"The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; Oh that the present hour would lend Such chains as his were sure to bind." This use we cannot but consider superior to Mr. Grote's. Besides we do not think that Despot in its ordinary acceptation is an equivalent to rúgavvos; and if it be used in a peculiar technical sense we gain nothing upon the similar use of Tyrant. Despot does not express the whole idea of rúgavvos; it does not convey the notion of illegitimate origin conveyed in the latter, nor does the Greek term at all imply the full notion of power conveyed by the English. “The King" was a true Despot, the very ideal of a Despot, but notwithstanding the vague talk in the council of the seven Persians, neither Herodotus, Thucydides, nor Xenophon would have thought of defining Xerxes as ὁ τῶν Περσῶν τύραννος. The language of the tragedians of course proves nothing; they continually speak of the limited and hereditary monarchs of early Greece as тúpavvo. To return however to the question of names, we cannot but think that when no process whatever will afford genuine English equivalents, it is better to preserve the original word than to disguise by an English termination. A genuine foreign word, which ever partakes more or less of the nature of a quotation, is by no means so strange and unpleasant as one of these odd-looking expressions, claiming by their forms to be English, but which we still feel to be only μéroxo. This is done in other sciences; students of the Ethics talk of ἀκρασία and ἀκολασία, not of Akrasy and Akolasy ; so in our own, Dr. Arnold talks of the assembly of the Curiæ; why then are we obliged to use such strange sounding words as Déme? If Borough, or Canton, or Parish, cannot express the idea, surely keep the original word; whether in the form of μos, Demus, or Dêmos, we leave to Mr. Grote. This brings us at once to that gentleman's innovations in the spellings of Greek names: we are quite for braving mere habit where anything important is at stake; to talk of Jupiter or Mercury when we mean Zeus and Hermes is a real error, as great as if we insisted in accounts of India to substitute, as the Romans and Greeks would have done, either Jupiter or Zeus for Brahma. And when a name is substituted for another, as Ulysses* for Odysseus, we do not greatly quarrel with using the latter. What we complain of is making unnecessary innovations in spelling familiar names, where no principle is at stake and no error to be guarded against. The question seems in a great measure to depend * Of course this is the real name strangely disguised, like the Latin forms of Cyclops, Ganymedes, &c.; but practically it is a new name. upon their appearance to the sight; Aristeides does not offend the eye, and may prevent a false quantity,* Cleisthenes brings pronunciation and derivation before us at no great expense. But why talk of Periklês, and Nikias, and Alkibiadês? Does Mr. Grote really expect his readers to give the hard sound to the two latter? We must confess that we like the names as we are familiar with them, just as we prefer the Caliph Haroun Alraschid of famous memory to the Khaleefeh Haaroon er-Rhasheeddh, or however else it ought to be,-we have not Mr. Lane's edition at hand. And Mr. Grote is not consistent; he always writes, we cannot imagine why, Phenice and Phenician; he does not talk of Thoukydides or Thoukûdidês, and he retains the actual error of Peiræus for Peiraeus, or rather according to his orthography Peiraieus. And sometimes at least his forms do not conduce to correct pronunciation: a city of Euboea, whose name Mr. Grote writes Chalkis,† has now both to our eyes and ears an inveterate connexion with a familiar white substance rather than the more appropriate yellow one. Before we turn from these, after all, minor blemishes, which, however much they mar the mere gratification of its perusal, do not in the least detract from the sterling value of Mr. Grote's great work, to the consideration of the principal new facts which Grecian history owes to his learning and reflection, we cannot but mention one circumstance, of a nature between matter and style, in which he stands honourably distinguished from Bishop Thirlwall. The only instance in which the latter forgets his own diguity and that of his subject, is to be found in the uncalled-for, ill-natured, snappish notes, in which he goes out of his way to sneer at, instead of to argue against, Mitford, and which makes us forget the imperfections of the latter as a scholar and as a historian, in our sympathy for a man suffering under attacks of this nature, the more odious because the name of the victim is never mentioned. Far different, and infinitely more creditable, is the conduct of Mr. Grote. When he has, as is naturally not unfrequent, to differ from any preceding scholar, instead of attempting to sneer him down, he enters upon the most patient, methodical, and usually convincing, though we must withal confess often very tedious, line of reasoning to explain his difference of opinion and its grounds. But its very tediousness is a proof of its author's laborious honesty, his love of truth, and unwillingness to condemn any one without the fullest evidence. This kind of note is often bestowed on Mr. Fynes Clinton, (who seems to be Mr. Grote's Mitford, only so much better treated) but not unfrequently on Dr. Thirlwall himself, and *Yet we n ve heard a school-boy read Ari'stides, when it was written with all possible care istei'des. Why not Khalkis ? we really think that the Bishop has sometimes reason to be thankful that his own measure has not been meted to him again. Had Mr. Grote chosen to sneer down Dr. Thirlwall, he had a good opportunity in vol. ii. p. 351, on the language of the Pelasgians, where that eminent scholar is certainly caught in what Tate and Brady would call 66 a gross mistake." Instead of this we have a long, elaborate, and in this case really interesting note, completely proving his point, although, we think, he builds rather too much upon the fact which he has undoubtedly demonstrated, namely, that the Pelasgians of Placia and Creston spoke, not merely very bad Greek, but a distinct and barbarous tongue. We will now run through the chief matters contained in Mr. Grote's four volumes. He does not seem to attend very closely to the Pindaric precept, ἀρχομένους δ' ἔργου πρόσωπον χρῆ θέμεν τηλαυγές. His first volume is certainly the least novel, interesting, and valuable of the four. A large proportion of it is taken up with the mere recital of the mythical tales; we do not exactly know why, as he seems so utterly to repudiate, not only the old way of paring possible nonsense out of them, but even by implication the process adopted by Niebuhr and Arnold. In Arnold's Rome, the legends have a place, as bearing on the history, and are, moreover, so exquisitely told as legends, that, on that ground alone, no one could wish them absent from his work. But with Mr. Grote they seem to answer no purpose whatever; he does not tell them as poetic tales, and yet disclaims all idea of pressing them into the service of history. All that he gives us may be found already much better done in Mr. Keightley's Mythology, though that work contains much with which we do not agree, and a good deal which we must confess we do not understand. The rest of the volume is taken up with an ingenious and elaborate, though not always lucid, dissertation on mythical narratives in general, tracing them through every country at a particular stage of social advancement. But the practical effect of this on Mr. Grote's work is simply to make him throw overboard all traces of history anterior to 776 B.C., which he makes a sort of limit of possibility, something like A.D. 1066 is to certain architectural antiquaries. We do not the least suppose that he intended it, indeed he formally disclaims any such intention, but Mr. Grote has set up for his readers, and we cannot help thinking more or less for himself, a definite bound of history and fable, as if true history began all at once in a given year. When we find such expressions continually recurring, sometimes twice or thrice in a page, as "the limits occupied by the Hellens in 776 B.C.," " confining ourselves to 776 B.C.," "the Greece of 776 B.C.," "going back only to 776 B.C.," "all the great Dorian towns appear to have existed in 776 B.C." "Elis appears to have embraced the same territory in 776 B.c. as in 550 B.C.;" the natural inference is that 776 B. c. is a most important epoch in the annals of the world nothing short of a deep dyke over which fable and history may see one another face to face. He has himself shown how much fable exists after 776 B.C.; how widely different the hearsay of Herodotus (though the most honest of witnesses when speaking from his own observation,) combined with a sort of grouping for dramatic effect, is from the contemporary narrative of Thucydides. And as much fable is found on our side 776 B.C., we believe that much history is to be found on the other; no line can be drawn between the two; from the total darkness of the Pelasgian period to the full blaze of the age of Pericles, there is every degree of twilight, light is perpetually breaking in, and it is altogether impossible to say at what moment it finally prevails. We believe that many revolutions of nations, and some adventures of individuals, may be made out before the mystic limit. We cannot but observe how different Mr. Grote's conduct in this respect is from that of Niebuhr. The latter extinguished our literal belief in what professed to be the earliest Roman history, but nevertheless held that every legend, almost every detail of a legend, was full of truth of another kind, and extracted from it some circumstance as to the migration of various tribes, or their political circumstances. And though we believe that Niebuhr occasionally went too far both in his destructive and his constructive operations, we have no doubt that his is the true mode of setting to work; and very far preferable to Mr. Grote's purely negative system. Thirlwall, as far as he goes, follows in the steps of Niebuhr, inclining perhaps somewhat more to literal belief; but we should like to see his views on the subject drawn out more at length. (To be continued.) LAYS FOR THE MINOR FESTIVALS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. I. OCTOBER 1.-S. REMIGIUS, BISHOP.-A.D. 533. S. Remigius was born of noble parentage at the castle of Laon in Gaul, the residence of his father Emilius. At the early age of twenty-two, he was elected to the vacant see of Rheims, and afterwards made primate of Gaul. A.D. 496, he baptized Clovis and three thousand of his people; and it is said that the oil then used was preserved for many ages in the cathedral-church. After a life spent in charity and piety, he departed to his rest at a good old age, and was buried in the chapel of S. Christopher at Rheims. FATHER, Thy kingdom come!"-Each morn doth bear To Heaven the odorous incense of that prayer; Each eve the Church's faithful children lay That offering on her altar-day by day Their voices mingling with th' expectant song Of Martyrs in their rest, that white-robed throng Who cry, "O LORD most holy, LORD most true, how long?" We lift our eyes, and still the whitened fields Yea! the thick harvest gleams in distant lands, And bows its sunlit beauty to the wind, That summer brightness sweeps the raging blast, Bowed down, it withering feels corruption's touch at last. E'en now the herald shadows, as they chase And storing it, where winds and storms shall vainly rave. G G |