Among the charges against democratical governments, none would, at the present moment, be more strongly urged than that of financial bad faith; and, it must be acknowledged, with some apparent reason. The monarchies of Europe, if they have not been very punctual in the payment of their debts, have at least had the grace to acknowledge them as such; repudiation has been the growth of republican America, and we presume there is no prudent man who would not rather trust despotic Russia than democratic Pennsylvania with his funds. Equitable arrangement with public creditors, as proposed by certain democratic writers in England, by which is meant paying them as much as suits the convenience of the debtor, is supposed to have had its earliest precedent in the Zeoaxeia of Solon. On this point Mr. Grote offers some explanations, which relieve Athenian democracy, at least, from the odium under which it has laboured. With the exception of the Jews, whose legislator forbade them to take interest from one another, all the principal nations of the ancient world had their social relations disturbed and their internal harmony destroyed by the severity of the law of debtor and creditor, and the burdensome debts which the poor had contracted to the rich. The insolvent debtor became the slave of his creditor, and that, too, in an age when a slave had absolutely no rights whatever, no legal protection against his master; his sons if minors, his daughters if unmarried, being equally subject to be made slaves by the creditor. Athens, in the age of Solon, had not escaped this canker. So harshly had the rich used their power, that many debtors had been reduced to slavery,-many had sold their children to save themselves,— many had gone into voluntary exile to escape servitude. Many of the smaller landed properties had been mortgaged, and their owners could only escape a similar fate as long as they were able to pay the usurious interest on their debts. We are tempted to ask, in passing, how our landed gentry, who oppose the establishment of Register-offices lest the secret of their mortgages should be revealed, would relish the Attic plan of setting up a stone pillar on every mortgaged property, with the name of the mortgagee and the amount of the loan. It would make some districts of England and Ireland resemble a vast cemetery. Solon, when he proceeded to re-constitute the Attic state, saw clearly that no harmony, no prosperity, could exist among a people, while the rich possessed such a tremendous power over the poor; and the preliminary to all his political reforms was a regulation of the law of debtor and creditor, as well as an adjustment of existing claims. By annulling the right of the creditor over the person of his debtor, and limiting his security to his property, he virtually cancelled all engagements resting for the chance of their fulfilment on the power over the person. It is curious to observe how our own law, by the gradual limitation of the power of imprisonment for debt, has slowly tended to that point which the emergencies of the state compelled Solon to reach by one bold and decisive step. We know too little of the details to be enabled to say what was done to moderate the injustice to creditors which such a measure involves; probably at Athens, as at Rome, the high rate of interest had enabled many of them to repay themselves a considerable portion

A prohibition not always heeded. See the account of a Euráɣdela in Nehemiah iv. 1-14.

of their loans. And it cannot be denied that Athens was in one of those great social crises, in which only bold and decisive steps can avail. What is to be dreaded in all such cases of the violation of a general principle under the pressure of a special necessity, is, that the moral sense of a nation should be deadened, and habitual faithlessness in regard to public engagements be induced. Mr. Grote successfully vindicates the character of the Athenian people from such an imputation, while he admits that the Seisachtheia cannot be acquitted of a certain extent of injustice.

"One thing is never to be forgotten in regard to this measure, combined with the concurrent amendment introduced by Solon in the law-it settled finally the question to which it referred. Never again do we hear of the law of debtor and creditor disturbing Athenian tranquillity. The general sentiment which grew up at Athens under the Solonian money-law and under the democratical government was one of high respect for money contracts. Not only was there never any demand in the Athenian democracy for new tables, or any depreciation of the money standard, but a formal abnegation of any such projects was inserted in the solemn oath taken annually by the numerous Dikasts who formed the popular judicial body called Helia-the same oath which pledged them to uphold the democratical constitution also bound them to repudiate all proposals either for an abrogation of debts or for a re-division of the lands."-III. 141.

Henceforth, therefore, we may hope that it will be considered as a mark of a true democrat to pay his debts. A clause to this effect might make a sixth point in the People's Charter; and an oath, copied from the Attic formula, might be usefully taken by the legislators of the State of Mississippi, before entering on their functions.

Mr. Grote differs from most of his predecessors in considering the Solonian constitution as rather oligarchical than democratic, and refers many of the laws commonly supposed to be Solon's, to the age of Cleisthenes or the interval between him and Pericles. It is difficult to settle this point as to many of them, because Plutarch and even the Attic orators have not always discriminated. We should lay more stress, however, on the general and traditionary belief of the Athenian people, that Solon, or even Theseus, founded their democracy, than on any special chronological criticism. It is difficult, indeed, to define democracy, but many things which are difficult to logic are easy to common sense. It is only ad invidiam that the government of England before the Reform Bill, or of France at the present moment, has been called an oligarchy. Taken in the widest sense, of course it may be said that no government is popular in which the right of voting is not enjoyed by every one who can say Aye or No; and compared with this number, the 300,000 electors of France are certainly few. Practically, however, it is the quality of an oligarchy to confine political power to a body over whom the mass of the community possess no control by election or responsibility; and as it would be an abuse of words to call an annually elected and responsible ruler a monarch, though for the time supreme head, so a government in which the poorest of the people choose their magistrates, and after a year of administration call them to account, can never be justly denominated oligarchal. Now the

Διοικοῦνται αἱ μὲν ὀλιγαρχίαι τοῖς τρόποις τῶν ἐφεστηκότων· αἱ δὲ πόλεις αἱ δημοκρατούμεναι τοῖς νόμοις τοῖς κειμένοις. Æsch. c. Ctes. prope init.

Solonian constitution confined the archonship to the wealthiest class of the citizens, and eligibility to office to the three next classes in point of wealth; but it invested all below with the right of choosing the annual archons, and made them responsible to the same body for the discharge of their office. If there were any thing oligarchal in the Solonian constitution, it was in the limitation of the right of citizenship, a point in regard to which the Añμos has generally shewn itself as selfish as any other oligarchy. This oligarchy was broken up by Cleisthenes, who abolished the four old Ionic tribes, and admitted to the political franchise not only all free native Athenians, but many of the Méroikot, and even, as Mr. Grote thinks (IV. 170), some of the superior order of slaves. His account of this change is a very valuable part of his History. The notice of it in Herodotus and Plutarch is brief and unsatisfactory; but by careful collection of every thing which remains in ancient authors, and by analogical reasoning where direct testimony fails, Mr. Grote has been enabled to present by far the best illustration that we have seen of this important revolution. That it fills so small a space in the history of the times, will not surprise any one who considers that such events render themselves memorable only by their results. The summoning of the first House of Commons makes a very small figure in the reign of Henry III., compared with its mighty influence on the subsequent history of England. Great was also the effect of the change made by Cleisthenes in the constitution of Athens. It diffused among the Athenians the feeling of patriotic attachment to their city and its institutions, and at the same time rendered it more intense; it produced a vigour in action and independence in thought, of which Athens had given no example before; and not only the military trophies of Marathon and Salamis, but the glories of the age of Pericles in art and literature, and the achievements of Attic intellect in philosophy, may be traced, remotely and yet certainly, to the freedom and equality which Cleisthenes established.

Mr. Grote has taken under his especial patronage Demos of Pnyx, a personage who, in playful satire or bitter anti-republican hostility, has been made the subject of all sorts of abuse, and does not willingly allow him to be blamed. One of the most singular of his practices was that of banishing, by a scratch upon a piece of tile,* any citizen, however innocent or eminent, provided his presence in Athens was disagreeable to him, for ten or five years, without special accusation, trial or defence. Mr. Grote has some very ingenious observations tending to shew that this practice was a necessary expedient for preventing political parties from growing to such a degree of strength as should make them dangerous to the state, by timely depriving them of their head. He remarks the weakness of the ruling power in all the ancient commonwealths, and the feebleness and slow development of that respect for law which

We are rather surprised that Mr. Grote should render öσrpaкov (III. 201, 215) by oystershell, one of the most inconvenient writing materials that could well be chosen, whether we suppose the smooth or the rough side to have been used. In an appendix to Gau's Nubien, Niebuhr has illustrated a large collection of broken tiles, from the neighbourhood of the Roman stations on the Nile, written on by the soldiers. The Latin suffragium, from suffringo, refers in the same way to the fragments of tile used in voting. [We perceive Mr. Grote afterwards says "shell or potsherd."]

should prevent its violation by an ascendant faction. And as a majority out of 6000 voters was necessary, before the ostracism could be decreed against any man, he thinks it could never fall except on a person of whom the majority deemed it expedient to rid themselves. His reasonings, however, have not convinced us of any thing more than that jealousy against eminent citizens might have found a vent in more pernicious ways, had the ostracism not been provided. We see no analogy between the ostracism of Aristides or Cimon and the outlawry of the Stuarts, to which the banishment of Hippias would have been a closer parallel. Nor was exile, without forfeiture or disgrace, a slight punishment to an Athenian. The language of Socrates in the Crito, when flight from his country was proposed to him, shews that it was a very different thing from residence at Florence or Paris to an Englishman. If we examine the instances in which the ostracism was enforced (they are enumerated by Mr. Grote, IV. 213), we shall not find that it was employed to rid the state quietly of men who were preparing the overthrow of her liberties, which might have been a justifiable precaution, but from impatience of pre-eminence, even in the qualities which command popularity and respect.

Another very common imputation against the Athenian democracy is fickleness and ingratitude. Mr. Grote thinks this also a groundless charge, and inquires minutely into the circumstances of the condemnation of Miltiades, the conqueror of Marathon, after his ill success in the expedition against Paros. He denies that fickleness is in general an attribute of the people, observing, that "it is a well-known fact that feelings, or opinions, or modes of judging, which have once obtained footing among a large number of people, are more lasting and unchangeable than those which belong only to one or a few; insomuch that the judgments and actions of the many admit of being more clearly understood as to the past and more certainly predicted as to the future." (IV. 405.) If this be meant of fixed habits and opinions, it is true; it is much more difficult to make a nation Christian from being Pagan, free-traders from being protectionists, than to produce such a change in a few individuals. But the chance that a popular assembly should, in a brief space, change its opinion respecting some particular measure and condemn what it has sanctioned, is much greater than that an individual or a small body should exhibit the same versatility. A sense of shame prevents such fickleness in individuals; but this sentiment, like all that are allied to conscience, is very weak in numerous assemblies. In regard to the particular case of Miltiades, Mr. Grote says,

"What is called the fickleness of the Athenians is nothing more than a rapid and decisive change in their estimation of Miltiades; unbounded admiration passing at once into extreme wrath. To censure them for fickleness is here an abuse of terms; such a change in their opinion was the unavoidable result of his conduct. His behaviour in the expedition of Paros was as reprehensible as at Marathon it had been meritorious, and the one succeeded immediately after the other; what else could ensue except an entire revolution in the Athenian feelings? He had employed his prodigious ascendency over their minds to induce them to follow him without knowing whither, in the confidence of an unknown booty; he had exposed their lives and wasted their substance in wreaking a private grudge; in addition to the shame of an unprincipled project comes the constructive shame of not having succeeded in it. If an officer whose conduct has been such as to merit the highest

encomiums, comes on a sudden to betray his trust and manifests cowardice or treachery, are we to treat the general in command as fickle, because his opinion as well as his conduct undergoes an instantaneous revolution ?"—IV. 497.

We do not think this specious pleading will avail to remove the reproach of ingratitude and fickleness from the Athenian people, or to shew that Miltiades had no claim to forbearance on the score of gratitude. His case is not at all analogous to that of an officer who betrays his trust and manifests cowardice and treachery. Supposing that a servant who had saved his master's life were detected soon after in peculation, and that the master did his best to get him transported, -the judge, upon the evidence, might sum up for a conviction, but every man, woman and child, would hiss the prosecutor from the court. Indeed, our own supposition is much too unfavourable. Miltiades had not robbed Demos: the fact is, that the master and the servant had planned together to rob a third party; that the scheme had failed, the servant breaking his thigh in the attempt to carry the burglary into execution, and that the master punished him, not for the iniquity of the project, but for its failure. This is evident from Mr. Grote's account. "The reputation of Miltiades had been great before the battle, and after it the admiration and confidence of his countrymen knew no bounds; it appears, indeed, to have reached such a pitch, that his head was turned and he lost both his patriotism and his prudence. He proposed to his countrymen to incur the cost of equipping an armament of seventy ships, with an adequate armed force, and to place it altogether at his discretion; giving them no intimation whither he intended to go, but merely assuring them that he would conduct them to a land where gold was abundant, and thus enrich them. Such a promise, from the lips of the recent victor of Marathon, was sufficient, and the armament was granted, no man except Miltiades knowing what was its destination. He sailed immediately to the island of Paros, laid siege to the town, and sent in a herald to require from the inhabitants a contribution of one hundred talents, on pain of entire destruction. His pretence for this attack was, that the Parians had furnished a trireme to Datis for the Persian fleet at Marathon; but his real motive (so Herodotus, VI. 132, assures us) was vindictive animosity against a Parian citizen named Lysagoras, who had exasperated the Persian general Hydarnes against him. The Parians amused him at first with evasions, until they had procured a little delay to repair the defective portions of their wall; after which they set him at defiance."IV. 488.

The concealment of the object of the expedition was an obvious dictate of prudence. Paros was so near to Athens, that, had its destination been announced, the Parians would have repaired their walls before it sailed. It is not usual for the First Lord of the Admiralty to announce to Parliament that an expedition is preparing against a certain point of the enemies' coast; on the contrary, he endeavours, by

*Пpóparis, it is important to observe, for this and other passages, is not exactly pretence, i. e. a false reason, but an alleged reason, which may be true, though the impelling motive is kept in the back ground. Mr. Grote has overlooked the force of a particle in Herodotus-ἀτάρ τινα καὶ ἔγκοτον εἶχε τοῖσι Παρίοισι διὰ Λυσαγόρια. The opening of the Scheldt was the πρόφασις of the war between Austria and France, though the yxoros of the imperial court against the Revolution was the impelling cause. But the armaments in the French ports, alleged as a ground for breaking the Peace of Amiens, were a mere pretence, the English Ministry knowing that they were not designed for the invasion of this country.