Presidential Address

Abstract

Some fifteen years ago, before Mr. Lowe had developed into Viscount Sherbrooke, we were sitting next each other, one afternoon, on the front Opposition Bench. The House was in the possession of an orator of the kind to whom it pays ‘the genuine tribute of undissembled horror’ by reducing itself to a handful of members, but we, for some reason or other, could not escape, and fell accordingly to talking in self-defence. The conversation found its way to Thucydides, and I asked my companion whether it had ever struck him to write an article on the uses of that author to the modern statesman. He said, ‘No,’ but the idea pleased him; he dallied with it for some time, and had even, I believe, some correspondence on the subject with the editor of one of the monthly reviews. Nothing, however, came of his good intentions, and I am not aware that anyone else has done what he did not do. It seems to me, accordingly, that it might not be wholly un-interesting to this Society if I were to try to answer the question whether the study of Thucydides is useful at all to the modern statesman, and, if so, to what extent?