The Press.
London, England, 1855-08-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

" at such an early age, why do you not ask
" with more astonishment how these lambs
"learnt to swim ?"

Although disgusted with his own country,
Menander rejected the advances of Ptolemy,
who sent to offer him great riches, and thou-
sands of admirers at his Court. It is even re•
corded that he sent him a fleet with special
ambassadors, as if he had been a king, instead
of a mere " dramatic writer." But Menander
remained at Athens in spite of the detraction
and depreciation that fell to his lot. Perhaps
had he been more successful during his life, a
less share of posthumous fame would have been
his, for we generally find the writers who were
most popular in their own age forgotten in
the next.

The influence of Menander upon the
dramatic literature of other countries is well
known to the readers of Terence and Plautus.
If he were at all studied in England at the
present time he might have a beneficial effect
upon our stage. But his influence upon
other branches of literature is less known.
What schoolboy, for instance, knows that the
text of " Evil communications corrupt good
manners," upon which he has so often
laboured, comes originally from the " Thais "
of Menander, whence it is quoted in St.
Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. The
Apostle has not attempted to disguise the fact
that this sentence came from a Greek poet, so
that in the Greek Testament it stands an un-
doubted iambic. The favour shown to Me-
minder by the Fathers is also remarkable.
While they inveighed against theatres as
temples of Satan and palaces of immodesty,
St. Jerome invoked blenander as a protector
of civilisation.

The second chapter gives a history of
Menander's life, as far as it is possible to trace
it. We think M. Guizot rather blameable for
reprinting here two of Alciphron's epistles
that bear upon the connection of Menander
with the notorious Glycera. In his defence,
M. Guizot says:

We often forget that the ancients were men ; and, whether
virtuous or vicious, we only wish to see them always
great and brilliant. The proportions and glory are
changed by a lapse of ages as they are by the distance of
countries : while the distance of half a century or a mile
makes less and tarnishes, a lapse of ten centuries or a
distance of ten leagues enlarges and surrounds with a
luminous vapour, mountains and nations.

But ancients should be treated as leniently as
moderns, and we might as well attempt to illus
trate the present century by publishing in a
volume all the letters that have such effect in
divorce cases, as to describe the times of
Menander by refcn•ing to imaginary letters
from him to his mistress.

M.Guizot's third chapter is devoted to the sub-
ject of the Greek drama, during its three periods.
He considers that the ancient comedy, of the
time of Aristophanes, was exclusively of a
practical nature. Res, ecting posthumous fame,
the dramatists aimed simply at exciting
their fellow-citizens against some measure
about to be passed, some war that they disap-
proved of. They were, in fact, the newspapers
of that day : and this fact shows us the incon.
sistency of those who rail at the venal press,
while they admire Aristophanes. In no
respect is the change from the ancient to the
middle comedy more remarkable than in their
political aspects. The middle comedy repre
cents politics more as a philosophical study
than as a struggle. It looks upon them, not
with the eagerness of a partisan, but with
the calm gaze and extended vision of are
cording historian. But the new comedy was
different from the two kinds that preceded it,
and was chiefly devoted to the private life and
manners of the people of the time. Political
satire and public affairs were rarely introduced,
and even then only casually, to give occasion
for some generalising remarks. M. Guizot
thus accounts for this change :

This kind of comedy became the only kind possible in
the time of Menander and Philemon. The people of
Athens were happier, but less free, after the battle of
Cheromea, and, above all, after the war of Lamea than after
the Peloponnesian war. Alexander had finished Philip's
work, and Antipater had consolidated what Alexander had
done. An aristocratical government, sustained by a Mace-
donian garrison, had again replaced the government of a
democracy in Athens. The whole nation resigned itself,
and employed in other ways the forces that it had before
engaged for its glory and its ambition. Its commerce and
finances were also much more prosperous than in the time
of Pericles ; the population daily increased, and the

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citizens grew rich at the same time as the State. Under
Demetrius Poliorcetes the Athenian fleet was still great
but the Athenians had entirely bat their ancient spirit of
hardihood and conquest. Between the people of this age
and the people of the time of l'imon there was as 'mach
difference as there is between a man in the maturity of
life, as energetic in heart as vigorous in body, and au old
man still strong, but as if tiled by rest, having become
from an audacious adventurer a good manager of his pro-
perty, full of love fur life and of indulgence for himself,
and consoled by a moderate gaiety fur the loss of his youth-
ful spirits.

The fourth chapter treats of the conception
and plan of the Greek drama. The first traces
of intrigue and plot are to be found in the
middle comedy. Reality formed the basis of
the ancient comedy ; fantasy gave it its poetic
form. Autiphaues complained, with ludicrous
gravity, that comic poets had to invent plots,
draw new characters, and imagine events that
should pass before the eyes of the spectator.
A tragedy, he said, was simple enough. When
you gave the name of (Edipus, everybody
knew what must follow, so that, when your
characters were tired of talking, they raised a
machine, and the spectator went home satis-
fied. But these licences were only granted to
Peleus and Teucer, not to Chremes and Phedo.
The plot, adopted about the time of Antipha-
nes, came to be the most important part of
the play in the time of Menander. When a
friend reproached Menander for not having
finished'his play, the Feast of Bacchus being
close at hand, the poet replied, " My comedy
"is done. I have finished the plot; I have
" only to write the verses."
The remaining chapters are hardly worthy
of a separate examination. We find in them,
however, many detached passages of high
merit, whose length forbids their quotation.
A contrast between love as represented by the
ancient writers and by the moderns is espe-
cially noticeable, showing that M. Guizot's
knowledge of general literature is such that
he can always illustrate one author by compa-
rison with another. This power adds greatly
to the enjoyment derived from the perusal of
the classics. To find that in Borneo the same
customs exist at the present day as some
whose existence among the ancients we learn
from Herodotus and Xenophon, in addition to
the pleasurable surprise it imparts, acts also
as a sort of metnoria technica, and impresses
the two nations more distinctly upon the
mind.

The essay concludes with a thoroughly
French tributo to the genius of Moliere. The
sole exaggeration in the book is worth quo-
tation

-----
We are told that after the brilliant reception everywhere
accorded to the Precieures Ridicules Moliere said, " I need
now no longer study Plautus or Terence, nor pick up the
fragments of Idenander." Moliere was right. He was
then sure of his powers and his success. For us, the
study of Plautus, of Terence, and Menander will always
have new instructions, if it should only teach us to admire
more and to love better Moliere.

IN the war articles of the principal magazines this
month there are several topics handled with great
ability and knowledge, though the writers, avoiding
large views of policy, mainly confine themselves to
present events. Attention is engrossed by the petty
and near, to the exclusion of the great and remote.
Nearly a year ago, when the capture of Sebastopol
was deemed certain, the question was discussed what
the next step should be. Now we do not venture to
look so far off. Our view at present is bounded by
the Malakt.ff and the Redan. Every one sees that
the siege has been an enormous blunder, that a
purely civilian Cabinet, in taking the one false step
of deciding on an enterprise in violation of the best
established rules of warfare, has made other false
steps inevitable, until at last, through persistence in
an original error, the whole military strength of
England, France, and Turkey is kept at bay by the
colossal earthworks thrown up by the enemy. Lately
we have seen quoted an observation by De Retz, that
in certain conjunctures—as in certain positions at
chess—it is impossible to move except at a dis-
advantage. This we fear is our case in the Crimea
at present.
The writer in Blackwood of " The Story of the
Campaign " gives the best narrative we have yet
seen of the repulse of the 18th June. It would
appear that the attack was all but hopeless from the
commencement, and it seems impossible to account
for so important an operation having been conducted
with so little forethought. One great error was the
change made at the special request of General
Pelissier—that there should be no previous can-
nonade on the morning of assault. It is not con-

'Y44

ceivable that any satisfactory reasons can be urged
tor this strange resolve. We read here :

The change was regretted by the English artillery offi-
cers, who were very confident of rendering the Russian
batteries nearly harmless in a fire of three hours.

To ordinary apprehensions it seems obvious that a
second error of equal magnitude was committed, in
not making the attack more general. The guarded
words of this intelligent observer are well worth
note :

Supposing, for the sake of argument, that to prosecute the
siege actively was the right strategic policy, and that the
Alalakoff and Redan were the beat points of assault, yet
the execution of the measure was such as to invite failure.
I have already mentioned how feeble were the attacks in
themselves, and how much it was to be regretted that the
original plan, by which the artillery was to fire for some
hours before the infantry advanced, should have been
changed. But, though the immediate cause of failure is
to be found less in the plan of assault than in its very
defective execution, yet it seems extraordinary that, with
the vastly superior force which the allies could command,
attacks were not made on points so numerous as to be-
wilder and divide the garrison, especially on the bastions
before the town, from whence, if the enemy had been
induced to place there a large proportion of troops, they
could not have been easily transferred across the creek.
But, so far from making any demonstration which might
induce the enemy to believe that point menaced, the
French batteries in that quarter did not open in the first
day's cannonade till afternoon, and on the day of the assault
scarcely fired at all. The small number of Russians
who opposed Eyre's brigade, and the circumstance of the
riflemen in front of the Barrack Battery leaving their post
to meet our people in the ravine, seem to warrant the
conclusion that the great mass of the garrison was placed
in support of those works which alone were threatened.

The real facts of the repulse are fairly stated in this
paper. The Itusiian lire was so tremendous that it
was impussi'ule for any troops to stand against it :

In vain the officers stood up amid the iron shower and
waved their words—in vain the engineers returned to
bring up the supports—the men could not be induced to
quit the parapets in a body. Small parties of half a dozen
or half a score ran out only to add to the slaughter. The
party of artillerymen, whose business it was to follow this
column and spike the guns, sallied forth, led by their
officer, and, of the twenty, only nine returned unwounded ;
and the sailors who carried the scaling•ladders, and the
naval officers who led them, also suffered very severe loss.
Sir John Campbell, calling to the nearest troops to follow,
left the trench, led the way to the &battle, and was shot
dead under it.

We cannot read these details without pain. The
morale of an army is cruelly shaken by such mis
takes as seem to have been made on this day.
There are four other articles in this number of
Blackwood bearing on the war. That one on the
Baltic expedition of this year gives a minute descrip
lion of the harbours, forts, and defences of Cronstadt.
Ssill, foresight, energy, labour, and perseverance on
the part of the Russians during the last sixteen
months have produced a fleet of seventy-nine steam
and row gun-boats; while apathy and incompetence
on our part give us—the greatest naval power in
Europe—a fleet in all of twenty-three such vessels!
Speaking of the increased armament of the Russians
upon the northern shore, the only really practicable
point for attack, the writer observes:—

An attack, to be practicable, even here, must be under-
t ikeu by gnu-boats and mortars. Last year we had none,
or none fitted for the purpose; this year the enemy
actually outnumber us iu that arm. How can this be?
Is there a suspension of work in our yards ? Are our
builders paralysed or rebellious? Is there no English
oak? —or how comes it that we, the ship-builders of the
world, should be beaten by the enemy at our own work ?
Were the question asked in the House, the voice of Red.
tipism would repeat some plausible contradiction, or
recount the list of a paper flotilla, long and vague as the
catalogue of Homer's ships. But the facts are these—all
men, who saw the place last year, agreed, that the only
hope of destroying Uronstadt, its dockyards, fleet, or maga-
zines, partially or wholly, was by an attempt in this
quarter ; that the only force available fur it was gun-boats,
and that they must be sent in such numbers as to over-
whelm and nullify any armament of the same description
possessed by the enemy. It would be thought that this
was no great demand on England's energies, or England's
resources, and that they would have come forth by hun-
dreds. Altogether, there are seventeen of these vessels
attached to the Baltic fleet ! The enemy shows twenty-
nine steam, fifty sailing and row boats, making a total of
seventy-nine. With such disparity, it would be impossible
to assault barrier or blocks, in presence of a force pus.
Bossing the same advantages, and strong enough to become
the assailant. How could such things be? Where tests
the blame? It cannot be with our Government, for they
nightly proclain their impeccability. Whose fault is it,
then, that England's beat arm is crippled from lack of
means ? Eheu! Eheu! It is the old story, repeated over
and over again, of the wrong thing in the wrong place.
Has the curse of perverted judgment and fatuity really
Won upon us ?
The second part of " The Imperial Policy of
Russia" sketches the progress of the empire under
Peter and Catherine; and the "Internal Sufferings
of Russia tiom the War," by a person who has lately
returned from the interior of Russia, is directed to
show that the contest cannot be prolonged without

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