Precisely in these lies the peculiar strength of Mr Grote. With scholarship as extensive as that of his predecessors, he has united a stricter discipline of mind, and habits of closer reasoning; and he manifests a truer perception of the nature of past modes of thinking--of the intellectual life of unlettered and Pagan ages. He has passed through that _transition state_ in which Dr Thirlwall unfortunately found himself, and has drawn with a firm hand the boundaries between history and fable. Not only has he drawn the line, and determined the principle on which the limits of the historical world should be marked out, but he has had the fortitude to adhere to his own principles, and has not allowed himself, in pursuit of some fragment of historic truth, (many of which doubtless lie in a half-discovered state beyond the circle he has drawn,) to transgress the boundary he has wisely prescribed to himself. The history is not far enough advanced to enable us to judge whether Mr Grote will preserve himself from a political bias, the opposite of that which has been so much censured in Mitford. A sufficient portion however, is published, to authorise us in saying that it is not in point of _narrative_ that the present author will obtain any advantage over his predecessors. It is in disquisition that he rejoices, and succeeds; it is the argumentative matter which excites and sustains him. His style seems to languish when the effort of ratiocination gives place to the task of the narrator. We fancy we see him resume the pen with listlessness, when nothing remains for the historian but to tell his story.