The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 4,1858.

Critics assure us that, by a comparison of dates, this
story refutes itself, since it is not possible Solon should
have been at the court of Sardis in Crcesus's reign. The
objection is one of little weight. Are the dates that we
Misch to ancient history more worthy of our confidence
than popular stones, deeply impressed as the latter ever
have been on the minds of all succeeding generations? If,
in submission to the criticism of the nineteenth century,
we relinquish these stories, the plums and sweetmeats of
history are gone. It is no longer cake, but dry bread, or
rather old crusts, to be digested only by learned writers on
rigi n n which volumes are fruit-
of nations and languages, the interpretation of
the o
myths, and each like things, upo
ful of fewer practical results than one such story as this of
Solon and Cnesus. My youthful readers, then, at least,
will resolve with me to keep fast hold of our pretty stories.
We think we observe that our author becomes
less critical in dealing with Greek history. The
truth is that, if we omit these " pretty stories,"
which, in most cases, are all that people remem-
ber, we must make the authentic past interesting
enough to serve as a substitute, either by vivid
narratives of the really true and striking events,
or by fully setting out the political lessons, his-
toric parallels, social life, and literary culture of
the period. But, if we give nothing but intensely
-dry crusts" with a number of " plums
mingled with them, we must not be surprised to
tind the crusts thrown away.

Mr. Menzies does not, perhaps, pretend to have
taken his materials at first hand, but a reference
to Bishop Thirlwall, who, if we recollect right,
has a note on the point, would have prevented
what we think is a misconception, at page 287 :
To plunder an enemy, or to exact tribute from an
enemy, was honourable ; but debt was disgraceful, and
tree degrading. When Cyrus became acquainted with
the Asiatic Greeks he contemptuously spoke of their
market-place as a quarter of the town devoted to the pur-
pose of mutual lying and deceit.
We question whether, when Cyrus sneered at
the Agora, he either viewed it as a place of trade
or referred exclusively to the Asiatic Greeks.
We fancy that he meant to ridicule the political
palaver which went on there, and which, to a
despotic sovereign, would doubtless seem a round-
about way of conducting business.
In the following passage, also, relative to the
Persian invasion of Greece,—which in other re-
spects is well put, and a good average specimen
of Mr. Menzies 's style and treatment,—he seems,
in the words we italicise, to misapprehend the
general state of opinion on the subject :
If not the most leviathan power the world has seen,
there were at that time fewer obstacles to the universal
dominion of Persia than have been opposed to the despots
of later ages. This view of the subject is not the one which
generally taken. To those who look at Salamis and
Plates in the light which classic writers have since re-
flected upon them, the Greeks were a band of heroes, con-
fident in anticipated victory, and waiting only the opportm
nay to deal a mortal blow at their great antagonist. But
it was not so. They were distracted and divided—scarcely
prevented by a sense of the common danger from prose-
cuting their own quarrels and separate interests—intent
on no preparations, and, on the whole, sadly desponding
about the final issue. The Greeks in Asia, originally of
the same race with themselves, had long ago succumbed;
and even the Athenian ambassadors, on their arrival at
Sardis, had consented to send earth and water, the token
•4 subjection to Persia; a concession for which their more
icnorsnt fellow-citizens severely reprehended them on their
return, yet the anecdote shows the impression which even
the power of a satrap had made on the minds of the Athe-
nians. Long anterior to the battle of Marathon, and still
mere daring the three years succeeding that battle, when
the preparations for war in Persia were so vast as to inter-
ruin all ordinary business, the Greeks had lived in lively
apprehension of the king, or the great king, as he was
commonly called : and now that Darius, by his vigorous
administration, had matte the centre' power at Suss
to be felt throughout the empire, and had ccllected
a considerable treasure, how was Grecian indepen-
dence to be maintained? Greece had not even the ad-
vantage which, at the height of Napoleon's military ascen-
dancy, still remained to England—the undisputed mas-
tery of the see—for the Asiatic Greeks were compelled
to serve the Persians ; and the Phteniciaus, not inferior
Oh that element to the Greeks, were in close alliance
with the Persians.
Again, in any other direction, what were the prospects
for civil and social liberty ? The Romans were just then
engaged in the harassing wars that succeeded the expulsion
of the Taiquins. terminating, as Arnold thinks, in a tern-
-17117 suljugation of the city to a confederacy of the
neighbouring states. Could Rome have resisted the tide
of Persian &inquest had it overflowed Greece, and would
not the Carthaginians have shunned a contest threatening
re diminish their carrying trade and their mercantile
Profits? Had Xerxes possessed a spark of Cyrus's mili-
tary genius, or a little of the good sense of Darius, or even
the personal bravery wherein soldiers and princes are
rarely deficient, the world would have been lost. Asia,
not Europe, nag. ht for ages have presided over the civilize-
mankind, and given au Asiatic stein to society
truly ever to be wiped out.
" Classic writers " have not, we think, reflected
411 Y Mal light upoU Salamis! and Plata* aa that
-• •

which Mr. Menzies imputes to them. To begin
with Herodotus,—a great part of his two latter
books is taken up with a long and minute
description of those very intrigues and quarrels
which are alluded to in the above extract, and
which went so far that ideas of submission were
in some cases entertained. Then ~Eschylus, who
had himself taken part in the contest, by no
means gives the idea of "confidently anticipated
victory." From what he says, it is plain that,
whatever might be the result to the Persians, to
the Greeks it was a matter of life and death :-
ISt iraill;`Exxiivwv,r•rt,
1) cietpoire arev:7l3', ixsuesfobTl EF
caidac, yvraixac • YLY 'Tammy ayu.:v.
If they had been " only waiting to deal a mortal
blow " they would hardly have left the City of
the violet crown, and the " sepulcres of their
ancestors," to take their chance, while they
committed the fortunes of Athens to wooden
walls. The truth was, that, like Queen Elizabeth '
with the Spanish Armada, they would have been
much better pleased if Darius and Xerxes had
let them alone, but, having been attacked, they
naturally "sharpened their cutlasses," and gave
as good an account of the Persian as it was pos-
sible to do.—Probably Mr. Menzies has mistaken
his own prepossessions, corrected by subsequent
reading, for the general idea on the subject. We
have already observed that the remembrance of
such early impressions may be beneficial in
writing a book of this sort; now this is an
instance of disadvantage which may result from
them. if there were many of such passages, we
should consider the book rather pernicious than
useful, because nothing makes the kind of people
it is intended for more conceited than being
taught to think that they have got hold of a
number of " views not generally taken." Luckily
Mr. Menzies has shown extreme moderation in
the indulgence of conjecture or original specula-
tion of any kind, and has contented himself with
a careful reproduction of his authorities. This
speaks well for him ; and though a more
thorough acquaintance with the Greek writers
and the best modern commentators would have
indefinitely improved the book, we can bestow
very hearty commendation on it, as a whole, in
its present form ; and we believe that there is a
large class of readers who will draw from it
both information and amusement which perhaps
they will find nowhere else.

847

promise actions arc averted by the assumption
insanity on the part of one of their admirers.
None of these personages, however, have any-
thing to do with the story, which is carried on by
a succession of jerks and snatches of scenes, now
in Liverpool, now in New York, now back again
among the servants,—" upstairs, downstairs, and
" in my lady's chamber,"—and which have about
the same effect on the mind as the rapid inter-
change of the slides of a very bad magic-lantern.
There is so little meaning or purpose in the tale
that it is difficult to see why it is told at all ; the
hint given in the preface of an intention to satirize
commercial avarice being not at all carried out
except by an occasional remark in the author's
own person. Of the comic characters the author
writes that " a general portrait under a lame and
" halt consideration, resolves itself into an indi-
" viduality "—a Pythagorean remark which,
writing at a distance from libraries and learned
persons, we have been unable to elucidate. In
fact, Mr. Hastings's style is for the most part
either above or below our comprehension ; he is
always (to adopt for a moment his own sort of
phraseology) either soaring on the pinnacle of
hyperbolical metaphor or diving into the night-
cellars of provincial slang. He at one time adopts
the fervid language in which an Alabama editor
alludes to the national eagle and the star-spangled
banner; at another expresses himself in the
highly-exciting but somewhat difficult argot
which the most sporting of our sporting contem-
poraries uses in his frolicsome moments. Thus,
when Hiram Hall absconds (which in Liverpool,
it seems, is facetiously called dying by sponta-
neous combustion ') we are told that—

- -
Hiram Hall knew no sombre hearse, or hollow mourning
array, or black feathers marking the quadrangular coach
that gives the last ride to mortality ; they did not nid-nod
jocularly over his body, as if they hrd trumped a good card.
The fact was, spontaneous combustion had followed suit,
and caught a knave, who never gave a thought to the " final
trump," but, finding his defeated stratagems scented, and
partly tracked—cut the pack.
He had lived by a methodical system of robbery, and
surprised himself at his own success ; but the dark tide of
his roguery became too strong, and overcame the pressure
of the sluices. The day he died, the felonious member of
the feline tribe crept forth from the fcetid bag.
Elsewhere, certain architects are mentioned
" that had neither the spirit of thought or [nor?]
" feeling in their works, nor the biffin of a guess
" at the first rudiments of Grecian architecture."
What is the biffin of a guess" ?
Mr. Hastings girds up all his powers for the
description of a storm :
The vessels hail for some days been wind bound, chafing
and tossing on the waters that were a very calm to the
waves of their elder sister—ocean. The wind then came
from the south-east, but on the succeeding Sunday veered
round to the south-west, and grew in the awful darkness
and wildness of midnight to a tempestuous gale, sweeping
from all points, and, like a general in the field, settled its
throne in the full west, to see the carnage its gory sabre
was to do From shore to ahcre the heaving
tide, like a riderless steed. foamed and rose, and snot its
briny spray across the winter fields. Each billow seemed
an infuriate Neptune towering heavenwards, and crested
with blanched snow, spurning their liquid footstool from
their heels, and reading the riot act on their own demesne
to the winds, and the iron sleet that jagged and ploughed it.
The faithful ivy that had lain on the
bosom of its old hall father, was torn away and scattered by
the blast ; and the willow weeping on the frozen brook,
snatched from its primrose couch, and dashed on the ice
plateau. The mist rose up to heaven like incense offered
by penitent waves, in prayerful plea to Him who had loosed
the desolating elements from the hollow of his hand : and
then fresh winds, that seemed to have taken breath in the
lee of the mountain billows, tore round, and shred the
smoking mist as a cloud of scythes.
The following may be ironical, but there are so
many similar absurdities that the author is hardly
entitled to the benefit of the doubt (a practical
joke of one of the youthful architects has driven
his landlady's family for refuge to the lower
regions) :
When the faint streaks of morning light, through a misty
damp atmosphere, looked in at the cellar window at
Trinkett's abode, it defined the outline of three figures
buddlirg together by the butler grate. A spiritless fire had
been made behind the bars, and being washing week there
were some large " pieces," such as tablecloths and quilts,
not yet immersed. These did ti envelope the Mattlestoas
in, and y crerything had been totally different the scene
would have reminded an imaginative person of a midnight
camp in the prairies.
If Mr. Hastings has any talent at all, it is for
the very bmadest farce. His madman in a
railway-carriage, who talks a vast deal of non-
' sense, and finally pricks his fingers with a hedge-
. hog placed in pocket by some young ladies
• who have been irritated by the absurdity of his