is certain from what is only more or less probable, what is agreed in by all the best writers from what is peculiar to one or two of them. And the effect on our mind of Mommsen's method is to inspire a vague feeling of distrust, which is anything but satisfactory; we hesitate to rely on many things which, if a course like Grote's had been pursued, we might have seen to be perfectly trustworthy.

It can hardly be said of Mommsen that he has a judicial mind. The intensity with which he holds his main conclusions makes it scarcely possible for him to be quite impartial as to matters connected with and bearing upon them. He sees everything in the light of those general opinions and convictions which he has been led to form. This is strikingly shown in his treatment of Julius Cæsar. He has been deeply impressed with the political sagacity of Cæsar, as comprehending better than any of his contemporaries the real circumstances of the time, its tendencies, necessities, and possibilities. But from this he goes on almost to the length of investing his hero with political omniscience and infallibility. He vindicates every step in his career, as inspired by profound wisdom, and demanded by the true interests of the Roman world. He fails to do justice to the really able and honest men of the senatorian party. Cicero and Cato he treats with undisguised contempt. The cynical scorn with which he speaks of all persons for whom he has conceived a feeling of dislike is often unpleasing when it is not wholly unjust, and is an undeniable blemish in his history.

The volume before us is the first of four, and comes down to the close of the war with Pyrrhus, and the subjection of Italy to the Roman power. The history of the Kings, from Romulus to Tarquin the Proud, our author looks upon as unhistorical and untrustworthy. He shows it less respect than Arnold, who gives us the traditional narrative, but in a quaint quasi-Biblical style, which is intended to mark its legendary character. A similar course has been taken by Dr. Ihne in his recently published history of early Rome. But Mommsen does not even tell the story; he alludes to it frequently; he presupposes an acquaintance with it on the part of his readers; but he omits it from his pages. Even the early history of the republic, down to the burning of the city by the Gauls, he regards as, to a great extent, mythical, and contents himself with the merest sketch, touching only on events which stand connected with constitutional changes.

On these changes he is very full, tracing political forms and institutions from their beginnings in times much earlier than the establishment of the republic. It is curious how much can be made out as to these points in long periods for which we have no history in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a fact which gives evidence of that genius for political organization which existed, to a degree never surpassed (perhaps never equaled) elsewhere, in these primitive Italican communities. There is a logical coherence in the political system of the early Romans, and an orderly progress and conservative steadiness about the changes it underwent, that make it possible to trace it back step by step through the twilight of the mythic and semi-historical periods. But Mommsen does not confine himself to the political life and progress of the Romans. Language, Law, Religion, Industry, Trade, Art, Literature, all the phases of Roman activity and civilization, receive his attention, and are discussed with masterly power. There is in these chapters a fullness of thought, an inexhaustible wealth of ideas and suggestions, which make the book a marvel of historic composition.

The translation, by Dr. Dickson, is one of the best which have been made from German into English; it may take rank with Carlyle's version of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Felton's version of Menzel's History of German Literature. It is described in Dr. Schmitz's Introduction as a labor of love on the part of the translator; and the comparison of a few pages with the German original is enough to show that it has been made with uncommon patience and painstaking. A long German sentence is often broken up into two or three English ones, a change imperatively demanded by the different genius of the two languages; but in other respects the translator follows very closely in the track of his author. The peculiarities of Mommsen's style are reflected with much skill and felicity. This is the more creditable to Dr. Dickson, because those peculiarities are such as to impose unusual difficulties on a translator. The style is not that dignified, decorous, conventional mode of expression which we find in most histories. Mommsen, like Grote, is ready to use any phraseology which most vividly or forcibly expresses his meaning. He draws freely from the language of the club room, the stock exchange, the daily newspaper. He goes beyond Grote in the freedom with which he introduces spicy and stinging colloquialisms which have hardly gained a place for themselves in polite literature. Dr. Dick

son has enjoyed a peculiar advantage from being in communication with his author, who has examined the version sheet by sheet, making the suggestions and corrections which seemed to him. desirable. The reader of this book may feel a confidence seldom allowed to the readers of translations, that he has before him the true intent and actual meaning of the foreign author.

MR. HENRY CRABB ROBINSON'S "DIARY,"* etc., etc., is not equal in interest to Boswell's Life of Johnson, but it deserves to be ranked with it for its importance as a contribution to the History of Literature, and of literary men. Mr. Robinson was not a Boswell in his exclusive and long continued devotion to a single hero, but with many qualities vastly higher and nobler than his, he resembled him in the strong and self-forgetting interest which he felt for a succession of heroes; beginning with Goethe and ending with F. W. Robertson. This series extended over a long succession of years, from before 1790 to 1866. The temperament of Robinson was the reverse of the nil admirari. On the contrary, he carried his amiable interest in distinguished men, especially in men distinguished in literature, to an almost childish extreme. Being by good or bad fortune born a dissenter, he was shut out from the University life, and the University studies of England, but as a compensation he went to Germany in 1800, when it was comparatively rare for an Englishman to think of the German language or of German literature at all, and when the rising suns of German genius had scarcely sent a ray of their brightness to the self-occupied and the self-satisfied little island, which was then absorbed in putting down Napoleonism and upholding British supremacy. In Germany he spent more than five years, became acquainted apparently with everybody who was worth knowing, including Madame de Stael, then in quasi exile from Paris; was on somewhat familiar terms with Goethe, and returned home in 1805 to be stared at somewhat as a visitant from the moon or Timbuctoo.

He was for a while established as a writer and foreign editor for the London Times, and finally entered upon the practice of the law as Barrister. Directly upon his return he resumed his

* Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, Barrister at Law, F. S. A. Selected and edited by THOMAS SAPLER, Ph. D. In two volumes. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1870.

acquaintance with the literary men of England who had become famous or who were just rising into notice, and established himself on a more or less intimate footing with very many of the most distinguished. Coleridge he knew intimately. In the family of Charles Lamb he was a frequent visitant, and a trusted and loving friend. With Southey he was a frequent correspondent. With Edward Irving and Basil Montague he associated freely. To Samuel Rogers' breakfasts he was a never to be omitted guest. To Walter Savage Landor he cleaved with unshaken constancy, and was one of the few whom Landor trusted when he distrusted all the world beside. Wordsworth, however, was the magnus Apollo of the later half of Robinson's life. He early gave in his adhesion to his theory of poetry; he was his staunch defender on all occasions, and in all societies; he was admitted to the most unreserved familiarity at his house. For many years before the death of the Poet, he made a Christmas visit at Rydal, and was one of the warmest and sincerest mourners at the Poet's death.

His relations to the Political and Religious development of his time were intimate and most interesting. He was from the first a Liberal in Politics, and associated with the better class of leaders in every description of political and social progress and reform. He was one of the foremost among the founders, and among the most liberal and devoted of the friends, of the London University and of University College. His religious and theological opinions were singularly unsettled from the first, and remained vacillating to the last. From being almost a follower of Godwin, he came at last to be a Broad-churchman of the type of Robertson and sympathized most warmly with the theologians and religionists of his school. From the beginning to the end of his life, Robinson was cheery, sympathizing, gentle, hopeful, and earnest, and yet, as it would seem, ever driven by the genius of unrest.

This long-lived man, who knew everybody, and was interested in everybody and in everything, kept a diary with great minuteness, wrote an abundance of long letters, and recorded in a familiar way his Reminiscences of the more important events and personages whom he had seen. From these materials, these volumes were selected and are very judiciously edited. They are an invaluable and most suggestive record of the literary, political, religious, and personal history of three-fourths of a century, during one of the most fruitful periods which the world has ever seen. As such they will be considered necessary to every library.

BARON BUNSEN'S MEMOIRS* have at last been brought within the reach and the means of many of his admirers, in this second and greatly improved edition. We say greatly improved, because it is so much abridged. The first edition was too bulky to be read with facility or pleasure, containing as it did a vast amount of matter interesting only to special students in respect to his peculiar theories, the political history and changes of Great Britain and Germany, with many trivial family and personal details which might well be spared even by his most devoted admirers. The narrative was heavy and dragging, and the whole impression of the book was one of unwieldiness. We have in its place a condensed biography of one of the most remarkable men of modern times-liberal, cultured, and earnestly Christian, the friend of Niebuhr and Arnold, as well as of everything that was good and true, having faith in progress in Science, Theology, and Politics, and not doubting in the least that Christianity is the friend of progress, and would in its turn be befriended thereby.

As a scholar, Bunsen was a model for his diligence, his enterprise, and his manysidedness. His learning was not always the most exact, but for breadth and activity he was an example worthy of admiration. As a statesman he was honest, open, and nobly true to his faith in honor and duty and in patriotic zeal. Though the cherished friend of his King, he dared to dissent from his policy in church and state at critical moments to both, and to be true to his own convictions at the peril of the loss of his place and of the confidence of his cherished royal friend. As a Christian he ever bore nearest to his heart the honor of Christ and the prosperity of His Church; but he believed that science and truth were the servants of both, and should be liberally and boldly followed, without fear of apparent consequences. He compiled a book of hymns for the service of public worship, and for years labored at his Bibelwerk, in the faith that the Scriptures might be so expounded as not to be an offense to scholars and cultivated men. One does not need to accept his interpretations to admire the spirit in which he conceived them, nor need we be insensible to

*Memoirs of Baron Bunsen, late Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of his Majesty Frederick William IV., at the Court of St. James. Drawn chiefly from Family Papers, by his widow, FRANCES BARONESS BUNSEN. Second Edition. Abridged and Corrected. In Two Volumes. (12mo.) Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1869.