and abetted alternately the defigns of a favourite, or furious resentments of the commonalty." The dangers hence to be apprehended were the greater, as whilft Ariftides opened the higheft offices of ftate to the claims of the pooreft citizen, Ephialtes degraded the dignity of the Areopagus by introducing the custom of frequent appeals from that jurifdiction to the affemblies; and thus enlarged at once their fphere of ambition, of policy, of favour, and of juice. The evil effects of laying fo many new powers, and of bringing so much new matter before the commonalty, were not inflantaneous, nor enter into the fcene of government now before us. New powers are ever at the outfet adminiftered with virtue and moderation; a Plebeian conful at Rome, and a Plebeian archon at Athens, on the firft admiffion of their respective pretenfions, were in either flate uncommon inftances of the people's availing themselves of the rights they had been moft earnest to attain; nor doth it appear that the ultimate refort of juftice was conducted otherwife than with modelty and with rectitude. It is an obfervation of Ifocrates, that in these times, "it was as difficult to make office acceptable to any, as in his time to find a man who did not folicit it." If we may credit the reference of the Greek fophifts and orators to this happy period,-what liberty had gained, good government had not loft: its administration was yet firm and confiftent, the decrees of the itate wife, their execution prompt, and obedience to them fo implicit, that it warranted Plato to affert," that the people were at once mafters of, and slaves to the laws;" and this fpirit of fubordination he places to account of the dangers which menaced them from the ftupendous invafion of the Perfians, which inftilled a fenfe of union among themselves, of adherence to their inftitutions, and of acquiefcence in their regulations, and in the command of thofe they entrusted and empowered, as their fole refource of ftrength adequate to fo great occafion. The pride and love of glory, refulting from the confequences of those wars, for a time fuftained that fpirit which had been the means of fuccefs, and made the citizens juft and difinterested in the exercise of their republican power, as they had been bold and zealous in afferting their pretentions to it; and in defending it, as well against ufurpers within their flate, as against foreign invafion. The effect of public habits on the domeftic demeanour of the Athenians would alone afford fome grounds of enquiry; but further, the genuine fources of information, refpecting the fubjects of manners and of morals, lay in the fimple theories of the human mind and paffions; in the investigation of facts which may be prefumed to have an uniform connection therewith, and, finally, in a fpeculative combination of men and things: or, reverting from confequences to their caufes, they are to be fearched out in the affumption of taste from the objects of predilection; and in the affumption of jocial conduct from the effects which we are acquainted with, and which can be pretumed to have originated from no other fource, than the actual manners of the age. Can we read the fublime tragedies of Æfchylus, and particularly that of the Perfai, nor fuppofe them penned in conformity to an enthufiaftic fpirit of virtue, patriotifm, and renown; which dignifying the audience, incited the poet to touch fuch paffions, as 1i3 being being moft general and interefting, as awakening attention, and as enfuring applaufe? When we read thofe of Sophocles, who quickly followed the father of the drama, and who flourished too in thefe times, can we entertain a doubt, that the people who generally attended and were enamoured with fuch reprefentations, and who beftowed fucceffive gratuities and honours on fuch writers, were of no frivolous character, but impregnate equally with the tale of poetry, and with the fenfe of glory; which never accompany mean habits of felfishness, low debauchery, and idle gratification? The pomp of their festivals, befpeak equally the magnificent fpirit of the people; and if, from their attention to fuch fubjects beyond other nations, ought elfe is to be deduced, it is a fuperftition that drew at leaft the attention of the citizens ftill further from diffolute vices and degrading purfuits: nor was this fuperftition intolerant; but, whilft in its fplendor it drew to itself and circulated the articles of commerce, it bore with all the nations and fects which commerce attracted to its emporium of Athens. We are warranted in affixing to this era of manners, national pride connected with philanthropy; and in painting the ftrict republican character, as endowed with the complacent virtues of hofpitable intercoufe, when we advert to the reception of ftrangers, and even to the treatment of flaves. The dominion of the feas, and the connections of trade, must have habituated many. citizens to foreign excurfions; many too, from other countries, became their guests in return; national prejudices were thus broken in upon; the minds of men became more knowing and enlarged; and the people were taught to comprize others, as well as Greeks, within the circle of their benevolence: their very flaves partook of that benevolence: they bore no badge of fervitude, but were clothed as citizens; the laws protected them equally from infults and from blows, and their several merits and accomplishments raised them proportionally to a certain rank in fociety, though never in the ftate. This complacency of manners, originating from other sources than the long habits of diffufive intercourfe, implies no depraved or luxurious customs of life: an Athenian feaft was proverbial with furrounding nations for an homely entertainment; nor can the propriety of the application be doubted, when we read of Pericles, and of others, the first men in Athens, meeting at a friend's houfe, followed feverally by a flave bearing a fmall portion of provifions for the mafter's diet: I muft obviate any reference on thefe topics to the convivial difcourfes of the Greek fophifts, and particularly to the curious fympofion of Xenophon, by reminding the reader, that they were written long after thefe virtuous times, and that the pictures therein are drawn from fubfequent habits of life. In this age there feems to have been little private luxury, or even private oftentation employed in any degree or object: when we are told, that the houses of Themiftocles, of Cimon, and of Ariftides, and of other great men, were no ways diftinguishable from thofe of their pooreft neighbours; when we confider this exterior equality, and the intrinfic one too of rights and of freedom; and when we obferve that the fole afcendancy in thefe times was of ability and of virtue, and that on fuch jointed bafis alone the elevation of thofe men was founded, and yet when it rofe too high, was beaten down and destroyed ;-we might almoft be led to confider the Athenian ftate, in its interior policy and management, as tranfcending the perfections of united fyftems, which reclufe politicians have imagined in their vifionary models of government:-but that we already defcry bursting from the fod thofe feeds of corruption and ruin, which the wealth of Perfia fo widely diffeminated. The accumulated riches of the ftate, and of its citizens too individually, however, lay not hidden in coffers:-private temperance as yet rejected their abuse; but private thrift threw the fuperfluities from œconomical management into funds for aggrandisement of the ftate, or fplendor of the city. Domestic parcimony is no ways incompatible with public magnificence: the citizens of Athens had yet the feelings of patriotism, were yet capable of fympathizing with the glory of the commonwealth, and of facrificing thereto fome portion of more private interefts, and more felfish concerns: their forefathers loved their country, they were proud of it; and pride for a time propped up that fabric which virtue had raised. The firft fuitors of the fair mistress, Athens, were fentimentally attached to the foul (as Ifocrates emphatically terms the fpiritual tenor of the political inftitution); their fucceffors too were yet conftant to the fair; but it was a groffer paffion for the fenfible object, and was no longer difplayed by a brave and knight-like affiduity of fervice, and a fubferviency of morals to the pure and correct pattern of the republic, but was fhown in a prodigality of ornament and a profufion of wealth, corruptive of, and ruinous to, the very patriot-love that lavifhed it: for an attachment to fenfible objects paffes almoft with the novelty, and further the mind degenerates into a vicious levity.' In the paffages we have quoted are certainly many just notions and fentiments; but they are frequently buried under a confused heap of words, ill-chofen and awkwardly arranged. Mr. Young has devoted a chapter to the fubject of the state of the arts in Greece, written with the fame fingular combination of real meaning and obfcure language: from this we shall felect the following fhort paffage, on the priority (in the order of time) of ftatuary to painting: At the time when fculpture was at the higheft pitch, then painting began to emulate its excellence; much it was to feek without the pale of imitation, but much too it was to borrow from the prior art; colour, and its contingencies of light and fhade, it was to feek for in nature, but the precife outline it could more readily copy from the correct, and unvarying models of a Phidias or Alcamenes: from attention to fuch finifhed performances, defign foon attained a degree of perfection, which no modern work can be fuppofed to give "Ambire debet fe extremitas, a juft idea of: when Pliny fays, that, et fic definere, ut promittat alia poft fe, oftendatque quæ occultat;" I confefs my eye is but ill fatisfied even with the Seftine chapel. Whilft we allow the fuperiority of defign to the ancient painters, let us not extravagantly deal them out every accomplishment of the profeffion from the old poets, and from the antiquarians Ælian and that Paufanias, and from Lucian and others, I think it may be gathered Ii4 that the ancient painters delighted much in fingle figures, and that their fingle figures had all the animation which colour and defign could produce; but their more crouded pictures feem to have been of a frigid, or of an extravagant turn of compofition; they knew not the technical propriety and difpofition of planes; nor do they appear to have been well acquainted with the beauties of effect modulated on the varieties of the aerial medium: in the pictare of the battle of Marathon, befides a very particular delineation of all that paffed in that memorable field, the Perfian fleet too was defcried from afar, and Cinagyrus retaining the veffel with his teeth. Their characters muft generally, I think, have been better in the detail, than in the group, and each figure, rather than the picture, have been the object of admiration. Though a paffage is cited from Vitruvius, men tioning a scene as old as the times of fchylus, drawn apparently on, just principles of optics, and on which Anaxagoras wrote a treatife; and though Eupompus (we are exprefsly told) was of opinion, that a knowledge of geometry was neceffary to an exact delineation of the objects in nature; yet cannot I coincide in the idea, that the ancients were mafters of a regular and fyftematic perfpective. Particular inftances belong rather to the fide of exception than of rule; when we are told of one particular fcene, I fhould imagine it to have been fingularity which recommended it to notice; when we are told, that one Eupompus was of fuch or fuch an opinion; it implies, I think, that the generality were not of that opinion.' Befide the peculiarities and inaccuracies already marked, we must give a few examples of quaintnefs and oddity of expreffion.. Our Author fpeaks of " hiftory having recondite in it," &c.-" a fcene flittered into a multiplicity of luminous fpots"-" engaging the avidity of the reader"-" fifting fources of emotion to the bottom"-"looking to Themistocles for Jcheme"-and “ twitting the Athenians.'" It is with regret we notice thefe defects in Mr. Young's manner of writing; for we have been not a little pleased with many obfervations which we have met with in the courfe of the work, and with the liberal and truly Grecian fpirit which appears through the whole. E. ART II. The Mifcellaneous Works of Charles Colignon, M. D. late Profeffor of Anatomy in the University of Cambridge. 4to. 11. 1s. fewed. White. 1786. EVERAL of thefe pieces have already paffed under our review; and we have paid a tribute of refpect to the ingenuity of our Author; particularly on fubjects which fall more immediately within the fphere of his profeffion. We Dr. Colignon was (according to a biographical account of him which we have lately feen) the fon of Mr. Paul Colignon, a native of Heffe Cafell. He was born in London, Jan. 30, 1725 and We wish that we could extend our indulgence to those which are at a greater diftance from it; but, though Phoebus is the god of Poetry, as well as Phyfic, yet it doth not follow that, because he infpires a man with the knowledge of the latter, he muft of course bestow on him a genius for the former.. We think it fufficient barely to enumerate the contents of this miscellaneous publication; leaving the reader, who wishes for a better acquaintance with the various fubjects treated in it, to feek for fatisfaction in the work. The Duellift; a Fragment; in three Parts: with this fignifi cant motto, But Cuftom, Tyrant Cuftom, will have BLOOD. Mifcellaneous Reflections on feveral Paffages in claffical and hif torical Writers, connected with and derived from the Structure of the Body; together with a few Obfervations on Phyfiology. Thefe are mostly infignificant; the Author difplays much learning to little purpofe. The Character of Eudoxus; a Dialogue; with the Beauties of the Turkish Spy.-Select paffages from that adimired work. Tyrocinium Anatomicum; or an Introduction to Anatomy.This feems to have been the introductory lecture to the Profeffor's Courfe of Anatomy. An Enquiry into the Structure of the Human Body*, relative to its fuppofed Influence on the Morals of Mankind. Determinatio Medica, utrum perutilis fit in falutem viventium, apertio cadaverum morbo extinctorum. A college exercife. Medicina Politica +; or Reflections on the Art of Phyfic, as infeparably connected with the Profperity of a State. Moral and Medical Dialogues . Explanatory Remarks on the great Utility of Hofpitals for the Sick and Poor-A letter written to a friend at the time when county hofpitals were establishing in feveral parts of the kingdom. Alphonfo; or the Hermit: a Poem §. Happiness; an Epiftle to a Friend . and educated at Bury school, and afterwards admitted a penfioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1743 after a fhort refidence there, he vifited France and Holland, fpent fome time at Leyden and London, and finished his medical ftudies at Edinburgh. On his return to Cambridge, in 1748, he obtained the degree of Batchelor of Phyfic, and was elected Profeffor of Anatomy in 1753. In 1754 he was created Doctor of Phyfic. In 1779 he was appointed Deputy Regius Profeffor of Phyfic; and in 1783, Profeffor of Medicine in Downing College. He died Oct. 1, 1785. * See Riew, vol. xxxi. p. 335. + See Review, vol. xxxiv. P. 75. Review, vol. xli. p. 355. For our account of this poem, fee Review, vol. xlviii. p. 159. Meffiah; |