The defects—for such there are—resolve themselves into a certain magisterial air, indicating a consciousness of superiority, sure, more or less, to offend in all cases, and a certain imperspicuity of style arising principally from the loose manner in which the drapery of language is flung over his ideas, which is chiefly observable in the orations, his narrative for the most part being free from this imperfection. Besides, whatever be the series of facts he relates, their importance appears to be enhanced by his manner of handling them. He casts aside, as unworthy both of himself and the reader, whatever is of inferior moment. These, in fact, the mere chaff of human affairs, only cling round the grain of action to conceal it, and must be blown aside by the reader if the historian neglect to do it.
The circumstances of the times conferred upon his subject all the interest and the gloom of tragedy. But it thus suited him the better. His genius delighted in terrible pictures: battles, plagues, earthquakes, general massacres, the storming of cities, the annihilation of great armies. His fancy vividly realised all,—the plague-tumbril rumbling, choked with dead, towards the sepulchral suburbs,—the streets of Corcyra streaming alternately with democratic and aristocratic blood,—the expected slaughter of Mitylene,—the reality at Melos,—two thousand Helots cut off by the perfidy of Sparta,—the butchery at Platæa,—at Skione,—in Sicily! Through all these scenes we are precipitated forward, shuddering, compassionating, detesting by turns. But we are neither overwhelmed nor inspired with disgust for human nature. Our sympathies cling closer and closer to the historian, who spares no villany, gratifies no malice, tramples on no noble principle, succumbs to no temptation of partiality. Faithful to his trust he deals forth truth to all, to none the slightest flattery. Not even for his country will he lie. It was she, in fact, with her heroic ethics and grandeur of sentiment, that had taught him his high principles, and he repaid her by recording all her errors, all her wrongs, all her imperfections: in which he acted like a great and a wise man. He would have sacrificed for her his life,—he would not sacrifice his conscience.
To him succeeds Xenophon, a writer whom it is difficult to characterise. There was in the temper of his mind something parasitical, which led him to lean on others for support,—on Socrates, on Cyrus, on Agesilaos. Incapable of acting in a republic the part of a good citizen, he would have been that rare thing—a virtuous courtier. From this the tone of his writings may be conjectured. Almost everywhere we discover a degree of gentleness, sweetness, modesty, which steals imperceptibly into the heart, and creates the impression that he was a man highly amiable and upright. His piety, likewise, causes itself to be felt. He never mentions the gods but with due reverence, exhibits a strong reliance upon Providence, and, according to his best apprehensions, justifies its ways to men with earnest solicitude. The style of his composition, necessarily harmonising with the qualities of his mind, is full of suavity, polished elegance, gentlemanliness, bonhomie, the very characteristics of a popular writer. Readers of moderate understanding can everywhere perceive his drift, can accompany him without feeling out of breath. He is communicative, sensible, rational, indulges in no cloudy flights, never dives out of sight in the ocean of speculation.
Xenophon, however, misunderstood himself when he conceived that it was for him to continue the history of Thucydides. It was as if Andrea del Sarto had undertaken to complete a picture left in parts unfinished by Michael Angelo. He had neither the penetrating sagacity necessary to comprehend the internal plan of the picture, the vivifying energy to preserve the intense tragedy of the action, nor the colours to harmonise with what he found painted. Still, considered by himself, he has great merits. Several scenes in his history, the trial, for example, of the generals, the death of Theramenes, the battles on the Hellespont, exhibit a force of conception and a scope and flexibility of style uncommon in any literature; and the Anabasis, without comparison his greatest work, reads like a chronicle of the most chivalrous knight-errantry. The attempt, however flagitious on the part of Cyrus, had the merit of extreme boldness.[boldness.] It was the model expedition which disclosed the secret of Asia to Alexander, and showed with how little danger its vast empires might be shattered to pieces. Xenophon who, young and adventurous, accompanied the Persian prince and the heroic mercenaries in his pay, contemplated with delight the physical aspect of the East, its luxurious population, its roving tribes, with the triumphs of his disciplined and warlike countrymen over innumerable barbarian hosts. This we discover from the interest and animation of his narrative, in which stern realities exceed in grandeur and wildness the creations of romance. But it is equally clear that he did not fully comprehend the moral of the scene. For, otherwise, he could never, with these facts before him, have endeavoured by his Cyropædia, to recommend to his countrymen those institutions which rendered Persia, with all its wealth, a constant prey to the small republics of Greece.
Of the other writings of Xenophon little need be said: they are the parsley and the rue of Greek literature, bordering and adorning its entrance, and therefore beheld of all. But most of these have their beauty. Even in the hunting treatise, amid the breeding of dogs, and nets, and knives, and boar-spears, and the slaughter of animals, we catch glimpses of better things,—of glades where the hare frolics by moonlight, and grassy uplands, dewy and fragrant, where does, poetical as she of Rylstone, lead forth their fawns at break of day. The treatises on the states of Athens and Sparta have, I trust, been falsely attributed to this able and accomplished writer. They are contemptible productions, conceived in the spirit of a servile flatterer of the Dorians, and of a satirist, equally servile and stupid, of the greater and infinitely more intellectual Ionic race.
I pass over the historians known to us only by a few scanty fragments, that I may at once come to the orators, the peculiar ornament and pride of Greece, whose greatest statesmen were equally great as speakers, more especially at Athens, where, as an art, eloquence was most assiduously cultivated, and achieved its greatest triumphs. Tradition attributes to Themistocles, to Pericles, to Alcibiades consummate skill in guiding the currents of human sympathy, and a sense of their glory lingered on the high places of society like sunshine on the Alps long after they had quitted the world. But as they did not augment the stores of their country’s literature, we can have nothing to speak of them here. The orators whose fragments time has been unable to destroy are however sufficient, if not to satiate our thirst of admiration, at least to show, by the grandeur of their proportions, how great and glorious Attic eloquence, when entire, must have been. More than any other department of literature it is the growth of patience and toil. A man may be born with the instincts of eloquence,—fancy, constitutional fire, vehemence,—but unless these instincts be broken in and trained by consummate art, nature will in vain have bestowed her gifts. These truths were early understood at Athens. It was perceived that without eloquence political distinction was unattainable, and therefore all who aspired to
“wield at will that fierce democracy,”
subjected themselves to a course of laborious study, to which our more phlegmatic natures would not submit.
The results we may, in part, still contemplate in that body of Athenian oratory, which to the author and the statesman is in itself a library. Every legitimate form of eloquence is there beheld. In Antiphon and Andocides it appears in rough simplicity, employing contrivance and art, but employing them awkwardly. Lysias makes considerable advances beyond them, clothes his style with grace, constructs his narrative with extraordinary skill, and moves the passions by considerable pathos. Isocrates it is common with the moderns, who echo one another, to underrate: their delicate ears, offended by his too nicely balanced periods, his antitheses, his monotonous cadences, refuse to relish that stately harmony, and majestic flow of language, which recommend the thoughts of this “old man eloquent,” whose greatest panegyric is pronounced by Plato[[992]] in the Phædros. In Isæos we have an argumentative, able pleader; in Deinarchos a vigorous accuser; in Demades the power of splendid improvisation; in Lycurgus noble sentiments clothed in poetical language, haughty patriotism, the rough virtues of a stoic; in Æschines an union of magnificent style, thoughts full of weight, admirable arrangement, warmth, vivacity, wit. Yet Demosthenes soars far above Æschines,—far above all. On him nature had bestowed every quality which constitutes an ingredient of eloquence,—originality, love of labour, a clear head, a warm heart, a judgment all but unerring, with an impetuous vehemence perfectly irresistible.
A very extraordinary impression is created by the study of this writer. He seems never to put forth all his strength. You see him, indeed, bear down every thing before him, overwhelming the arguments and the gold of Philip, crushing his rivals, annihilating his enemies; but the persuasion rests with you that he could have done more. You discover amid the waves and foam of his terrible eloquence indications that that vast ocean had never been stirred to the bottom, that occasion had never called forth all its latent powers of destruction. He measures himself with his antagonist, and is secure of victory. He presents a front bristling with the deadliest points of logic, like the spears of the Macedonian phalanx, and wherever he moves he is invincible. Nevertheless he appears to advance nothing for the sake of effect, to be in search of none of the beauties of style, but rather to avoid them. He is neither draped, nor painted, nor adorned; but a naked colossus whose sublimity springs from the perfection and greatness of its proportions.