There is no end, however, we find, to these speculations; and we must here close our remarks on perfectibility, without touching upon the Political changes which are likely to be produced by a long course of progressive refinements and scientific improvement-though we are afraid that an enlightened anticipation would not be much more cheering in this view, than in any of those we have hitherto considered. Luxury and refinement have a tendency, we fear, to make men sensual and selfish; and, in that state, increased talent and intelligence is apt only to render them more mercenary and servile. Among the prejudices which this kind of philosophy roots out, that of patriotism, we fear, is generally among the first to be surmounted;-and then, a dangerous opposition to power, and a sacrifice of interest to affection, speedily come to be considered as romantic. Arts are discovered to palliate the encroachments of arbitrary power; and a luxurious, patronizing, and vicious monarchy is firmly established amidst the adulations of a corrupt nation. But we must proceed at last to Madame de Staël's History of Literature.

Jenomination. China, the oldest manufacturing | always be considered as one of the least fornation in the world, and by far the greatest that tunate which Providence has assigned to any ever existed with the use of little machinery, of the human race. has always suffered from a redundant population, and has always kept the largest part of its inhabitants in a state of the greatest poverty. The effect then which is produced on the lower orders of society, by that increase of dustry and refinement, and that multiplication of conveniences which are commonly looked upon as the surest tests of increasing prosperity, is to convert the peasants into manufacturers, and the manufacturers into paapers; while the chance of their ever emerging from this condition becomes constantly less, the more complete and mature the system is which had originally produced it. When manufactures are long established, and thoroughly understood, it will always be found, that persons possessed of a large capial can carry them on upon lower profits than persons of any other description; and the natural tendency of this system, therefore, is throw the whole business into the hands of great capitalists; and thus not only to render it next to impossible for a common workman to advance himself into the condition of a master, but to drive from the competition the greater part of those moderate dealers, by whose prosperity alone the general happiness of the nation can be promoted. The state of the operative manufacturers, therefore, seems every day more hopelessly stationary; and that great body of the people, it appears to is likely to grow into a fixed and degraded caste, out of which no person can hope to escape, who has once been enrolled among its members. They cannot look up to the rank of master manufacturers; because, without considerable capital, it will every day be more mpossible to engage in that occupation-and lack they cannot go to the labours of agriculture, because there is no demand for their services. The improved system of farming, furnishes an increased produce with many fewer hands than were formerly employed in procuring a much smaller return; and besides all this, the lower population has actually increased to a far greater amount than ever was at any time employed in the cultivation of the ground.

is

Not knowing any thing of the Egyptians and Phonicians, she takes the Greeks for the first inventors of literature-and explains many of their peculiarities by that supposition. The first development of talent, she says, in Poetry; and the first poetry consists in the rapturous description of striking objects in nature, or of the actions and exploits that are then thought of the greatest importance. There is little reflection-no nice development of feeling or character-and no sustained strain of tenderness or moral emotion in this primitive poetry; which charms almost entirely by the freshness and brilliancy of its colouring-the spirit and naturalness of its representations and the air of freedom and facility with which every thing is executed. This, was the age of Homer. After that, though at a long interval, came the age of Pericles:-When human nature was a little more studied and regarded, and poetry received accordingly a certain cast of thoughtTo remedy all these evils, which are likely, fulness, and an air of labour-eloquence began as we conceive, to be aggravated, rather than to be artful, and the rights and duties of men relieved, by the general progress of refinement to be subjects of meditation and inquiry. and intelligence, we have little to look to but This, therefore, was the era of the tragedians, the beneficial effects of this increasing intelli- the orators, and the first ethical philosophers. gence upon the lower orders themselves;- Last came the age of Alexander, when science and we are far from undervaluing this influ- had superseded fancy, and all the talent of ence. By the universal adoption of a good the country was turned to the pursuits of system of education, habits of foresight and philosophy. This, Madame de Staël thinks, self-control, and rigid economy, may in time is the natural progress of literature in all no doubt be pretty generally introduced, in-countries; and that of the Greeks is only disstead of the improvidence and profligacy which too commonly characterize the larger assemblages of our manufacturing population; and if these lead, as they are likely to do, to the general institution of Friendly Societies and banks for savings among the workmen, a great palliative will have been provided for the disadvantages of a situation, which must

tinguished by their having been the first that pursued it, and by the peculiarities of their mythology, and their political relations. It is not quite clear indeed that they were the first; but Madame de Staël is very eloquent upon that supposition.

The state of society, however, in those early times, was certainly such as to impress ve'y

affliction which he has been forced to add to the fatal impulse of the original character, show, more strongly than any thing else, the radical difference between the ancient and the modern conception of the passion.

the Chorus;-but the heroes themselves act always by the order of the Gods. Accordingly, the authors of the most atrocious actions are seldom represented in the Greek tragedies as properly guilty, but only as piacular;-and their general moral is rather, that the Gods are omnipotent, than that crimes should give rise to punishment and detestation.

A great part of the effect of these represen tations must have depended on the exclusive nationality of their subjects, and the extreme

The Political institutions of Greece had also a remarkable effect on their literature; and nothing can show this so strongly as the striking contrast between Athens and Spartaplaced under the same sky-with the same language and religion-and yet so opposite in their government and in their literary pur-nationality of their auditors; though it is a suits. The ruling passion of the Athenians was that of amusement; for, though the emulation of glory was more lively among them than among any other people, it was still subordinate to their rapturous admiration of successful talent. Their law of ostracism is a proof, how much they were afraid of their own propensity to idolize. They could not trist themselves in the presence of one who aal become too popular. This propensity also has had a sensible effect upon their poetry; and it should never be forgotten, that it was not composed to be read and studied and criticized in the solitude of the closet, like the works that have been produced since the invention of printing; but to be recited to music, before multitudes assembled at feasts and high solemnities, where every thing favoured the kindling and diffusion of that enthusiasm, of which the history now seems to

us so mcredible.

There is a separate chapter on the Greek drama-which is full of brilliant and original observations; though we have already anticpated the substance of many of them. The great basis of its peculiarity, was the constant interposition of the Gods. Almost all the violent passions are represented as the irreistible inspirations of a superior power; almost all their extraordinary actions as the failment of an oracle-the accomplishment of an unrelenting destiny. This probably led to the awfulness and terror of the representation, in an audience which believed mplicitly in the reality of those dispensations. But it has impaired their dramatic excellence, by dispensing them too much from the necessity of preparing their catastrophes by a gradation of natural events, the exact delineation of character,-and the touching representation of those preparatory struggles which precede a resolution of horror. Orestes kills his mother, and Electra encourages him to the deed,-without the least indication, in either, of that poignant remorse which afterwards avenges the parricide. No modern dramatist could possibly have omitted so important and natural a part of the exhibition;but the explanation of it is found at once in the ruling superstition of the age. Apollo had commanded the murder-and Orestes could not hesitate to obey. When it is committed, the Furies are commissioned to pursue him; and the audience shudders with reverential Iwe at the torments they inflict on their victim. Human sentiments, and human motives, have but little to do in bringing about these catasbes. They are sometimes suggested by

striking remark of Madame de Stael, that the Greeks, after all, were more national than republican, and were never actuated with that profound hatred and scorn of tyranny which afterwards exalted the Roman character. Almost all their tragic subjects, accordingly, are taken from the misfortunes of kings;-of kings descended from the Gods, and upon whose genealogy the nation still continued to pride itself. The fate of the Tarquins could never have been regarded at Rome as a worthy occasion either of pity or horror. Republican sentiments are occasionally introduced into the Greek Choruses;-though we cannot agree with Madame de Staël in considering these musical bodies as intended to represent the people. It is in their comedy, that the defects of the Greek literature are most conspicuous. The world was then too young to supply its materials. Society had not existed long enough, either to develop the finer shades of character in real life, or to generate the talent of observing, generalizing, and representing them. The national genius, and the form of government, led them to delight in detraction and popular abuse; for though they admired and applauded their great men, they had not in their hearts any great respect for them; and the degradation or seclusion in which they kept their women, took away almost all interest or elegance from the intercourse of private life, and reduced its scenes of gaiety to those of coarse debauch, or broad and humourous derision. The extreme coarseness and vulgarity of Aristophanes, is apt to excite our wonder, when we first consider him as the contempo rary of Euripides, and Socrates, and Plato;but the truth is, that the Athenians, after all, were but an ordinary populace as to moral delicacy and social refinement. Enthusiasm, and especially the enthusiasm of superstition and nationality, is as much a passion of the vulgar, as a delight in ribaldry and low buffoonery. The one was gratified by their tragedy;-and the comedy of Aristophanes was exactly calculated to give delight to the other. In the end, however, their love of buffoonery and detraction unfortunately proved too strong for their nationality. When Philip was at their gates, all the eloquence of Demosthenes could not rouse them from their theatrical dissipations. The great danger which they always apprehended to their liberties, was from the excessive power and popularity of one of their own great men; and, by a singular fatality, they perished, from a profli gate indifference and insensibility to the charms of patriotism and greatness.

In philosophy, Madame de Staël does not of letters with philosophy; and the cause of rank the Greeks very high. The greater part this peculiarity is very characteristic of the of them, indeed, were orators and poets, nation. They had subsisted longer, and ef rather than profound thinkers, or exact in- fected more, without literature, than any other quirers. They discoursed rhetorically upon people on record. They had become a great vague and abstract ideas; and, up to the time state, wisely constituted and skilfully admin of Aristotle, proceeded upon the radical error istered, long before any one of their citizens of substituting hypothesis for observation. had ever appeared as an author. The love That eminent person first snowed the use and of their country was the passion of each indi the necessity of analysis; and did infinitely vidual-the greatness of the Roman name the more for posterity than all the mystics that object of their pride and enthusiasm. Studies went before him. As their states were small, which had no reference to political objects, and their domestic life inelegant, men seem therefore, could find no favour in their eyes, to have been considered almost exclusively and it was from their subserviency to populai in their relations to the public. There is, and senatorial oratory, and the aid which they accordingly, a noble air of patriotism and de- promised to afford in the management of fac votedness to the common weal in all the mo- tions and national concerns, that they were rality of the ancients; and though Socrates first led to listen to the lessons of the Greek set the example of fixing the principles of philosophers. Nothing else could have invirtue for private life, the ethics of Plato, and duced Cato to enter upon such a study at such Xenophon, and Zeno, and most of the other an advanced period of life. Though the Rophilosophers, are little else than treatises of mans borrowed their philosophy from the political duties. In modern times, from the Greeks, however, they made much more use prevalence of monarchical government, and of it than their inasters. They carried into the great extent of societies, men are very their practice much of what the others congenerally loosened from their relations with tented themselves with setting down in their the public, and are but too much engrossed books; and thus came to attain much more with their private interests and affections. precise notions of practical duty, than could This may be venial, when they merely forget ever be invented by mere discoursers. The the state,-by which they are forgotten; but philosophical writings of Cicero, though in it is base and fatal, when they are guided by cumbered with the subtleties of his Athenthose interests in the few public functions they ian preceptors, contain a much more complete have still to perform. After all, the morality code of morality than is to be found in all the of the Greeks was very clumsy and imperfect. volumes of the Greeks-though it may be In political science, the variety of their govern- doubted, whether his political information and ments, and the perpetual play of war and nego-acuteness can be compared with that of Aristiation, had made them more expert. Their totle. It was the philosophy of the Stoics, historians narrate with spirit and simplicity; however, that gained the hearts of the Ro and this is their merit. They make scarcely mans; for it was that which fell in with their any reflections; and are marvellously indiffer-national habits and dispositions. ent as to vice or virtue. They record the most The same character and the same national atrocious and most heroic actions-the most institutions that led them to adopt the Greek disgusting crimes and most exemplary gener-philosophy instead of their poetry, restrained osity-with the same tranquil accuracy with them from the imitation of their theatrical which they would describe the succession of excesses, As their free government was storms and sunshine. Thucydides is some-strictly aristocratical, it could never permit what of a higher pitch; but the immense dif- its legitimate chiefs to be held up to mockery ference between him and Tacitus proves, better perhaps than any general reasoning, the progress which had been made in the interim in the powers of reflection and observation; and how near the Greeks, with all their boasted attainments, should be placed to the intellectual infancy of the species. In all their productions, indeed, the fewness of their ideas is remarkable; and their most impressive writings may be compared to the music of certain rude nations, which produces the most astonishing effects by the combination of not more than four or five simple notes.

on the stage, as the democratical licence of the Athenians held up the pretenders to then favour. But, independently of this, the severet dignity of the Roman character, and the deeper respect and prouder affection they entertained for all that exalted the glory of their country, would at all events have interdicted such indecorous and humiliating exhibitions. The comedy of Aristophanes never could have been tolerated at Rome; and though Plautus and Terence were allowed to imitate, or rather to translate, the more inoffensive dramas of a later age, it is remarkable, that they seldom Madame de Staël now proceeds to the Ro- ventured to subject even to that mitigated mans-who will not detain us by any means and more general ridicule any one invested so long. Their literature was confessedly with the dignity of a Roman citizen. The manborrowed from that of Greece; for little is ners represented are almost entirely Greek ever invented, where borrowing will serve the manners; and the ridiculous parts are almost purpose: But it was marked with several dis- without any exception assigned to foreigners, tinctions, to which alone it is now necessary and to persons of a servile condition. Women to attend. In the first place-and this is very were, from the beginning, of more account in remarkable-the Romans, contrary to the the estimation of the Romans than of the custom of all other nations, began their careerGreeks-though their province was still strict

ly domestic, and did not extend to what, in | repressed in a good degree by the remains of inelem tunes, is denominated society. With their national austerity, there is also a great all the severity of their character, the Romans deal more tenderness of affection. In spite and much more real tenderness than the of the pathos of some scenes in Euripides, Greeks, though they repressed its external and the melancholy passion of some frag indications, as among those marks of weak-ments of Simonides and Sappho, there is no ness which were unbecoming men intrusted with the interests and the honour of their country. Madame de Staël has drawn a pretty picture of the parting of Brutus and Portia; and contrasted it, as a specimen of national character, with the Grecian group of Pericles pleading for Aspasia. The general observation, we are persuaded, is just; but the examples are not quite fairly chosen. Brutus is a little too good for an average of Roman virtue. If she had chosen Mark Antony, or Lepidus, the contrast would have been less brilliant. The self-control which their principles required of them-the law which they had imposed on themselves, to have no indulgence for suffering in themselves or in others, excluded tragedy from the range of their literature. Pity was never to be recognized by a Roman, but when it came in the shape of a noble clemency to a ranquished foe;-and wailings and complaints were never to disgust the ears of men, who Anew how to act and to suffer in tranquillity. The very frequency of suicide in Rome, belonged to this characteristic. There was no other alternative, but to endure firmly, or to die-nor were importunate lamentations to be endured from one who was free to quit life whenever he could not bear it without murmuring,

thing at all like the fourth book of Virgil, the Alcmene, and Baucis and Philemon of Ovid, and some of the elegies of Tibullus, in the whole range of Greek literature. The memory of their departed freedom, too, conspired to give an air of sadness to much of the Roman poetry, and their feeling of the lateness of the age in which they were born. The Greeks thought only of the present and the future; but the Romans had begun already to live in the past, and to make pensive reflections on the faded glory of mankind. The historians of this classic age, though they have more of a moral character than those of Greece, are still but superficial teachers of wisdom. Their narration is more animated, and more pleasingly dramatised, by the orations with which it is interspersed;-but they have neither the profound reflection of Tacitus, nor the power of explaining great events by general causes, which distinguishes the writers of moder times.

What has been said relates to the literature of republican Rome. The usurpation of Auzustas gave a new character to her genius; and brought it back to those poetical studies with which most other nations have begun. The cause of this, too, is obvious. While liberty survived, the study of philosophy and oratory and history was but as an instrument in the hands of a liberal and patriotic ambitan, and naturally attracted the attention of all whose talents entitled them to aspire to the first dignities of the state. After an absalate government was established, those high prizes were taken out of the lottery of le; and the primitive uses of those noble instruments expired. There was no longer any safe or worthy end to be gained, by infinencing the conduct, or fixing the principles of men. But it was still permitted to seek their applause by ministering to their delight; and talent and ambition, when excluded from the nobler career of political activity, naturally sought for a humbler harvest of glory in the cultivation of poetry, and the arts of imagination. The poetry of the Romans, however, derived this advantage from the lateness of its origin, that it was enriched by all that nowledge of the human heart, and those habits of reflection, which had been generated by the previous study of philosophy. There is uniformly more thought, therefore, and more development, both of reason and of moral feeling, in the poets of the Augustan age, than many of their Greek predecessors; and though

The atrocious tyranny that darkened the earlier ages of the empire, gave rise to the third school of Roman literature. The sufferings to which men were subjected, turned their thoughts inward on their own hearts; and that philosophy which had first been courted as the handmaid of a generous ambition, was now sought as a shelter and consolation in misery. The maxims of the Stoics were again revived,-not, indeed, to stimulate to noble exertion, but to harden against misfortune. Their lofty lessons of virtue were again repeated-but with a bitter accent of despair and reproach; and that indulgence, or indifference towards vice, which had characterised the first philosophers, was now converted, by the terrible experience of its evils, into vehement and gloomy invective. Seneca, Tacitus, Epictetus, all fall under this description; and the same spirit is discernible in Juvenal and Lucan. Much more profound views of human nature, and a far greater moral sensibility characterise this age, and show that even the unspeakable degradation to which the abuse of power had then sunk the mistress of the world, could not arrest altogether that intellectual progress which gathers its treasures from all the varieties of human fortune. Quintilian and the two Plinys afford further evidence of this progress; for they are, in point of thought and accuracy, and profound sense, conspicuously superior to any writers upon similar subjects in the days of Augustus. Poetry and the fine arts languish. ed, indeed, under the rigours of this blasting despotism;-and it is honourable, on the whole, to the memory of their former greatness, that so few Roman poets should have sullied their pens by any traces of adulation towards the monsters who then sat in the place of power.

We pass over Madame de Staël's view of