easoning.

The Grecian statesmen of the age of Thucydides were distinguished by
their practical sagacity, their insight into motives, their skill in
devising means for the attainment of their ends. A state of society in
which the rich were constantly planning the oppression of the poor,
and the poor the spoliation of the rich, in which the ties of party
had superseded those of country, in which revolutions and
counter-revolutions were events of daily occurrence, was naturally
prolific in desperate and crafty political adventurers. This was the
very school in which men were likely to acquire the dissimulation of
Mazarin, the judicious temerity of Richelieu, the penetration, the
exquisite tact, the almost instinctive presentiment of approaching
events which gave so much authority to the counsel of Shaftesbury, that
"it was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God." In this school
Thucydides studied; and his wisdom is that which such a school would
naturally afford. He judges better of circumstances than of principles.
The more a question is narrowed, the better he reasons upon it. His
work suggests many most important considerations respecting the first
principles of government and morals, the growth of factions, the
organisation of armies, and the mutual relations of communities. Yet
all his general observations on these subjects are very superficial. His
most judicious remarks differ from the remarks of a really philosophical
historian, as a sum correctly cast up by a bookkeeper from a general
expression discovered by an algebraist. The former is useful only in a
single transaction; the latter may be applied to an infinite number of
cases.

This opinion will, we fear, be considered as heterodox. For, not to
speak of the illusion which the sight of a Greek type, or the sound of
a Greek diphthong, often produces, there are some peculiarities in the
manner of Thucydides which in no small degree have tended to secure to
him the reputation of profundity. His book is evidently the book of a
man and a statesman; and in this respect presents a remarkable contrast
to the delightful childishness of Herodotus. Throughout it there is
an air of matured power, of grave and melancholy reflection, of
impartiality and habitual self-command. His feelings are rarely
indulged, and speedily repressed. Vulgar prejudices of every kind,
and particularly vulgar superstitions, he treats with a cold and
sober disdain peculiar to himself. H