Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/31

 such filth as is discharged by Demosthenes and Æschines against each other. For instance, calling Æschines "this spat-upon fellow," and insulting the poverty of Æschines's youth and attacking the character of his mother, which last is on a level with the London waterman's scurrility, of which Johnson gave a caricature when he returned the answer to an abusive attack from a passing boat—"Your mother is a receiver of stolen goods under the pretence of keeping a brothel."

Lord Macaulay says, in the beginning of his article on "History," that it would be impossible to alter a word in some speeches of Demosthenes without altering it for the worse. The article on "History" was published in 1828. I doubt if he would have expressed the same opinion in 1844, when the article on "Barère" was published. I have read again lately the Leptines and Midias of Demosthenes and the Seventh Book of Thucydides. Demosthenes may have great power of abuse combined with little regard to truth, and Thucydides has narrated some things well; nevertheless, I place Macaulay above Demosthenes for power of invective, and above Thucydides for power of narrative; and I could not name any historian, ancient or modern, whom it is a pleasure