Other orators persuade, Demosthenes enforces conviction. They who listen to him have no choice,—they must believe. Without offending the reader’s pride, he makes him ashamed to hesitate. He reminds one of the Nile at the cataracts, where, confined by rocks within too narrow limits, it pours resistlestly along, swelling, deep, with scattered whirlpools and foam scarcely visible on its vast surface, seemingly calm at a short distance, but, to those who look near, agitated, angry, full of unstemmable[unstemmable] currents and boiling motion. He had profoundly studied human nature, chiefly, of course, as it developes itself in free states, and, better than any man, knew by what motives it may, in spite of corruption and degeneracy, be impelled to strenuous action, though but for a brief space. His language, flashing through the moral gloom around him, called forth bright reflections from whatever was brilliant or polished, and kindled the fragments of patriotic emotions into a flame. If genius could regenerate, could pour the blood of youth into the veins of age, could substitute loftiness of sentiment, heroic daring, disinterested love of country, religious faith, spirituality, for sensual self-indulgence, for sordid avarice, for a base distrust in Providence, Demosthenes had renewed the youth of Athens. The spirit of the old democratic constitution breathes through all his periods. He stands upon the last defence of the republican world, when all else had been carried, the representative of a noble but perished race, fighting gallantly, though in vain, to preserve that fragment sacred from the foot of the spoiler. The passion and the power of democracy seem concentrated in him. He unites in his character all the richest gifts of nature under the guidance of the most consummate art, and, doubtless, Hume was right when he said that, of all human productions, his works approach the nearest to perfection.
Beyond this point it is irksome to proceed in our view of Grecian literature, which, after the battle of Cheronæa, was overshadowed by despotism and dwindled gradually into insignificance. Not that genius wholly and suddenly disappeared. The soil of Hellenic intellect was not entirely exhausted, but the fruit it bore was comparatively insipid. A courtly stamp was set upon every thing. Men no longer obeyed their genuine impulses. It was dangerous generally, and always profitless to be frank and manly. Instead of addressing themselves to the healthy natural sympathies of the people, writers servilely laboured by conceit and flattery to wring reluctant patronage from princes. The spirit of affectation, accordingly, for the first time made its appearance. Men tortured their ingenuity to invent smart things. Enthusiasm and passion and earnestness, characteristics all of popular writers, are never fashionable among courtiers, who consider sincerity vulgar, and hypocrisy a virtue. In the later Greek writers, therefore, who all wrote for some court or other, we discover the usual frigidity and extravagance which invariably deform the literature of such states. Along with these faults, others also are found far more pernicious: the inculcation of selfishness, gross sensuality, base maxims, a depraved taste. Man in the savage state is a garden in which noxious weeds and the most beautiful flowers and useful plants grow together; civilised and free, he is the same garden cleared, as far as possible, of its weeds; but, when verging a second time into barbarism, the weeds again become luxuriant, and entirely choke or conceal the flowers. And thus too it is in literature. In the literatures of Greece, Rome, and modern Italy we can now contemplate the complete process; in our own, a part only, how great a part—it is not here my business to inquire.
[970]. Speaking of the influence of literature on education Plato remarks, that persons accustomed from their infancy to the loftier and purer inspirations of the muse will regard with contempt everything mean or illiberal; whereas they who have always been familiar with low and vulgar compositions will look upon all other literature as tame and insipid.—De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 30.
[971]. Cf. Lil. Gyrald. Opp. t. ii. p. 2. “Nihil traditum videbis in religionibus et mysteriis, nihil in theologiâ et philosophiâ aliisque bonis artibus à principio fuisse sine poeticâ, ita ut hoc verè me tibi dicturum existimem, ex omnibus disciplinis unam hanc divinam extitisse, quasi totius vitæ magistram.”
[972]. Plato de Repub. t. ii. p. 113. seq. Stallb.—De Legg. t. vii. p. 243. Bek. Athen. i. 24. Paus. ix. 27. 2. Diog. Laert. Proœm. iv. 5.
[973]. Muret. in Plat. Rep. p. 699. seq. Cf. Lil. Gyrald. ii. 5. Wolf. Proleg. in Homer. p. 51.
[974]. Cf. Wolf. Proleg. in Hom. p. 73. 93. sqq.
[975]. Anim. ad Athen. xii. p. 371. Cf. Suid. v. Ῥαψῳδοί. t. ii. p. 678. Etym. Mag. 703. 32. Aristoph. Concionat. 674.
[976]. Ῥαψῳδὸν δὲ, καλῶς Ἰλίαδα καὶ Ὀδυσσεῖαν ἢ τι τῶν Ἡσωδείων διατιθέντα, τάχ᾽ ἂν ἡμεῖς οἱ γέροντες ἥδιστα ἀκούσαντες νικᾷν ἂν φαῖμεν πάμπολο.—Plat. de Legg. ii. t. vii. p. 243. Bekk. Again: Ἅμα δὲ ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι ἔν τε ἄλλοις ποιηταῖς διατρίβειν πολλοῖς κᾀγαθοῖς καὶ δὴ καὶ μάλιστα ἐν Ὁμήρῳ, κ. τ. λ. Ion. Plat. Opp. t. ii. p. 172.