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1 Report of the Select Committee on Criminal Laws: Ordered by the House of Commons to Be Printed July 19th, 1819 314 (1821)

handle is hein.death/rscclo0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Classical Edacalion. tious of conveying false impressions to the youthful mind, our author should not, in one place, describe the Greeks as the most ' polite and virtuous' people that ever existed, and, in an- other, reproach them with ' insolence and vice of every sort.' So clear-sighted a reasoner as Mr Dalzel should not have con- nected the Plague of Athens with the Sicilian expedition as one cause of Athenian weakness and Spartan triumph :-the com- plete recovery of Athens from the effects of the former having been one concurrent towards her capability of undertaking the latter. Again, we find it affirmed, that ' the Balance of Power was as well understood in ancient as in modern times, '-a most unwarranted deduction from the history of Greece. If there be one fact more certain than another in ancient history, it is this, -that a Permanent Balance of Power, on the principles now understood and established, was an idea which never entered into the head of an ancient politician. A temporaty equipoise was sometimes attempted ; but even that was everlastingly de- ranged by systematic bad faith and restless jealousies. The fifth book of Thucydides alone, that singular epitome of Gre- cian politics, contains enough to set this question at rest for ever.-We are astonished, likewise, that an accurate scholar should confound the office of the Chorus in the Greek dramas with that ' of the awkward and greasy figures' who fill the orchestras of our theatres; and who, whatever they might have been in Mr Dalzel's time, are now as clean and civil a set of personages as one would desire to see. But we have neither space nor inclination to run our criticisms very close upon the present occasion. Whatever may be the faults or imperfections of these Lectures, it is something truly delightful to find a work from a man of real learning, unsullied by one single stain of bad feeling, pedantry, or prejudice. ART. IV. Report of the Select Committee on Criminal Laws : Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, July 19th, 1819. pp. 270. W E cannot but hail with satisfaction the proofs contained in this Report, of the increasing attention of the Legisla- ture to the amendment of our Penal Laws, and the progress of liberal and enlightened notions on the subject in the great bo- dy of the people. We say this, because we are convinced that the general discussion of all subjects of public interest leads ultimately to sound and salutary views of them; and be- sides, we conceive that the manifestation of a strong disposi- 314 July

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