AixaσTα, had it not been within their acknowleged, if not exclusive province, to take cognizance of and to rectify the disorders which time and abuses might conspire to introduce into the subsisting Government. Yet I do not recollect to have seen that these elevated Functionaries were to act as a Senate of Revision for the amendment of the forms which composed their constitutional compact adverted to by any of the Writers on the Republican Legislatures of Greece. Neither does Meursius, who has an express and elaborate work De Senatu Areopagitico, take notice that any authority of this kind was vested in them*. He barely * While writing these Remarks, I have been unable to procure Sigonius or Postel. The late Sir William Young, and the learned Sir William Drummond, are silent on this head, in their Treatises. In the Recherches sur L'Aréopage, par M. l'Abbé de Canaye, it is said, "L'Aréopage, humilié par Dracon, reprit "sous Solon toute son ancienne splendeur; il luy rendit le "premier rang, et pour le venger, ce semble de l'injustice "de Dracon, il luy confia l'inspection générale des Loix: • Σολων δε αυτοις προκατέστησε την εξ αρειου παγου βουλήν, "dit Pollux; et selon Plutarque, Ty avw BouλNY STICKOTOV σε παντων και φυλακα των νομων εκάθισεν. Memoires de Litterature; VII. 180. and casually intimates their extensive powers, but I cannot find that he vouches any precedent of such of such an exercise of them. The main scope of Isocrates' Areopagitic Speech was to demonstrate the wisdom of restoring his fellow Citizens to their proper Rights by superseding the tyrannical Oligarchy who then exercised an usurped dominion over Attica, in order to reinstate the more democratical system which Solon instituted, and Clisthenes restored, after the expulsion of the Pisistratidæ, and at the same time gave by various regulations additional weight to the collective body of Citizens. Strenuous on the one hand, that these grievances should be redressed, the Patriot Sage was watchful on the other, lest the constitutional Democracy should degenerate into the misrule of a licentious Populace. He proceeds therefore to recommend an enlargement of the functions of these supreme Guardians of the State, whom he conjures to exert their tutelary inspection as the appointed Custodes Morum of the whole Community. Above all things, he urges, that the rising generation should be habitually trained up to Virtue, and exhorted to a generous devotion to the common weal. Accordingly, the venerable Reformer entreats this consistory of Censors, the Fathers of the Country, to exert their vigilance in correcting the depravity then but too prevalent among the Youth of Athens, through the neglect into which the antient and severer discipline had fallen. Well we know, that MILTON was neither insensible to the melodious flow of the Greek Rhetorician, nor regardless of the polished perfection of his style. What however, we may safely conclude, most endeared to him the Writings of "the old Man eloquent" (so he is called in the Poet's Xth Sonnet) were the sentiments he advanced in support of free, equal, and popular Government, based on the broad and only stable foundation, a general integrity of Morals: truths which are carefully inculcated in this encomium on Athenian manners during earlier and better days of the Republic. This was enough to give it a high value in the estimation of one through whose breast the ardours of Liberty glowed with no common fervency. It bears so strongly on the present subject, that it would be a culpable omission to pass over entirely in silence the well judged choice which MILTON manifested in his discriminated use of "the Attic Masters of moral "Wisdom and Eloquence," to take an expression from his own pen. Ever true to the principles which actuated the Parliament in their opposition to the King's violations of the Law and the Constitution, he industriously avoided all such matters as might appear derogatory to their signal deserts, or which might loosen the hold that they possessed on the public affections: therefore while he deemed this particular measure highly exceptionable, by agreeing to it they did not forfeit his confidence. Still less would he induce others to regard them with alienated or distrustful looks. Consistently with this disposition toward them, it was his endeavour to win the favour of the two Houses of Parliament to the Press ;-to expostulate with them amicably, not to offend them by any sullen remonstrance, while he was deprecating the mischievous effects which must ensue to Learning and to Freedom, if they did not revoke the Ordinance which they had improvidently issued*. To this end he proposed to himself to colour his work after a finished piece of the rhetorical art by a celebrated "Master;" whose proper praise is refined Elocution and dispassionate Discussion. In consequence, an urbanity, * All his counsels to them are in the same conciliatory tone of respect. Of this, the conclusion of the Address to the Parliament and the Assembly of Divines, which he prefixed to his first work concerning Divorce, is another example: "I seek not to seduce the simple and illiterate; my "errand is to find out the choicest and the learnedest, who "have this high gift of Wisdom to answer solidly, or to be "convinced. I crave it from the Piety, the Learning, and "the Prudence which is housed in this place. It might per 66 haps more fitly have been written in another tongue; and "I had done so, but that the esteem I have of my Countries "judgment, and the love I bear to my native language to "serve it first with what I endeavour, made me speak it thus, ❝ere I assay the verdict of outlandish Readers. And perhaps " also here I might have ended nameless, but that the address ❝ of these lines chiefly to the Parlament of England might "have seem'd ingrateful not to acknowledge by whose re"ligious Care, unwearied Watchfulness, couragious and "heroick Resolutions, I enjoy the peace and studious leisure ❝ to remain, "The Honourer and Attendant of "their noble Worth and Virtues, "JOHN MILTON." |