of his other writings. As a didactic | success. The glitter of Pope is cold. poem, it is far superior to the Religio The ardour of Persius is without Laici. The satirical parts, particularly brilliancy. Magnificent versification the character of Burnet, are scarcely and ingenious combinations rarely harinferior to the best passages in Absa- monise with the expression of deep lom and Achitophel. There are, more- feeling. In Juvenal and Dryden alone over, occasional touches of a tenderness we have the sparkle and the heat togewhich affects us more, because it is de- ther. Those great satirists succeeded in cent, rational, and manly, and reminds communicating the fervour of their feelus of the best scenes in his tragedies.ings to materials the most incombustiHis versification sinks and swells in ble, and kindled the whole mass into a happy unison with the subject; and his blaze, at once dazzling and destructive. wealth of language seems to be unli- We cannot, indeed, think, without remited. Yet, the carelessness with which gret, of the part which so eminent a he has constructed his plot, and the writer as Dryden took in the disputes innumerable inconsistencies into which of that period. There was, no doubt, he is every moment falling, detract madness and wickedness on both sides. much from the pleasure which such But there was liberty on the one, and various excellence affords. despotism on the other. On this point, however, we will not dwell. At Talavera the English and French troops for a moment suspended their conflict, to drink of a stream which flowed between them. The shells were passed across from enemy to enemy without apprehension or molestation. We, in the same manner, would rather assist our In Absalom and Achitophel he hit upon a new and rich vein, which he worked with signal success. The ancient satirists were the subjects of a despotic government. They were compelled to abstain from political topics, and to confine their attention to the frailties of private life. They might, indeed, sometimes venture to take liber-political adversaries to drink with us of ties with public men, "Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina." Thus Juvenal immortalised the obse- The advantages which Dryden derived from the nature of his subject he improved to the very utmost. His manner is almost perfect. The style of Horace and Boileau is fit only for light subjects. The Frenchman did indeed attempt to turn the theological reasonings of the Provincial Letters into verse, but with very indifferent that fountain of intellectual pleasure, which should be the common refreshment of both parties, than disturb and pollute it with the havock of unseasonable hostilities. Macflecnoe is inferior to Absalom and Achitophel, only in the subject. In greatest poets only can succeed. Every-Cherubim, blazing with adamant and thing is definite, significant, and pic-gold. The council, the tournament, turesque. His early writings resembled the procession, the crowded cathedral, the gigantic works of those Chinese the camp, the guard-room, the chase, gardeners who attempt to rival nature were the proper scenes for Dryden. herself, to form cataracts of terrific But we have not space to pass in review all the works which Dryden wrote. We, therefore, will not speculate longer on those which he might possibly have written. He may, on fection. HISTORY (MAY 1828). height and sound, to raise precipitous ridges of mountains, and to imitate in artificial plantations the vastness and the gloom of some primeval forest, This manner he abandoned; nor did he the whole, be pronounced to have been ever adopt the Dutch taste which Pope a man possessed of splendid talents, affected, the trim parterres, and the which he often abused, and of a sound rectangular walks. He rather re-judgment, the admonitions of which he sembled our Kents and Browns, who, often neglected; a man who succeeded imitating the great features of land-only in an inferior department of his scape without emulating them, con-art, but who, in that department, suiting the genius of the place, assisting succeeded pre-eminently; and who, nature and carefully disguising their with a more independent spirit, a more art, produced, not a Chamouni or a 'anxious desire of excellence, and more Niagara, but a Stowe or a Hagley. respect for himself, would, in his own We are, on the whole, inclined to re-walk, have attained to absolute pergret that Dryden did not accomplish his purpose of writing an epic poem. It certainly would not have been a work of the highest rank. It would not have rivalled the Iliad, the Odys- The Romance of History. England. By HENRY NEELE. London, 1828. sey, or the Paradise Lost; but it would have been superior to the productions To write history respectably—that is, of Apollonius, Lucan, or Statius, and to abbreviate despatches, and make not inferior to the Jerusalem Delivered. extracts from speeches, to intersperse It would probably have been a vigor-in due proportion epithets of praise ous narrative, animated with something and abhorrence, to draw up antitheti of the spirit of the old romances, en-cal characters of great men, setting riched with much splendid description, forth how many contradictory virtues and interspersed with fine declamations and vices they united, and abounding and disquisitions. The danger of in withs and withouts—all this is very Dryden would have been from aiming easy. But to be a really great histoo high; from dwelling too much, for torian is perhaps the rarest of intelexample, on his angels of kingdoms, and lectual distinctions. Many scientific attempting a competition with that werks are, in their kind, absolutely great writer who in his own time perfect. There are poems which we had so incomparably succeeded in re- should be inclined to designate as presenting to us the sights and sounds faultless, or as disfigured only by of another world. To Milton, and to blemishes which pass unnoticed in the Milton alone, belonged the secrets of general blaze of excellence. There are the great deep, the beach of sulphur, speeches, some speeches of Demosthe ocean of fire, the palaces of the thenes particularly, in which it would fallen dominations, glimmering through be impossible to alter a word without the everlasting shade, the silent wilder altering it for the worse. But we are ness of verdure and fragrance where acquainted with no history which aparmed angels kept watch over the sleep proaches to our notion of what a hisof the first lovers, the portico of dia-tory ought to be with no history mond, the sea of jasper, the sapphire which does not widely depart, either pavement empurred with celestial on the right hand or on the left, from ruses, and the infinite ranks of the the exact line. History, it has been said, is philosophy teaching by examples. Unhappily, what the philosophy gains in soundness and depth the examples generally lose in vividness. A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque. Yet he must control it so absolutely as to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound and ingenious reasoner. Yet he must possess sufficient self-command to abstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis. Those who can justly estimate these almost insuperable difficulties will not think it strange that every writer should have failed, either in the narrative or in the speculative department of history. He The cause may easily be assigned. | for him the same sort of pitying fondThis province of literature is a de- ness which Fontaine and Gay are said batable land. It lies on the confines to have inspired in society. He has of two distinct territories. It is under written an incomparable book. the jurisdiction of two hostile powers; has written something better perhaps and, like other districts similarly than the best history; but he has not situated, it is ill defined, ill cultivated, written a good history; he is, from and ill regulated. Instead of being the first to the last chapter, an inequally shared between its two rulers, ventor. We do not here refer merely the Reason and the Imagination, it to those gross fictions with which he falls alternately under the sole and has been reproached by the critics of absolute dominion of each. It is later times. We speak of that coloursometimes fiction. It is sometimes ing which is equally diffused over his theory. whole narrative, and which perpetually leaves the most sagacious reader in doubt what to reject and what to receive. The most authentic parts of his work bear the same relation to his wildest legends which Henry the Fifth bears to the Tempest. There was an expedition undertaken by Xerxes against Greece; and there was an invasion of France. There was a battle at Platea; and there was a battle at Agincourt. Cambridge and Exeter, the Constable and the Dauphin, were persons as real as Demaratus and Pausanias. The harangue of the Archbishop on the Salic Law and the Book of Numbers differs much less from the orations which have in all ages proceeded from the right reverend bench than the speeches of Mardonius and Artabanus from those which were delivered at the council-board of Susa. Shakspeare gives us enumerations of armies, and returns of killed and wounded, which are not, we suspect, much less accurate than those of Herodotus. There are passages in Herodotus nearly as long as acts of Shakspeare, in which everything is told dramatically, and in which the narrative serves only the purpose of stage-directions. It is possible, no doubt, that the substance of some real conversations may have been reported to the historian. But events, which, if they ever happened, happened in ages and nations so remote that the particulars could never have been known to him, are related with the greatest minuteness of detail. have all that Candaules said to Gyges, and all that passed between Astyages and Harpagus. We are, therefore, It may be laid down as a general rule, though subject to considerable qualifications and exceptions, that history begins in novel and ends in essay. Of the romantic historians Herodotus is the earliest and the best. His animation, his simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful talent for description and dialogue, and the pure sweet flow of his language, place him at the head of narrators. He reminds us of a delightful child. There is a grace beyond the reach of affectation in his awkwardness, a malice in his innocence, an intelligence in his nonsense, an insinuating eloquence in his lisp. We know of no writer who makes such interest for himself and his book in the heart of the reader. At the distance of three-and-twenty centuries, we feel We unable to judge whether, in the ac- still in its infancy. His countrymen count which he gives of transactions had but recently begun to cultivate respecting which he might possibly prose composition. Public transactions have been well informed, we can trust had generally been recorded in verse. to anything beyond the naked outline; The first historians might, therefore, whether, for example, the answer of indulge without fear of censure in the Gelon to the ambassadors of the Gre- license allowed to their predecessors cian confederacy, or the expressions the bards. Books were few. The events which passed between Aristides and of former times were learned from traThemistocles at their famous inter-dition and from popular ballads; the view, have been correctly transmitted manners of foreign countries from the to us. The great events are, no doubt, reports of travellers. It is well known faithfully related. So, probably, are that the mystery which overhangs what many of the slighter circumstances; is distant, either in space or time, frebut which of them it is impossible to quently prevents us from censuring as ascertain. The fictions are so much unnatural what we perceive to be imlike the facts, and the facts so much possible. We stare at a dragoon who like the fictions, that, with respect to has killed three French cuirassiers, as a many most interesting particulars, our prodigy; yet we read, without the least belief is neither given nor withheld, disgust, how Godfrey slew his thoubut remains in an uneasy and inter- sands, and Rinaldo his ten thousands. minable state of abeyance. We know Within the last hundred years, stories that there is truth; but we cannot about China and Bantam, which ought exactly decide where it lies. not to have imposed on an old nurse, The faults of Herodotus are the were gravely laid down as foundations faults of a simple and imaginative of political theories by eminent philomind. Children and servants are re-sophers. What the time of the Crusades markably Herodotean in their style of is to us, the generation of Croesus and narration. They tell everything dra- Solon was to the Greeks of the time of matically. Their says hes and says Herodotus. Babylon was to them what shes are proverbial. Every person who Pekin was to the French academicians has had to settle their disputes knows of the last century. that, even when they have no intention For such a people was the book of to deceive, their reports of conversation Herodotus composed; and, if we may always require to be carefully sifted. trust to a report, not sanctioned indeed If an educated man were giving an by writers of high authority, but in itaccount of the late change of adminis-self not improbable, it was composed, tration, he would say "Lord Goderich not to be read, but to be heard. It was resigned; and the King, in consequence, not to the slow circulation of a few sent for the Duke of Wellington." A porter tells the story as if he had been hid behind the curtains of the royal bed at Windsor: "So Lord Goderich says, 'I cannot manage this business; I must go out.' So the King says,says he, Well, then, I must send for the Duke of Wellington-that's all.'" This is in the very manner of the father of history. Herodotus wrote as it was natural that he should write. He wrote for a nation susceptible, curious, lively, insatiably desirous of novelty and excitement; for a nation in which the fine arts had attained their highest excellence, but in which philosophy was copies, which the rich only could pos- maintained against desperate odds,— of lives dearly sold, when resistance could be maintained no more,-of signal deliverance, and of unsparing revenge. Whatever gave a stronger air of reality to a narrative so well calculated to inflame the passions, and to flatter national pride, was certain to be favourably received. The As was the historian, such were the auditors, inquisitive, credulous, easily moved by religious awe or patriotic enthusiasm. They were the very men to hear with delight of strange beasts, and birds, and trees,-of dwarfs, and giants, and cannibals-of gods, whose very names it was impiety to utter,-of ancient dynasties, which had left behind them monuments surpassing all the Between the time at which Heworks of later times,-of towns like rodotus is said to have composed his provinces,-of rivers like seas,-of stu- history, and the close of the Peloponpendous walls, and temples, and pyra- nesian war, about forty years elapsed, mids,-of the rites which the Magi-forty years, crowded with great performed at daybreak on the tops of military and political events. the mountains,—of the secrets inscribed circumstances of that period produced on the eternal obelisks of Memphis. a great effect on the Grecian characWith equal delight they would have ter; and nowhere was this effect so listened to the graceful romances of remarkable as in the illustrious detheir own country. They now heard of mocracy of Athens.. An Athenian, the exact accomplishment of obscure indeed, even in the time of Herodotus, predictions, of the punishment of would scarcely have written a book so crimes over which the justice of heaven romantic and garrulous as that of had seemed to slumber,-of dreams, Herodotus. As civilisation advanced, omens, warnings from the dead,-of the citizens of that famous republic princesses, for whom noble suitors con- became still less visionary, and still less tended in every generous exercise of simple-hearted. They aspired to know strength and skill,—of infants, strangely where their ancestors had been content preserved from the dagger of the as- to doubt; they began to doubt where sassin, to fulfil high destinies. their ancestors had thought it their duty to believe. Aristophanes is fond of alluding to this change in the temper of his countrymen. The father and son, in the Clouds, are evidently representatives of the generations to which they respectively belonged. Nothing more clearly illustrates the nature of this moral revolution than the change which passed upon tragedy. The wild sublimity of Eschylus became the scoff of every young Phidippides. Lectures on abstruse points of philosophy, the fine distinctions of casuistry, and the dazzling fence of rhetoric, were substituted for poetry. The language lost something of that infantine sweetness which had characterised it. It became less like the ancient Tuscan, and more like the modern French. As the narrative approached their own times, the interest became still more absorbing. The chronicler had now to tell the story of that great conflict from which Europe dates its intellectual and political supremacy,a story which, even at this distance of time, is the most marvellous and the most touching in the annals of the human race, a story abounding with all that is wild and wonderful, with all that is pathetic and animating; with the gigantic caprices of infinite wealth and despotic power-with the mightier miracles of wisdom, of virtue, and of courage. He told them of rivers dried up in a day,-of provinces famished for a meal,-of a passage for ships hewn through the mountains, of a road for armies spread upon the waves,-of monarchies and commonwealths swept away,—of anxiety, of terror, of confusion, of despair!-and then of proud and stubborn hearts tried in that extremity of evil, and not found wanting, of resistance long The fashionable logic of the Greeks was, indeed, far from strict. Logic never can be strict where books are scarce, and where information is conveyed orally. We are all aware how frequently fallacies, which, when set |