BOOKS.

GROTE'S GREECE—VOLUMES VII. AND virr.* THE two preceding volumes of Mr. Grote's History exhibited the Athenian empire in its ascending and stationary periods. The present publication contains the stall more interesting and impres- sive recital of its decline and fall. Commencing at the temporary suspension of hostilities with the Peloponnesian confederacy, termed the Peace of Nieias, it comprises the tragedy of the Sicilian expe- dition ; the wonderful exertion of energy by which Athens rallied after that unparalleled disaster, and succeeded once more in balan- cing the whole strength of her enemies, though aided by her revolted allies and by the treasures of the" Great Ring " ; the closing years of the Peloponnesian war, varied by some remarkable passages in the internal history of the Athenian republic; the catastrophe of .2Egospotami' the subjugation of Athens by Lysander, the annihi- lation of her maritime power and dissolution of the democracy. The narrative is continued through the brief despotism of the Thirty. Tyrants, to the restoration of the Athenian democracy (but not of the Athenian empire,) by Thrasybulas and his associates, and the settlement of affairs which followed, so remarkable for its good sense and absence of reactionary violence. In the last two chap- ters Mr. Grote suspends the political, and takes up the intellectual movement ; passing in review the dramatists, the rhetoricians the sophists, and.lastly, the memorable character and career of Socrates, to whom the closing. chapter is exclusively dedicated. Both in stirring -incident, and in topics for thought and reflec- tion, these volumes are richer than any of their predecessors ; and the execution worthily corresponds to the material. Those who have read Mr. Grote's former volumes will have observed that he invariably rises with his subject, and is found most adequate to it where its requirements are greatest. The better acquainted any one is with Grecian history, and with the manner in which that history has heretofore been written, the higher will be his estima- tion of this work. Few books are more calculated to impress the instructed reader both with admiration of the thorough manner in which everything which the author attempts to do is done, and with surprise that almost everything was left for him to do. An enumeration of the points of Grecian history on which he has thrown new light, would comprise almost every one of its import- ant phtenomena, or even of its interesting incidents. Yet there is not only no ostentation of originality, but the author's mind is of the quality most remote from that which catches at glittering novelties and indulges an intellectual appetite for ingenious hypotheses. If there is anything which can be confidently pre- dwated of Mr. Grote it is that he is a safe historian ; one who re- quires, not less, but more, positive evidence than common inquirers, before adopting a conclusion. His new results are not obtained by divination or conjecture • but by more diligent study and more acute cross-examination of conjecture; authorities than had ever been ap- plied before, and by that greater power of interpreting recorded facts which flows from the possession of broader, deeper, and more many-sided views of human affairs.

With the exception of the last two chapters, the whole of both volumes is continuous narrative ; without admixture of discussion beyond what was required for criticism of the evidence, or moral appreciation of the facts. During the entire period, the historian has the benefit of the high contemporary authorities, Thucydides and Xenophon : on the general march of events there is little trustworthy information except what these writers afford. The difference between one modern historian and another, as to this period, is chiefly shown by the manner in which they supply what 18 not told by contemporary, writers, because not required by contemporary readers—namely, that basis of permanent facts, of which the passing facts recorded by the historian stand out as it were on the mere surface. Thueydides, writing for Greeks, related the incidents which disturbed the stream of Greek life, the battles, conspiracies, and the like ; but what the stream in its natural .state consisted of, he did not need to tell his readers, for they knew it as well as himself. Those familiar facts, however, which to them would have been superfluous information, are wit it most con- cerns the modern historian to know. He has to discover them from the incidental hints given by Thucydides, and from the indications scattered through the mass of Greek literature. Owing to the insufficiency of the materials, a very imperfect conception is all that can be obtained; but there is a vast difference between this imperfect conception and none at all. Now the modern his- torians of Greece who preceded Mr. Grote, have started with what it is scarcely injustice to call, no distinct conception what- ever of the general state of things in Greece, the opinions, feelings„ personal relations, and actions, habitual to the persons individual or collective, whom they are writing about; and hence, when they come to speak of any particular event, they hardly ever understand what other things it implied, or what impression it must have produced on those who saw and heard it—for want of a proper understanding of what may be termed "the situation." To illustrate our meaning, as well as to show the extent of this deficiency in former historians of Greece : we do not believe that any one of them has made (for example) these ob- vious remarks—that few Greek statesmen or generals were supe- rior to pecuniary corruption, and that there were still fewer Greeks whose heads were not turned, and their capacity of ra- • Ilistory of Greece. By George Grate, Eng. Volumes VII. and VIII. Published

by Murray.

lions' judgment destroyed, by brilliant success. Yet even such simple general reflections as these, in the hands of Mr. Grote, help to render many things intelligible which hitherto have been either unaccounted for or totally misunderstood. To take another and a less obvious example : the curious incident of the mutilation of the statues called Herrate, and the violent excite- ment at Athens consequent upon it, are for the first time made comprehensible by Mr. Grote, because he is the first who has men- tally realized the effect of such an incident upon the religious feelings of Greeks. The matter had always been written about as if horror at the mere act of sacrilege had been the only religious sentiment concerned: whereas Mr. Grote points out that it was much rather a religions terror ; that, according to the belief of the Athenians, such an insult to the god was certain to draw down his severest wrath upon the whole state, to the extent of utter ruin, unless they could reconcile themselves to him by de- tecting and rooting out all who were concerned in the impiety. This aspect of the matter both suggests a possible motive on the part of the perpetrators of an act hitherto the most enigmatical in Greek history, and explains the course of subsequent events. Perhaps the most unmistakeable as well as the most attractive of Mr. Grote's excellences as a narrator, consists in this ever-pre- sent and lively sense of "the situation." One of the beneficial fruits of this quality is that it makes the history a philosophic one without apparent effort. There is no need oflengthened discussion to connect causes with their effects; the causes and effects are parts of the same picture, and the causes are seen in action before it ap- pears what they are to produce. For example, the reader whose mind is filled with the greatness attained by Athens while her councils were ruled by the commanding intellect and self-restrain- ing prudence of Pericles, might almost anticipate the coming disas- ters when he finds, in the early chapters of the present volumes, into the hands of what advisers Athens had already fallen. And, mark well, these evil advisers were not the demagogues, but the chiefs of the aristocracy, the richest and most highborn men in the republic—Nicias and AleibiadeK Mr. Grote had already shown grounds for believing that Cleon, and men of his stamp, had been far too severely dealt with by historians ; not that they did not frequently deserve censure, but that they were by no means the worst misleaders of the Athenian people. The demagogues were, as he observes, essentially opposition speakers The conduct of affairs was habitually in the hands ,,of the rich and great, who had by for the largest share of personal influence, and on whose mismanagement there would have been hardly any check, but for the demagogues and their hostile criticism. These opinions receive ample confirmation from the course of affairs, when there being no longer any lowborn Cleen or Hyperbolus to balance their influence, Nimes and Alcibiades had full scopeto ruin the commonwealth. The contrary vices of these two men, both equally fatal, are exem- plified in the crowning act of their maladministration; the one having been the principal adviser of the ill-starred expedition to Syracuse, while the other was the main cause of its ruinous failure, by his intellectual and moral incapacity. One of the most important results of Grecian history, as con- ceived and written by Mr. Grote, is the triumphant vindication, so far as historical evidence goes, of Democracy. The moral of the history, as related by most modern historians, is that democracy is

a detestable kind of government, and that the case of Athens strik- ingly exemplifies its detestable qualities. Mr. Grote, on the con- trary, shows that the Athenian government was of surpassing ex- cellence, its time and circumstances considered ; that no other form of society known to the ancients realized anything approaching to an equal measure of practical good government ; and that this was mainly owing to the nearer approach which it made to demo- cratic institutions. A democracy m the full sense of the term it of course was not, since women; Slaves, and a multitude of perma- nent residents of all ranks and classes who were not citizens, were "unknown to the constitution." But it had many important points in common with democracy. It .'was a government of b un- roiled publicity, and freedom of censure and discussion. Public

officers were subject to effective responsibility. The tribunals, being multitudinous and appointed by lot, were, like modern juries, generally inoorrupt. And. there was no distinction in political rights and franchises between poor and rich, lowborn and highborn. That the Athenian institutions on the whole were eminently favourable to progress, is shown by the splendid development of individual intellect during the three or four generations that this form of society lasted. It was reserved for Mr. Grote to show that the conditions also of order were real- ized in a degree unknown in any ether coinmunitv of the ancient world. Nowhere else in antiquity was respect for law so deep- rooted a principle as at Athens. Constitutional forms, and the salutary cheelswhich the wisdom of Solon, Kleisthenas, and Pericles had provided against the inconsiderate impulses of a mul- titan:ions popular assembly, had the strongest held on the minds O'f;ilie Demos, very rarely indeed in Athenian histoiT were those barriers overstepped, even by the most impetuous impulse of

popular passion., Nowhere m,Greeeo were and property so secure against every kind of legal or illegal violence even those who were not citizen/ welv less exposed to insult and in- jury than in other ancient "13tateS. In all these points the Athenian people were honourably distinguished, not only from the Greek Oligarchies, but from theirsown oligarchical party ; who showed during two intervals. of ascendancy, the periods of the Four Hundred and of the Thirtys of what enormities they were capable ; and who ought always to be present to- the mind, not

merely as the dark background to the picture el";the Athenian republid, but as an active power in it : for duringtlib :Who _,le Of its . .

existence, such men as Critias and his coniskerairerg ii•iiiiiiiihnt in the first ranks of public discussion, and continually filled the -high

offices of the state. •

Among Mr. Grote's views of Grecian history, therinoSt startling by its apparent novelty will be, we think, his dte-f ,(34: Of the dited than another, it is that the sophists ruined Ill ' Griliitiitc T: Sophists. If there is one opinion on Grecian affiiirS'.' r# akei6L states by corrupting their morality. This opinion svill appiiii Vs' the reader of Mr. Grote to be one of those baseless fancies which have so long usurped the place of historical knowledge. denies the fact of the corruption ; and honoliolaliybacg . sophists of any corrupting influence. It is notnesees.miT ,o any reader of the Greek authors, that the word sCialiiSt " inc4 by them in its modern sense. That term was theiCell e 4.1 nation for speculative inquirers, generally, and more p instructors of youth; and was applied to Socrates and pla as to those whom they confuted. The sophists fern had no common doctrines, but speculated in the o ways on physics and metaphysics; while ;with respect among them who professed to prepare, xpupg. pip taught the current morality of the age in st,R. logne of the Choice of Hercules was the co. ., It is most unjust to the sophists to adopts", upon them, ihe severe judgment of .Plate,„ point of view they deserved it, He judge elevation of a great moral and 'social reform looked down contemptuously enough, :sok-, statesmen, orators, artists—on the whole p and all its institutions, popular, oligarchi, a reconstitution of society from its faun novation of the human mind. One win), , had naturally little esteem for men wise' ,icit s or beyond the common ideas of their age ; 'hilt to accept his judgment of them woulds,11% a.,,Rielimil teachers and ,politicians of the 'present ,, oA .04.. um to them by Owen or Fourier. Even Pla It I/ 0. e. mos_ p o the immoral doctrines ascribed to the so , - I- "(Such as trine that might makes right) into the sFi'o not of but of ambitious active politicians; s, 1c4Itqfs.' . The'-' in Plate, almost always express

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corum but with good sense and_ ,feelng, tlt,aR.,, me duties • though by his Socratic di'Eflee nA Yftai oit ' puzzling them, and displaying the c - p ,g a i ...Y1 rather of the common ideas of Mankind; 'Of•'?w /TR exponents. •• sis • e ,•iineS arlt o

•

'Ilia brings us to the chapter on Socratesi Iiutp that is valuable, is in our estimation the moSt , :.• the book. We have not space to give thitr i dissertation so rich in matter, or the smailes lineation of this remarkable character, now light than ever before—a philosopher inculc religious impulse, pure reason and a rigid,, faculty. But we. invite attention to the estinnir chapter, of the peculiarities of the Socraticlev, gent need, at the present and at all times4mo4f, crates, in morals, is conceived by Mi. Bacon in physics. He exposed the hiOie,oritgiffi, A misleading character of the common notiens, ot'd most familiar subjects. By apt interrogatiOni, cmitug.n. locutors to become conscious of the want of, mew?, ideas, he showed that the words in popular it jeets (words which, because they are familia; understand) in reality answer to no distinct* and that the common notions, which those all require to be reconsidered.. This iir showed to be the case in respect to the p ger an monly current on physical subjects. It' is present day to decry negative dialectics ; as or scions of their ignorance -were not the fist,stepTat necessary one—towards inducing . th ej# , to ,,frArito " Opinio copise," says Bacon, "man „ti, , o war -Which Bacon made upon confused se temere a rebus abstractas,' was essentiallyn e 0 stituted the epoch from which, alone ad 1. knowledge became possible. It is to Vacani , and the modern physical science. In illlre pild , , :. convincing men of their ignorance, and:rmetli of knowledge originated the positive nitivnippy; Plato and Aristotle. With, them and th . iiniinl that movement ceased, and has never. yeit, vived as to be permanent. The coi*R; time on moral and mental subjeets aye, the Socratic cross-examination ' - just as much, the wild fruits Of „gain generalizations aintiutocllsec;stwosiitbfilpperinjpissti?psw;"f feelings, without:due:an *.ii.; or, urn direct antagonist of siieli* , 4,0ne pi , T on *sal subjects, Socratel; ttimeh,ap.e_ ; tisti imp) 4 .x.r.

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