in Rome he kept himself informed of the projects of the enemy; he himself was frequently seen wearing disguises and false hair, in order to procure informa tion on some point or other. Every page of the history of the period attests his genius as a general; and his gifts as a statesman were, after the peace with Rome, no less conspicuously displayed in his reform of the Carthaginian constitution, and in the unparalleled influence which, as a foreign exile, he exercised in the cabinets of the Eastern powers. The power which he wielded over men is shown by his incomparable control over an army of various nations and many tongues-an army which never in the worst times mutinied against him. He was a great man; wherever he went, he riveted the eyes of all."

The current belief that the policy of Rome towards the republics of Greece was from the outset an aggressive one, designed to encroach upon their rights and crush their independence, is warmly combated by Mommsen. After describing the proclamation of freedom for the Greek states by Flamininus in 196, he says:

"It is only contemptible disingenuousness or weakly sentimentality, which can fail to perceive that the Romans were entirely in earnest in the liberation of Greece; and the reason why the plan so nobly projected resulted in so wretched a structure, is to be sought only in the complete moral and political disorganization of the Hellenic people. It was no small matter, that a mighty nation should have suddenly, with its powerful arm, brought the land, which it had been accustomed to regard as its primitive home and the shrine of its intellectual and higher interests, into the possession of full freedom, and should have conferred on every community in it deliverance from foreign taxation and foreign garrisons, and the unlimited right of self-government; it is mere paltriness that sees in this nothing save political calculation. Political calculation suggested to the Romans the possibility of liberating Greece; it was converted into a reality by the Hellenic sympathies that were at that time indescribably powerful in Rome, and above all in Flamininus himself. If the Romans are liable to any reproach, it is that all of them, and in particular Flamininus, who overcame the well-founded scruples of the senate, allowed the magic charm of the Hellenic name to prevent them from perceiving in all its extent the wretched character of the Greek states of that period, and from putting a stop at once to the proceedings of com munities who, owing to the antipathies that prevailed alike in their internal and their mutual relations,, neither knew how to act nor how to keep quiet. What was really necessary, as things stood, was at once to put an end to such a freedom, equally pitiful and pernicious, by means of a superior power permanently present on the spot; the feeble policy of sentiment, with all its apparent humanity, was far more cruel than the sternest occupation would have been."

The volume closes with a series of chapters on "the government and the governed," on "the management of land and of capital," on "faith and manners," on "literature and art,"which represent with masterly skill and power the social and intellectual conditions of the Romans during this period. From the last of these chapters we quote an impressive passage on the later

Attic comedy, which, as adapted to the Roman stage by Plautus, Terence, and others, forms the staple of the Roman comic drama:

*

#

"The national-Hellenic poetry has preserved, even in this its last creation, its indestructible plastic vigor; but the delineation of character is here copied from without rather than reproduced from inward experience, and the more so, the more the task approaches the really poetical. * * Yet the blame of this want of depth in the portraying of character, and generally of the whole poetical and moral hollowness of this new comedy, lay less with the comic writers than with the nation as a whole. Every thing distinctively Greek was expiring; fatherland, national faith, domestic life, all nobleness of action and sentiment were gone; poetry, history, and philosophy were inwardly exhausted; and nothing remained to the Athenian save the school, the fish-market, and the brothel. It is no matter of wonder, and hardly a matter of blame, that poetry, whose office it is to shed a glory over human existence, could make nothing more out of such a life than the Menandrian comedy presents to us. * It is not a reproach to the poet that he occupies the level of his epoch. Comedy was not the cause, but the effect of the corruption that prevailed in the national life. But it is necessary, more especially with a view to estimate correctly the influence of these comedies on the life of the Roman people, to point out the abyss that yawned be neath all that polish and elegance. The coarseness and obscenities, which Menander, indeed, in some measure avoided, but of which there is no lack in the other poets, are the least part of the evil. Features far worse are, the dreadful aspect of life as a desert in which the only oases are love-making and intoxication; the fearfully prosaic monotony, in which any thing resembling enthusiasm is to be found only among sharpers whose heads have been turned by their own swindling, and who prosecute the trade of cheating with some sort of zeal; and above all, that immoral morality with which the pieces of Menander in particular are garnishedVice is chastised, virtue is rewarded, and any peccadilloes are covered by conversion at or after marriage. There are pieces, such as the Trinummus of Plautus and several of Terence, in which all the characters down to the slaves possess some admixture of virtue; all swarm with honest men who allow deception on their behalf, with maidenly virtue whenever possible, with lovers equally favored and making love in company; moral commonplaces and well-turned ethical maxims abound. A finale of reconciliation, such as that of the Bacchides, where the swindling sons and the swindled fathers, by way of a good conclusion, all go to carouse together in the brothel, presents a corruption of morals thoroughly worthy of Kotzebue."

THE LIFE OF MISS MITFORD,* as told by herself in these volumes of letters to her friends, was a very sad life, darkened by constant shadows, which were as constantly lighted up by the perpetual sunshine of a buoyant and kindly nature. On the Thursday before her death, which was in distinct and near prospect, she thus wrote to a friend. "It has pleased Providence to preserve to

The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, told by herself in letters to her friends. Edited by the Rev. A. G. K. L'ESTRANGE. In two volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1870.

me my calmness of mind, clearness of intellect, and also my power of reading by day and by night; and, which is still more, my love of poetry and literature, my cheerfulness, and my enjoyment of little things. This very day, not only my common pensioners, the dear robins, but a saucy troop of sparrows, and a little shining bird of passage whose name I forget, have all been pecking at once at their tray of bread-crumbs outside the window. Poor pretty things! how much delight there is in those common objects, if people but learn to enjoy them and I really think that the feeling for these simple pleasures is increasing with the increase of education."

This letter, written at the age of sixty-seven, gives expression to certain prominent traits of character, such as were conspicuous in many of her writings. But they do scant justice to the more serious and noble traits of filial devotion and self-sacrifice, of constant and painful labor and sorrow-of sustained patience and sweetness under constant mortification, and of an honest religious peace and faith, long-delayed, but given at last when it was most needed. Few of the many who will read this life will fail to be the wiser for the reading, though all may well be the sadder. The multitudes who were delighted at the first and cheerful pictures which this merry writer gave them of nature and society in rural England, did not dream that these sketches were written under a constant pressure of sorrow, but those who learn the painful secret, will not admire the writer or her works any the less for this discovery, though they will wonder at both the more. The moral value of this collection of letters is of the highest, and it is still more highly to be praised in our country than in England, inasmuch as not a few of our gifted writers are somewhat morbidly disposed to cherish discontent and envy, under what they call their ill-requited services. In other respects than as they give us so ample a revelation of a very noble character and so beautiful and truthful a picture of a truly noble life, they will be variously estimated by different persons, according to the point of view from which they study them. Some will regard them as overloaded with petty personal and domestic details, as super-abounding in the small gossip concerning men and events that are now deservedly forgotten-a representation of a state of society which was in many respects more frivolous and petty than that which has happily taken its place in similar circles. Others will not agree with many of the personal preferences of the writer, as her de

voted admiration for Napoleon, O'Connel, and Cobbett, and her equally unreasonable dislike of all descriptions of Conservatives and Tories. Her critical estimates of authors and their works, both living and dead, will be positively and sorely offensive to not a few. Their occasional capriciousness and superficiality will be more scandalous in the eyes of many men. She says hard things and pungent things of the works of Thackeray, Dickens, of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and is not always complimentary to Walter Scott or Wordsworth, to both of whom she became more than reconciled at a subsequent period. But none of her caprices and prejudices and dislikes are malicious or inveterate, and all bear the marks of an honest, if it be a hasty mind, of an impul sive but true-hearted temper. One of the most interesting of her loves was that which she cherished for Miss Barrett, aferwards Mrs. Browning. The letters which she addressed to her, and the terms in which she spoke of her in her letters to others, are altogether delightful. To one class of readers these volumes may be of special service, as they will be likely to be of special interest to them--to the not few female writers of every grade in which this country abounds, and the very much more numerous class of female littérateurs, with which perhaps we super-abound. The lessons of wisdom, of patience, and hope which they inculcate for all such, will suggest themselves to every reader. Many blessings must follow the memory of so bright an example of brilliant and varied talents, consecrated to filial duty.

LIFE OF JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.-The author of the "Royal Preacher" was himself a man of rich and royal mind, to whom nothing was too great and nothing too small in God's works for him to love. He was like the "Preacher" of old, conversant with every tree and plant, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that runneth on the wall. While yet a young man ministering to his rural flock at Abernyte, he was in the habit of carrying the wild flowers he had gathered on the way into the pulpit, and of expatiating upon them, much to the wonderment of his stern, old fashioned Scotch hearers; and on one occasion, having obtained possession of the big branch of a fig tree he used it to illustrate a scriptural lesson. A plain woman from a neighboring parish, full of fervid zeal for spiritual things, seeing the young preacher

* Life of James Hamilton, D.D., F.L.S. BY WILLIAM ARNOT, Edinburgh. Second Edition. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers. 1870.

flourishing his branch of green leaves above his head, was seized with a holy horror, and, after the sermon, waiting in the aisle for him to come down from the pulpit, she thus accosted him: "Oh Maister Hamilton, hoo do ye gie them fig leaves when they're hungerin for the bread of life." But Master Hamilton had something more than fig leaves to give his hearers; as a fruitful ministry of twenty-six years at the National Scotch Church, Regent Street, London,-the most important Presbyterian church south of the Tweed-might testify. Yet, eminent preacher as he was, perhaps he did more for the world by his pen, as a writer of tracts, essays, and short biographies, such as Church in the House, Memoir of Lady Colquhoun, Our Christian Classics, and above all, The Royal Preacher, which works have been extensively read in this country. His biographer, noticing this fact, says "it would not have been amiss, all circumstances considered, if our brothers beyond the Atlantic had felt in their pockets for the author of works they so much admired."

A contemporary and personal friend of Robert McCheyne and Edward Irving, he had something of his own—a tireless energy in doing good, and a literary genius of considerable power-to make him worthy of such companionship. His fresh love of nature and his vivid poetic fancy, vitalizing what he wrote, were his chief qualities as a writer. Genial, cheerful, sagacious, ardent, energetic, devoted, he filled an important place in the religious world, without being a man of extraordinary powers. This volume is a handsome one, and is accompanied by a good portrait.

MEMOIR OF REV. WILLIAM C. BURNS.*-In much the same style as the above volume, the Carters have just brought out a reprint of the biography of the saintly Scotch missionary, William Burns. A characteristic portrait of Burns, in his Chinese dress, adorns the volume. Burns was a life-long friend of James Hamilton's, and the two were brought up in neighboring parishes. He was also a friend of Robert Murray McCheyne's, and the first part of his life belongs to that circle of remarkable revivals of re

* Memoir of the Rev. Wm. C. Burns, M. A., Missionary to China from the English Presbyterian Church. By the REV. ISLAY BURNS, D.D., Professor of Theology, Free Church College, Glasgow.

"Watch those in all things, endure afflictions (or hardships), do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." 2 Tim. 4-5.

New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 580 Broadway. 1870.