mind exhibited a combination of powers of the rarest kind. This is fully evidenced in his numerous, profound, and original writings, which have greatly contributed to extend the horizon of Jewish learning and Jewish theology. Nevertheless, we do not find that the system introduced by this remarkable man has ultimately pervaded, to any great extent, the mass of Judaism, or even influenced the doctrines of its teachers. Yet the "hearer and answerer of prayer" will, hereafter, open a medium of true light for His ancient and unforsaken people: the kinsmen of Jesus Christ, "according to the flesh," shall not be everlasting captives to the mendacious Talmud; the reproach shall yet be rolled away from the natural compatriots of our Apostles, those best of human benefactors; and the church of Israel, in her rejoicing, shall no more call upon the Lord as "Baali, but as Ishi." When that day shall dawn, it will be lamented the more that Moses bar Maimon, and his admirers, did not further exert that high privilege of their talents, to bless and to receive blessings in return. The time of his death is variously assigned; some say he died in A. D. 1205, others, 1206, and others, 1208, at Cairo, universally looked up to during his lifetime, and regretted at his death by all the synagogues of Africa, Spain, and elsewhere. At Alexandria, and at Jerusalem, funeral orations were delivered, and public mourning assumed. According to Abulfaradge, before his death, Maimonides expressed a desire that his heirs should embalm his body, and inter it by the Lake of Tiberias, where many saints reposed. Rabbi S. Shalam is also of the same opinion. Accordingly, his corpse was carried to Tiberias, where it was interred, and a monument erected, the inscription of which forcibly eulogized his great merits, and celebrated his well-earned fame. His death was considered, both by the Israelites and the Egyptians, a national misfortune, and the year in which he died was called Lamentum Lamentabile. ART. IV.-GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE. History of Greece. By GEORGE GROTE, Esq. Reprinted from the London edition. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co, 17 and 19 Cornhill. Vols. 1-7. 1851. Vol. 8. 1852. New York: Harper & Brothers. Vols. 9-10. 1853. Vol. 11. 1855. Vol. 12. THE earlier volumes of Mr. Grote's admirable history of Greece inaugurated a new era in the investigation of the career and development of the remarkable people who inhabited the ancient Hellas, and diffused the Hellenic culture with such brilliant success, that they are justly regarded as the chief progenitors of all subsequent civilization. The later volumes have fully sustained the sanguine anticipations excited by the preliminary chapters, and justified the flattering hopes expressed by Niebuhr, when informed of the meditated labours of Mr. Grote. Many years of expectation elapsed, after it was known that this new history of Greece had been undertaken, before the publication of the first two volumes; many more have since passed away during its slow composition-for the subject demanded minute and extensive research-and the successive volumes, multiplying and becoming more tumescent with the progress of the work, lingered along amid the interruptions occasioned by the contemporaneous agitations of Europe. Thus, this History has already become classical before an opportunity has been afforded of criticising it in its integrity; and the public verdict has been unhesitatingly pronounced in its favour, before we have ventured to pass in review its distinctive peculiarities, and the mode of their development. The work, however, is too remarkable in itself, and exhibits too important a phase of Hellenic history, for us to forego the examination, however tardy, of its merits and defects, or to waive the privilege of expressing our views in regard to the general execution of the great task accomplished by Mr. Grote. The transition from Gillies to Grote is like exchanging the drivelling loquacity of imbecile old age for the quick intelligence and vigorous reflection of inquiring manhood. It is a change slowly and gradually effected. Mitford* and Thirlwall-each the contemporary of one of the extremes-mark the two main stages of this progress, which has been largely facilitated by the patient and conscientious researches of Clinton's "Fasti Hellenici." But the immense labours, the acute investigations, and the ever-recur * Mitford (1734-1827) was born and died before Gillies (1746-1836). He commenced his History of Greece earlier (1784-1810, 4 vols. 4to.), but finished it later than his rival (1786, 2 vols. 4to.) ring doubts of the German scholars, have been the principal agents of the improvement, and must always be gratefully acknowledged in our thoughts, if it be not always convenient to express our obligations. Without their elaborate, and often excessive inquiries, such a picture of the life and development of the Greeks, as is presented by Mr. Grote, would have been an impossibility. This admission should mitigate our censures of the earlier historians when contrasting them with the latest. Nor is the credit slight which is due to Mitford, notwithstanding his violent antipathies and his passionate perversions. His temper, his prejudices, his associations, and his narrow political predilections, betrayed him constantly into error, often into grievous misrepresentation. But he wrote his History of Greece with spirit, and with the ever-present feeling that what he described had once been a reality, and not a silly nursery tale; that the personages and events evoked from the ashes of the past had once been endued with life or achieved by living actors; and that the triumphs, the disasters, the successes, and the follies of the Greeks had been inspired by the common passions of mankind, and influenced by accidents similar in kind, if not in form, to those by which modern nations continue to be affected. We owe much to Mitford for having treated the annals of Greece as a bygone reality, and not as an antiquated romance. No one, however, who regarded the union of king, lords, and commons, and the predominance of a high Tory interpretation of the prerogative and the constitution, as the universal canon of political propriety, could competently enter into the feelings of the Greek democracies, divine their motives, or appreciate their measures. It was much for him to recognize that they possessed feelings, and were occasionally guided in their policy by intelligent impulses. people are guilty of crimes and follies, but princes and nobles are neither more innocent nor more prudent:* and it is only the ignorance of political bigotry which can venture on a crusade against all the actions of a democracy. The It was not merely in political philosophy that Mitford was a sciolist; his learning was in other respects insufficient for the duties assumed. It was adequate neither in extent nor in accuracy. A writer, so uncritical in regard to his authorities, so inattentive to the scattered notices, composed in widely separated *"Conchiudo adunque contro alla comune opinione, la qual dice come i popoli, quando sono principi, sono varii, mutabili, ingrati, affermando che in loro non sono altrimenti questi peccati che si siano nei principi particolari." * "Se si discorrer anno tutti i disordini de' popoli, tutti i disordini de' principi, tutte le glorie dei popoli, tutte quelle de' principi, si vedrà il popolo di bontà e di gloria essere di lunga superiore." Machiaveli, De' Discorsi sopra Tito Livio, lib. i, cap. lviii. We notice with pleasure Mr. Grote's frequent recourse to the political wisdom of the great Florentine. ages, which have been preserved as the frail and scanty relics of lost historians, was not calculated to reproduce in a symmetrical, homogeneous, and natural delineation, the dissevered members of Greek history, which, during many generations, exists only in fragments. The scholarship, the anatomical skill, the synthetic divination of Niebuhr, were required. Should we not add also the poetic feeling of Arnold, and the aesthetic taste of Thierry? To none of these qualifications had Mitford the slightest pretensions. He was a scholar without accuracy or profundity; he was an acrimonious political partisan without statesmanship or philosophy. His work is no longer of use; it has rendered its full service; it led the way in producing a more sympathetic, in provoking a juster appreciation of the Greeks; and there its Vocation ends. Thirlwall has learning in abundance, and is strictly conscientious in its employment. He is familiar with German erudition, and has availed himself of its discoveries. There is no deficiency in these respects. He is thorough in his researches, and cautious in his statements. Having translated, in connection with his friend, Archdeacon Hare, Niebuhr's History of Rome, he had been initiated into the mysteries of the historical speculation of the Germans. During his collegiate career he had been the most distinguished scholar of Cambridge; and the studies of maturer years had continued to augment the stores of his information. He thus approached the execution of his task with qualifications and advantages far transcending those of Mitford; and his employment of those advantages was so successful, that his work at once became a standard authority, and threw the labours of his predecessors completely into the shade. Nor has it been altogether deprived of its honourable position by the later publication of Grote, for it has merited the eulogy of the later historian,* and has advanced to a second edition contemporaneously with the appearance of the History of Greece which has furnished the occasion for these remarks. But Connop Thirlwall is one of the mitred dignitaries of the Anglican Church; and, in accordance with his vocation, he is timorous where he should be bold, lukewarm where he should be earnest, wavering in his political philosophy, and inclined to ingenious compromises in his historical views. He has daintily imitated the procedure of Niebuhr, without being inspired by his spirit, or infected by his audacity, which is an important qualification of an historical innovator. Moreover, the animating spirit, the plastic energy, which moulded the thoughts and regulated the actions of the ancient Greeks, escapes recognition; and the elabo *Grote. Preface, vol. i, p. iii, iv. rate work of Thirlwall, notwithstanding its learning, its fulness, and its honesty, is dull and tedious, and inadequate as a representation of the evolution of Greek civilization. Nor is this the sole objection. The harmony of Greek life is undetected; and the actions of the Greeks are thus left without satisfactory explanation, or are represented in a questionable, and frequently in an erroneous manner. To a large class of readers, too listless to engage voluntarily in the ponderation of conflicting evidences and arguments, too indifferent to attach themselves to any of the antagonist parties in former ages, too apprehensive of the danger of decided opinions, Thirlwall will still offer the most acceptable history of Greece. He presents all the important facts, arranged in orderly and intelligible sequence; he is critical, without being exigently acute; he is a mild antidote to Mitford; he is never betrayed into extreme opinions, whether in regard to the mysterious Pelasgi, or to the measures of politicians. It is not possible to fix upon him the imputation of either Philo-Laconism or Philo-demism. Medio tutissimus ibis,' is his motto; and it is a device which in these days will attract shoals of followers in any branch of inquiry. Admirable as this prescription may have been as a caution to Phaethon in driving the horses of the sun, it is not the surest path to truth in estimating the motives and policy of the contending factions which struggled for supremacy in the Greek cities, or in determining the historical enigmas connected with ancient Greece. Without a decided choice, it is impossible to establish any communion of feeling with the actors in the great drama of Greece, in which every change was intimately connected with intense personal action and virulent personal opposition, and in which the remarkable unity of popular sentiments produced the closest interdependence between all questions, mythological or political; antiquarian, religious, legendary, literary, or philosophical. studying the chronicles of such a people, there is no prospect of approximating to a just judgment by endeavouring to discover a compromise between dissenting tenets, and by seeking a steady footing at the imaginary centre of an oscillating equilibrum. Yet this is, in great measure, the course pursued by Thirlwall, and approved by those who are content with his delineations. Such labours obviously invite further competition. In In a classical, or even satisfactory history of Greece, the nineteenth century should require such an exhibition of the successive and varying phenomena, as would enable us to comprehend clearly and sympathetically the whole process of Greek civilization. The origin of the race and of its institutions, may be hopelessly concealed in the darkness of unrecorded time--for every nation passes through a long twilight and a gradual dawn, of which no accurate traditions are preserved-but, after the simple |