If our readers succeed in torturing the first sentence or two of this extract into the confession of any intelligible meaning, they will be far more fortunate than we profess to have been. To us they appear to exhibit such a union of vulgarity and nonsense, as is rare even in the writings of Mr. F. remarkable as he seems to be for a curiosa felicitas in that style. We say nothing of the elegance of "here come the instances of Grecian

history," or of the propriety of rendering "nondum sanatis volneribus"-a chaste and beautiful expression-by such a misplaced hyperbole as "wounds yet streaming." There is no disputing about tastes in such matters, and the translator probably has his own reasons for thinking the style of Cicero tame and languid. But we should like to know why "clarissima victoria" is rendered "in the height of victory"—or how "in nostram civitatem redundasse,” is made to signify "have abounded too conspicuously in our state❞—or where authority can be found for converting "amplissimos cives" into "a great number of citizens." In the same way, we suppose, "vir amplus" would be translated "many men"-so that in Mr. F's Latin, every man of dignity and consequence is a sort of monster-a Geryon or Briareus-his name is Legion.

We might go on with our criticisms to the end of the volume. We shall trouble our readers, however, with but a few additional specimens of the scholarship of our geologist. In the fifth chapter, the following sentence occurs in the original. "Quam ob rem neque sapientis esse, &c. neque liberalis, cum impuris atque inmanibus adversariis decertantem, vel contumeliarum verbera subire, vel expectare sapienti non ferendas injurias." The words in Italics are thus rendered, "or a wise man hope to withdraw from such a contest without injury." In chapter VII. "Ac tamen siqui sunt, qui philosophorum auctoritate moueantur, dent operam parumper atque audiant eos, quorum summa est auctoritas apud doctissimos homines et gloria: quos ego existimo, etam si qui ipsi rem publicam non gesserint; tamen quoniam de re publica multa quaesierint et scripserint, functos esse aliquo rei publicae munere," is translated, "Nevertheless if there are any who are governed by the opinions of philosophers, let them turn their attention for awhile, and listen to those who enjoy a proud pre-eminence among learned men, even when they have not borne any charge in the republic; still whom I deem from the extent of their studies, and their writings on government, to have been invested with functions appertaining to the public interest." In chapter VIII. for “in qua nihil fere quod magno opere ad rationes omnium rerum pertineret," we have in the which I think scarce any point was omitted that belongs to the consideration of these great matters." In chapter IX. we are informed that "P. Africanus, the son of Paulus, established Latin holidays in his gardens. The feria Latina we had always understood to date from the earliest period of Roman history. But Mr. Featherstonhaugh is no antiquarian, and it is certain that constituo sometimes means to establish. To be sure, when used in that sense, it never governs

the ablative case; but this is no Hamiltonian version for the use of schools, and the author did not think it necessary to descend to such minutiæ. The words just quoted, therefore, must be received as a very liberal translation of what means strictly this, "P. Africanus was determined (or had made up his mind) to spend the Latin holidays in his gardens.". So we hear of "Timæus of Locram," (c. xi.) though we have not been so fortunate as to have ever heard of "Locram" itself.. Scipio, who was the son of Paulus Æmilius, but passed into the family of Africanus (his maternal grandfather) by adoption, is made to speak of both his parents, as if he meant his father and mother. The text is, utriusque patris. lib. ii. c. 1. In the same place mention is made of a writer, hitherto unknown, we believe, even to Fabricius: it is one "Zethus, the author of Pacuvius." This is a truly ludicrous blunder. The text of the original is, “Zethum illum Pacuvi." "Zethus in the tragedy of Pacuvius." Zethus ille Pacuvianus, as the same author designates the same personage elsewhere. If Mr. Featherstonhaugh (we wish his name were shorter) will only open the 18th epistle of the first book of Horace's Epistles, at the 41st verse, and read three or four lines together with the notes of the Dauphin editor, he will learn something more of this "author of Pacuvius."

But of this satis superque. We should make our readers an apology for troubling them so long with this very minute exami'nation of a worthless book, but for one reason. We have re

cently heard great complaints made against the form and style of the periodical criticism of the present day. Reviews, it is said, are mere set dissertations, in which, the work nominally censured, is only mentioned at the head of the article, in a sort of ac etiam clause to found the jurisdiction upon. We have been ourselves, more than once, guilty of this heinous offence against primitive manners and models, and have, therefore, endeavoured to atone for our past sins, by this specimen of a legitimate critique, which, we trust, will be graciously received as a sufficient expiatory sacrifice for them all.

We are happy to find the Boston edition of "The Republic," more accurate than the Ernesti edition of Cicero's works reprinted there some twelve years ago. The latter appeared to us to reflect very little credit upon a city which seems destined to the double honour of being the cradle of liberty and of letters in the western world. But why were not the prolegomena of Mai retained? Such is the scarcity of books of a certain description in this part of the country, that we have not been able to lay

our hands upon the account-an object, in every point of view, of so much interest-which the scholar, to whose enlightened and fortunate researches we are indebted for this treasure-trove, has given of his own discovery.

Our readers are, no doubt, generally informed from other sources, that Signor Mai was advanced, on account of some previous researches of a similar kind in the Ambrosian library at Milan, to the place of librarian of the Vatican-that the MS. of this important fragment was preserved in the Monastery of Gobio in Liguria-that the first edition of it was given to the world in 1822-that its faded characters which had been written over with a commentary of St. Augustin upon the Psalms, were decyphered by means of chemical agents-and that parchment or paper, thus "contrived a double debt to pay," was called even in the time of Cicero himself, a palimpsest. It may be worth while to remark by the way, that the example of this learned Italian may possibly lead to important discoveries. The spirit of inquiry on the subject of ancient MSS. which had been so long, comparatively, slumbering, may be awakened, for aught we know, to an animation not unworthy of the age of Petrarch or of Poggio Bracciolini. The hopes of scholars-so far as they depended upon other resources-were almost extinguished. The monasteries, and such like repositories in Europe, had been so completely ransacked, that little or nothing could be expected from them. On the other hand, the eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii, seems to have been so preposterously slow and gradual, as to admit not only of the escape of their inhabitants, but of the removal of almost their whole stock of goods and chattels. And in spite of all the assiduity and (in this matter especially) vaunted sagacity of the German literati, it is not likely that they will ever do much with the Tironian notes. But it is difficult to set bounds to our anticipations from this unexplored, subterraneous region of the palimpsest-these "catacombs of living death," as they may be well enough described in an outré metaphor of Curran's. The mighty revolution in opinion, which as early, at least, as the sixth century, involved in one indiscriminate sentence of ban and anathema, all the genius and taste of classical antiquity; produced it is certain, many and many similar instances of sacrilegious spoliation by holy hands. It is true that we are indebted to the same hands, for the preservation of much that remains to adorn our libraries-but who shall balance the

* There is some difference of opinion as to the etymology of this word. We are satisfied with Facciolati's—aλinsos from rádiv rursum and Law abstergo. Some write palinxestus from w rado.

account between what was saved by the liberal, and what was destroyed by the ignorant or bigoted zealot-between the copies made and the MSS. effaced by monks and priests? At all events, a general search-warrant ought to go forth against every inch of parchment occupied by the Gregorys and the Ambroses, the Jeromes and the Chrysostoms. There is probable cause enough for this grand conceptio furti. And notwithstanding all that Gibbon says to reconcile us to the supposed destruction of the Alexandrian library by the Saracens, we must still be permitted to express the strongest desire to see these inquiries prosecuted with success. Conceding that with some few exceptions, the most celebrated writers of antiquity have been preserved to us, yet what valuable-what boundless stores of information may, nay, must be buried in the compositions of those of less note! The works of mere erudition-the thesauri and the bibliothecæ-the voluminous collections of plodding compilers-what would they not do to clear up the doubtful passages in the history of those times, and to expose the futility of many learned conjectures in ours? What should we not gain, for instance, (to go no further) by the discovery of the works of Varro, and the Origines of Cato? And how refreshing would it be to the hearts and the eyes of scholars, to witness the resurrection of Menander and Alcæus to see them restored to the freshness and vigour of a renovated life, after so many centuries passed in oblivion and darkness, like wounded warriors upon some battle-ground, disengaged by a lucky chance from the heaps, and rescued from the grave of the slain-or to make our simile more pointed, like Er the Armenian, in the sublime rhapsody of Plato, snatched from the funeral pile, to reveal the visions of that deep and perilous trance, and gladden the witnesses of his resuscitation with a bright and ravishing dream of elysium and of immortality.

This first discovery of Mai is unfortunately little better than an earnest of what we may expect in future. It is a mere torsoa deformed and mutilated fragment. Including all the scraps preserved by the grammarians and the Fathers, we are presented with a paltry duodecimo of a hundred and forty pages. Of these, the two first books, which are in a far better state of preservation than the others, occupy a hundred and eight. But even they are horribly maimed and disfigured. Every discussion ends in a hiatus, and the reader is scarcely warmed with one subject, before he is compelled to give it up and betake him to some other to just as little purpose. According to the conjectures of the learned editor, not fewer than a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty pages are lost of these two books