LETTER VIII. HISTORY-SELECTION OF A SINGLE SUBJECT FOR MY DEAR M- I would recommend to you a plan I often adopt, that of pursuing the thread of a national history in reference to only one particular subject at a time. For instance, its increase of territory, how acquired, and how affecting the welfare of the countries it overcame; or its political condition, what changes it underwent, and whether they were happy or unfavourable to its interests; or its literature and intellectual refinement, how improved, when checked, and what branches of learning were cultivated at different periods; or its commercial prosperity, and in connection with this, its colonization. I do not mean that studies in history should be always or generally conducted on such a plan; but when the learner is tolerably familiar with the history of a people, it would be highly useful to require from her a sketch of progress in one particular feature of its character and experience. I will give you an example of what I mean in a slight sketch of the history of Greece, considered in reference to her literary character, the development, progress, and decline of her intellectual greatness. The annals of the Greeks, more than those of any other people, afford a valuable illustration of the influence which a national literature exerts on the worth F and prosperity of a nation, and also of the power and elevation such literature may attain when nurtured by a free and ingenious people. Here we get at the fountainhead of learning. The Greeks alone have created for themselves a literature. No rival can step in to claim any share of credit due to their incomparable works. In fact, the literature of Greece can never stand on the level field of competition with that of other nations; it rests below them as a basement, appears above them as a beacon light, is before them as a storehouse. Her early history, like that of other countries, is involved in fiction; but it is a fiction which the fine imagination of the people has invested with the rainbow tints of poetic enchantment. All that is simple and peaceful in pastoral life, all that is brilliant in military expedition for conquest and glory, all that is imposing in the exaltation of a chieftain above his fellows by deeds of prowess, is selected and interwoven into a tissue of sparkling texture; whilst oppressors are magnified into giants, and the champions of the oppressed into gods, their deeds being exaggerated into the supernatural acts of mythologic personages. To Phemonoë, the Pythian priestess, is attributed the invention of hexameter verse, the medium through which those tales of brilliant and fanciful witchery are promulgated. Gradually, poetry began to assume a more rational character, and celebrate the exploits of men as men, still indeed investing martial deeds with a halo of false glory, but stripped of the monstrous exaggerations of mythologic romance. From the pages of poetic fiction, we gather the truth that violence and disorder marked the first stage of existence among the Greeks; and we see them adopt the wisest expedient for its removal-confederation. From the era of the Amphictyonic Council we may date their political existence. Then they first attempted distant expeditions, and began to move as a whole. The Argonautic expedition was the first of these undertakings. It seems to have borne the character of commercial enterprise rather than of military incursion. Orpheus was one of the Argonauts, and celebrated the expedition in a poem still extant. He was so happy as to live before the time when the flights of genius were fettered by sense and reason, and when the sons of genius began to be numbered among the sons of men. So at his death, the Muses gave him honourable burial, and his lyre became a constellation in the heavens. The siege of Troy was the next great expedition; and notwithstanding the rivalry of the chiefs, the character of the Greeks, and the confederation of the Greeks, is here displayed in an aspect we cannot look upon without admiration. In celebrating the exploits of the warriors at Troy, Homer carried heroic verse to its highest perfection. Here we have no longer any equivocal demi-goddism to perplex us. Homer's heroes are men, and in the delineation of their characters he displays a consummate knowledge of the nature of men, and the inner workings of the human spirit. His poems are among the greatest treasures of ancient literature, not merely as poems-though their exuberant imagery, their glowing vitality, their liveliness of dramatic representation, and inexhaustible variety of thought and incident, place them above all competition; but yet more as giving a vivid portraiture of the men of that age in their daily acts of domestic, social, and martial life, each heard in the council, each seen in the field, each felt to be present when the attention is directed mainly to one. They are valuable too for their accuracy of geographical description, identifying scenes which modern travellers are describing after a lapse of 3000 years. They are besides highly interesting as exerting a powerful influence on posterity, perpetuating the taste for martial glory. In no place do we think of the poems of Homer with more emotion then in their position under the pillow of Alexander the Great. The long continuance of distant war produced a most disastrous effect on the national prosperity and intellectual progress of the Greeks. Expelled by barbarous usurpers from their native seats, the chiefs wandered about and in many instances adopted a predatory or piratical life. Society deteriorated, and seems to have sunk into a quiescent stupefaction. From this they were aroused by the invasion of the Heraclidæ, which shook the states to their centre, produced more or less change in the territory of each, and drove the tribes from the Peloponnesus to settle on the Asiatic shores of the Mediterranean, and in the islands of the Archipelago and the Levant. When the commotion has subsided, we find the several states occupying each the position retained till the end of its history, and possessing large territories in Asia Minor and the adjacent isles. The Ionian colonies present a pleasing picture of the weak gaining strength by confederation; and thus securing all the blessings of liberty and tranquillity, to pursue the arts of civilization and refinement. We know not whether to admire the Ionian colonies more in their firm resistance to the ever-menacing power of the Lydian kings, or in the rich and beautiful productions of literature and art which issued from their free republic. Ionia first abandoned the language of imagination, and the rhythm of poetry for the more severe and simple style of prose. She first made the science of human institutions the subject of literary disquisition; Herodotus, "the father of history," was one of her sons; the names of Pythagoras, Thales, Hippocrates, Simonides, bear testimony that liberty with her was not a name, but existed in such a state of vigour as to secure its fullest blessings. The period of war and anarchy occasioned by the invasion of the Heraclidæ gave opportunity to the Grecian kings to extend their power, and arrogate to themselves the sole administration of law and government. The states on their settlement resisted these encroachments of arbitrary rule. Thebes set the example, Athens followed, and the states universally, almost simultaneously, subverted the despotic and assumed the popular form of government. In a few states the monarchical power was retained, but in them it was restricted by popular assemblies. The Spartan government is altogether peculiar, presenting a phenomenon among political institutions. Some explanation is found in the character of the Dorians, who composed the army of the Heraclidæ, and in the family circumstances of Aristodemus, which gave rise to the peculiar institution of divided royalty. But whilst the kings presided and proposed the business, the senate deliberated, and the people assented or refused; it was public opinion which swayed the sceptre, and never did she govern a people with more |