to us.

We are well aware that there are in this scheme of policy some elements of difficulty and danger. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that there may be embarrassment in its very success. England desires to maintain the integrity of Persia. Whatsoever weakens and impoverishes Persia is disadvantageous Persia, weak and poor, is necessarily a mere instrument in the hands of a more powerful State. It is our object, therefore, to strike a blow that shall intimidate, but shall not permanently weaken, the enemy. The possession of Karrack will be a gain to us, and will strengthen our influence now and hereafter; but will the desired concessions arrive in time to prevent operations in the interior? If they do not, we still feel assured that nothing will be done with the object of precipitating a dismemberment of the Persian Empire. It would be easy to excite rebellion in the provinces. It would be easy to carry with us the people as we advance-to enlist the Persians themselves into our ranks. But in such a measure, though it might tend to the immediate success of our military operations, there would be the seed of much future evil. We feel assured, therefore, that no efforts will be made to make the Persian subjects of the Shah unfaithful to their master; and that the expedition under Sir James Outram-an officer of large political' experience, as well as of approved military skill-will be conducted with a view rather to ulterior and permanent advantages than to the attainment of any immediate military successes, dear to the soldier, but embarrassing too often to the diplomatist.

What we have now to do is to establish our political relations with the Persian Court on such a footing as shall prevent the occurrence of those ruptures and semi-ruptures occasioned by the insolence and obstinacy of the Persians on the one hand, and our own weakness on the other, which have furnished so many humiliating episodes in the history of our diplomatic intercourse with the Court of Teheran. We by no means regard that Court in its normal state, as something essentially inoffensive and unambitious: we by no means concur with those writers who declare that this is not a Persian question, but simply a Russian question, and that our operations should be in the Baltic or the Black Sea, not in the Persian Gulf. There may be, not merely a Russian, but a world-wide question for solution before us, but the present is a Persian question. And it would be difficult to follow the plain narrative of facts which we have laid before our readers, without seeing how both the aggressions of the Persians in the direction of Afghanistan, and the outrages committed against ourselves, were mainly and

primarily of Persian origin. Indeed, at the very time that the conduct of the Suddr Azim towards the British Mission was most arrogant and insolent, his bearing towards the Russian Minister was such as to call down upon him and his Government both a rebuke and a menace. He believed that whilst England and Russia were engaged in great operations against each other, he might insult both with impunity, and by so doing raise himself in the estimation of the Shah. And we are convinced that the more complete the narrative of transactions at Teheran, to be laid before the country, may be, the more manifest it will appear that Persia is entitled to no sympathy on the score of foreign promptings, but mainly owes it to herself that she is now threatened with calamities the end of which, unless timely concesssions be made, it is difficult to foresee.

Nor should we omit to state, at the same time, that Russia has strenuously disclaimed all participation in the violent measures which have compelled us to resort to arms; that she has ostensibly endeavoured to deter the Shah from an enterprise calculated again to disturb the peace of Central Asia; and that, exhausted as she now is by the results of a recent struggle, and intent on the development of her internal resources, Russia professes to concur with England in a sincere desire to maintain the tranquillity and independence of those countries which intervene between the Asiatic portion of the Russian and the British dominions.

No. CCXIV. will be published in April.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

APRIL, 1857.

No. CCXIV.

ART. I. History of Greece. By GEORGE GROTE, Esq. Vol. XII. London: 1856.

MR. GROTE has fixed the conclusion of his great work at an earlier point than we could have wished. It is indeed that which he selected at the beginning of his labours; but we had hoped, and we have in former articles expressed the hope, that he might be induced to reconsider his determination, and not to lay down his pen till he had traced the history of Grecian freedom to its final overthrow. As it is, he contents himself with tracing the decline of Athenian independence down to the lowest pitch of degradation. The historian of the great democracy cannot be induced to extend his labours into times when Athens vanishes into political insignificance, and when the main interest of the drama circles around monarchical Macedonia and federal Achaia. His contempt for the Greece of Poly'bius,' we must confess, surprises us. The Greece of Polybius is indeed very inferior to the Greece of Thucydides; but it is still Greece, still living Greece, Greece still free and republican. It was indeed but a recovered freedom which it enjoyed, a freedom less perfect, less enduring, than that of the elder time; but it was still, as Pausanias calls it, a new shoot from the old trunk.* But Mr. Grote has turned away with something of disdain from a subject which we think is worthy of him, and

* “Οτε δὴ καὶ μόγις, ἅτε ἐκ δένδρου λελωβημένου καὶ εὐθὺ τὰ πλείονα, ἀνεβλάστησεν ἐκ τῆς Ἑλλάδος τὸ ̓Αχαϊκόν, vii. 17. 2. Mr. Grote himself quotes the passage, xii. 527.

VOL. CV. NO. CCXIV.

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which we are certain that no other man living is so competent to treat. Excellently as it has been dealt with by Bishop Thirlwall, there was still something to be added from Mr. Grote's own special point of view. No one could have so well compared the Achaian institutions with those of earlier and of later commonwealths. It is therefore with regret that we find Mr. Grote conclude his History of Greece with no more than a passing and contemptuous reference to the rise and development of the Achaian League. (Vol. xii. p. 528.)

With regard to the Macedonian aspect of the subject, we must confess that we entertain a different opinion. Mr. Grote is admirably qualified to be the historian of Achaia; he is not equally qualified to be the historian of Macedonia. Indeed, in the present volume and that immediately preceding it, he has given us a history of Macedonia in its most brilliant period, which we cannot but look upon as the least satisfactory portion of his noble work. Mr. Grote will, we trust, pardon us if we deal with him with some plainness of speech. His history is so extensive that some points fairly open to discussion could not fail to occur in it. He propounds so much that is new and startling, that he must be prepared for a certain amount of dissent even among admirers who study him in his own spirit. And we ourselves have so often expressed our admiration for his general treatment of his subject, we have borne such full and willing testimony to the permanent benefits which Mr. Grote has conferred upon historical literature, that we have fairly earned the right to controvert any special point, however important. Such a special point of controversy we find in his treatment of the history of Macedonia, and especially of its greatest sovereign. From Mr. Grote's view of Alexander the Great, we respectfully but very widely dissent, and our present object is to set forth our reasons for so dissenting.

Mr. Grote has many claims on the gratitude of the historical student; but it is as the historian of the Athenian democracy that his claims are highest and most enduring. In that character he has won abiding fame. He has grappled with popular errors: he has put forth truths which, but for the weighty arguments with which he has supported them, would have been at once cast aside as paradoxes. He has justified ostracism; he has found something to say for Cleon; he has shown that, even in the condemnation of Socrates, though the people erred and erred deeply, yet their error was natural and almost pardonable. Demos is the darling of his affections; he watches him from his cradle, and forsakes him only when he has sunk into a second

childhood from which no Sausage-seller on earth could revive him. Now it was by Macedonian hands that this cherished object was trampled down, degraded, corrupted, well nigh erased from the list of independent states. That Mr. Grote should not be perfectly fair to Macedonia and Macedonians is only an inevitable result of the constitution of human nature. And, even here, he presents a most honourable contrast to another great writer who participates in the same view of the subject. Niebuhr's lectures on the age of Philip and Alexander are conceived simply in the spirit of the too famous oration of Callisthenes.* Everything Macedonian is only mentioned to be vilified. Every recorded scandal against Alexander is eagerly seized upon, without regard to the evidence on which it rests. Even for actions which the whole world has hitherto been content to admire, Niebuhr is always ready to assign some unworthy motive. And all is put forth with overbearing dogmatism, on the mere ipse dixit of Barthold Niebuhr. Very different is the conduct of Mr. Grote. Even here his laborious honesty never fails him. Mr. Grote does not refuse, even to a Macedonian, the privilege, no less Macedonian than Athenian, of being heard before he is condemned. The evidence is, as ever with Mr. Grote, fully and fairly marshalled; the reader who has not gone through the original authorities for himself is put in a position to dissent, if he pleases, from the decision of the judge. Hardly ever does Mr. Grote fail to bring forward the passages which tell most strongly against his own view. He believes much against Alexander which we hold that the evidence does not warrant : but he never invents scandal or attributes motives after the manner of Niebuhr.† Niebuhr is simply incapable of under

* Οὐ τῆς δεινότητος ὁ Καλλισθένης, ἀλλὰ τῆς δυσμενείας Μακεδόσιν ἀπόδειξιν δέδωκε. (Plut. Alex. 53.)

Take for example the following instances of Niebuhr's extreme and even absurd unfairness: In theatrical historians [Arrian to wit, vi. 26.], we read the moving tale of the water which a soldier 'brought to Alexander, and how he poured it out in order to show 'them that he would share all his sufferings with them. I suspect 'it was with Alexander as it was with another great general, who 'ate a piece of coarse bread, but is said to have had a delicate 'morsel concealed in it.' (Lect. on Anc. Hist. vol. ii. p. 413., Eng. Tr.) What did Alexander conceal, and how did he conceal it?

In the same spirit he tells us (in the preceding page) that Alexander passed through the Gedrosian desert from hatred to his army 'and a wish to punish them for their resistance.' His repentance for the murder of Cleitus- very differently told by Mr. Grote