Excerpt
GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE.
The appearance of a new history of Greece, of the pretensions, and the just pretensions, of this of Mr Grote, is an event in literature which must not pass by without some note or comment. Never were historical studies pursued with so much success, or in so philosophical a spirit, as in the present day, and that by the whole corps of European scholarship, whether German, or French, or English; and it is saying much, when we say of the work before us, that it is equal to the demands of the critical age in which it appears, and that in just estimate of historical testimony, and in true appreciation of the spirit of past times, it is as superior to its predecessors as, in these very points, the nineteenth century is in advance of all preceding centuries.
The progress made in this department of study is very perceptible in the several histories we possess of Greece. Mitford, notwithstanding his acknowledged imperfections and demerits, has had the tribute of applause paid to him, and deservedly, of having been the first to break through that icy timidity with which the moderns were wont to write the annals of ancient Greece. They seemed to be afraid of applying the knowledge which time and science had brought them, to the events and writings of a classical age and country, lest this should imply the presumption that they were wiser than the ancients. They sat down to their task like young scholars who are construing, not interpreting, their author. Little discrimination was made between the learned writings before them. If it was not, as it has been wittily observed, "all Greek, and therefore all true," at least every thing that was Greek had a mysterious air of learning which protected it from profane examination; and incongruities and futilities, absurdities of reasoning, and improbabilities of narrative, were veiled or half concealed under the charm of Grecian typography. Mitford set aside this too great reverence for the ancient literati. As he saw men, and not moving statues, in the heroes of Grecian history, so he was persuaded that the writers of that history were also men, fallible and prejudiced, like those who were living and writing about him. But Mitford overcame one set of prejudices by the force which prejudices of another kind had endowed him with. He saw how party spirit had raged in modern as well as ancient times, but he detected it with that proverbial readiness with which the thief detects the thief; he wrote himself with the energy and penetration, the want of candour and generosity, which at all times will distinguish the advocate. Moreover, the scholarship of Europe has since his time assumed so lofty a port, and taken such rapid strides, that on many subjects he has been left lagging in the rear.
The history of Greece by Dr Thirlwall is a great improvement on its predecessor. It is written with profounder learning, and a more equitable spirit; and is indeed pre-eminently distinguished by the calmness, candour, and judge-like serenity that pervades it....