aries in the East, been enabled to keep up, at least, with the great discoveries made in the Orient during the last three decades. It is to some of these gentlemen, and above all to the Rev. William Frederic Williams, that America is indebted for its first, and even to the present writing, its most important accession of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities. It was in a letter written by Mr. Williams in 1853, and now preserved at New Haven, that Mr. Williams first made that interesting suggestion recently revived in England, about the priority of which Professor Terrien de la Couperie and Mr. George Bertin have been for some time quarreling. Mr. Williams wrote: "Did it ever occur to you that this arrow-headed character and Chinese are identical in origin? I yesterday saw a cylinder in which were two lines of writing that anybody would call Chinese, and Dr. L(obdell) brought a seal in the same case. I wonder that the resemblance has not been remarked on." The antiquities sent over by Mr. Williams were distributed among the various colleges and museums of this country, some, however, falling into the hands of private individuals. Recently the Metropolitan Museum of New York has acquired some seals and cylinders by purchase. The earliest Assyrian scholars in the United States were Mr. Edward C. Salisbury, Rev. William Hayes Ward, and Dr. Selah Merril. Since the study of Assyrian has been placed upon a scientific basis a number of Americans have been trained abroad; but it was the arrival in this country of Dr. Paul Haupt, of Göttingen, which justified M. Menant in saying that the most serious work was now being done in the United States. The first regular courses in Assyrian were given by Professor Francis Brown at the Union Theological Seminary, New York, in the year 1880. Owing, however, to the stress of work on the theological students, none of them were incited to special study or independent research. Presently other institutions began to feel the importance of Assyriology. Harvard, though not establishing a special chair, elected Dr. D. G. Lyon Hollins Professor of Divinity, and he has arranged regular courses in Assyrian. At the Johns Hopkins University a full Assyriological course was successfully opened upon the arrival of Professor Haupt in 1883. A Shemitic Seminary was formed, in which there are classes in Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian, and Akkadian; and in January, 1887, a special course was inaugurated, to be given annually during that month for advanced scholars and professors in other institutions. Instruction is also given in the Protestant Episcopal Seminary at Philadelphia, by Dr. John P. Peters; in the Boston University, by Professor Hinckley G. Mitchell; in the Baptist Theological Seminary at Newton Centre, Mass., by Professor Charles Rufus Brown; in the Summer Schools of Hebrew, by Drs. Craig and R. T. Harper; at the Andover Theological Seminary, by Professor John Phelps Taylor; at the University of Pennsylvania, by Dr. Herman V. Hilprecht; at Yale, by Professor William R. Harper, and the Stone Lectures at Princeton, 1885-86, on Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, by Dr. J. F. McCurdy.

I have been moved to state rather fully the information which I communicated to M. Menant more than a year ago about Assyrian study in the United States, and to partially bring it up to date, in the hope that, should there be omissions or mistakes, they may be filled out and corrected now, during the lifetime of the pioneer Assyriologists of America. Cyrus Adler.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

AMERICAN STATESMEN. LIFE OF THOMAS HART BENTON. BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 16mo, pp. vi, 372. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1887. $1.25.

A book of broad and strong lines, developed in a sort of dramatic progress, which, however, lies in the life itself, though every one would not have brought it out so distinctly. The first chapter reads almost like one in geology. It traces the way in which the massive, though rather passive, German race, and the strong and fiery Scottish race, of Pennsylvania, made their way down along the mountains till they met the Anglo-Scottish population of the Carolinas (blended with the Huguenots), both then jointly trending West, in a manner which stamps on the mind a permanent image of a great movement of population which may at the same time be fairly called a process of nature. "In a generation or two, all, whether their forefathers were English, Scotch, Irish, or, as was often the case, German or Huguenot, were welded into one people; and in a very short time the stern and hard surroundings of their life had hammered this people into a peculiar and characteristically American type, which to this day remains almost unchanged. In their old haunts we still see the same tall, gaunt men, with strongly marked faces and saturnine, resolute eyes; men who may pass half their days in listless idleness, but who are also able to show on occasion the fiercest intensity of purpose, and the most sustained energy of action." This race is the basis of population in all the Transappalachian and Transmississippian, South and West, rising to the middle line of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and surging up through "the six counties" of Northwestern Missouri into Nebraska. The happy vigor of Ohio has resulted from the more intimate mutual interpenetration of this and the New England element, which in the two states west of her remained rather sulkily apart. And the men of the former race, penetrating to the greater range, "in the saddle instead of afoot, and with rope and revolver instead of axe and rifle, now form the bulk of the reckless horsemen who spend their lives in guarding the wandering cattle herds that graze over the vast, arid plains of the "Far West.'"

The author shows how this great Western race, mainly composed of non-slaveholders, long took but a faint interest in the divisions of North and South. They were intensely attached to the Union, whose essential solidarity spread itself out before them in the very form of the mighty plain into which they had poured. But the great plantations steadily multiplied towards the Gulf, and the New England race steadily increased near the Lakes, and at last, lingeringly and reluctantly, never fully, indeed, in the great mountain-base of immigration, the West sank under the force of the fatal line. Benton, whose powerful character exhibited in thoroughly representative measure the doggedness and tenacity of the region in which he grew up, never knew himself except, first, as an American, secondly, a Westerner, and a good way behind both a Southerner. And when Missouri, morally, glided from beneath him, carrying with her his political fortunes, this ardor civium prava jubentium never shook him a hair's-breadth.

Benton was well-born and well-bred, and yet, in accordance with his representative rather than creative character, he entered so thoroughly into the peculiar social feelings of the Southwest, that his tribesmen, as always happens with such a man, viewed these advantages in him as belonging to them, as well as his extraordinary range of knowledge, and as

marking him out for a leader. Very few, if any, men appear ever to have sat in the Senate who knew so thoroughly so many things bearing upon their opportunities and duties. And he sat in the Senate when it was at its height of influence and grand capacity, grouped around the three angles of the representative triangle, Webster, Benton, and Calhoun,

Benton's adherence to his fellow-North-Carolinian and fellow-Tennessean Jackson needs no explanation. The meaning of Jackson's elevation is well interpreted by Mr. Roosevelt. It was the revolt of "unkempt naturalism" against civilization; of "the masses" against "the classes," simply because the former were "the masses and the latter were "the classes." Such grounds of distrust as are only too forcible in England do not appear to have existed here at all. Mr. Roosevelt remarks that up to Jackson's time the cultivated classes, by the free choice of the people, and simply because they were held most competent, had principally administered the government, and had, without serious pretense to the contrary, administered it patriotically, faithfully, intelligently, and efficiently, in short, had been good stewards of the common charge. Jackson and his hordes changed all this, and out of the infinite debasement into which they have brought the public service, it is only now that a bitterly educated nation is beginning to work itself free. This picture can never be discredited by showing here and there some little finicalness, or unworthiness, overthrown. A few parings of good are nothing against a mountain of evil. Even the one grand thing in Jackson, his readiness to save the Union at any cost, was, Mr. Roosevelt remarks, almost brought to nothing by the compromise which gave South Carolina a sense of victory that encouraged her in due time out of the cockatrice's egg to bring forth a fiery flying viper. But this, he shows, was neither Jackson's fault, nor Webster's, nor Benton's.

Benton, though involved in this movement of lower elements against the higher, was himself a faithful and most watchful and enlightened servant of the public weal, though only too capable, as he showed in his ravings about the Bank, of seeking partisan advantage by demagogical oratory in defense of mischievous tricks which he would never have perpetrated.

It is well to note that, as Mr. Roosevelt (whose name acquits him of hereditary complicity) doubtless feels a little malicious pleasure in reminding us, the Goths whom Jackson led to the sack of Washington had been a good deal exasperated by that disposition to thank God that we are not as other men are, which clings to New England Puritanism as its shadow. We once heard Dr. Henry B. Smith, on some one's remarking that New England virtues were a little too concentrated to be quite agreeable, laughingly retort: "I suppose you think they would do better diluted in a sufficient quantity of other people's vices." There is force in this putting of the thing. And the mutual resolution certainly seems

to be advancing pretty rapidly.

Mr. Roosevelt, however, does not charge the Southwestern and Western hosts with having invented the evil system which they applied. It already existed, he shows, and had been developed into peculiar malignancy, in his own State of New York, and in Pennsylvania. Jackson brought to Washington rude ignorance and jealousy (curiously disguised, we have seen it noted, by remarkably fine manners) and an utter incapability of understanding that his party was not his country, and that he was not his

party. New York and Pennsylvania supplied him with prime leaders of base corruption, basely meant.

Our author emphatically denies that slavery, except in the momentary outburst of 1820, formed any very vital element in our politics until after Jackson's time. Even nullification was only commercial, and the action of South Carolina only proves that the Saxon spirit of local independence, deepened by federal distinctness, which twenty years earlier had displayed itself in New England, had now shifted its seat to the South, being confirmed there, doubtless, by a brooding forecast of the coming antagonism. Still it appears to us that Mr. Roosevelt sets a lower estimate on the previous force of this underlying opposition than a man a generation older would be likely to do. Which valuation is the sounder, perhaps 1987 will be able to determine.

Our author as becomes "a reformer within the party," who looks with some disdain on any who go further, is very severe upon the Abolitionists, of every school. He accuses them of dancing to their enemies' piping, by supporting Birney, and so suffering Polk to defeat Clay. They, on the other hand, thought that that vague, boneless incoherency, led by a compromising slaveholder, which was called the Whig party (and whose general good-for-nothingness Mr. Roosevelt seems elsewhere to enjoy describing), was merely making ready to surrender ceremoniously the vital principles which the democracy was eager to surrender without ceremony. He denies that the Liberty party, and, we judge, the Freesoilers, had any genetic connection with the Republican party. We will simply assert, in opposition, that out of the Liberty party grew the Freesoilers, and out of the Freesoilers the Republicans. It is not well for those that have borne the burden and heat of the day to look down on those who have wrought even but one hour; but it is rather provoking also when these last put on such airs as if they had brought in the whole harvest.

Mr. Roosevelt has no great love, anyhow, for philanthropy. But as long as there are Theodore Roosevelts there must be philanthropists. The two sets of people need each other. Practical politicians, even of an elevated cast, do not answer all the requirements of the highest national life. As Goldwin Smith says, unless some men aspired too high, the world in general would sink too low. Still, when Mr. Roosevelt declares that Wendell Phillips did good work once, but was almost invariably and outrageously wrong in every position he took after the war, we cannot say him nay. And when he says that philanthropy has no right to deliver over the Pacific slope to Mongolian invasion, neither can we say him nay in that. By what law of God or man a nation, any more than a family, is bound to throw down all its fences for all the world to swarm over, is something we have not discovered.

"the

Mr. Roosevelt thinks that Benton and the West were wise in wishing to press our territorial claims in the Northwest to the uttermost. The war would soon have been over, and we should not now be skirted by a British state from sea to sea. He comments somewhat bitterly on decline of the militant spirit" in the Northeast. It has not been absorbed into any loftier militancy, but has been degraded by that fretting evil of mercantilism of which Dr. Andrew D. White has warned us. Having made Great Britain free of the whole North, had we not better invite Germany to seize the West Indies, and France or Russia to establish a protectorate in Hawaii? There is nothing like good neighborhood. Mr. Benton's private character is thus described: "In his private life

He

Benton's relations were of the pleasantest. He was a religious man, although, like his great political chief, he could, on occasions, swear roundly. He was rigidly moral," and though a hard worker, enjoyed, now and then, a choice entertainment, at which he always shone. was a man of bitter prejudices, but when he forgave, he forgave like Philip van Artevelde. His capacity of work was infinite, and from his absence of self-seeking he grew, as Mr. Roosevelt points out, to the last, becoming ever a safer and clearer-headed public counselor. died a very Abdiel, faithful, in his home, among the faithless. Missouri, when he was dead, was stung with shame, and overwhelmed him with funeral honors.

And he

ANDOVER.

Charles C. Starbuck.

66

GERMAN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Praktisch-theologischer Kommentar zu den Pastoralbriefen des Apostels Paulus, von Dr. Karl Knoke, Prof. der Theologie in Göttingen. Erster Teil: Der zweite Brief an Timotheus. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. 1887. 8vo, pp. 185. 4 mks. This excellent work, from the pen of the Göttingen professor of homiletics, is primarily, as its title indicates, a practical theological commentary, but at the same time sufficient attention is paid to critical questions to make it valuable to every student. It is especially interesting as contributing to the defense of the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles which is given up by so great a majority of modern German critics. The author follows in the footsteps of Weiss, the most celebrated German advocate of their authenticity, but goes further than Weiss, who most recently, in his Einleitung," concludes his discussion with a non licet. Our author treats the Second Epistle to Timothy by itself, severed from all relations with the other pastorals, claiming that the discussion of the three together only weakens the defense. Die Abfassungszeit der synoptischen Evangelien. Ein Nachweiss aus Justinus Martyr, von Prof. Dr. Ludwig Paul. Leipzig: Grunow. 1887. Large 8vo, pp. 50. 2 mks. The author, after a detailed investigation of Justin's genuine works, concludes that he was acquainted with none of our canonical Gospels. He says: "In Betreff der Abfassungszeit unserer kanonischen Evangelien in ihrer letzten Redaction sowie sie uns jetzt vorliegen, wiederhole ich, was ich oben gesagt, sie liegen alle vier nicht weit von einander und sind von 130-150 verfasst." System der christlichen Sittlichkeit, von Dr. Fr. H. R. Frank, Prof. in Erlangen. Zweite Hälfte. Erlangen: Deichert. 1887. 8vo, pp. viii, 495. 8 mks., complete 15 mks. - The first half of this important work appeared in 1884, and is already well known. That volume treated of the Werden des Menschen Gottes an sich; the present handles Das Wesen des Menschen Gottes in seiner Beziehung auf die geistliche Welt, and Das Werden des Menschen Gottes in seiner Beziehung auf die natürliche Welt. The standpoint of the author is positive and orthodox, equally opposed to the new Kantianism of Ritschl and to the Hegelianism of the Tübingen school. The difference between these three leading tendencies is perhaps nowhere more