"an extraordinary deficiency of personal cou- | notion to those readers who have not the rage" is absolutely impossible. What merce- means of comparing his statements with the nary warrior of the time exposed his life to greater or more constant perils? Was there a single soldier at Choronea who had more cause to tremble for his safety than the orator, who, in case of defeat, could scarcely hope for mercy from the people whom he had misled, or the prince whom he had opposed? Were not the ordinary fluctuations of popular feeling enough to deter any coward from engaging in political conflicts? Isocrates, whom Mr. Mitford extols because he constantly employed all the flowers of his schoolboy rhetoric to decorate oligarchy and tyranny, avoided the judicial and political meetings of Athens from mere timidity, and seems to have hated democracy only because he durst not look a popular assembly in the face. Demosthenes was a man of a feeble constitution; his nerves were weak, but his spirit was high; and the energy and enthusiasm of his feelings supported him through life and in death.

original authorities, of his extreme partiality and carelessness. Indeed, whenever this his torian mentions Demosthenes, he violates all the laws of candour and even of decency; he weighs no authorities; he makes no allowances; he forgets the best-authenticated facts in the history of the times, and the most generally recognised principles of human nature. The opposition of the great orator to the policy of Philip, he represents as neither more nor less than deliberate villany. I hold almost the same opinion with Mr. Mitford respecting the character and the views of that great and ac complished_prince. But am I, therefore, to pronounce Demosthenes profligate and insincere? Surely not; do we not perpetually see men of the greatest talents and the purest intertions misled by national or factious prejudices! The most respectable people in England were, little more than forty years ago, in the habit of uttering the bitterest abuse against Wash ington and Franklin. It is certainly to be regretted that men should err so grossly in their estimate of character. But no person who knows any thing of human nature will impute such errors to depravity.

Mr. Mitford is not more consistent with himself than with reason. Though he is the advocate of all oligarchies, he is also a warm admirer of all kings; and of all citizens who raised themselves to that species of sovereignty which the Greeks denominated tyranny. If monarchy, as Mr. Mitford holds, be in itself a blessing, democracy must be a better form of government than aristocracy, which is always opposed to the supremacy, and even to the eminence of individuals. On the other hand, it is but one step that separates the demagogue and the sovereign.

So much for Demosthenes. Now for 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 Æschines has himself confessed in his speech against Timarchus? I can make allowances, as well as Mr. Mitford, for persons who lived under a different system of laws and morals; but let them be made impartially. If Demosthenes is to be attacked, on account of some childish improprieties, proved only by the assertion of an antagonist, what shall we say of those maturer vices which that antagonist has himself acknowledged? "Against the private character of If this article had not extended itself to so Eschines," says Mr. Mitford, "Demosthenes great a length, I should offer a few observaseems not to have had an insinuation to op- tions on some other peculiarities of this writer, pose." Has Mr. Mitford ever read the speech-his general preference of the Barbarians to of Demosthenes on the embassy? Or can he have forgotten, what was never forgotten by any one else who ever read it, the story which Demosthenes relates with such terrible energy of language concerning the drunken brutality of his rival? True or false, here is something more than an insinuation; and nothing can vindicate the historian who has overlooked it from the charge of negligence or of partiality. But schines denied the story. And did not Demosthenes also deny the story respecting his childish nickname, which Mr. Mitford has nevertheless told without any qualification? But the judges, or some part of them, showed, by their clamour, their disbelief of the relation of Demosthenes. And did not the judges, who tried the cause between Demosthenes and his guardians indicate, in a much clearer manner, their approbation of the prosecution? But Demosthenes was a demagogue, and is to be slandered. Eschines was an aristocrat, and is to be panegyrized. Is this a history, or a party-pamphlet?

These passages, all selected from a single page Mr. Mitford's work, may give some

the Greeks,-his predilection for Persians, Carthaginians, Thracians, for all nations, in short, except that great and enlightened nation of which he is the historian. But I will confine myself to a single topic.

Mr. Mitford has remarked, with truth and spirit, that "any history perfectly written, but especially a Grecian history perfectly written, should be a political institute for all nations." It has not occurred to him that a Grecian history, perfectly written, should also be a complete record of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts. Here his work is extremely deficient. Indeed, though it may seem a strange thing to say of a gentleman who has published so many quartos, Mr. Mitford seems to entertain a feeling, bordering on contempt, for literary and speculative pur suits. The talents of action almost exclusively attract his notice, and he talks with very complacent disdain of the "idle learned." Homer, indeed, he admires, but principally, I am afraid, because he is convinced that Homer could neither read nor write. He could not avoid speaking of Socrates; but he has been

far more solicitons to trace his death to politi- and useless minuteness: but improvements cal causes, and to deduce from it consequences the most essential to the comforts of human unfavourable to, Athens and to popular go-life extend themselves over the world, and invernment, than to throw light on the character and doctrines of the wonderful man,

"From whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools
Of Academics, old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe."

troduce themselves into every cottage, before any annalist can condescend from the dignity of writing about generals and ambassadors, to take the least notice of them. Thus the pro gress of the most salutary inventions and dis coveries is buried in impenetrable mystery, mankind are deprived of a most useful species He does not seem to be aware that Demos- of knowledge, and their benefactors of their thenes was a great orator; he represents him honest fame. In the mean time every child. sometimes as an aspiring demagogue, some- knows by heart the dates and adventures of a times as an adroit negotiator, and always as a long line of barbarian kings. The history of great rogue. But that in which the Athenian nations, in the sense in which I use the word, excelled all men of all ages, that irresistible is often best studied in works not professedly eloquence, which, at the distance of more than historical. Thucydides, as far as he goes, is two thousand years, stirs our blood and brings an excellent writer, yet he affords us far less tears into our eyes, he passed by with a few knowledge of the most important particulars phrases of commonplace commendation. The relating to Athens, than Plato or Aristophanes, origin of the drama, the doctrines of the so- The little treatise of Xenophon in Domestic phists, the course of Athenian education, the Economy contains more historical information state of the arts and sciences, the whole do- than all the seven books of his Hellanics. mestic system of the Greeks, he has almost The same may be said of the Satires of Hocompletely neglected. Yet these things will race, of the Letters of Cicero, of the novels of appear, to a reflecting man, scarcely less Le Sage, of the memoirs of Marmontel. Many worthy of attention than the taking of Sphac-others might be mentioned, but these suffiteria, or the discipline of the targeteers of Iphicrates.

ciently illustrate my meaning.

I would hope that there may yet appear a writer who may despise the present narrow limits, and assert the rights of history over every part of her natural domain. Should such a writer engage in that enterprise, ir which I cannot but consider Mr. Mitford as having failed, he will record, indeed, all that is interesting and important in military and political transactions; but he will not think any thing too trivial for the gravity of history, which is not too trivial to promote or diminish the happiness of man. He will portray in vivid colours the domestic society, the man

This, indeed, is a deficiency by no means peculiar to Mr. Mitford. Most people seem to imagine that a detail of public occurences the operation of sieges-the changes of administrations-the treaties-the conspiracies-the rebellions-is a complete history. Differences of definition are logically unimportant, but practically they sometimes produce the most momentous effects: thus it has been in the present case; historians have, almost without exception, confined themselves to the public transactions of states, and have left to the negligent administration of writers of fictionners, the amusements, the conversation of the a province at least equally extensive and valuable.

Greeks. He will not disdain to discuss the state of agriculture, of the mechanical arts, and of the conveniences of life. The progress of painting, of sculpture, and of architecture, will form an important part of his plan. But above all, his attention will be given to the history of that splendid literature from which has sprung all the strength, the wisdom, the freedom, and the glory of the western world.

All wise statesmen have agreed to consider the prosperity or adversity of nations as made up of the happiness or misery of individuals, and to reject as chimerical all notions of a public interest of the community, distinct from the interest of the component parts. It is therefore strange that those whose office it is to supply statesmen with examples and warnings, Of the indifference which Mr. Mitford shows should omit, as too mean for the dignity of his- on this subject, I will not speak, for I cannot tory, circumstances which exert the most ex-speak with fairness. It is a subject in which tensive influence on the state of society. In I love to forget the accuracy of a judge, in the general, the under current of human life flows veneration of a worshipper and the gratitude steadily on, unruffled by the storms which agi- of a child. If we consider merely the subtlety tate the surface. The happiness of the many of disquisition, the force of imagination, the commonly depends on causes independent of perfect energy and elegance of expression, victories or defeats, of revolutions or restora- which characterize the great works of Athetions, causes which can be regulated by no nian genius, we must pronounce them intrinlaws, and which are recorded in no archives. sically most valuable; but what shall we say These causes are the things which it is of when we reflect that from hence have sprung, main importance to us to know, not how the directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations Lacedæmonian phalanx was broken at Leuc of the human intellect; that from hence were tra-not whether Alexander died of poison or the vast accomplishments and the brilliant by disease. History, without these, is a shell fancy of Cicero, the withering fire of Juvenal; without a kernel; and such is almost all the the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour history which is extant in the world. Paltry of Cervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; skirmishes and plots are reported with absurd the wit of Butler; the supreme and universa

END OF VOL. III

ON THE ATHENIAN ORATORS.

To the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and thundered over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.

MILTON.

THE celebrity of the great classical writers all that could be done by the resolving and is confined within no limits, except those combining powers of the understanding, seems which separate civilized from savage man. not to have possessed much of sensibility or Their works are the common property of every imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed Ed polished nation. They have furnished sub- to the deficiency of materials. The great works jects for the painter, and models for the poet. of genius which then existed were not either In the minds of the educated classes through- sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to out Europe, their names are indissolubly asso-enable any man to form a perfect code of literaciated with the endearing recollections of ture. To require that a critic should conceive childhood, the old school-room,-the dog-classes of composition which had never exeared grammar,-the first prize,-the tears so isted, and then investigate their principles, often shed and so quickly dried. So great is would be as unreasonable as the demand of the veneration with which they are regarded, Nebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians that even the editors and commentators, who first to tell him his dream, and then to interperform the lowest menial offices to their me- pret it. mory, are considered, like the equerries and With all his deficiencies Aristotle was the chamberlains of sovereign princes, as entitled most enlightened and profound critic of antito a high rank in the table of literary prece-quity. Dionysius was far from possessing the dence. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that their productions should so rarely have been examined on just and philosophical principles of criticism.

same exquisite subtlety, or the same vast comprehension. But he had access to a much greater number of specimens, and he had devoted himself, as it appears, more exclusively to the study of elegant literature. His particular judgments are of more value than his general principles. He is only the historian of literature. Aristotle is its philosopher.

The ancient writers themselves afford us but little assistance. When they particularize, they are commonly trivial: when they would generalize, they become indistinct. An exception must, indeed, be made in favour of Aris- Quintilian applied to general literature the totle. Both in analysis and in combination, same principles by which he had been accusthat great man was without a rival. No phi- tomed to judge of the declamations of his pulosopher has ever possessed, in an equal de- pils. He looks for nothing but rhetoric, and gree, the talent either of separating established rhetoric not of the highest order. He speaks systems into their primary elements, or of con- coldly of the incomparable works of Æschylus. necting detached phenomena in harmonious He admires, beyond expression, those inexsystems. He was the great fashioner of the haustible mines of commonplaces, the plays of intellectual chaos: he changed its darkness Euripides. He bestows a few vague words on into light, and its discord into order. He the poetical character of Homer. He then brought to literary researches the same vigour proceeds to consider him merely as an oraand amplitude of mind, to which both physicaltor. An orator Homer doubtless was, and a and metaphysical science are so greatly in-great orator. But surely nothing is more redebted. His fundamental principles of criti-markable, in his admirable works, than an art cism are excellent. To cite only a single in- with which his oratorical powers are made stance; the doctrine which he established, subservient to the purposes of poetry. Nor that poetry is an imitative art, when justly understood is to the critic what the compass is to the navigator. With it he may venture upon the most extensive excursions. Without it he must creep cautiously along the coast, or lose himself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at best, to the guidance of an occasional star. It is a discovery which changes a caprice into a science.

The general propositions of Aristotle are valuable. But the merit of the superstructure bears no proportion to that of the foundation. This is partly to be ascribed to the character of the philosopher, who, though qualified to do

can I think Quintilian a great critic in his own province. Just as are many of his remarks, beautiful as are many of his illustrations, we can perpetually detect in his thoughts that flavour which the soil of despotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius. Eloquence was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate in a despot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amusement for the travelled nobles and the bluestocking matrons of Rome. It is, therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war: it is a contest of foils, not of swords. He appears to think more of the grace of the attitude than of

the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must be acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to which Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and his example.

attached so much value was useful only as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be as worthless for any other pur pose as the mythology of Caffraria or the vo

French Anas a ludicrous instance of this. A scholar, doubtless of great learning, recommends the study of some long Latin treatise, of which I now forget the name, on the reli gion, manners, government, and language of Longinus seems to have had great sensibi- the early Greeks. "For there," says he, "you lity but little discrimination. He gives us elo- will learn every thing of importance that is quent sentences, but no principles. It was contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the happily said that Montesquieu ought to have trouble of reading two such tedious books." changed the name of his book from L'esprit des Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentle Lois to L'esprit sur les Lois. In the same man-man that all the knowledge to which he had ner the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not "Longinus on the Sublime," but "The Sublimities of Longinus." The origin of the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of in-cabulary of Otaheite. quiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. Of those scholars who have disdained to In our own country it has been discussed with confine themselves to verbal criticism, few great ability, and, I think, with very little suc- have been successful. The ancient languages cess, by Burke and Dugald Stewart. Longinus | have, generally, a magical influence on their dispenses himself from all investigations of faculties. They were "fools called into a cirthis nature, by telling his friend Terentianus cle by Greek invocations." The Iliad and that he already knows every thing that can be Æneid were to them not books, but curiosities, said upon the question. It is to be regretted or rather relics. They no more admired those that Terentianus did not impart some of his works for their merits, than a good Catholic knowledge to his instructor, for from Longi- venerates the house of the Virgin at Loretto nus we learn only that sublimity means height for its architecture. Whatever was classical -or elevation. This name, so commodiously was good. Homer was a great poet, and so was vague, is applied indifferently to the noble Callimachus. The epistles of Cicero were fine, prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage and so were those of Phalaris. Even with reof Plato about the human body, as full of con- spect to questions of evidence, they fell into the ceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed same error. The authority of all narrations, standard, Longinus is right only by accident. written in Greek or Latin, was the same with He is rather a fancier than a critic. them. It never crossed their minds that the Modern writers have been prevented by many lapse of five hundred years, or the distance of causes from supplying the deficiencies of their five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy classical predecessors. At the time of the re- of a narration,-that Livy could be a less veravival of literature no man could, without great cious historian than Polybius, or that Pluand painful labour, acquire an accurate and tarch could know less about the friends of Xeelegant knowledge of the ancient languages. nophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by And, unfortunately, those grammatical and the distance of time, they seem to consider all philological studies, without which it was im- the classics as contemporaries; just as I have possible to understand the great works of known people in England, deceived by the disAthenian and Roman genius, have a tendency tance of place, take it for granted that all perto contract the views and deaden the sensibili-sons who live in India are neighbours, and ask ty of those who follow them with extreme assiduity. A powerful mind which has been long employed in such studies, may be compared to the gigantic spirit in the Arabian tale, who was persuaded to contract himself to small dimensions in order to enter within the enchanted vessel, and, when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself unable to escape from the narrow boundaries to the mea-moirs. sure of which he had reduced his stature. It is surely time that ancient literature When the means have long been the objects of application, they are naturally substituted for the end. It was said by Eugene of Savoy, that the greatest generals have commonly been those who have been at once raised to command, and introduced to the great operations of war without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres which employ the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is equally sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best understood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllables and particles. I remember to have observed among the

Ακροτης και εξοχη τις λόγων εστι τα ύψη.

an inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an acquaintance at Calcutta. It is to be hoped that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass over Europe. But should such a calamity happen, it seems not improbable that some future Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of England from Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss Lee's Recess, and Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's Me

should be examined in a different manner, without pedantical prepossessions, but with a just allowance, at the same time, for the difference of circumstances and manners. I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability which such a task would require. All that I mean to offer is a collection of desultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature.

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenian orations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itself to the demand. The quantity may be dimi