greatly increased, by the nature of his style. This is concise, in many places to a fault, and finished with the most exquisite nicety. Every word is apt and significant, and occupies the very place of all others which best belongs to it, and of course nothing can well be altered, transposed, or omitted. To imagine that such an author can be rendered into our language, without the loss of many beauties of phraseology, to say the least, would be to suppose such a similarity of structure between the Greek and English tongues, as exists between no two languages whatever. Leland's translation is, as before observed, executed on the whole with great ability, and should be in the hands of all, who are debarred from consulting the original. In the important circumstances of a thorough perception of his author's meaning, and an accurate knowledge of the events to which he refers, he has seldom been surpassed. He is also distinguished by great, and when we consider the natural attachment of translators to their authors, we may add, singular and laudable impartiality. He seems to have formed the most just and discriminating opinions of the merits of Demosthenes, and to have imbibed no inconsiderable portion of the spirit of his eloquence. In one respect, however, his translation falls greatly below the Greek, in elegance of phraseology. It contains many expressions, which are now obsolete or trivial; the words are by no means selected and varied with sufficient care, and the style, on the whole, is much more distinguished by strength than by polish. In judging, therefore, of our extracts, we hope our readers will direct their attention to the sentiments, rather than the phraseology. The first passage, which we shall select, is the comparison in the second Olynthiac between the Athenians of the time of Demosthenes, and their illustrious ancestors.

'These our ancestors, therefore, whom the orators never courted, never treated with that indulgence with which you are flattered, held the sovereignty of Greece, with general consent, five and forty years; deposited above ten thousand talents in our public treasury; kept the king of this country in that subjection, which a barbarian owes to Greeks; erected monuments of many and illustrious actions, which they themselves achieved, by land and sea; in a word, are the only persons who have transmitted to posterity such glory as is superior to envy. Thus great do they appear in the affairs of Greece. Let us now view them within the city, both in

their public and private conduct. And, first, the edifices which their administrations have given us, their decorations of our temples, and the offerings deposited by them, are so numerous and so magnificent, that all the efforts of posterity cannot exceed them. Then, in private life, so exemplary was their moderation, their adherence to the ancient manners so scrupulously exact, that if any of you ever discovered the house of Aristides, or Miltiades, or any of the illustrious men of those times, he must know that it was not distinguished by the least extraordinary splendor. For they did not so conduct the public business as to aggrandise themselves; their sole great object was to exalt the state. And thus by their faithful attachment to Greece, by their piety to the gods, and by that equality which they maintained among themselves, they were raised (and no wonder) to the summit of prosperity.'

This is in many respects a highly characteristic passage. It affords, in the first place, a singular instance of the indifference to mere oratorical display, which we have already mentioned as a striking quality of Demosthenes. What tempting opportunities are here disregarded. How might he have displayed those powerful talents of narration and description, which he has proved so fully in his oration on the Crown. With what force and effect might he have dwelt on those victories, which have furnished themes for the efforts of so many orators and poets, from the time when they were won to the present age. With what graphic touches might he have described those glorious monuments of Grecian art, which are even now the wonder and the study of the civilised world. Far different was his course. The whole history of Athens, from the days of Miltiades to those of Pericles, of her power, her conquests, her trophies, her wealth, her architecture, is comprised in a few brief sentences. It was his design not to raise his own fame as an orator, but to waken his countrymen from their fatal lethargy, to shame them into a more dignified and efficient course of conduct, by reminding them, in simple and affecting terms, of the height, whence they had degenerated. He chose, therefore, merely to elevate and fire their minds, by a few masterly touches, and then to deliver them over to their own reflections.

The next remarkable feature of this extract, which we shall notice, is the exemplary boldness with which the author reproves the follies of his countrymen. It is pleasing to reflect that the ascendency, which Demosthenes acquired and main

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 belpless 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 heard, from the lips of Demosthenes, we may find a sufficient reason in the skill and judgment, with which it is uniformly employ. ed. 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 Eschines, by invectives of equal virulence and ability; and the contest between the two orators was in fact a trial of charac

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