cordially into Mr. Grote's views of Greek philosophy. This we conjecture from his treatment of Socrates. The circumstances of his work did not regularly or naturally lead him to speak of the son of Sophroniscus, but he has volunteered several short allusions and passages, which show that his ideas have been impregnated by the German spirit, and that we are hereafter to be presented with a Socrates, not moulded by the hands of Plato or even of Xenophon, but distorted and disguised by the arts of critics and rhetoricians.

The most striking exemplification, however, of the evil effects of German influence on Mr. Grote's mind is supplied by his dissertation on the Spartan Commonwealth. Though he arrives sometimes at results different from those obtained by Müller, it is obvious that his imagination has been overmastered by the apologetical history of the Dorians, and that his judgment has been betrayed into decisions equally at variance with logic and with history. Still it is in this part of his work that Mr. Grote displays the greatest talent. He sometimes exhibits an inclination to escape altogether from his trammels, and think boldly for himself; but the shadow of his evil genius has too long been over him, so that after a brief effort or two he relapses into mental servitude, and sings the old song as he has been taught to sing it.

Ŏur own temper of mind by no means disposes us to defer slavishly to the authority of any writers, ancient or modern. We put no blind faith in Plutarch or Isocrates, or Plato or Aristotle, still less in such authors as Myron of Pryene. But, taking all things into consideration, it does appear to us somewhat probable that men who lived contemporary with the Spartans-who had access to many hundreds of works now lost-who had the advantage of conversing familiarly with the most instructed among the disciples of Lycurgus, and who were besides inclined to inquiry and investigation, occupied at least a better position for acquiring correct knowledge than any professor whatever of Bonn or Göttingen. Yet Mr. Grote thinks it more safe to accept the authority of Mr. Müller than that of the most accurate among the ancients. We allude more especially to the subject of the Crypteia. Greek writers of grave character affirm that the Spartan Ephori annually proclaimed war against the Helots, that by a sort of jesuitical sleight of conscience they might appear to themselves justified in attacking and cutting them off secretly. But Mr. Grote, faithfully repeating the words of Ottfried Müller, asks if it be at all likely that the Spartan serfs, if made war upon by proclamation, would submit quietly to be so dealt with by their masters.

They who desire to measure the extent of their submissiveness, may read and consider the account given by Thucydides of the most wanton and fearful massacre recorded in Grecian history, which was perpetrated against these men. Sparta, which lived in perpetual fear of them, on one occasion, when her apprehensions were more pungent than usual, conceived a stratagem for getting the most daring of the Helots

into her hands. Promising freedom to the boldest and bravest, who would consent to take up arms in her cause, she thus inveigled two thousand to come forward as volunteers. These gallant Peloponnesians having been received into the city with demonstrations of joy, were manumitted, and applauded and crowned, and led triumphantly round the temples, in order to place them as it were under the peculiar protection of the gods of Sparta. But after the conclusion of this imposing ceremony they immediately disappeared, nor was the manner of their death or one of their bodies ever discovered. There were deep pits at the foot of Taygetus, into which the Spartans cast their surplus children, and these probably would have been the place to search for the bodies of the two thousand Helots. This was an act somewhat more significant than the proclamation of war made by the Ephori; not publicly, however, but in the senate, with closed doors, and out of hearing of every Helot, in Laconia. They proclaimed as a Jesuit swears, sotto voce, not being desirous that the world should know anything of the matter.

Nevertheless, Mr. Grote's humanity will not permit him to give credence to the story of the Crypteia, which is this:-A number of the most enterprising and cruel young men among the Spartans having been furnished with daggers, were sent forth from the city to lurk about the Helotan villages, and subsist how they could. They were commanded to conceal themselves, to lie in ambuscade, and to keep watch over the serfs; but, as both Mr. Müller and Mr. Grote believe, for no special purpose, and with no general result. They may, no doubt, have occasionally picked off a few Helots; but assassination, it is contended, was not the object with which they were sent out. Much mystery, we confess, hangs over this same Crypteia. Plato, in his Treatise of Laws, touches upon it slightly; but as one of the interlocutors of the dialogue is a Spartan, and another a Cretan, it might have been thought contrary to etiquette to develope all the enormity of the system.

In most of Mr. Grote's remarks on the power of training and discipline we entirely concur. An ancient philosopher observed: "Give me the education of youth, and any one who pleases may make laws for the state." This was strikingly exemplified at Sparta. Laws, properly speaking, there were few, and most of those bad. The constitution was highly imperfect, and the administration frequently corrupt. Yet, because the system of education was admirably adapted to attain the end aimed at by the Legislator, namely, conquest and dominion, the Lacedemonian commonwealth subsisted much longer and exercised more influence in Greece than states far more wisely constituted, and administered with a greater regard to justice and sound policy.

In a History of Greece, however, it is not long and laborious inquiries nto subjects like these that are wanted; but a display of the several constitutions of the country in action, exercising their proper functions, and producing their natural results. By this means alone, in our opinion, can we ever be brought to comprchend the very peculiar

characters of the Hellenic States, which resembled nothing in modern times, but grew out of a certain stage of civilization, and necessarily perished with it. In the same way, and in no other, can be popularly explained the reason why philosophy, literature, and the arts, blossomed and bore fruit so luxuriantly in Greece. In the mental constitution of the people there were, no doubt, many qualities favourable to the state of things to which we allude. A similar combination of external circumstances, if it could again exist, would not suffice, therefore, to reproduce analogous effects, the intellectual idiosyncrasies of the people requiring always to be taken into account.

On topics like these Mr. Grote sometimes writes very sensibly; but even when he is most successful in his drawing, the character of his style and diction suffices almost completely to neutralise the influence of his learning and logic. As a writer he has almost everything to learn; disposition, arrangement, proportion, rhetorical art, and diction. In none of these has he any fixed principle. His language seems to reflect the forms of the author with whom he has been last conversing. There is consequently nothing very characteristic in his manner, and he has little of that vivida vis animi, which, in what composition soever it is found, carries along the reader, irresistibly imbuing him with truth or error according to the object and intention of the teacher. The correctness of what we here state will, we feel assured, be proved ultimately by the decision of the public, which will find Mr. Grote's work cold and uninteresting after the first gloss of novelty shall have been worn away. The same thing has already taken place with some other histories that we could mention, though we need not go out of our way to speak evil of the dead.

MRS. EDEN'S SIXPENCE.

A SHORT STORY FOR SAMARITANS.

It was a little child that had come to the door to beg. But the knock-timid and hesitating as it was-disturbed the baby, that after much rocking and soothing, Mrs. Eden had just succeeded in getting into its first sleep. And very displeased with the knock was Mrs. Eden in consequence, and her mind was fully made up,-not only to dismiss the beggar,-if beggar it were,-without alms, but to speak a sharp word or two, into the bargain. But this last resolution was dismissed before she reached the door,-for she encountered a cutting gust of wind in the passage, which made her remember how severe the weather was out in the bleak streets,

and opportunely reminded her that Christian charity would not tolerate sharp words under the circumstances.

Severe enough, God knows, the weather had been for some days. People who had made their calculations, decided that for seven winters, the thermometer had not fallen so many degrees below the freezing point. Only that morning, within half a mile of Mrs. Eden's residence, a girl had been found stone dead— frozen, poor thing, on the doorstep of a rich man's house. But the rich man knew not, of course, that she was there,-for it is not in the human heart to suffer a fellow-creature to perish with cold and hunger on a doorstep. The rich man had dropped into a sound sleep drawing up his limbs in his comfortable warm bed, unconscious of the tragedy which, so near to him, was witnessed by the awful frost.

When Mrs. Eden had got the door open,-which was not easy of accomplishment for the wind for some moments absolutely insisted on keeping it shut, she beheld a little, ragged starveling, of what sex she could not determine-small enough to be only six years old but sufficiently aged in features to be twelve or thirteen-poverty having done the work of time, and laboured at it with good-will. Now Mrs. Eden, as we have seen, had determined to bestow no alms. The crying baby still admonished her of the interruption to its slumbers, and as it was a very wakeful baby indeed, she had to calculate upon a second course of rocking and soothing, before she could lay it on the pillow, and so find an opportunity to prepare her husband's supper. But woman's heart, and a mother's heart especially, is nature's master-piece of sympathy. And Mrs. Eden, who had little time for reading books, was a great scholar in human faces. God's Gospel, she often said in her own quaint fashion, was written in children's features,-a speech for which she was, on one occasion, taken soundly to task, by a local preacher and distributor of tracts. I believe she was right notwithstanding. When she had looked only an instant upon the little ragged epicene, and heard the piteous wail which its thin blue lips uttered, and which resolved itself into some such words as these"Have you anything to give a poor child to-night, that's got no mother, please?"-She felt a twinge at the heart, that by some process of association, had reference to a certain sixpence which was deposited in a pill-box that stood upon the mantel-piece within, and which she had that morning picked up in an adjoining

to

street. It seemed to Mrs. Eden that this waif could not be applied to better use than the relief of the little mendicant. Accordingly she bestowed the coin upon the child, whose faculty of speech was averted by the magnitude of the alms, and the donor was unthanked. She did not heed the circumstance, for she belonged not to that class of benefactors who are uneasy if the palate of their benevolence go untickled by praise.. The child, grasping the coin in its little hand, made quick way a baker's shop, before whose window, amongst other hungry and frost-pinched children, she (for it was a girl that Mrs. Eden had relieved,) had stood but a brief while before, eyeing the loaves that were as hopeless of attainment as the very food of angels. There was one loaf with its crusty side turned to catch the eye of the passengers, upon which she resolved to expend the sixpence. Now it chanced that the baker was not to be numbered amongst the kindest member of the human family. There was an acidity in his countenance which repelled liking. Some men we favour at a glance. This baker was of a different class. He was sour with an emphasis, especially to children, and more par ticularly to poor children. To do him justice he was not servile to the rich. He was vinegar still, a little diluted, perhaps, but never oil or butter, or any unctuous substance, though his wealthiest customer were counting gold of standard weight upon his desk.

The girl fearlessly entered the shop, and pointed to the loaf which she desired to possess. The baker frowned,-to his customary vinegar, he added a copious dash of unripe lemon-juice. The child threw down the sixpence.

That loaf-that 'un there he in the corner," said the child, eagerly. But the baker, who had taken up the coin, did not hasten to execute the order. He narrowly inspected the money, and dissatisfied with the scrutiny, notched it with a file. And then the full villany of its being was revealed. The Samaritan gift-Good Spirits had looked down upon it and blessed it was a sham. Adjoining the neighbourhood in which the baker re sided, a gang of coiners had recently established themselves, and base money was frequently tendered at the shops of the various tradesmen. Twice that day bad sixpences had been presented tol: the baker in exchange for bread. The call upon his time which the prosecution of the offenders would have demanded, had alone deterred from such a step, but he had inwardly resolved, that on