more habitual these sentiments have become, the greater the power displayed in scattering them.". If these remarks are too severe and general, as we think they are, it is to be remembered that Mr. Macaulay, when he eulogises, which he sometimes does grandly, as in his early sketch of the Puritans, and when he abuses, which he does, as in Barère, with a power of which Juvenal need not to have been ashamed, equally seems to use his great gifts as an exhibition of his strength rather than from a love of truth. He is wilful. When he chooses, a man has the face of an angel; when he wills, a man grows black as Satan. If this great force were always rightfully used; if it held up before us the lessons of history with so glorious power that all men must feel them; if it led men to shrink from vice as from a viper, and to welcome virtue as a seraph, then would Mr. Macaulay be one of the great benefactors of the race. As it is, the earnest protest of the wise and good of all nations, parties and sects, ought to warn him that it is within the grasp of no conceivable genius permanently to pervert the truth; and that even the archangel who yielding to pride, strove to force the true nature of things, found only, that he was striving against the Omnipotence that upholds it.

ARTICLE V.

1. Cæsar's Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars; with the Supplementary Books attributed to Hirtius; including the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars. Literally translated, with Notes and a very elaborate Index. New York. Harpers. 1855. pp. 572.

2. Cicero's Three Books of Offices, or Moral Duties; also his Cato Major, an Essay on Old Age; Lælius, an Essay on Friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's Dream; and Letter to Quintus on the Duties of a Magistrate. Literally translated with Notes, designed to exhibit a comparative view of the opinions of Cicero, and those of modern moralists and ethical philosophers. By CYRUS R. EDSame publishers. 1855. pp. 343.

MONDS.

3. Herodotus, a new and literal Version from the Text of Baehr.

With a geographical and general Index, by HENRY CARY, M. A., Worcester College, Oxford. Same publishers. pp. 613.

4. The Tragedies of Sophocles: in English Prose. The Oxford Translation. New edition, revised according to the Text of Dindorf. Same publishers. 1855. pp. 339.

5. The Anabasis, or Expedition of Cyrus; and the Memorabilia of Socrates. Literally translated from the Greek of Xenophon. By the Rev. J. S. WATSON, M. A., M. R. S. L. With a geographical Commentary, by W. F. AINSWORTH, F. S. A., &c. Same publishers. 1855. pp. 519.

6. The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides.

New

and literal Version, from the Text of Arnold, collated with Bekker, Göller, and Poppo. By the Rev. HENRY DALE, M. A., Head Master of the new Proprietary School, Blackheath, and late Demy of Magdalene College, Oxford. Same publishers. 1855. pp. 594. 7. The Tragedies of Eschylus. Literally translated. With critical and illustrative Notes, and an Introduction. By THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, B. A., of Christ Church, Oxford. To which is added an Appendix, containing the new Readings of Hermann's posthumous edition. Translated and considered, by GEORGE BURGES, A. M. Same publishers. 1856. pp. 394.

THESE are the volumes of Harpers' Classical Library which we have received since we last noticed this interesting series.

The text of the CESAR is that of Oudendorp, collated with the labors of subsequent critics. The translation is by W. A. McDevitte, B. A., of Trinity College, Dublin, in conjunction with W. S. Bohn. So far as we have examined, it is literal, but does not keep sufficiently in view the necessity of writing pure English, and of making a book that can be read as though it were an original. A Latin scholar can examine the author for himself; but what will a good English scholar think of Cæsar, if he consider the translator faithful, when he meets on the first page and a half: "Those who in their own language are called Celts, in our Gauls;" "those things which tend to effeminate the mind;" "Aquitania looks between the setting of the sun and the north star?" We, who have worried over Cæsar in the Academy, know what the Latin of all this is; but what kind of English is it? It is a great injustice to the authors, and-what is a very serious consideration-to the cause of

classical learning, to put into the hands of the mass of intelligent, sensible men, who have had a good English education, and can relish the classical authors in a good translation, a bald, inelegant, confused jargon, and call it by a name over which classical scholars go into raptures. What can they think, but that the whole thing is a kind of hallucination?

The rendering of CICERO is much more elegant. The editor states, that he endeavored "to produce a close and faithful translation, avoiding, on the one hand, the freedom of Melmoth's elegant paraphrase; and on the other, the crudeness and inaccuracy of the so-called literal translation of Cockman." This is the idea of a translation; a faithful version, but at the same time a work which will give, in some reasonable degree, a reproduction of the excellence of the original. Translations, tried by this standard, are almost all failures. Coleridge's Wallenstein is said to be the only one extant that is finer than the original.

The editor also presents "the opinions of modern moralists, chiefly of Britain, in juxtaposition with those of Cicero." Few translations of classic authors are so pleasing as those of the great Roman orator. The works on Friendship and Old Age, for example, we can honestly recommend our friends to try; as well as "The Duties of a Magistrate." Cicero's "Paradoxes," are very interesting to us. We will quote the titles, in hopes of calling attention to works which are falling too much into disuse. They are six in number, and contain, to our thinking, much noble philosophy, and in a way more attractive, more Plato-like, than most treatises on morals: 1. That virtue is the only good. 2. A man who is virtuous, is destitute of no requisite for a happy life. 3. That our misdeeds are in themselves equal, and good deeds the same. 4. That every fool is a madman. 5. That the wise man alone is free, and that every fool is a slave. 6. That the wise man alone is rich. The truth is, there is a great deal in the Stoic philosophy.

Of the translations of HERODOTUS, Mr. Cary gives the following account: "Five have, at intervals, made their appearThe first was that by Beloe, which, though flowing and easy in style, was rather a translation from an indifferent French version than from the original. The second, by Lit

ance.

tlebury, was a poor rendering from a bad Latin version. The third was a revision of Littlebury's translation, bearing the appearance of having been made by one who, though he understood his author, contented himself with merely removing Littlebury's grosser faults, without attempting to correct him uniformly and throughout. The fourth and most elegant version, was that by Mr. Isaac Taylor; which, however, has met with less notice than its merit deserves, probably owing to the circumstance that the usually received division by chapters has been departed from, whereby the facility of reference has been much diminished, and also because, in too many instances, the translator has sacrificed the meaning of his author to purity of thought or elegance of diction. The last English version was that by Laurent, in making which the translator labored under the twofold disadvantage of being an inaccurate Greek scholar, and a far worse English one."

We like the version of Mr. Cary. It retains something of the delightful simplicity of the original. Herodotus is pleasant reading even in English. It has the story-telling aroma about it, which all children like, old and young. Besides, in what he knew himself, he is believed, more and more, to be trustworthy. It is truly fortunate that the discoveries of Layard, Rawlinson, and their co-laborers, have been made in our time. The spirit of criticism, which, per se, is apt to be depreciating and chilling, had in Wolf, Niebuhr, and their followers, both in sacred and profane history, begun greatly to unsettle human faith. If there were no Homer and no Lycurgus, men began to feel that nothing was certain in ancient records, and all manner of little skeptics began to peep and mutSuddenly, the arrow-headed characters gave up their secret, and Nineveh was uncovered. Xerxes spoke to us himself from his own inscribed record, Sennacherib led us to his own palace, and Nebuchadnezzar's name was revealed on every brick of Babylon. Sneering skepticism was convicted of silliness, and, as an English reviewer said, "the bones of old Herodotus must have stirred in their grave."

ter.

It will be a great satisfaction to the reader to go over Herodotus in his own words, or in those of Mr. Cary, which are sufficiently literal. One wants to see what he does say, so

The

that he will not have to take things at second-hand. Messrs. Harper give us this satisfaction, in pleasant paper and type, and at a price as cheap as we can possibly ask it.

In regard to the SOPHOCLES, the editor remarks, that he has carefully revised the translation throughout, adhering chiefly to the text of Dindorf, which is now universally established, and is adopted by our public examiners. In a few cases, the corrupt state of the original has rendered a different course necessary." The translation is intended to be literal, and is tolerably well done.

The character of the Antigone, in the Edipus Coloneus, and in the play called by her name, is sufficient to have given Sophocles his fame. As the critics have remarked, she is like Cordelia, but the skill of the tragedian is shown in the two developments of her character. The Antigone is the supplement of the Edipus Coloneus, so far as his favorite heroine is concerned. She is tender as Cordelia, but stronger. She is tried as daughter, sister, and betrothed bride. In all she is noble; the passion of her nature never blinds her to duty; nor does one duty usurp the place of another. She is eminently unselfish; she does not sacrifice her brother to her lover, but while most truly Greek in her lofty loveliness, she is the gentle daughter, the highminded sister, and holds the intenser passion, that which becomes most easily selfish, in abeyance, that she may neglect no affection. This symmetry of affection, so rare, and yet so noble, is the triumph of Sophocles in Antigone. We recommend to young ladies to lay down a little their worsted and music, and read these two dramas of Sophocles in the original, or if that is impossible, to try to spell out the wondrous charm through the medium of this prosetranslation.

ÆSCHYLUS has come in at the last moment, while we are writing of Sophocles. To our thought, he is the greatest of the Greek dramatists. We are afraid we cannot say much in favor of the possibility of obtaining a good idea of a Greek drama, without reading the original. If our readers could put into one, Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, the grandest parts of Paradise Lost, and the life-blood of one of Shakspeare's plays, with its robust