even
Herodotus treats as incredibly absurd, although a century before
his time both the city of Athens and the Demas of Attica had
obeyed, as a divine mandate, the orders of this magnificent and
stately woman to restore Peisistratus."--(Vol. iii. p. 116.)

There is nothing to which we are more averse than the converting ancient
history into a field for the discussion of modern _party politics_. We
are fully persuaded that the most thorough English Conservative may
admire the Athenian republic; so far at least admire as to admit that it
is impossible to conceive how, under any other form of government, the
peculiar glories of Athens could have shone forth. And, indeed, an
Athenian democracy differs so entirely from any political institution
which the world sees at present, or will ever see again, that to carry
the strife of our politics back into those times, in other than a quite
general manner, is as futile as it is tasteless and vexatious. After
this avowal, we shall not be thought disposed to enter into any needless
cavil, upon this topic, with Mr Grote; we shall not, certainly, be upon
the watch to detect the too liberal politician in the historian of
Greece. An interest in the working of popular institutions is a
qualification the more for his task; and the historian himself must have
felt that it was no mean advantage he had acquired by having taken his
seat in our house of parliament, and mingled personally in the affairs
of a popular government. What the future volumes of the history may
disclose, we will not venture to prognosticate; but, hitherto, we have
met with nothing which deserves the opprobrium of being attributed to
party spirit. There is a certain _tone_ in some of his political
observations which, as may be supposed, we should not altogether adopt;
but many of them are excellent and instructive. Nothing could be better
than the following remarks on the necessity of a "constitutional
morality." He is speaking of the reforms of Cleisthenes.

"It was necessary to create in the multitude, and through them to
force upon the leading ambitious men, that rare and difficult
sentiment which we may term a constitutional morality,--a paramount
reverence for the forms of the constitution, enforcing obedience to
the authorities acting under and within those forms, yet combined
with the habit of open speech, of action, subject only to definite
legal control,