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sovereignty of the Japetic race (iv., 608) from Homer's description of Agamemnon. Does he not know that the earliest accounts of Greece that we possess, and which are quite as reliable as the exploits of Agamemnon, distinctly refer the foundation of Greek Commonwealths to Egyptian and Asiatic emigrators?

Our allotted space is already exceeded; but it would be unjust to overlook Sir A. Alison's gallery of political portraits. If this have not the merit of discrimination, it has that, at least, of generosity. There is no grudging of merit in any of these characterizations. Sir Archibald will speak as well of his political opponents as of the leaders of his own party. This is certainly a very fine trait in a writer gifted with such ineradicable prepossessions. It is, no doubt, an inconsistency; for the author has already described the shortsightedness of his opponents, in a manner which renders the praise somewhat inexplicable. But he has forgotten all that, as he has forgotten a good many other things that he has written in the course of his bulky volumes; and, when he begins to describe the characters of public men of his day, he acts on the principle of de mortuis, etc.,-makes his portraits all very attractive, though singularly like each other. It is true that he says of Lord Brougham, in respect of his speeches, that he has an overwhelming deluge of words," and that "his verbose habit is much to be regretted."-(Vol. IV., p. 287.) Lord Brougham might perhaps think that the critic had put himself out of court, and was disqualified, by his own example, from pronouncing the censure. But Sir A. Alison has a high opinion of "his merits as an equity lawyer,”—a judgment, at all events, from which he was not precluded by any positive demerits of his own. Sir Archibald pays a handsome tribute to the late Lord Grey (notwithstanding the "fatal mistake," to which he again alludes), and says, that "he was, beyond all doubt, a most remarkable man."-P. 280. The observation will not probably be gainsaid. He falls, however, into two singular mistakes. He has the hardihood to assert that "Lord Palmerston has been a member of every Administration, with the single exception of the short one of Lord Derby in 1852, for the last fifty years" (p. 288); whereas every one else is aware that, during both the Administrations of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston was one of the leading members of the opposition; and that, "fifty years" before this volume was written, Lord Palmerston had not entered political life. He speaks of Lord John Russell's "conduct as the leader of the House of Commons in 1831;" whereas every one else is no less aware, that it was a peculiarity in Lord John Russell's political position, during the whole struggle of the Reform Bill, that he had taken the office of Paymaster-General without a seat in the Cabinet. Why

Errors Regarding Contemporary Statesmen.

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Sir James Graham should be applauded, and Mr Gladstone (the master-mind of his party) should not be noticed, is not apparent. Neither is Lord Althorp mentioned; and we are reduced to the solution, that Sir A. Alison was not aware that he had been Leader of the House of Commons during the four most stormy sessions of its existence. But, as we have said, there is no disposition to injustice; and we are told of each of the prominent statesmen of our day, he has "administrative abilities of a very high order." This is at least gratifying, if it be not discriminative.

Any detailed criticism on the subject of style would be superfluous. It is certain, however, that any three of Sir A. Alison's volumes might be very advantageously compressed into one. The author's aversion to monosyllables is fatal to the force of his diction; and we have roughly calculated that the omission of useless adjectives would alone reduce the work by some twenty or thirty pages a volume. Nearly all his substantives end in "ation;" a peculiarity which ensures them, on an average, an inordinate length. His affection towards the word "superadd," not seldom costs the simple sense of his passage; and his perpetual introduction of the epithet "human". ex. gr., "human affairs," "human emancipation," etc.,-with studied distinctiveness, suggests the notion that he had been writing a political history (if such there could be) of zoology in general. But the wearisome iteration of trite ideas, exploded theories, and false reasoning, is what chiefly swells his second history to its present dimensions.1

We cannot help noticing also the appalling epithets which are coupled with the expression of almost every idea in the analyses of chapters, that stand at the beginning of each volume. We are perpetually referred to sections entitled "astonishing success," "prodigious enthusiasm," "universal transports," etc. We had a vague notion, on first reading the latter expression, that "universal transports" were transport ships on a vast scale, somewhat after the fashion of the "Great Eastern;" but we' were mistaken. Similar expressions are stored up for our sorrows, to those which indicate our joys. Thus, we continually read of "unbounded alarm," and "appalling distress." But our national temperament-and that, indeed, of all the races of

1 Sir Archibald favours us with numerous Latin quotations-some of which he goes out of his way to translate; and does it in a manner which eliminates the whole epigrammatic collocation of the original. These quotations are commonly of a very hackneyed kind: we find such as "Coelum non animum mutant," etc.; "didicisse fideliter artes," etc.-(the verb in the last instance being mis-spelt, and the qualifying adjective forgotten) and many others which, through the dim vista of some ten long years, we remember, in our old Harrow days, to have perused in a little book called "Wordsworth's Latin Grammar!"

"Japhet"-is so happily elastic, that these sentiments quickly pass away; and, a few lines further on, we are sure to recur to a condition of "prodigious enthusiasm" and "universal transports."

We may fairly presume that an author who places himself in deliberate opposition to every statesman, and to every other political writer, is nearly indifferent to any criticism of his work. To depict Sir A. Alison's character as a reasoner or as a writer of fact, is what no one can do so well as himself; and he has described it-in a delineation of Napoleon, which seems as though it had been designed for autobiography-with a fidelity which exhausts our own powers. It shall be transcribed :—

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Unconquerable adherence to error, in point of fact, in the face of the clearest evidence, is, in like manner, often so characteristic of his writings, where any of his marked prepossessions is concerned, that one is apt to imagine that the account of the peculiarity given by his panegyrists is the true one, that his imagination was so ardent that his wishes were, literally speaking, father to his thoughts, and that what he desired, he really believed to be true."

"1

1 Sir A. Alison's Character of Napoleon, vol. iii., p. 628.

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ART. II.-1. The Genesis of the Earth and of Man. Edited by REGINALD STUART POOLE, M.R.S.L., etc. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. 1856.

2. The Testimony of the Rocks, or Geology in its bearings on the two Theologies, Natural and Revealed. By HUGH Miller, Author of "The Old Red Sandstone," etc. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable & Co. 1857.

3. Creation and the Fall: A Defence and Exposition of the first three Chapters of Genesis. By Rev. DONALD MACDONALD, M.A. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable & Co. 1856.

4. The Mosaic Record in Harmony with the Geological. By JAMES SIME, M.A. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable & Co. 1854.

5. Twelve Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion. Delivered in Rome by CARDINAL WISEMAN. 5th edition. Two volumes. London: Charles Dolman. 1853.

6. Things New and Old in Religion, Literature, and Science. London: Nisbet & Co. 1857.

7. Geological Facts. By the Rev. W. G. BARRETT. London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, & Co.

1855.

8. Geology and Genesis; or the Two Teachings Contrasted. By "C." London: Whittaker & Co. 1857.

9. On Parthenogenesis. By PROF. OWEN.

Voorst.

London: Van

10. Scripture and Geology. By the Rev. PYE SMITH, D.D. London: H. G. BOHN.

11. Religion of Geology and its Connected Sciences. By EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D.D., LL.D. Glasgow: William Collins (American Reprint).

12. Noah and his Times. By the Rev. J. M. OLMSTEAD, M.A. Glasgow: William Collins (American Reprint).

MILTON's remarks on the vitality of books, and on what should be the attitude of the State to them, are well known. "I deny not," he says, "but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men, and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them, to be as active as that evil was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they

VOL. XXVII. NO. LIV.

Y

are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous. dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men." This characteristically shrewd estimate has much force, when applied to the rapidly increasing literature of present physical science. Certain phases of this, especially those which are alleged to have theological bearings, claim the earnest attention of all thoughtful Christian men. Modern discovery has scattered the dragon's teeth broadcast over the land, and the natural result is a mailed host, more formidable than the fabled one which rose threateningly before the eye of Cadmus. Numerous books, all held by their authors to be equally well-fitted for the defence of the truth, and for chasing out of the world those antiquated religious beliefs which obstruct civilization in her onward march, meet us in every bookshop, lie invitingly, in their covers of crimson and gold, on drawing-room tables, and demand double space on our library shelves, from which they seem to smile contempt on the unpretending volumes of our older literature, whose weighty utterances were wont to quicken our intellects and solace our hearts! How is this great army to be met? Must Swift's "Battle of the Books" be fought over again? If so, some of the names of the combatants of his time might be retained. An addition of another legion to the army of the moderns, is all that is necessary to fit the satire to our day. The change of the battle-field could also be made. Swift found his on a small spot of ground, lying and being upon one of the two tops of Parnassus." But we would require to go down to the foundations of the world, and to pass through the great strata, which tell the wondrous tale of the bygone ages of nature. The contest there would concern the question, whether the All-wise One who formed the world has written legends on the rocks which contradict the utterances of His own Wisdom in the Bible?

We know, indeed, that the progeny of the dragon's teeth were not all useless. Cadmus found many of the warriors helpful in doing him good service in his chosen Bæotia. We may find the modern offspring useful too. The fruits of civilization and enlightenment the revelations of philosophy and the triumphs of science, may all be welcomed by Christianity, and used in the service of The King. The chief thing will be, to get quit of the dangerous members of the mailed host. This must continue to be the constant effort of all who know the truth and love it. Circumstances will determine whether this shall be by finding joints in the harness, through which the arrows of truth may find their way to the heart of error, or, as in the old fable, by turning every man's hand against his fellow,

"Suoque

Marte cadunt subiti per mutua vulnera fratres."

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