tration. What were the Odes of Pindar?- why written, how sung? Will any one venture to try the experiment here, in this nineteenth century, after all the educational ploughs and harrows have gone over it; when Chancellors have sowed the furrows, and we are to have our Daily News for twopence halfpenny? But make the trial; nothing can be easier. Read the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson to the first knot of loiterers you can collect on Kennington Common: take any section you choose out of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World into one of the shady streets of Whitechapel; and see how one of the divine heads of Raffaelle will be received by the connoisseurs of Drury Lane. As to Pindar, the recitation of one of Gray's Odes at Ascot will soon enable you to estimate the diffusion of lyrical taste upon an English race-course. Goldsmith said that the public, in general, set the whole piece in the proper point of view, while the critic lays his eye close to all its minuteness, and condemns or approves in detail: Johnson made a similar remark. But who are the public among us, or, rather, who were they in the eighteenth century? The small number of persons who bought books and endeavoured to understand them. But in Athens the public was really the entire mass of citizens; the 5000 in the Agora, the 20,000 at the Games; all who could see with the eye, or hear with the ear, or ask with the tongue 71 καινον ; in fact, every body. Say that the number of Athenian citizens did not exceed one and twenty thousand, their claim to civilisation is not affected by the multiplication-table, however much their commercial relations may have been restricted by it. Nor should the fact be lost sight of, that the Italian republics, in the golden age of their opulence and power, did not contain a greater number.

Under the direction and control of the citizens the slaves might probably erect those beautiful and elegant structures, the remains of which are so much admired, even at this day. "Even at this day," indeed, when a National Gallery looks down with beaming sympathy upon the boarded enclosure of the Nelson pillar. But

why must the noblest Grecian buildings be ascribed to slaves? Mr. Mackinnon appears to entertain a particular theory upon this subject of architecture. The Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Cathedral, all rise from the chisel and the trowel of the serf; of the Pyramids we have accepted his interpretation. But what of the others? The Athenian slaves performed the task of the labourers in the middle ages; but the intellectual character of a people is indicated by the design rather than the execution.

The chapter on ancient Rome is not more satisfactory to us than that on Greece, and has, in reality, a very slight bearing upon civilisation; many of the remarks and quotations are interesting and instructive, but they do not sufficiently illustrate the subject. The Romans are pro

nounced to have been deficient in the requisites for civilisation and public opinion:

"That greatest and most essential element of national worth and dignity, sound religious faith, whence moral principle emanates, was unknown. Facility of intercourse did not exist, and there were no other means of communication of knowledge than could be afforded by manuscripts or by oral transmission, which generally perverted what it sought to preserve."

Well, what then? In some of the elements of intellectual civilisation the Romans were obviously wanting; there was not among them the harmony of judgment and eye which seems to have been a national characteristic of the Athenians; Virgil might have been startled even by a hiss in the Forum, and the liveliest admiration of Horace probably resounded at the table of Mæcenas. But are these the only indications of civilisation? Why do we not hear of those wonderful highroads, the work of Roman ingenuity, of which our own villages and lonely waysides still contain so many majestic memorials; of those aqueducts, which might excite the envy of the most accomplished engineer; or of those fountains, which excelled modern attempts, as much as the Coliseum surThe remains of passes Astley's ? Herculaneum and Pompeii are in themselves important contributions

to a history of Roman civilisation. Rome possessed the great advantage of the Grecian model; whatever the weak hand of immature knowledge had moulded in clay, it was their privilege to shape in marble; and they were able to expand all the powers of mental intelligence by the use of memory, and to equal in some respects, and go beyond in others, the works of their predecessors by having learned to imitate them. Schlegel traces the decay of the Greek states, and their final subjugation by Rome, to the corruption of morals and teaching which immediately succeeded the decline of a purer philosophy, and the domination of that school of Sophists who would have devoured the life of the noblest body, by the poisonous influence of their false rhetoric and effeminate temper. All this experience lay piled up before the Roman eye on the vast field of historical observation. Nor was it entirely overlooked. The acute writer to whom we have just referred has noticed in the old Romans of early times a deep, perspicacious, practical sense, and a mighty political instinct, which shewed itself in their first institutions of government.

Nor should Mr. Mackinnon have passed over the admirable remarks of Schlegel upon the influence which the Roman jurisprudence has exercised on after ages. No people ever enjoyed a clearer vision of the science of equity, or indulged in more terrible mutilations of its harmony; with all the wisdom that the past afforded them, they kept their theory distinct from their practice; and, with the crash of Grecian empire resounding in their ears, they made more impetuous plunges into vice, and, finally, brought down the ruins of their country upon their heads with a more appalling overthrow. But this feature in their character only throws their civilisation forward into a stronger relief. Nor do we think that the gladiatorial combats, fearful and atrocious as they were, are to be regarded as irreconcilable with civilisation, any more than a Spanish bull-fight with the pencil of Velasquez. It was the national mind manifesting itself. The real poetry of the Roman people, says Schlegel, must be sought in the festive games of the Circus, which the prudent Augustus never neglected

in those theatrical combats, where the gladiator, wrestling with death, knew how to fall and die with dignity, when he wished to obtain the plaudits of the multitude in that Circus which so often afterwards resounded with the cry of an infuriated populace, "Christianos ad leones!". "the Christians to the lions."

The true history of civilisation in its golden age of developement begins with the diffusion of Christianity. This is what Schlegel justly calls the decisive crisis between ancient and modern times-the great central point in the records of the human family. On one side we behold the majesty of the Roman empire—its sumptuous tyranny, its picturesque superstitions, its fierce laws; on the other, the simple grandeur of a new kingdom of truth, with its one pure and solemn faith, its merciful legislation, and its embracing charity. The face of the earth was to be renewed after the impetuous water-floods had subsided, and a second tree of life, planted in the softened and purified soil, was to cover the world with the shadow of its boughs. The heroes of mythology no longer reigned,―

"Where the deluge burst with sweepy

sway,

Their arms, their kings, their gods were roll'd away."

It may suit the disciples of Gibbon to sneer at the conversion of Constantine and its political associations; and there may be reason in the argument, that the propagation of the Gospel and the triumph of the Church were connected with the decline of the Roman grandeur. We may arrive at different conclusions by the same path. But it does not fall within our plan to assist at the deposition or unniching of celebrated men, whether emperors or saints. We will only observe that in the public life of nations which is known as history, and in the common transactions of personal experience, scarcely any event is to be considered in the light of an occurrence, original, unprepared, single, and unrelative; or, to use a French word adopted by Bolingbroke, isolé. It is only a link in an invisible chain, which is not less elastic and powerful because its extremities are unseen. One remark of Gibbon, however, will

be readily received, that the powers of education and legislation had been all tried and exhausted by the shaping minds of antiquity. That principle which had once nerved the arm and cleared the eye of Sparta and Rome, had been long extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. The bigotry of Paganism had not sufficient vigour remaining to put its foot upon the neck of any opponent. The harvest of folly and sin had impoverished the world. At that season the Gospel-husbandmen went forth to sow; and from that hour to this-from the morning to what is certainly the noon, and may be the evening of the daythe plough has never stood idle or rusting in the furrow. In the heat, and rain, and storm, the sacred industry of cultivation has not slumbered. Vast tracts of country, indeed, continue to be untilled, and weeds swarm even among the rising wheat. So it must be now; but not always. That much has been done is shewn by the quantity of work that remains to do.

Paley has argued, in a passage known to all readers for its simple energy and eloquence, that the proper way to view Christianity, under its economical aspect, is to regard it as an instrument for the amelioration of mankind, and in its progress and diffusion resembling other improvers of human life. Learning, liberty, government, laws, all advance and spread by slow degrees. Thus the mind and body grow, and the magnificent trees of the forest illustrate the analogy. Where the future influence of the Gospel is spoken of by its divine Proclaimer, the processes of maturity are distinctly indicated. It is a tree rising from a small seed, it is a net cast into a mighty element, it is an animating principle leavening a large mass. Nor has the order of nature been touched in vain. seed has grown and sheltered kingdoms; the net has been let down and fed millions of families; the leaven has been mingled with the lump and given to the fainting frame of countless travellers, the bread that maketh a cheerful countenance.

The

"The Jewish religion produced great and permanent effects; the Christian religion hath done the same. It hath disposed the world to amendment. It

hath put things in a train. It is by no means improbable that it may become universal, and that the world may continue in that stage so long, as that the duration of its reign may bear a vast proportion to the time of its partial influence."

Mr. Mackinnon notices the effect of Christianity, but with a rapid pen, and immediately passes from the fall of Rome, by a transition neither obvious nor natural, to the history of civilisation in England, which he traces from the time of the Conquest through all its most eventful epochs. These chapters, extending over many pages, may be read with much pleasure and advantage, if the distinctive and ambitious title of the book be forgotten. They are, indeed, the conversational notes of a man of

reading and reflection upon the course of national events, without any exclusive reference to that refinement of the popular, and those changes in the general, habits of the people, which come under the expansive name of civilisation. One most important source of intelligence has been strangely and unfortunately neglected; we mean the Statutes. Without a most diligent investigation of these documents, no just or trustworthy estimate of the progress of social improvements can be formed by the most ingenious mind. It is writing a history of painting without inspecting the picture-galleries.

With these deductions, many remarks are extremely well put,-as, for example, the following upon the conquest by the Normans :

"What we gained by our loss in this conquest may be observed in many particulars. First, England grow much greater, both in dominion and power abroad, and also in dignity and state at home, by the accession of so much territory upon the Continent. For though the Normans by the conquest gained much of the English lands and riches, yet England gained Normandy, which by it became a province to this crown. Next, it gained greater strength by the great number of Normans and French that came over with the Conqueror, and after his establishment here, and incorporated with the English nation, joining with them in the same language, laws, and interests. Then we gained much by the great increase of our naval power, and of ships, wherein Normandy then abounded. This, with the perpetual in

be a most easy, as it would certainly be a gratifying task, to give specimens of the manner in which Mr. Mackinnon has handled some of the political and economic questions which his subject suggested. Wherever any disappointment may be felt it arises from the great extent of ground which has been enclosed for building. What living author could erect a structure worthy of the site? Might not even Hallam be found wanting? In recommending, however, these volumes for their general information and entertainment, we may quote the writer's highly-coloured view of our country and prospects in the nineteenth century:

"The community, now accustomed to live in a luxurious and highly civilised state, is scarcely aware of the advantages of which it is possessed. The rich productions of countries at four or five thousand miles' distance-countries formerly unknown-are ranged on shelves or displayed on counters. Those possessing means have only to rub Aladdin's lamp-in other words, to pay for what they require, and any thing they wish for in creation is summoned before them; but, although the Genius of the Lamp does not wait on the poor, yet to them the fruits of civilisation are more valuable than its flowers. A revered religion, just laws, medical aid, the approbation of the charitable, the sight of relations, the regard of friends, security from those dreadful famines that desolated the earth and thinned her population in former days, all these are the benefits which the poor may enjoy, besides the chance, by industry and good conduct, of rising in their profession. ** A mutual interchange of commodities, or natural produce, is not the only advantage arising from facility of communication. Moral benefits are obtained nearly commensurate to the physical. Mind comes into rapid collision with mind, and less time and less expense is sacrificed. Probably our favourite poet had a second sight in reference to railways in his

verses,

*

"Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,

And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.' The population may now travel to any given distance in a fifth, at least, of the time consumed two hundred years ago in passing through a similar extent of country, by persons even of opulence. ** In the middle ages each nation, each country, each town, and even each feudal castellated mansion, was enclosed and

* *

concentrated, and kept apart from it surrounding equals, either by fear, jealousy, dislike, or prejudice. In the present day, on the contrary, the same parties have all a tendency to amalgamation. Before the light of civilisation many crimes have ceased, many maladies have disappeared, and the life of man has increased in a manner commensurate with his enjoyments. Human nature has become less cruel. The scaffold is not so often used, the stake is not visible, the fagot is no longer lighted, the various instruments of torture, with the rack and wheel, are preserved only as objects of curiosity in our museums, and when seen are beheld with a grateful adoration to Providence that human nature is no longer subject to such afflictions and such abominations. Knowledge is now freed from the monopoly of cloistered indolence or exclusive societies. A bright prospect opens to our view; the energies of the human race appear in the main to have taken the right direction; a sense of justice pervades the community; the minds of men are opened; information is continually increased; and the superior extent of talent displayed by the journalists of our time, when compared with former days, is manifested."

No person can read these remarks without interest and instruction. We will only interpose one observation, with reference to the amelioration of criminal punishments, and that is, that justice is not administered with more mildness in a republic than in an empire. Fuller sets this fact in his own quaint, but happy light:

"

In reading the Roman (whilst under consuls) and Belgic history of the United Provinces, I remember not any capital offender, being condemned, forgiven, but always after sentence follows execution. It seems that the very constitution of a multitude is not so inclinable to save as to destroy."

Unquestionably mighty influences are at work in the shaping of the modern mind. Our own age is one of the headlands, of many of which the Past has witnessed the crumbling and decay, jutting out far into the sea of time, and commanding a long line of dim and vapoury coast. the infancy of a state arms do prevail; in its progress, arms and learning; afterwards, commerce and mechanical arts." It is not difficult to assign the position in which this nineteenth century would be placed by

"In