day; and he said that this was only a device of Satan, to make man think of mounting into the air, contrary to the will of God, who never gave him wings as he has to the birds."

"O tempora! O mores!" exclaimed Aylmer.

"And he said that the persons who have occupied themselves most with attempts at navigating the air, are Popish priests, friars, monks and jesuits. That's a fact, and facts, you know, are stubborn things."

"What exquisite logic!"

"Well, you know what an excellent man he is.'

"I know he is a booby!"

"Oh, Brooke, for shame! to speak of that admirable man in such a manIt only proves the truth of what he said to you that your besetting sin was a want of humility."

ner.

Certainly not." "Why not?"

"Because he is an admirable mana none-such a gem!"

"Oh!" cried Aylmer, clasping his hands with fervour, "oh! that I had language to express, within the limits of charity, the indignation that I feel at the manners and conduct of self-worshipping infallibles-conceited religionists-oracles-none-suches! A class of people who, whether in private or in public life, insult all who are capable of taking a larger view than themselves are capable of, and who have the honesty to express it."

"I don't know what you mean, Brooke. I never saw any such people; but I know this, that Mr. Woodenpate is always right, as a matter of

course.

be established to punish all people who think wrong.'

"Oh, Galileo!" cried Aylmer, "the inquisition punished thee for thinking right! and if Solomon Woodenpate had lived in those times he would have been one of thy persecutors."

"It's no use talking of Galileo, Brooke. His case is quite irrelevant to the present subject. Mr. Woodenpate never would have punished Galileo, or any one else, for thinking right; he would only punish people who think wrong."

"And so you would have me thrown into the Inquisition, Annie!" said Aylmer, laughing. "Oh, Annie, I thought you were a more good-natured girl. Oh, Annie, I am ashamed of you."

"Then cease to think wrong, and submit yourself with humility and teachableness to the opinions of Mr. Woodenpate."

"And what is your definition of thinking wrong?" asked Aylmer.

66

Presuming to think otherwise than Mr. Woodenpate. That's thinking wrong," said Annie.

"Truly," said Aylmer, "the Solomon Woodenpates have sometimes large influence in human concerns; inasmuch as busy-bodyism, and loud assertion, and noisy zeal, make a greater show in the world than thought and reason, and the meekness of wisdom. Their real principle is—

They prescribe humility to others, and profess it themselves; and their notion of humility is, that they shall be teachers and dictators, and that other people shall accept the privilege humbly and gratefully of sitting at their feet as disciples, nor presume to differ from them. In their vanity and conceit of perfect knowledge, they canton out to themselves,' as the wise Locke observes, a little Goshen in the intellectual world, where light shines, and, as they conclude, day blesses them ; but the rest of that vast expansium they give up to night and darkness, and so avoid coming near it.' And hence their false conclusions, and the violence and fanaticism with which they maintain them; and hence their iron selfishness, their want of sympathy and charity, their egotism and Procrustean tyranny, whose real nature is hidden, it may be, from themselves, under the

guise of moral and religious principle."

"Oh, Brooke, Brooke !" said Annie, in a tone of mournful remonstrance.

"I tell you what, Annie," said Aylmer, winking to Jack, "you had better marry Solomon Woodenpate."

"Marry him!!" screamed Annie, "I would not marry such a gander as he is, not for a million of money !!!" "A gander, Annie?" said Aylmer, laughing. Oh, fie! You should not speak of that admirable man in such a manner."

66

"I never denied that he was a gander," said Annie, looking very logical and argumentative. "I only said that it is the height of presumption and impropriety in any one to have any opinion different from his."

But pretty Annie could no longer look grave and logical. She burst out laughing, and gave cach of her brothers a good slap, for Jack was laughing, too, which was the unkindest cut of all, as Jack was generally her champion in questions about steam, and that kind of thing.

Jack was an honest good fellow, who cared little how the world wagged so that he had his dog and gun, his horse and fishing-rod, and a few etceteras, to amuse him from one end of the year to the other. As to theological questions, he never troubled his head about them, having a vague notion that they

were matters fit only for women, and Methodist preachers, and charityschool children. On the subject of his brother's speculations about locomotion, he had (as we have seen) formed a very decided opinion; and, in fact, prided himself on the depth and solidity of his reflections, which, he flattered himself, were the result of a plain, practical, common-sense way of thinking, as opposed to the airy flights of poets and philosophers.

Thinking reader, wonder not at the above controversy. It is only a page from the book of human life. There are fools in all generations. What saith Macaulay, speaking of the scheme for lighting London, by one Edward Heming, in A. D. 1690, by placing a lantern" before every tenth door, on moonless nights, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and from six to twelve of the clock?"

A PHILOSOPHICAL, and yet accurate, history of the Roman Empire has been a desideratum in English history, not the less felt from the fulness with which the subject has been treated by the modern historians of other countries. We have no continuous record of the reigns of the Cæsars, from which more can be learnt than such facts as are taught to schoolboys; and we, therefore, welcome with a hearty greeting this work from the hands of a finished scholar, and a liberal thinker. Mr. Merivale seems to be peculiarly well qualified for the arduous task he has undertaken, for he is imbued with that classic spirit which nothing can impart but a lengthened sojourn among the studies of a University; and at the same time he is free from that narrowness of thought, those general prejudices of opinion, which a University life has too often been found to foster. To these advantages he adds a facile, and yet perspicuous terseness of diction as difficult of acquirement as it is invaluable; the happy effect of early habits and youthful years, spent among those to whom literary pursuits were dear.

Mr. Merivale has not attempted any peculiar brilliancy of language; indeed one great merit of his style is that it is in no way peculiar; it never forces itself on the attention of the reader. As in these days of simplicity of costume no remark offers itself to be made on the dress of a well-dressed gentleman, so no question as to style will rise in the mind of the general reader of Mr. Merivale's work: he will be carried on over an easy track, neither struck by the splendid fluency of a Macaulay, nor harassed by the involved obscurity of a Grote.

Having before us those two great modern historians; men who have already achieved in literature a name which cannot but last; men who write with a well grounded confidence for posterity as well as for the present age, we cannot but think that Mr. Merivale has adopted a happy medium.

An uncultivated, or rather an inattentive style of language, offers almost an insuperable difficulty to the general class of readers: works so written, though compiled with the most accurate erudition, and the severest judgment, are in fact unreadable: on the other hand, the elaborate brilliancy of a rhetorician distracts the attention from the matter written to the mode of writing, and ultimately fatigues the reader. Who has not felt, in reading Gibbon, the impossibility of forgetting his peculiar style, and of carrying on his narrative, without thinking of the words in which it is conveyed!

Mr. Merivale's object, as he tells us in his introductory chapter, is "to trace the expansion of the Roman nation from the last days of the republic to the era of Constantine;" or, in other words, to give the history of the Roman empire down to the time when the seat of that empire was removed from Rome. Counting from the year of the city 676, B. c. 78, this includes a period just exceeding 400 years, and no country, no period could afford a history more interesting. Then, and from thence were formed the people, from whom we and the other nations of Southern Europe have received our language, our manners, and our laws. To the civilisation engendered by the wealth of Rome, and distributed from the city through the provinces, we owe the commencement of the comforts we now enjoy our own commonwealths are formed from the relics of the Roman empire, to which we must look as the common parent of modern nations.

In these four centuries the animal development of man was carried to the highest pitch: they are stained with the crimes of the worst of despots, and the vices of the richest of people: the imperial purple was worn by fifty-three aspirants, of whom above forty met with violent deaths; the horrors of Nero, Domitian, Caracalla, and Elagabulus, shock and terrify the almost incredulous reader; and yet so great

was the intrinsic national strength of the empire, so firm the throne established by Julius and Augustus, so powerful the effect of its concentrated wealth, that at the close of the four centuries it will still be seen standing in its full glory; nor did the line of emperors terminate till the last of the Palæologi fell in defending his minute fraction of an empire, 1500 years after the subversion of the republic.

We wish that Mr. Merivale had given us some closer insight into the nature of the political constitution of Rome under the republic; that he had told us what proportion of the governing power the people, by means of their tribunes, had rescued from the patricians; and what proportion the oli garchy, in spite of popular struggles, had succeeded in retaining. The name of a republic to modern ears conveys a notion of overweening democratic ascendancy, to which even the titles of nobility are abhorrent; and assumes an equality of all citizens. In the republic of Rome, at its most popular period, there was no such ascendancy, no such equality; it was an oligarchy, in which the governing nobles were selected by the voices of the people, but in which the voices of the people were directly controlled by the power and wealth of the nobles. It was the contest between these parties which paved the way for Cæsar, and we regret that the present work has not more accurately detailed to us the course of events, which made possible the opposite careers of a Marius and a Sylla.

Mr. Merivale, however, refers with admiration and affection to the work of Doctor Arnold, and would have us look on his own labours as the continuation of those of that excellent scholar. A mind more qualified for great historical efforts than Dr. Arnold's has, probably, seldom been given; but other laborious vocations, and a premature death, have deprived us of such a work as he might have accomplished, and it is now Mr. Merivale's ambition to bring down a perfect history from the period at which Arnold ceased, to that at which Gibbon becomes full and satisfactory.

Among the great principles of history, which we learn from that of Rome, none appear to be clearer than the fact, that from all extensive conquests, the conquered races gain as much as the

conquerors.

Roman civilisation and

privileges extended themselves to Gaul and Spain, to Italy, Illyria and Macedonia, by degrees the conquered people became citizens of the empire, and assisted on equal terms with the conquerors in the conquest of the nations.

"Nevertheless," observes Mr. Merivale, "a large portion of the history of Rome is no other than a record of the desperate resistance she offered to the claims of her subjects for comprehension within the pale of her privileges, The timely amalgamation which took place so repeatedly between the conquerors and the conquered, is to be attributed to the good fortune of the Commonwealth, rather than to the wis dom and foresight of her rulers."

The good fortune of the Commonwealth we take to have been the inserutable laws of that Providence, which seems to have guaranteed the gradual amelioration of the human race, and which used for that purpose the prow ess of Rome, as it is now using the increasing empire of Great Britain in the east, and of the United States in the west. The human mind cannot conceive that the Creator would allow the career of an Alexander or a Cæsar, a Frederick or a Napoleon, if the aggrandisement of a man, or a nation, were to be the sole result of such violence and bloodshed; but when history shows us that the civilisation of nations can be traced to the ambition of individuals, she teaches us her most useful lesson, explains to us why heaven permits the horrors of war, and vindicates the ways of God to man.

It would be impossible to conceive anything lower than the political morals of Rome during the last days of the republic; the old forms of government remained, the consuls, prætors, ædiles, and quæstors were still annually elected, and the people had, nominally, their tribunes as of old; but every election was carried by money or by force. The votes of the electors were openly purchased; and, when bribery was insufficient, the rulers of the State did not hesitate to fill the city with their armed retainers, and to ensure success by civil war within the city. Such were the tactics used not only by a Catiline and a Clodius, but also by a Pompeius and a Cæsar. All laws were outraged by the magnates of the land; the high nobility revelled in

the plunder of the provinces; and, though a Cicero was found to expose, with indignant eloquence, the extortions of Verres, a Cicero was also found to defend the extortions of a Fonteius. The old contest between the people and the patricians had degenerated into a fight for life or death between two adverse factions, who had almost lost the memory of the ground on which the struggle commenced. Everything, even feelings and prejudices, were changed and confused. The rebel, Catilina, was a patrician; Cicero, the friend of the senate, was a plebeian; Cæsar, the head of the Marian faction, who had been all but proscribed by Sulla, was a patrician; Pompeius, to whom the senate at last entrusted its cause, was a plebeian. Under these circumstances, the advent of a man, who was able to extinguish the smoky embers of the republic, and found out of them an empire and a government, was indeed a blessing.

"The luxuriance of Roman oppression flourished but for a century and a half, but in that time it created, perhaps, the most extensive and searching misery which the world has ever seen. The establishment of the imperial despotism placed, in the main, an effectual controul over those petty tyrants (the Roman proconsuls and publicans), and, notwithstanding all the crimes by which it won its way, and the corruptions which were developed in its progress, it deserves to be regarded, at least in this important particular, as one of the greatest blessings vouchsafed to the human race."

With these views our author has commenced his task, and the justice of them it seems impossible to doubt; but we cannot but think that he has been carried by them somewhat too far in his admiration forthat great man, whose life and doings form the subject of the work now under consideration. And here we will allude to what appears to us to be the gravest fault in Mr. Merivale's work: he is too prone to have a hero. Were the volumes before us a work of fiction, we should say that we had never read a novel in which the chief character was kept so systematically, so constantly in view. Cæsar is always present in Mr. Merivale's pages, and always in action. This deference, however, to the genius of a leading character, though it would make a novel, does, as we take it, mar

a history. In this particular, chiefly, should biographical and historical writers differ; the former should condense the interest round the one subject of their work; the latter should diffuse it over the welfare, or the sufferings, over the energies or the apathies of a people. The history of the Romans is a higher theme than the life of Casar. Gibbon has never condescended to be the biographer of a Constantine or a Julian, though he has chronicled, perhaps, every important event of their great reigns; and though we would compare neither of them with the founder of the Roman empire, neither can we compare the Romans of their periods, with those who raised Cæsar to his throne, and then dashed him down for presuming to enjoy it.

We trust that this form of narrative, this concentration of interest in a leading character, will not be carried on through the remaining volumes of a work, to which we hope to look as the standard history of the Roman empire. That Augustus should be made the hero of a period is practicable enough; but who is to follow him? Are the dark cruelties of Tiberius to be the prominent features of a volume, or the insane frolies of Nero?-and yet it is difficult to change an adopted method of narrative.

It may be said that the overpowering genius of Cæsar was so predominent in the period to which these two volumes are confined, that the memorials of his public life and the history of the Romans are necessarily identical. To some extent we must admit this plea; yet we cannot but think, that had Mr. Merivale looked on his subject from a different point of view, had he made Rome instead of Cæsar the central point of his picture, he would have been less liberal in his praises of the successful captain, and more just to the merits of his defeated rival.

It has latterly been the custom with writers on Roman history to disallow the right of Pompeius to the illustrious name with which his contemporaries honoured him. That his greatness was surpassed, baffled, and confounded by the greater genius of Cæsar no one will deny; but it seems to us as impossible to deny that his moderation was sincere, his policy for a long period successful, and his knowledge of the art of war second only to that of his mighty competitor.