brought into peaceful subjection. He finished the protracted war in Spain and appeased the discontents of Gaul. From the inhabitants of Britain no active hostility was to be feared; and though his flatterers announced that he was about to lead the Britons in chains along the Sacred Way, he contented himself with the promise of tribute.* By the subjugation of the wild Alpine tribes, commemorated on the monument which the traveller still sees at La Turbia, he secured a speedy communication between Gaul and Italy. Egypt, the granary of Rome, was protected from the invasion of the Ethiopians, and its administration committed to functionaries of a humble class, that there might be the less risk lest an aspirant to the throne should starve Italy into submission. The honour of the empire was retrieved by the recovery of the standards lost at Carrhæ. In expeditions beyond the frontiers Augustus was less successful. The attempt of Ælius Gallus to possess himself of the "intactæ Arabum opes," ended in the destruction of great part of his army by fatigue and sickness; and the invasion of North Germany brought down upon Rome a calamity only equalled by the defeat of Crassus the loss of Varus and his legions.

In the patronage of literature, which has gained so much glory for him and his minister Mecænas, a political motive is transparently shewn. We think perhaps too much of Louis XIV. when we attribute to Augustus the desire of shining in the eyes of the world and being celebrated by posterity, through the reflected light of the men of genius whom he collected around him; but there can be no doubt that he used their talents as a means of reconciling the Roman people to his government, and exhibiting him to them in a favourable point of view. Virgil, in his Eclogues, celebrates his clemency, and anticipates the return of the golden age. In his Georgics, he represents the sun as mourning for the death of Cæsar, and implores the gods of his country that Augustus might stay the curse which seemed to cleave to the Roman people. The Æneid is devoted to the glorification of the Julian family, as the descendants of Venus and Æneas. Horace, slender as his faith in the gods was, could see Augustus seated among them in Olympus, and sipping nectar, with a countenance radiant with heavenly light. The influence of the Epicurean philosophy which pervades those of his works in which he allows us to see his real sentiments, tended to cool all ardent feelings of patriotism, and induce the turbulent spirits of his time to acquiesce in a government which maintained order and promoted material comfort. We cannot deny to Augustus the praise of admirable

Such at least is the common representation which Mr. Merivale follows. He has not noticed the fragment of Livy, produced by Schneidewin (Verhandl. des Philologenvereins, 1843), "Cæsar Augustus populo Romano nuntiat, regressus a Britannia insula, totum orbem terrarum tam bello quam amicitiis Romano imperio subditum.' We still doubt if Augustus ever set foot in Britain.

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tact and skill in the measures which he adopted to tranquillize the Roman people, and prevent their regretting their lost liberties. Yet after all he was a heartless man, devoid of any great and generous purpose, and it could only be by a complacent selfdeception that he closed his life with the belief that he had acted his part well. Mr. Merivale thus describes his death-bed:

"The closing scene of this illustrious life has been portrayed for us with considerable minuteness. It is the first natural dissolution of a great man we have been called upon to witness, and it will be long, I may add, before we shall assist at another. Let us observe it and reflect upon it. On the morning of his death, being now fully sensible of his approaching end, Augustus inquired whether there were any popular excitement in anticipation of his approaching end. Being no doubt reassured upon this point, he called for a mirror, and desired his grey hairs and beard to be decently arranged. Then asking of the friends around him whether he had played well his part in the drama of life, he muttered a verse from a comic epilogue inviting them to greet his last exit with applause.* He made some inquiries after a sick grandchild of Tiberius, and falling at last into the arms of Livia, had just strength, in the last moment of expiring, to recommend to her the memory of their long union. His end was perfectly tranquil. He obtained the euthanasia he had always desired, very different, but not less in harmony with his character, from that of his predecessor. There was no cynicism, at least to my apprehension, in the gentle irony with which, at the moment of death, he sported with the vanities of a human career. Though cheered with no religious hope for himself, nor soothed by any deep-felt yearnings towards his survivors, he was supported on the verge of the abyss by the unfailing power of national sentiments, and the strong assurance that he had confirmed by a great achievement the fortunes of the Roman state."-IV. 378, 379.

When our author proceeds to observe that he "looked back on the horrors in which his career commenced without blenching," we have no doubt that he is right as to the fact; but when he explains his calmness by saying, "He had made peace with himself, to whom alone he felt himself responsible; neither God nor man, in his view, had any claim upon him," he assumes a knowledge of his interior sentiments for which he produces no authority. There is no evidence that he was ever otherwise than at peace with himself; to suppose that he had once been troubled with qualms of conscience, and had stilled them by the reflection that he was irresponsible, is to attribute to him a degree of moral sensibility which nothing shews him to have possessed. Mr. Merivale is fond of these psychological speculations, which appear to us in general very fanciful. He is more successful in his picture of manners, and the following description of a Roman noble's

"Suet. 1. c. Ecquid iis videretur vitæ commode transegisse.... adjecit et clausulam: εἰ δὲ πᾶν ἔχει καλῶς, τῷ παιγνίῳ Δότε κρότον, καὶ πάντες ὑμεῖς μετὰ Xapaç KтUTHOαTE. Comp. Dion. Ivi. 30." Mr. Merivale prints these verses as if, like the Swiss editor Bremi, he considered them as Troch, tetr, catal., but they should be divided at πãv and кpórov, and then are plainly Iamb, sen.

day is a favourable specimen of the skill with which he combines in one picture the scattered notices of the classics:

"The Roman noble rose ordinarily at daybreak, and received at his levée the crowd of clients and retainers who had thronged the steps before his yet closed door from the hours of darkness. A few words of greeting were expected on either side, and then, as the sun mounted the eastern sky, he descended from his elevated mansion into the Forum. He might walk surrounded by the still lingering crowd, or he might be carried in a litter; but to ride in a wheeled vehicle on such occasions was no Roman fashion. Once arrived in the Forum, he was quickly immersed in the business of the day. He presided as a judge in one of the basilicas, or he appeared himself before the judges as an advocate, a witness or a suitor. He transacted his private affairs with his banker or notary; he perused the Public Journal of yesterday, and inquired how his friend's cause had sped before the tribunal of the prætor. At every step he crossed the path of some of the notables of his own class, and the news of the day and interests of the hour were discussed between them with dignified politeness.

"Such were the morning occupations of a dies fastus, or working day; the holy day had its appropriate occupation in attendance upon the temple services, in offering a prayer for the safety of the emperor and people, in sprinkling frankincense on the altar, and on occasions of special devotion, appeasing the gods with a sacrifice. But all transactions of business, secular or divine, ceased at once when the voice of the herald on the steps of the Hostilian Curia proclaimed that the shadow of the sun had passed the line on the pavement before him, which marked the hour of midday. Every door was now closed; every citizen, at least in summer, plunged into the dark recesses of his sleeping chamber for the enjoyment of his meridian slumber. The midday siesta terminated, generally speaking, the affairs of the day, and every man was now released from duty and free to devote himself, on rising again, to relaxation or amusement till the return of night. If the senate had been used sometimes to prolong or renew its sittings, there was a rule that after the tenth hour, or four o'clock, no new business could be brought under its notice, and we are told of Asinius Pollio that he would not even open a letter after that hour. Meanwhile Rome had risen again to amuse and recreate itself, and the grave man of business had his amusements as well as the idler of the Forum. The exercises of the Field of Mars were the relaxation of the soldiers of the republic; and when the urban populace had withdrawn itself from military service, the traditions of the Campus were still cherished by the upper ranks, and the practice of its mimic war confined, perhaps, exclusively to them. The swimming, running, riding, and javelin-throwing of this public ground became under the emperors a fashion of the nobility: the populace had no taste for such labours, and witnessed perhaps with some surprise the toils to which men voluntarily devoted themselves, who possessed slaves to relieve them from the most ordinary exertions of the day. But the young competitors in these athletic contests were not without a throng of spectators: the porticos which bordered the field were crowded with the elder people and the women, who shunned the heat of the declining sun: many a private dwelling looked upon it from the opposite side of the river, which was esteemed on that account a desirable place of resi

dence. Augustus had promised his favour to every revival of the gallant customs of antiquity, and all the Roman world that lived in his smiles hastened to the scene of these antique amusements to gratify the emperor, if not to amuse themselves.

"The ancients, it was said, had made choice of the Field of Mars for the scene of their mimic warfare for the convenience of the stream of the Tiber, in which the wearied combatants might wash off the sweat and dust, and return to their companions in the full glow of recruited health and vigour. But the youth of Rome in more refined days were not satisfied with these genial ablutions. They resorted to warm and vapour baths, to the use of perfumes and cosmetics, to enhance the luxury of refreshment; and sought by various exquisite devices to stimulate the appetite for the banquet which crowned the evening."-V. 549–553.

We have before remarked on the extenuating tone which characterizes Mr. Merivale's account of the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius,-a tone caught from recent continental writers, in whom its motive is evident, a desire to lessen the opprobrium which tyranny has attached to arbitrary power. We attribute no such purpose to Mr. Merivale. Livy gives two motives which a writer may have for handling anew a familiar subject of history, either the possession of more accurate information, or the hope of surpassing former historians in the art of narration. "Novi semper scriptores, aut in rebus certius aliquid adlaturos se, aut scribendi arte rudem vetustatem superaturos credunt." (Præf.) To these we are inclined to add a third, the desire of putting a new face upon old facts, and shewing the world how they have been hitherto misled in judging of characters and events. The temptation to this is peculiarly strong in the case of ancient history, the materials for which have received no important additions for two centuries and a half. The popular conviction, however, being generally established on pretty strong testimony of classic authors, to excite a suspicion of their accuracy, their wisdom or their impartiality, is a necessary preliminary to the introduction of novel views. Mr. Grote found Thucydides an obstacle to his favourable opinion of Athenian democracy. Niebuhr set down Isocrates as "an ineffable fool," because he judged it for the interest of Athens to place itself under the hegemonia of Philip. Mr. Merivale thinks the Roman historians have been in league to blacken the character of the Cæsars, and, like Napoleon, deems Tacitus to have been a calumniator. There is truth in the observation which he introduces from Dion Cassius, that from the cessation of the republic the sources of history became more obscure and private. Everything before had been done in public; now the springs of events are hidden in the recesses of a palace, or even in the meditations and emotions of a single mind. This is true of every absolute government as compared with a republic, unless an ample literature of Memoirs reveals to us the real motives of the actors in public life. Another circumstance places the history of the first Cæsars in unfavourable contrast

with that of the last days of the republic-we have no contemporaneous historian, if we except Velleius for the early part of the reign of Tiberius. But though this may make the history less certain, we see no reason why it should give a bias against the Cæsars. Mr. Merivale systematically depreciates all those writers who are opposed to the imperial despotism. He intimates that the reason why the latter part of Livy's Decades has been lost, was that symptoms of the garrulity of old age appeared in it. This is but an illnatured suggestion. Surely the fact that the History consisted of 142 Books is sufficient to account for its imperfect preservation. It is not because Polybius and Diodorus had outlived their faculties that more than half their works has been lost. In the long journey to posterity, a voluminous author was very likely in ancient times to lose some part of his baggage. And if a reason be asked why the contemporary portion of Livy's History has entirely perished while others have been preserved, it might be plausibly answered, Because he was a Pompeian, and it might not have been safe to possess a copy of a work reflecting on the founder of the imperial family.

Our chief authorities for the imperial history are Dion Cassius, Suetonius and Tacitus. The first of them is a compiler of no extraordinary sagacity, whom we value chiefly because he had access to many authorities lost to us, and because his high station enabled him to consult the public records. Suetonius was a collector and retailer of anecdotes, honest and faithful for anything that appears, but not critical in regard to evidence, nor discriminating in regard to probability. Tacitus, however, from whom we have a pretty complete history of the reign of Tiberius, and again of Claudius and Nero, has been generally received as an unimpeachable authority, conversant alike with the world and with letters, and if stern and severe in his judgment of character, at least free from all corrupting influences. It is impossible to be the apologist of the Caesars without impugning either the judgment or the motives of Tacitus. Mr. Merivale, if he doubted either, was of course perfectly at liberty to call them in question. But we think the reader of his History has a right to complain, that instead of doing this with an open and full statement of his reasons at the point where his own judgment and that of Tacitus first come into opposition, he has deferred this statement till he reaches the age in which Tacitus lived. His theory is, that to exalt the glory of the reign of Trajan, he has darkened the shades in the characters of the first Cæsars; and that in his mind and that of the Romans of his day, there was a disposition to exaggerate the evils of the Cæsars' tyranny, in order to enhance the rare felicity of their own times. Meanwhile, though withholding the proofs, whatever they may be, of such a bias on the mind of Tacitus, he takes credit for them by anticipation, and damages his authority by incidental remarks. Thus, speaking of the