fabulous, founded on popular songs or lays chanted at the Roman banquets. Greece had her rhapsodists, the Teutonic nations their bards, and Rome, he concluded, had also her poetical chroniclers. To eliminate whatever portion of truth was contained in the stories of the mythic period-and Niebuhr believed that they did contain many authentic facts-was the chosen task of the learned Prussian, and of all those who adopted his ballad theory' as a sound historical hypothesis. One of the most enthusiastic of his admirers was DR. THOMAS ARNOLD (1795-1842), the well-known and popular master of Rugby School. Arnold was a native of East Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, where his father resided as collector of customs. He was educated at Winchester, and afterwards at Oxford, being elected a fellow of Oriel College in 1815. He remained at Oxford four more years, employed in instructing pupils; and in his twenty-fifth year he settled at Laleham, near Staines, in Middlesex. At Laleham he took pupils as before, married, and spent nine years of happiness and study. He took priest's orders in 1828, and in that year occurred the great turning-point of his life-he was appointed to Rugby School. He longed to try whether our public school system has not in it some noble elements which may produce fruit even to life eternal,' and his exertions not only raised Rugby School to the highest popularity, but introduced a great change and improvement into all the public schools in England. He trusted much to the sixth form,' or elder boys, who exercise a recognised authority over the junior pupils, and these he inspired with love, reverence, and confidence. His interest in his pupils was that of a parent, and it was unceasing. On Sunday he preached to them; he was still the instructor and the schoolmaster, only teaching and educating with increased solemnity and energy.' All unpromising subjects,' or pupils likely to taint others, he removed from the school. It is not necessary,' he said, that this should be a school of three hundred, or one hundred, or of fifty boys; but it is necessary that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen. His firmness, his sympathy, his fine manly character, and devotion to duty, in time bound all good hearts to him.

Out-of-doors, Arnold had also his battles to fight. He was a Liberal in politics, though not a partisan, and a keen church reformer. To the High Church party he was strenuously opposed. The Church, he said, meant not the priesthood, but the body of believers. Christianity recognized no priesthood-the whole body of believers were equally brethren. Nothing, he conceived, could save the Church but a union with the Dissenters; and the civil power was more able than the clergy, not only to govern, but to fix the doctrines of the Church. These Erastian views, propounded with his usual zeal and earnestness, offended and alarmned many of Arnold's own friends, especially those of the clergy, and he also failed to conciliate the Dissenters. The Whig government, in 1835, appointed him a Fellow in the Senate of the new university of London. Arnold, convinced that

Christianity should be the basis and principle of all education in a Christian country, proposed that every candidate for a degree in the university should be examined on the Scriptures. This was resisted -at least to the extent that the examination should not be compulsory, but voluntary-and Arnold afterwards resigned his appointment. In 1841, he obtained one more congenial to his tastes and pursuits-he was nominated Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. His inaugural lecture was attended by a vast concourse of students and friends, for the popular tide had now turned in his favour, and his robust health promised a long succession of profess ional triumphs, as well as of general usefulness. He had purchased a small property in Westmoreland-Fox How, situated in one of the most beautiful portions of the Lake country, with the now classic river Rotha, purior electro,' winding round his tielus. At Fox How he spent his vacations; and he was preparing to return thither in the summer of 1842, when one night he was seized with spasms of the heart, and died ere eight o'clock next morning, June 12, 1-42. The works of Dr. Arnold give but a faint idea of what he accomplished. He was emphatically a man of action. His writings, however, are characteristic of the man-earnest, clear in conception and style, and independent in thought. His History of Rome,' which he intended to carry down to the fall of the Western Empire, was completed only to the end of the Second Punic War, and is contained in three volumes: he edited Thucydides,' and his 'Introductory Lectures on Modern History'-eight in number-were published after his death, in one volume, 1843. Six volumes of his Sermons,' chiefly delivered to the Rugby boys, have also been published, with a volume of tracts on social and political topics, collected and republished by his pupil and biographer, the Rev. A. P. Stanley, now dean of Westminster. His 'Roman History'-in which he closely follows Niebuhr-is striking and picturesque, rather than philosophical. His strong moral feeling and hatred of tyranny in all its shapes occasionally break forth, and he gave animation to his narrative by contrasting ancient with modern events-a mode of illustration in which he has been followed by Macaulay and Grote.

Character of Fcipio.

A mind like Scipio's, working its way under the peculiar influences of his time and country, cannot but move irregularly-it cannot but be full of contradicti ns. Two hundred years later. the mind of the dictator, Cæsar, acquiesced contentedly in epicureanism; he retained no more of enthusiasm than was inseparable from the intensity of his intellectual power, and the fervour of his courage, even amidst his utter moral degradation. But Scipio could not be like Cæsar His mind rose above the state of things around him; his spirit was solitary and kingly: he was cramped by living among those as his equals whom he felt fitted to guide as from some higher sphere: and he retired at last to Liternum. to breathe freely, to enjoy the simplicity of his childhood, since he could not fulfil his natural calling to be a heroking. So far he stood apart from his countrymen-admired, reverenced, but not loved. But he could not hake off all the influeres of his time; the virtue, neblic and private, which still existed at Rome-the reverence paid by the wisest and best

men to the religion of their fathers-were elements too congenial to his nature not to retain their hold on it: they cherished that nobleness of soul in him, and that fanta in the invisible and divine, which two centuries of growing unbelief rendered almost impossible in the days of Caesar. Yet how strange must the conflict be when faith is combined with the highest intellectual power, and its appointed object is no better than paganism! Longing to believe, yet repelled by palpable falsehood— crossed inevitably with snatches of unbehet, in which hypocrisy is ever close at the door-it br. aks out desperately, as it may seem, into the region of dreams and visions, and mysterious communings with the invisible, as if longing to find that food in its own creations which no outward objective truth offers to it. The proportions of belief and unbelief in the human mind in such cases, no numan judgment cau determine-they are the wonders of history; characters mevitably misrepresented by the vulgar, and viewed even by those who, in some sense, have the key to them as a mystery not fully to be comprehended, and still less explained to others. The genius which conceived the incomprehensible character of Hamlet would alone be able to describe with intuitive truth the character of Scipio or of Cromwell. With all his greatness there was a waywardness in him which seems often to accompany genius; a self-idolatry, natural enough where there is so keen a consciousness of power and of lofty designs; a self-dependence, which feels even the most sacred external relations to be unessential to its own pertection Such is the Achilles of Homer-the bighest conception of the individual hero relying on himself, and sufficient to himself. But the same poet who conceived the character of Achilles has also drawn that of Hector; of the truly noble, because unselfish hero-who subdues his genius to make it minister to the good of others-who lives for his relations, his friends, and his country. And as Sc.pio lived in himself and for himself like Achilles, so the virtue of Hector was worthily represented in the life of his great rival Hannibal, who, from his chi dhood to his latest hour, iu war and in peace, through glory and through obloquy, amid victories and amid disappointments, ever remembered to what purpore his father had devoted him, and withdrew no thought, or desire, or deed from their pledged service to his country.

Character of Hannibal.

Hannibal's genius may be likened to the Homeric god, who, in his hatred of the Trojans, rises from the dep to rally the fainting Greeks, and to lead them against the enemy; so the calm courage with which Hector met his more than human adversary in his country's cause, is no unworthy image of the unyielding magnanimity displayed by the aristocracy of Rome. As Hannibal utterly eclipses Carthage, so, on the contrary. Fabius, Marcellus Claudius, Nero, even Scipio himself, are as nothing when compared to the spirit and wisdom and power of Rome. The senate, which voted its thanks to its political enemy. Varro. after his disastrous defeat, because he had not despaired of the commonwealth, and which threatened either to solicit, or to reprove, or to threaten or in any way to notice the twelve colonies which had refused their accustomed supplies of men for the army, is far more to be honoured than the conquerer of Zama. This we should the more carefully bear in mind. because our tendency is to admire individual greatness far more than national; and as no single Roman will bear comparison with Hannibal, we are apt to murmur at the event of the contest, and to think that the victory was awarded to the least worthy of the combatants. On the contrary, never was the wisdom of God's providence more manifest than in the issue of the struggle between Rome ad Carthage. It was clearly for the food of mankind that Hannibal should be conquered; his triumph would have stopped the progress of the world. For great men can only act permanently by forming great nations; and no one man, even though it were Hannibal himself, can in one genera tion effect such a work. But where the nation has been merely enkindled for a while by a great man's spirit. the light passes away with him who communicated it; and the nation, when he is gone, is like a dead body, to which magic power had for a moment given an unnatural life; when the charm has ceased. the body is cold and stiff as before. He who grieves over the battle of Zama should carry on his thoughts to a period thirty years later, when Hannibal must in the course of nature. have been dead, and consider how the isolated Phoenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and to consolidate the civilisation of Greece, or by its laws and institutions to bind together barbarians of every race and language into an organized empire, and prepare

them for becoming, when that empire was dissolved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe.

Sufferings during the Siege of Genoa.

In the autumn of 1799, the Austrians had driven the French out of Lombardy and Piedmout; their last victory of Fossano or Genola had won the fortress of Coni or Cuneo, close under the Alps, and at the very extremity of the plain of the Po; the French clung to Italy only by their hold of the Riviera of Genoa, the narrow strip of coast between the Apennines and the sea, which extends from the frontiers of France almost to the mouth of the Arno. Hither the remains of the French force were collected. commanded by General Massena, and the point of chief importance to his defence was the city of Genoa. Napoleon had just returned from Egypt, and was becme First Consul: but he could not be expected to take the fled till the following spring, and til then, Massena was hopeless of relief from without-everything was to depend on his own pertinacity. The strength of his army made it impossible to force it in such a position as Genoa ; but its very numbers, added to the population of a great city, held out to the enemy the hope of r ducing it by fanine; and as Genoa drives most of its supplies by sea Lord Keith, te British naval Commander-inchiet in the Mediterranean, leut the assistance of his Laval force to the Austri: ns, and by the vigilance of his cruisers, the whole costing-trade right and left along the Riviera was effectually cut off. It is 1.ot at once that the inhabitants of a great city, accustomed to the daily sight of well-stored shops and an abundant m rket, begin to realise the idea of scarcity; or that the wealthy classes of society, who have never known any other state than one of abundance and luxury, b gin seriously to conceive of famine. But the shops were emptied, and the store-houses began to be drawn upon, and no fresh supply or hope of supply appeared. Winter passed away, and spring returned, so early and so beautiful on that garden-like coast, sheltered as it is from the north winds by its belt of mountains, and open to the full range of the southern sun. Spring returned, and clothed the hill-sides with its fresh verdure. But that ve dure was no longer the mere delight of the careless eye of luxury, refreshing the citizens with its liveliness and softness when they rode or walked up thither from the city to enjoy the surpassing beauty of the prospect. The green hill-sides were now visited for a very different object: ladies of the highest rank might be seen cutting up every plant which it was possible to turn to food, and bearing home the common weeds of our road-sides as a most precious treasure. The French general pitied the distress of the people, but the lives and strength of his garrison seemed to him more important than the lives of the Genoese; and such provisions as remained were reserved in the first place, for the French army. Scarcity became uiter want, and want became famine. In the most gorgeous palaces of that gorgeous city, no less than in the humblest tenements of its humblest poor, death was busy; not the momentary death of battle or massacre, nor the speedy death of pestilence, but the lingering death of famine. Infants died before their parents' eyes; husbands and wives lay down to expire together. A man whom I saw at Genoa in 1825, told me that his father and two of his brothers had been starved to death in this fatal siege. So it went on till, in the month of Juze, when Napoleon had already descended from the Alps into the plains of Lombardy, the misery became unendurable, and Massena surrendered. But before he did so, twenty thousand innocent persons, old and young, women and children, had died by the most horrible of deaths which humanity can endure!

SIR JOHN GARDINER WILKINSON.

In the study of Egyptian antiquities, now cultivated with ardour, SIR JOHN GARDINER WILKINSON (1797-1875) took a prominent part. Early in life he made surveys of the topography of Thebes and the Pyramids, and collections of the hieroglyphics. In 1-28, he published at Malta Materia Hierogliphica,' four parts. But his great work is his Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,' six volumes, 1837-41. About nine hundred wood-cuts illustrate this history, taken chiefly from the paintings in the Egyptian tombs, the

earliest descriptive illustrations of the manners and customs of any nation. Of this work, an abridgment was published by the author, a Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians,' two volumes, 1854. Sir John truly remarks, that the influence which Egypt had in early times on Greece gives to every inquiry respecting it an additional interest; and the frequent mention of the Egyptians in the Bible connects them with the Hebrew records, of which many satisfactory illustrations occur in the sculptures of Pharaonic times.' Sir John was a son of the Rev. John Wilkinson of Haxendale, Westmoreland, and studied at Exeter College, Oxford. Amongst the latest of his literary labours was assisting Sir Henry Rawlinson in his edition of Herodotus.'

Moral Superiority of the Ancient Egyptians.

The early part of Egyptian monumental history is coeval with the arrivals of Abraham and of Joseph, and the exodus of the Israelites; and we know from the Bible what was the state of the world at that time. But then, and apparently long before, the habits of social life in Egypt were already what we find them to have been during the most glorious period of their career; and as the people had already buid aside their arms, and military men only carried them when on service, some notion may be had of the very remote date of Egyptian civilization. In the treatment of women they seem to have been very far advanced beyond other wealthy communities of the same era, having usages very similar to those of modern Europe; and such was the respect shown to women, that precedence was given to them over men, and the wives and daughters of kings succeeded to the throne like the male branches of the royal family. Nor was this privilege rescinded, even though it had more than once entailed upon them the troubles of a contested succession; foreign kings often having claimed a right to the throne through marriage with an Egyptian princess. It was not a mere influence that they possessed, which women often acquire in the most arbitrary eastern communities; nor a political importance accorded to a particular individual, like that of the Sultana Valideh, the queen-mother at Constantinople; it was a right acknowledged by law, both in public and private life. They knew that unless women were treated with respect, and made to exercise an influence over society, the public standard would soon be lowered, and the manners and morals of men would suffer; and in acknowledging this they pointed out to women the very responsible duties they had to perform to the community. It has been said that the Egyptian priests were only allowed to have one wife, while the rest of the community had as many as they chose; but, besides the improbability of such a license, the testimony of the monuments accords with Herodotus in disproving the statement, and each individual is represented in his tomb with a single consort. Their mutual affection is also indicated by the fond manner in which they are seated together, and by the expressions of endearment they use to each other, as well as to their children. And if further proof were wanting to show their respect for social ties, we may mention the conduct of Pharaoah, in the case of the supposed sister of Abraham, standing in remarkable contrast to the habits of most princes of those and many subsequent ages.

Ancient Egyptian Repast.

While the guests were entertained with music and the dance, dinner was prepared; but as it consisted of a considerable number of dishes, and the meat was illed for the occasion, as at the present day in eastern and tropical climates, some time elapsed before it was put upon the table. An ox. kid, wild goat, gazelle, or an oryx, and a quantity of geese, ducks, teal, quails, and other birds, were generally selected; but mutton was excluded from a Theban table. Sheep were not killed for the altar or the table, but they abounded in Egypt, and even at Thebes; and large flocks were kept for their wool, particularly in the neighbourhood of Memphis. Sometimes a flock consisted of more than two thonsand; and in a tomb below the Pyramids, dating upwards of four thousand years ago, nine hundred and seventy