A Complete Edition of the philosophical works of J. F. Herbart is announced for publication by Voss, of Leipzig. It will be completed in twelve volumes, 8vo., edited by Prof. Hartenstein, of Leipzig, and will be finished in about two years.
Mr. Baird, of Philadelphia, has in press a richly illustrated edition of Gray's Poems.
From the London Times.
THE HISTORY OF GREECE
BY GEORGE GROTE.
Mr. Grote's history has yet arrived only at the close of the fourth century B.C., and the fall of the Thirty Tyrants. Two of the six compartments in which he proposes, to use his own quaint phrase, "to exhaust the free life of collective Hellas," still remain to be accomplished. But the history of Greece is written. Stirring events and great names are still to come; the romantic enterprise of Cyrus and the retreat of the Ten Thousand, the elective trust of Thebes, and the chivalrous glories of her one great man. Demosthenes has yet to prove how vain is the divinest eloquence when poured to degenerate hearts. Agis and Cleomenes have yet to exhibit the spectacle, ever fraught with melancholy interest, of noble natures out of harmony with the present, and spending their energies in the vain attempt to turn back the stream of time and call again into existence the feelings and the institutions of an irrevocable past. The monarchy of Philip is yet due to fate. Macedon is still to Greece what Russia, before Peter the Great, was to Europe—a half-unknown and barbarous land, full of latent energy and power, and waiting for the rise of a master mind to discern its embryo greatness and turn its peasants into the unconquerable phalanx. Alexander must arise to carry forth with his victorious arms the seeds of Greek civilization over the Eastern world. Aristotle must arise to gather up in one boundless mind the vast results of Greek philosophy, and found an empire vaster and more enduring than that of his great pupil in the subjugated intellect of man. But the history of Greece is finished. Athens and Sparta, the two great antagonistic types of Greek society, politics, and education, have attained their full development, passed their allotted hour of trial, and touched upon their doom. The shades of night are gathering on the bright day of Hellas. The momentous work of that wonderful people is accomplished; the interest of the great intellectual and moral contest has centred in one man; the last scene of the Phædo has been enacted, and Socrates has died.
The history of Greece is written, and the character of the historian is decided. Mr. Grote has achieved a noble work—a work which, unless the glory of classical literature is a dream, will well repay, in usefulness and in renown, the devotion of a scholars life. His book will be called great while Grecian story retains its interest. Even making allowance for the wonderful labors of the Germans and the extraordinary addition which their learned toils have made to our knowledge of the subject, we should say that the work before us has almost disentombed many portions of Greek life. We cannot sufficiently extol the wonderful knowledge of all the feelings, habits, associations, and institutions of an extinct people which every page exhibits, and the familiar mastery with which a mind steeped in Grecian lore analyzes, combines, criticizes, and unfolds the mass of heterogeneous and often conjectural materials on which it has to work. Not only have we been enabled to read Greek history with new eyes and a new understanding, but light has been poured upon its literature; and, to apply to Mr. Grote the compliment he pays to others, "the poets, historians, orators, and philosophers of Greece have been all rendered both more intelligible and more instructive to the student, and the general picture of the Grecian world may now be conceived with a degree of fidelity which, considering our imperfect materials, it is curious to contemplate." Two volumes more at least must be yet to come, but Mr. Grote's pedestal is sure; and nothing can diminish the satisfaction he must now feel at his decided and proclaimed success but the consciousness that the moment is approaching when he must part with the companion of many a sweet though toilsome hour, and experience the mingled feelings which Gibbon has so well portrayed in writing "the last page of the last chapter" of the history of Greece.
It is pity that such high intrinsic merits should be marred, both as regards the pleasure and the instruction of the reader, by a fatal deficiency of style. It is pity, but it is true. Mr. Grote seems to have lived in the works of the Greek writers till he has almost forgotten the forms and cadence of his mother tongue. It is not only that he so frequently has resort to an uncouth Greek compound when he might easily express the same idea in two or three English words, if not one; there is a perpetual clumsiness in his construction of common sentences and his use of common words. Clarendon himself is not harder or more tortuous. Even in purely narrative parts, which ought to flow most easily, the understanding of the reader can seldom keep pace with his eye. Cyclopean epithets are piled together almost at random on any substantive which will have the complaisance to receive them. The choice of expression and metaphor is sometimes such as almost to rival the achievements of Castlereagh in his happiest hour. We have people existing, "not as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate,"—Thucydides "reserving his flowers to strew on the grave of Nicias,"—the Athenians "sailing out" to action, having "left their sails at Teichiassa," and their "sailing back" to Teichiassa for their sails,—Athens, "the mistress and successor of the Ionian Confederacy,"—inestimable stepping-stones toward a goal, and oligarchical conspirators against popular liberty "tying down the patient while the process of emasculation was being consummated." We are sorry to say that these instances are taken from the last two volumes, so that Mr. Grote does not improve as he advances. In the first volume, when relating the legends of early Greece, we are glad he does not imitate the forced simplicity with which Dr. Arnold tells the legends of early Rome; but it is too flat to describe Atalanta as "beautiful and matchless for swiftness of foot, but living in the forest as a huntress, and unacceptable to Aphrodite." The redeeming point, and a great redeeming point it is, is the total absence of anything like affectation. All the peculiarities are genuine, and everything that is genuine in composition, though it cannot be admired, may be borne. But for this we should be compelled to class one of the best of English books among the very worst of English writings. Mr. Grote must remember that no man who writes for posterity can afford to neglect the art of composition. The trimmer bark, though less richly laden, will float further down the stream of time, and when so many authors of real ability and learning are competing for every niche in the temple of fame, the coveted place will certainly be won by style.