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who roused passions as impetuous, proposed and virtue uncorrupted was to be found, and changes as sweeping, were actuated by ambi- glory unparalleled had been won? Who adtion as perilous, as that which, under their own ventured on a course which threatened to tear eyes, had torn civilization to pieces in its bleed- in pieces the country of Milton and Bacon, of ing dominion? What shall we say to those Scott and Newton, of Nelson and Wellington? who did this in the state where freedom had History will judge their conduct: no tumultuexisted longer, and was at their accession more ous mobs will drown its voice: from its deciunfettered than in any other country that eversion there will be no appeal, and its will be the existed; where prosperity unexampled existed, voice of ages.

BULWER'S ATHENS.*

government of his successors, has not blinded the far-seeing sagacity of Tacitus to the origin of all these evils in the wide-spread force of popular wickedness and folly, and the fatal overthrow of the long established sway of the Senate by the military talents and consummate address of the first emperor of the world.

It is a remarkable fact, that so numerous | wealth, and the leaden chains of the centralized and pregnant are the proofs afforded by history in all ages, of the universal and irremediable evils of democratic ascendency, that there is hardly an historical writer of any note, in any country or period of the world, who has not concurred in condemning it as the most dangerous form of government, and the most fatal enemy of that freedom which it professes to In modern times the same striking characsupport. In the classical writers, indeed, are teristic of all the greatest observers of human to be found numerous and impassioned, as events is equally conspicuous. Five hundred well as perfectly just eulogies on the ennobling years ago Machiavel deduced from a careful effects of civil liberty; but it is liberty, as con- retrospect of Roman history, not less than the tradistinguished from slavery, which is the ob- experience of the Republican States with which ject of their encomium: and none felt so strong- he was surrounded, the clearest views of the ly, or have expressed so forcibly, the pernicious enormous perils of unbridled democracy: and tendency of unbridled democracy to undermine he has left in his Discourses on Livy and and destroy the civil freedom and general pro- "Principe," maxims of government essentially tection of all classes, which is unquestionably adverse to democratic establishments, which, the first of human blessings. Thucydides, in depth of thought and justice of observation, whose profound mind was forcibly attracted have never been surpassed. Bacon clearly by the varied operations of the aristocratic and perceived, even amidst all the servility of the democratic factions, which in his age distract-nation, and tyranny of the government of Eng ed Greece, and whose conflict forms the sub- land under the Tudor princes, the opposite ject of his immortal work, has told us, that "in- dangers of republican rule, and his celebrated variably in civil contests it was found at apophthegm, that political changes, to be safe, Athens that the worst and most abandoned "should resemble those of nature, which albeit public characters obtained the ascendency." the greatest in the end, are imperceptible in Aristotle has condensed in six words the ever- their progress," has passed into a consuetudilasting characteristic of democratic govern-nary maxim, to which, to the end of the world, ment—τυττών των τυραννίδων τελευταιὴ ἡ δημοκρατιὰ. Sallust has pointed to the "Egestas cupida novarum rerum," as the most prolific source of the evils which first undermined, and at last overthrew the solid foundations of Roman liberty; and left in his Catiline conspiracy a picture of the demagogue, so just and true in all its touches, that in every age it has the air of having been drawn from the existing popular idol; and the phrase "Alieni appetens, sui profusus," has passed into a proverbial characteristic of that mixture of rapacity and insolvency which ever forms the basis of the characters who attain to democratic ascendency. Livy, amidst the majestic and heart-stirring narrative of Roman victories, never loses an opportunity of throwing in a reflection on the mingled instability and tyranny of popular assemblies; and all the experience of the woful tyranny which the triumph of democracy under Cæsar brought upon the Roman common

Athens, its Rise and Fall. By E. L. Bulwer, Esq. Saunders and Otley: London, 1837. Blackwood's Magazine, July, 1837.

the wise will never cease to refer, and against which the rash and reckless will never cease to chafe. The profound mind of Hume, it is well known, beheld the long and varied story of England's existence with perhaps too great a bias in favour of monarchical institutions; and Gibbon, even amidst the long series of calamities which accumulated round the sinking fortunes of the empire, has sufficiently evinced his strong sense of the impracticable nature, and tyrannic tendency of democratic institutions. Sir James Mackintosh, in his maturer years, strongly supported the same sound and rational principles; and all the fervour and energy of the youthful author of the Vindicia Gallica could not blind his better informed judgment later in life, to the frightful dangers of democratic ascendency, and the ultimate conclusion "that the only government which offers a rational prospect of establishing or preserving freedom, is that where the power

*In his letters and and miscellaneons works, his opinions on this subject are clearly expressed.

of directing affairs is vested in the aristocratic | people. They were fully aware that demointerests, under the perpetual safeguard of po- cratic energy has, in every age, been the pular watchfulness." Burke, almost forgot- mainspring of human improvement; but they ten as a champion of Whig doctrines in the were not less aware, that this spring is one of earlier part of his career, stands forth in im- such strength and power, that if not duly perishable lustre as the giant supporter of loaded, it immediately tears the machine to conservative principles in the zenith of his in- pieces. They admired and cherished the tellect. Pitt has told us that "democracy is warmth of the fire, but they were not so not the government of the few by the many, blinded by its advantages, as to permit it to but the many by the few, with this addition, escape its iron bars, and wrap the house in that the few who are thus raised to power are flames; they enjoyed the vigour of the horses the most dangerous and worthless of the com- which whirled the chariot along; but they munity;" and Fox, who spent his life in sup- were not so insane as to cast the charioteer porting liberal principles, with his dying breath from his seat, and allow their strength and bequeathed to his successors a perpetual strug-energy to overturn and destroy the vehicle: gle with the gigantic power which had risen out of its spirit, and imbodied its desires.

they acknowledged with gratitude the genial warmth of the central heat, which clothed the sides of the volcano with luxuriant fruits; but they looked to either hand, and beheld in the black furrow of desolation the track of the burning lava which had issued from its summit when it escaped its barriers, and filled the heavens with an eruption.

Nothing daunted by this long and majestic array of authority against him, Mr. Bulwer has taken the field in two octavo volumes, in order to illustrate the beneficial effect of re

Nor is France behind England in the same profound and far-seeing views of human affairs. Napoleon, elevated on the wave, and supported by the passions of the Revolution, conceived himself, as he himself told, to be the commissioned hand of Heaven to chastise its crimes and extinguish its atrocity. Madam de Staël, albeit passionately devoted to the memory of her father, the parent of the Revolution, and the author of the French Reform Bill, has yet devoted the maturity of her intellect to il-publican institutions upon social greatness lustrate the superior advantages which the mixed form of government established in England afforded; and in her Treatise on the French Revolution, supported with equal wisdom and eloquence the conservative principles, in which all minds of a certain elevation in every age have concurred: while Chateaubriand, the illustrious relic of feudal grandeur, and the graphic painter of modern suffering, has arrived, from the experience of his varied and interesting existence, at the same lofty and ennobling conclusions; and M. de Toqueville, the worthy conclusion to such a line of great-mountains; the prosperity of Holland to the ness, has portrayed, amidst the most impartial survey of American equality, seeds in the undisguised "tyranny of the majority," of the eventual and speedy destruction of civil liberty.

and national prosperity. He has selected for his subject the Athenian democracy-the eye of Greece-the cradle of history, tragedy, and the fine arts; the spot in the world where, in the narrowest limits, achievements the most mighty have been won, and genius the most immortal has been developed. He conceived, doubtless, that in Attica at least the extraordinary results of democratic agency could not be disputed; the Roman victories might be traced to the wisdom of the senate; the Swiss patriotism to the simplicity of its

protection of canals, or the prudence of its burgomasters; the endurance of America to the boundless vent afforded by its back settlements; but in Athens none of these peculiarities existed, and there the brilliant results of These enemies of democracy in every age. popular rule and long established self-governhave been led to these conclusions, just because ment were set forth in imperishable colours. they were the steadiest friends of freedom. They We rejoice he has made the attempt; we antideprecated and resisted the unbridled sway of cipate nothing but good to the conservative the people, because they saw clearly that it cause from his efforts. It is a common saying was utterly destructive to their real and dura- among lawyers, that falsehood may be exposed ble interests; that it permitted that sacred fire in a witness by cross-examination; but that which, duly restrained and repressed, is the truth only comes out the more clearly from all fountain of all greatness, whether in nations the efforts which are made for its confusion. or individuals, to waste itself in pernicious It is a fortunate day for the cause of historic flames, or expand into ruinous conflagration. truth when the leaders of the democratic party They supported the establishment of Conser-leave the declamation of the hustings and the vative checks on popular extravagance, because they perceived from experience, and had learned from history, that the gift of unbridled power is fatal to its possessors, and that least of all is it tolerable where the responsibility, the sole check upon its excesses, is destroyed by the number among whom it is divided. They advocated a mixed form of government, because they saw clearly, that under such, and such only, had the blessings of freedom in any age been enjoyed for any length of time by the

* Mackintosh's Memoirs, I. 174.

base flattery of popular adulation, and betake themselves to the arena of real argument. We feel the same joy at beholding Mr. Bulwer arm himself in the panoply of the field, and court the assaults of historical investigation, with which the knights of old saw themselves extricated from the mob of plebeian insurrection, and led forth to the combat of highborn chivalry.

Mr. Bulwer is, in every point of view, a distinguished writer. His work on England and the English is a brilliant performance, abound. ing with sparkling, containing some profound,

U

The Conservative principle of government, on the other hand, is, that mankind are radically and universally corrupt; that when invested with power, in whatever form of government, and from whatever class of society, they are immediately inclined to apply it to their own selfish ends; that the diffusion of education and knowledge has no tendency whatever to eradicate this universal propensity, but only gives it a different, less violent, but not less interested direction;—that the diffusion of supreme power among a multitude of hands di minishes to nothing the responsibility of each individual, while it augments in a proportionate degree the rapacity and selfishness which is

observations, and particularly interesting to a single tyrant; aristocratic on the wants of a the multitude of persons to whom foreign tra- rapacious oligarchy; democratic alone on the velling has rendered the comparison of Eng- consulted desires and grateful experience of lish and French character and institutions an the whole community. If these propositions object of interest. His novels in profound were all true, they would be decisive in favour knowledge of the human heart, brilliancy of of popular, and highly popular institutions; description, pathos of incident, and eloquence but unfortunately, though it is perfectly correct of language, are second to none in the English that monarchies and aristocracies are mainly language. The great defects of his writings, directed, if uncontrolled by the people, to sup in a political point of view, are the total ab-port the interests of a single or an oligarchical sence of any reference to a superintending government, it is no less true, that the rapacity power and the moral government of the world; of a democracy is just as great; that the reand the continual and laboured attempt to ex-sponsibility of its leaders, from the number of culpate the errors, and screen the vices, and those invested with power, is infinitely less, draw a veil over the perils of democratic go- and that the calamities which, in its unmitivernment. The want of the first, in an inves-gated form it in consequence lets loose on the tigation into human affairs, is like the absence community, are such as in every age have led of the character of Hamlet in the play bearing to its speedy subversion. his name: the presence of the second a continued drawback on the pleasures which an impartial mind derives from his otherwise able and interesting observations. More especially is a constant sense of the corruption and weakness of human nature an indispensable element in every inquiry or observation which has for its object the weighing the capability of mankind to bear the excitements, and wield the powers, and exercise the responsibility of self-government. We are not going to enter into any theological argument on original sin, how intimately soever it may be blended with the foundation of all investigations into the right principles of government; we assert only a fact, demonstrated by the ex-brought to bear on public affairs;-that when perience of every age, and acquiesced in by the wise of every country, that there is an universal tendency to corruption and license in human nature-that religion is the only effectual bridle on its excesses, and that the moment that a community is established, without the effective agency of that powerful curb on human passion, the progress of national affairs becomes nothing but the career of the prodigal, brilliant and alluring in the outset, dismal and degrading in the end. It is on this account that the friends of freedom have in every age been the most resolute and persevering enemies of democracy; because that fervent and searching element, essential to the highest national greatness, and the best ingredient in its prosperity, if duly coerced and tempered, becomes its most devouring and fatal enemy the instant that it breaks through its barriers, and obtains the unrestrained direction of the public destinies.

The views of the republican and the democrat are the very reverse of all this. According to them, wickedness and corruption are the inheritance of the oligarchy alone; aristocracies are always selfish, grasping, rapacious; democracies invariably energetic, generous, confiding. Nobles, they argue, never act but from designing or selfish views; their constant agent is human corruption; their incessant appeal to the basest and most degrading principles of our nature. Republicans alone are really philanthropic in their views; they alone attend to the interests of the masses; they alone lay the foundations of the social system on the broad basis of general well-being. Monarchical governments are founded on the caprice of

the multitude are the spectators of government, they are inclined to check or restrain its abuses, because others profit, and they suffer by them; but when they become government itself, they instantly support them, because they profit, and others suffer from their continuance ;-that democratic institutions thus, when once fully and really established, rapidly deprave the public mind, and engender an universal spirit of selfishness in the majority of the people, which speedily subverts the foundations of national prosperity; and that it is only when property is the directing, and numbers the controlling power, that the inherent vices and selfishness of the depositaries of authority can be effectually coerced by the opinion of the great majority who are likely to suffer by its excesses, or a lasting foundation be laid in the adherence of national opinion to the principles of virtue for any lengthened enjoyment of the blessings of prosperity, or any durable discharge of the commands of duty.

These are the opposite and conflicting principles of government which are now at issue in the world: and it is to support the former that Mr. Bulwer has brought the power of a cultivated mind and the vigour of an enlarged intellect. Athens was a favourable ground to take, in order to enforce the incalculable pow ers of the democratic spring in society. Nowhere else is to be found a state so small in its origin, and yet so great in its progress: so contracted in its territory, and yet so gigantic in its achievements: so limited in numbers, and yet so immortal in genius. Its dominions on the continent of Greece did not exceed an English county; its free inhabitants never

amounted to thirty thousand citizens-yet these inconsiderable numbers have filled the world with their renown; poetry, philosophy, architecture, sculpture, tragedy, comedy, geometry, physics, history, politics, almost date their origin from Athenian genius; and the monuments of art with which they have overspread the world still form the standard of taste in every civilized nation on earth. It is not surprising that so brilliant and captivating a spectacle should in every age have dazzled and transported mankind; and that seeing democratic institutions co-existing with so extraordinary a development of the intellectual faculties, it should have come to be generally imagined that they really were cause and effect, and that the only secure foundation which could be laid for the attainment of the highest honours of our being was in the extension of the powers of government to the great body of the people.

Roman confederacy, or reclaim such as, from the presence of the Punic arms, had passed over to their enemies. Whereas, in Greece, on the very first reverse, the whole states and colonies in alliance constantly passed over to the Lacedemonian league; and the growth of the power of Athens was repeatedly checked by the periodical reduction of its strength to the resources of its own territory. Had the Athenian multitude possessed the enduring fortitude and beneficent rule of the Roman aristocracy, they might, like them, have risen superior to every reverse, and gradually spread, by the willing incorporation of lesser states with their dominions, into a vast empire, extending over the whole shores of the Mediterranean, and giving law, like the mighty empire which succeeded them, for a thousand years to the whole civilized world.

Mr. Bulwer appears to be aware of the brief tenure of existence which Athens enjoyed; but he erroneously ascribes to general causes or inevitable necessity what in its case was the result merely of the fever of democratic activity.

Athens, however, has its dark as well as its brilliant side; and if the perfection of its science, the delicacy of its taste, and the refinement of its arts, furnish a plausible, and, in a certain degree, a just ground for representing "In that restless and unpausing energy, democratic institutions as the greatest stimu- which is the characteristic of an intellectual lant to the human mind, the brevity of its ex- republic, there seems, as it were, a kind of istence, the injustice of its decisions, the insta- destiny: a power impossible to resist urges the bility of its councils, and the cruelty of its de-state from action to action, from progress to crees, afford too fair a reason for doubting the progress, with a rapidity dangerous while it wisdom of imitating, on a larger scale, any of dazzles; resembling in this the career of indiits institutions. Its rise was rapid and glori-viduals impelled onward, first to attain, and ous; but the era of its prosperity was brief; thence to preserve power, and who cannot and it sunk, after a short space of existence, struggle against the fate which necessitates into an obscure, and, politically speaking, in- them to soar, until, by the moral gravitation significant old age. The sway of the multitude, of human things, the point which has no beyond who formed the council of last resort in the is attained; and the next effort to rise is but the commonwealth, was capricious and tyrannical; prelude of their fall. In such states Time, inand such as thoroughly disgusted all the states deed, moves with gigantic strides; years conin the confederacy of which it was the head. centrate what would be the epochs of centuries There was the secret of its weakness. Instead in the march of less popular institutions. The of protecting and cherishing the tributary and planet of their fortunes rolls with an equal allied states, the Athenian democracy insulted speed through the cycle of internal civilization and oppressed them, and in consequence, on as of foreign glory. The condition of their the first serious reverse, they all revolted; and brilliant life is the absence of repose. The the fleets which had constituted their strength accelerated circulation of the blood beautifies were at once ranged on the side of the enemies but consumes, and action itself, exhausting the of the state. The flames of Aigospotamos con- stores of youth by its very vigour, becomes a sumed the Athenian navy; but that disaster, mortal but divine disease." great as it undoubtedly was, was not greater than the rout of Trasymene, the slaughter of Cannæ, the irruption of the Gauls to Rome. But Athens had not the steady persevering rule of the Roman patricians; nor the wise and beneficent policy of the Senate to the states and alliance, and thence they wanted both the energy requisite to rise superior to all their misfortunes, and the grateful feelings which, in moments of disaster, ranged the allied states in steady and durable array around them. During the invasion by Hannibal, which, as involving a civil contest between the Patricians and Plebeians in all the Italian cities, very nearly resembled the Peloponnesian war, not one state of any moment revolted from the Roman alliance till after the disaster of Canna; and even then it was only Capua, the rival of Rome, which took any vigorous part with the Carthagenians, and a very little effort was sufficient to retain the other allied cities in the

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Now, in this eloquent passage there is an obvious error; and it is on this point that the Conservative or Constitutional principle of Government mainly differs from the Movement or Democratic. Aware of the violence of the fever which in Republican states exhausts the strength and wears out the energy of the people, the Conservative would not extinguish but regulate it; he would stop its diseased and feverish, to prolong and strengthen its healthy and vital action. He would not allow the youth to waste his strength and life in a brief period of guilty excess, or unrestrained indulgence, but so chasten and moderate the fever of the blood as to secure for him a useful manhood and a respected old age. The democrat, on the other hand, would plunge him at once into all the excesses of youth and intemperance, throw him into the arms of harlots and the orgies of drunkenness, and, amidst wine and women, the harp and the dance, lead him tʊ

poverty, sickness, and premature dissolution. That is the point, and, as the evidence is not And ancient history affords a memorable contrast in this particular; for while Athens, worn out and exhausted by the fever of democratic activity, rose like a brilliant meteor only to fall after a life as short as that of a single individual, Rome, in whom this superabundant energy was for centuries coerced and restrained by the solidity of Patrician institutions and the steadiness of Patrician rule, continued steadily to rise and advance through a succession of ages, and at length succeeded in subjecting the whole civilized earth to its dominion.

It has long been a matter of reproach to Athens, that she behaved with the blackest ingratitude to her greatest citizens; and that Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Socrates, Thucydides, and a host of other illus. trious men, received exile, confiscation, or death as the reward for the inestimable benefits they had conferred upon their fellow-citizens. Mr. Bulwer is much puzzled how to explain away these awkward facts; but as the banishment of these illustrious citizens, and the death of this illustrious sage, from the effects of popular jealousy, cannot be denied, he boldly endeavours to justify these atrocious acts of the Athenian democracy. In regard to Miltiades he observes:

"The case was simply this,-Miltiades was accused-whether justly or unjustly no matter -it was clearly as impossible not to receive the accusation, and to try the cause, as it would be for an English court of justice to refuse to admit a criminal action against Lord Grey or the Duke of Wellington. Was Miltiades guilty or not? This we cannot tell. We know that he was tried according to the law, and that the Athenians thought him guilty, for they condemned him. So far this is not ingratitude-it is the course of law. A man is tried and found guilty-if past services and renown were to save the great from punishment when convicted of a state offence, society would, perhaps, be disorganized, and certainly a free state would cease to exist. The question, therefore, shrinks to this-was it, or was it not ungrateful in the people to relax the penalty of death, legally incurred, and commute it to a heavy fine? I fear we shall find few instances of greater clemency in monarchies, however mild. Miltiades unhappily died. But nature slew him, not the Athenian people. And it cannot be said with greater justice of the Athenians, than of a people no less illustrious, and who are now their judges, that it was their custom, de tuer un Amiral pour encourager les autres.'"

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This passage affords an example of the determination which Mr. Bulwer generally evinces to justify and support the acts of his darling democracy, however extravagant or monstrous they may have been. Doubtless, we are not informed very specifically as to the nature of the evidence adduced in support of the charge of bribery brought against Miltiades. Doubtless, also, it was necessary to receive the charge when once preferred; but was it necessary to convict him, and send the hero of Marathon, the saviour of his country, into a painful exile, which ultimately proved his death?

laid before us, what right has Mr. Bulwer to assume that the Athenian multitude were not ungrateful or unjust in their decision! For their conduct, in 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 Themis tocles: 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 connection with the Lacedæmonian party could afford him. We are told, at least, that he not only op posed all the advances of the more liberal party-that he not only stood resolutely by the interests and dignities of the Areopagus, 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 seve ral ostracisms of Aristides and Themistocles,

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