OF LITERATURE. 



XV 11 



remaining fragments of his plays ; and in a pro- 

 fusion of that Attic salt, which, to use an elegant 

 expression of Plutarch's, appeared to have been 

 taken from the very wave out of which the god- 

 dess of love and beauty rose. 



Thus the poetical glory of Athens, spread 

 over a space of two centuries, and sustained by 

 different forms of the tragic and comic drama, 

 vanishes at last in a few fragments and a name. 

 After Menander there is nothing worthy of com- 

 memoration. But during the same period, the 

 other great branch of literature had been culti- 

 vated by some of the most powerful minds that 

 ado;n the Grecian annals, and that have raised 

 prose composition, in its chief varieties, to a 

 level with the noblest achievements of poetry. 



To the earliest Greek chronicles, which pre- 

 pared the way for regular history, we have 

 already had occasion to allude. Succeeding, as 

 records of past transactions, to the songs of the 

 mythic age, they had about them much of the 

 spirit of poetry, which still lingers in the epic 

 plan, the picturesque descriptions, and the un- 

 tiring flow and fulness of HERODOTUS.* These, 

 together with the highest degree of clearness, 

 simplicity, and natural pathos, are the qualities 

 that render the style of this author so perfect a 

 model of historical composition in the eyes of all 

 who are not blinded by false taste, or by attach- 

 ment to a particular theory. Something, per- 

 haps, of the inexpressible pleasure, with which 

 we dwell upon his pages, is due to the musical 

 forms and idiomatic graces of the Ionic dialect; 

 employed by him though he was himself a 

 Dorian, either in deference to the preceding 

 annalists, whose desultory sketches he improved 

 into an art, or from a deliberate choice, ground- 

 ed upon its exquisite fitness for the purpose of 

 narration. Even if, in respect of dialect, he 

 was indebted to the example of his predecessors, 

 he left them far behind him both in excellence 

 of method, and in extent and dignity of subject 

 His was one of those fertile minds whose 

 energies were summoned forth by the prodigious 

 crisis of the Persian war ; an event which, 

 though ushered in by a copious introduction, 

 and surrounded by beautiful episodes, yet con- 

 stitutes the main plot and business of his history. 

 Herodotus has been called the Homer of his- 

 torical composition ; and he deserves to be so 

 named not only from a certain affinity with the 

 style and language of the great poet, but from 

 the unity of his design, and its subservience to 

 the renown of his country. Like Homer, too, 

 though well versed in the knowledge of hu- 



man nature and the foundations of ethical 

 science, he makes no parade of his own sagacity. 

 He suffers persons and events, delineated with 

 graphic minuteness, to speak for themselves. 

 In this, as in other particulars, he displays a 

 true conception of the historian's office. His- 

 tory is never so enchanting, never so useful, as 

 when it keeps to its native domain. 



Every one will wish to believe, though the 

 tradition rests on no very ancient authority, that 

 the public recital by Herodotus of that great 

 work, in its first condition, which for fifty years 

 he continued to enlarge and improve, drew tears 

 of youthful emulation from the eyes of THUCY- 

 DIDES.* Yet, if the spirit of rivalry were thus 

 roused within him, he at least took care to strike 

 out a new path, as remote as possible from the 

 track already opened up. In many things hia 

 manner of viewing and of treating history was 

 perfectly original. Together with the Attic 

 dialect, which had been only recently adapted to 

 prose composition, but which was suited, by its 

 compact strength and manly tone, to the grave 

 tenor of his subject, he introduced other devia- 

 tions from the Ionian standard. While in He- 

 rodotus we find the simple majesty, the flexibili- 

 ty, the stately evolution and warm colouring of 

 the heroic epos, Thucydides has all the concen- 

 trated interest, the depth, and the gloom of 

 tragedy. Greece, no longer buoyant on the 

 tides of patriotism and national triumph, but 

 torn by intestine animosities, the sport of pro- 

 fligate counsels, and about to sink into the gulf 

 of ruin ; a great people, in their corruption and 

 decline ; and the fall of that Athens, which, in 

 spite of its vices and follies, had been the boast 

 of the best days of freedom ; such was the 

 melancholy theme with which he chose to moral- 

 ize his pages. It was a sombre, but a pregnant 

 subject; full of striking lessons ; rich in materials 

 for eloquent description ; and worthy of the 

 highest elaboration which art could bestow. Of 

 these capabilities it would be vain to deny that 

 the historian has made admirable use. But in 

 no instance are the defects, that often accompany 

 genius of the first rank, more conspicuous. With 

 all his dramatic power, and vivid representation 

 of separate scenes, Thucydides is not happy in 

 the general arrangement of his topics. His style 

 is darkened by a studied obscurity, that too fre- 

 quently converts eloquence into the appearance 

 of conceit Above all, the spirit of philosophiz- . 

 ing has infected too large a portion of his work. 

 In the harangues, which he puts into the mouths 

 of his personages, and the reflections which he 



B, G. 4T1 403. 

 C 



