this instance, they received the unanimous condemnation of the historian of antiquity, and yet Mr Bulwer affirms that never was complaint more unjust. The fact is certain, that all the greatest benefactors of Athens were banished by the ostracism, or vote of all the citizens, though the evidence adduced in support of the charges is, for the most part, unknown; but as these deeds were the acts of democratic assemblies, Mr Bulwer, without any grounds for his opinion, in opposition to the unanimous voice of antiquity, vindicates and approves them.

It is clear, from Mr Bulwer's own admission, that the banishment of almost all these illustrious benefactors of Athens was owing to their resisting democratic innovations, or striving to restore the constitution to the mixed condition in which it existed previous to the great democratic innovations of Solon and Themistocles: but such resistance, or attempts even by the most constitutional means to restore, he seems to consider as amply sufficient to justify their exile! In regard to the banishment of Cimon he observes:

"Without calling into question the integrity and the patriotism of Cimon, without supposing that he would have entered into any intrigue against the Athenian independence of foreign powers-a supposition his subsequent conduct effectually refutes he might, as a sincere and warm partisan of the nobles, and a resolute opposer of the popular party, have sought to restore at home the aristocratic balance

of power, by whatever means his great rank, and influence, and connexion with the Lacedæmonian party could afford him. We are told, at least, that he not only opposed all the advances of the more liberal party-that he not only stood resolutely by the interests and dignities of the Arcopagus, which had ceased to harmonize with the more modern institutions, but that he expressly sought to restore certain prerogatives which that assembly had formally lost during his foreign expeditions, and that he earnestly endeavoured to bring back the whole constitution to the more aristocratic government established by Clisthenes. It is one thing to preserve, it is another to restore. A people may be deluded, under popular pretexts, out of the rights they have newly acquired, but they never submit to be openly despoiled of them. Nor can we call that ingratitude which is but the refusal to surrender to the merits of an individual the acquisitions of a nation.

"All things considered, then, I believe, that if ever ostracism was justifiable, it was so in the case of Cimon-nay, it was, perhaps, absolutely essential to the preservation of the constitution. His very honesty made him resolute in his attempts against that constitution. His talents, his rank, his fame, his services, only rendered those attempts more dangerous.

"Could the reader be induced to view, with an examination equally dispassionate, the several ostracisms of Aristides and Themistocles, he might see equal tives and in the results. causes of justification, both in the moThe first was

To

absolutely necessary for the defeat of the aristocratic party, and the removal of restrictions on those energies which instantly found the most glorious vents for action; the second was justified by a similar necessity, that produced similar effects. impartial eyes a people may be vindicated without traducing those whom a people are driven to oppose. In such august and complicated trials the accuser and defendant may be both innocent."

Here then is the key to the hideous ingratitude of the Athenian people to their two most illustrious benefactors, Aristides and Cimon. They obstructed the Movement Party: they held by the constitution, and endeavoured to bring back a mixed form of government. This heinous offence was, in the eyes of the Athenian democracy, and their eulogist, Mr Bulwer, amply sufficient to justify their banishment: a proceeding, he says, which was right, even although they were innocent of the charges laid against them—as if injustice can in any case be vindicated by state necessity, or the form of government is to be approved which requires for its maintenance the periodical sacrifice of its noblest and most illustrious citizens !

In another place, Mr. Bulwer ob

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"Themistocles was summoned to the ordeal of the ostracism, and condemned by the majority of suffrages. Thus, like Aristides, not punished for offences, but paying the honourable penalty of rising by genius to that state of eminence, which threatens danger to the equality of republics.

"He departed from Athens, and chose his refuge at Argos, whose hatred to Sparta, his deadliest foe, promised him the securest protection.

"Death soon afterwards removed Aristides from all competitorship with Cimon; according to the most probable

us beware lest they become applicable to ourselves. Already in the policy of England has been evinced a sufficient inclination to load Colonial industry with oppressive duties, to the relief of the dominant island, as the enormous burdens imposed on West India produce, to the entire relief of the corresponding agricultural produce at home, sufficiently demonstrates. And if the present democratic ascendency in this country should continue unabated for any considerable time, we venture to prophesy, that if no other and more immediate cause of ruin sends the commonwealth to perdition, it will infallibly see its colonial empire break off, and consequently its maritime power destroyed, by the injustice done to, or the burdens imposed on, its colonial possessions, by the impatient ruling multitude at home, who, in any measure calculated to diminish present burdens on themselves, will ever see the most expedient and popular course of policy..

The other enormous evil of the Athenian constitution-viz, the exercise of judicial powers of the highest description by a mob of several thousand citizens, is thus described by our author:

"A yet more pernicious evil in the social state of the Athenians was radical in their constitution,-it was their courts of justice. Proceeding upon a theory that must have seemed specious and plausible to an inexperienced and infant republic, Solon had laid it down as a principle of his code, that as all men were interested in the preservation of law, so all men might exert the privilege of the plaintiff and accuser. As society grew more complicated, the door was thus opened to every species of vexatious charge and frivolous litigation. The common informer became a most harassing and powerful personage, and made one of a fruitful and crowded profession and in the very capital of liberty there existed the worst species of espionage. But justice was not thereby facilitated. The informer was regarded with universal hatred and contempt; and it is easy to perceive, from the writings of the great comic poet, that the sympathies of the Athenian audience were, as those of the English public at this day, enlisted against the man who brought the inquisition of the law to the hearth of his neighbour.

"Solon committed a yet more fatal and incurable error when he carried the de

mocratic principle into judicial tribunals. He evidently considered that the very strength and life of his constitution rested in the Heliæa-a court the numbers and nature of which have been already described. Perhaps, at a time when the old

oligarchy was yet so formidable, it might have been difficult to secure justice to the poorer classes, while the judges were selected from the wealthier. But justice to all classes became a yet more capricious uncertainty when a court of law resembled a popular hustings.

"If we intrust a wide political suffrage to the people, the people at least hold no trust for others than themselves and their

posterity-they are not responsible to the public, for they are the public. But in law, where there are two parties concerned, the plaintiff and defendant, the ju 'ge should not only be incorruptible, but strictly responsible. In Athens the people became the judge; and, in offences punishable by fine, were the very party interested in procuring condemnation; the numbers of the jury prevented all responsibility, excused all abuses, and made them susceptible of the same shameless excesses that characterise self-elected corporations

from which appeal is idle, and over which public opinion exercises no control. These numerous, ignorant, and passionate assemblies, were liable at all times to the heats of party, to the eloquence of individuals to the whims, and caprices, the prejudices, the impatience, and the turbulence, which must ever be the characteristics of a multitude orally addressed. It was evident also that from service in such a court, the wealthy, the eminent, and the learned, with other occupation or amusement, would soon seek to absent themselves. And the final blow to the integrity and respectability of the popular judicature was given at a later period by Pericles, when he instituted a salary, just sufficient to tempt the poor and to be disdained by the affluent, to every dicast or juryman in the ten ordinary courts. gal science became not the profession of the erudite and the laborious few, but the livelihood of the ignorant and idle multitude. The canvassing-the cajoling-the bribery that resulted from this, the most vicious, institution of the Athenian democracy are but too evident and melancholy tokens of the imperfection of human wisdom. Life, property, and character, were at the hazard of a popular election. These evils must have been long in progressive operation; but perhaps they were scarcely visible till the fatal innovation of Pericles, and the flagrant excesses that ensued, allowed the people themselves to listen to

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the branding and terrible satire upon the popular judicature, which is still preserved to us in the comedy of Aristophanes.

"At the same time, certain critics and historians have widely and grossly erred in supposing that these courts of the sovereign multitude' were partial to the poor, and hostile to the rich. All testi

mony proves that the fact was 1 mentably the reverse. The defendant was accustomed to engage the persons of rank or influence whom he might number as his friends, to appear in court on his behalf. And property was employed to procure at the bar of justice the suffrages it could command at a political election. The greatest vice of the democratic Heliæa was, that by a fine the wealthy could purchase pardon-by interest the great could soften law. But the chances were against the poor man. To him litigation was indeed cheap, but justice dear. had much the same inequality to struggle against in a suit with a powerful antagonist, that he would have had in contesting with him for an office in the administration. In all trials resting on the voice of popular assemblies, it ever has been and ever will be found, that, cæteris paribus, the Aristocrat will defeat the Plebeian."

He

These observations are equally just and luminous; and the concluding one in particular, as to the tendency of a corrupt or corruptible judicial multitude to decide in favour of the rich aristocrat in preference to the poor plebeian, in an author of Mr Bulwer's prepossessions, highly creditable. The only surprising thing is how an author who could see so clearly, and express so well, the total incapacity of a multitude to exercise the functions of a judge, should not have perceived, that, for the same reason, they are disqualified from taking an active part to any good or useful purpose in the administration of government. In fact, the temptation to the poor to swerve from the path of rectitude, or conscience in the case of government appointments or measures, are just as much the stronger than in the judgment of individuals, as the subjects requiring investigation are more intricate or difficult, the objects of contention more important and glittering, and the wealth which will be expended in corruption more abundant. And there in truth lies the eternal objection to democratic institutions, that, by withdrawing the people from their right province-that of the censors or controllers of government-and vesting in

them the perilous powers of actual administration or direction of affairs, they necessarily expose them to such a deluge of flattery or corruption, from the eloquent or wealthy candidates for power, as not merely unfits them for the sober or rational discharge of any and depraves their moral feelings; public duties, but utterly confounds and induces before the time when it would naturally arrive, that universal corruption of opinion which speedily attaches no other test to public actions but success, and leads men to consider the exercise of public duties as nothing but the means of individual elevation or aggrandizement.

We have given some passages from Mr Bulwer from which we dissent, or in the principles of which we differ. Let us now, in justice both to his principles and his powers of description, give a few others, in which we cordially and admiringly assent. The first is the description of the memorable conduct of the Laconian government, upon occasion of the dreadful revolt of the Helots which followed the great earthquake which nearly overthrew Lacedæmon, and rolled the rock of Mount Taygetus into the streets of Sparta—

"An earthquake, unprecedented in its violence, occurred in Sparta. In many places throughout Laconia, the rocky soil was rent asunder. From Mount Taygetus, which overhung the city, and on which the women of Lacedæmon were wont to hold their bacchanalian orgies, huge fragments rolled into the suburbs. The greater portion of the city was absolutely overthrown; and it is said, probably with exaggeration, that only five houses wholly escaped the shock. This terrible calamity did not cease suddenly as it came; its concussions were repeated; it buried alike men and treasure: could we credit Diodorus, no less than twenty thousand Thus depersons perished in the shock. populated, impoverished, and distressed— the enemies whom the cruelty of Sparta nursed within her bosom, resolved to seize the moment to execute their vengeance, and consummate her destruction. Under Pausanias, we have seen before, that the Helots were already ripe for revolt. death of that fierce conspirator checked, but did not crush, their designs of freedom. Now was the moment, when Sparta lay in ruins-now was the moment to realize their dreams. From field to field, from village to village, the news of the earthquake became the watchword of re

The