thing but the most elaborate care could possibly have
made it so bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh phrases, strange
collocations, occasional solecisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all,
by a peculiar oddity, which can no more be described than it can be
overlooked. Nor is this all. Mr Mitford piques himself on spelling
better than any of his neighbours; and this not only in ancient names,
which he mangles in defiance both of custom and of reason, but in the
most ordinary words of the English language. It is, in itself, a matter
perfectly indifferent whether we call a foreigner by the name which he
bears in his own language, or by that which corresponds to it in ours;
whether we say Lorenzo de Medici, or Lawrence de Medici, Jean Chauvin,
or John Calvin. In such cases established usage is considered as law
by all writers except Mr Mitford. If he were always consistent with
himself, he might be excused for sometimes disagreeing with his
neighbours; but he proceeds on no principle but that of being unlike
the rest of the world. Every child has heard of Linnaeus; therefore
Mr Mitford calls him Linne: Rousseau is known all over Europe as Jean
Jacques; therefore Mr Mitford bestows on him the strange appellation of
John James.

Had Mr Mitford undertaken a History of any other country than Greece,
this propensity would have rendered his work useless and absurd. His
occasional remarks on the affairs of ancient Rome and of modern Europe
are full of errors: but he writes of times with respect to which almost
every other writer has been in the wrong; and, therefore, by resolutely
deviating from his predecessors, he is often in the right.

Almost all the modern historians of Greece have shown the grossest
ignorance of the most obvious phenomena of human nature. In their
representations the generals and statesmen of antiquity are absolutely
divested of all individuality. They are personifications; they are
passions, talents, opinions, virtues, vices, but not men. Inconsistency
is a thing of which these writers have no notion. That a man may have
been liberal in his youth and avaricious in his age, cruel to one enemy
and merciful to another, is to them utterly inconceivable. If the facts
be undeniable, they suppose some strange and deep design, in order to
explain what, as every one who has observed his own mind knows, needs
no explanation at all. This is a mode of writing very acceptable to the
multitude who have always be