CURRENT LITERATURE.
History of Greece. By Dr. Ernst Curtin. Translated by Adolphus W. Ward. Vol. V. (Bentley.)—It is a great regret to those who have followed the course of Dr. Curtius's singularly impartial and acute narrative, admirably rendered as it has been by Mr. Ward, to find that it is brought to what one can hardly help regarding as a premature conclusion. The last sentence of Dr. Curtins's fifth volume is in a sense true :—" The uprising of Athens under Demosthenes was the last great deed of free Greece, and with the Peace of Demades her connected history is at an end." Yet, as he does not fail in a previous sentence to point out, there were Greek races which never showed any signs of activity till long after this period. Athens and Sparta are practically the Greece which we know, and they have no political history after the battle of Clueronea. But the /Etolian and Achaian leagues were genuine developments of Greek life ; while, on the other hand, the conquests of Alexander, as means of Hellenising more or less effectually vast regions of the world, have an importance which cannot be exaggerated. This latter subject, too, in point of picturesqueness and general interest, yields to none. Nor would it be difficult to argue that if the genuine history of Greece begins, as it may be said to do, with the great defence against Persian aggression, so it ends with the accomplishment of its magnificent revenge. We can only cordially join in the translator's hope that Dr. Curtius may reconsider his determination. The volume before us is occupied with the history of twenty-five years (B.C. 362-387), and its subject is "Macedonia and Greece." In interest and ability it yields to none of its predecessors. We are inclined, indeed, to think that the very complete and appreciative estimate of the work and character of Demosthenes is the most valuable contribution that the author has made to Greek history. "The struggle against Philip was no perverse fancy on his part, no blind obstinacy, but a moral necessity." Had he been successful, he would have been placed among the list of the world's heroes. He has been condemned because he failed. But he failed, Dr. Curtins is surely right in thinking, not because he was un- equal to his work, but because his age and his country were unequal to theirs. Athens had degenerated from what it was, and the rest of Greece, Thebes, perhaps, only excepted, was far below even degenerate Athens.
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