Tacitus, he rises often to great sublimity of expression, and, like that author too, his diction is so compressed, that we find, often, as many ideas as there are words.* His narrative does not convey his meaning easily, anc without effort. He makes the reader pause upon his sentences, and keeps his attention on the stretch to apprehend the full import of his expressions. That effort of attention, however, is always amply rewarded, by the wisdom and sagacity of his observations, the intimate knowledge he shows of his subject, and the perfect confidence which he inspires of his own candour and sagacity.

There is no other among the Greek writers who has shone more in the department of history, than Xenophon. This author was about thirty years younger than Thucydides; contemporary with many of the most illustrious men of Greece; and educated in the school of Socrates. He accompanied the younger Cyrus in his war against his brother Artaxerxes, and in the latter part of that expedition, commanded the Greek army in the service of Cyrus. We know the fatal Issue of that enterprise, in which Cyrus fell by the hand of his brother;-a just reward for his unnatural and criminal ambition.f The retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, under Xenophon, gave him great fame as an able commander, eminently endowed with

of private life; the former more energetic, the latter more pleasing."

Thucydides omnes dicendi artificio meâ sententiâ facile vicit, ut verborum prope numerum sententiarum numero consequatur: ita porro verbis aptus et pressus, ut nescias utrum res oratione, an verba sententiis illustrentur.--Cicero, lib. 2. De Orat.

"Thucydides, I think, greatly surpasses all other authors in the skilful use of language; inasmuch as for every word there is an appropriate sentiment; and he is moreover, so happy in his choice of words and so sententious, that you are at a loss which to admire most, his matter or his language, his sentiments or his words."

+ See supra, book ii. chap. 2.

persevering courage, fertile in resources, and possessing that happy talent of address, and that popular eloquence, which are fitted for gaining the ready obedience and the confidence of an army. The narrative of this remarkable expedition, written by himself, has justly entitled him to a high rank among the historians of antiquity. His historical, political, and philosophical works are numerous.f Among these, one of the most known, though certainly not of the highest merit, is the Cyropædia, or Education of Cyrus; a fanciful composition, which blends history and romance, and is equally unsatisfying in the one point of view as the other. It is supposed that the author meant to exhibit the picture of an accomplished prince. But if that was his aim, to what purpose those frivolous and childish tales of the nursery, those insipid jests, and that endless verbiage and haranguing upon the most ordinary and trifling occasions?

As a

Xenophon was a man of strict virtue and probity, of strong religious sentiments, referring all to the watchful administration of the Deity, but prone to the superstitious belief of auguries and omens. writer, in point of style, he is a model of easy, smooth, and unaffected composition; and his pure Attic dialect has infinite grace, and a singular perspicuity or transparency of expression, which presents the thought at once to the reader's mind, and leaves him no leisure to attend to the medium through which it is conveyed ::-a supreme excellence of style, and rare, be

*See supra, book ii. chap. 2.

+ He wrote, besides the Anabasis and the Cyropædia, continuation, in seven books, of the Greek history of Thucydides; a Panegyric on Agesilaus; two treatises on the Lacedæmonian and Athenian Republics; The Apology for Socrates; and four books of the Memorabilia of that philosopher; a treatise on Domestic Economy; The Banquet; Hiero, or the Economy of a Monarchy; besides some smaller essays on Imposts, Hunting, Horsemanship; and some Epistles of which we have only fragments.

cause ignorantly undervalued, in competition with point, brilliancy and rhetorical embellishment. Quid ego commemorem (says Quintilian) Xenophontis jucunditatem illam inaffectatam, sed quam nulla possit affectatio consequi-ut ipsæ finxisse sermonem Gratia videantur ?*

The three historians I have mentioned had the fortune to live in that age which witnessed the highest national glory of their country. But Greece, even in the days of her degeneracy as a nation, produced some historians of uncommon merit. Polybius lived in the second century before the birth of Christ; at the time when the only surviving spirit of the Greeks was that which animated the small states of Achaia. His father, a native of Megalopolis in Arcadia, was prætor of the Achæan republic, and executed that important office with great honour. Polybius was trained from his youth to public affairs, for which his abilities eminently qualified him. He accompanied his father on an embassy to the court of the Ptolemys of Egypt, and afterward went himself as ambassador to Rome, where he resided for several years. During that period he employed himself most assiduously in the study of the antiquities, laws, and customs of the Romans; and having permission from the senate to search into the records preserved in the capitol, obtained a more exact and profound acquaintance with the history and constitution of the Roman republic than any of its own citizens. It was probably by the advice of the great Scipio and Lælius, who were his intimate friends, that he formed the splendid design of composing a history of Rome, which should comprehend that of all the contemporary nations with which the affairs of the republic were connected.

"Why should I mention that unaffected sweetness in Xenophon, which no affectation could ever reach-So that the Graces themselves seem to have modelled his composi tion ?"

Preparatory however to this great undertaking, he resolved to travel into every country where lay the scene of any of those events he designed to record. In that view he visited most of the southern nations of Europe, a considerable part of Asia, and the coast of Africa. He explored himself the traces of Hannibal in his march across the Alps, and made himself acquainted with all the Gallic nations in their vicinity. In short, no writer was ever more scrupulous in the investigation of facts, or more perfectly acquainted with the scenes he had to describe. Thus his history is deservedly of the very highest authority among the compositions of the ancients. It is much to be lamented that so small a portion should remain of so valuable a work. Of forty books which he wrote, beginning from the commencement of the second Punic war, and carried down to the reduction of Macedonia into a Roman province, we have only the first five books entire, and extracts, or rather an abridg ment, of the following twelve, with some detached fragments from the remaining books preserved by other writers. We see in every page of Polybius the intelligent officer, the sagacious politician, and the man of probity and candour. He neither disguises the virtues of an enemy, nor palliates the faults of a friend. His description of military operations is clear and distinct, and his judgment is everywhere conspicuous in reasoning on the counsels which directed all public measures, and the causes which led to their success or failure. The style of Polybius has, indeed, no claim to the praise of eloquence. Dionysius of Halicarnassus reproaches him with carelessness in the choice of his expressions, and inattention to the rules of good writing: but he is everywhere perspicuous, and the sterling value of his matter abundantly compensates his defects in point of rhetorical composition.

The next who deserves to be mentioned among the Greek historians of eminence, is Diodorus Siculus, who, in the latter period of the commonwealth and in the age

of Augustus, composed at Rome his excellent General History, a work of thirty years' labour, of which only fifteen out of forty books have been preserved. The first five books relate to the fabulous periods, but record likewise a great deal of curious historical matter relative to the antiquities of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks. The next five books are wanting. The eleventh book begins with the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, and continues the Grecian history, and that of the contemporary nations, down to the age of Alexander the Great. The author is particularly ample on the affairs of the Romans and Carthaginians. The work of Diodorus appears to have been in great esteem with the writers of antiquity. The elder Pliny is high in his commendation; Justin Martyr ranks him among the most illustrious of the Greek historians; and Eusebius places greater weight upon his authority than that of any other writer. The modern writers have blamed him for chronological inaccuracy. It is not to be denied that the History of Diodorus is replete with valuable matter, and that his style, though not to be compared to that of Xenophon or Thucydides, is pure, perspicuous, and free from all affectation.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus deserves to be ranked among the most eminent of the Greek writers of history, both in regard to the importance of his matter and the merit of his style, which, though deficient in simplicity, is often extremely eloquent. Dionysius came to Rome in the reign of Augustus, and continuing to reside there for twenty-two years, employed that time in the most diligent research into the ancient records, in conversation with the most learned men of that age, and in the perusal of the older writers, whence he collected the materials of that most valuable work which he composed in twenty books, entitled Roman Antiquities.* Of these only the first

He gives, in the Introduction to his work, an ample ac