ried into a habit of fluent elocution-of ready extemporaneous speaking, which consists in thinking extempore-will be found to have been qualifying himself only for "the lion's part" in the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe. 66 Snug.-Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me; for I am slow of study. Quince. You may do it extempore; for it is nothing but roaring.'

VIII. Literary Criticisms and other Papers. By the late Horace Binney Wallace, Esq., of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan. 1856. pp. 460.

We have expressed ourselves so strongly in this Review, in regard to Mr. Wallace, that we must content ourselves at present, by quoting the following admirable criticism from the Legal Intelligencer of this city.

"No man of his extraordinary genius and attainments was ever less generally known than Mr. Wallace. His great modesty, his abhorrence of obtrusion and pretension, his extensive reading-comprising all of highest merit, both ancient and modern, in all languages-and his uncommon proficiency in the sciences, and in philosophy, natural, moral and intellectual, naturally made him exacting in judgment, and diffident and sparing with regard to all public displays of his learning and opinions. He shunned the practical parts of his profession. His life, in the broadest sense, was one of discovery-given up to the study and storing of choice and rare things wherever to be found. He sought knowledge for the love, the beauty, the mystery of it, apparently without any fixed plan how to use it, or to what ends he should at last turn it. He was never idle or incurious. He advanced without the noise or appearance of motion, on a scale nearly universal, yet mastering every single point to which he gave attention. Such a course of training and study would naturally develop what we consider the marked characteristics of his mind and writings-a penetrating perception of necessary truth and beauty, and of the first principles upon which all theories and laws are based."

"This statement is fully justified by an examination of what he published; and the same qualities are prominent in his writings, so far as collected and published since his death. It is most appropriate for us to speak of his contributions to legal science. His notes to Smith's Leading Cases,' to the 'Leading Cases in Equity,' and 'the American Leading Cases,' are monuments of great legal learning and acuteness.

The demand for these great works, edited by Judge Hare and Mr. Wallace, is the highest proof that could be given of their merit. They have become standard American Law Books, and are treated with the highest respect in every court of our Union in pronouncing their judicial opinions. They have passed through several editions, and are constantly growing in the estimation of the profession, and their circulation is widely increasing.

'It is also a circumstance that reflects the highest honor on the American Annotations that the English editors of the Leading Cases in Equity,' have sent for them with a view of incorporating their learning with the English edition.

"The American Law Journal,' for November, 1849, speaks of these works in these terms:-The American Annotations are equal, and, we think, on some titles, much superior to the English.' Referring to the title of Subrogation in the learning of Principal and Surety, it says, The subject is exhausted by the thoroughness, and keen discrimination

on the part of the American editors.' 'Nowhere within the range of our reading have we found this subject so satisfactorily treated.' And it adds, 'The notes in this volume are understood to be by Mr. Wallace, and it affords us much satisfaction to commend them to the attentive consideration of the anxious and overtasked equity lawyer or judge, as containing labors that will aid his toil, and add to his learning.' The extent of Mr. Wallace's law reading, his discrimination, and his conversance with the principles of law and equity, are so admirable in expression and in extent, as shown in these volumes, as to set him forth as one of the first men of this or any age. Such we firmly believe he was, and we have pride in saying so."

IX. Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers. To which is added Porsoniana. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1856. pp. 343.

We take out a few of the gems of this Cabinet. We will not disparage the reader so far as to suppose that he does not know all about it.

"I was engaged on The Pleasures of Memory for nine years; on Human Life for nearly the same space of time; and Italy was not completed in less than sixteen years."

"But perhaps the best line Pope ever wrote is in his Imitation of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace:

'Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star.'"

"Young's poem The Last Day contains several very fine lines: what an enormous thought is this!

"Those overwhelming armies, whose command

Said to one empire Fall,' another Stand,'

Whose rear lay rapt in night, while breaking dawn
Rous'd the broad front, and call'd the battle on."

"I do envy Gray these lines in his Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College;

'Still as they run, they look behind,

They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.""

"If West had lived, he would have been no mean poet: he has left some lines which are certainly among the happiest imitations of Pope;

'How weak is man to reason's judging eye!
Born in this moment, in the next we die;
Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire,

Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire.""

"Words are so twisted and tortured by some writers of the present day, that I am really sorry for them, I mean, for the words. It is a favourite fancy of mine, that perhaps in the next world the use of words may be dispensed with, that our thoughts may stream into each other's minds without any verbal communication.”

The most memorable day perhaps which I ever passed was at Edinburg, a Sunday; when, after breakfasting with Robertson, I heard him preach in the forenoon, and Blair in the afternoon, then took coffee with the Piozzis, and supped with Adam Smith. Robertson's sermon was excellent both for matter and manner of delivery. Blair's was good, but less impressive; and his broad Scotch accent offended my ears greatly." Surely, in delicate touches of pathos Homer excels all poets. For instance, how beautiful is Andromache's saying, after Hector's death, that

66

Astyanax had lost his playfellow; and Helen's declaration concerning the same hero, that he had never reproached her!

"John Hunter believed that when there was only one daughter and several sons in a family, the daughter was always of a masculine disposition; and that when a family consisted of several daughters and only one son, the son was always effeminate. Payne Knight used to say that Homer seems to have entertained the same idea; for in the Iliad we find that Dolon, who proves to be such a coward, was an only son and had several sisters.

['There was one Dolon in the camp of Troy,
Son of Eumedes, herald of the gods,
Who with five daughters had no son beside.
Cowper's Iliad, b. x.'"]

"Sheridan once said to me, 'When posterity read the speeches of Burke, they will hardly be able to believe that, during his life-time, he was not considered as a first-rate speaker, not even as a second-rate one.'

"Miss Lydia White (long since dead) was a lady who delighted in giving parties to as many celebrated people as she could collect. The following instance of her readiness in reply was communicated to me by my friend the Rev. W. Harness. At one of Lydia White's small and most agreeable dinners in Park Street, the company (most of them, except the hostess, being Whigs) were discussing in rather a querulous strain the desperate prospects of their party. Yes,' said Sidney Smith, we are in a most deplorable condition: we must do something to help ourselves; I think we had better sacrifice a Tory virgin.' This was pointedly addressed to Lydia White, who at once catching and applying the allusion to Iphigenia, answered, 'I believe there is nothing the Whigs would not do to raise the wind."

"At a dinner party where I was, Fox met Aikin, I am greatly pleased with your Miscellaneous Pieces, Mr. Aikin,' said Fox (alluding to the volume written partly by Aikin, and partly by his sister Mrs. Barbauld.) Aikin bowed. I particularly admire, continued Fox, your essay Against Inconsistency in our Expectations.' 'That,' replied Aikin, 'is my sister's.' 'I like much,' resumed Fox, 'your essay On Monastic Institutions, That,' answered Aikin, is also my sister's.' Fox thought it best to say no more about the book."

"Lady Glenbervie told me that her father Lord North disliked reading history, because he always doubted its truth."*

"How fondly the surviving friends of Fox cherished his memory! Many years after his death, I was at a fete given by the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick House. Sir Robert Adair and I wandered about the apartments, up and down stairs. In which room did Fox expire?' asked

"Thinking to amuse my father once, after his retirement from the ministry, I offered to read a book of history. Anything but history,' said he, for history must be false.'" Walpoliana, vol i. 60.

Adair. I replied, 'In this very room.' Immediately Adair burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as I hardly ever saw exhibited by a man."

X. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. A History. By John Lothrop Motley. In three volumes. New York: Harpers. Philadel phia: Lippincott & Co. 1856. pp. 579, 582, 664.

We copy from the Introduction to this important work some paragraphs showing its scope and authorities:

The great Western Republic, therefore-in whose Angle-Saxon veins flows much of that ancient and kindred blood received from the nation once ruling a noble portion of its territory, and tracking its own political existence to the same parent spring of temperate human liberty-must look with affectionate interest upon the trials of the elder commonwealth. These volumes recite the achievement of Dutch independence, for its recognition was delayed till the acknowledgment was superfluous and ridiculous. The existence of the Republic is properly to be dated from the Union of Utrecht in 1581, while the final separation of territory into independent and obedient provinces, into the Commonwealth of the United States and the Belgian provinces of Spain, was in reality effected by William the Silent, with whose death three years subsequently, the heroic period of the history may be said to terminate. At this point these volumes close. Another series, with less attention to minute details, and carrying the story through a longer range of years, will paint the progress of the Republic in its palmy days, and narrate the establishment of its external system of dependencies and its interior combinations for selfgovernment and European counterpoise. The lessons of history and the fate of free states can never be sufficiently pondered by those upon whom so large and heavy a responsibility for the maintenance of rational human freedom rests.

I have only to add that this work is the result of conscientious research, and of an earnest desire to arrive at the truth. I have faithfully studied all the important contemporary chroniclers and later historians-Dutch, Flemish, French, Italian, Spanish, or German. Catholic and Protestant, Monarchist and Republican, have been consulted with the same sincerity. The works of Bor (whose enormous but indispensable folios form a complete magazine of contemporary state-papers, letters, and pamphlets, blended together in mass, and connected by a chain of artless but earnest narrative,) of Meteren, De Thou, Burgundius, Heuterus, Tassis, Viglius, Hoofd, Haraeus, Van der Haer, Grotius-of Van der Vynckt, Wagenaer, Van Wyn, De Jonghe, Kluit, Van Kampen, Dewez, Kappelle, Bakhuysen, Groen van Prinsterer-of Ranke and Raumer, have been as familiar to me as those of Mendoza, Carnero, Cabrera, Herrera, Ulloa, Bentivoglio, Peres, Strada. The manuscript relations of those Argus-eyed Venetian envoys who surprised so many courts and cabinets in their most unguarded moments, and daguerreotyped their character and policy for the instruction of the crafty Republic, and whose reports remain such an inestimable source for the secret history of the sixteenth century, have been carefully examined especially the narratives of the caustic and accomplished Badovaro, of Suriano, and Michele. It is unnecessary to add that all the publications of M. Gachard-particularly the invaluable correspondence of Philip II. and of William the Silent, as well as the " Archives et Correspondance" of the Orange Nassau family, edited by the learned and

distinguished Groen van Prinsterer, have been my constant guides through the tortuous labyrinth of Spanish and Netherland politics. The large and most interesting series of pamphlets known as "The Duncan Collection," ," in the Royal Library at the Hague, has also afforded a great variety of details by which I have endeavored to give color and interest to the narrative. Besides these, and many other printed works, I have also had the advantage of perusing many manuscript histories, among which may be particularly mentioned the works of Pontus Payen, of Remon de France, and of Pasquier de la Barre; while the vast collection of unpublished documents in the Royal Archives of the Hague, of Brussels, and of Dresden, has furnished me with much new matter of great importance. I venture to hope that many years of labor, a portion of them in the archives of those countries whose history forms the object of my study, will not have been entirely in vain; and that the lovers of human progress, the believers in the capacity of nations for self-government and self-improvement, and the admirers of disinterested human genius and virtue, may find encouragement for their views in the detailed history of an heroic people in its most eventful period, and in the life and death of the great man whose name and fame are identical with those of his country."

The reader will see that this is a work intended to be of the first class of histories. On the whole we are inclined to give it our approbation. Its faults are obvious. They are an over-ambition and pretension; too much "fine writing;" too much ebullience and figurative matter, and a kind of Carlylian conceit about the titles of the chapters. Bancroft carries this latter far enough, but he is still dignified. He does not call his divisions, "Sowing the wind;" "The Taciturn against King, Cardinal and Elector;" "The first whirlwind;" "A tenth Penny and a model murder;" "Barren Diplomacy and Submarine Laurels ;" "The under Side of the Cards," &c., &c. We would hint to Mr. Motley that romances and history ought to differ in form as well as in substance. Nothing is good except in its own form. Clio, the "Proclaimer" of heroic deeds, was the dignified muse of Epic poetry as well as of history.

With these abatements we are happy to welcome this addition to histories written by Americans. The research seems to be, as far as we can judge from a too hasty glance,-for we have not yet been able to read through these three large and beautifully printed volumes-careful and thorough. The author writes with a genial glow and love of his subject. He is comprehensive in his views and aims at the philosophy without which history is nothing in our times. His pages are lively and picturesque to a fault.

We make some extracts from the account of the memorable Deliverance of Leyden :

"The inhabitants, in their ignorance, had gradually abandoned their hopes of relief, but they spurned the summons to surrender. Leyden was sublime in its despair. A few murmurs were, however, occasionally heard at the steadfastness of the magistrates, and a dead body was placed at the door of the burgomaster, as a silent witness against his inflexibility. A party of the more faint-hearted even assailed the heroic Adrian

* Hoofd, ix. 381, 382. Bor, vii. 557.