can believe it) the dress of a Persian sa- | sia; and, like a second Ulysses, taught his trap, as if already a vassal of Xerxes. readers the manners and abodes of the Disgusted at his insolence, the allies turned away from the Spartans, and entreated Athens to become their leader.

she violated the liberty of her allies: when, in place of the great king whose fleets she had discomfited, she set herself up as the Tyrant City over Greece.

most distant nations. The mathematical sciences and elementary astronomy established themselves firmly; and, (as the beThis is the culminating point of Athen- ginning is proverbially the half of the ian glory. The just Aristides was now their whole) it might have seemed that Greece chief statesman, and to his influence we must and through her the world, was about to perhaps mainly ascribe their splendid be- commence a steady course in the investihavior in the whole war. But as long as gation and establishment of moral and maman is man, he will be unable to endure un- terial science. But, although, by the imcontrolled power; and the disastrous with-petus already received, the intellectual dedrawal of the Spartans from the confedera-velopment of Athens was destined to be cy, (in fear lest other generals like Pausan- carried much further yet, the seeds of deias might be corrupted by exposure to struction to everything good and great temptations so new,) took away the check were planted in her on that day in which without which the Athenians would use their good reputation as a means of unjust aggrandizement. The glory of Athens had shot up too suddenly and splendidly to last; unless to temper her ambitious as- There are laws in the moral world as pirations she had met quick admonition certain as any in the material; and among that a selfish use of power would be suici- the most obvious of them is this, that misdal. In short, mounting speedily into mili- rule is destructive to the ruler. Governtary and naval greatness, holding alone the ment is an ordinance of God for good; treasury of the confederates, carrying on an and by doing good every governor strengthaggressive war against the great king him- ens himself; or if at any crisis the contraself, received as natural head of the Io- ry seem to be true, that is caused by preRians, and manifestly the first power in vious misgovernment which it is too late Greece, Athens was intoxicated, and for- to remedy. Athens, not contented with got that all her greatness was founded in ruling over her Ionian colonies, forcibly love of liberty, in self-sacrifice, and in jus- enslaved those of Corinth-the peaceful From this moment, all hopes of per- mercantile Corinth, a city beloved by all manent freedom and happiness for Greece Greece, a natural centre of union for Dowere wrecked. That further development rians and Ionians; active and intelligent, of her constitutions became almost impos- yet unambitious: Corinth whose spirited sible, which was yet absolutely needed-protests against the meditated injustice viz., the cohesion of her cities-or, as we of Lacedæmon had twice saved Athens should call them, her municipalities-into from imminent peril. This great ingratifederated powers, so as to comprise the tude precipitated on her the fatal Peloponwhole Greek nation in a band of perma- nesian war. Sparta might have murmurnent amity. The glorious city began, in- ed in secret, disgusted by her rival's ascendeed, to exhibit that intellectual greatness dency; but she would never have dared for which she will ever be remembered. to move against her, unless she had been The wisdom of the Ionian states betook it- goaded on by the Corinthians, and by a self to Athens. The beautiful arts were sense that the injustice of Athens had betransferred thither also, and soon reached come too gross to tolerate. Having resista perfection hardly since surpassed. Every ed to the last, the sage Archidamus, the thing which adorns social life there show-best of all the kings of Sparta, most unwiled itself. A simple and manly eloquence lingly began the war, which, he warned arose without cultivation. A profound the confederates, they were likely to leave and delicately defined system of law as a legacy to their children. an elaborate result of ages of experience, The Peloponnesian war, lasting in all but ascribing its final perfection to the twenty-seven years, was in almost every wisdom of Solon-employed and sharp- sense a civil contest. It was waged by ened the discrimination of common citi- Greeks against Greeks: for although IoThe Father of History produced, nian blood chiefly was on one side and Doin honor of his favorite Athens, the splen- rian on the other, the difference was only did epic narrative of the war against Per-like that between Scotchmen and Irishmen

zens.

within and by help of Persian gold from without, the tyranny which they imposed swept off by proscription and violence in ten months as many lives of citizens, as had perished by battle in ten years,-says Xenophon, an aristocratic and Laconizing historian. So much we have stated in summary, to show by what violence the progress of the Athenian constitution was arrested; the population itself suffering so great a change as to place a chasm between what preceded and what followed.

-their language being mutually intelligible, their manners, institutions and religion substantially the same; however varying in form, as Protestantism and Catholicism. But this was not all. Since Athens upheld democracy, and Sparta aristocracy, a double faction was formed in a majority of the states of Greece; so that every community had the enemy in its own bosom. To make the war more lingering, Athens was as unable to oppose the combined force of her adversary by land, as Sparta by sea, and the opposite forces could not be measured to- Although seventy or eighty years more gether. What, however, we are chiefly con- may be counted, before the liberties of cerned with is, that by reason of the obsti- Athens were lost; nevertheless, no further nacy of this intestine and unnatural conflict, development or production took place in the a shocking demoralization of all Greece took state; which was now rather a dead maplace. Half of every state (so to say) was chine, worked by the talents of a succession extirpated or driven into exile by the other of able performers, than a living organism. half. Instead of that compromise between Several stages of progress may be counted aristocracy and democracy which justice in Athens, besides those already alluded and expediency in most cities demanded, the to. The suppression of the last remnants of factions were goaded into implacable enmity, royal authority had left the old aristocracy and a mixed constitution was generally made predominant. Under their rule (probably hopeless. As for Athens, the whole popula- from a neglect to adapt the constitution to tion of her country-i. e., of the province of newly risen wants) the dreadful crime and Attica, was crushed into the walls of the anarchy which at length ensued gave rise town; and her celebrated statesman, who to the bloody but useless legislation of Drapressed upon her this measure as necessary, co, when the laws of Athens were first comhad no foresight of the calamities it would in-mitted to writing. Confusion and misery duce. A horrible plague first swept them continued thirty years longer, until the away in thousands, the moral mischiefs of great revolution known in connexion with which were far worse than the loss of life. the name of Solon. By an enormous canNext, the masses of idle country people need-celling of debts, by restoring captive debted to be fed at the public charge; which was ors to liberty, by repealing the severe pendone by paying them for attendance on pub-alties of Draco, by forgiving and recalling lic business. Under such a change of man- exiled citizens, he did much to tranquilners, morals could never have stood; and, ize the state. To prevent the recurrence in fact, from this time forth the Athenians of disorder, he enacted a new code of laws, were no longer the same people. The re- and introduced important changes into the sult was aided by another event. Through constitution. In particular, he substituted the immense waste of the life of citizens, property for birth, as a title to civil office, it became necessary to wink at or encou-and established a free trial by jury. The rage a disproportionate admission of foreign-power of supreme legislation was also vesers into the franchise; so that even in blood ted by him in the collected citizens, but the new nation was diverse from the old. In their assembly had not the right to origithe course of the war, the younger part of nate measures; an authority which rested the aristocracy, unable to endure the rise in the senate. Still, as the senate was electof men of lower rank into the administra-ed by the people, this constitution was a tion, became deeply disaffected with the manifest democracy. constitution and the pressure on the purses of the rich which followed the losses at Syracuse, brought out an oligarchical plot, which led to violent seditions. By the free use of assassination, the oligarchs for a time carried their objects: but the atrocious want of principle pervading the whole party, was their ruin. Finally, when the Lacedæmonians triumphed, in consequence of faction

Unfortunately, no adequate trial of it was allowed to be made, or the results are unknown to us. For the usurpation of Peisistratus, which followed soon after, nipped it in the bud; and when the sons of Peisistratus were expelled, the factious conflict of Isagoras and Cleisthenes induced the latter to project and carry a new reform of the constitution, which, however it may in part

have been useful, brought in at least one the most random, flashy, and violent speakabsurd and injurious regulation-the elect- er was likely to prevail. The older nobles ing the chief magistrates and the senate had many of them hereditary political ex(not by ballot, but) by the lot. Cleisthenes perience. Miltiades had a patrimonial kingalso changed the old division of the people, dom in the Chersonese, and had been long which was in four tribes, into another of in contact with Ionian usurpers and statesten tribes. The necessity of this is un- men. Many of them had estates in Naxos, known to us, but it is probable that the sys- Lemnos, or other islands; some in Thrace, tem of four tribes was quite antiquated, as the historian Thucydides. Their politiand, like our 'old Sarum and Gatton' en- cal ideas were received by actual contact abled the shadow of the past to dictate to with men, and had far more of the practithe present. Previous to this, a minority cal than of the speculative. But the young had been able to paralyse the action of the nobles who grew up with Alcibiades, had majority; but from this moment the great- studied politics (and indeed morals) as a est energy of will and action showed itself part of rhetoric; and while they had gained in all the proceedings of Athens. Mere no- a certain specious cleverness in sophistical bility henceforth went for nothing; but declamation, were so miserably deficient in where it was united to personal qualities soundness of moral judgment, that we aland wealth, it commanded the esteem of the most forgive the Athenians for preferring the people. With the more energetic and homely vulgarity and violence of a Cleon. worthy nobles the administration rested, al- After the Peloponnesian war, the aristomost without dispute, (Themistocles being cracy (as such) vanish for ever from the the only statesman of lower rank,) from the public administration at Athens. Statesreform of Cleisthenes, B. c. 503, to the manship becomes a strictly professional afdeath of Pericles, B. c. 429. It is remarka- fair; so, indeed, does the office of general ble enough that this final growth of demo--a mark of the improvement in the arts of cracy at Athens should be simultaneous with war. Henceforth every statesman has one the expulsion of the kings from Rome. or more generals in his party. The generBoth in Rome and in Athens, the high- als choose to reside abroad, out of the reach est prosperity, at home and abroad, was en- of the Athenian people, and under protecjoyed during the period in which the nobili- tion of their army; a large part of which ty held the administration, and the mass of now consists of mercenaries, attached to the the people the supreme legislative power. general's person. The last point marks the But in neither was the nobility, of whom incipient break-up of the executive power. we speak, an unchangeable body. It was The people had no adequate funds for suppractically hereditary, only because wealth porting armies, nor patriotic zeal to serve is to a great extent hereditary; but new families were at any time capable of rising by merit. We do not know any special causes which left so few Athenians of noble birth to supply the place of Pericles, and we are almost driven to suspect that that great man had purposely kept out of the administration all men of high birth, who possessed aspiring and ardent ininds. On his death, no experienced statesman of the old nobility was left, but the respectable, amiable, unambitious Nicias; and almost of necessity, a demagogue of low birth stept into power-Cleon, a tanner.

in person; and what funds they had, were spent on their own wants or diversions, in preference to foreign war. In such a state of things, some of her own generals might have one day conquered Athens, if the Macedonian arms had not done it.

The institutions of Sparta were well adapted for one object, and that one onlyto enable a small Ďorian army to keep their superiority over a vastly larger conquered people-a mass of disfranchised freemen and oppressed slaves. Not but that other and milder methods would have been far better, even for this limited and unworthy May we suppose that the middle class of end. Her nearest neighbours, Messenia Athens, the manufacturers and merchants, and Argos-the former trampled under foot, had already so advanced in cultivation, as the latter savagely crippled-hated her as to be capable of governing the state? We Poland hates Russia. Like a church which certainly cannot infer this from the instance professes to be infallible, the constitution of Cleon; nor from his successor Hyper- of Lycurgus admitted no modification, and bolus, a manufacturer of lamps; nor from Cleophon, who came next; but, in truth, it is clear that with an idle, ignorant populace,

could not adapt itself to change of circumstances. When Sparta rose to power, her ruling men always proved oppressive, and

her public policy was uniformly alike sel- this, we must name another circumstance fish and self-destructive. Her constitution which strangely impeded that most desirabeing a mechanism, not a living power, had ble result-the blending of all Greece into nothing that admitted of growth and expan- one nation; viz., the superstition against sion. With the progress of social corrup-intermarriage with 'strangers,' as Greeks of tion, the laws of Lycurgus were neglected, another city were called. The greatness not repealed; and the king who tried to en- of Athens, as of Rome, had primitively deforce them was murdered. Yielding, at pended on their braving the reproach of last, to the course of events, Sparta fell un- being a mongrel city. Each of them had der tyrants, until she was absorbed into the once with much ease allowed foreigners to empire of Rome. become naturalized; and the resident aliens of Athens, in her best days, were an important body of men, who in considerable numbers found their way into the register of citizens. Yet in the historical times, not the least step could have been taken by the wisest Greek statesmen, it would seem, (so dense was the prejudice of the people,) to admit the neighbor states to a right of intermarriage. Had this been done, with the simple regulation that children should be citizens of their father's city, a basis for conciliation and political union would soon have arisen, from the strong tendency of the rich, where language is the same, to form affinities with their own order in other cities rather than their own. As it is, we know of but one important league of this nature-that of Olynthus, which was chiefly between Ionian cities; and the re

The Peloponnesian states, under the immediate surveillance of Sparta, suffered little from intestine disorder, until the Spartans had disgraced themselves by a selfish peace with Athens. Discontent and intrigues, plots, revolutions, and war, were the conseence, which broke out still more generally, when the great war against Athens came to an end. We have here room to notice only the singular attempt at coalition between Argus and Corinth, which towns the democratic party in each determined to fuse into a single state. The design was excellent; but since they endeavored to carry it into effect by wholesale violences, a reaction took place, and it totally failed.

Thebes is another great city which we can trace, as, first a monarchy, then an aristocracy, and finally, (but not till after the Peloponnesian war,) a democracy.sult of permitting intermariage was soon so Under the last form of government, she had a short-lived greatness, owing to the gush of liberty excited in her by the perfidious attempt of Sparta to subject her to a cruel rule. But she abused, still more quickly and far more atrociously than Athens, the power which the heroic spirits, whom oppression called forth, had won for her and when young Alexander, in imperial fury, razed Thebes to the ground, and sold her unhappy people into slavery, though all the Greeks shuddered, but few mourned.

striking, that the Lacedæmonians took alarm at the growing power of the league, and under pretence of religion, sent an army which succeeded in enforcing its dissolution. This fact goes strongly to confirm what we are otherwise disposed to believe, that Greek religion was the canker, at the basis of Greek civilization; not only because it kept up systematic immorality, but because it was essentially local and partial, and enforced the isolation of communities-practically regarding the Apollo Patrous of Athens as a different god from Apollo Carneus of Sparta, so that intermarriage between the votaries of the two was a profanation. On these deep-seated ideas ultimately depends the weal or woe of nations. Greece acted, and fell, and has left us the lesson of both; but until purged of her gross faith, higher excellence or more permanent prosperity was perhaps impossible.

Macedonia was the power by which all the previous Grecian policy was overthrown. Its disproportionate might deranged the balance of affairs in the states which were nominally left free, since a Macedonian party was sure to form itself within each of them. In the decline of Greece, a new confederacy rose in Achaia, as it were born after its time-the Achæan league, The inherent defect of almost all these which showed for more than a century to- constitutions may perhaps be traced to the gether what the states of Greece might smallness of the scale on which they were have done at an earlier period, and what built. Few of them were duly mixed; and they would have done, but for the singular yet on this, more than on any other single institutions of Sparta, and the contrast of point, the excellence of a constitution deDorian and Achæan blood. But besides pends. As individuals, we need rights,

A slave

mocracies, as those of America, mere extent of territory gives a prodigious advantage. As long as the United States remain together on their present scale, they are too strong to fear their rich men, and will never ostracise them from jealousy. The great thing to be hoped and desired for all such communities is, that an organization should grow up strong enough to hold them together in time of discontent, and that whenever a real aristocracy' arises, it should be freely vested with the executive government.

The work at the head of this article, while bearing the modest name of a manual, is the fruit of great research; and presents, we think, a more trustworthy statement on the subject to which it relates than will be found in any other single volume. It is one of the series of works for the translation of which we are indebted to the enterprise of the late Mr. Talboys, of Oxford.

and equal rights, against the executive gov- [executive and judicial power. ernment, because it is as individuals that we population, happily, we have not, such as are liable to oppression from it; but by ever kept Sparta in tremor; and whatever the legislative power we cannot be harmed may be the actual oppression of some classas individuals. Laws touch us only as mem-es, the fact is condemned and hated, the bers of classes; hence it is classes, not instant it becomes notorious. Even in depersons, which need to be defended from legislatorial oppression, and classes therefore that ought to be represented (to use a modern term) in the legislative assembly. In such assemblies, no order scruples to sacrifice the interests of another order to its own, if it can do this safely. Inevitably, therefore, if either a nobility or a commonalty has unchecked authority, one part of the state will be injured and become disaffected. Of all the Grecian communities, Rhodes bears the most honorable name for a mixed and well-balanced constitution, and for high political integrity; but we know too little of the details to judge how far the sound morality of her people and the goodness of her polity were mutually cause or effect. Acarnania also, a province seldom heard of in history, enjoyed for several centuries a happy tranquillity, broken only by events which set off the moderation and good faith for which she was celebrated. But here, as elsewhere, peaceful unambitiousness, full as it is of reward to those who enjoy it, yet by the obscurity cast around, it transmits no definite lesson to posterity. In the more active states of Greece, and all whose history is well known, we see that the different orders of the same state could not bear collision on so small a theatre, without intense exasperation. Each side saw its adversaries so near, and, an opportunity so within reach, as to conceive the idea of absolutely extirpating them. Wholesale banishment and confiscation was the anticipated effect of revolution; and every civil commotion was too apt to terminate in the despotic rule of one or other order. By such convulsions (that nothing might be purely evil) the slaves alone gained. Herein is the enormous advantage of the massive weight of European states. To abuse the rights of victory to so awful an extent as was customary in Greece, would now be, if not physically impossible, yet morally impossible, except after irritation that has lasted for ages. In the chief states of Europe, it is to be hoped that every class of the community will be more and more protected from evil legislation, perpetrated on it by other classes; and all citizens have long since been theoretically equal in presence of the

CLAIMS OE LABOR.

From the Westminster Review.

[Read this article. Its concluding reflections, especially, are well worthy the consideration of both genuine and mistaken philanthropists.] ED.

The Claims of Labor. An Essay on the Duties of the Employers to the Employed. Pickering. 1844.

THE author of this little volume is already favorably known to the public as a teacher of much practical and homely wisdom. His former work, "Essays written in the Intervals of Business,' is one of the very few didactic writings that ever fell under our notice, really calculated to do good. It contained the well-weighed reflections of a man of some experience and much meditation, on the mode of actually applying the acknowledged principles of morality and prudence to the occupations and occurrences of daily life; and the effect which it was adapted to produce, and we believe