From the John Bull. in the hope that the author may be induced, in The Liberty of Rome: a History. With an His-future editions of it, and in the continuations which torical Account of the Liberty of Ancient Nations. he promises to the world, to apply the file to imBy SAMUEL ELIOT. 2 vols. London: Bentley, perfections which are more disturbing to the reader

1849. New York: G. P. Putnam.

To some men history is no more than a collection of facts, a huge pile of newspapers, accumulated through ages, and left to be turned over by successive generations for their amusement; to others it is a storehouse from which materials may be drawn for an endless variety of artistic groupings and dramatic sketches; while others again cull from it precedents and illustrations in support of some particular system of political or social life. Yet in history, as in everything else, there must be an all-pervading truth, contradistinguished from the multifarious notions and opinions of men ; there must be a view to be taken of it which, to the exclusion of every other view, is the true view of history; a view higher than that of the mere compiler of dry annals, the composer of historical tales, or the philosopher and politician who would turn all the past into evidences, and all the future into experiments, of his theory. That higher view can, in the nature of things, be taken only by him who sees the records of man's existence in the bygone ages in their connection with that one and unchangeable counsel of the Eternal, of which all the events which happen in the course of time are mere fragments; and to the vision of him who so contemplates it, history presents itself under an aspect at once more lofty and more profound, more severe and more fascinating, than to the eye of an ordinary beholder.

than material in themselves.

To give anything like an adequate outline of the contents of the two volumes before us, would be, within our limits, a hopeless attempt; we can barely indicate the course which the author has followed. He goes back to the first beginnings of the human race, and anterior to the remotest ages of even legendary history, and the so-called commencement of civilization; he recognizes a period of light obscured by subsequent corrup

tion:

In the traditionary age, of which there are rumors spread amongst every race, when a few human beings lived at peace with themselves and in the world was blessed with liberty and religion. Through worship of their Divine Creator. the new-formed the one, the relations of man to man were free; through the other, the relations of man to God were pure; however imperfect either might be in positive development. But a change, sudden and obscure, came over humanity and the principles by which it was at first sustained; and when we look once more towards times too dim, indeed, to be clearly known, neither liberty nor religion is to be found. Yet they had not been bestowed to be taken away again forever. The shadows of the morning, succeeding to the dawn, were deep and long; but while men toiled or wandered over the earth, the memory of the light within their earlier homes remained; and the day increased, as they were mercifully allowed to seek it anew for themselves.

After a cursory review of the most ancient nations concerned in the progress of human civilization, the Indians, the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Phoenicians, our author traces with great force and beauty the important part which the Greek nation took in the common task of unfolding the powers of man's nature. From this portion of the work we cannot forbear transcribing the account which he gives of Socrates:

It is in this sense that the author of the present volumes has taken in hand to historify what he calls the "liberty" of the ancient nations of the world, that is, the state in which their powers were exercised for the development of all the resources which lie hidden in man's nature. To him the vast and varied spectacle of ancient history is no more than a prelude to the divine drama of man's redemption, and it is with a pen dipped in the inspiration of this thought that he delineates in concise, well defined, and rapidly succeeding If the measure of liberty be proved, as this hissketches, the events which preceded the birth of tory of it maintains, by the measure of the faculties the Saviour of mankind. He brings to the per-under the laws of God as under those of man, then it quickens and the attainments it inspires, as well formance of a task of such magnitude and difficulty there is reason for giving Socrates the palm above vast stores of erudition, a highly cultivated taste, all who were free in ancient times. Nor need his a comprehensive and penetrating intellect, and a merits be exaggerated in order to prove the blessing grave and sober judgment, qualities indispensable that descended upon him, not to make him secure, in one who would so write history, and rarely to but to awaken his anxiety and his thoughtfulness. He be found combined to the same extent in the same he could not himself have perceived the full and glosaid things, if we trust the reports of old, of which individual. With such excellencies as these, the rious significance; and when he was discoursing, author is entitled to claim indulgence for some for the last time, of immortality, he interrupted himnegligences and occasional obscurities of style, self to order the sacrifice of a cock to Esculapius. which are evidently attributable to the preponder- It would have been unnatural that he should have ance of thought over expression, of careful attention to his materials over mere solicitude for the form in which they should be presented to the reader. Nor do we make mention of this comparatively slight defect from any wish to detract from the praise so justly due to a work of such high character and distinguished merit, but rather

been totally spared the errors which lay in ambush amongst men. But though he could not obliterate the stains of the humanity he bore, he washed them partly from his brow in the spring to which his steps were led. Ardent to learn because he knew how much he had to learn, yet humble because he felt how much there was beyond his learning, he called himself the architect of his own philosophy, but

upon the earth; their intercourse with other nations seems to extend; and, except with the phylacteried priest or the long-robed Pharisee, the pride of earlier times was buried deep beneath the wrecks of their independence.

The redemption of humanity could be prepared only through humbleness for what had passed on earth, and hope for what was to come from heaven. Neither feeling could be aroused amongst the Jews as a nation; but there were individuals, and even classes, in whom a spirit was forming itself unseen, like that of which the prophets spoke, and to which the harps in Babylon were strung. The most inspiring promise of Moses was the appearance of a prophet who would be heard, though he himself were forsaken; and the most eager aspiration of Malachi was to have the temple prepared for the coming of the Lord. There were some, though few, indeed, by whom such memories were cherished and such hopes implored, in ignorance, perhaps, but in contrition. It was to these, to the shepherds, the fishermen, and the penitent, that the angels sang; these, likewise, that He who was 80 much better than the angels" comforted at last.

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confessed that his morality was imparted to him from a spirit with which his higher nature alone obtained communion. Socrates was so entirely above all others, as to seem the only one in the heathen universe who heard the voices or beheld the forms of truth. He was a moral man; and his desires | reached beyond the freedom of the body under law, or that of the mind under knowledge, to the higher freedom of the soul, which can exist only under morality. Full of earnestness to make this known among men, he confined his instructions neither to school nor to class, but sought his pupils in the thoroughfares, the lowly as well as the magnificent amongst his countrymen. In teaching some of the grandest lessons to be learned or practised through liberty, he caught a glimpse of the world to which, not altogether blindfold, he looked forward, and where a place has since been promised to the pure in heart. He was the chosen servant to make one effort, at least, in the preparation of the human mind for the promises of Him who not only beheld the truth but revealed it to make his followers free. Had the Greeks been slaves to Persia, Macedonia, or Rome, Socrates would scarcely have been born amongst them; had they, on the other hand, been truer to liberty, he would certainly not have been condemned, like a criminal, to die. The de-stitutes the principal portion of his work, viz., the sign of his life, however, may have been completed in the manner of his death. The very fact, that he wrote nothing, while other philosophers were allowed to compose each a library, as their works in some cases may be styled, compels us to consider Socrates in a peculiar light. It was permitted that the pall should be a little withdrawn from the prospects that had long been lost, if they had ever been received; but it was not for man, even with the aid of God, to restore the dead to life, or to begin a new So far as humility amongst men was necessary creation. Four centuries before the Saviour, when for the preparation of a truer freedom than could freedom seemed, perhaps, to have reached its high-ever be known under heathenism, the part of Rome. est development, the promise was made, as we read it, through Socrates, that there was to be a completer freedom granted when human powers should be increased and human virtues purified. He was slain, even though his message was but half delivered, and noways comprehended when he died.

The sketch of the history of the Jewish people concludes with the following striking remarks:

The author then passes on to that which con

history of Rome from its first foundation to the time of Augustus. The different changes of moral, social, and political character through which the Roman people passed from the first dawn of their existence to the extinction of their liberty, are portrayed with a masterly hand, and the moral of the story is thus conveyed :

however dreadful, was yet sublime. It was not to unite, to discipline, or to fortify humanity, but to enervate, to loosen, and to scatter its forces. that the people whose history we have read were allowed to conquer the earth, and were then themselves reduced to deep submission. Every good labor of theirs that failed was. by reason of what we esteem its failure, a step gained nearer to the end of the well-nigh universal evil that prevailed; while every bad achievement that may seem to us to have succeeded, temporarily or lastingly, with them was equally, by reason of its success, a progress towards the good of which the coming would have been longed and prayed for, could it have been comprehended. Alike in the virtues and in the vices of antiquity, we may read the progress towards its humiliation. Yet, on the other hand, it must not seem. at the least, that the disposition of the Romans or of mankind to submission was secured solely through the errors and the apparently ineffectual toils which we have traced back to these times of old. Desires too true to have been wasted, and strivings too humane to have been unproductive, though all were overshadowed by passing wrongs, still gleam as if in anticipation or in preparation of the advancing day.

Had there been a second Moses to lead the people m their second deliverance, the end of ancient Jewish history might have been long protracted. Instead of him, however, or of any like him, Pharisees and Sadducees, elders, priests, and scribes, stand, wrangling and trifling, in the foreground of the scene which opens some time after the restoration; while behind are groups of lowlier people, the contrast between whom and their leaders appears to suggest the only hope of which the nation was then susceptible. The purposes of the return from Babylon to Jerusalem are not, perhaps, difficult to discern. It was necessary, on the one hand, that the faith associated with the fallen city should be preserved, and yet, on the other, imperative that the sins which had sprung from lust and dominion amongst its chosen worshippers should have no opportunity for revival, At length, when it had been proved by ages of though their actual chastisement was over. If this conflict and loss, that no lasting joy and no abiding interpretation of Providence be correct, as it is hum-truth could be procured through the power, the freeble, it follows that the recall of the Jews, as a religious, was unattended by any corresponding regeneration of them as a free nation. They appear, indeed, in an aspect of less security on their own part, that they were the favored race of all others

dom, or the faith of mankind, the angels sang their song, in which the glory of God and the good-will of men were together blended. The universe was wrapped in momentary tranquillity, and "peaceful was the night" above the manger of Bethlehem.

TO THE BINDER.-Title and Index of Vol. XXII are in the middle of this Number.

POETRY.-To My little Daughter's Shoes, 591. - English Melodies, 592.
SHORT ARTICLES.

A Leap for Life; Cause for Thankfulness: The Franklin Expedition, 616. Peat Bogs in Ireland; Young as a Poet; Jacob Behmen, 617.

Of all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS.