Things are now hastening to the catastrophe. Napoleon flies to London,
and, seating himself on the hearth of the Regent, embraces the household
gods and conjures him, by the venerable age of George III., and by the
opening perfections of the Princess Charlotte, to spare him. The Prince
is inclined to do so; when, looking on his breast, he sees there the
belt of the Duke of Brunswick. He instantly draws his sword, and is
about to stab the destroyer of his kinsman. Piety and hospitality,
however, restrain his hand. He takes a middle course, and condemns
Napoleon to be exposed on a desert island. The King of France re-enters
Paris; and the poem concludes.
*****
ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE. (November 1824.)
This is a book which enjoys a great and increasing popularity: but,
while it has attracted a considerable share of the public attention, it
has been little noticed by the critics. Mr Mitford has almost succeeded
in mounting, unperceived by those whose office it is to watch such
aspirants, to a high place among historians. He has taken a seat on
the dais without being challenged by a single seneschal. To oppose the
progress of his fame is now almost a hopeless enterprise. Had he been
reviewed with candid severity, when he had published only his first
volume, his work would either have deserved its reputation, or would
never have obtained it. "Then," as Indra says of Kehama, "then was the
time to strike." The time was neglected; and the consequence is that
Mr Mitford like Kehama, has laid his victorious hand on the literary
Amreeta, and seems about to taste the precious elixir of immortality. I
shall venture to emulate the courage of the honest Glendoveer--
"When now
He saw the Amreeta in Kehama's hand,
An impulse that defied all self-command,
In that extremity,
Stung him, and he resolved to seize the cup,
And dare the Rajah's force in Seeva's sight,
Forward he sprung to tempt the unequal fray."
In plain words, I shall offer a few considerations, which may tend to
reduce an overpraised writer to his proper level.
The principal characteristic of this historian, the origin of his
excellencies and his defects, is a love of singularity. He has no
notion of going with a multitude to do either good or evil. An exploded
opinion, or an unpopular person, has an irresistible charm for him. The
same perverseness may be traced in his diction. His style would
never have been elegant; but it might at least have been manly and
perspicuous; and nothing but the most elaborate care could possibly have
made it so bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh phrases, strange
collocations, occasional solecisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all,
by a peculiar oddity, which can no more be described than it can be
overlooked. Nor is this all. Mr Mitford piques himself on spelling
better than any of his neighbours; and this not only in ancient names,
which he mangles in defiance both of custom and of reason, but in the
most ordinary words of the English language. It is, in itself, a matter
perfectly indifferent whether we call a foreigner by the name which he
bears in his own language, or by that which corresponds to it in ours;
whether we say Lorenzo de Medici, or Lawrence de Medici, Jean Chauvin,
or John Calvin. In such cases established usage is considered as law
by all writers except Mr Mitford. If he were always consistent with
himself, he might be excused for sometimes disagreeing with his
neighbours; but he proceeds on no principle but that of being unlike
the rest of the world. Every child has heard of Linnaeus; therefore
Mr Mitford calls him Linne: Rousseau is known all over Europe as Jean
Jacques; therefore Mr Mitford bestows on him the strange appellation of
John James.
Had Mr Mitford undertaken a History of any other country than Greece,
this propensity would have rendered his work useless and absurd. His
occasional remarks on the affairs of ancient Rome and of modern Europe
are full of errors: but he writes of times with respect to which almost
every other writer has been in the wrong; and, therefore, by resolutely
deviating from his predecessors, he is often in the right.
Almost all the modern historians of Greece have shown the grossest
ignorance of the most obvious phenomena of human nature. In their
representations the generals and statesmen of antiquity are absolutely
divested of all individuality. They are personifications; they are
passions, talents, opinions, virtues, vices, but not men. Inconsistency
is a thing of which these writers have no notion. That a man may have
been liberal in his youth and avaricious in his age, cruel to one enemy
and merciful to another, is to them utterly inconceivable. If the facts
be undeniable, they suppose some strange and deep design, in order to
explain what, as every one who has observed his own mind knows, needs
no explanation at all. This is a mode of writing very acceptable to the
multitude who have always been accustomed to make gods and daemons
out of men very little better or worse than themselves; but it appears
contemptible to all who have watched the changes of human character--to
all who have observed the influence of time, of circumstances, and
of associates, on mankind--to all who have seen a hero in the gout, a
democrat in the church, a pedant in love, or a philosopher in liquor.
This practice of painting in nothing but black and white is unpardonable
even in the drama. It is the great fault of Alfieri; and how much it
injures the effect of his compositions will be obvious to every one who
will compare his Rosmunda with the Lady Macbeth of Shakspeare. The one
is a wicked woman; the other is a fiend. Her only feeling is hatred;
all her words are curses. We are at once shocked and fatigued by the
spectacle of such raving cruelty, excited by no provocation,
repeatedly changing its object, and constant in nothing but in its
in-extinguishable thirst for blood.
In history this error is far more disgraceful. Indeed, there is no fault
which so completely ruins a narrative in the opinion of a judicious
reader. We know that the line of demarcation between good and bad men
is so faintly marked as often to elude the most careful investigation
of those who have the best opportunities for judging. Public men, above
all, are surrounded with so many temptations and difficulties that
some doubt must almost always hang over their real dispositions and
intentions. The lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk, Clarendon, Marlborough,
Burnet, Walpole, are well known to us. We are acquainted with their
actions, their speeches, their writings; we have abundance of letters
and well-authenticated anecdotes relating to them: yet what candid man
will venture very positively to say which of them were honest and which
of them were dishonest men? It appears easier to pronounce decidedly
upon the great characters of antiquity, not because we have greater
means of discovering truth, but simply because we have less means of
detecting error. The modern historians of Greece have forgotten this.
Their heroes and villains are as consistent in all their sayings and
doings as the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins in an allegory. We
should as soon expect a good action from giant Slay-good in Bunyan as
from Dionysius; and a crime of Epaminondas would seem as incongruous
as a faux-pas of the grave and comely damsel called Discretion, who
answered the bell at the door of the house Beautiful.
This error was partly the cause and partly the effect of the high
estimation in which the later ancient writers have been held by modern
scholars. Those French and English authors who have treated of the
affairs of Greece have generally turned with contempt from the simple
and natural narrations of Thucydides and Xenophon to the extravagant
representations of Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius, and other romancers
of the same class,--men who described military operations without ever
having handled a sword, and applied to the seditions of little republics
speculations formed by observation on an empire which covered half
the known world. Of liberty they knew nothing. It was to them a
great mystery--a superhuman enjoyment. They ranted about liberty and
patriotism, from the same cause which leads monks to talk more ardently
than other men about love and women. A wise man values political
liberty, because it secures the persons and the possessions of citizens;
because it tends to prevent the extravagance of rulers, and the
corruption of judges; because it gives birth to useful sciences and
elegant arts; because it excites the industry and increases the comforts
of all classes of society. These theorists imagined that it possessed
something eternally and intrinsically good, distinct from the blessings
which it generally produced. They considered it not as a means but as an
end; an end to be attained at any cost. Their favourite heroes are those
who have sacrificed, for the mere name of freedom, the prosperity--the
security--the justice--from which freedom derives its value.
There is another remarkable characteristic of these writers, in which
their modern worshippers have carefully imitated them--a great fondness
for good stories. The most established facts, dates, and characters are
never suffered to come into competition with a splendid saying, or a
romantic exploit. The early historians have left us natural and simple
descriptions of the great events which they witnessed, and the great men
with whom they associated. When we read the account which Plutarch
and Rollin have given of the same period, we scarcely know our old
acquaintance again; we are utterly confounded by the melo-dramatic
effect of the narration, and the sublime coxcombry of the characters.
These are the principal errors into which the predecessors of Mr Mitford
have fallen; and from most of these he is free. His faults are of a
completely different description. It is to be hoped that the students of
history may now be saved, like Dorax in Dryden's play, by swallowing
two conflicting poisons, each of which may serve as an antidote to the
other.
The first and most important difference between Mr Mitford and those who
have preceded him is in his narration. Here the advantage lies, for
the most part, on his side. His principle is to follow the contemporary
historians, to look with doubt on all statements which are not in
some degree confirmed by them, and absolutely to reject all which are
contradicted by them. While he retains the guidance of some writer in
whom he can place confidence, he goes on excellently. When he loses it,
he falls to the level, or perhaps below the level, of the writers whom
he so much despises: he is as absurd as they, and very much duller. It
is really amusing to observe how he proceeds with his narration when he
has no better authority than poor Diodorus. He is compelled to relate
something; yet he believes nothing. He accompanies every fact with
a long statement of objections. His account of the administration of
Dionysius is in no sense a history. It ought to be entitled--"Historic
doubts as to certain events, alleged to have taken place in Sicily."
This scepticism, however, like that of some great legal characters
almost as sceptical as himself; vanishes whenever his political
partialities interfere. He is a vehement admirer of tyranny and
oligarchy, and considers no evidence as feeble which can be brought
forward in favour of those forms of government. Democracy he hates with
a perfect hatred, a hatred which, in the first volume of his history,
appears only in his episodes and reflections, but which, in those parts
where he has less reverence for his guides, and can venture to take his
own way, completely distorts even his narration.
In taking up these opinions, I have no doubt that Mr Mitford was
influenced by the same love of singularity which led him to spell
"island" without an "s," and to place two dots over the last letter of
"idea." In truth, preceding historians have erred so monstrously on the
other side that even the worst parts of Mr Mitford's book may be useful
as a corrective. For a young gentleman who talks much about his country,
tyrannicide, and Epaminondas, this work, diluted in a sufficient
quantity of Rollin and Berthelemi, may be a very useful remedy.
The errors of both parties arise from an ignorance or a neglect of the
fundamental principles of political science. The writers on one side
imagine popular government to be always a blessing; Mr Mitford omits no
opportunity of assuring us that it is always a curse. The fact is, that
a good government, like a good coat, is that which fits the body for
which it is designed. A man who, upon abstract principles, pronounces
a constitution to be good, without an exact knowledge of the people
who are to be governed by it, judges as absurdly as a tailor who should
measure the Belvidere Apollo for the clothes of all his customers. The
demagogues who wished to see Portugal a republic, and the wise critics
who revile the Virginians for not having instituted a peerage, appear
equally ridiculous to all men of sense and candour.
That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and
knows how to make them happy. Neither the inclination nor the knowledge
will suffice alone; and it is difficult to find them together.
Pure democracy, and pure democracy alone, satisfies the former condition
of this great problem. That the governors may be solicitous only for
the interests of the governed, it is necessary that the interests of the
governors and the governed should be the same. This cannot be often the
case where power is intrusted to one or to a few. The privileged part of
the community will doubtless derive a certain degree of advantage from
the general prosperity of the state; but they will derive a greater from
oppression and exaction. The king will desire an useless war for his
glory, or a parc-aux-cerfs for his pleasure. The nobles will demand
monopolies and lettres-de-cachet. In proportion as the number of
governors is increased the evil is diminished. There are fewer to
contribute, and more to receive. The dividend which each can obtain of
the public plunder becomes less and less tempting. But the interests of
the subjects and the rulers never absolutely coincide till the subjects
themselves become the rulers, that is, till the government be either
immediately or mediately democratical.
But this is not enough. "Will without power," said the sagacious Casimir
to Milor Beefington, "is like children playing at soldiers." The people
will always be desirous to promote their own interests; but it may be
doubted, whether, in any community, they were ever sufficiently educated
to understand them. Even in this island, where the multitude have long
been better informed than in any other part of Europe, the rights of the
many have generally been asserted against themselves by the patriotism
of the few. Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government
can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular. It may
be well doubted, whether a liberal policy with regard to our commercial
relations would find any support from a parliament elected by universal
suffrage. The republicans on the other side of the Atlantic have
recently adopted regulations of which the consequences will, before
long, show us,
"How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed,
When vengeance listens to the fool's request."
The people are to be governed for their own good; and, that they may
be governed for their own good, they must not be governed by their
own ignorance. There are countries in which it would be as absurd to
establish popular government as to abolish all the restraints in a
school, or to untie all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.
Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in
which supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people.
This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in
some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name
of a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of the
people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give them
every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render
it safe to trust them with absolute power. In the mean time, it is
dangerous to praise or condemn constitutions in the abstract; since,
from the despotism of St Petersburg to the democracy of Washington,
there is scarcely a form of government which might not, at least in some
hypothetical case, be the best possible.
If, however, there be any form of government which in all ages and all
nations has always been, and must always be, pernicious, it is certainly
that which Mr Mitford, on his usual principle of being wiser than all
the rest of the world, has taken under his especial patronage--pure
oligarchy. This is closely, and indeed inseparably, connected with
another of his eccentric tastes, a marked partiality for Lacedaemon, and
a dislike of Athens. Mr Mitford's book has, I suspect, rendered these
sentiments in some degree popular; and I shall, therefore, examine them
at some length.
The shades in the Athenian character strike the eye more rapidly than
those in the Lacedaemonian: not because they are darker, but because
they are on a brighter ground. The law of ostracism is an instance
of this. Nothing can be conceived more odious than the practice of
punishing a citizen, simply and professedly, for his eminence;--and
nothing in the institutions of Athens is more frequently or more justly
censured. Lacedaemon was free from this. And why? Lacedaemon did
not need it. Oligarchy is an ostracism of itself,--an ostracism not
occasional, but permanent,--not dubious, but certain. Her laws prevented
the development of merit instead of attacking its maturity. They did not
cut down the plant in its high and palmy state, but cursed the soil with
eternal sterility. In spite of the law of ostracism, Athens produced,
within a hundred and fifty years, the greatest public men that ever
existed. Whom had Sparta to ostracise? She produced, at most, four
eminent men, Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus. Of these, not
one rose to distinction within her jurisdiction. It was only when
they escaped from the region within which the influence of aristocracy
withered everything good and noble, it was only when they ceased to be
Lacedaemonians, that they became great men. Brasidas, among the cities
of Thrace, was strictly a democratical leader, the favourite minister
and general of the people. The same may be said of Gylippus, at
Syracuse. Lysander, in the Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, were
liberated for a time from the hateful restraints imposed by the
constitution of Lycurgus. Both acquired fame abroad; and both returned
to be watched and depressed at home. This is not peculiar to Sparta.
Oligarchy, wherever it has existed, has always stunted the growth of
genius. Thus it was at Rome, till about a century before the Christian
era: we read of abundance of consuls and dictators who won battles,
and enjoyed triumphs; but we look in vain for a single man of the first
order of intellect,--for a Pericles, a Demosthenes, or a Hannibal.
The Gracchi formed a strong democratical party; Marius revived it; the
foundations of the old aristocracy were shaken; and two generations
fertile in really great men appeared.
Venice is a still more remarkable instance: in her history we see
nothing but the state; aristocracy had destroyed every seed of genius
and virtue. Her dominion was like herself, lofty and magnificent, but
founded on filth and weeds. God forbid that there should ever again
exist a powerful and civilised state, which, after existing through
thirteen hundred eventful years, should not bequeath to mankind the
memory of one great name or one generous action.
Many writers, and Mr Mitford among the number, have admired the
stability of the Spartan institutions; in fact, there is little to
admire, and less to approve. Oligarchy is the weakest and the most
stable of governments; and it is stable because it is weak. It has a
sort of valetudinarian longevity; it lives in the balance of Sanctorius;
it takes no exercise; it exposes itself to no accident; it is seized
with an hypochondriac alarm at every new sensation; it trembles at every
breath; it lets blood for every inflammation: and thus, without ever
enjoying a day of health or pleasure, drags on its existence to a doting
and debilitated old age.
The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its
existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home and dignity abroad. They
cringed to the powerful; they trampled on the weak; they massacred their
helots; they betrayed their allies; they contrived to be a day too
late for the battle of Marathon; they attempted to avoid the battle of
Salamis; they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives
and liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by the
Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the
Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which
exertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make
them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their
walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they
commenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements with
Athens; they abandoned it in violation of their engagements with
their allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed
themselves under their protection; they bartered, for advantages
confined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives
of those who had served them most faithfully; they took with equal
complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of
Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained
from no injury, and they revenged none. Above all, they looked on a
citizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy. These are the
arts which protract the existence of government.
Nor were the domestic institutions of Lacedaemon less hateful or less
contemptible than her foreign policy. A perpetual interference with
every part of the system of human life, a constant struggle against
nature and reason, characterised all her laws. To violate even
prejudices which have taken deep root in the minds of a people is
scarcely expedient; to think of extirpating natural appetites and
passions is frantic: the external symptoms may be occasionally
repressed; but the feeling still exists, and, debarred from its natural
objects, preys on the disordered mind and body of its victim. Thus it
is in convents---thus it is among ascetic sects--thus it was among the
Lacedaemonians. Hence arose that madness, or violence approaching to
madness, which, in spite of every external restraint, often appeared
among the most distinguished citizens of Sparta. Cleomenes terminated
his career of raving cruelty by cutting himself to pieces. Pausanias
seems to have been absolutely insane; he formed a hopeless and
profligate scheme; he betrayed it by the ostentation of his behaviour,
and the imprudence of his measures; and he alienated, by his insolence,
all who might have served or protected him. Xenophon, a warm admirer of
Lacedaemon, furnishes us with the strongest evidence to this effect.
It is impossible not to observe the brutal and senseless fury which
characterises almost every Spartan with whom he was connected. Clearchus
nearly lost his life by his cruelty. Chirisophus deprived his army
of the services of a faithful guide by his unreasonable and ferocious
severity. But it is needless to multiply instances. Lycurgus, Mr
Mitford's favourite legislator, founded his whole system on a mistaken
principle. He never considered that governments were made for men, and
not men for governments. Instead of adapting the constitution to the
people, he distorted the minds of the people to suit the constitution, a
scheme worthy of the Laputan Academy of Projectors. And this appears to
Mr Mitford to constitute his peculiar title to admiration. Hear himself:
"What to modern eyes most strikingly sets that extraordinary man above
all other legislators is, that in so many circumstances, apparently out
of the reach of law, he controlled and formed to his own mind the wills
and habits of his people." I should suppose that this gentleman had the
advantage of receiving his education under the ferula of Dr
Pangloss; for his metaphysics are clearly those of the castle of
Thunder-ten-tronckh: "Remarquez bien que les nez ont ete faits pour
porter des lunettes, aussi avons nous des lunettes. Les jambes sont
visiblement institues pour etre chaussees, et nous avons des chausses.
Les cochons etant faits pour etre manges, nous mangeons du porc toute
l'annee."
At Athens the laws did not constantly interfere with the tastes of the
people. The children were not taken from their parents by that universal
step-mother, the state. They were not starved into thieves, or tortured
into bullies; there was no established table at which every one must
dine, no established style in which every one must converse. An Athenian
might eat whatever he could afford to buy, and talk as long as he could
find people to listen. The government did not tell the people what
opinions they were to hold, or what songs they were to sing. Freedom
produced excellence. Thus philosophy took its origin. Thus were produced
those models of poetry, of oratory, and of the arts, which scarcely fall
short of the standard of ideal excellence. Nothing is more conducive to
happiness than the free exercise of the mind in pursuits congenial to
it. This happiness, assuredly, was enjoyed far more at Athens than at
Sparta. The Athenians are acknowledged even by their enemies to have
been distinguished, in private life, by their courteous and amiable
demeanour. Their levity, at least, was better than Spartan sullenness
and their impertinence than Spartan insolence. Even in courage it may be
questioned whether they were inferior to the Lacedaemonians. The great
Athenian historian has reported a remarkable observation of the great
Athenian minister. Pericles maintained that his countrymen, without
submitting to the hardships of a Spartan education, rivalled all the
achievements of Spartan valour, and that therefore the pleasures and
amusements which they enjoyed were to be considered as so much clear
gain. The infantry of Athens was certainly not equal to that of
Lacedaemon; but this seems to have been caused merely by want of
practice: the attention of the Athenians was diverted from the
discipline of the phalanx to that of the trireme. The Lacedaemonians, in
spite of all their boasted valour, were, from the same cause, timid and
disorderly in naval action.
But we are told that crimes of great enormity were perpetrated by the
Athenian government, and the democracies under its protection. It is
true that Athens too often acted up to the full extent of the laws of
war in an age when those laws had not been mitigated by causes which
have operated in later times. This accusation is, in fact, common to
Athens, to Lacedaemon, to all the states of Greece, and to all states
similarly situated. Where communities are very large, the heavier evils
of war are felt but by few. The ploughboy sings, the spinning-wheel
turns round, the wedding-day is fixed, whether the last battle were lost
or won. In little states it cannot be thus; every man feels in his own
property and person the effect of a war. Every man is a soldier, and a
soldier fighting for his nearest interests. His own trees have been cut
down--his own corn has been burnt--his own house has been pillaged--his
own relations have been killed. How can he entertain towards the enemies
of his country the same feelings with one who has suffered nothing from
them, except perhaps the addition of a small sum to the taxes which he
pays? Men in such circumstances cannot be generous. They have too much
at stake. It is when they are, if I may so express myself, playing
for love, it is when war is a mere game at chess, it is when they are
contending for a remote colony, a frontier town, the honours of a flag,
a salute, or a title, that they can make fine speeches, and do good
offices to their enemies. The Black Prince waited behind the chair of
his captive; Villars interchanged repartees with Eugene; George II. sent
congratulations to Louis XV., during a war, upon occasion of his escape
from the attempt of Damien: and these things are fine and generous, and
very gratifying to the author of the Broad Stone of Honour, and all the
other wise men who think, like him, that God made the world only for the
use of gentlemen. But they spring in general from utter heartlessness.
No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render
all interchange of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a
bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that
they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without
hatred. War is never lenient, but where it is wanton; when men are
compelled to fight in selfdefence, they must hate and avenge: this may
be bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hand
of the potter.
It is true that among the dependencies of Athens seditions assumed
a character more ferocious than even in France, during the reign of
terror--the accursed Saturnalia of an accursed bondage. It is true
that in Athens itself, where such convulsions were scarcely known,
the condition of the higher orders was disagreeable; that they were
compelled to contribute large sums for the service or the amusement
of the public; and that they were sometimes harassed by vexatious
informers. Whenever such cases occur, Mr Mitford's scepticism vanishes.
The "if," the "but," the "it is said," the "if we may believe," with
which he qualifies every charge against a tyrant or an aristocracy, are
at once abandoned. The blacker the story, the firmer is his belief, and
he never fails to inveigh with hearty bitterness against democracy as
the source of every species of crime.
The Athenians, I believe, possessed more liberty than was good for
them. Yet I will venture to assert that, while the splendour, the
intelligence, and the energy of that great people were peculiar to
themselves, the crimes with which they are charged arose from causes
which were common to them with every other state which then existed.
The violence of faction in that age sprung from a cause which has always
been fertile in every political and moral evil, domestic slavery.
The effect of slavery is completely to dissolve the connection which
naturally exists between the higher and lower classes of free citizens.
The rich spend their wealth in purchasing and maintaining slaves. There
is no demand for the labour of the poor; the fable of Menenius ceases to
be applicable; the belly communicates no nutriment to the members; there
is an atrophy in the body politic. The two parties, therefore, proceed
to extremities utterly unknown in countries where they have mutually
need of each other. In Rome the oligarchy was too powerful to be
subverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies,
though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest
against men who possessed the whole property of the state. Hence the
necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society,
and to take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, and
the agrarian laws--propositions absurdly condemned by men who do
not consider the circumstances from which they sprung. They were the
desperate remedies of a desperate disease. In Greece the oligarchical
interest was not in general so deeply rooted as at Rome. The multitude,
therefore, often redressed by force grievances which, at Rome, were
commonly attacked under the forms of the constitution. They drove out or
massacred the rich, and divided their property. If the superior union or
military skill of the rich rendered them victorious, they took measures
equally violent, disarmed all in whom they could not confide, often
slaughtered great numbers, and occasionally expelled the whole
commonalty from the city, and remained, with their slaves, the sole
inhabitants.
From such calamities Athens and Lacedaemon alone were almost completely
free. At Athens the purses of the rich were laid under regular
contribution for the support of the poor; and this, rightly considered,
was as much a favour to the givers as to the receivers, since no other
measure could possibly have saved their houses from pillage and their
persons from violence. It is singular that Mr Mitford should perpetually
reprobate a policy which was the best that could be pursued in such
a state of things, and which alone saved Athens from the frightful
outrages which were perpetrated at Corcyra.
Lacedaemon, cursed with a system of slavery more odious than has ever
existed in any other country, avoided this evil by almost totally
annihilating private property. Lycurgus began by an agrarian law. He
abolished all professions except that of arms; he made the whole of his
community a standing army, every member of which had a common right to
the services of a crowd of miserable bondmen; he secured the state from
sedition at the expense of the Helots. Of all the parts of his system
this is the most creditable to his head, and the most disgraceful to his
heart.
These considerations, and many others of equal importance, Mr Mitford
has neglected; but he has yet a heavier charge to answer. He has made
not only illogical inferences, but false statements. While he never
states, without qualifications and objections, the charges which the
earliest and best historians have brought against his favourite tyrants,
Pisistratus, Hippias, and Gelon, he transcribes, without any hesitation,
the grossest abuse of the least authoritative writers against every
democracy and every demagogue. Such an accusation should not be made
without being supported; and I will therefore select one out of many
passages which will fully substantiate the charge, and convict Mr
Mitford of wilful misrepresentation, or of negligence scarcely less
culpable. Mr Mitford is speaking of one of the greatest men that ever
lived, Demosthenes, and comparing him with his rival, Aeschines. Let him
speak for himself.
"In earliest youth Demosthenes earned an opprobrious nickname by
the effeminacy of his dress and manner." Does Mr Mitford know that
Demosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in a
perfectly different manner? (See the speech of Aeschines against
Timarchus.) And, if he knew it, should he not have stated it? He
proceeds thus: "On emerging from minority, by the Athenian law, at
five-and-twenty, he earned another opprobrious nickname by a prosecution
of his guardians, which was considered as a dishonourable attempt
to extort money from them." In the first place Demosthenes was not
five-and-twenty years of age. Mr Mitford might have learned, from so
common a book as the Archaeologia of Archbishop Potter, that at twenty
Athenian citizens were freed from the control of their guardians, and
began to manage their own property. The very speech of Demosthenes
against his guardians proves most satisfactorily that he was under
twenty. In his speech against Midias, he says that when he undertook
that prosecution he was quite a boy. (Meirakullion on komide.) His youth
might, therefore, excuse the step, even if it had been considered, as
Mr Mitford says, a dishonourable attempt to extort money. But who
considered it as such? Not the judges who condemned the guardians. The
Athenian courts of justice were not the purest in the world; but their
decisions were at least as likely to be just as the abuse of a deadly
enemy. Mr Mitford refers for confirmation of his statement to Aeschines
and Plutarch. Aeschines by no means bears him out; and Plutarch directly
contradicts him. "Not long after," says Mr Mitford, "he took blows
publicly in the theater" (I preserve the orthography, if it can be
so called, of this historian) "from a petulant youth of rank, named
Meidias." Here are two disgraceful mistakes. In the first place, it was
long after; eight years at the very least, probably much more. In the
next place the petulant youth, of whom Mr Mitford speaks, was fifty
years old. (Whoever will read the speech of Demosthenes against Midias
will find the statements in the text confirmed, and will have, moreover,
the pleasure of becoming acquainted with one of the finest compositions
in the world.) Really Mr Mitford has less reason to censure the
carelessness of his predecessors than to reform his own. After this
monstrous inaccuracy, with regard to facts, we may be able to judge what
degree of credit ought to be given to the vague abuse of such a writer.
"The cowardice of Demosthenes in the field afterwards became notorious."
Demosthenes was a civil character; war was not his business. In his time
the division between military and political offices was beginning to be
strongly marked; yet the recollection of the days when every citizen was
a soldier was still recent. In such states of society a certain degree
of disrepute always attaches to sedentary men; but that any leader
of the Athenian democracy could have been, as Mr Mitford says of
Demosthenes, a few lines before, remarkable for "an extraordinary
deficiency of personal courage," is absolutely impossible. What
mercenary warrior of the time exposed his life to greater or more
constant perils? Was there a single soldier at Chaeronea 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 school-boy 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.
So much for Demosthenes. Now for the orator of aristocracy. I do
not wish to abuse Aeschines. 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 Aeschines was without stain, does
he remember what Aeschines 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 Aeschines,"
says Mr Mitford, "Demosthenes seems not to have had an insinuation
to oppose." Has Mr Mitford ever read the speech of Demosthenes on the
Embassy? Or can he have forgotten, what was never forgotten by anyone
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 Aeschines 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.
Aeschines was an aristocrat, and is to be panegyrised. Is this a
history, or a party-pamphlet?
These passages, all selected from a single page of Mr Mitford's work,
may give some notion to those readers, who have not the means of
comparing his statements with the original authorities, of his extreme
partiality and carelessness. Indeed, whenever this historian 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 accomplished
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 intentions 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 Washington and Franklin. It is certainly to be regretted that
men should err so grossly in their estimate of character. But no person
who knows anything 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.
If this article had not extended itself to so great a length, I
should offer a few observations on some other peculiarities of this
writer,--his general preference of the Barbarians to 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 pursuits. 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 solicitous to trace his death to political causes, and
to deduce from it consequences unfavourable to Athens, and to popular
governments, 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."
He does not seem to be aware that Demosthenes was a great orator; he
represents him sometimes as an aspirant demagogue, sometimes as an
adroit negotiator, and always as a great rogue. But that in which the
Athenian excelled all men of all ages, that irresistible eloquence,
which at the distance of more than two thousand years stirs our blood,
and brings tears into our eyes, he passes by with a few phrases of
commonplace commendation. The origin of the drama, the doctrines of the
sophists, the course of Athenian education, the state of the arts
and sciences, the whole domestic system of the Greeks, he has almost
completely neglected. Yet these things will appear, to a reflecting man,
scarcely less worthy of attention than the taking of Sphacteria or the
discipline of the targeteers of Iphicrates.
This, indeed, is a deficiency by no means peculiar to Mr Mitford.
Most people seem to imagine that a detail of public occurrences--the
operations 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 fiction a province at least equally
extensive and valuable.
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 should omit, as too mean for the dignity of history,
circumstances which exert the most extensive influence on the state of
society. In general, the under current of human life flows steadily on,
unruffled by the storms which agitate the surface. The happiness of the
many commonly depends on causes independent of victories or defeats, of
revolutions or restorations,--causes which can be regulated by no laws,
and which are recorded in no archives. These causes are the things
which it is of main importance to us to know, not how the Lacedaemonian
phalanx was broken at Leuctra,--not whether Alexander died of poison
or by disease. History, without these, is a shell without a kernel;
and such is almost all the history which is extant in the world. Paltry
skirmishes and plots are reported with absurd and useless minuteness;
but improvements the most essential to the comfort of human life extend
themselves over the world, and introduce 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
progress of the most salutary inventions and discoveries is buried in
impenetrable mystery; mankind are deprived of a most useful species of
knowledge, and their benefactors of their honest fame. In the meantime
every child knows by heart the dates and adventures of a long line of
barbarian kings. The history of nations, in the sense in which I use
the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.
Thucydides, as far as he goes, is an excellent writer; yet he affords us
far less knowledge of the most important particulars relating to Athens
than Plato or Aristophanes. The little treatise of Xenophon on Domestic
Economy contains more historical information than all the seven books
of his Hellenics. The same may be said of the Satires of Horace, of
the Letters of Cicero, of the novels of Le Sage, of the memoirs of
Marmontel. Many others might be mentioned; but these sufficiently
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,
in 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 anything 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 manners, the amusements, the conversation of the 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.
Of the indifference which Mr Mitford shows on this subject I will not
speak; for I cannot speak with fairness. It is a subject on which I love
to forget the accuracy of a judge, in the veneration of a worshipper
and the gratitude of a child. If we consider merely the subtlety of
disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance
of expression which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, we
must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say
when we reflect that from hence have sprung directly or indirectly, all
the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the
vast accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero; the withering
fire of Juvenal; the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour of
Cervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supreme
and universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and
genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age,
have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made
a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason,
there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging,
consoling;--by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless bed of
Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the
scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence on private
happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser,
happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind
to engage: to how many the studies which took their rise from her
have been wealth in poverty,--liberty in bondage,--health in
sickness,--society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at
the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools of
philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles
sorrow, or assuages pain,--wherever it brings gladness to eyes which
fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the
long sleep,--there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal
influence of Athens.
The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to his
comrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, while he retained
the casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at
one glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no
exaggeration to say that no external advantage is to be compared with
that purification of the intellectual eye which gives us to contemplate
the infinite wealth of the mental world, all the hoarded treasures of
its primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored
mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power
have for more than twenty centuries been annihilated; her people have
degenerated into timid slaves; her language into a barbarous jargon;
her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans,
Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. And
when those who have rivalled her greatness shall have shared her fate;
when civilisation and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant
continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England;
when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labour to
decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief;
shall hear savage hymns chaunted to some misshapen idol over the ruined
dome of our proudest temple; and shall see a single naked fisherman wash
his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts;--her influence and
her glory will still survive,--fresh in eternal youth, exempt from
mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which
they derived their origin, and over which they exercise their control.