the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must be acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to which Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and his example.

French Anas a ludicrous instance of this. A scholar, doubtless of great learning, recommends the study of some long Latin treatise,, of which I now forget the name, on the reli gion, manners, government, and language of the early Greeks. "For there," says he, "you will learn every thing of importance that is contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the trouble of reading two such tedious books.' Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentle man that all the knowledge to which he had attached so much value was useful only as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be as worthless for any other purpose as the mythology of Caffraria or the vo

Longinus seems to have had great sensibility but little discrimination. He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles. It was happily said that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from L'esprit des Lois to L'esprit sur les Lois. In the same manner the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not "Longinus on the Sublime," but "The Sublimities of Longinus." The origin of the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of in-cabulary of Otaheite. quiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. Of those scholars who have disdained tc In our own country it has been discussed with confine themselves to verbal criticism, few great ability, and, I think, with very little suc- have been successful. The ancient languages cess, by Burke and Dugald Stewart. Longinus have, generally, a magical influence on their dispenses himself from all investigations of faculties. They were "fools called into a cirthis nature, by telling his friend Terentianus cle by Greek invocations." The Iliad and that he already knows every thing that can be Eneid were to them not books, but curiosities, said upon the question. It is to be regretted or rather relics. They no more admired those that Terentianus did not impart some of his works for their merits, than a good Catholic knowledge to his instructor, for from Longi-venerates the house of the Virgin at Loretto nus we learn only that sublimity means height -or elevation. This name, so commodiously vague, is applied indifferently to the noble prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of Plato about the human body, as full of conceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed standard, Longinus is right only by accident. He is rather a fancier than a critic.

for its architecture. Whatever was classical was good. Homer was a great poet, and so was Callimachus. The epistles of Cicero were fine, and so were those of Phalaris. Even with respect to questions of evidence, they fell into the same error. The authority of all narrations, written in Greek or Latin, was the same with them. It never crossed their minds that the lapse of five hundred years, or the distance of five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy of a narration,-that Livy could be a less vera

Modern writers have been prevented by many causes from supplying the deficiencies of their classical predecessors. At the time of the revival of literature no man could, without greatcious historian than Polybius, or that Pluand painful labour, acquire an accurate and tarch could know less about the friends of Xe elegant knowledge of the ancient languages. nophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by And, unfortunately, those grammatical and the distance of time, they seem to consider all philological studies, without which it was im- the classics as contemporaries; just as I have possible to understand the great works of known people in England, deceived by the disAthenian and Roman genius, have a tendency tance of place, take it for granted that all perto contract the views and deaden the sensibili-sons who live in India are neighbours, and ask ty of those who follow them with extreme as- an inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an siduity. A powerful mind which has been long acquaintance at Calcutta. It is to be hoped employed in such studies, may be compared that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass to the gigantic spirit in the Arabian tale, who over Europe. But should such a calamity hap was persuaded to contract himself to small pen, it seems not improbable that some future dimensions in order to enter within the en-Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of Eng chanted vessel, and, when his prison had been land from Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss closed upon him, found himself unable to es-Lee's Recess, and Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's Mecape from the narrow boundaries to the mea-moirs.

should be examined in a different manner, without pedantical prepossessions, but with a just allowance, at the same time, for the differ ence of circumstances and manners. I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability which such a task would require. All that I mean to offer is a collection of desultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature.

sure of which he had reduced his stature. It is surely time that ancient literature When the means have long been the objects of application, they are naturally substituted for the end. It was said by Eugene of Savoy, that the greatest generals have commonly been those who have been at once raised to command, and introduced to the great operations of war without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres which employ the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is equally sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best understood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllables and particles.

I remember to have observed among the

• Ακροτης και εξοχη τις λογων εστι τα υψη.

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenian orations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itself to the demand. The quantity may be dimi

nished by restrictions and multiplied by boun- have improved our condition as much in reality ties. The singular excellence to which elo- as in appearance. Rumford, it is said, proquence attained at Athens is to be mainly at- posed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for tributed to the influence which it exerted there. feeding his soldiers at a much cheaper rate In turbulent times, under a constitution purely than formerly. His plan was simply to com democratic, among a people educated exactly pel them to masticate their food thoroughly. to that point at which men are most suscepti- A small quantity thus eaten would, according ble of strong and sudden impressions, acute, to that famous projector, afford more suste but not sound reasoners, warm in their feel-nance than a large meal hastily devoured. 1 ings, unfixed in their principles, and passionate | do not know how Rumford's proposition was admirers of fine composition, oratory received received; but to the mind, I believe, it will be such encouragement as it has never since ob- found more nutritious to digest a page than to tained. devour a volume.

The taste and knowledge of the Athenian Books, however, were the least part of the people was a favourite object of the contemptu-education of an Athenian citizen. Let us, for ous derision of Samuel Johnson; a man who a moment, transport ourselves, in thought, to knew nothing of Greek literature beyond the that glorious city. Let us imagine that we are common school-books, and who seems to have entering its gates, in the time of its power and brought to what he had read scarcely more glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. than the discernment of a common schoolboy. All are gazing with delight at the entablature, He used to assert, with that arrogant absurdity for Phidias is putting up the frieze. We turn which, in spite of his great abilities and vir- into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting tues, renders him perhaps the most ridiculous there; men, women, children, are thronging character in literary history, that Demosthenes round him; the tears are running down their spoke to a people of brutes,-to a barbarous cheeks; their eyes are fixed; their very breath people,-that there could have been no civi- is still; for he is telling how Priam fell at the lization before the invention of printing. John-feet of Achilles, and kissed those hands,-the son was a keen but a very narrow-minded ob terrible,-the murderous,-which had slain so server of mankind. He perpetually confound-many of his sons.* We enter the public ed their general nature with their particular circumstances. He knew London intimately. The sagacity of his remarks on its society is perfectly astonishing. But Fleet Street was the world to him. He saw that Londoners who did not read were profoundly ignorant, and he inferred that a Greek who had few or no books must have been as uninformed as one of Mr. Thrale's draymen.

place; there is a ring of youths, all leaning for. ward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of expectation. Socrates is pitted against the famous Atheist, from Ionia, and has just brought him to a contradiction in terms. But we are interrupted. The herald is crying-" Room for the Prytanes." The general assembly is to meet. The people are swarming in on every side. Proclamation is made-"Who wishes to speak." There is a shout, and a clapping of hands: Pericles is mounting the stand. Then for a play of Sophocles; and away to sup with Aspasia. I know of no modern university which has so excellent a system of education.

There seems to be, on the contrary, every reason to believe that in general intelligence | the Athenian populace far surpassed the lower orders of any commnnity that has ever existed. must be considered that to be a citizen was to be a legislator-a soldier-a judge-one up- Knowledge thus acquired, and opinions thus on whose voice might depend the fate of the formed, were, indeed, likely to be, in some rewealthiest tributary state, of the most eminent spects, defective. Propositions, which are public man. The lowest offices, both of agri-advanced in discourse, generally result from a culture and of trade, were in common per-partial view of the question, and cannot be formed by slaves. The commonwealth sup- kept under examination long enough to be plied its meanest members with the support corrected. Men of great conversational pow. of life, the opportunity of leisure, and the means of amusement. Books were, indeed, few, but they were excellent, and they were accurately known. It is not by turning over libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and in tently contemplating a few great models, that the mind is best disciplined. A man of letters must now read much that he soon forgets, and much from which he learns nothing worthy to be remembered. The best works employ, in general, but a small portion of his time. Demosthenes is said to have transcribed, six times, the History of Thucydides. If he had been a young politician of the present age, he might in the same space of time have skimmed innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do not condemn that desultory mode of study which the state of things in our day renders a matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to doubt whether the changes on which the admirers of modern institutions delight to dwell

ers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, for the moment, both themselves and their auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which cannot bear a close inspection, triumph perpe tually in drawing-rooms, in debating societies, and even in legislative or judicial assemblies. To the conversational education of the Athenians, I am inclined to attribute the great looseness of reasoning, which is remarkable in most of their scientific writings. Even the most illogical of modern writers would stand perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which seem to have deluded some of the greatest men of antiquity. Sir Thomas Lethbridge would stare at the political economy of Xenophon and the author of Soirées de Petersbourg would be ashamed of some of the metaphysical argu.

* και κυσε χειρας, δεινας, ανδροφόνους, αι οι πολεας κτανον μιας

ments of Plato. But the very circumstances which retarded the growth of science, were peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of eloquence. From the early habit of taking a share in animated discussion, the intelligent student would derive that readiness of resource, that copiousness of language, and that knowledge of the temper and understanding of an audience, which are far more valuable to an orator than the greatest logical powers.

Horace has prettily compared poems to those paintings of which the effect varies as the spectator changes his stand. The same remark applies with at least equal justice to speeches. They must be read with the temper of those to whom they were addressed, or they must necessarily appear to offend against the laws of taste and reason; as the finest picture, seen in a light different from that for which it was designed, will appear fit only for a sign. This is perpetually forgotten by those who criticise oratory. Because they are reading at leisure, pausing at every line, reconsidering every argument, they forget that the hearers were hurried from point to point too rapidly to detect the fallacies through which they were conducted; that they had no time to disentangle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies of expression; that elaborate excellence, either of reasoning or of language, would have been absolutely thrown away. To recur to the analogy of the sister art, these connoisseurs examine a panorama through a microscope, and quarrel with a scene-painter because he does not give to his work the exquisite finish of Gérard Dow.

was immediate conviction and persuasion. He, therefore, who would justly appreciate the merit of the Grecian orators, should place him. self, as nearly as possible, in the situation of their auditors: he should divest himself of his modern feelings and acquirements, and make the prejudices and interests of the Athenian citizens his own. He who studies their works in this spirit will find that many of those things which, to an English reader, appear to be blemishes,--the frequent violation of those excellent rules of evidence, by which our courts of law are regulated, the introduction of extraneous matter,--the reference to considerations of political expediency in judicial investigations,-the assertions, without proof, --the passionate entreaties,--the furious in vectives,-are really proofs of the prudence and address of the speakers. He must not dwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, but acquiesce in his first impressions. It requires repeated perusal and reflection to decide rightly on any other portion of literature. But with respect to works of which the merit depends on their instantaneous effect, the most hasty judgment is likely to be best.

The history of eloquence at Athens is remarkable. From a very early period great speakers had flourished there. Pisistratus and Themistocles are said to have owed much of their influence to their talents for debate. We learn, with more certainty, that Pericles wat distinguished by extraordinary oratorical pow ers. The substance of some of his speeches i transmitted to us by Thucydides, and that ex cellent writer has doubtless faithfully reported Oratory is to be estimated on principles dif- the general line of his arguments. But the ferent from those which are applied to other manner, which in oratory is of at least as productions. Truth is the object of philosophy much consequence as the matter, was of ne and history. Truth is the object even of those importance to his narration. It is evident that works which are peculiarly called works of he has not attempted to preserve it. Through fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same rela-out his work, every speech on every subject, tion to history which algebra bears to arith- whatever may have been the character or the metic. The merit of poetry, in its wildest dialect of the speaker, is in exactly the same forms, still consists in its truth,-truth con- form. The grave King of Sparta, the furious veyed to the understanding, not directly by the demagogue of Athens, the general encouraging words, but circuitously by means of imagina- his army, the captive supplicating for his life, tive associations, which serve as its con- all are represented as speakers in one unvaried ductors. The object of oratory alone is not style,-a style moreover wholly unfit for oratruth, but persuasion. The admiration of the torical purposes. His mode of reasoning is multitude does not make Moore a greater poet singularly elliptical,-in reality most consecu than Coleridge, or Beattie a greater philoso- tive, yet in appearance often incoherent. His pher than Berkeley. But the criterion of elo- meaning, in itself is sufficiently perplexing, is quence is different. A speaker, who exhausts compressed into the fewest possible words. the whole philosophy of a question, who dis- His great fondness for antithetical expression plays every grace of style, yet produces no has not a little conduced to this effect. Every effect on his audience, may be a great essayist, one must have observed how much more the a great statesman, a great master of composi-sense is condensed in the verses of Pope and tion, but he is not an orator. If he miss the his imitators, who never ventured to continue mark, it makes no difference whether he have taken aim too high or too low.

The effect of the great freedom of the press in England has been, in a great measure, to destroy this distinction, and to leave among us little of what I call Oratory Proper. Our lcgislators, our candidates, on great occasions even our advocates, address themselves less to the audience than to the reporters. They think less of the few hearers than of the innumerable readers. At Athens, the case was different there the only object of the speaker

the same clause from couplet to couplet, than in those of poets who allow themselves that license. Every artificial division, which is strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, has the same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression which spontaneously rises to the mind, will often refuse to accommodate itself to such a form. It is necessary either to expand it into weakness, or to compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generally the choice of an able man, and was assuredly the choice of Thucydides.

I is scarcely necessary to say that such speeches could never have been delivered. They are perhaps among the most difficult passages in the Greek language, and would probably have been scarcely more intelligible to an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. Their obscurity was acknowledged by Cicero, who was as intimate with the literature and language of Greece as the most accomplished of its natives, and who seems to have held a respectable rank among the Greek authors. The difficulty to a modern reader lies, not in the words, but in the reasoning. A dictionary is of far less use in studying them, than a clear head and a close attention to the context. They are valuable to the scholar, as displaying, beyond almost any other compositions, the powers of the finest languages :-they are valuable to the philosopher, as illustrating the morals and manners of a most interesting age;-they abound in just thought and energetic expression. But they do not enable us to form any accurate opinion on the merits of the early Greek orators.

the stadium, yet enjoyed far greater genera. vigour and health than either. It is the same with the mind. The superiority in technical skill is often more than compensated by the inferiority in general intelligence. And this is peculiarly the case in politics. States have always been best governed by men who have taken a wide view of public affairs, and who have rather a general acquaintance with many sciences than a perfect mastery of one. The union of the political and military departments in Greece contributed not a little to the splendour of its early history. After their separation more skilful generals and greater speakers appeared;-but the breed of statesmen dwindled and became almost extinct. Themistocles or Pericles would have been no match for Demosthenes in the assembly, or Iphicrates in the field. But surely they were incomparably better fitted than either for the supreme direction of affairs.

There is indeed a remarkable coincidence between the progress of the art of war, and that of the art of oratory, among the Greeks. Though it cannot be doubted, that, before the They both advanced to perfection by contemPersian wars, Athens had produced eminent poraneous steps, and from similar causes. The speakers, yet the period during which elo- early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, quence most flourished among her citizens was Iwere merely a militia. It was found, that in by no means that of her greatest power and both employments, practice and discipline gave glory. It commenced at the close of the Pelo-superiority. Each pursuit, therefore, became ponnesian war. In fact, the steps by which first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as Athenian oratory approached to its finished the professors of each became more expert in excellence, seem to have been almost contem-their particular craft, they became less respectporaneous with those by which the Athenian able in their general character. Their skill character and the Athenian empire sunk to de- had been obtained at too great expense to be gradation. At the time when the little com-employed only from disinterested views. Thus, monwealth achieved those victories which the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and twenty-five eventual centuries have left unequalled, eloquence was in its infancy. The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and oppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of the multitude, the tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day. The plough passed over the ruins of famous cities. The Imperial republic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarries of Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Egospotami. She was at length reduced by famine and slaughter to humble herself before her enemies, and to purchase existence by the sacrifice of her empire and her laws. During these disastrous and gloomy years, oratory was advancing towards its highest excellence. And it was when the moral, the political, the military character of the people was most utterly degraded; it was when the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that the courts of Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of eloquence that the world has ever known.

The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I think, difficult to assign. The division of labour operates on the productions of the orator as it does on those of the mechanic. It wa. remarked by the ancients, that the Pentathlete, who divided his attention between several exereises, though he could not vie with a boxer in the use of a cestus, or with one who had confined his attention to running in the contest of

the orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his famous conten.poraries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary troops, who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, from similar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italian republics,-perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession, irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but defending without love, and destroying without hatred. We may despise ‘he charac

*It has often occurred to me, that to the circumstances mentioned in the text, is to be referred one of

the most remarkable events in Grecian history. I mean the silent but rapid downfall of the Lacedæmonian power. Soon after the termination of the Peloponnesian military discipline, its social institutions were the same. war, the strength of Lacedæmon began to decline. Its Agesilaus, during whose reign the change took place, was the ablest of its kings. Yet the Spartan armies were frequently defeated in pitched battles, an occurrence considered impossible in the earlier ages of Greece. They are allowed to have fought most bravely, yet they were no longer attended by the success to which they had formerly been accustomed. No solution of these circumstances is offered, as far as I know, by any ancient author. The real cause, I conceive, was this. The Lacedæmonians, alone among the Greeks, formed a permanent standing army. While the citizens of other commonwealths were engaged in agriculture and trade, they had no employment whatever but the study of military discipline. Hence, during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, they had that advantage over their neighbours which regular troops always possess over militia. This advantage they lost when other states began, at a later period, to employ mercenary forces, who were probably as superior to them in the art of wa as they had hitherto been to their antagonists.

ters of these political Condottieri, but it is im- | He may ramble as far as he is inclined, and possible to examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at its perfection.

stop as soon as he is tired. No one takes the trouble to recollect his contradictory opinions or his unredeemed pledges. He may be as superficial, as inconsistent, and as careless as he chooses. Magazines resemble those little angels, who, according to the pretty Rabinical tradition, are generated every morning by the brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise,

I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to consider separately the remains of Lysias, of Eschines, of Demosthenes, and of Isocrates, who though, strictly speaking, he was rather a pamphleteer than an orator, deserves, on many accounts, a place in such a disquisition. The length of my prolegomena and di--whose life is a song,-who warble till sunset, gressions compels me to postpone this part of the subject to another occasion. A magazine is certainly a delightful invention for a very idle or a very busy man. He is not compelled to complete his plan or to adhere to his subject.

and then sink back without regret into nothingness. Such spirits have nothing to do with the detecting spear of Ithuriel or the victorious sword of Michael. It is enough for them to please and be forgotten.

COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, JANUARY, 1841.]

WE have a kindness for Mr. Leigh Hunt. | and which illustrates the character of an imWe form our judgment of him, indeed, only portant epoch in letters, politics, and morals, from events of universal notoriety-from his should disappear from the world. If we err in own works, and from the works of other wri- this matter, we err with the gravest men and ters, who have generally abused him in the bodies of men in the empire, and especially most rancorous manner. But, unless we are with the Church of England, and with the greatly mistaken, he is a very clever, a very great schools of learning which are connected honest, and a very good-natured man. We with her. The whole liberal education of our can clearly discern, together with many merits, countrymen is conducted on the principle, that many serious faults, both in his writings and no book which is valuable, either by reason of in his conduct. But we really think that there the excellence of its style, or by reason of the is hardly a man living whose merits have light which it throws on the history, polity, been so grudgingly allowed, and whose faults and manners of nations, should be withheld have been so cruelly expiated. from the student on account of its impurity. The Athenian Comedies, in which there are scarcely a hundred lines together without some passage of which Rochester would have been ashamed, have been reprinted at the Pitt Press and the Clarendon Press, under the di rection of syndics and delegates appointed by the Universities; and have been illustrated with notes by reverend, very reverend, and right reverend commentators.

In some respects, Mr. Leigh Hunt is excellently qualified for the task which he has now undertaken. His style, in spite of its mannerism-nay, partly by reason of its mannerism -is well suited for light, garrulous, desultory ana, half critical, half biographical. We do not always agree with his literary judgments; but we find in him what is very rare in our time-the power of justly appreciating and heartily enjoying good things of very different kinds. He can adore Shakspeare and Spenser without denying poetical genius to the author of "Alexander's Feast;" or fine observation, rich fancy, and exquisite humour to him who imagined" Will Honeycomb" and "Sir Roger de Coverley." He has paid particular attention to the history of the English drama, from the age of Elizabeth down to our own time, and has every right to be heard with respect on that subject.

Every year the most distinguished young men in the kingdom are examined by bishops and professors of divinity in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes and the Sixth Satire of Juvenal There is certainly something a little ludicrous in the idea of a conclave of venerable fathers of the church rewarding a lad for his intimate acquaintance with writings, compared with which the loosest tale in Prior is modest. But for our own part we have no doubt that the great societies which direct the education The plays to which he now acts as intro- of the English gentry have herein judged ducer are, with few exceptions, such as, in the wisely. It is unquestionable that an extensive pinion of many very respectable people, acquaintance with ancient literature enlarges ought not to be reprinted. In this opinion we and enriches the mind. It is unquestionable can by no means concur. We cannot wish that a man whose mind has been thus enthat any work or class of works which has ex-larged and enriched, is likely to be far more ercised a great influence on the human mind, useful to the state and to the church, than one

* The Dramatic_Works of WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, and FARQUHAR. With Biographical and Critical Notices. By LEIGH HUNT. 8vo. London. 1840.

who is unskilled, or little skilled in classical learning. On the other hand, we find it diffi cult to believe that, in a world so full of tempta tion as this, any gentleman, whose life would