V 



300), equalizing of constituencies, improved polling arrangements, and 

 greater frequency of election. 



Placed at the top of the poll for the City of London, he took his seat 

 in the Reformed Parliament in February 1S33. His public career is most 

 noted by his motions on the Ballot, made every year, with one exception, 

 from 1833 to 1839. His handling of this question was exhaustive; the 

 ablest advocates that succeeded him have confessed themselves unable to 

 add either to the number of his arguments or to the cogency of his replies ; 

 while the intense respect for individual liberty of action which animated 

 his whole life, gave to a political question a high ethical tone. But this 

 was only one out of many topics that he brought forward during his nine 

 years' work in Parliament. The Bank Charter, the Poor-Law Amendment 

 Act, the Municipal Reform Act, the Corn Laws, the Irish Church, the Irish 

 Coercion Bill, the Canadian Rebellion, the Civil List were among the great 

 and stirring questions that called out his oratorical powers. He sounded 

 the first note on Church Reform and on the removal of the Jewish Disabi- 

 lities, and was always ready to chime in with every proposal for extending 

 individual liberty, for improving education, as well as for contributing to 

 the general well-being of the community. His last important speech was 

 (in 1841) on the Syrian question, producing a very marked impression. 



In 1841 he retired from Parliament, and in 1843 withdrew from active 

 partnership in the banking-house, to devote himself to the composition of 

 his 'History,' which he completed in twelve volumes in 1856. The first 

 two volumes contained an independent examination of the Homeric poems, 

 an original view of the Spartan institutions and legislation of Lycurgus, 

 and, greatest of all, an entirely new handling of the early legends. The 

 next two volumes detailed the rise of the Athenian Democracy, in which a 

 distinction was carefully drawn between the institutions of Solon and the 

 amendments of Cleisthenes. The fifth and sixth volumes traced the growth 

 of the Athenian Empire, and the commencement of the great struggle known 

 as the Peloponnesian War. The same subject occupied two more volumes, 

 the seventh and eighth, which w r ere concluded by the celebrated chapters 

 on the Sophists and on Socrates. Some critics ventured the opinion that 

 the work had attained its climax, that the author had exhausted his subject 

 and himself, and could impart no new surprise. The opening of the ninth 

 volume proved the rashness of the criticism ; in nothing did Mr. Grote's 

 peculiar powers show to better advantage than in recounting the advance 

 and retreat of the Ten Thousand. He could now also point out to the 

 haters of democracy what Greece had gained by the substitution of the 

 Spartan headship for the Athenian ; and very soon came the reverses and 

 the prostration of that headship by the Thebans, under the leadership of 

 Epaminondas. The extraordinary revolutions in Sicily — the career of the 

 Siculi tyranni, and their overthrow by Timoleon — formed a splendid theme, 

 and had ample justice done to it. The eleventh volume was occupied with 

 the struggle against Philip of Macedon, in which the leading figure was 



