gress, because they had been deceived by the fair promises of Eschines, who, having just returned from his second embassy to Macedon, had assured them that the real intention of Philip was to humble, not Phocis, but Thebes; that thus Philip gained tranquil possession of all the cities of the Phocians; which event was quickly followed by the Amphietyonic decree, subverting the very existence, in a political character, of that people. This is not a full account of the statements of Demosthenes; but we believe it to be a correct one.

These statements Demosthenes gives us in his speech as prosecutor of Eschines; and it is curious to observe the manner in which they are met by the defender. Mr Mitford, indeed, represents the reply as in every point not only satisfactory, but triumphant; but, surely, this compliment is only partially merited by that admirable composition, and by no part of it less than that which relates to the Phocian charge. This was a very leading, if not the principal, head of crimination; the orator himself allows it to be such; yet it is kept out of sight, and apparently with some study, till he has thrown up some strong works before it, by a minute and successful vindication of his conduct in various other particulars. Approaching it at length, he now begins to find brevity desirable, and to excuse his necessary avoidance of detail, He then flatly denies that he had held out, in his report of his mission, any false prospects with respect to the fate of the Phocians; he had merely declared that, in his own opinion, justice demanded, at the hands of Philip, the humiliation of Thebes, rather than of Phocis; and that he had avowed this opinion at the court of Macedon. Thus, then, we are to believe, that the people of Athens, the most anxious, curious, acute, and tyrannical mob that ever called itself a deliberative assembly, were content with hearing the opinions of their own ambassador when they had been convoked to hear those of Philip, and consented to be put off with a political lecture when they expected a diplomatic report. Could this fancy be played with even for a moment, more than suspicion would be thrown over it by the orator himself, who, elsewhere, in the same speech, acknowledges that he had returned from Macedon with the most sanguine conviction of the good intentions of Philip respecting Phocis, and his purposed humiliation of Thebes; and that, in fact, such a conviction had been universal. Supposing, however, any deception to have been practised in this affair, Aschines, though an instrument in it, was not necessarily a party. If Philip desired to deceive the Athenians, it would apparently be his shortest course to deceive Ii 4

Dem. de legat.

their

their ambassador; and that the ambassador should not afterwards proclaim himself duped, will not seem unaccountable to those who recollect the difficulty of a retreat in the face of so active and merciless an enemy as a popular assembly.

In the midst of all this evasion, not to say prevaricatory explanation, we have the testimony of Eschines himself to this important fact, that the Athenian people had been taught to indulge the most flattering expectations with regard to the final adjustment of the affairs of Phocis; which expectations met with a stunning disappointment. He says more. He says that some friends of Philip' had excited these expectations; thus complete ly confirming every thing that is of a public nature in the charge of Demosthenes.

The scope of Mr Mitford's representation is, that the mea sures of his hero, on this occasion, are not chargeable either with severity or with fraud. The treatment of the Phocians, he contends, was comparatively moderate, if due account be made of the state of Greece at that time,-of the virulent antipathies of Philip's Theban and Thessalian allies against the inhabitants of Phocis,--of the horror in which the sacrilegious acts committed by that people were generally held,-and of the cruelty licensed by the Greek laws of war. He maintains, that the promises held out by Philip to Athens, merely pledged his good offices to protect the Phocians from the rage of his allies; that, as such, they were understood and trusted to by the Phocian government itself; and that they were religiously performed. From the authority of Eschines, he proves that the Thebans resented the humanity thus shown by Philip. He proves also, that, previously to the issue of the business, some coolness subsisted between the governments of Athens and Phocis, which, as he maintains, tended to throw the latter into the arms of Macedon.

Here are two points of discussion ;-the alleged moderation, all circumstances considered, of the measure in question; and the alleged openness of the policy which carried it into effect. With respect to the former, it appears to us, that the whole ot our author's assertions are overthrown by a single fact, which appears from his own history, and from every other. It is this, that the Phocians, supported as they were, were fairly matched with their enemies, till Philip entered the field against them. They held the balance stoutly, and, but for his interference, they would have held it on. The state of Greece,' therefore, of which Mr Mitford talks somewhat ambiguously, would have justified a peace on equal terms, excepting so far as that state was altered by Philip himself; and it is rather too much to attempt persuading

persuading us, that this personage might take advantage of his own wrong, and plead in his defence a necessity of his own creation. To urge, that the Macedonians were outnumbered, and consequently overawed by their allies, seems little better than tea-table talk; first, because the assertion is apparently not true; and secondly, because, even if it were so, Philip, before he had set foot within the gates of Greece, must, with a glance, have perceived, and might, with a single order, have provided against the difficulty.

With regard to the morality of the means, our doubts are fcarcely lefs violent than with refpect to the moderation of the measure itself. The promises in favour of the Phocians, were not indeed officially conveyed from Philip; but, if the consenting authority of two great rival orators is not to be trampled under foot, they were univerfally current in the mouths of the Macedonian party in Athens; and, what Mr Mitford fhould particularly ob ferve, they were not confined to a protection little better than a facrifice, but ftipulated the full integrity of the Phocian ftate, with the addition of the difmemberment of the Theban empire in Boeotia. That the Athenians, indeed, should knowingly have fuffered, without even a breath of remonstrance, the utter annihilation of their natural ally, is only more probable than that other wonder which our hiftorian would palm upon us, that the Phocians, out of pure diftafte for the friendship of poor Chares and his gang of democrats, should have courted and infisted on deftruction from the hands of Philip. In all this proceeding, we muft not too haftily conclude, that the part acted by the Macedonian king was confummately profligate, or bafely perfidious. The protection of life which he extended to the Phocians, was in that age a stretch of humanity; and his previous profeflions fcarcely appear to have been dictated by any deliberate and methodized plan of deception. It were harfh, perhaps, to defcribe his conduct as craft purveying for tyranny; but it might, we fear, be called fineffe miniftering to ambition.

There are, however, two arguments on the other fide, which, diffuse as we have been, call for a paffing attention. Philip, it feems, proved his difinterestednefs as to the event of the Sacred war, by requefting the Lacedemonians to take into their hands the. entire adjustment of the affairs of Phocis. Such a propofition, if he was fincere in it, very obviously implied his promise to guarantee the execution of any decree which the Lacedæmonians might make; and the Lacedæmonians, we need hardly fay, were known to be the fworn friends of his foes the Phocians, and the fworn foes of his friends the Thebans. If, then, the admirers of

in queftion with his accustomed care. He will, on a recurrence to them, find that Demofthenes fwore off' at the very inftant when his name was propofed; while the other was virtually chofen, -but afterwards, on the plea of ill health, procured from the fenate of five hundred fome kind of permifhon to remain in the city.

The Amphictyonic body, after expelling the Phocians from their -number, elected Philip as a member, and gave him the privilege which had been enjoyed by the Phocians, of a double vote. Mr Mitford is careful to reprefent this as a free election; whereas, we have found it in vain to fupprefs the fufpicion that the reverend electors had received a congé-d'élire from the royal candidate himself. It may feem a trifling circumftance; but for that very reafon it betrays the infenfible partialities of the author, that Diodorus places the election of Philip at the very beginning of the Amphictyonic decree; while Mr Mitford, provident of that character of liberty, and regard to the interefts of Greece, which he has afcribed to the court in queftion, makes them finish every thing firft, before they have leifure to think of king Philip. It remained to difpofe of the right of double vote in the Amphictyonic affembly,' &c. &c. Uniformly, afterwards, Philip is fet forth (at leaft while he is in Greece) in the delegated character of Amphictyonic General,-and his army is the Amphictyonic army!

The right of representation (says Mr Mitford) in the council of Amphictyons, being given to the reigning family of Macedonia, Philip, with just deference to his co-estates, sent them severally notice of it.' On this occasion, the Athenians were disposed to decline acknowledging their new co-estate; and, among the war-party, some strong symptoms discovered themselves of a disposition instantly to replunge the city in hostilities. Demosthenes, on this occasion, delivered his oration on the peace; of which Mr Mitford gives us a far more correct view, than most modern historians. Through an argument professing peace (says our author) he excites the people to war, ambition, cupi dity, and resentment.' In fact, however, we have been unable to discover in this speech, any argument professing peace. The simple scope of the orator is, to dissuade the people, not from going to war, but from going to war about a shadow.

On the hostile proceedings of the Athenian commander Diopithes against Philip, we entirely concur with this learned writ en and willingly resign, on this occasion, the war-party to his It is not our purpose to defend the ambition of Athens, ore than that of Philip. Indeed, after all, the former is the least defensible of the two. We acquiesce, also, in presentations of the war between Philip and the Hellespon

tían cities; and in his comments on the celebrated, admirable, and unanswerable letter of the Macedonian monarch to the republic of Athens. This letter, we may further observe, Mr Mitford has translated with great correctness and perspicuity.

We now approach the last event in our series,-the Amphissian or second sacred war, which again drew Philip into the heart of Greece, and issued in the battle of Cheronea. The incidents. that occasioned this war, the reader knows, were a violation of consecrated ground by the Locrians of Amphissa, and an annunciation of that sacrilege to the Amphictyonic court by Eschines. That orator himself, without any proof, asserts that he had been provoked to this step by the insolence of a Locrian, who affected to accuse Athens of sacrilege; and this assertion Demosthenes, with very lame proof, denies. The Amphissians refusing obedience to the Amphictyonic decrees on the occasion, the court, after a flimsy attempt at reducing them by force of arms, determined to commission Philip, as their general, to vindicate their authority. Eschines, however, as plainly appears from his oration against Ctesiphon, was not present at the meeting in which this resolution passed. Modern historians have the art, not only of knowing what the antients knew not, but of knowing better what they knew. On the present occasion, they have discovered that the Locrian, whose insults first provoked Eschines to denounce the sacrilegious Amphissians, was not, as Demosthenes maintains, a nonentity, but an accomplice in the plot of exciting a sacred war; and that Æschines, in person, introduced the reso lution for inviting Philip to avenge the cause of Apollo.

How far any of the ostensible agents in this affair were suborned by the Macedonian monarch, it seems hopeless now to conjecture. The extreme and unusual solemnity with which the charge of subornation is brought forward by Demosthenes, yet the utter want of all admissible proof of it;-the suspiciousness of the circumstance that a new crusade should so quickly spring up out of the ashes of the former, yet the balancing consideration that the Amphictyonic confederacy had been recently restored to a part of their former efficiency and pride;-the singular suitable.ness of a sacred war to promote the supposed ambitious purposes of Philip, yet the complexity of the machinery required in the fabrication of it ;-the speciousness of the alleged plot, yet its wickedness-all these intervolved considerations leave us perfectly entangled and dubious. Mr Mitford, of course, vindicates Philip; but by arguments much more ingenious than conclusive.

But, not content with defensive measures, our author turns on Demosthenes the fire of his own batteries, and attributes the Amphissian war solely to the caballing restlessness and gunpowder