inite in littleness, break down and
fritter away into fractions and petty minutiae, the whole huge
labyrinth of our public affairs. It is scarcely necessary to explain
my meaning. In Athens, the question before the public assembly was,
peace or war--before our House of Commons, perhaps the Exchequer
Bills' Bill; at Athens, a league or no league--in England, the Tithe
of Agistment Commutation-Bills' Renewal Bill; in Athens--shall we
forgive a ruined enemy? in England--shall we cancel the tax on
farthing rushlights? In short, with us, the infinity of details
overlays the simplicity and grandeur of our public deliberations.

Such was the advantage--a mighty advantage--for Greece. Now, finally,
for the use made of this advantage. To that point I have already
spoken. By the clamorous and undeliberative qualities of the Athenian
political audience, by its fitful impatience, and vehement arrogance,
and fervid partisanship, all wide and general discussion was barred
_in limine_. And thus occurred this singular inversion of
positions--the greatest of Greek orators was obliged to treat these
Catholic questions as mere Athenian questions of business. On the
other hand, the least eloquent of British senators, whether from the
immense advance in knowledge, or from the custom and usage of
Parliament, seldom fails, more or less, to elevate his intense details
of pure technical business into something dignified, either by the
necessities of pursuing the _historical_ relations of the matter in
discussion, or of arguing its merits as a case of general finance, or
as connected with general political economy, or, perhaps, in its
bearings on peace or war. The Grecian was forced, by the composition
of his headstrong auditory, to degrade and personalise his grand
themes; the Englishman is forced, by the difference of his audience,
by old prescription, and by the opposition of a well-informed, hostile
party, into elevating his merely technical and petty themes into great
national questions, involving honour and benefit to tens of millions.

THE GERMAN LANGUAGE, AND PHILOSOPHY OF KANT.

Using a New Testament, of which (in the narrative parts at least) any
one word being given will suggest most of what is immediately
consecutive, you evade the most irksome of the penalties annexed to
the first breaking ground in a new language: you evade the necessity
of hunting up and down a dictionary. Your own memory, and the
inevitable suggestions