mind of Cæsar did not embrace. Nature had bestowed on that extraordinary man and great genius the highest intellectual qualities-perception, memory, and judgment, to which his own diligence in the pursuit of knowledge had added almost every thing that could be acquired; he recorded his great actions with the same spirit that he achieved them; and, unrivalled in the field, he was scarcely second to any in the forum or the senate-house. The vigour of his intellectual faculties was such that he could employ, at the same time, his ears to listen, his eyes to read, his hand to write, and his mind to dictate. To his sense of his superiority to the rest of the world, we are to attribute his saying, that he wished rather to be the first in a village than the second at Rome. He conquered three hundred nations, took eight hundred cities, and defeated three millions of men, one million of which fell in the field of battle.

Petronius displays the manners of the court of Nero with great talent and cleverness. Why may not this book be in reality the work of its reputed author? The laboured style of a Seneca may well have a different character from the discourses of a youth of genius and taste in the pursuit of pleasure. Petronius initiates the reader into the secrets of a class of men, who seldom appear on the great theatre so naturally and so openly exposed.

Philo, the Jew, in his account of his embassy to Caius Caligula, makes us feel what a terrible and afflicting evil it is for a nation, in matters which concern its very existence, to depend on the wantonness or capricious frolics of a senseless or base courtier. His countryman, Flavius Josephus, in his work on the Jewish War, which was terminated by the Emperor Titus, describes an interesting struggle of military skill against the inventive resources, and the desperate fury of a people driven to the last extremities; he sets before us the completion of the most ancient national history in the world, and the fulfilment of the prophetic warnings of Christ.

The age of Curtius, who described rhetorically the actions of Alexander, is unknown. He lived, probably, in the time of the Emperor Alexander Severus; and his florid style does not contradict the conjecture.

Of the many valuable compositions of Nepos, of his three Books of Chronicles, his biographical accounts of the most celebrated kings and authors of antiquity, &c., nothing remains but his Lives of the illustrious Greek Generals. The diction of this author combines elegance with clearness

and precision; he is one of the best writers of the " Augustan age."

History took its rise from epic poetry. Poets celebrated in the heroic measure, and with epic ornament, the fabulous or doubtful events of former ages, and the traditional deeds of their heroic ancestors. They chose for the subject of their narration events which interested the Grecian tribes, as the destruction of Troy, the Argonautic expedition, &c. But after the invention of alphabetical writings, and the introduction of prose composition, the events began to be more faithfully recorded, the fabulous traditions were criticised and investigated, and historical writing lost much of its poetical character.

In tracing the genealogies of the ancient kings, Plutarch is frequently too superstitious; his remarks are often injudicious; and when he compares the heroes of Greece with those of Rome, the candid reader can easily discover which side of the Adriatic gave the historian birth. On the whole, however, Plutarch shows himself every where to have been a man of the most praiseworthy intentions, and one who had, as far as morals are concerned, made himself master of the whole riches of the classical ages of Greece, and was familiar with all the most dignified conceptions of the old sages of his country.

It was in Ionia, the beautiful, the native country of epic poetry, that Herodotus, the father of history, and perhaps the greatest of all historians, was born.

Cicero has assigned to Herodotus the same rank among historians which Homer and Demosthenes possessed among poets and orators. His excellent work, one of the most precious monuments of antiquity, was recited by him in the public assembly of Greece, at the Olympic games, and received with such bursts of electrifying applause, that the names of the Nine Muses were given to the nine books of his history. It contains historical and geographical descriptions of Greece, Egypt, Media, and Babylonia, and comprehends the space of two hundred and twenty years, from the Lydian king, Gyges, till the defeat of Xerxes.

The successor of Herodotus was Thucydides, one of the most profound and animated historians of any age or country. His work, in eight books, comprehends twenty years of the Peloponnesian war, and is written with such a depth of reasoning, clearness of conception, and vigour and dignity of language, that has not been equalled by any other Greek historian.

Thucydides neither attained during his life, nor had he de

sired to attain, the fame of a popular historian; he wished rather to be studied thoroughly, than to become of a sudden generally applauded, and wrote rather for the few than for the many.

Xenophon has undoubtedly imitated the manner of Herodotus, and is still more credulous and much more superstitious than that historian. The events which he narrates are authentic, but the subject could have been better chosen and have more unity. His diction has been universally admired for its uncommon sweetness, elegance, and the variety by which it is adapted to great occasions, and the familiar dialogue-qualities that have procured him the name of the Muse, or the Bee of Greece. His style is not less lively, and still more simple, than that of Herodotus. The only ornament of both is the refined moral feeling which pervades their writings.

In Thucydides we frequently meet with the figure in rhetoric called "hyperbole," because the characteristic excellences of that historian are force and spirit; Xenophon, on the contrary, prefers the persuasive metaphor, because his characteristic is ease and simplicity.

Polybius of Megalopolis, in Arcadia, is the oldest author of Roman history whose works are still extant. Concerning the constitution of the state, he is more "insinuative" than any other writer. He is likewise admired for his authenticity and soundness of understanding, for the deep policy displayed in his works, and the impartiality with which he treats the Romans, the enemies of his nation. The five first books of his Roman history have been preserved, including the period between the wars of the Romans with the Carthaginians, until the conquest of Macedonia by Paulus. We find not in him the art of Herodotus, the power of Thucydides, the expressive brevity of Xenophon; Polybius is a statesman, occupied with his subject, who, without thinking of the approbation of the learned, writes chiefly for statesmen.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote a Roman history in twenty books, of which no more than ten or eleven have been preserved, containing the account of three hundred and twelve years. This illustrious historian has been valued by the ancients, as well as by the moderns, for the fidelity of his chronology and the judiciousness of his remarks and criticism; but he writes with too much eloquence, his relations are too animated to be true; and it is evident that the imagination of the author must have filled up many chasms, as fragments of poetry and traditions do not afford such pic

tures.

The outlines of the Roman constitution are traced by Dionysius with fidelity and eloquence, and we only complain that he is too great an orator.

Diodorus Siculus delivers much rare and excellent information on the fables of the " primitive world," and on the history of his native country.

ANCIENT MUSIC.-Music seems to have derived its name from the Nine Muses, or from the Hebrew word, " mosar," which signifies art. It was applied successfully by the Greeks to melody, measure, poetry, dancing, gesticulation, the union of all the sciences, and the knowledge of almost every art; and it was supposed that even the motions of the heavenly bodies, and the operations of the mind, are subject to the laws of harmony.

The ancient music was distinguished by the very natural simplicity, and “ sonorous grandeur," which has the most powerful influence on the minds of uncivilized and vulgar men, who are undepraved by artificial refinement. Before the Trojan war, Amphion animated by songs the workmen who built the fortress of Thebes; and fame reported that the walls sprang up to the sounds of his lyre. Orpheus drew from his lyre a small number of pleasing sounds; and it was said that tigers laid aside their ferocity and crouched at his feet. The fierce Lacedæmonians, when divided among themselves, were suddenly reconciled by the harmonious modulations of Terpander; the Athenians were incited by the songs of Solon to invade and recover the island of Salamis, in defiance of a decree which condemned to death the orator who should dare even to propose the conquest of that island; and the manners of the Arcadians were civilized by music.

Music was an essential part of the education of the Greeks; it was believed to have an influence not only on the minds, but also on the bodies of men, and is said to have cured many diseases. The character of the rhythm of the Greeks was so determinate, that the transposition of a syllable sufficed to change it; and hence the iambic foot was adapted to the ponderousness of a rustic dance, and the trochee to the vivacity of an animated dialogue. As the former seemed to redouble, and the latter to lose its ardour at every step, satiric writers attacked their enemies with iambics, whilst dramatic writers employed trochaics in their choruses of aged men on the stage. Every movement in nature, or in our passions, met, in the various species of rhythm, with other movements which corresponded with it, and became its image.

The music of the Greeks was both vocal and instrumental, and their instruments were divided into stringed instruments and wind instruments. The principal were the flute, the pipe and the lyre.

The invention of the lyre was ascribed to Apollo, and, in ancient times, heroes and the greatest kings learned to play this instrument, which they used while they sung of love and the exploits of" great and glorious men.'

Notwithstanding the imperfections of the Boeotian flute, it was better adapted than the lyre to support and animate the song. If Plato banished the Boeotian flute from his republic, and preferred the lyre for schools of music, it proceeded from his being afraid of contradicting the decree, by which the Athenians had prohibited wind instruments in public education, because they changed the lineaments of the countenance, and were also injurious to the organs of respiration.

The most celebrated instrument of the ancients was the flute. The Theban flute, however, was an instrument much easier to be managed than the lyre.

CHARACTER OF THE ROMANS.-The Roman people, powerful as they were, and possessing the means of doing the greatest mischief, or of arresting the whole business of the state, never" abused" their authority during four hundred years.

The Romans were ever anxious, in a greater or less degree, to be instrumental to the support of their country, as they were always noble, magnanimous, full of reverence towards virtue and the laws, and, in all great exigencies in war, in the forum, or in the field of Mars, worthy of themselves, until the riches of Asia, and the excessive corruption of the great, deformed their character.

Though so many nations beheld the rise and dominion of Rome, and contemplated her greatness with envy and wonder, yet, truth to say, Rome was never the object of imitation. Nothing, indeed, in the course of human affairs, is to be attained by single and separate efforts, however great, however brilliant those efforts might prove; every phenomenon has its period fixed by a thousand connected circumstances, and Roman tactics, without Roman manners, would never have so long maintained the freedom, or extended so widely the dominion of the state.

In the old times, example," and the name of Imperial Rome, had greater power than the laws possessed in the later periods of corruption, and when her decline became manifest.