dience to the royal command. Their respect who died uninstructed. It was by paying for individual virtue, and for that reputation such an attention to the children of the sovewhich follows it, was so high, that a kind of reign, that, at the age of fourteen, they were moral inquisition was appointed, on the placed under the care of four statesmen who death of every citizen, to inquire what sort excelled in different talents. By one they of life he had lived, that his memory might were instructed in the principles of justice; be accordingly had in honour or detestation. by another they were taught to subdue senFrom the verdict of this solemn tribunal, suality; by a third they were initiated in the even their kings themselves were not ex-art of government; and by a fourth in the empted. duties of religion. Plato has given a beautiful sketch of this accomplished and sublime education.

The whole aim and end of education among them was to inspire a veneration for GOVERNMENT and RELIGION. They had a It will be found that nearly the same caulaw which assigned some employment to ses which forwarded the ruin of Egypt, conevery individual of the state. And though tributed to destroy Persia; a dereliction of the genius of our free constitution would those fundamental principles of legislation justly reprobate what indeed its temperate and morals to which it had been indebted for and judicious restraints render unnecessary its long prosperity and grandeur. among us, that clause which directed that But be it remembered, that the best huthe employment should be perpetuated in man laws will not be exempt from the imthe same family, yet, perhaps, the severe perfection inseparably bound up with all humoralist, with the example of the well-order-man things. Let us beware, however, of ed government of Egypt before his eyes, those innovators who, instead of carefully might reasonably doubt whether a law, the improving and vigorously executing those effect of which was to keep men in their laws which are already established, adopt no places, though it might now and then check remedies short of destruction; tolerate no the career of a lofty genius, was not a much improvement short of creation; who are less injury to society than the free scope carried away by a wild scheme of visionary which was afforded to the turbulent ambition perfection, which, if it could any where be of every aspiring spirit in the Greek democ- found to exist, would not be likely to be racies. Bossuet, who has, perhaps, penetra- found in the projects of men who disdain to ted more deeply into these subjects than al- avail themselves of ancient experience and most any modern, has pronounced Egypt to progressive wisdom. Thucydides was a polbe the fountain of all political wisdom. itician of another cast; for he declared, What afterwards plunged the Egyptians that even indifferent laws, vigilantly execuinto calamity, and brought final dissolution ted, were superior to the best that were not on their government? It was a departure properly obeyed. Those modern reformists, from its constitutional principles; it was the who affect to be in raptures with the Greek neglect and contempt of those venerable republics, would do well to imitate the deliblaws which for sixteen centuries had constituted their glory and their happiness. They exchanged the love of their wise domestic institutions for the ambition of subduing distant countries. One of their most heroic sovereigns (as is not unusual) was the instrument of their misfortunes. Sesostris was permitted by Divine Providence to diminish the true glory of Egypt, by a restless ambition to extend her territory. This splendid prince abandoned the real grandeur of governing wisely at home for the false glory of foreign conquests, which detained him nine years in distant climates. At a remote period, the people, weary of the blessings they had so long enjoyed under a single monarch, weakened the royal power, by dividing it among multiplied sovereigns.

eration, the slowness, the doubt with which the founder of the Athenian legislation introduced his laws. Instead of those sudden and instantaneous constitutions we have witnessed, which, disdaining the slow growth of moral births, have started at once, full grown, from the brain of the projector, and were as suddenly superseded as rapidly produced; Solon would not suffer a single law to be determined on and accepted till the first charm of novelty was past, and the first heat of enthusiasm had cooled. What would the same capricious theorists say to that reverence with which the Egyptians, above cited, regarded antiquity, example, custom, law, prescription? This sage people considered every political novelty with a jealousy equal to the admiration with which What exalted the ancient Persians to such it is regarded by the new school. Trial, lasting fame? The equity and strict execu-proof, experience, was the slow criterion tion of their LAWS. It was their sovereign by which they ventured to decide on the exdisdain of falsehood in their public transac- cellence of any institution. While, to the tions. Their considering fraud as the most licentious innovator, antiquity is ignorance, degrading of vices, and thus transfusing the custom is tyranny, order is intolerance, laws spirit of their laws into their conduct. It are chains. But the end has corresponded was that love of justice (modern statesmen would do well to imitate the example) which made them oblige themselves to commend the virtues of their enemies. It was such an extraordinary respect for education, that no sorrow was ever expressed for young persons

with the beginning. Their baseless fabrics' have fallen to pieces before they were well reared; and have exposed their superficial, but self-sufficient builders to the just derision of mankind.

20

CHAP. VII.

Greece.

WHEN We contemplate Greece, and espe-
cially when we fix our eyes on Athens, our
admiration is strongly, I had almost said, is
irresistibly excited, in reflecting, that such
a diminutive spot concentrated within itself
whatever is great and eminent in almost ev-
ery point of view; whatever confers dis-
tinction on the human intellect; whatever is
calculated to inspire wonder, or communi-
cate delight. Athens was the pure well-
head of poetry:

Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light.

aside, the popular power, his attention was directed to devest it, as much as possible, of strove to cast about it. His sagacious mind its mischiefs, by the entrenchments that he anticipated the ill effects of that republican restlessness, that at length completely overturned the state which it had so often menaced, and so constantly distracted.

country perpetually exposed to the tyranny This unsettled government, which left the of the few, and the turbulence of the many, was never bound together by any principle of union, by any bond of interest, common to the whole community, except when the general danger, for a time, annihilated the distinction of separate interests. The re

It was the theatre of arms, the cradle of the straint of laws was feeble; the laws them-
arts, the school of philosophy, and the par-selves were often contradictory; often ill
ent of eloquence.
administered; popular intrigues, and tumult-

fiscation and proscription were never at a stand; and the only way of effacing the impression of any revolution which had produced these outrages, was to promote a new one, which engendered in its turn, fresh outrages, and improved upon the antecedent disorders.

To be regarded as the masters in learn-uous assemblies, frequently obstructing their ing, the oracle of taste, and the standard of operation. politeness, to the whole civilized world, is a seldom rewarded with imprisonment, exile, The noblest services were not splendid distinction. But it is a pestilent or assassination. Under every change, conmischief, when the very renown attending such brilliant advantages becomes the vehicle for carrying into other countries the depraved manners by which these pre-eminent advantages are accompanied. This was confessedly the case of Greece with respect to Rome. Rome had conquered Greece by her arms; but whenever a subjugated country contributes, by her vices, to enslave the state which conquered her, she amply revenges herself.

ces.

in their feelings, carried away by every sudBy this light and capricious people, acute den gust of passion, as mutable in their opinBut the perils of this contamination do not lustrious patriots were first sacrificed, and ions as unjust in their decisions, the most ilterminate with their immediate consequen- then honoured with statues; their heroes The ill effects of Grecian manners did were murdered as traitors, and then revernot cease with the corruptions which they enced as gods. engendered at Rome. There is still serious authority, this rash injustice, and fruitles reThis wanton abuse of danger, lest, while the ardent and high spirit-pentance, would be the inevitable conseed young reader contemplates Greece only quence of lodging supreme power in the through the splendid medium of her heroes hands of a vain and variable populace, inand her artists, her poets and her orators; constant in their very vices, perpetually viwhile his imagination is fired with the glories brating between irretrievable crimes and inof conquest, and captivated with the charms effectual regrets. of literature, that he may lose sight of the disorders, the corruptions, and the crimes, by which Athens, the famous seat of arts and of letters, was dishonoured. May he not be tinctured (allowing for change of circumstances) with something of that spirit which inflamed Alexander, when, as he was passing the Hydaspes, he enthusiastically exclaimed, 'O Athenians! could you believe to what dangers I expose myself, for the sake of being celebrated by you!'

ablest of his successors control.

just a subject of admiration, was, doubtless,
That powerful oratory, which is to us so
no inconsiderable cause of the public disor-
ders.
constitutes one of the chief boasts of Athens,
And to that exquisite talent, which
we may look for one principal source of her
disorders:

Those ancients, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will the fierce Democracy,
Shook th' arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.

When we consider what mighty influence
what a powerful engine their demagogues
this talent gave to the popular leaders, and
multitude, who composed their popular as-
possessed, to work upon the passions of the
semblies;

Many of the Athenian vices originated in the very nature of their constitution; in the very spirit of that turbulent democracy which Solon could not restrain, nor the founder of their legislation felt the dangers The great inseparable from the democratic form of government, when he declared, that he had not of those crowds, on whom this stirring elowhen we reflect on the character given them the best laws, but the best which quence was exercised, and remember that they were able to bear. In the very estab- their opinion decided on the fate of the counlishment of his institutions, he betrayed his try all this will contribute to account for distrust of this species of government, by the frequency and violence of the public those guards and ramparts which he was so commotions, and naturally explains why assiduous in providing and multiplying. that rhetorical genius, which shed so bright Knowing himself to be incapable of setting a lustre on the country, was, from the nature

of the constitution, frequently the instrument of convulsing it.

not only procured him a violent death, but the poet, by making the philosopher con While the higher class, in many of the temptible to the populace, paved the way to Greek republics, seemed without scruple to his unjust sentence by the judges. Nay, oppress their inferiors, the populace of perhaps the delight which the Athenians took Athens commonly exerted the same hostile in the impious and offensively loose wit of spirit of resentment against their leaders.- this dramatic poet rendered them more deaf Competition, circumvention, litigation, eve- to the voice of that virtue which was taught ry artifice of private fraud, every stratagem by Plato, and of that liberty in which they of personal injustice, filled up the short in- had once gloried, and which Demosthenes tervals of foreign wars and public contests. continued to thunder in their ears Their How strikingly is St. Paul's definition of rage for sensual pleasure rendered them a that light and frivolous propensity of the fit object for the projects of Philip, and a Athenians which led them to pass the day ready prey to the attacks of Alexander. only to hear or tell some new thing,' illus- In lamenting, however, the corruptions of trated by Plutarch's relation of the illiterate the theatre in Athens, justice compels us to citizen, who voted Aristides to the punish- acknowledge, that her immortal tragic poets, ment of the Ostracism! When this great by their chaste and manly compositions, furman questioned his accuser, whether Aris-nish a noble exception. In no country has tides had ever injured him? He replied, so decency and purity, and, to the disgrace of far from it, that he did not even know him, Christian countries, let it be added, have only he was quite wearied out with hearing morality, and even piety, been so generally him every where called the just. Besides prevalent in any theatrical compositions as in that spirit of envy which is peculiarly alive what in democracies, to have heard this excellent person calumniated would have been a refreshing novelty, and have enabled him, to 'tell a new thing.'

her lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence.

the moral excellencies of these sublime dra-
Yet, in paying a just and warm tribute to
matists, is not an answer provided to that
long agitated question, Whether the stage

can be indeed made a school of morals? No

That passionate fondness for scenic diversions which led the Athenians not only to apply part of the public money to the support of the theatres, and to pay for the admission of the populace, but also made it a capital crime to divert this fund to any oth-question ha ever a fairer chance for deciser service, even to the service of the state, so sacred was this application of it deemed was another concurrent cause of the profligacy of public manners* The abuses to which this universal invitation to luxury and idleness led; the licentiousness of that purely democratic spirit, which made the lowest classes claim as a right to partake in the diversions of the highest; the pernicious productions of some of the comic poets; the

ion than was here afforded. If it be allowed
that there never was a more profligate city
than Athens; if it be equally indisputable
that never country possessed more unexcep-
tionable dramatic poets than Eschylus, So-
phocles and Euripides; if the same city thus
at once produced the best physicians and the
worst patients, what is the result? Do the
condition of citizens were actually reformed
Athenian annals record that any class or
said, by constantly living in the theatre ?
by constantly frequenting, we had almost

Athenians, had too just a judgment to cen-
Plutarch, who severely condemns the
sure either the excellence of the poets, or
the good taste of the people who admired
them. But he blames them for that exces-
sive passion for diversions, which,' says he,
had nearly extinguished public virtue, and
by setting up a new object of attachment,
made them more anxious about the fate of a
play than about the fate of their country."

6

unbounded license introduced by the mask; the voluptuousness of their music, whose extraordinary effects it would be impossible to believe, were they not confirmed by the general voice of antiquity: all these concurring circumstances induced a deprava tion of morals of which less enlightened countries do not often present an example. The profane and impure Aristophanes was almost adored, while the virtue of Socrates *Pericles, not being rich enough to supplant his competitor by acts of liberality, procured this law Such were the manners which historians, with a view to make his court to the people. He orators, and poets have consigned to immorscrupled not, in order to secure their attachment tal fame! Such were the people for whom to his person and government, by thus buying our highly educated youth are taught to feel them with their own money,' effectually to pro- an enthusiastic admiration! Such are the mote their natural levity and idleness, and to cor- forms of government which have excited rupt their morals.-The rulers of a neighbouring the envy, and partly furnished the model to nation have been too skilful adepts in the art of the bloody innovators and frantic politicians corruption, not to admire and eagerly adopt an example so suited to their political circumstances, of our age! Madly to glory in the dream of and so congenial to their national frivolity. Ac-liberty, and to be in fact the victim of changcordingly, an unexampled multitude of theatres ing tyrants, but unchanging tyranny. This have been opened; and in order to allay the dis- was the coveted lot of ancient Athens !contents of the lower class at the expense of their This is the object of reverence, eulogy, and time and morals, the price of these diversions has been reduced so low as almost to emulate the gratuitous admission of the Athenian populace.

* See Wortley Montagu, of the Rise and Fall of ancient Republics.

imitation to a large portion of modern Europe!

spect to a neighbouring nation,-a nation which, under the rapidly-shifting form of evIn reflecting on the splendid works of gen- ery mode of government, from the despotism ius and of art in Athens, as opposed to the of absolute monarchy to a republican anarvices of her government, and the licentious-chy, to which the royal tyranny was comness of her inorals,-will it be thought an parative freedom;-and now again, in the adequate compensation for the corruptions closing scene of this changeful drama, to the of both, if we grant, as we are disposed to heavy subjugation of military despotism, has do, in its fullest extent, that unparalleled never ceased to be the object of childish adcombination of talents, which delighted and miration, of passionate fondness, and servile informed the rest of the world? If we allow imitation, to too many in our own country; that this elegance of taste spread so wide, to persons, too, whose rank giving them the and descended so low, that every individual greatest stake in it, have most to risk by the of an Athenian mob might, as has been tri- assimilation with her manners, and most to umphantly asserted,* be a just critic of dra- lose by the adoption of her principles. And matic composition? That the ear of the though, through the special providence and populace was so nicely tuned and so refined undeserved mercies of God, we have witha judge of the delicacies of pronunciation, stood the flood of revolutionary doctrines, that an Attic herb-woman could detect the let us, taking warning from the resemblance provincial accent of a learned philosopher above pointed out, no longer persist, as in Is it even a sufficient compensation, exqui- the halcyon days of peace, servilely to adopt site as we allow the gratification to have her language, habits, manners and corrupbeen, that the spectator might range among tions. For now to fill up the measure of the statues of Lysippus, or the pictures of our danger, her pictures, and her statues, Apelles, or the critic enjoy the still more in- not the fruits of her own genius-for here tellectual luxury of listening to an oration of the comparison with Athens fails-but the Demosthenes, of a scene of Euripides, plunder of her usurpation, and the spoils of while the rulers of so accomplished a people her injustice, by holding out new baits to our were in general dissolute, tyrannical, op- curiosity, and new attractions to our admirapressive, and unjust; and the people them- tion, are in danger of fatally and finally acselves universally sunk into the most degra-complishing the resemblance. ded state of manners; immersed in the last excess of effeminacy; debased by the most! excessive sensuality, fraud, idleness, avarice, gaming, and debauchery?

If here and there the eye is relieved, and the feelings are refreshed, with the casual appearance of a Miltiades, a Cimon, an Aristides, a Socrates, a Phocion, or a Xenophon; yet these thinly scattered stars serve less to retrieve the Athenian character, by their solitary lustre, or even by their confluent radiance, than to overwhelm it with disgrace, by the atrocious injustice with which these bright luminaries were treated by their country. The eulogium of the citizen is the

satire of the state.

omen be averted!

May the Among the numberless lessons which we may derive from the study of Grecian history, there is one which cannot be too often inculcated, more especially as it is a fact little relished by many of our more refined wits and politicians,-we mean the error of ascribing to arts, to literature, and to politeness, that power of softening and correcting the human heart, which is, in truth, the exclusive prerogative of religion. Really to mend the heart, and purify the principle, is a deeper work than the most finished cultivation of the taste has ever been able to effect. The polished Athenians were among the most unjust of mankind in their national acts, and the most cruel towards their allies. They remarkably exemplify the tendency of act ing in a body, to lessen each man's individual consciousness of guilt or cruelty. This polite people, in their political capacity, committed, without scruple, actions of almost unparalleled barbarity.

While we observe that Greece first became powerful, rich, and great, through the energy of her people, and the vigour of her character, and that this very greatness, power, and riches, have a natural bias towards corruption; that while they happily tend to produce and nourish those arts, which in their just measure are the best embellishEvery reflecting class of British, and esments of a nation; yet carried to excess, pecially of Christian readers, will not fail to and misapplied to vicious purposes, tend to peruse the annals of this admired republic weaken and corrupt it; that Athens, by her with sentiments of deep gratitude to heaven public and private vices, and by her very re- for the vast superiority of our own national, finement in politeness, and her devotedness civil, social, moral, and religious blessings. to the arts, not only precipitated her own And they may enrich the catalogue with that ruin,--but by the transplantation of those one additional advantage, which Xenophon arts, encumbered with those vices, ultimate- thought was all that Athens wanted, and ly contributed to ruin Rome also. While which we possess -We are an Island.* The we take this retrospect, we, of this highly sound and sober politician will see most favoured land, may receive an awful admo- strongly illustrated, in the evils of the Athenition; we may make a most instructive nian state (though dissimilar in some respects comparison of our own situation with re- from modern democracy) the blessings of our See an elegant paper in the Adventurer, in representative government, and of our deliwhich some of these triumphs of Athens are asserted.

*See Montesquieu Esprit des Loix, vol. ii. p. 3.

verance from any approximation towards gality of her citizens; the remarkable sim

that mob government, to which universal suffrage would be the natural and necessary introduction.

plicity of their manners; the habit of transferring from themselves to the state all pretensions to external consequence and splendor; the strictness of her laws, and the striking impartiality of their execution; that inflexible regard to justice, which led them, in the early ages of the republic-so little was the doctrine of expediency in repute among them-to inflict penalties on those citizens who even conquered by deceit, and not by valour; that vigilant attention to private morals which the establishment of a censorship secured, and that zeal for liberty, which was at the same time supported by her political constitution.-These causes were the true origin of the Roman greatness. This was the pedestal on which her colossal power was erected; and though she remained mistress of the world, even at a time when these virtues had begun to decline, the first impulse not having ceased to operate, yet a discerning eye might even then perceive her growing internal weakness, and might anticipate her final dissolution.

The delicate and refined female of our favoured country will feel peculiar sensations of thankfulness, in comparing her happy lot with the degraded state of women in the politest ages of Greece. Condemned to ignorance, labour, and obscurity; excluded from rational intercourse; debarred from every species of intellectual improvement or innocent enjoyment; they never seem to have been the objects of respect or esteem; in the conjugal relation, the servile agent, not the endeared companion. Their depressed state was, in some measure, confirmed by illiberal legal institutions; and their native genins was systematically restrained from rising above one degraded level. Such was the lot of the virtuous part of the sex. We forbear to oppose to this gloomy picture the profligate renown to which the bold pretensions of daring vice elevated mercenary beauty; nor would we glance at the impure topic, but to remind our amiable country- Republican Rome, however, has been women, that immodesty in dress, contempt much too highly panegyrised. The Romans of the sober duties of domestic life, a bound- had, indeed, a public feeling, to which every less appetite for pleasure, and a misapplied kind of private affection gave way; and it devotion to the arts, were among the steps is chiefly on the credit of their sacrificing which led to this systematic profession of their individual interests to the national shameless profligacy, and to the establish- cause, that they acquired so high a renown. ment of those countenanced corruptions which raised the more celebrated, but infamous, Athenian women

To that bad eminence.

It may not be unworthy of remark, that the grand fundamental principle of the ancient republics (and though it was still more strikingly manifest in the Grecian, it was in no small degree the case with republican Every description of men, who know how Rome) was different from that which conto estimate public good, or private happiness, stitutes the essential principle of the British will joyfully acknowledge the visible effect constitution, and even opposite to it. In the which Christianity has had (independently former the public was every thing; the of its influence over its real votaries) in imrights, the comforts, the very existence of proving and elevating the general standard individuals, were as nothing. With us, hap of morals, so as considerably to rectify and raise the conduct of those who are not di- pily the case is very different, nay even exactly the reverse. rectly actuated by its principles. And, last whole community is provided for, by effecThe well-being of the ly, to say nothing of a pure church estab- tually securing the rights, the safety, the lishment, so diametrically the reverse of the comforts of every individual. deplorably blind and ignorant rites of Athe- ancients, the grossest acts of injustice against Among the nian worship,*—who can contemplate, with private persons were continually perpetrated out thankful heart, that large infusion of and were regarded as beneath account, when Christianity into our national laws, which they stood in the way of the will, the interhas set them so infinitely above all compari-est, the aggrandizement, the glory of the son with the admired codes of Lycurgus and of Solon ?

CHAP. VIII.
Rome.

state. In our happier country, not the meanest subject can be injured in his person or his possessions. The little stock of the artisan, the peaceful cottage of the peasant, is secured to him by the universal superintendance, and the strong protection of the public force. The state is justly considered Ir the Romans, from being a handful of ban- as made up of an aggregate of particular ditti, rendered themselves in a short period families; and it is by securing the well-belords of the universe;-if Rome, from being ing of each, that all are preserved in prosan ordinary town in Italy, became foremost perity. We could delight to descant largein genius and in arms, and at length unrival- ly on this topic; and surely the contemplaled in imperial magnificence; let it be remembered that the foundations of this greatness were laid in some of the extraordinary virtues of that republic. The personal fru

*Acts of the Apostles, ch. xvii

tion could not but warm the hearts of Britons with lively gratitude to the author of all their blessings, and with zealous attachment to that constitution, which conveys and secures to them the enjoyment of such unequalled happiness! But we dare not expa