perhaps, on the exploits of border warfare, in which the ancestors of one community had suffered or inflicted injuries on the ancestors of another. Poets sprang up who celebrated these deeds in song, and every assembly, every festival, every merry-making resounded with the commemoration of deeds as galling to one people as they were glorious to the other. These prejudices, this cantonal patriotism, this tribual vanity, if I may coin a new word to express a new idea, constituted a far more impassable barrier between the diminutive states of Greece, than either mountains or rivers; though, in process of time, some few cases occurred in which very small communities were immersed and lost in greater ones. The heroism, however, with which the smallest commonwealth struggled to preserve its separate existence, the watchful jealousy, the undying solicitude, the fierce and sanguinary valour by which it hedged round its independence, the indescribable agonies of political extinction, may be seen in the examples of Ægina, Megara, Platæa, and Messenia.

In fact the most remarkable peculiarity in the Greek character was a certain centrifugal force, or abhorrence of centralisation, which presented insurmountable obstacles to the union of the whole Hellenic nation under one head. The inhabitants of ancient Italy exhibited on this point an entirely dissimilar character. Though differing from each other widely in manners, customs and laws, they still possessed so much of affinity as enabled them successively to unite themselves with Rome, and melt into one great people. The causes lay in their moral and intellectual character: possessing little genius or imagination, but much good sense, they experienced less keenly the misery of inferiority, the anguish of defeat, the tortures of submission, and calculated more coolly the advantages of protection and tranquillity, and all the other benefits of living under a strong government. Where the masses are but slightly impregnated with the fire of genius they

are naturally disposed to amalgamation, and form a vast body necessarily subjected to one head. But where a nation is everywhere pervaded and quickened by genius, where imagination is an universal attribute, where to soar is as natural as to breathe, where the principal enjoyment of life is the exercise of power, where men hunger and thirst more for renown than for their daily bread, where life itself without these imaginary delights is insipid and despicable, no force, while the vigour of the national character continues unbroken, can erect a central government, or achieve extensive conquests, that is, subject one part of the nation to the sway of the other. And perhaps it may be found when we shall farther have perfected the science of government, that in politics as in physics the largest bodies are not the most valuable, or the most difficult to be shattered. The diamond resists when the largest rock yields. The true tendency of civilisation, therefore, is to reduce unwieldy empires into compact bodies, which the light of education can penetrate and render luminous. Vast empires are but opaque masses of ignorance.

From precisely the same causes arose the peculiar notions of the Greeks on the subject of government; that is, the citizens of each state applied to one another the principle which regulated the conduct of communities. Every man experienced an aversion to yield obedience to his neighbour, every man was ambitious to rule; but, as this was impossible, it became necessary to invent some means by which public business could be carried on without offering too much violence to the national character. Hence the origin of republicanism and the establishment of commonwealths, in which the sovereignty was acknowledged to reside in the body of the people, and where such of the citizens as by abilities, rank, friends, were qualified, might rule in vicarious succession.

But the various families of the Hellenes were not all equally endowed with the energy and intellect which belonged to their race; some possessed more

of these qualities, others less, and there were besides in operation numerous peculiar and local causes which modified the forms of polity adopted by the various states of Greece. The heavier, the colder, the more inert naturally chose that form of government which would least tax their mental faculties, and most completely relieve them from the care of public affairs, in order the more sedulously to attend to their own; while the fierier, the busier, more active and buoyant preferred that political constitution which would afford their energetic natures most employment, and supply a legitimate outlet for the ardour and impetuosity of their temperament. Thus, in certain communities there was a leaning towards monarchy, in others towards oligarchy; in a third class towards aristocracy; while Athens and some few smaller states preferred the stir, bustle, and incessant animation of democracy. Again these institutions, springing at first out of national idiosyncrasies, became in their turn among the most active causes which impressed the stamp of individuality on the population of each separate state: for the principle which animates a form of government is not a barren principle, but impregnates, leavens, and vivifies the community subjected to its influence, and produces an offspring analogous to the source from which it sprang. Thus, in monarchies the summits of a nation are rich with verdure and glorious with light; in aristocracies a broad table-land is fertilized and rendered beautiful; while in commonwealths, properly so called, the whole surface of society unrolls itself like a vast plain to the sun, and receives the light and comfort, and invigorating influence of its beams:—and all these various modifications of civil polity were at different times and in different parts of the country beheld in Greece, where they produced their natural

fruits.

Among the principal results of the causes we have enumerated were a high intellectual cultivation, the profoundest study of philosophy, the most ardent pursuit of literature, a matchless taste for the beautiful

in nature and in art, an irrepressible enthusiasm in the search after knowledge of every kind, and, joined with these, as their cause sometimes, and sometimes as their consequence, an invincible and limitless craving after fame. And these characteristic qualities of the people exhibited themselves in various ways. Sometimes, as in Thessaly, men sought to distinguish themselves by their wealth and the pomp by which they were surrounded:-sometimes their ruling passion urged them to pluck, amidst blood and slaughter, the laurels of war, as in Crete and Sparta, where military discipline was carried to its utmost perfection, where men lived perpetually encamped around their domestic hearths, cultivated the habits, preferences, tastes, and feelings of soldiers, and looked upon dominion as the supreme good:-sometimes religion, with its rites and pomp and sacrifices, absorbed a whole people, as in Elis, where the worship of supreme Zeus and the celebration of sacred games conferred a sanctity upon the land and people which all men of Hellenic blood respected: elsewhere mountaineers,1 of indomitable valour, hired out their swords to the best bidder, and became, as it were, the journeymen of war :— elegant pleasures in many cities, and commerce and magnificence, occupied and depraved the whole community; while others, of grosser minds and more sordid propensities, passed their whole lives in indolent gluttony round the festive board, amid crowds of singers, flute-players, and dancers; or else, like the Delphians, were ever seen hovering amid the smoke of the altars, whetting their sacrificial knives or feasting on the savoury victims; and yet the triumphs of the Thebans proved that even the lowest of the Greeks, when circumstances led them to cultivate the arts of war, were capable of planning and executing great

2

1 According to Hippocrates, the inhabitants of lofty mountains, well watered, are generally hardy and of tall stature, but fierce and ferocious. In saying this, the

philosopher describes the Arcadians without naming them. De Aër et Loc. § 120.

2 Athen. iv. 74.

designs, and acquiring lasting celebrity. The arts, however, by which the Greeks rose to greatness,' and became the instructors and everlasting benefactors of mankind, flourished chiefly at Athens, and in the numerous colonies which she planted in various parts of Asia and the islands. To men of Ionian race we owe, in fact, the invention and most successful culture of poetry and philosophy, and those plastic and mimetic arts which added to the world of realities another world more beautiful still. If the Greeks borrowed, as no doubt they did, certain varieties and forms of art and learning from the barbarians, they immediately so refined and improved them, that the original inventors would no longer have recognised the works of their own hands. The glory of giving birth to several of the arts and sciences belongs to them: they were the inventors of the art of war; among them alone, in the ancient world, painting and sculpture assumed their proper dignity; and in politics and statesmanship, and that art of arts, philosophy, they led the way, and taught mankind the steps by which to arrive at perfection.

Greece, by the means we have described, was gradually reclaimed from the state of nature, covered with beautiful cities, harbours, docks, temples, palaces adorned with infinite variety of works of art, with sculpture in ivory and gold, with paintings, gems, and vases, which converted her principal cities into so many museums. Her plains, her dells, her mountain recesses were studded with sanctuaries and sacred groves, conferring the external beauty of religion on the whole face of the country. Public roads, branching from numerous capital cities, traversed the land in every direction; bridges spanned her rivers, agriculture covered her hills and plains with harvests, the vine hung in festoons from tree to tree, the foliage of the olive clothed the mountain sides, and a belt of beautiful gardens surrounded every city, town, and village.

1 Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 355. l. 12. Wink. Hist. de l'Art, i. 316.