Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1845-04-12
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.


| five cents each. Svo double columns.
The parts of this excellent history, finished some
years since in England have been thus far supplied
us by the agent here, Mr.. Franck Taylor.
| We were already somewhat acquainted with the
value of the book, partly through hasty examina-
ton for ourselves, and partly through the opinion
of such portion of the British critical journals as
can be generally relied upon. 1t deservedly ranks
among the best general histories Of Grecian affairs
yet produced in England. Two alone can be said
to dispute the preference with it, we mean the
elder book of Glies, and that of Milford for some
time recovering its neutrality-suspicious. not little
under the assistance of Lord Byrons whimsical
encomium on its bitterness and partiality. Such
qualities have, to be sure, not been considered as
forming recommendations for the historian but, if
they could Mr.. Milford certainly possesses them
in very eminent degree. But really we cannot
see why high Tory view of the annals of re-
mote people should be taken, or why bgoted
monarchst should be looked on as capable OF giving
any just idea of Republican institutions. What
ever the follies into which the demagogues led the
Athenans, we cannot sympathize with Philip of
Macedon. We may lament the popular gddiness
that preferred Pisistratus to Solon that flung Militia
DIES into prison to die that banished Aristides and
Themistocles, that slew Socrates and Phocion, and
that listened rather to such wretches as Cleon than
mosthenes. What if popular freedom too often
degenerates into this wild forgetnness of virtue Of
unrivalled capacity, of illustrious and incessant
public service, preferring to all these the in
triguers and fatterers of moment who, if they
cannot guide or defend the State, can deude, can
wheedle it! These are but the abuses of Freedom,
the excuses to which, like all other Governments,
it will sometimes run. They prove against it no
more than tyranny proves against an opposite form
of things-the government of one or of few.
They only show that the government of the people
becomes bad when the people suffer themselves to
be ruled by demagogues they prove nothing against
real freedom, as perfectly feasible and infinitely
good when the calm, sober, true-hearted body of
the citizens repel the counsels which alone dam
gerous in commonwealth of the fawners,
the sycophants, the parasites OF the mere crowd.
These are the men who every where overturn free
States. 1t would be hard to point out any instance
where tyranny ever erected, in such State,
but by one who set out with fattering, not serving
the people-with making himself the minister of
their humors, passions, and prejudces, not striving
Gas does the wise and honest public man) to check
them. II was thus that Psistratus made himself
master Of Athens, and thus that julius Cesar made
his way to supreme power III Rome
The leading idea of Milford, in word, is pre-
eiseIy such as made him unfit to write the history
of Republic-just as Hume's main purpose of
justifying the Stuars made him unfit to write that
Of England. Both are the apoogists of despotism,
and incapable OF any but perverted view OF the
acts of the people. Indeed, Miford's whole book
must be regarded as nothing else than long labor
to show that the most remarkable people that ever
fourished, who carried all the gories of arts and
arms TO singular height and became with their
petty population and dimnutive territory more
than the rivals of the greatest monarches, would
ha,t haffar fa1ya Ita of
Government. For our part, it seems to us just as
absurd TO argue in this way it would be to main
| tain that Alexander the Great Napoleon would
have reached much higher renown if they had
] founded peace societies instead OF empires. Who
can say that people greatunder certain institutions
would have been al all eminent under any others
Gillies's History is written in very opposite
spirit-in republican one-bGt yet with fairness,
with no effort to sustain any dogma OF republican
ism as applicable to all countries and times alike |
1t has always seemed to us fully as able, as inter-
estng as Mitford's while more learned and impair
tal, II is much more instructive as to what few
books haye yet suppled-the earlier periods of
Greek charlottesville Hydrologic. heroic, and
kingly times, II traces pqeh better the formation
of the several States, the foundation a3sate Of the
colonies, and the literature and art Of the Greeks.
! The merits of Thirlwa are much Of the same
sort, with the addition of many advantages borrow
ed from researches into particular parts of Greek
history admirably elucidated since Gillies's time.
! In prs4sipg these any other modern books on
the history OF q remote people, we mean not how
ever, to intimate that they 4Fogd he best Of
study. The native historians OF a people are al
ways those from whom to derive the dishactest
knowledge of them and, among such, they are most
valuable who have written nearest the events which
they relate and therefore most in the spirit of the
times which produced those events. Nor is it pos
sible, after all, thoroughly 70 comprehend nations
civil and political annals without mastering its
thoughts--thst is, its language letters, and art.
The modern compilation, therefore, no matter how
learned or able, should be looked Oh as only COM
mentary upon the original Greek or Roman authors,
and these always carefully studied by him who
wishes TO possess himself of ancient history as a
science, not mere shadow, that coldly gives but
picture a place of the living and moving form, and
tells the events OF day and of people the most
distant and different under modern IDEAS that con-
tinuaiiy iaf;se themselves into every thing, and
change its whole nature SO that really, Tor the
greater part, studying, in most OF the books
on ancient history, any thing but the people OF
whom seem to be reading. Msled by modern
terms and modern conceptions, by the involuntary
MIXTURE of the writer's times and notions with
the past, we miss the very spirit of the subject and
take that for Greek or Conan which is but French
or English or German. in word, history, thus
composed at distance, is, after all, greatly like
those French tragedies 10 which we lately referred,
where, even when costume begins to be attended to,
and Cato and Brutps cease 70 appear in silk stock
ing, hgh-heeIed shoes and bag wigs, they still talk