And thus we travel on, through fair weather and foul,-now under Athenian ascendancy, now Spartan, now Theban-passing in review the reverses and convulsions of the Peloponnesian War, Corcyra in sedition, Scione in revolt, Amphipolis lost and won, and that awful night-battle of Syracuse, called by Mr. Grote "the most picturesque battle in history," fought as it was within the still waters of the land-locked bay, the glory of ancient harbours-the long, low barriers of Epipole and of the Hyblæan hills enclosing the doomed armament as within arms of stone-the white peak of Etna brooding over the scene from afar, like the guardian spirit of the island-while the infinite variety of human emotion in the groups along the shore, closing with the close of the battle in one universal shriek of despair, has been described by the historian's eloquent critic in the Quarterly Review, as only equalled by that which went up from the spectators on the hills round about Jerusalem, when the last crash of the burning temple announced that their national existence was at an end. But this reverse only served to elicit the indomitable energy of the suffering peoplecast down but not destroyed; and the History rather swells than declines in interest at this turning-point, and maintains its hold of .us "to see the end," through subsequent years of comparative dulness, and decadence the most evident, foreshowing and forerunning the death-in-life period of Hellas in extremis, of free-acting Greece in articulo mortis. Mr. Grote had promised a critical résumé of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, to form part of the closing volume. But as his History at large, so this volume in particular, outgrew his good intentions, and we are now to look forward (and marry we will) to the publication of this philosophical conspectus in a supplementary or complementary volume, the appearance of which, it may be presumed, will not be very long deferred. We tender our best congratulations to him, at parting, on the manner in which he has been enabled to carry through his grand enterprise. At Athens itself, within these few months, he has been lauded by a native Professor (Constantine Paparrogopoulos) as τον μεγαν Αγγλον ἱστοριογραφον ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΝ ΓΡΟΤΕ. His own countrymen have reason, as well as himself, to be proud of a work which, to the erudition and patient investigation supposed to be monopolised by our German cousins, adds the practical shrewdness and sober sagacity of the English publicist. Mr. Grote is, like the best of the Germans, a man of books; unlike a good many of them, he is something more: a man of thought, a man of sense, a man of action,-in fine, and is éros éimei, a man of men. INDEX TO THE THIRTY-NINTH VOLUME. A. Campaign, Omer Pasha's, 507 252 Cheshant, The Private Theatricals at, Constantinople, A Week in. By Las- -The Man of the People. II- Costello, Miss, "Lay of the Stork," 515 F.., T G.vi T 1 Lake Ngami, 611 Lamb, Charles. Prosings by Monks- Glimpse of Beanfield, A. By John Lewes's Life and Works of Goethe Lodgers, Our First, 186 H. from Railway Life. By a Season Her Majesty's Theatre, Re-opening of, Meccah, El Medinah and, 366 635 Medwin, Captain, the Ndes Men and Women," Browning's, 64 Milman's Latinonksh New Ghoto Christianity. Monck, Mary C. F. The Old Year's Monkshood, New Book Notesesby. Monkshood, Mingle Mangle by Grote's History of Greece, 533, 637 02 Querif zu0,en_baI 95 Tenby, Summer days at, 495 ́ ́ Old Maid, How I grew into an, 831 U. M END OF THE THIRTY-NINTH VOLUME. |