What are fears but voices airy,
Whispering harm where harm is not;
And deluding the unwary

Till the fatal bolt is shot ?*

When the appalling intelligence reached Athens of the final discomfiture of the second expedition against Syracuse-and as never in Grecian history+ had a force so large, so costly, so efficient, and so full of promise and confidence been sent forth; neither in Grecian history had ruin ever been so complete and sweeping-one cannot be surprised that the esteem and admiration hitherto felt by his fellow-citizens for Nicias, and which "had been throughout lofty and unshaken," should be, with the news of his defeat and death, exchanged for disgrace. His name, we find, was omitted, while that of his colleague Demosthenes was engraved, on the funeral pillar erected to commemorate the fallen warriors.

Tried by the standard of public duty, what judgment are we to pass on Nicias? Mr. Grote avows himself "compelled to say "-in summing the evidence for and against-that if his personal suffering (feelingly dwelt upon by Thucydides) could possibly be regarded in the light of an atonement, or set in an equation against the mischief brought by himself both on his army and his country, it would not be greater than his deserts. Admitting fully both the good intentions of Nicias, and his personal bravery, rising even into heroism during the last few days in Sicily, "it is not the less incontestable, that first, the failure of the enterprise-next, the destruction of the armament-is to be traced distinctly to his lamentable misjudgment. Sometimes petty trifling sometimes apathy and inaction-sometimes presumptuous neglect-sometimes obstinate blindness, even to urgent and obvious necessities—one or other of these his sad mental defects, will be found operative at every step whereby this fated armament sinks down from exuberant efficiency into the last depth of aggregate ruin and individual misery. His improvidence and incapacity stand proclaimed, not merely in the narrative of the historian, but even in his own letter to the Athenians, and in his own speeches both before the expedition and during its closing misfortunes, when contrasted with the reality of his proceedings. The man whose flagrant incompetency brought such wholesale ruin upon two fine armaments entrusted to his command, upon the Athenian maritime empire, and ultimately upon Athens herself, must appear on the tablets of history under the severest condemnation, even though his personal virtues had been loftier than those of Nikias."

Over-confidence in Nicias is deliberately pronounced by Mr. Grote the greatest personal mistake which the Athenian public ever committed. This mistake is taken advantage of by the historian, to urge a characteristic argument against those who, in reviewing the causes of popular misjudgment, are apt to enlarge prominently, if not exclusively, on demagogues and the demagogic influence. Never, he asserts, did any man in Athens, by mere force of demagogic qualities, acquire a measure of esteem at once so exaggerated and so durable, combined with so much power of

† See Grote. Part II. chap. lx.

Wordsworth. "This difference Pausanias explains by saying that Nikias was conceived to have disgraced himself as a military man by his voluntary surrender, which Demosthenes had disdained."-(Ibid.)

injuring his fellow-citizens, as the anti-demagogic Nicias. This public favourite, and leading popular man, was not, like Cleon, "a leather-seller of impudent and criminative eloquence, but a man of ancient family and hereditary wealth-munificent and affable, having credit not merely for the largesses which he bestowed, but also for all the insolences, which as a rich man he might have committed, but did not commit-free from all pecuniary corruption-a brave man, and above all an ultra-religious man, believed, therefore, to stand high in the favour of the gods, and to be fortunate." And triumphantly the historian appeals to the fact, that, such was the esteem felt by the Athenians for this union of good qualities purely personal and negative, with eminent station, that they presumed the higher aptitudes of command, and presumed them unhappily after proof that they did not exist-after proof that what they had supposed to be caution was only apathy and mental weakness.

Let this justice, nevertheless, be done to Nicias-to allow him consistency as a statesman. His character, one of Mr. Grote's critics observes, must have been of great advantage to Athens in her dealings with other states. "There is no ground for supposing that his desire for peace ever rendered him untrue to his duty as a patriot and a soldier; and the conduct of the aristocractic party towards its opponents, so long as he was at its head, appears to have been moderate and constitutional. The command, in which he so fatally miscarried, was forced upon him, and the expedition was undertaken against his advice, and at the instance of his political opponent." Cordially we agree with this writer's conclusion, that, if it is impossible (as he thinks it is) to speak of Nicias with admiration, it would be wrong to speak of him with contempt or hatred.

Nor, in judging of his demeanour during the fifth act of the tragedy, let us overlook the sufferings of a physical kind by which he was weighed down; and which may have affected, to a degree we cannot decide upon, the movements of his intellect and will. "We cannot tell how far his faculties were paralysed by disease."* Mr. Grote himself states that a great part of what passes for caution in his character, was in fact backwardness and inertia of temperament, aggravated by the melancholy addition of a painful internal complaint. First and last, Nicias is an interesting study that of a good man struggling with misfortune, painfully bearing up against adversity, and forced to succumb. We cannot withhold our sympathy; hardly, at some stages of the narrative, our

tears.

In times of good fortune (to quote a reflection from Niebuhr) it is easy to appear great-nay, even to act greatly; but in misfortune very difficult. The greatest man will commit blunders in misfortune, because the want of proportion between his means and his ends progressively increases, and his inward strength is exhausted in fruitless efforts. This is true-so comments on the passage one of the most thoughtful of thinking Englishwomen, and most graceful of English authoresses-this is true; but under all extremes of good or evil fortune we are apt to commit mistakes, because the tide of the mind does not flow equally, but rushes along impetuously in a flood, or brokenly and distractedly in a rocky channel where its strength is exhausted in conflict and pain. "The

• Samuel Phillips.

Life and Letters of Niebuhr.

extreme pressure of circumstances will produce extremes of feeling in minds of a sensitive rather than a firm cast."

Bacon shrewdly remarks, in his essay on Vain Glory, that in military commanders and soldiers, vain glory is an essential point; for as iron sharpens iron, so by glory one courage sharpeneth another. "In cases of great enterprise upon charge and adventure, a composition of glorious natures doth put life into business; and those that are of solid and sober natures, have more of the ballast than of the sail." Nicias was deficient in this vaunted quality. He was no Miles gloriosus. Like Sir John Moore, in the present century, he was of a temperament rather desponding than sanguine; and what a modern historian says of the hero of Corunna is mainly true of the ill-starred Athenian, that "although a brave and able officer, he had not the self-reliance characteristic of a master-mind." But we cannot help thinking with the Times essayist, that if the abilities of Nicias were overrated (as no doubt they were) by his countrymen, they are underrated by Mr. Grote. He had approved himself a good officer, as Dr. Phillips justly affirms: his expedition to Cythera, if the conception as well as the execution was his own, reflects on him the highest credit. "His conduct during the later part of the siege of Syracuse seems, so far as we can judge, to have been very weak. But we cannot tell how far his faculties were paralysed by disease. His most glaring error was that into which he was led by his superstition. But it is plain that he was wholly incompetent to the sole command of so great and difficult an enterprise." With reluctance he undertook it, and heavy was the penalty he paid, unless life and reputation are cheap things and of small account. He lived one day too long; the day on which he accepted the command of that most disastrous expedition.

Combien avons-nous vu d'éloges unanimes
Condamnés, démentis par un honteux retour!
Et combien de héros glorieux, magnanimes,
Ont vécu trop d'un jour ! §

Painfully one is reminded of Shakspeare's sigh for the disgraced chieftain, to whose doom that of Nicias approximates too nearly, if we may receive the testimony, the verdict, and the sentence of at least one high court of criticism:

The painful warrior, famousèd for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour rasèd quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.]]

ELECTORAL ADDRESSES AND MINISTERIAL TRIUMPH.

BY CYRUS REDDING.

So far, the appeal of Lord Palmerston to the people has not been in vain, a triumphant majority of candidates in his favour having been returned to parliament. As a demonstration of the precise numerical superiority on the Liberal side cannot yet be expected, it would be useless to speculate upon the future. Even the addresses

of the leading candidates did not fall into our hands in time for comment in our last. With the foregoing fact in our possession, and knowing that simultaneously with the appearance of these sheets the Commons of England will have met, we shall continue the narrative begun in our last number.

The Tory leader in the Commons, with his wonted alacrity, was the first in the field. As a development of character his address was wellnigh worth a dissolution of parliament. It was "delicious" with its speciousness, as coming from him who had not long ago asserted that liberty in England was only oligarchy, that priesthood meant national church, the sovereignty a title without dominion, and those called the servants of the people absolutists.* It was lamentable that the monarch and subject who, perhaps, should be despot and slave, after Eastern tradition, were such as actually exist in this country, so "up with Young England for ever!" Let arts and commerce die, give us back our traditions, and let everything else perish. Mr. Disraeli no more says to the workmen, "Down with your masters!-down with the Shuffles and Screws!" He must feel somewhat odd regarding his old sentiments-if he can feel at all-on a retrospective glance at that period, while playing Shuffle and Screw in his late address. How changed from him who, but a little time since, held out principles attractive of vulgar popularity, and calculated to breed anarchy. How felicitous the contrast of his present support of everything arbitrary in the party to which he has allied himself, with his former averments,-a party as to sentiment descended from the Jacobites of the Stuart times, a little ameliorated by that popular advance which the same party successions had uniformly resisted. Mr. Disraeli is another Merlin; he operates upon high aristocratic minds and bends them to his cause with more than a conjurer's skill. As the personage whom court divines never name to ears polite is said to have recourse to Scripture occasionally to aid his purposes, so Mr. Disraeli appears, by the strain of his address, including an affected tone of high feeling, lofty political morality, simulated sympathy for Chinese martyrs victims to Christian tyranny, mingled with that superlative indignation all must feel who are as politically honest as himself at the alleged "double dealing" of ministers

* See in the "Sybil," an ad captandum bait for radical support, in which work the sketches of nature and pathos are taken from Blue-books. No one would think of studying navigation from Tull's "Husbandry." Mr. Dickens would have sent Disraeli to a better school.

in regard to China, to be somewhat of a plagiarist after the manner of him of whom divines speak so disrespectfully.

Nor was this all; the right honourable gentleman complained of the neglect of "high and definite principles" by the present ministry. He censured the want of steadfastness in principle so much required by "the honour and best interests of the country," and that, in consequence, men were demanded who would support and carry out similar virtues, positively upon this ground recommending himself, as if the public were hoodwinked in regard to his own treatment of principles. He alleged further, as a ground of support, that he would uphold the "popular and aristocratic institutions" of the country. What an odd coupling of epithets! what an amalgamation of oil and vinegar! Thus forgetful of the past, Mr. Disraeli eat his own words with as little remorse as Saturn gorged his children in the olden time. The new-born of his speeches and writings to-day are swallowed down to-morrow, and then he feels himself in a sort of ostrich security. In thus paying the public memory a bad compliment, he commits a grievous error in self-deception, taking the living for the dead. "But make me your leader," says he, in substance; "I will support honourable peace, reduced taxation, and social improvement"-as they were never supported before. How we apples will swim! Few would be so daring in promises who reflected they were at the head of a party that for long years had opposed all such measures with wonderful determination; happy recklessness in a leader who will not miss his mark for the sake of a few hard inconsistencies and assertions. No doubt the honourable gentleman knows his cue best, and reflects duly that he has no other party to fall back upon if he were now discarded, having gone the round of all. Mr. Disraeli knows best whether he has securely noosed the Derbyite leviathan or not. If the hook be in its nose, the right honourable gentleman will no doubt hold the end fast, for he is ever most tenacious of the game he worries. On the other hand, he seems to have tamed in no small degree those who were lately so haughty, full of feudal notions, high-minded in declaration, if somewhat mean in action, and not of the wisest. How scornful of self-humiliation before obvious truth, how assumptive and overbearing they were, and now to be tamed by one whom they lately considered a parvenu! It does Mr. Disraeli's talents credit to have made his reluctant friends so complacent, perhaps from a sense of their political necessities. How could they tolerate permitting their tenantry in Bucks to vote for one who finds his claim to their support in pleas that violate their dearest recollections, their reiterated avowals? The experiments upon the credulity of his party, seasoned, as in this address, with the excitement of false sympathies, censure of his opponents, and similar things, recal the stratagem of mendicants who make sores to excite commiseration. Though dementation itself could not mistake the scope and end of Mr. Disraeli, his party did, so stolid was it, so insensible to the mode in which their plebeian leader was making use of them for his own purposes. His skill in this respect must be admitted. No one better applies the negative to the positive for his objects, leads his dupes out of their ancient track more cleverly, or makes nothing of something more dexterously. He has succeeded at last so far in securing the confidence of his friends that they will support him even if