We have the more willingly extracted this passage, because, like many others in these volumes, it contains lessons applicable to other times and circumstances than those of Greece; Nikias being a perfect type of one large class of the favorites of public opinion, modern as well as ancient. And the view here incidentally presented of some points in the character and disposition of the Athenian Many, will afford to readers, who only know Athens and Greece through the medium of writers like Mitford, some faint idea of how inuch they have to unlearn. With regard to style, in the ordinary sense, what is most noticeable in Mr. Grote is, that his style always rises with his subject. The more valuable the thought, or interesting the incident, the apter and more forcible is the expression; as is generally the case with writers who are thinking of their subject rather than of their literary reputation. We can conscientiously say of him, -what, rightly understood, is the highest praise, which, on the score of mere composition, a writer in the more intellectual departments of literature can desire or dethat every thing which he has to express, he is always able to express adequately and worthily. serve, A FEW WORDS ON NON-INTERVENTION.* THERE is a country in Europe, equal to the greatest in extent of dominion, far exceeding any other in wealth, and in the power that wealth bestows, the declared principle of whose foreign policy is to let other nations alone. No country apprehends or affects to apprehend from it any aggressive designs. Power, from of old, is wont to encroach upon the weak, and to quarrel for ascendency with those who are as strong as itself. Not so this nation. It will hold its own; it will not submit to encroachment: but, if other nations do not meddle with it, it will not meddle with them. Any attempt it makes to exert influence over them, even by persuasion, is rather in the service of others than of itself, — to mediate in the quarrels which break out between foreign States, to arrest obstinate civil wars, to reconcile bellige rents, to intercede for mild treatment of the vanquished, or, finally, to procure the abandonment of some national crime and scandal to humanity, such as the slave-trade. Not only does this nation desire no benefit to itself at the expense of others: it desires none in which all others do not as freely participate. It makes no treaties stipu lating for separate commercial advantages. If the aggressions of barbarians force it to a successful war, and its victorious arms put it in a position to command * Fraser's Magazine, December, 1859. : liberty of trade, whatever it demands for itself it demands for all mankind. The cost of the war is its own: the fruits it shares in fraternal equality with the whole human race. Its own ports and commerce are free as the air and the sky all its neighbors have full liberty to resort to it, paying either no duties, or, if any, generally a mere equivalent for what is paid by its own citizens; nor does it concern itself, though they, on their part, keep all to themselves, and persist in the most jealous and narrow-minded exclusion of its merchants and goods. A nation adopting this policy is a novelty in the world; so much so, it would appear, that many are unable to believe it when they see it. By one of the practical paradoxes which often meet us in human affairs, it is this nation which finds itself, in respect of its foreign policy, held up to obloquy as the type of egoism and selfishness; as a nation which thinks of nothing but of outwitting and outgeneralling its neighbors. An enemy, or a self-fancied rival who had been distanced in the race, might be conceived to give vent to such an accusation in a moment of ill-temper. But that it should be accepted by lookers-on, and should pass into a popular doctrine, is enough to surprise even those who have best sounded the depths of human prejudice. Such, however, is the estimate of the foreign policy of England most widely current on the Continent. Let us not flatter ourselves that it is merely the dishonest pretence of enemies, or of those who have their own purposes to serve by exciting odium against us, a class including all the Protectionist writers, and the mouthpieces of all the despots and of the Papacy. The more blameless and laudable our policy might be. the more certainly we might count on its being misrepresented and railed at by these worthies. Unfortu nately, the belief is not confined to those whom they can influence, but is held with all the tenacity of a prejudice by innumerable persons free from interested bias. So strong a hold has it on their minds, that, when an Englishman attempts to remove it, all their habitual politeness does not enable them to disguise their utter unbelief in his disclaimer. They are firmly persuaded that no word is said, nor act done, by English statesmen, in reference to foreign affairs, which has not for its motive-principle some peculiarly English interest. Any profession of the contrary appears to them too ludicrously transparent an attempt to impose upon them. Those most friendly to us think they make a great concession in admitting that the fault may possibly be less with the English people than with the English Government and aristocracy. We do not even receive credit from them for following our own interest with a straightforward recognition of honesty as the best policy. They believe that we have always other objects than those we avow; and the most far-fetched and unplausible suggestion of a selfish purpose appears to them better entitled to credence than any thing so utterly incredible as our disinterestedness. Thus, to give one instance among many, when we taxed ourselves twenty millions (a prodigious sum in their estimation) to get rid of negro slavery, and for the same object perilled, as everybody thought,— destroyed, as many thought, the very existence of our West-Indian colonies, it was, and still is, believed, that our fine professions were but to delude the world; and that by this self-sacrificing behavior we were endeavoring to gain some hidden object, which could neither be conceived nor described, in the way of pulling down other nations. The fox who had lost his tail had an intelligible interest in persuading his neighbors to rid themselves of theirs; but we, it is thought by our neighbors, cut off our own magnificent brush, the largest and finest of all, in hopes of reaping some inexplicable advantage from inducing others to do the same. It is foolish attempting to despise all this,-persuading ourselves that it is not our fault, and that those who disbelieve us would not believe though one should rise from the dead. Nations, like individuals, ought to suspect some fault in themselves when they find they are generally worse thought of than they think they. deserve; and they may well know that they are somehow in fault, when almost everybody but themselves thinks them crafty and hypocritical. It is not solely because England has been more successful than other nations in gaining what they are all aiming at, that they think she must be following after it with a more ceaseless and a more undivided chase. This, indeed, is a powerful predisposing cause, inclining and preparing them for the belief. It is a natural supposition, that those who win the prize have striven for it; that superior success must be the fruit of more unremitting endeavor; and where there is an obvious abstinence from the ordinary arts employed for distancing competitors, and they are distanced nevertheless, people are fond of believing that the means employed must have been arts still more subtle and profound. This preconception makes them look cut in all quarters for indi |