infer this from the instance of Cleon; nor from his successor Hyperbolus, a manufacturer of lamps; nor from Cleophon, who came next; but, in truth, it is clear that with an idle, ignorant populace, the most random, flashy, and violent speaker was likely to prevail. The older nobles had many of them hereditary political experience. Miltiades had a patrimonial kingdom in the Chersonese, and had been long in contact with Ionian usurpers and statesmen. Many of them had estates in Naxos, Lemnos, or other islands; some in Thrace, as the historian Thucydides. Their political ideas were received by actual contact with men, and had far more of the practical than of the speculative. But the young nobles who grew up with Alcibiades, had studied politics (and indeed morals) as a part of rhetoric; and while they had gained a certain specious cleverness in sophistical declamation, were so miserably deficient in soundness of moral judgment, that we almost forgive the Athenians for preferring the homely vulgarity and violence of a Cleon.

After the Peloponnesian war, the aristocracy (as such) vanish for ever from the public administration at Athens. Statesmanship becomes a strictly professional affair; so, indeed, does the office of general-a mark of the improvement in the arts of war. Henceforth every statesman has one or more generals in his party. The generals choose to reside abroad, out of the reach of the Athenian people, and under protection of their army; a large part of which now consists of mercenaries, attached to the general's person. The last point marks the incipient break-up of the executive power. The people had no adequate funds for supporting armies, nor patriotic zeal to serve in person; and what funds they had, were spent on their own wants or diversions, in preference to foreign war. In such a state of things, some of her own generals might have one day conquered Athens, if the Macedonian arms had not done it.

The institutions of Sparta were well adapted for one object, and that one only-to enable a small Dorian army to keep their superiority over a vastly larger conquered people-a mass of disfranchised freemen and oppressed slaves. Not but that other and milder methods would have been far better, even for this limited and unworthy end. Her nearest neighbours, Messenia and Argos-the former trampled under foot, the latter savagely crippled-hated her as Poland hates Russia. Like a church which professes to be infallible, the constitution of Lycurgus admitted no modification, and could not adapt itself to change of circunstances. When Sparta rose to power, her ruling men always proved oppressive, and her public policy was uniformly alike selfish and self-destructive. Her constitution being a

mechanism, not a living power, had nothing that admitted of growth and expansion. With the progress of social corruption, the laws of Lycurgus were neglected, not repealed; and the king who tried to enforce them was murdered. Yielding, at last, to the course of events, Sparta fell under tyrants, until she was absorbed into the empire of Rome.

The Peloponnesian states, under the immediate surveillance of Sparta, suffered little from intestine disorder, until the Spartanshad disgraced themselves by a selfish peace with Athens. Discontent and intrigues, plots, revolutions, and war, were the consequence, which broke out still more generally, when the great war against Athens came to an end. We have here room to notice only the singular attempt at coalition between Argos and Corinth, which towns the democratic party in each determined to fuse into a single state. The design was excellent; but since they endeavoured to carry it into effect by wholesale violences, a reaction took place, and it totally failed.

Thebes is, another great city which we can trace, as, first a monarchy, then an aristocracy, and, finally, (but not until after the Peloponnesian war,) a democracy. Under the last form of government, she had a short-lived greatness, owing to the gush of liberty excited in her by the perfidious attempt of Sparta to subject her to a cruel rule. But she abused, still more quickly and far more atrociously than Athens, the power which the heroic spirits, whom oppression called forth, had won for her: and when young Alexander, in imperial fury, razed Thebes to the ground, and sold her unhappy people into slavery, though all the Greeks shuddered, but few mourned.

Macedonia was the power by which all the previous Grecian policy was overthrown. Its disproportionate might deranged the balance of affairs in the states which were nominally left free, since a Macedonian party was sure to form itself within each of them. In the decline of Greece, a new confederacy rose in Achaia, as it were born after its time-the Achæan league, which showed for more than a century together what the states of Greece might have done at an earlier period, and what they would have done, but for the singular institutions of Sparta, and the contrast of Dorian and Achæan blood. But besides this, we must name another circumstance which strangely impeded that most desirable result-the blending of all Greece into one nation; viz., the superstition against intermarriage with 'strangers,' as Greeks of another city were called. The greatness of Athens, as of Rome, had primitively depended on their braving the rebroach of being a mongrel city. Each of them had once with much ease allowed foreigners to become naturalized; and the resident

aliens of Athens, in her best days, were an important body of men, who in considerable numbers found their way into the register of citizens. Yet, in the historical times, not the least step could have been taken by the wisest Greek statesmen, it would seem, (so dense was the prejudice of the people,) to admit the neighbour states to a right of intermarriage. Had this been done, with the simple regulation that children should be citizens of their father's city, a basis for conciliation and political union would soon have arisen, from the strong tendency of the rich, where language is the same, to form affinities with their own order in other cities rather than their own. As it is, we know of but one important league of this nature-that of Olynthus, which was chiefly between Ionian cities; and the result of permitting intermarriage was soon so striking, that the Lacedæmonians took alarm at the growing power of the league, and, under pretence of religion, sent an army which succeeded in enforcing its dissolution. This fact goes strongly to confirm what we are otherwise disposed to believe, that Greek religion was the canker at the basis of Greek civilization; not only because it kept up systematic immorality, but because it was essentially local and partial, and enforced the isolation of communities-practically regarding the Apollo Patröus of Athens as a different god from Apollo Carneus of Sparta, so that intermarriage between the votaries of the two was a profanation. On these deep-seated ideas ultimately depends the weal or woe of nations. Greece acted, and fell, and has left us the lesson of both; but until purged of her gross faith, higher excellence or more permanent prosperity was perhaps impossible.

The inherent defect of almost all these constitutions may perhaps be traced to the smallness of the scale on which they were built. Few of them were duly mixed; and yet on this, more than on any other single point, the excellence of a constitution depends. As individuals, we need rights, and equal rights, against the executive government, because it is as individuals that we are liable to oppression from it: but by the legislative power we cannot be harmed as individuals. Laws touch us only as members of classes; hence it is classes, not persons, which need to be defended from legislatorial oppression, and classes therefore that ought to be represented (to use a modern term) in the legislative assembly. In such assemblies, no order scruples to sacrifice the interests of another order to its own, if it can do this safely. Inevitably, therefore, if either a nobility or a commonalty has unchecked authority, one part of the state will be injured and become disaffected. Of all the Grecian communities, Rhodes bears the most honourable name for a mixed and well-balanced constitution, and for high political

integrity; but we know too little of the details to judge how far the sound morality of her people and the goodness of her polity were mutually cause or effect. Acarnania also, a province seldom heard of in history, enjoyed for several centuries a happy tranquillity, broken only by events which set off the moderation and good faith for which she was celebrated. But here, as elsewhere, peaceful unambitiousness, full as it is of reward to those who enjoy it, yet by the obscurity cast around, it transmits no definite lesson to posterity. In the more active states of Greece, and all whose history is well known, we see that the different orders of the same state could not bear collision on so small a theatre, without intense exasperation. Each side saw its adversaries so near, and, an opportunity so within reach, as to conceive the idea of absolutely extirpating them. Wholesale banishment and confiscation was the anticipated effect of revolution; and every civil commotion was too apt to terminate in the despotic rule of one or other order. By such convulsions (that nothing might be purely evil) the slaves alone gained. _ Herein is the enormous advantage of the massive weight of European states. To abuse the rights of victory to so awful an extent as was customary in Greece, would now be, if not physically impossible, yet morally impossible, except after irritation that has lasted for ages. In the chief states of Europe, it is to be hoped that every class of the community will be more and more protected from evil legislation, perpetrated on it by other classes; and all citizens have long since been theoretically equal in presence of the executive and judicial power. A slave population, happily, we have not, such as ever kept Sparta in tremor; and, whatever may be the actual oppression of some classes, the fact is condemned and hated, the instant it becomes notorious. Even in democracies, as those of America, mere extent of territory gives a prodigious advantage. As long as the United States remain together on their present scale, they are too strong to fear their rich men, and will never ostracize them from jealousy. The great thing to be hoped and desired for all such communities is, that an organization should grow up strong enough to hold them together in time of discontent, and that whenever a real 'aristocracy' arises, it should be freely vested with the executive government.

The work at the head of this article, while bearing the modest name of a Manual, is the fruit of great research; and presents, we think, a more trustworthy statement on the subject to which it relates than will be found in any other single volume. It is one of the series of works for the translation of which we are indebted to the enterprise of the late Mr. Talboys, of Oxford.

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ART. V. (1.) The University, the Church, and the New Test, &c. A Letter to the Lord Bishop of Chichester. By the Rev. J. GARBETT, Prebendary of Chichester, and Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. Hatchard and Son. 1845. 8vo, pp. 84. (2.) An Address to the Convocation. By the Rev. W. G. WARD. M.A. Fellow of Balliol College. James Tovey, London. 8vo, pp. 56. (3.) A Letter to the Rev. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, on the Measures intended to be proposed to Convocation on the 13th of February. By A. C. TAIT, D.C.L., Head Master of Rugby School, and late Fellow of Balliol College. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 8vo, pp. 22.

(4.) Reasons for Voting upon the Third Question to be proposed in the Convocation. By ROBERT HUSSEY, B.D. Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Oxford. 8vo, pp. 11.

(5.) Oxford: Tract 90: and Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church. A Practical Suggestion respectfully submitted to Members of Convocation. With an Appendix containing the Testimonies of twenty-five prelates of the English Church, &c. &c. By the Rev. W. SIMCOX BRICKNELL, M.A. Oxford, Fifth Edition. 8vo,

pp. 72.

(6.) A Defence of Voting against the Propositions to be submitted to Convocation on February 13th. By W. F. DONKIN, M.A., Civilian Professor of Astronomy. Oxford. 8vo, pp. 7.

(7.) Heads of Consideration on the Case of Mr. Ward. By the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, M.A., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 8vo, pp. 15.

(8.) Revise the Liturgy. By a PEER. 8vo.

THE religion inculcated in Holy Writ is not the growth of one church. The spiritualism of Pascal is that of all devout men. Romanist and protestant, prelatist and puritan, may be separated from each other by many points of speculation and practice, and may be as one in respect to this feeling, and the truth from which it springs. There is a Christianity to which they all do homage, and to the generous heart that Christianity is,-what Elis was to the ancient Greek-the ground on which feud is forgotten, and where the gathering is that of a band of brothers. In these times, when all our watchwords seem to breathe the elements of strife, it is not easy to extrude the discordant, and to dwell on a picture of the imagination so peaceful and unreal. But the thing is possible, and to us it is pleasant. Nor can we doubt that such pictures will become realities. We are still believing men. We bate not a jot of heart or hope on account