suspicion we hear so much, are rather to be accused of too easy and good-natured a confidence, when we reflect that they had living in the midst of them the very men who, on the first show of an opportunity, were ready to compass the subversion of the democracy by the dark deeds of Peisander and Antiphon, and when they had effected their object, perpetrated all the villanies of Critias and his associates. These were no obscure private individuals, but men of rank and fortune, not only prominent as politicians and public speakers, but continually trusted with all the great offices of state. Truly Athens was in more danger from these men than from the demagogues; they were indeed themselves the worst of the demagogues-described by Phrynichus, their confederate, as, for their own purposes, the leaders and instigators of the Demos to its most blameable actions, ποριστὰς καὶ ἐσηγητὰς τῶν κακῶν τῷ δήμῳ, ἐξ ὧν τὰ πλείω αὐτοὺς ὠφελεῖσθαι.

These are a few of the topics on which a flood of light is let in by Mr. Grote's History, and from which those who have not read it may form some notion of the interest which pervades it, especially the part relating to the important century between 500 and 400 B. c. We have chosen our instances according to our own estimate of their importance, rather than according to their fitness to display the merits of the book. The searching character of Mr. Grote's historical criticism is not suspiciously confined to matters in which his own political opinions may be supposed to be interested. Though the statement has the air of an exaggeration, yet after much study of Mr. Grote's book we do not hesitate to assert, that there is hardly a fact of importance in Grecian history which was perfectly understood before his reexamination of it. This will not seem incredible to those who are aware how new an art that of writing history is; how very recently it is that we possess histories, of events not cotemporary with the writer, which, apart from literary merit, have any value otherwise than as materials; how utterly uncritical, until lately, were all historians, even as to the most important facts in history, and how much, even after criticism had commenced, the later writers merely continued to repeat after the earlier. In our own generation, Niebuhr has effected a radical revolution in the opinions of all educated persons respecting Roman history. Grecian events, subsequent to the Homeric period, are more authentically recorded; but there, too, a very moderate acquaintance with the evidence was sufficient to show how superficially it had hitherto been examined. That the Sophists, for example, were not the knaves and profligates they are so often represented, could be gathered even from the statements of the

hostile witnesses on whose authority they were condemned. The Protagoras alone, of their great enemy Plato, is a sufficient document. Again, the Athenian democracy had been so outrageously, and without measure, misrepresented, that whoever had read, as so few have done, Thucydides and the orators with decent intelligence and candour, could easily perceive that the vulgar representation was very wide of the truth; just as any one who had read Livy could see, and many did see, that the Agrarian law was not the unjust spoliation that was pretended: but as it required Niebuhr to detect with accuracy what the Agrarian law actually was, so no less profound a knowledge of Greek literature than that of Mr. Grote, combined with equal powers of reasoning and reflection, would have sufficed to make the effective working of the Athenian constitution as well known to us as it may now be pronounced to be. The mountain of error which had accumulated and hardened over Greek history, the removal of which had been meritoriously commenced by Dr. Thirlwall, has not only been shaken off, but the outlines of the real object are now made visible. And so cautious and sober is Mr. Grote in the estimate of evidence, so constantly on his guard against letting his conclusions outrun his proofs, as to make it a matter of wonder that among so much that is irreparably lost, his researches have enabled him to arrive at so considerable an amount of positive and certifiable result.

This conscientious scrupulousness in maintaining the demarcation between conjecture and proof, is more indispensable than any other excellence in a historian, and above all in one who sets aside the common notion of many of the facts which he relates, and replaces it by a version of his own. Without this quality, such an innovator on existing beliefs inspires no reliance, and can only, at most, unsettle historical opinion, without helping to restore it. Anybody can scrawl over the canvas with the commonplaces of rhetoric or the catchwords of party politics; and many, especially in Germany, can paint in a picture from the more or less ingenious suggestions of a learned imagination. But Mr. Grote commands the confidence of the reader by his sobriety in hypothesis, by never attempting to pass off an inference as a fact, and, when he differs from the common opinion, explaining his reasons with the precision and minuteness of one who neither desires nor expects that anything will be taken upon trust. He has felt that a history of Greece, to be of any value, must be also a running commentary on the evidence, and he has endeavoured to put the reader in a position to judge for himself on every disputable point. But the discussions, though to a historical taste as interesting as the narra

Wherever the facts, au

tive, are not carried on at its expense. thentically known, allow a consecutive stream of narrative to be kept up, the story is told in a more interesting manner than it has anywhere been told before, except in the finest passages of Thucydides.

We are indeed disposed to assign to this history almost as high a rank in narrative as in thought. It is open, no doubt, to minute criticism; and many writers are superior to Mr. Grote in rapidity, grace, and picturesqueness of style. But even in these respects there is no such deficiency as amounts to a fault, while in two qualities, far more important to the interest, not to say the value of his recitals, he has few equals and probably no superior. The first is, that at each point in the series of events, he makes it his primary object to fill his own mind and his reader's with as correct and complete a conception as can be formed of the situation; so that we enter at once into the impressions and feelings of the actors, both collective and individual, and understand without effort how things came to pass as they did. Niebuhr had already, in his Lectures on Ancient History (recently published), carried his characteristic liveliness of conception into the representation of the leading characters of Greek history, depicting them, often we fear with insufficient warrant from evidence, like persons with whom he had long lived and been familiar; but, for clearness and correctness in conceiving the surrounding circumstances, and the posture of affairs at each particular moment, we do not think him at all comparable to Mr. Grote. This genuine realisation of the successive situations, renders the narrative itself a picture of the Greek mind. Carrying on throughout the succession of feelings concurrently with that of events, the writer becomes, as it were, himself a Greek, and takes the reader along with him. And hence, if every discussion or dissertation in the book were omitted, it would still be wonderfully in advance of any former history in making the Greeks intelligible. For example; no modern writer has made the reader enter into the religious feelings of the Greeks as Mr. Grote does. Other historians let it be supposed that, except in some special emergencies, beliefs and feelings relating to the unknown world counted for very little among the determining causes of events; and it is a kind of accredited opinion, that the religion of the ancients sat almost as lightly on them as if it had been to them what it is in modern literature, a mere poetical ornament. But the case was quite otherwise: religion was one of the most active elements in Grecian life, with an effect, in the early rude times, probably on the whole beneficial, but growing more and more injurious as civili

sation advanced. Mr. Grote is the first historian who has given an adequate impression of the omnipresence of this element in Grecian life; the incessant reference to supernatural hopes and fears which pervaded public and private transactions, as well as the terrible power with which those feelings were capable of acting, and not unfrequently did act, on the Hellenic susceptibilities. While our admiration is thus increased for the few superior minds who, like Pericles and Epaminondas, rose above at least the vulgarer parts of the religion of their country, or, like Plato, probably rejected it altogether, we are enabled to see the explanation of much that would otherwise be enigmatical, and to judge the Greeks with the same amount of allowance for errors produced by their religion, which in parallel cases is always conceded to the moderns.

The other eminent quality which distinguishes Mr. Grote's narrative is its pervading 0os; the moral interest, which is so much deeper, and more impressive than picturesque interest, and exists in portions of the history which afford no materials for the latter. The events do not always admit of being vividly depicted to the mental eye; and when they do, the author does not always make use of the opportunity; but one thing he never fails in-the moral aspect of the events and of the persons is never out of sight, and gives the predominating character to the recital. We use the word moral not solely in the restricted sense of right and wrong, but as inclusive of the whole of the sentiments connected with the occasion. Along with the clear light of the scrutinising intellect, there is the earnest feeling of a sympathising contemporary. This rich source of impressiveness in narration is often wanting in writers of the liveliest fancy, and the most brilliant faculty of delineating the mere outside of historical facts: but where it is present, it may enable us to content ourselves with far less of those more superficial merits than are found in Mr. Grote's book; it might even reconcile us, if need were, to their entire absence.

With regard to style, in the ordinary sense, what is most noticeable in Mr. Grote is, that his style always rises with his subject. The more valuable the thought, or interesting the incident, the apter and more forcible is the expression; as is generally the case with writers who are thinking of their subject rather than of their literary reputation. We can conscientiously say of him what, rightly understood, is the highest praise which, on the score of mere composition, a writer in the more intellectual departments of literature can desire or deserve; that everything which he has to express, he is always able to express adequately and worthily.

We have observed an announcement that the 'History' is to be completed in one more volume; but it seems to us impossible that the remaining matter can be compressed into such a space without undue abridgment, even if the author adheres rigidly to the limit which he originally, and, we think, unnecessarily prescribed to himself-the end of the generation of Alexander. The conquests of the great Macedonian-the long struggles which led to the formation of Greek kingdoms from the fragments of the Persian empire-the Lamian war, and the administration of Athens under Phocion and under Demetrius Phalereus are yet to come. But, above all, an historical and philosophical estimate of Plato and Aristotle is promised for the next volume; and to be as thorough and satisfactory as that already given of Socrates, it will probably require to be much longer. If to this be added any account of the civil, as distinguished from the political life of Athens, her internal legislation, and the practical condition of her people, or any general estimate of the Greeks and of Grecian civilisation, we anticipate a sufficient overflow to extend far into a thirteenth volume; and we hope that Mr. Grote may be induced to add a fourteenth, and continue the History to the Roman Conquest. We do not ask him to recount the events of the Macedonian period with the minuteness suitable to the Peloponnesian and Theban wars; but there are few readers who would not regret the absence of a general outline of that period; while there are portions of the later history, particularly that of the Peloponnesian Greeks, which, in personal interest, may vie with any of the preceding: and it would be gratifying to have a delineation of Agis and Cleomenes, Aratus and Philopomen, from the same hand which has drawn the great men of an earlier and more fortunate time. The objections to a further lengthening of the work, appear to us altogether unimportant. No one who reads this History will wish that it were shorter. A book which has reached twelve volumes may well extend to fourteen; and if its reduction to the apostolic number were considered desirable, a better way of effecting this in future editions would be to make some reduction in the unnecessary size and width of the type, in which this work greatly exceeds the standard editions of Gibbon, or any other of the more voluminous English historians.