but it is only cursorily; and M. Clavier perfectly knows that tyrannus in Greek is not equivalent to tyran in French,-that it generally denotes merely the possession of kingly power, without any reference to the manner in which that power is exercised. The only expression, descriptive of character, which Herodotus applies to this person, is, that he was the most domineering man of all the Greeks of his time;* clearly alluding to his foreign, not to his domestic policy; nor is there one syllable about his cruelty, or even his violence; and the actual instances which Herodotus has briefly given of his ambition, fall much short of those which M. Clavier himself has collected from other authors. There seems, then, to have been very little demand, on this occasion, for so solemn a protest against the republicanism of the Greek histo

rian.

The case of Phidon does not furnish an opportunity for exemplifying that difference of colour which we have described as distinguishing the anti-democratic partialities of Mr. Mitford from those of the author before us; for the truth is, that Mr. Mitford has fairly given up his Argive Majesty, as an untractably ambitious and illconditioned character. For a complete example of the contrast in this respect between the two writers, we shall resort to the account of another personage, far more familiarly known to modern readers than King Phidon;-we mean, Pisistratus of Athens. In the pages of Mr. Mitford, this singular man appears only as the fortunate leader of a fortunate party; in the work of M. Clavier, he is ever represented as an amiable and blameless usurper.

Hav

The device by which Pisistratus, in the first instance, possessed himself of the chief authority in Athens, is, according to the common mode of relating the story, well known to our readers. ing wounded himself, he appeared bleeding in the forum, declared to the people that he had narrowly escaped assassination from those to whom his popular principles had rendered him obnoxious, and implored their protection. The people, to whom his affability and munificence had long endeared him, heard his complaints with the deepest sympathy, and, on the motion of one of his partisans, decreed him a body-guard, with which body-guard he seized the citadel, and rendered himself supreme.

Mr. Mitford accepts every part of this story, excepting that which charges Pisistratus with having inflicted on himself the wounds of which he complained. He inclines, on the contrary, to believe that the alleged attempt at assassination was really made; and at the same time asserts that the appointment of a guard for

* ὑβρίσαντος μέγιστα δὴ Ἑλλήνων ἁπαντων. Lib. 6. 127.

the person of a citizen, was a favour of the granting of which other instances occur in the history of the Grecian democracies.The intended inference is, that Pisistratus has been, in this first stage at least, falsely loaded with the reproach of usurpation; and, in fact, the usurper, if he was such,' is the very hardest appellation affixed to that personage in Mr. Mitford's history. But why Pisistratus, after his escape from the daggers of his enemies, preferred his appeal to a tumultuous and exciteable populace, rather than to the proper judicatures of his country, then newly instituted or remodelled by Solon;-and whether it was some second attempt at assassination, even in the face of his life-guards, which convinced him that he could be safe only behind stone walls, and thus prompted him to the seizure of the citadel ;-Mr. Mitford has not undertaken to explain.

The French historian, on the other hand, relates the story in question, without any departure from the current edition of it, and speaks of the craft, ambition, and usurpation, of Pisistratus, without any embarrassment or disguise. But to these plain, and, we fear, too faithful representations, his extravagant estimate of the benefits which the Athenians derived from the administration of the usurper, and his censure on that people for the prejudices which led them to confer on him who had forcibly made himself their master the appellation of tyrant,-form a curious contrast. In this connection, the reader is tempted to view the machinations of Pisistratus against the liberties of his country nearly with the same eyes with which he regards the ingenious and well-directed. rogueries of a Scapin;-as the ebullitions of a sort of virtuous waggishness, by means of which the surly and quizzical old guardians of the state are cheated, and the state itself united to the only individual worthy of such a bride and such a fortune. Indeed we have very little doubt that, in the modern court of the Tuilleries, craft, ambition, and usurpation, are by no means avoided to be mentioned as subjects too delicate for public discussion. We should rather conceive that these little tours d'adresse are openly spoken of with equal familiarity and sang-froid; that the old prejudices in favour of a gouvernement tempéré are more than revived; and that not only is he who saves the people the trouble of ruling themselves, thought to perform a great service, but that the merits of the service are supposed to be much enhanced when it is undertaken by an uninvited volunteer.

Pisistratus was, once and again, expelled from his government and from Athens; and it is notorious that his final re-instatement was effected by force of arms. His first military operation, on this occasion, was to possess himself of Marathon, Hither, says Hero

dotus,

dotus, his partisans resorted out of the city, and also as many of the people as preferred tyranny to liberty.' This statement, distinguished by the simplicity so characteristic of the father of history, has been adopted by both the modern historians now under our eye, but with a gloss in either case, which it will be amusing to

observe.

'Hither (says Mr. Mitford) his remaining partisans in Athens flocked to his standard; together with many other Athenians who, according to Herodotus's expression, "preferred tyranny to liberty;" that is, it should seem, those to whom that called, by the opposite faction, the tyranny of Pisistratus, would give freedom, whereas the administration of the Alcmæonids was real tyranny to them; for in no other acceptation does the expression appear intelligible.'

We must candidly confess that, to us, this comment on the expression appears considerably less intelligible than the text; but, so far as we comprehend it, it seems intended to convey that Pisistratus, instead of being, as by vulgar error he has been supposed, an usurper, was a sort of Thrasybulus or Pelopidas, and should be numbered among those glorious assertors of their country's freedom whom the admiration of mankind has enrolled in the very next column of fame to the noble army of martyrs. The context of Mr. Mitford seems to confirm this interpretation; for we there find the absolute power, which Pisistratus subsequently exercised over his countrymen, sketched out in the following very delicate strokes: As head of the prevailing party, he had of course the principal influence in the government. That the possession of the principal influence by Pisistratus was altogether a matter of course, we fully concur with this author in thinking.

'Hither (says M. Clavier,) hasted all those Athenians who were attached to the party of Pisistratus, and all those qui préféroient ·la tranquillité dont ils jouissoient sous son règne, aux orages de la liberté. What would have been thought of such an expression in Paris, in the year 1792! We certainly are no advocates for the turbulent liberty of the Athenian democracy; and we can forgive those who were personal and perhaps suffering witnesses of the fearful hurricane which shipwrecked the French monarchy, for being somewhat jealous of even the milder gales that blow from the same quarter. But, with respect to themselves, Englishmen must be allowed to have their own feelings on these subjects; and they certainly would not exchange, either physically or politically, their churlish and unquiet, but salubrious atmosphere, for climates whose unclouded suns parch up life, and whose fragrant breezes bear on their wings not balm but pestilence.

It may be thought, perhaps, that the mildness and judgment of the administration of Pisistratus, together with his princely patron

age of literature and the arts, sufficiently expiated the original sin of a bad title. To this notion, his many splendid and captivating qualities, acting on us even through the mere report of historians, naturally dispose the mind; and, in a degree, undoubtedly the notion is just; for Pisistratus was a combination and a form' nobly put together, and, if he reduced his country to servitude, yet never surely were mankind more elegantly or classically enslaved. If, however, we may trust the account given in the work before us, his situation seems to have compelled his nature to some acts of policy, not very dissimilar from those which have immortalized certain other eminent members of the same brotherhood. He took measures, as our author informs us, to consolidate his authority.— He introduced into Athens bodies of foreign mercenary troops, principally barbarians. He collected together all the children of the chiefs of the party who had opposed him, and deported them, as hostages, to Naxos. His great enemies, the Alcmaouidæ, he drove into exile. By a refined expedient, he deprived all the citizens of their arms. As the populace of cities, says M. Clavier, are always seditious and unmanageable, he set himself to diminish their number in Athens, by obliging all those who were not persons of substance, to betake themselves as labourers into the country. These proceedings, and others similar to these, does our historian report; and, after adding to them some very striking and amiable acts of personal liberality, he concludes his description of his hero with the following memorable observation, which we shall give unaccompanied by a single comment :

'On ne voit donc rien dans toute sa conduite, par où il ait pu mériter la réputation de tyran, que cherchèrent à lui donner les Athéniens, dont Hérodote a adopté tous les préjugés à son égard." Tom. ii. p. 341.

In closing his history, which terminates with the short war waged by the Athenians against the Lacedemonians and the Baotians, immediately after the expulsion of the Pisistratidæ, the author once more reverts to the object which we have been considering. As he began with Charlemagne, so he concludes with Pisistratus. Herodotus having asserted that the success of the Athenians in the war in question, was owing to the energy which the recent acquisition of liberty had infused into their minds, M. Clavier attacks this sentiment; we admit with plausibility, and in part also, though, as we think, only in part, with justice. We subjoin the passage.

Mais à qui durent-ils cet avantage? n'est-ce pas à Pisistrate et à ses fils qui en en faisant un peuple agriculteur, les rendirent beaucoup plus capables de supporter la fatigue, et qui les assujettirent à une discipline militaire à laquelle les peuples libres de la Grèce avoient beaucoup de

peine à se plier, et sans laquelle la bravoure est plutôt nuisible qu'utile. Au reste, il est certain qu'à dater de ce moment, la puissance des Athéniens prit un accroissement prodigieux, et ils se crurent bientôt en état de disputer le premier rang aux Lacedæmoniens, et cette rivalité fut une des principales causes des malheurs que la Grèce éprouva par la suite. Les Athéniens commencèrent aussi alors à sortir de la barbarie dans laquelle ils étoient plongés ainsi que tous les autres peuples de la Grèce européenne, et ils durent ce premier élan aux encouragements que Pisistrate et ses fils donnèrent aux lettres et aux arts, en formant à Athènes une bibliothèque, en y faisant connoître les poésies d'Homère, en y attirant des poëtes célébres, tels qu' Anacréon et Simonides de Céos, et enfin en y faisant construire plusieurs édifices publics. Ce premier mouvement une fois donné aux esprits, les progrès furent rapides, car les quatre-vingts ans qui s'écoulèrent entre la chute des Pisistratides et le commencement de la guerre du Péloponnèse, virent éclore et se former la plupart des grands talens qui illustrèrent le siècle de Périclès. C'est donc ici le commencement d'une nouvelle époque dont l'histoire est beaucoup plus connue et se trouve par conséquent exclue du plan que je me suis proposé, qui est uniquement de répandre quelque jour sur des temps dont on s'étoit, jusqu'à présent, occupé trop légèrement.' Tom. ii. pp. 358, 359.

Into the reflections which the doctrines contained in this passage might be calculated to excite, we will not enter; but we pretty clearly perceive the allusion which was in the mind of the writer, and allow its force. At the same time, we are not prepared to say that the analogy is perfect, or that the portrait of the polished and truly Attic usurper of Athens could with any suitableness be suspended in the imperial gallery of revolutionised France. Many a deep tint must be cast across his brow, many a ruffian furrow ploughed into his cheek, before his countenance would appear in unison with the grim character of that scene. We must add to the Pisistratus recorded in history, the extremes of ignoble passion, low pride, and brutality, a fierce vindictiveness, a contempt for the holiest obligations, a thousand forms of treasons, stratagems and spoils, innumerable varieties of battles, murders, and sudden deaths, before a true Parisian could possibly recognise him for the god of his idolatry,--before the chaplet which seemed to be woven by Apollo and the Muses, could possibly be mistaken for the prototype of the iron crown. No, it is of other mould and sterner stuff that the despots of our day are composed.-' Cum illo ego te dominandi cupidine conferre possum, cæteris verò rebus nullo modo comparandus es.'*

But though we cannot allow that the Pisistratidæ of France are

* Philipp. ii. 45.