tained over the 'fierce democracy of Athens,' was in no degree purchased by a mean compliance with their humors, or a timid forbearance towards their faults and follies. This passage is far from a singular instance in which he displays a sincerity, which the most conscientious lover of strict and abstract truth would deem worthy of high applause. His orations are full of the most pointed and caustic censures of the levity and indifference of his countrymen, in their most momentous concerns. He calls them, for instance, 'a helpless rabble, without conduct, without property, without arms, without order, without unanimity;' he declares, 'that no one has the least respect for their decrees, and, finally, that their constitution is subverted.' Language like this, one would think, must be odious in any country, and the mixture of truth which it contained, when applied to the Athenians, would, we apprehend, produce any other effect than that of rendering it more palatable. If we inquire why it was so patiently beard, from the lips of Demosthenes, we may find a sufficient reason in the skill and judgment, with which it is uniformly employed. His censures evidently spring from the purest patriotism, and are uttered not merely to gratify his own feelings, but for a benevolent and practicable object. His reproofs are constantly followed by exhortations and encouragement, and while he condemns, with the most unsparing acrimony, the degeneracy of the Athenians, he never fails to prove that if they will be themselves, all may yet be retrieved. In this respect, to say nothing of any other, we think the orations of Demosthenes a model, which cannot be too highly recommended to politicians of the present day. We trust, indeed, the time is yet distant, when a boldness like his, will be viewed by the citizens of this country, as a crime. In vain shall we boast of the liberty of expressing our thoughts, which is secured by our constitutions and laws, if it can only be exercised under the iron sceptre of an illiberal and jealous public opinion.

Our second extract is from the third Philippic, and requires no preface.

'And now what is the cause of all this? (for there must be some cause, some good reason to be assigned, why the Greeks were once so jealous of their liberty, and are now ready to submit to slavery.) It is this Athenians! Formerly, men's minds were animated with that which they now feel no longer, which conquered all the opuVOL. XXII.NO. 50.

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lence of Persia, maintained the freedom of Greece, and triumphed over the powers of sea and land; but now that it is lost, universal ruin and confusion overspread the face of Greece. What is this? Nothing subtle or mysterious; nothing more than a unanimous abhorrence of all those who accepted bribes from princes, prompted by the ambition of subduing, or the base intent of corrupting Greece. To be guilty of such practices, was accounted a crime of the blackest kind; a crime which called for all the severity of public justice; no petitioning for mercy, no pardon was allowed, so that neither orator nor general could sell those favorable conjunctures, with which fortune oftentimes assists the supine against the vigilant, and renders men utterly regardless of their interests, superior to those who exert their utmost efforts; nor were mutual confidence among ourselves, distrust of tyrants and barbarians, and such like noble principles, subject to the power of gold. But now are all these exposed to sale, as in a public mart; and in exchange, such things have been introduced, as have affected the safety, the very vitals of Greece. What are these? Envy, when a man hath received a bribe; laughter, if he confess it; pardon, if he be convicted; resentment, at his being accused; and all the other appendages of corruption. For, as to naval power, troops, revenues, and all kinds of preparations, everything that is esteemed the strength of a state, we are now much better, and more amply provided, than formerly, but they have lost all their force, all their efficacy, all their value, by means of these trafficers.'

We pass on from the shorter speeches of Demosthenes, to that masterpiece of Grecian eloquence, the oration on the Crown. This is distinguished from the rest, not only by its superior excellence, but by its freedom from their two most important, if not their only defects. The first of these is the coolness generally displayed in the perorations. Demosthenes complied, in this respect, with the rules of Grecian rhetoric; and it cannot but be greatly regretted, that in so important a particular he should have suffered Art to prevail over Nature. The other fault, to which we refer, is his extreme conciseness. Whether, indeed, this be a fault, seems to be more than doubtful to the ablest critics. It is certainly an error on the right side, and of singularly rare occurrence. It is ascribed by Leland, to the well known character of the Athenians, a people remarkable for their quickness of perception, to whom the slightest intimation was a sufficient clue to the orator's sentiments. Another reason may be found in the fact, that the subjects on which Demosthenes spoke had in general been

previously discussed by other orators, and fully understood, in all their relations by the audience. The assemblies which he addressed were, besides, engaged most deeply in the business before them, and their minds wound up to a degree of interest, which suffered not a single remark to pass unnoticed or unapplied. Still, under all these qualifications, Demosthenes has carried the virtue of brevity to an extreme; and, in this respect, he would be a very unsafe model for the imitation of a public speaker. His shorter orations exact even from a reader, the most wakeful and unremitted attention, and it is scarcely necessary to add, that much of the force and beauty of the finest sentiments, if expressed in a similar style, would be lost by an audience.

In the oration on the Crown, Demosthenes is, compared merely with himself, unusually diffuse. He was probably led to this course by the peculiar circumstances of his situation. His whole conduct was upon trial. He was attacked by an orator, who yielded only to himself in skill and celebrity, and forced to answer to numerous specific charges, which could be refuted only in detail, and at great length, and, as he himself observes, he could only vindicate his own character by a complete history of his public life. This oration is, accordingly, five or six times as long as any of the Philippics, and is distinguished by every species of composition, by argument, by narration, by invective, direct and ironical, by comparison, by metaphor, by apostrophe, by figures, both of thought and language, of all descriptions. Our limits will confine us to a very few extracts. The first is an example of the bitter personal reproaches, which Demosthenes heaps on his adversary. They are certainly such as neither would nor should be permitted, by the rules of any deliberative assembly at the present day. They were provoked, however, on the part of Æschines, by invectives of equal virulence and ability; and the contest between the two orators was in fact a trial of character. We may also remark, that the reproaches uttered by Demosthenes, both in this and other passages, violent as they are, contain nothing which, if true, could not be decently told, and that they are free from that disgusting vulgarity, which disfigures those of Cicero against Piso and Antony. The lines in italics allude to the charge of cowardice, which

Æschines had repeated several times in the course of his oration.

'When you had obtained your enrolment among our citizens, by what means I shall not mention, but when you had obtained it, you instantly chose out the most honorable of employments, that of under scrivener and assistant to the lowest of our public officers. And, when you retired from this station, where you had been guilty of all those practices you charge on others, you were careful not to disgrace any of the past actions of your life. No, by the powers!— You hired yourself to Simmichus and Socrates, those deep groaning tragedies, as they were called, and acted third characters. You pillaged the grounds of other men for figs, grapes, and olives, like a fruiterer; which cost you more blows than even your playing, which was in effect playing for your life; for there was an implacable, irreconcilable war declared between you and the spectators; whose stripes you felt so often and so severely, that you may well deride those as cowards, who are unexperienced in such perils.But I shall not dwell on such particulars as may be imputed to his poverty. My objections shall be confined to his principles, Such were the measures you adopted in your public conduct, (for you at last conceived the bold design of engaging in affairs of state,) that while your country prospered, you led a life of trepidation and dismay, expecting every moment the stroke due to those iniquities which stung your conscience; when your fellow citizens were unfortunate, then were you distinguished by a peculiar confidence ; and the man who assumes this confidence, when thousands of his countrymen have perished, what should he justly suffer from those who are left alive? And here I might produce many other particulars of his character. But I suppress them. For I am not to exhaust the odious subject of his scandalous actions. I am confined to those which it may not be indecent to repeat. Take then, the whole course of your life, Eschines, and of mine; compare them without heat or acrimony. You attended on your scholars; I was myself a scholar. You served in the initiations; I was initiated. You were a performer in our public entertainments; I was the director. You took notes of speeches; I was a speaker. You were an underplayer; I was a spectator. You failed in your part; I hissed you. Your public conduct was devoted to our enemies ; mine to my country.'

The next passage, which we select, is a rapid and forcible. enumeration of the various and important measures, which had been adopted for the security of the state. To say nothing of its other beauties, the manner in which the orator introduces himself in the third person is singularly happy.

'Consider; what was the part of a faithful citizen? Of a prudent, an active, and an honest minister? Was he not to secure Euboea as our defence against all attacks by sea? Was he not to make Boeotia our barrier on the midland side? the cities bordering on Peloponessus our bulwark, on that quarter? Was he not to attend, with due precaution, to the importation of corn, that this trade might be protected through all its progress up to our very harbor? Was he not to cover those districts which we commanded, by seasonable detachments as the Proconesus, the Chersonesus, and Tenedos ? To exert himself in the assembly for this purpose, while, with equal zeal, he labored to gain others to interest and alliance, as Byzantium, Abydos, and Euboea? Was he not to cut off the best and most important resources of our enemies, and to supply those in which our country was defective? And all this you gained by my counsels and my administration. Such counsels, and such an administration, as must appear, upon a fair and equitable view, the result of strict integrity; such as left no favorable jurcture unimproved, through ignorance or treachery; such as ever had their due effects, as far as the judgment and abilities of one man could prove effectual. But if some superior being, if the misconduct of generals, if the iniquity of your traitors, or if all these together, broke in upon us, and at length involved us in one general devastation, how is DEMOSTHENES to be blamed? Had there been a single man in each Grecian state to act the same part, which I supported in this city; nay, had but one such man been found in Thessaly, and one in Arcadia, actuated by my principles, not a single Greek, either beyond or on this side Thermopyla, could have experienced the misfortunes of this day. All had then been free and independent, in perfect tranquillity, security and happiness, uncontrolled in their several communities, by any foreign power, and filled with gratitude to you and to your state, the authors of these blessings, so extensive and so precious. And all this by my means.'

The last quotation, which we shall make, is a part of the oration on the Crown, concluding with his apostrophe to the departed heroes of Athens. Leland's version of this passage is uncommonly elegant and happy. The principal truth, which Demosthenes here labors to enforce, is no other, than that success is not the necessary result of human exertions, however wise, but the gift of heaven. This would seem to many not only an indisputable, but a commonplace maxim of morality, though no one will deny the singular ability with which it is amplified and illustrated. It is necessary, therefore, to refer to the argument of Eschines. Availing himself of the