cy now first
revealing its importance. Mr Finlay's style of intellect is appropriate
to such a task; for it is subtle and Machiavelian. But there is this
difficulty in doing justice to the novelty, and at times we may say with
truth to the profundity of his views, that they are by necessity thrown
out in continued successions of details, are insulated, and in one word
_sporadic_. This follows from the very nature of his work; for it is a
perpetual commentary on the incidents of Grecian history, from the era
of the Roman conquest to the commencement of what Mr Finlay, in a
peculiar sense, calls the Byzantine empire. These incidents have nowhere
been systematically or continuously recorded; they come forward by
casual flashes in the annals, perhaps, of some church historian, as they
happen to connect themselves with his momentary theme; or they betray
themselves in the embarrassments of the central government, whether at
Rome or at Constantinople, when arguing at one time a pestilence, at
another an insurrection, or an inroad of barbarians. It is not the fault
of Mr Finlay, but his great disadvantage, that the affairs of Greece
have been thus discontinuously exhibited, and that its internal changes
of condition have been never treated except obliquely, and by men _aliud
agentibus_. The Grecian _race_ had a primary importance on our planet;
but the Grecian name, represented by Greece considered as a territory,
or as the original seat of the Hellenic people, ceased to have much
importance, in the eyes of historians, from the time when it became a
conquered province; and it declined into absolute insignificance after
the conquest of so many other provinces had degraded Hellas into an
arithmetical unit, standing amongst a total amount of figures, so vast
and so much more dazzling to the ordinary mind. Hence it was that in
ancient times no complete history of Greece, through all her phases and
stages, was ever attempted. The greatness of her later revolutions,
simply as changes, would have attracted the historian; but, as changes
associated with calamity and loss of power, they repelled his curiosity,
and alienated his interest. It is the very necessity, therefore, of Mr
Finlay's position, when coming into such an inheritance, that he must
splinter his philosophy into separate individual notices; for the
records of history furnish no grounds for more. _Spartam, quam nactus
est, ornavit._ But this does not remedy the difficulty f