[Sidenote: Grote a practical politician.]
§ 9. These observations, though meant as strictures upon the sanguine enthusiasm of Grote's Radical views, are not to be understood as detracting from the charm of his work. It is this very enthusiasm which has led him to understand and to interpret political movements or accommodations completely misunderstood by many learned continental professors; for he was a practical politician, accustomed to parliamentary life,--above all to the conservative effects of tradition and practice, even in the face of the most innovating theories. He has, therefore, put the case of an educated democracy with more power and more persuasiveness than any other writer; and for this reason alone his book must occupy a prominent place even in the library of the mere practical politician.
[Sidenote: His treatment of Alexander the Great.]
§ 10. Far more serious are the objections to his last volume, on the life and conquests of Alexander the Great. So unequal, indeed, is this episode, which to him was a mere appendix to the story of independent Greece, that a fabulous anecdote prevails of his publisher having persuaded him against his will to pursue his narrative beyond the battle of Chæronea[20:1]. Here it is that the calmness and candour of Thirlwall stand out in marked contrast. The history of the great conqueror and of the recovered independence (such as it was) of Greece, are treated by the scholar-bishop with the same care and fairness which mark all the rest of his work. But Grote is distinctly unfair to Alexander; his love of democracy led him to hate the man who made it impossible and absurd for Greece, and he shows this bias in every page of his twelfth volume.
[Sidenote: Grote ignores the later federations,]
As regards the subsequent history, which embraces the all-important development of federal government throughout Greece, he does not condescend to treat it at all. His great work is therefore incomplete in plan, and stops before the proper conclusion of his subject. Of course he would have found it hard to panegyrize his favourite democracies when he came to the Hellenistic age. There the inherent weaknesses of a popular government in days of poverty and decay, in the face of rich and powerful monarchs, showed themselves but too manifestly.