Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/227

Rh the narrative of his Life. Among the other objects of his literary interest at that time was Sir William Molesworth s collected edition of the works of Hobbes, dedicated to Grote, whose review of the first two volumes in the Spectator (1839) is reprinted among the Minor Works. During the whole period of Whig decay, and especially from the beginning of the present reign, Grote felt a declining interest in politics, and accordingly, on the dis solution in June 1841, he determined to retire from parlia ment. Thus at the age of forty-six he was set free to spend the remaining thirty years of his life in the work long pre pared and contemplated. In half that period the History of Greece was finished ; the remaining half was devoted to the two works on Plato and Aristotle, which made up the Hellenic &quot; trilogy &quot; of his life-long studies. After a six. months holiday (1841-1842) for the long desired purpose of visiting Italy and studying the anti quities of Rome upon the spot, he returned to Ids business at the bank, and set vigorously to work on the new plan for the first two volumes of his History reperusing the authorities, revising his notes, and rewriting the whole. The greater part of these two volumes was occupied with the first division of his subject, which was now for the first time severed from actual history, and placed in its proper mythical light, under the title of &quot;Legendary Greece.&quot; The closing months of 1842 were employed in sending forth a sorb of &quot; pilot-vessel &quot; in the form of a review of Niebuhr s Griechische Heroen-Geschichte, which appeared in the Westminster Review (May 1843) under the title of &quot; Grecian Legends and Early History,&quot; arid is reprinted in the Minor Works. His biographer states that, &quot; this article, wherein the collected store of Grote s long and assiduous studies on the subject found a vent, was written with uncommon zest, and he anticipated with lively curiosity the eJect it would produce over the learned world.&quot; It was received as a striking promise of the new light in which he was about to place the primeval ages of Grecian history. It is important to record an incidental remark, which shows that, amidst his uncompromising severance of legend from real history, Grote adhered to the great principle avjwe 1 alike by Herodotus and by Bede : &quot; An historian is bound to produce the materials upon which he builds, be they never so fantastic, absurd, or incredible.&quot; With the beginning of 1813, exactly ten years after the interruption caused by his entrance into parliament, the com position of the first volume for the press was vigorously begun; and at midsummer he further cleared his path by retiring from the banking-house of Prescott, Grote, & Company. While still at work upon the History, he published in the Classical Museum (1843) an important essay on ancient weights and measures, reviewing Boeckh s Metrologische Un- tersuchungen, which is reprinted among his Minor Works. The first two volumes of the History were completed early in 1845, and published in March 1846. Their reception is well known; and the effect of their success upon Grote himself was thoroughly characteristic of the man : &quot; From all sides congratulation and eulogy flowed in upon the author, insomuch that he himself now began to feel something like confidence in the success of his long-cherished work. Thus I became&quot; (writes Mrs Grote) &quot;for once witness of a state of feeling on his part approach ing to gratified self-love, which at times would pierce through that imperturbable veil of modesty habitually present with him.&quot; The first volume and nearly half of the second are occupied with &quot;Legendary Greece&quot;; the latter half of the second volume begins &quot; Historical Greece,&quot; and consequently contains only a small portion of the real history. These volumes were reviewed with great praise by John Stuart Mill in the Edinburgh Review, and by Dean Milman in the Quarterly Review. The success of the first two volumes incited Grote to prosecute the work with redoubled ardour ; and such pro gress had been already made that the third and fourth volumes, bringing the narrative down to the battle of Mara thon, and containing an account of Grecian poetry and. philosophy in its earlier stages, appeared in the following year (1847). Two more volumes, the fifth and sixth, coming down to the eleventh year of the Peloponnesian war, were published in 1849. These two volumes, together with the two preceding ones, were reviewed in the Edinburgh Review by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. The seventh and eighth volumes, which brought the Peloponnesian war to the end, and which contained the striking and original view of the Sophists and of Socrates, appeared in ] 850. Two articles in the Quarterly Revieio upon this portion of the work, one upon the history, and the other upon Socrates and the Sophists, were written by Dean Stanley. The ninth and tenth volumes were published in 1852, the eleventh in 1853, and the last and twelfth in 1856, just ten years after the appearance of the first two volumes. The work closes with the generation contemporary with Alex ander the Great, &quot;an epoch/ the historian observes, &quot; from whence dates not only the extinction of Grecian political freedom and self-action, but also the decay of productive genius, and the debasement of that consummate literary and rhetorical excellence which the 4th century B.C. had seen exhibited in Plato and Demosthenes.&quot; The peculiar merits of Grote as an historian are dis cussed at length by the writer of the present notice in a review of the whole work in the Quarterly Review in 1856. It is sufficient to state here that the quality in which he surpassed all his predecessors in Grecian history, and which achieved for him a success that can never be undone or superseded, lies in his placing his whole subject iu the full light of historic truth apart from partial judgments, looking at the actions of men from their own points of view and not only from ours, and having constant regard to those ethical principles of human nature which his twofold training as a philosopher and politician qualified him to estimate. Many of his details may be disproved and his judgments reversed, but his work will last for ever. The opinion of scholars may be summed up in Bishop Thirlwall s &quot;hearty congratulations on the completion of this glorious monument of learning, genius, and thought, to which I believe no other literature can exhibit a parallel.&quot; An episode during the progress of the History is charac teristic of the wide range of political observation which Grote brought to bear upon his work. In the Swiss dissensions during 1847, which led to the war of the &quot; Souderbund,&quot; he saw so close a resemblance to the con flicts of the Greek republics that he resolved to study the question on the spot. His Letters on the subject, which originally appeared in the /Spectator newspaper, were collected into a volume, which was reprinted in 1876 by Mrs Grote, with the addition of a letter written by him to M. de Tocqueville after the termination of the war, On the completion of the History, Grote contributed to the Edinburgh Review (1856) a criticism of Sir George Cornewail Lewis s Enquiry into the Credibility of the early Roman History, which is reprinted in his Minor Works, a most interesting study of the points in which the two scholars agreed and differed, Grote stopping short of his friend s scepticism in some cases. After a well-earned holiday on the Continent in the summer of 1856, Grote set steadily to work upon his Plato, which occupied him nine years, and appeared in 1865 in three volumes 8vo, under the title of Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates, when the author had completed his 