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intermeddle with subjects of which they have no practical knowledge. We cannot help adding, that we see no reason why the author of this celebrated work should remain anonymous any more than the author of Waverley. He seems to us to be, on many accounts, far better deserving than the latter personage, of the title of the GREAT UNKNOWN.

For the present we take leave of our readers with the following elegant passage, by which the GREAT UNKNOWN prepares our minds for the appearance of the first hero of the second era of pugilism.

"Several minor fights and trifling events which occurred at TAYLOR'S BOOTH &c. might be introduced to shew that pugilism was at that period rising fast into notice, and had gained considerable patronage and support; but lest that, in pursuing this farther, when more important objects are at hand, it should appear "As in a theatre the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattler to be tedious :'we shall, sans ceremonie,' clear the boards, to make room for the entrance of that celebrated and first-rate performer in the pugilistic art, JACK BROUGHTON."

REMARKS ON MR MITFORD'S VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MACEDONIA,

CONTAINED IN THE NEW VOLUME OF HIS HISTORY OF GREECE.

THERE are very few works which do more honour to the literature of the present time than Mr Mitford's history of Greece. Its author is an English country gentleman, and the book is throughout written in the spirit proper to one of that most respectable of all classes of men-a class in which it is probable more true intellectual cultivation and more true moral dignity may be found united, than in any other which human society has as yet produced-a class of men among whom, for these many centuries, there has never been wanting an abundant representation of all that is most honourable to the country which gives them birth -a class finally, of which it is sufficient eulogy to say, that it at this moment boasts of a Surtees, a Heber, and a Mitford.

Mr Mitford has indeed conferred a very eminent service upon his country, by writing a history of Greece in the true English spirit. Passionately attached to the feelings and recollections of classical antiquity, he is still more profoundly a lover and a worshipper of the genius of his own land, and he has composed his book with the noble purpose of furnishing new food and better direction to the similar predilections with which so large a class of his countrymen are, from education and example, imbued. Undazzled with the splendour of names and of actions

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with' which the world has rung for these two thousand years, he surveys every thing in the bright PAST of antiquity with an eye cooled and calmed by the reflection and experience of the troubled PRESENT in which himself has lived. The acquisition of scholarship seems, in his mind, to be mingled with none of its prejudices; he forms the only example, of which we have any knowledge, of a man contemplating the motives and passions and actions of the old world, at once with all the knowledge which the relics of ancient literature can convey, and with all the maturity of wisdom which the experience of modern Europe can add to this knowledge. It is truly wonderful from what an original point of view he thus shews to us the old kingdoms and republics of earth-how the atmosphere through which he makes us gaze upon them improves the distinctness of every line and every hue. Assuredly he is one of the most philosophical of historians; and to those who get over a certain impression of perplexity about some parts of his style, which is a thing very easy to be accomplished, since, in the main, the style is an excellent one-we have no doubt he must always be one of the most delightful also. Such, at least, has been our own experience. His book we think one of those which no man who reads it once will be satisfied

The History of Greece. By William Mitford, Esq. The Fifth Volume. 4to. London. Cadell and Davies.

1818.

without reading over and over again we think on the contrary, it is formed to be one of the most stable companions of a reflective man's solitude. The truth is, that in every point of view, it is by far the first historical work which has been produced in England since Gibbon. In spite of the performances of Mr Hallam, and in great despite of the promises of Sir James Macintosh, we think it likely that Mitford and M'Crie are the only historians among our contemporaries whose works will take a firm place in British literature.

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This new volume has brought Mr Mitford down, in his view of the history of Greece, as far as the death of Alexander the Great-and contains, beyond all question, the best arranged and most accurate and valuable account of all the incidents of his career that has ever been given to the world. It is, unless we be much mistaken, a more elaborate and a better written volume, than even the best of those which preceded it-and the value of part of this praise will be easily appreciated by those who are aware, among what a strange mass of contradictory and unsatisfactory materials the true thread of the Macedonian's history requires to be gathered and pursued. Mr Mitford has, as might have been expected, taken Arrian throughout for his safest guide, so far as he goes-but even in that part of his account he has much to do, in bringing details from other authors to bear upon, and be fitly intermingled with the somewhat brief narrative of the soldier-historian. Those who have not read this volume may promise themselves a rich repast of instruction and amusement most delightfully blended together, throughout the whole picture of the campaigns and battles of Alexander; and in the account of his untimely death, they will, perhaps, recognise a finer and deeper command of pathetic eloquence and elegance than any other parts of Mr Mitford's book have exhibited. But as it would be quite out of the question for us, in a work of these limits, to attempt any thing like following Mr Mitford through the minutiæ of his details-wherein, of course, his principal merit consistswe must content ourselves, for the present, with noticing, in preference, the introductory part of the volume, in which it has been the aim of the

historian to throw together the results of his inquiries into the poetical state of Macedonia, and of some of the neighbouring countries, at the time when the son of Philip ascended the throne, whose splendour he was destined to increase in so miraculous a

manner.

He well observes in his outset, that the whole of the preceding periods of Greek history present no opportunity either so important or so favourable for taking a wide view of the state of Macedon. That state, always a powerful and often a very formidable one, had, by the imperfection of its constitution, and the jealousies of the neighbouring princes, been kept in a condition of comparative obscurity, till the time when its energies came to be wielded by the masterly hand of Philip. The successful life of that consummate politician had tended, in every point of view, to the true prosperity of his nation. At home he had bestowed tranquillity, and restored obedience to the laws by weakening the power of his neighbours-the petty chiefs of Thrace and Thessaly-and so, by taking away from the subjects of his own empire much of the power and the hope of being safe in disobedience or successful in sedition. Abroad his victories and negotiations had rais ed his kingdom to a very proud preeminence among the nations who spoke the language of Greece-transferring, in fact, to Macedonia, that supremacy which had previously been obtained by the governments of Athens and Lacedæmon, and, at one time, over a preponderating part of the nation, by the government of Thebes. Macedonia was now the seat of empire.Her king was the elected chief and generalissimo of the whole Greek name, and his capital had become, as it had once before been, in some measure, under Archelaus, the favourite refuge and resort of the philosophers and artists of Greece. The murder of Philip deranged and darkened, however, not a little in this bright prospect;-the seeds of many imperfectly suppressed jealousies sprung into life when his throne was seen filled by an untried stripling

and Alexander himself, before he entered upon his proper career of Asiatic conquest, was constrained to do over again not a little of what had already been done at home and near it by his father. Altogether, it will be allowed,

there could not be a more important epoch than that of his succession, nor a matter of more interesting study, than the political constitution of the empire over which it called him to reign. When Mr Mitford, on a former occasion, threw out a few imperfect hints of what he conceived to have been the true state and character of that constitution, his positions were attacked very fiercely by Mr Brougham in the Edinburgh Review; and no wonder;for, in the first place, Mr Brougham is no scholar, and therefore incapable of examining Mr Mitford's authorities —and secondly, Mr Brougham is a bigot to a set of political opinions, exactly the reverse of those noble opinions which Mr Mitford has always held and defended, and therefore much indisposed to receive, without examination, conclusions so different from those which the greater number, even of more accomplished men than Mr Brougham, had formerly embraced. To say that in those ancient states, whose memory has been rendered so grand and so immortal by the intellectual energies of their citizens, those citizens possessed, in truth, but a very slender portion of security and equal government-still more to say, that in not a few of those monarchical states of antiquity, to whose names so many ideas of disgust have been associated by the genius of republican historians, the people possessed, after all, a measure of happiness and justice in their administration and legislation, well worthy of being envied by those who only abused them-these were doctrines which Mr Mitford could scarcely have hoped to promulgate without exciting the utmost wrath in the breast of such a person as Mr Brougham-a man, whose great and remarkable talents have, on most occasions, formed but a poor counterpoise to the superficial pedantry and vulgar insolence of his character-a man, whose shameful irreverence for the old institutions of his own country, harmonizes perfectly with that utter ignorance of antiquity, and the institutions and history of antiquity which he has displayed in his work on Colonies,* and, indeed in the whole of his contributions to the Edinburgh Review.

These positions, however, which were, when first broached, so very offensive to our illustrious countryman, have been taken up again by Mr Mitford, and they now make their appearance, defended by a mass of facts and arguments such as we think it would be no very easy matter for any of the knights of the blue and yellow cover to combat. The historian has shewn clearly, that the people of Macedonia lived under a government by no means tyrannical-but, on the contrary, possessing almost all the requisites of a well-governed state, in a degree superior, perhaps, to any thing that was ever exhibited out of our own happy island—and bearing, indeed, a resemblance to much of what that island exhibits, and has exhibited, strong enough to excite, we doubt not, a good deal of astonishment in the most of those who shall read the volume in which this view of the matter is contained. It is to this part of Mr Mitford's labours that we feel constrained to limit ourselves-and in doing so, we shall do little more than select a few passages of the most decisive character-nothing doubting that these will be more than enough to induce our readers to follow the whole argument through the luminous exposition of the book itself.

Mr Mitford laments, as all preced→ ing authors have done, the scantiness of the information afforded by Aristotle's treatise on government concerning the constitution of that empire, of which, shortly after the time of his birth, his native city became a part.So far as it goes, however, his information is undoubtedly of the highest authority and value-and it distinctly establishes the fact, that the government of Macedonia was not a tyranny, but a limited and legal monarchy. But of the peculiar institutions which gave to this monarchy its character of limitedness and lawfulness the philosopher has said scarcely any thing: so that our historian has been compelled to bring together his materials, as best he might, from the more casual notices of many less philosophical authors. Of these notices, one of the most striking occurs in Arrian. Classing the Ma cedonians with the republican Greeks,

Heyné has taken notice of Mr Brougham's want of scholarship, as exhibited in this book, in one of his opuscula, and applied to him what Samuel Johnson said of Voltaire : "Vir sane acuti ingenii, sed paucarum literarum.”

he says, "they were a free and highspirited people, whereas the Persians were humbled and debased by their subjection to a despotic authority."

The first check to the tyranny of the monarch was found in the armed population over which he ruled. The men of Macedon were at all times armed; and such a population, as Aristotle has well remarked, "have it always in their power to choose whether the existing constitution shall remain or be overthrown."*

This most powerful of all checks upon the tyrannical power of a single person, is however, above all other checks, likely to be abused from its proper purpose, and to become itself tyrannical. It is necessary, therefore, that there should exist a softer and more sober power of check in popular assemblies of representative and deliberative nature. And such, there can be no question, the Macedonians always possessed. It is true that there is no evidence of their having had any assemblies exactly corresponding to the Senate of Lacedæmon, or Carthage, or Rome: but they did possess assemblies capable of discharging not a few of the same duties.

"Two writers, however, Diodorus and Curtius, speak in direct terms of popular assemblies; marking decisively, so far as their authority goes, a constitutional share of the sovereinty, held, as in the kingdoms of the heroic ages, by the people at large; and it is a matter of a kind for which their authority may be least questionable. According to Diodorus, on the death of Perdiccas son of Amyntus, when his brother Philip's claim to the throne was disputed by Argæus, assemblies of the people were held in which Philip's eloquence greatly promoted his cause. On Philip's death he mentions similar assemblies held; and, on Alexander's death, when the question arose, singularly momentous then, and in a case of singular difficulty, who, was best intitled to be successor to the newly acquired empire, and, afterward, what measures should follow, all was referred to a general assembly of the Macedonians present, as representatives of the Macedonian people.+

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"The more immediate subject of Curtius has been the criminal law. Judge. ment on life and death,' he says, by the immemorial law of Macedonia, was reserved to the people: the king's autho

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rity was unavailing but under warrant of the law. The similarity of the law of our own country, derived from our Anglosaxon forefathers, and formerly common to most of western Europe, will here be striking.

"Among the antients, very generally, the law for the city and the camp, at home and abroad, were the same. According to the Macedonian constitution then, for decision on life and death, at home the people, abroad the army, was the jury. Strongly distinguished as civil and military law commonly have been in modern times, this may appear to modern minds, among what remains reported, most doubtful, and yet is that to which the most undeniable testimony remains. Among the antients a military power, distinct from the civil, and more arbitrary, seems first observable among the Lacedæmonians, but is first clearly and strongly marked in the history of the Romans. Admitted originally among nical authority of a dictator, occasionally, that great military people, like the tyranon the plea of necessity, the crafty leaders of the Roman councils procured lasting acquiescence under it, by bribing their soldiery with the spoil of the unfortunate people they conquered; and thus, through a union, then peculiar to themselves, of severe discipline and ready zeal, they promoted their conquests. In the sequel of this history instances will occur of practice, among the Macedonians, according to the law mentioned by Curtius. A very remarkable one, of an age later than that to which this volume will extend, it may be advantageous, for immediate illustration and assurance to notice here.

"Polybius lived while the Macedonian kingdom yet existed; and not in diminished splendor; for its monarch, conquered and plundered by the Romans within the same age, was, according to their great historian, Livy, one of the richest potentates of the time. Polybius, in his history of what passed in his own country, Peloponnesus, while his father was a leading man there, relates as follows: The commander of a body detached from a Macedonian army, acting under the king in person, was arrested on accusation of high treason. The detachment, alarmed for their commander, of whose crime they were not conscious, sent hastily a deputation to the king, demanding that the trial of the accused should await their return to head-quarters; otherwise they should reckon themselves unworthily treated, and should

κύριοι και μενειν και μη μένειν την πολιτείαν κυριοι. Ρolit. lib. 7. c. 9. † Επὶ τὸ κοινόν τῶν Μακεδόνων πλῆθος ἀνήνεγκε τὴν περὶ τούτων βουλὴν. Diod. 1. 18. c. 4.

highly resent it.' Such free communication with their kings, the historian proceeds to say, the Macedonians always held. The circumstances being highly critical, for the king's life was threatened, the return of the detachment was not waited for; and indeed the probability that the main body of the army, actually with the king, was legally competent to try the accused, so that nothing was done against the constitution, will be found strengthened by circumstances occurring for notice in the sequel of this history.

"With the assurance that the military law of Macedonia gave to the Macedonian people, on forein military service, even upon accusation of high treason, the privilege of being tried by their fellow soldiers, the information of Curtius, that the Macedonian people at home held equal privilege, appears completely supported. Abuses of authority, found under all governments, and prominent in the conduct of all factions among the Grecian republics, would hardly fail in a country agitated as we have seen Macedonia. But, in any monarchy, for the royal authority, limited by the military, to be unlimited by the civil law, controlled legal. ly in the army, to be, by law or custom, uncontrolled in the state, were an extravagance, not meerly unlikely, but, it may be ventured to say, impossible.

Through the circumstances thus authentically reported then, we have assurance, with confirmation yet to come in the course of the history, not only that the royal authority in Macedonia was constitutionally limited, but how it was effectually limited; judgement, in capital cases, being reserved to the people; and the maintainance of this important right being assured by the most powerful warranty, the general possession and practice of arms by the people. Hardly have we equal proof that equal security for individuals was provided by law in any republic of Greece.

"It were very desirable to know what was the LEGISLATIVE power in Macedonia. But, as we have observed that Aristotle, neither in criticizing numerous governments existing in his time, has noticed a legislature, nor in his project for a perfect government, has proposed one, and that, excepting the Athenian, hardly any account remains of the legislature of any republic of Greece, it cannot be surpriz ing if concerning legislation in Macedonia information fails. Aristotle is large on the office of a legislator; meaning one authorized by the popular voice, like

Minos, Solon, Lycurgus, and others, to frame a constitution, with a system of law to be complete for all purposes. But he remarks justly the impossibility of adapting the most voluminous system of law to every possible case; whence it was common, among the Grecian republics, he says, to commit much to the magistrate's discretion; so that in fact, power was by the constitution given him to make the law for the occasion. Possibly Aristotle has been urged to adopt so extravagantly hazardous an expedient, in his own system, by observation of the evils of that opposite extravagance at Athens, complained of, as we have formerly seen, by Isocrates; where decrees of the multitude, the unbalanced soverein, at the suggestion of demagogues, favorites of the moment, were so multiplied, with such haste and so little circumspection, that, in many cases, the citizens could not know to which of many laws they were in the moment subject.

The Ro

"In the regal governments of the early ages, legislation, not less than capital condemnation, evidently rested with the people at large. But, even in the smaller states this was inconvenient, and in the larger, for regular practice, impossible; whence appears to have arisen the maxim, so extensively adopted, and so decidedly approved and recommended by Aristotle, that laws, once established, were not to be altered; but the magis trate's discretion, for decision adapted to the exigency, rather to be trusted. That the legislative system, throughout the Grecian republics, was very imperfect, Aristotle has largely shown. man republican constitution, probably derived from Greece, confessedly improved through diligent inquiry after Grecian models, and altogether better than any Grecian constitution of which any ac count remains, had yet, among its excel. lencies, great imperfections. Its legislature was extraordinary. Laws, binding upon the whole people, were made by the people at large; assembled, at the discretion of the magistrate, in two ways, so different that they were, in effect, different assemblies; insomuch that what the people, assembled in one way, would inact, assembled in the other way they would not inact; and laws binding on the whole people were also occasionally inacted by the senate, without the participation of the people. Such conflicting powers of legislation were likely to produce multiplied, and sometimes inconsistent, inactments. But Roman de

Εἶχον γὰρ ἀεὶ τοιαύτην ἰσηγορίαν Μακεδόνες πρὸς τοὺς βασιλεῖς. Polyb. l. 5. p. 357. ed. Cassaub. Hardly will any single word in any other language so strongly mark a free constitution as the Greek term inyogía, here used by Polybius.

VOL. V.

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