No More Learning

It was remarked by the ancients that the
Pentathlete, who divided his attention between several exercises, though
he could not vie with a boxer in the use of the cestus, or with one who
had confined his attention to running in the contest of the stadium,
yet enjoyed far greater general 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 for 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. They
both advanced to perfection by contemporaneous steps, and from similar
causes. The early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, were
merely a militia. It was found that in both employments practice and
discipline gave superiority. (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 Lacedaemonian power. Soon after the termination of the
Peloponnesian war, the strength of Lacedaemon began to decline. Its
military discipline, its social institutions, were the same. 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 Lacedaemonians, 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 war as they had hitherto been to their antagonists. ) Each pursuit
therefore became first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as the
professors of each became more expert in their particular craft, they
became less respectable in their general character. Their skill had been
obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested
views. Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and the
orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his
famous contemporaries 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
the characters of these political Condottieri; but is impossible
to examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at its
perfection.

I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to consider
separately the remains of Lysias, of Aeschines, 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 digressions 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. He
may ramble as far as he is inclined, and 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 Rabbinical tradition, are generated every
morning by the brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise,--whose
life is a song,--who warble till sunset, 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.

*****




A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC POEM, TO BE ENTITLED "THE
WELLINGTONIAD," AND TO BE PUBLISHED A. D. 2824. (November 1824. )

How I became a prophet it is not very important to the reader to know.
Nevertheless I feel all the anxiety which, under similar circumstances,
troubled the sensitive mind of Sidrophel; and, like him, am eager to
vindicate myself from the suspicion of having practised forbidden arts,
or held intercourse with beings of another world. I solemnly declare,
therefore, that I never saw a ghost, like Lord Lyttleton; consulted a
gipsy, like Josephine; or heard my name pronounced by an absent person,
like Dr Johnson. Though it is now almost as usual for gentlemen to
appear at the moment of their death to their friends as to call on them
during their life, none of my acquaintance have been so polite as to pay
me that customary attention. I have derived my knowledge neither from
the dead nor from the living; neither from the lines of a hand, nor from
the grounds of a tea-cup; neither from the stars of the firmament, nor
from the fiends of the abyss. I have never, like the Wesley family,
heard "that mighty leading angel," who "drew after him the third part of
heaven's sons," scratching in my cupboard. I have never been enticed
to sign any of those delusive bonds which have been the ruin of so many
poor creatures; and, having always been an indifferent horse man, I have
been careful not to venture myself on a broomstick.

My insight into futurity, like that of George Fox the quaker, and that
of our great and philosophic poet, Lord Byron, is derived from simple
presentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which are
employed by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be found
more correct than theirs, or, at all events, as Sir Benjamin Back bite
says in the play, "more circumstantial. "

I prophesy then, that, in the year 2824, according to our present
reckoning, a grand national Epic Poem, worthy to be compared with the
Iliad, the Aeneid, or the Jerusalem, will be published in London.

Men naturally take an interest in the adventures of every eminent
writer. I will, therefore, gratify the laudable curiosity, which, on
this occasion, will doubtless be universal, by pre fixing to my account
of the poem a concise memoir of the poet.

Richard Quongti will be born at Westminster on the 1st of July, 2786.
He will be the younger son of the younger branch of one of the most
respectable families in England. He will be linearly descended from
Quongti, the famous Chinese liberal, who, after the failure of the
heroic attempt of his party to obtain a constitution from the Emperor
Fim Fam, will take refuge in England, in the twenty-third century. Here
his descendants will obtain considerable note; and one branch of the
family will be raised to the peerage.

Richard, however, though destined to exalt his family to distinction
far nobler than any which wealth or titles can bestow, will be born to
a very scanty fortune. He will display in his early youth such striking
talents as will attract the notice of Viscount Quongti, his third
cousin, then secretary of state for the Steam Department. At the expense
of this eminent nobleman, he will be sent to prosecute his studies at
the university of Tombuctoo. To that illustrious seat of the muses all
the ingenuous youth of every country will then be attracted by the high
scientific character of Professor Quashaboo, and the eminent literary
attainments of Professor Kissey Kickey. In spite of this formidable
competition, however, Quongti will acquire the highest honours in every
department of knowledge, and will obtain the esteem of his associates by
his amiable and unaffected manners. The guardians of the young Duke of
Carrington, premier peer of England, and the last remaining scion of the
ancient and illustrious house of Smith, will be desirous to secure so
able an instructor for their ward. With the Duke, Quongti will perform
the grand tour, and visit the polished courts of Sydney and Capetown.
After prevailing on his pupil, with great difficulty, to subdue a
violent and imprudent passion which he had conceived for a Hottentot
lady, of great beauty and accomplishments indeed, but of dubious
character, he will travel with him to the United States of America. But
that tremendous war which will be fatal to American liberty will, at
that time, be raging through the whole federation. At New York the
travellers will hear of the final defeat and death of the illustrious
champion of freedom, Jonathon Higginbottom, and of the elevation of
Ebenezer Hogsflesh to the perpetual Presidency. They will not choose
to proceed in a journey which would expose them to the insults of that
brutal soldiery, whose cruelty and rapacity will have devastated Mexico
and Colombia, and now, at length, enslaved their own country.

On their return to England, A. D. 2810, the death of the Duke will compel
his preceptor to seek for a subsistence by literary labours. His fame
will be raised by many small productions of considerable merit; and he
will at last obtain a permanent place in the highest class of writers by
his great epic poem.

The celebrated work will become, with unexampled rapidity, a popular
favourite. The sale will be so beneficial to the author that, instead of
going about the dirty streets on his velocipede, he will be enabled to
set up his balloon.

The character of this noble poem will be so finely and justly given
in the Tombuctoo Review for April 2825, that I cannot refrain from
translating the passage. The author will be our poet's old preceptor,
Professor Kissey Kickey.

"In pathos, in splendour of language, in sweetness of versification, Mr
Quongti has long been considered as unrivalled. In his exquisite poem on
the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus all these qualities are displayed in their
greatest perfection. How exquisitely does that work arrest and embody
the undefined and vague shadows which flit over an imaginative mind. The
cold worldling may not comprehend it; but it will find a response in the
bosom of every youthful poet, of every enthusiastic lover, who has seen
an Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus by moonlight. But we were yet to learn that
he possessed the comprehension, the judgment, and the fertility of mind
indispensable to the epic poet.

"It is difficult to conceive a plot more perfect than that of the
'Wellingtoniad. ' It is most faithful to the manners of the age to which
it relates. It preserves exactly all the historical circumstances,
and interweaves them most artfully with all the speciosa miracula of
supernatural agency. "

Thus far the learned Professor of Humanity in the university of
Tombuctoo. I fear that the critics of our time will form an opinion
diametrically opposite as to these every points. Some will, I fear,
be disgusted by the machinery, which is derived from the mythology of
ancient Greece. I can only say that, in the twenty-ninth century, that
machinery will be universally in use among poets; and that Quongti will
use it, partly in conformity with the general practice, and partly from
a veneration, perhaps excessive, for the great remains of classical
antiquity, which will then, as now, be assiduously read by every man of
education; though Tom Moore's songs will be forgotten, and only three
copies of Lord Byron's works will exist: one in the possession of King
George the Nineteenth, one in the Duke of Carrington's collection,
and one in the library of the British Museum. Finally, should any good
people be concerned to hear that Pagan fictions will so long retain
their influence over literature, let them reflect that, as the Bishop
of St David's says, in his "Proofs of the Inspiration of the Sibylline
Verses," read at the last meeting of the Royal Society of Literature,
"at all events, a Pagan is not a Papist. "

Some readers of the present day may think that Quongti is by no means
entitled to the compliments which his Negro critic pays him on his
adherence to the historical circumstances of the time in which he has
chosen his subject; that, where he introduces any trait of our manners,
it is in the wrong place, and that he confounds the customs of our age
with those of much more remote periods. I can only say that the
charge is infinitely more applicable to Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. If,
therefore, the reader should detect, in the following abstract of the
plot, any little deviation from strict historical accuracy, let him
reflect, for a moment, whether Agamemnon would not have found as much to
censure in the Iliad,--Dido in the Aeneid,--or Godfrey in the Jerusalem.
Let him not suffer his opinions to depend on circumstances which cannot
possibly affect the truth or falsehood of the representation. If it
be impossible for a single man to kill hundreds in battle, the
impossibility is not diminished by distance of time. If it be as certain
that Rinaldo never disenchanted a forest in Palestine as it is that the
Duke of Wellington never disenchanted the forest of Soignies, can we, as
rational men, tolerate the one story and ridicule the other? Of this, at
least, I am certain, that whatever excuse we have for admiring the plots
of those famous poems our children will have for extolling that of the
"Wellingtoniad. "

I shall proceed to give a sketch of the narrative. The subject is "The
Reign of the Hundred Days. "


BOOK I.

The poem commences, in form, with a solemn proposition of the subject.
Then the muse is invoked to give the poet accurate information as to the
causes of so terrible a commotion. The answer to this question, being,
it is to be supposed, the joint production of the poet and the muse,
ascribes the event to circumstances which have hitherto eluded all the
research of political writers, namely, the influence of the god Mars,
who, we are told, had some forty years before usurped the conjugal
rights of old Carlo Buonaparte, and given birth to Napoleon. By his
incitement it was that the emperor with his devoted companions was
now on the sea, returning to his ancient dominions. The gods were at
present, fortunately for the adventurer, feasting with the Ethiopians,
whose entertainments, according to the ancient custom described by
Homer, they annually attended, with the same sort of condescending
gluttony which now carries the cabinet to Guildhall on the 9th of
November. Neptune was, in consequence, absent, and unable to prevent
the enemy of his favourite island from crossing his element. Boreas,
however, who had his abode on the banks of the Russian ocean, and who,
like Thetis in the Iliad, was not of sufficient quality to have an
invitation to Ethiopia, resolves to destroy the armament which brings
war and danger to his beloved Alexander. He accordingly raises a storm
which is most powerfully described. Napoleon bewails the inglorious fate
for which he seems to be reserved. "Oh! thrice happy," says he, "those
who were frozen to death at Krasnoi, or slaughtered at Leipsic. Oh,
Kutusoff, bravest of the Russians, wherefore was I not permitted to fall
by thy victorious sword? " He then offers a prayer to Aeolus, and vows
to him a sacrifice of a black ram. In consequence, the god recalls his
turbulent subject; the sea is calmed; and the ship anchors in the port
of Frejus. Napoleon and Bertrand, who is always called the faithful
Bertrand, land to explore the country; Mars meets them disguised as
a lancer of the guard, wearing the cross of the legion of honour. He
advises them to apply for necessaries of all kinds to the governor,
shows them the way, and disappears with a strong smell of gunpowder.
Napoleon makes a pathetic speech, and enters the governor's house. Here
he sees hanging up a fine print of the battle of Austerlitz, himself
in the foreground giving his orders. This puts him in high spirits; he
advances and salutes the governor, who receives him most loyally, gives
him an entertainment, and, according to the usage of all epic hosts,
insists after dinner on a full narration of all that has happened to him
since the battle of Leipsic.


BOOK II.

Napoleon carries his narrative from the battle of Leipsic to his
abdication. But, as we shall have a great quantity of fighting on our
hands, I think it best to omit the details.


BOOK III.

Napoleon describes his sojourn at Elba, and his return; how he was
driven by stress of weather to Sardinia, and fought with the harpies
there; how he was then carried southward to Sicily, where he generously
took on board an English sailor, whom a man-of-war had unhappily left
there, and who was in imminent danger of being devoured by the Cyclops;
how he landed in the bay of Naples, saw the Sibyl, and descended to
Tartarus; how he held a long and pathetic conversation with Poniatowski,
whom he found wandering unburied on the banks of Styx; how he swore to
give him a splendid funeral; how he had also an affectionate interview
with Desaix; how Moreau and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fled at the sight
of him. He relates that he then re-embarked, and met with nothing of
importance till the commencement of the storm with which the poem opens.


BOOK IV.

The scene changes to Paris. Fame, in the garb of an express, brings
intelligence of the landing of Napoleon. The king performs a sacrifice:
but the entrails are unfavourable; and the victim is without a heart.
He prepares to encounter the invader. A young captain of the guard,--the
son of Maria Antoinette by Apollo,--in the shape of a fiddler, rushes
in to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army. The
royal forces are drawn out for battle. Full catalogues are given of
the regiments on both sides; their colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and
uniform.


BOOK V.

The king comes forward and defies Napoleon to single combat. Napoleon
accepts it. Sacrifices are offered. The ground is measured by Ney and
Macdonald. The combatants advance. Louis snaps his pistol in vain. The
bullet of Napoleon, on the contrary, carries off the tip of the king's
ear. Napoleon then rushes on him sword in hand. But Louis snatches up a
stone, such as ten men of those degenerate days will be unable to move,
and hurls it at his antagonist. Mars averts it. Napoleon then seizes
Louis, and is about to strike a fatal blow, when Bacchus intervenes,
like Venus in the third book of the Iliad, bears off the king in a thick
cloud, and seats him in an hotel at Lille, with a bottle of Maraschino
and a basin of soup before him. Both armies instantly proclaim Napoleon
emperor.


BOOK VI.

Neptune, returned from his Ethiopian revels, sees with rage the events
which have taken place in Europe. He flies to the cave of Alecto,
and drags out the fiend, commanding her to excite universal hostility
against Napoleon. The Fury repairs to Lord Castlereagh; and, as, when
she visited Turnus, she assumed the form of an old woman, she here
appears in the kindred shape of Mr Vansittart, and in an impassioned
address exhorts his lordship to war. His lordship, like Turnus, treats
this unwonted monitor with great disrespect, tells him that he is an old
doting fool, and advises him to look after the ways and means, and leave
questions of peace and war to his betters. The Fury then displays all
her terrors. The neat powdered hair bristles up into snakes; the black
stockings appear clotted with blood; and, brandishing a torch, she
announces her name and mission. Lord Castlereagh, seized with fury,
flies instantly to the Parliament, and recommends war with a torrent
of eloquent invective. All the members instantly clamour for vengeance,
seize their arms which are hanging round the walls of the house, and
rush forth to prepare for instant hostilities.


BOOK VII.

In this book intelligence arrives at London of the flight of the Duchess
d'Angouleme from France. It is stated that this heroine, armed from head
to foot, defended Bordeaux against the adherents of Napoleon, and that
she fought hand to hand with Clausel, and beat him down with an enormous
stone. Deserted by her followers, she at last, like Turnus, plunged,
armed as she was, into the Garonne, and swam to an English ship which
lay off the coast. This intelligence yet more inflames the English to
war.

A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows. The Duke
of Wellington goes to take leave of the duchess; and a scene passes
quite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache. Lord Douro
is frightened at his father's feather, but begs for his epaulette.


BOOK VIII.

Neptune, trembling for the event of the war, implores Venus, who, as
the offspring of his element, naturally venerates him, to procure from
Vulcan a deadly sword and a pair of unerring pistols for the Duke. They
are accordingly made, and superbly decorated. The sheath of the sword,
like the shield of Achilles, is carved, in exquisitely fine miniature,
with scenes from the common life of the period; a dance at Almack's a
boxing match at the Fives-court, a lord mayor's procession, and a man
hanging. All these are fully and elegantly described. The Duke thus
armed hastens to Brussels.


BOOK IX.

The Duke is received at Brussels by the King of the Netherlands with
great magnificence. He is informed of the approach of the armies of all
the confederate kings. The poet, however, with a laudable zeal for
the glory of his country, completely passes over the exploits of the
Austrians in Italy, and the discussions of the congress. England
and France, Wellington and Napoleon, almost exclusively occupy his
attention. Several days are spent at Brussels in revelry. The English
heroes astonish their allies by exhibiting splendid games, similar to
those which draw the flower of the British aristocracy to Newmarket and
Moulsey Hurst, and which will be considered by our descendants with
as much veneration as the Olympian and Isthmian contests by classical
students of the present time. In the combat of the cestus, Shaw, the
lifeguardsman, vanquishes the Prince of Orange, and obtains a bull as a
prize. In the horse-race, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxbridge ride
against each other; the Duke is victorious, and is rewarded with twelve
opera-girls. On the last day of the festivities, a splendid dance takes
place, at which all the heroes attend.


BOOK X.

Mars, seeing the English army thus inactive, hastens to rouse Napoleon,
who, conducted by Night and Silence, unexpectedly attacks the Prussians.
The slaughter is immense. Napoleon kills many whose histories and
families are happily particularised. He slays Herman, the craniologist,
who dwelt by the linden-shadowed Elbe, and measured with his eye the
skulls of all who walked through the streets of Berlin. Alas! his own
skull is now cleft by the Corsican sword. Four pupils of the University
of Jena advance together to encounter the Emperor; at four blows he
destroys them all. Blucher rushes to arrest the devastation; Napoleon
strikes him to the ground, and is on the point of killing him, but
Gneisenau, Ziethen, Bulow, and all the other heroes of the Prussian
army, gather round him, and bear the venerable chief to a distance
from the field. The slaughter is continued till night. In the meantime
Neptune has despatched Fame to bear the intelligence to the Duke, who
is dancing at Brussels. The whole army is put in motion. The Duke of
Brunswick's horse speaks to admonish him of his danger, but in vain.


BOOK XI.

Picton, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange, engage Ney at
Quatre Bras. Ney kills the Duke of Brunswick, and strips him, sending
his belt to Napoleon. The English fall back on Waterloo.
Jupiter calls
a council of the gods, and commands that none shall interfere on either
side. Mars and Neptune make very eloquent speeches. The battle of
Waterloo commences. Napoleon kills Picton and Delancy. Ney engages
Ponsonby and kills him. The Prince of Orange is wounded by Soult. Lord
Uxbridge flies to check the carnage. He is severely wounded by Napoleon,
and only saved by the assistance of Lord Hill. In the meantime the
Duke makes a tremendous carnage among the French. He encounters General
Duhesme and vanquishes him, but spares his life. He kills Toubert, who
kept the gaming-house in the Palais Royal, and Maronet, who loved to
spend whole nights in drinking champagne. Clerval, who had been hooted
from the stage, and had then become a captain in the Imperial Guard,
wished that he had still continued to face the more harmless enmity of
the Parisian pit. But Larrey, the son of Esculapius, whom his father had
instructed in all the secrets of his art, and who was surgeon-general of
the French army, embraced the knees of the destroyer, and conjured him
not to give death to one whose office it was to give life. The Duke
raised him, and bade him live.

But we must hasten to the close. Napoleon rushes to encounter
Wellington. Both armies stand in mute amaze. The heroes fire their
pistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that of Wellington, formed by the
hand of Vulcan, and primed by the Cyclops, wounds the Emperor in the
thigh. He flies, and takes refuge among his troops. The flight becomes
promiscuous. The arrival of the Prussians, from a motive of patriotism,
the poet completely passes over.


BOOK XII.

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.