the child would often take the cord of the venerable Franciscan, and pull it, as if to play horse with him. I was sometimes afraid it might embarrass him, as being in his eyes somewhat a profanation; but he always smiled with the greatest kindness upon the child. He, I am sure, would not have wished all heretics lost for ever; nor does he probably believe they will be, or feel so; yet he may try to force it upon his mind as an article of his faith. Religion is so ethereal a thing, that as soon as you bring it down to articles of faith, aiming at the consistency which we expect in all other matters, we are led to consequences, some of which one or other cannot make part of his positive and living belief. There are hard things in the articles of the English church, in Calvinism, in the symbolic books (of the Lutherans); but God is wiser than all, and his power reaches hearts everywhere.'-p. 152-155. It remains to consider Niebuhr in that character which gives dignity and importance to these incidental circumstances of his life, as the historian of Rome. It cannot, however, be expected that we should enter, at present, into any detailed examination, or pass a deliberate judgment on his great work. No writer, we have said, ever so completely concentrated his studies, vast and extensive as they were, on one work, as Niebuhr. Most of his smaller publications converge, as it were, to the history of Rome. The discovery of the Institutes of Caius, at Verona,—the republication of the fragments of classical authors, edited by Maio,most of his papers in the Berlin Transactions, and in the philological journals, bear upon questions connected with Roman History. If God will only grant me a life so long that I may end where Gibbon begins, it is all I pray for.' This sentence, addressed to M. Lieber, forcibly defines the one engrossing object of his literary ambition. Our readers are probably aware how entirely these noble schemes were frustrated. We have only three volumes, containing the dubious and unsatisfactory history of early Rome, down to the last quarter of the fifth century. That this great fragment is a most wonderful work, we need only cite the suffrages of learned men throughout Europe. There can be no doubt that it will remain a lasting record of the vast research, the ingenuity, the sagacity, the fearless destructive energy, the creative genius of the author. It is impossible to read, or rather to study, the work, without admiration, astonishment, and conviction. But when we close it, when our minds are released from the spell of the enchanter, importunate doubts will arise; we cannot but think that, in the reconstruction, at least, of the demolished edifice of old Roman history, much is arbitrary and unsatisfactory. Niebuhr's unrivalled power of combining the most remote facts, collected by microscopic acuteness, from the most remote quarters, and framing them them into a consistent and harmonious theory, always commands. the attention, and in general captivates the assent; but there is one inextinguishable suspicion which haunts the mind, when it meditates more calmly upon the subject, the improbability that the whole course of ancient Roman history should thus have gone wrong; and that errors which vitiate the whole plan of their history should not only pervade the works of Dionysius and Livy, but that they should be set right by a German of the nineteenth century. That the imaginative mind of the former, and the Greek prejudices of the latter, should have perverted and misled their judgment, is most probable; that their histories of the early periods of Rome are full of romance and fiction, not less so; the difficulty consists not in rejecting as uncertain or apocryphal their system, but in accepting, as of greater authority, that of Niebuhr. Yet when we contemplate again and again the beautiful simplicity of Niebuhr's hypothesis of the Roman and Sabine town, each on its adverse hill, the relations with Etruria, the origin of the Plebs, the ager publicus, the poetical character of much of the earlier annals, it is difficult not to surrender ourselves again in implicit faith to our bold guide over the quaking morass of Roman antiquity,* If we might venture to predict, we should incline to the opinion, that some of Niebuhr's discoveries will retain their place in Roman history; others will be rejected, or silently dismissed; if, indeed, Roman history shall ever resume a consistent and authoritative form,-if the ancients and moderns are hereafter to be harmonized by some felicitous hand, which may command the general assent, and perfect the received and popular work on the history of the republic. For, in truth, this must, sooner or later, be done. It is (as we have elsewhere said) a complete misnomer to call the collections of dissertations, which fill the volumes of Niebuhr, extraordinary as they are, by the name of history. In many places the narrative is altogether omitted,-in some it assumes an abstruse If we * We were amused by stumbling upon an anticipation of Niebuhr, as to one doubtful point, the existence of the national ballad poetry of the Romans. recollect right, he supposes these poems sometimes to have been sung on such great festive occasions as triumphs, and so thought the author of Hudibras : For, as the aldermen of Rome, Their foes at training overcome, And not enlarging territory, (As some, mistaken, write in story,) Being mounted in their best array Upon a car, and who but they: And followed with a world of tall lads, That merry ditties troll'd and ballads, Crying, Hey for our town, through the borough,' &c. form; form; and, in fact, the whole work absolutely requires a very considerable previous acquaintance with Roman history to be intelligible. It is not merely the singular style, too faithfully preserved by his accomplished translators, but the whole composition of the book, which requires a long initiation into the author's way of seeing and of reasoning, before it can be comprehended by the ordinary reader. We know no more valuable service that could be rendered to the general reader, than the recomposition of the sounder parts of Niebuhr's book, skilfully blended and harmonized with a vigorous, animated, and easy narrative of events. It is not, we conceive, the real office of history to discuss, to investigate, to apply the principles of historical criticism in the body of the work itself, but to relate; to give the results, not the process of profound inquiry; never to abandon the primary excellence of history, a distinct and animated narrative, for that which, however invaluable in its way, antiquarian, philological, or philosophical comment, cannot supply its place. This unquestionably is the best, in our days perhaps an indispensable subsidiary to history, but it is not history itself. Would Niebuhr have succeeded in the plainer and distincter course of the later Roman history? We sincerely regret that, at least, he was not permitted, by the inscrutable Ruler of all human events, to make the attempt. Is it not singular that of the most remarkable period in the annals of mankind,-that beyond all others fertile in great events and in great men, in great virtues and in great crimes, that of which the consequences have been for ages and are perhaps still felt in the constitution of human society,the last century of the Roman republic, there should exist in no language a full, comprehensive, eloquent, and statesmanlike account? What great historian's name, in modern times, (there is, we need not say, no connected Greek or Roman history of the period,) is associated with this time? In England we have the dry prolixity of Hooke,—Ferguson, perhaps, is the best, but without disparagement to the fame of a work which certainly had great merit for its day, it cannot be esteemed equal to these times. Middleton's Life of Cicero is only one scene, as it were, in the great drama, nor do we know how adequately to supply our own deficiency from the literature of France, Germany, Spain, or Italy. We searched anxiously for passages in the book before us, which might contain Niebuhr's opinion of the characters and events of that era. Unfortunately, these points seem scarcely to have occurred in his casual conversations with M. Lieber, we found hardly anything but the following observations, which, after all, are commonplace enough-and the latter of them not more commonplace than weak and prejudiced :• Marius * Marius and Sylla were not mere bloodhounds. The state of things, as so often is the case, brought them to what they did. Each of the two was in the right and in the wrong; it is always so where parties exist. It cannot be denied that they were both actuated by ideas.'p. 205. Cæsar was a mighty but unbridled character, like Mirabeau. It is impossible to imagine Cæsar great enough. The good abandoned him; with whom could he associate, or on whom could he rest his lever except on the bad? Such a mind could not possibly be at rest, nor could he remain alone. I have no doubt but that it would have been possible to approach Cæsar with entire confidence after he had firmly established himself. The act of Brutus was just: there cannot be a doubt about this; for a man who does in a republic what Cæsar did, stands without the law of this republic. He had forfeited his life according to the laws of his state. It cannot be otherwise. Men who bring a new time must act against the laws belonging to the past. Times would not have been so bad under Cæsar as they grew after his death. Brutus was, undoubtedly, a pure, noble soul; but times had changed. Cato died at the right moment; for, however things might have turned out, no sphere would have opened itself for him after the battle of Actium.'-pp. 196, 197. This is all, excepting a good sentence or two about the passion of the Romans for farming, and on the power of their religion. Nor do we hear that M. Niebuhr has left any collections for any later period than that comprehended within the third volume of his work. Who is there, then, who, even if he should reverentially avoid the ground already trod by Niebuhr, will fill up the vast chasm between the close of his work and the commencement of Gibbon? Of no period, perhaps, have such fine things been said and sung, in prose and verse; but where is the powerful mind which shall compose this grand historical picture, with the Roman world for its place of action, with all its groups, its Metelli and Luculli, its Marius and Sylla; its Pompey and Cæsar, its Cato and Cicero; its Clodius and Catiline; each in their proper proportion and becoming hue; with all the victories and triumphs, the massacres and acts of sincere devotion, in their due gradations of light and shade? To be sure the writer ought to be a scholar and a statesman, not unacquainted with military affairs, a philosopher, with something of a poet's imagination, and the master of a pure, vigorous, and lively style. Whether Niebuhr possessed enough of these qualifications-especially of the last-whether the practice of writing, and the animation of the subject, might have developed powers which had no opportunity of displaying themselves in the earlier part of his task-it would be presumptuous, and now, unhappily, it is vain, to conjecture. Exoriare aliquis, aliquis, is our devout ejaculation,-in whatever country he may be born, or in whatever language he may write; but we shall, of course, feel greater pride and satisfaction, if the literature, which has already supplied Europe with the History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, shall likewise complete it by the received and accredited work on her Rise and Progress to Universal Empire. ART. IX. 1. Correspondence relating to the Slave-Trade with the British Commissioners-Class A.-and with Foreign Powers-Class B. Presented to Parliament in 1830, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. 2. Present State of the Foreign Slave-Trade. London. 1831. 3. Colonial Commerce. By A. Macdonnell, Esq., London. 1831. 4. Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829. By the Rev. R. Walsh, LL.D. London. 1830. 5. Remarks on the Sugar-Trade. London. 1834. 6. Letter to the Lord Glenelg, containing a Report, from personal observation, on the Working of the New System in the British West India Colonies. By John Innes. Second Edition. 8vo. London. 1835. THE British colonies have undergone a reconstruction of their whole society; and the mother-country has charged herself with a heavy ransom great sacrifices-the price of a great object. It is for her statesmen to take care that she be not defrauded of the purchase, after having thus largely paid the consideration. Let them look then to the foreign slave-trade. The day has arrived when the aspirations of philanthropy are no longer in conflict with any claims of property. From this time forth, policy and sympathy coincide; for the West Indian planter, and the emancipated negro, and the English nation, have now one common cause. If, therefore, in the view which we are about to offer of the new circumstances, and of the new duties, resulting from the recent deliverance of the British slaves, we dwell chiefly on general considerations which respect the negroes and the mother-country, with only an occasional reference to those peculiar claims which we admit that the planters may very justly set up, we must not be deemed hostile or indifferent to the cause of the colonists: nay, on the contrary, we trust that the well-judging part of the colonial body will feel how much more substantial a service we are likely to render them with the public, by urging the broad arguments which rest on duty and national |