GEORGE GROTE

(1794-1871)

EORGE GROTE was the son of an English banker, and after leaving the Charterhouse school at the age of sixteen, he entered his father's bank and devoted himself to a business career, with a reservation, however, which soon appeared in a course of private study, systematically pursued in the early morning and late evening. He studied Greek and Roman history and philosophy, metaphysics, and political economy. One of his early friends was David Ricardo, the celebrated economist, who seems to have done much to stimulate his energies and confirm him in his hopes of literary usefulness. His first writing consisted largely of political essays and criticisms of such strength that he was drawn into public life and elected to Parliament, where he served three terms. Retiring from politics at the age of forty-six, he spent the next fifteen years of his life in writing his "History of Greece," the last volume of which appeared in 1856. "Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates," which appeared in 1865, was intended as a sequel to the "History." His "Minor Works," including a number of important essays, were collected and published in 1873, two years after his death, which occurred at London, June 18th, 1871. He was a man of the most elevated moral character, and it was in keeping with it that when Gladstone offered him a peerage, he paid a worthy tribute to the dignity of the historian's office by declining it.

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BYRON AND THE GROWTH OF HISTORY FROM MYTH

ISTRIBUTING all the accredited narratives which float in society into three classes,- accurate matter of fact; exaggerated matter of fact; and entire, though plausible, fiction,- the last class will be found to embrace a very considerable proportion of the whole. They are tales which grow out of, and are accommodated to, the prevalent emotions of the public among whom they circulate; they exemplify and illustrate the partialities or antipathies, the hopes or fears, the religious or political senti

ments of a given audience. There is no other evidence to certify them, indeed, except their plausibility; but that title is amply sufficient: the man who recounts what seems to fill up gaps or solve pre-existing difficulties in the minds of his hearers runs little risk of being called upon to name an auctor secundus for his story. The love of new plausibility is as common as the love of genuine and ascertained truth is rare; questions of positive evidence are irksome to almost every one; and the historian who desires general circulation casts all such discussions into an appendix, of which he knows that the leaves will remain uncut. What is worse still-when one of these verisimilia has once been comfortably domiciled in a man's mind, if you proceed to apply to it the test of positive evidence, in all probability he will refuse to listen to you; but should you unhappily succeed in showing that the story includes some chronological or geographical inconsistencies which no subtlety can evade, be assured that he will look upon you with emotions not very different from those which he contemplates the dentist-if he be not ready "to bite you outright" (to use the homely phrase of Socrates in Plato's "Theætetus," Chap. xxii), he will at least alter his course the next time he sees you afar off in the street.

To illustrate what we have just laid down,—the genesis of this specious and plausible fiction, so radically distinct from exaggerated or misreported reality,- we will cite an example having reference to a celebrated genius, not very long deceased. In the works of Lord Byron, published by Mr. Moore (Vol. xi., p. 72), we find the "Manfred" of the great English poet criticized by one greater than himself-by a person no less than Goethe. A portion of that criticism runs as follows:

"We find thus, in this tragedy, the quintessence of the most astonishing talent born to be its own tormentor. The character of Lord Byron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. He has often enough confessed what it is that torments him. There are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms forever haunt him, and which (we cite the translation as we find it) in this piece also, perform principal parts: one under the name of Astarté; the other without form or presence, and merely a voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place at the former, the following is related: When a bold and enterprising young man, he won the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night

found dead in the street, and there was no one on whom suspicion could be attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted him all his life after. This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems."

Such is Goethe's criticism; now come the remarks of Mr. Moore, the biographer and personal friend of Lord Byron:

"The grave confidence with which the venerable critic [Goethe] traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events, making no difficulty even of a double murder at Florence to furnish grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the disposition so prevalent throughout Europe to picture Byron as a man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as in his poetry. To these exaggerated, or wholly false, notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed upon the world of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures in places he never saw, and with persons that never existed, have no doubt considerably contributed; and the consequence is, so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long current on the Continent, that it may be questioned whether the real flesh and blood' hero of these pages-the social, practicalminded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear but an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage.”

Here we have specimens of genuine legend or mythus, such as Hekatæus, Herodotus, and Thucydides found so largely in possession of the Grecian mind, and such as even now, in the age of Blue Books and Statistical Societies, holds divided empire with reality - pullulating anew and in unexpected corners, as fast as the old plants are stifled by the legitimate seeds of history. It is not often that we have the opportunity of confronting thus nakedly the mythographer with the autoptic historian; and of demonstrating by so clear an example, that even where the mythical subject is indisputably real, the mythical predicates bear no resemblance to reality, but have their root in something generically different from actual matter of fact. Even with regard to places and persons in these narratives, the places were such as Byron had never seen, the persons such as had never existed.

Our readers, however, will not require to be told that the mythus differs essentially from accurate and well-ascertained history. What we wish to enforce upon them is, that it differs not

less essentially from inaccurate and ill-ascertained history; and the case just cited brings out the distinction forcibly. The story which Goethe relates of the intrigue and double murder at Florence is not a misreported fact; it is a pure and absolute fiction. It is not a story of which one part is true and another part false, nor in which you can hope, by removing ever so much of superficial exaggeration, to reach at last a subsoil of reality. All is alike untrue, the basis as well as the details. In the mind of the original inventor, the legend derived its birth, not from any erroneous description which had reached his ears respecting adventures of the real Lord Byron, but from the profound and vehement impression which Lord Byron's poetry had made both upon him and upon all others around him. The poet appeared to be breathing out his own soul and sufferings in the character of his heroes, we ought rather to say of his hero,- he seemed like one struck down, as well as inspired, by some strange visitation of destiny. In what manner, and from what cause, had the Eumenides been induced thus to single him out as their victim? A large circle of deeply moved readers, and amongst them the greatest of all German authors, cannot rest until this problem be solved; either a fact must be discovered, or a fiction invented, for the solution. The minds of all being perplexed by the same mystery and athirst for the same explanation, nothing is wanted except a prima vox; some one, more forward or more felicitous than the rest, imagines and proclaims the tragical narrative of the Florentine married couple. So happily does the story fit in, that the inventor seems only to have given clear utterance to that which others were dimly shadowing out in their minds; the lacerated feelings of the poet are no longer an enigma; the die which has stamped upon his verses their peculiar impress has been discovered and exhibited to view. If, indeed, we ask what is the authority for the tale, to speak in the Homeric language, it has been suggested by some god, or by the airy tongued Ossa, the bearer of encouragement and intelligence from omnipotent Zeus; to express the same idea in homely and infantine English, it has been whispered by a little bird. But we may be pretty well assured that few of the audience will raise questions about authority; the story drops into its place like the keystone of an arch, and exactly fills the painful vacancy in their minds; it seems to carry with it the same sort of evidence as the key which imparts meaning to a manuscript in cypher, and they are

too well pleased with the acquisition to be very nice as to the title. Nay, we may go further and say that the man who demonstrates its falsehood will be the most unwelcome of all instructors; so that we trust, for the comfort of Goethe's last years, that he was spared the pain of seeing his interesting mythus about Lord Byron contemptuously blotted out by Mr. Moore.

It argues no great discernment in Mr. Moore's criticism, that he passes with disdain from these German legends to some majestic sentences extracted from Lord Jeffrey and the Edinburgh Review, as the more worthy encomiasts of Byron. Now, the legends themselves shall be rational or absurd, as you will; but the glory of the poet consists in his having planted in so many intellectual minds, Goethe included, the astrus for creating and the appetite for believing them. In our view, this is a more unequivocal proof of his potent influence over the emotions, and a far higher compliment to his genius, than the most splendid article ever turned out in the blue and yellow clothing.

Father Malebranche, in discussing the theory of morals, has observed that our passions all justify themselves; that is, they suggest to us reasons for justifying them. He might with equal justice have remarked, and it is the point which we have sought to illustrate by the preceding remarks on the Byronian legends, that all our strong emotions, when shared in common by a circle of individuals or a community, will not only sanctify fallacious reasonings, but also call into being, and stamp with credibility, abundance of narratives purely fictitious. Whether the feeling be religious, or political, or æsthetic,-love, hatred, terror, gratitude, or admiration,-it will find or break a way to expand and particularize itself in appropriate anecdotes; it serves at once both as demand and supply; it both emboldens the speaker to invent, and disposes the hearers to believe him without any further warrant. Such anecdotes are fictions from beginning to end, but they are specious and impressive fictions; they boast no acknowledged parentage, but they are the adopted children of the whole community; they are embraced with an intensity of conviction quite equivalent to the best authenticated facts. And let it be always recollected - we once more repeat-that they are radically distinct from half-truths or misreported matters of fact; for upon this distinction will depend the different mode which we shall presently propose of dealing with them in reference to Grecian history.