ART. I.-Histoire Critique de la Republique Romaine, &e. A Critical History of the Roman Republic, in which Work it is proposed to destroy the inveterate Prejudices, with respect to the History of the first Ages of the Republic; the Morality of the Romans, their Virtues, their external Policy, their Constitution, and the Character of their celebrated Men. By Peter Charles Levesque, Member of the Institute and of the Legion of Honor, Professor of Morality and History in the College of France. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1807.

THERE is nothing perhaps which has so great an influence both on the improvement of individual intellect and on the general interests of truth, as the sober exercise and proper regulation of the faculty of doubting. If lightly employed, and injudiciously directed, it involves us in infinite embarrassment, imbecility, and misery. But if, on the other hand, we are induced by indolence or timidity to stifle the freedom of its operations, and bury one of our most important talents in fruitless inactivity, the understanding will gradually forfeit all its vigor and originality, and our noblest powers will be overwhelmed by the accumulated rubbish of unquestioned authority, and unexamined prejudice.

Of these two dangers we are of opinion that the latter is the most formidable; it is certainly by far the most frequent.We laugh indeed at the child, or the rustic, who professes his implicit belief of preposterous facts, because he has seen them printed in a book: but are we sure that the convictions of the scholar and the statesman are always founded on a surér basis? APP. Vol. 14.

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Is any thing more common than to observe that facts are not only admitted to be true as facts, but are relied on as the guides of future conduct, merely because they form a part of history? And what is history? Not indeed, as Voltaire rashly defined it, "a romance, which is believed;" such general and indiscriminate censures are as hostile to truth, and as revolting to philosophy, as the undistinguishing admissions of weak credulity; bu history is nothing more than a collection of facts depending on the testimony of men, and consequently more or less entitled to credit according to their means of information, and their willingness to speak the truth. If recurrence were more frequently had to this simple definition, we should at least learn to postpone our decisions on facts to an examination of evidence, and probably might be led to believe that the common argument in favor of their truth "that they form a part of history" is almost as much a cause of suspicion as a ground of implicit confidence.

Among those who have attempted to teach men to think for themselves, by a bold attack on established errors, M. Levesque holds a distinguished rank. His enterprise is hardy and difficult, in proportion as the common history of Rome has been long and universally accepted, devoutly believed, and ardently admired. The historical facts which first become familiar to our understanding, the deeds of valor and generosity which earliest warm our hearts, the examples of honor, patriotism and friendship, which first form our little code of morality, are drawn from the Roman r public. It has been canonized for ages by sentiments approaching adoration; and we cannot help considering the present auther in the light of an avvocate del diavolo, who now questions its title to the honor and applause it has so long commanded. He aspires indeed to the character of a judge; but he is far indeed from the grave moderation and impartiality which authorise a solemn decision of. the cause, though his address, his acuteness, his various knowledge and versatile talents, qualify him to throw great light on every part of it. He is an excellent counsel, and that love of system, of which it is peculiarly necessary to divest ourselves when we wish to pronounce with fairness, brings to our view many important observations which might have escaped a more calm enquiry. He comments on the probability of par. ticular facts, and the consistency of the entire narrative; confronts the witnesses, exposes their contradictions, attacks their credit, or denies their sources of information. And the mortifying result of his argument is that the boasted virtues of the Romans are all traced to a period so little known and su obcurely recorded, as almost to deserve the epithet of fabulous, whue the ages, of which an accurate and credible narrative has

reached us, are distinguished by corruption, tyranny, cruelty, every thing that is mischievous in politics, and disgraceful in

manners.

With respect to the witnesses, it would be unjust to con ceal that they do not suffer materially from his cross-examination. Livy in particular, though he, like, M. Levesque, thought it right to preserve all that was reported of the early ages of Rome, is so far from stating them as certain facts, that he frequently pauses to express his doubts, often laments the deficiency of details, and the want of authority. He goes farther. In summing up the facts related in the five first books of his immortal work, he throws a doubt on the whole recital, from the defective manner in which all the records had been preserved. He frankly acknowledges them to be obscure from extreme antiquity; and hardly discernible from so great a distance as that at which he wrote, and adds another important cause of their uncertainty, the want of letters, the only sure guardian of the memory of events. This important observation, which is alone sufficient to rescue the discernment of the great historian from the stigma cast on it by the character of many facts related by him, may be consi 'ered as the germ of the work before us; and if modern compilers had reported the statements of Livy with the same diffidence with which he made them, there would have been little room for historic doubts on the early ages of this illustrious people. The good sense, however, of the following passage, and its application to the chronicles of other nations will plead our excuse for laying It entire be fore our readers. Preface, p. ii.

To establish the degree of confidence, which ought to be granted to the history of an antient people, we should inquire if they were in the familiar use of writing, or if on the contrary they had only slow and difficult processes for tracing their ideas, or were even unacquainted with any. There is no such thing as history, for a peo ple, which cannot write; there is nothing but tradition, and the character of all tradition is to change in passing from mouth to mouth, and from age to age; to confound names, times, places, circumstances; to be incessantly overloaded with new elements; to lose all those, which formed its origin, and in the end to be no more the same. Such is the fund of the history of every time, in which there was no writing.

Quæ at conditâ urbe Româ ad captam eandem urbem, Romani sub regibus pri mum, consulibus déinde ac dictatoribus,decemvirisque ac tribunis consularibus gessere foris bella, domi seditiones, quinque libris exposui: res,cum vetustate nimi obscuras,velut quæ magno ex intervallo loci vix cernuntur; tum,quod perrara bereadem tem pora literæ fuere, una custodia fidelis memoriæ rerum gestarum: & quod etiamsi qua in pontificum aliisque publicis privatisque erant monumentis, incensâ urbe, ples ræque interiére. Tit. Liv. 1. 6. c. 1. G gá

The Greeks, the first people in Europe who were raised to a high point of civilization, for a long time made little use of writing; or rather, they were long ignorant of writing, and understood only the art of inscribing on stone, on wood, on lead. In consequence, continued and detailed history began with them very late,-about the time of the Median wars. They put into verse all of which they wished to preserve the remembrance, to aid the memory by rhythm and metre. Their laws were in verse, and even in verse that was sung; their morality was versified, and it was less presumptuous but wiser than that which afterwards the philosophers established; their histories were poems, and it was from these poems that historians spoke of antient events.

The origin of wooden tablets plaistered with wax cannot be determined they were little fitted to receive works of any extent, and still less so to ensure their preservation; and the process by which characters were traced upon them by the aid of a sharp in strument, was rather engraving than writing properly so called. When the Greeks had at last discovered a liquor proper for tracing characters, they still were long before they procured a substance capable of commodiously receiving its marks, and contented themselves with rolled skins, which they called diphthera. Herodotus informs us that these skins were in use before his time, and that when he wrote; they had been long abandoned, and the papyrus preferred. This was the only convenient substance for receiving writing known to the antients, till the invention of parchment.

But the Greeks could not have been acquainted with it, so long as the inhospitable Egyptians rigorously excluded foreigners from their country, and refused all commerce with them. At length Psammetichus acquired the dominion of Egypt by the assistance of some Ionian and Carian pirates driven by the weather. His benefits fixed these strangers with him; and he opened the entrance of his empire to all those Greeks whom the example of their good fortune might attract. Commerce was then established between the two nations.

'One may believe that the papyrus was not one of the first articles that occupied the Grecian merchants. Some time must have passed before they had occasion to be acquainted with it, still more, before they could wish to be charged with it. Before this merchandise could excite their attention, some curious men, with minds superior to the age they lived in, must have gone into Egypt. This happened about the sixth century before our æra. Thales, Solon, other Greeks, whose names are less famous, went thither to seek more knowledge than they could as yet find in their own country, or rather to corrupt, by the false lights of Egyptian science, that purer light which Homer and Hesiod had displayed in Greece. It was not till this epoch that works began to be composed in prose, because there was no longer the same necessity to afford to the me mory the aid of metre. It was then that Pherecydes, the master of Pythagoras, first wrote in prose on subjects of philosophy; that

Cadmus of Miletus and Acusilaus of Argos first gave the example of not enslaving history by the incumbrance of versification; and that Pisistratus caused the writings of Homer, before dispersed, to be collected. Possibly they then first became continued works, and were then perhaps written for the first time ;-an opinion, which at first seems paradoxical, but on fuller examination appears highly probable.

'Three centuries rolled away before this discovery reached the Romans, who had no communication with the Greeks till near the time of the expedition of Pyrrhus in Italy. They had first graven written characters on pannels of oak, they afterwards engraved them on tables of copper, they painted them on leather, at length, they bethought themselves of writing on linen. But people write very little, when they have only such inconvenient methods of writing. It appears then that they had only fasti, in which they recorded the names of the magistrates for the year, and apparently the principal facts which had occurred during their magistracy."

He then goes on to observe that even if these antient annals were much more detailed than the state of writing makes it probable they were, the Gallic conflagration had swept away almost all monuments, whether of a public or private nature. What memorial then could remain at the carliest period of writing history, of the infancy of the republic, and still more of the kingly government?

In this manner M. Levesque has confirmed and expanded' the observation of Livy. Nothing can be more ingenious, or, in our own opinion, more satisfactory; but let it be remembered that the observation proceeds originally from Livy. It certainly affords a fair ground for disputing every part of the early history of Rome, which is highly improbable in itself, or inconsistent with facts better authenticated. Some facts of a public nature, as treaties, decrees, &c. are placed beyond the reach of doubt, by having been recorded on brass at the time, and found so preserved in subsequent ages. But those readers who have not been in the habit of turning their minds to such enquiries will be astonished to see how many facts, long uncontroverted and unsuspected, are placed in a very doubtful light, and how many are proved to be absolutely incredible. We are under some difficulty in forming a selection, because the remarks are in a great degree connected with minute facts and uninteresting details: besides, the same want of authentic in formation, which leads our author to question the received account, necessarily prevents his substituting any other. It may be sufficient to observe that all the particulars of the history of Rome under her kings are considered as unworthy of credit, not only from the marvellous recitals, which are connected with it, and fairly bring the whole into disrepute, but from many apparent contradictions on the very face of the relation. The