidy of a prince would restore to the good old smiled, and told me that when the fire descends cause many hearts which had been alienated freely they retreat before it without haste or thence by the turbulence of factions; for, i Ifcar. They can tell how fast it will move, and mnow aught of history, or of the heart of man, how far; and they know, moreover, that though he will soon learn that the last champion of it may work some little damage, it will soon the people was not destroyed when he muro cover the fields over which it hath passed with dered Vane, nor seduced when he beguiled rich vineyards and sweet flowers. But when Fairfax.”

flames are pent up in the invuntain, then it is

that they have reason to fear; then it is that may be safe to spare, than how much it may the earth sinks and the sea swells; then cities be possible to change. Have you not heard are swallowed up, and their place knoweth that men who have been shut up for many them no more. So it is in politics : where the years in dungeons shrink if they see the light, neople are most closely restrained, there it and fall down if their irons be struck off. And, gives the greatest shocks to peace and order; so, when nations have long been in the house therefore would I say to all kings, let your de- of bondage, the chains which have crippled magogues lead crowds, lest they lead armics; them are necessary to support them, the darklet them bluster, lest they assacre; a little ness which hath weakened their sight is necesrurbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the sary to preserve it. Therefore release them state; it shows indeed that there is a passing not too rashly, lest they curse their freedom shower, but it is a pledge that there shall be no and pine for their prison. deluge.”

“I think, indeed, that the renowned Parlia“This is true,” said Mr. Cowley: “yet these ment of which we have talked so much did admonitions are not less needful to subjects show, until it became subject to the soldiers, a than to sovereigns.”

singular and admirable moderation, in such "Surely,” said Mr. Milton, “and, that I may times scarcely to be hoped, and most worthy end this long debate with a few words in which to be an example to all that shall come after. we shall both agree, I hold that as freedom is But on this argument I have said enough; and the only safeguard of governments, so are order I will therefore only pray to Almighty God that and moderation generally necessary to preserve those who shall, in future times, stand forth in freedom. Even the vainest opinions of men defence of our liberties, as well civil as reliare not to be outraged by those who propose to gious, may adorn the good cause by mercy, themselves the nappiness of men for their end, prudence, and soberness, to the glory of his and who must work with the passions of men name and the happiness and honour of the for their means. The blind reverence for English people.” things ancient is indeed so foolish that it might And so ended that discourse; and not long after make a wise man laugh, if it were not also we were set on shore again at the Temple Gar. sometimes so mischievous that it would rather dens, and there parted company: and the same make a good man weep. Yet, since it may evening I took notes of what had been said, not be wholly cured, it must be discreetly in which I have here more fully set down, from dulged, and therefore those who would amend regard both to the fame of the men, and the zvil laws should consider rather how much it importance of the subjeci-matter.

ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE.

6

" When now

This is a book which enjoys a great and in- , being unlike the rest of the world. Every creasing popularity; but, while it has attracted child has heard of Linnæus, therefore Mr. Mita considerable share of the public attention, ford calls him Linné; Rousseau is known all it has been little noticed by the critics. Mr. over Europe as Jean Jacques, therefore Mr. Mitford has almost succeeded in mounting, Mitford bestows on him the strange appellation anperceived by those whose office it is to watch of John James. such aspirants, to a high place among histo- Had Mr. Mitford undertaken a history of any rians. He has taken a seat on the dais without other country than Greece, this propensity being challenged by a single seneschal. To would have rendered his work useless and oppose the progress of his fame is now almost absurd. His occasional remarks on the affairs a hopeless enterprise. Had he been reviewed of ancient Rome and modern Europe are full with candid severity, when he had published of errors; but he writes of times, with respect only his first volume, his work would either to which almost every other writer has been in have deserved its reputation, or would never the wrong, and, therefore, by resolutely deviathave obtained it. “Then,” as Indra says of ing from his predecessors, he is often in the Kehama," then was the time to strike.” The right. time was neglected; and the consequence is, Almost all the modern historians of Greece that Mr. Mitford, like Kehama, has laid his have shown the grossest ignorance of the most victorious hand on the literary Amreeta, and obvious phenomena of human nature. In their seems about to taste the precious elixir of im- representations the generals and statesmen of mortality. I shall venture to emulate the cou- antiquity are absolutely divested of all indi. rage of the honest Glendoveer

viduality: They are personifications; they

are passions, talents, opinions, virtues, vices, He saw the Amreeta in Kehama's hand,

but not men. Inconsistency is a thing of which An impulse that defied all self-command, In that extremity,

these writers have no notion. That a man Stung him, and he resolved to seize the cup may have been liberal in his youth and avaAnd dare the Rajah's force in Seeva's sight. ricious in his age, cruel to one enemy and Forward he sprung to tempt the unequal fray."

merciful to another, is to them utterly in conIn plain words, I shall offer a few considera- ceivable. If the facts be undeniable, they suptions, which may tend to reduce an overpraised pose some strange and deep design, in order to writer to his proper level.

explain what, as every one who has observed The principal characteristic of this historian, his own mind knows, needs no explanation at the origin of his excellencies and his defects, all. This is a mode of writing very acceptis a love of singularity. He has no notion of able to the multitude, who have always been acgoing with a multitude to do either good or customed to make gods and demons out of men evil. An exploded opinion, or an unpopular very little better or worse than themselves; but it person, has an irresistible charm for him. appears contemptible to all who have watched The same perverseness may be traced in his the changes of human character-to all who diction. His style would never have been ele- have observed the influence of time, of circumgant, but it might at least have been manly stances, and of associates, on mankind—to all and perspicuous; and nothing but the most who have seen a hero in the gout, a democrat elaborate care could possibly have made it so in the church, a pedant in love, or a philosopher bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh in liquor. This practice of painting in nothing phrases, strange collocations, occasional sole- but black and white is unpardonable even in cisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all, by a the drama. It is the great fault of Alfieri; and peculiar oddity, which can no more be de- how much it injures the effect of his composiscribed than it can be overlooked. Nor is this tions will be obvious to every one who will all. Mr. Mitford piques himself on spelling compare his Rosmunda with the Lady Macbeth better than any of his neighbours; and this not of Shakspeare. The one is a wicked woman; only in ancient names, which he mangles in the other is a fiend. Her only feeling is hatred; defiance both of custom and of reason, but in all her words are curses. We are at once the most ordinary words of the English lan- shocked and fatigued by the spectacle of such guage. It is, in itself, a matter perfectly indif- raving cruelty, excited by no provocation, referent whether we call a foreigner by the name peatedly changing its object, and constant in which he bears in his own language, or by that nothing but in its inextinguishable thirst for which corresponds to it in ours; whether we blood. say Lorenzo de Medici, or Lawrence de Medici, In history this error is far more disgraceful Jean Chauvin, or John Calvin. In such cases, Indeed, there is no fault which so completely established usage is considered as law by all ruins a narrative in the opinion of a judicious writers except Mr. Mitford. If he were always reader. We know that the line of demarcation consistent with himself, he might be excused between good and bad men is so faintly marked For sometimes disagreeing with his neighbours; as often to elude the most careful investigation but he proceeds on no principle but that of of those who have the best opportunities for

judging. Public men, above all, are surround-, scriptions of the great events which they wited with so many temptations and difficulties, nessed, and the great men with whom they as. that some doubt must almost always hang over sociated. When we read the account which their real dispositions and intentions. The Plutarch and Rollin have given of the same lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk, Clarendon, period, we scarcely know our old acquaintance Marlborough, Burnet, Walpole, are well known again; we are utterly confounded by the meloto us. We are acquainted with their actions, dramatic effect of the narration and the sublime their speeches, their writings; we have abun-coxcombry of the characters. dance of letters and well-authenticated anec- These are the principal errors into which doies relating to them: yet what candid man the predecessors of Mr. Mitford have fallen; will venture very positively to say which of and from most of these he is free. His faults them were honest and which of them were dis- are of a completely different description. It is honest men. It appears easier to pronounce to be hoped that the students of history may decidedly upon the great characters of antiqui- now be saved, like Dorax in Dryden's play, by ty, not because we have greater means of dis- swallowing two conflicting poisons, each of covering truth, but simply because we have which may serve as an antidote to the other. less means of detecting error. The modern The first and most important difference behistorians of Greece have forgotten this. Their tween Mr. Mitford and those who have preheroes and villains are as consistent in all their ceded him, is in his narration. Here the ad. sayings and doings as the cardinal virtues and vantage lies, for the most part, on his side. the deadly sins in an allegory. We should as His principle is to follow the contemporary soon expect a good action from Giant Slay-good | historians, to look with doubt on all statemenis in Bunyan as from Dionysius; and a crime of which are not in some degree confirmed by Epaminondas would seem as incongruous as them, and absolutely to reject all which are a faux-pas of the grave and comely damsel, contradicted by them. While he retains the called Discretion, who answered the bell at the guidance of some writer in whom he can place door cf the house Beautiful.

confidence, he goes on excellently. When he This error was partly the cause and partly loses it, he falls to the level, or perhaps below the effect of the high estimation in which the the level of the writers whom he so much de. later ancient writers have been held by modern spises : he is as absurd as they, and very much scholars. Those French and English authors duller. It is really amusing to observe how who have treated of the affairs of Greece have he proceeds with his narration, when he has generally turned with contempt from the simple no better authority than poor Diodorus. He and natural narrations of Thucydides and is compelled to relate something; yet he be. Xenophon to the extravagant representations lieves nothing. He accompanies every fact of Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius, and other ro- with a long statement of objections. His acmancers of the same class,-men who de count of the administration of Dionysius is in scribed military operations without ever having no sense a history. It ought to be entitledhandled a sword, and applied to the seditions "Historic doubts as to certain events alleged of little republics speculations formed by ob. to have taken place in Sicily.” servation on an empire which covered half the This skepticism, however, like that of some known world. Of liberty they knew nothing. great legal characters almost as skeptical as It was to them a great mystery,-a superhuman himself, vanishes whenever his political parenjoyment. They ranted about liberty and tialities interfere. He is a vehement admirer patriotism, from the same cause which leads of tyranny and oligarchy, and considers no monks to talk more ardently than other men evidence as feeble which can be brought for. about love and women. A wise man values ward in favour of those forms of government. political liberty, because it secures the persons Democracy he hates with a perfect hatred, a and the possessions of citizens; because it tends hatred which, in the first volume of his history, to prevent the extravagance of rulers and the appears only in his epistles and reflections, corruption of judges; because it gives birth to but which, in those parts where he has less useful sciences and elegant arts; because it reverence for his guides, and can venture to excites the industry and increases the comforts take his own way, completely distorts even his of all classes of society. These theorists ima- narration. gined that it possessed something eternally and In taking up these opinions, I have no doubt intrinsically good, distinct from the blessings that Mr. Mitford was influenced by the same which it generally produced. They considered love of singularity which led him to spell it, not as a means, but as an end; an end to be island without ans, and to place two dots over attained at any cost. Their favourite heroes the last letter of idea. In truth, preceding are those who have sacrificed, for the mere historians have erred so monstrously on the name of freedom, the prosperity—the security other side, that even the worst parts of Mr. -the justice--from which freedom derives its Mitford's book may be useful as a corrective. value.

For a young gentleman who talks much about There is another remarkable characteristic his country, tyrannicide, and Epaminondas, sing these writers, in which their modern wor- this work, diluted in a sufficient quantiiv of slippers have carefully imitated them,-a Rollin and Barthelemi, may be a very useful great fondness for good stories. The most es- remedy. Tablished facts, dates, and characters are never The errors of both parties arise from an suffered to come into competition with a splen- ignorance or a neglect of the fundamental did saying or a romantic exploit. The early principles of political science. The writers historians ha e left us natural and simple de, on one side imagine popular government to b Vol. III.

e

always a blessing; Mr. Mitford omits no op- it would be as absurd to establish popular go. portunity of assuring us that it is always a vernments, as to abolish all restraints in a curse. The fact is, that a good government, school, or to untie all the strait-waistcoats in a hire a good coal, is that which fits ihe body for mad-house. which it is designed. A man who, upon ab- Hence it may be concluded, that the happiest stract principles, pronounces a constitution to state of society is that in which supreme power be good, without an exact knowledge of the resides in the whole body of a well-informed people who are to be governed by it, judges as people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unabsurdly as a tailor who should measure the attainable state of things. Yet, in some mea. Belvidere Apollo for the clothes of all his cus- sure, we may approximate to it; and he alone somers. The demagogues who wished to see deserves the name of a great statesman, whose Portugal a republic, and the wise critics who principle it is to extend the power of the revile the Virginians for not having instituted people in proportion to the extent of their a peerage, appear equally ridiculous to all men knowledge, and to give them every facility for of sense and candour.

obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may That is the best government which desires render it safe to trust them with absolute power. to make the people happy, and knows how to In the mean time, it is dangerous to praise or make them happy. Neither the inclination condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, nor the knowledge will suffice alone, and it is from the despotism of St. Petersburgh to the difficult to find them together.

democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a Pure democracy, and pure democracy alone, form of government which might nol, at least satisfies the former condition of this great pro- in some hypothetical case, be the best possible. blem. That the governors may be solicitous If, however, there be any form of government only for the interests of the governed, it is ne- which in all ages and nations has always been, cessary that the interests of the governors and and must always be pernicious, it is certainly the governed should be the same. This cannot that which Mr. Mitford, on his usual principie be often the case where power is intrusted to of being wiser than all the rest of the world, one or to a few. The privileged part of the has taken under his especial patronage-pare community will doubtless derive a certain de- oligarchy. This is closely and indeed insegree of advantage from the general prosperity parably connected with another of his eccentric of the state ; but they will derive a greater from tastes, a marked partiality for Lacedemon, and oppression and exaction. The king will desire a dislike of Athens. Mr. Mitford's book has, a useless war for his glory, or a parc-aux-cerfs I suspect, rendered these sentiment in some for his pleasure. The nobles will demand mo- degree popular; and I shall, therefore, examine nopolies and lettres-de-cachet. In proportion as them at some length. the number of governors is increased the evil The shades in the Athenian character strike is diminished. There are fewer to contribute, the eye more“ rapidly than those in the Laceand more to receive. The dividend which each dæmonian ; not because they are darker, but can obtain of the public plunder becomes less because they are on a brighter ground. The and less tempting. But the interests of the law of ostracism is an instance of this. Nothing subjects and the rulers never absolutely coin-can be conceived more odious than the practice cide till the subjects themselves become the of punishing a citizen, simply and professedly, rulers; that is, till the government be either for his eminence ;-and nothing in the instiimmediately or mediately democratical. tutions of Athens is more frequently or more

But this is not enough. “Will without justly censured. Lacedæmon was free from power,” said the sagacious Casimir to Milor this. And why? Lacedæmon did not need it Beefington, “is like children playing at sol. Oligarchy is an ostracism of itself,—an ostradiers." The people will always be desirous to cism not occasional, but permanent,—not dupromote their own interests; but it may be bious, but certain. Her laws prevented the doubted, whether, in any community, they were development of merit, instead of attacking its ever sufficiently educated to understand them. maturity. They did not cut down the plant in Even in this island, where the multitude have its high and palmy state, but cursed the soil long been better informed than in any other with eternal sterility. In spite of the law of part of Europe, the rights of the many have ostracism, Athens produced, within a hundred generally been asserted against themselves by and fifty years, the greatest public men that the patriotism of the few. Free trade, one of ever existed. Whom had Sparta to ostracize! the greatest blessings which a government can She produced, at most, four eminent men, Braconfer on a people, is in almost every country sidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus. of unpopular. It may be well doubted, whether these, not one rose to distinction within her a liberal policy with regard to our commercial jurisdiction. It was only when they escaped relations, would find any support from a Par- from the region within which the influence of liament elected by universal suffrage. The re- aristocracy withered everything good and publicans on the other side of the Atlantic have noble; it was only when they ceased to be Larecently adopted regulations, of which the con- cedæmonians that they became great men. sequences will, before long, show us, Brasidas, among the cities of Thrace, was “How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed, strictly a democratical leader, the favourite When vengeance listens to the fool's request.”

minister and general of the people. The same The people are to be governed for their own may be said of Gylippus, at Syracuse. Lysan guod; and, that they may be governed for their der, in the Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, own good, they must not be governed by their were liberated for a time from the hateful reown ignorance. There are countries in which straints imposed by the constitution of Lycur