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THIS is a very sensible, unpretending, and interesting memoir. We have read it with sincere pleasure, and with increased respect for the memory of the late Bishop of Llandaff. It consists chiefly of extracts from Doctor Copleston's diary and letters, and of communications from friends who had longer and closer opportunities of knowing him than fell to the lot of his biographer, who however connects and presents the memorials in a way that shows the best appreciation of his uncle's characteristic excellencies by the absence of all desire to exaggerate or overstate the admiration due to them.

Peel the second. His subsequent career is well olic claims, opposed the Reform Bill, (though he known. He supported the Test Act and the Caththere,) and exerted himself with good effect in his was for voting it into committee and correcting it diocese in regard to education. One of his last votes in the House of Lords was in that majority of three which neutralized the bill for establishing diplomatic relations with Rome, and he died in the following year. (October, 1849.)

There is something highly characteristic of him in one of his last letters, which, with great regard and affection for his early friend Archbishop Whately, expresses great impatience of the way in which the Edinburgh Review had been praising him. But all the personal bitterness of his first dispute with that famous periodical had long passed away; and as well in Sydney Smith's suppression of his share in the quarrel, (when he collected his reviews,) as in Doctor Copleston's steady refusal, when asked to republish those letters on Oxford Education, to perpetuate strictures "" directed against individuals," we recognize the true spirit of literary chivalry. Nothing should induce us to revive what the parties to it have thus suppressed; but the same feeling does not hold in reference to the pleasant banter on reviewing (Advice to a Young Reviewer) which we dare say none laughed at more heartily than the reviewers for whose correction it was intended, and which we are very grateful to Mr. Copleston for having preserved in an appendix to the Memoirs. We must borrow a couple of passages.

After a series of grave precepts, set forth in a style quite worthy of Swift, the author offers, in practical illustration of his principles, a specimen of the art in a review of Milton's L'Allegro. Every line of this criticism is delicious. It is perfect triumph of easy, effective, good-natured triumphant satire; and the early volumes of the Edinburgh should be lying near it when read. After a general chastisement of the forward and noisy importunity with which Mr. Milton had presented himself to notice, and an expressed determination to expose his tricks and protect the public, the poem is handled in detail. We must be brief in our extracts, yet they will show how admirable, how inimitable, are the wit and sense of the satire. But how are we to understand the stage directions?

Mr. Copleston, claiming for the bishop's letters no striking originality of thought or expression, says with much truth that they are generally models of good English and good taste. Thus, we should say, might also in a great measure be expressed the general characteristics of Doctor Copleston's habits and mind. He was of a robust and manly east in his ways both of thinking and acting. We find much occasionally to disagree with him, but we find no shabbiness, moral or otherwise, and no pretence to be what he was not. His range of reflection and philosophy seems not to have been very wide, but he saw clearly within it, and did not assume to be looking beyond it. He was himself decidedly an honest and independent man, (the only imputation ever cast upon him in this respect, in connection with the Roman Catholic relief question, is here satisfactorily rebutted,) and with a keener eye for the detection of imposture in others than such men always possess. He had strong affections, he inspired warm friendship in men whose opinions widely diverged from his own, and he retained to old age the associations of his youth. But his health was weak and uncertain; and while his fellowship life at Oxford seems to have thrown him into the inextricable habit of a bachelor's life, his kindly domestic temperament sorely unfitted him for it. We see towards the close of his life touching intimations of the want he felt in this respect. The outline of Doctor Copleston's career may be very brifly sketched. He was the son of a Devonshire clergyman, distinguished himself at Oxford, obtained a fellowship at Oriel when he was only nineteen years old, (in 1795,) held the office of tutor in Are the words used synonymously? Or is it meant his college for thirteen years, materially contributed that this airy gentry shall come in at a minuet step, to the success of Lord Grenville in the contest for and go off in a jig? The phenomenon of a tripping the chancellorship in 1809, engaged in the follow-crank is indeed novel, and would doubtless attract ing year in a very bitter controversy with the Edinburgh Review on the character and claims of the Oxford system of education, was elected to the provostship of his college in 1814, three years afterwards wrote a satire on the new mode of handling poetry brought into vogue by the Edinburgh Review, which ranks with the best specimens of that style of writing in the language, published during the next few years some sensible pamphlets on economical questions, dabbled now and then in antiquarian researches, contributed half-a-dozen articles to the Quarterly Review, in 1821 collected into a volume some sermons on the doctrines of necessity and predestination, which form his most important contribution to the literature of theology, and in 1827 received from Lord Goderich the bishopric of Llandaff. Lord Grenville was the first to congratulate him on his elevation, Sir Robert

Come, and trip it as you go.

numerous spectators. But it is difficult to guess to
whom among this jolly company the poet addresses
himself, for immediately after the plural appellative
[you] he proceeds,

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.

M., with most unbecoming levity, falls in love with
No sooner is this fair damsel introduced, but Mr.
her, and makes a request of her companion, which is
rather greedy, that he may live with both of them;

To live with her, and live with thee.

Even the gay libertine who sung, "How happy could
I be with either," did not go so far as this. But we
have already had occasion to remark on the laxity of
Mr. M.'s amatory notions.

The poet, intoxicated with the charms of his mistress, now rapidly runs over the pleasures which he

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While the Cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before;

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.

Is it not lamentable that, after all, whether it is the cock or the poet that listens, should be left entirely to the reader's conjecture? Perhaps also his embarrassment may be increased by a slight resemblance of character in these two illustrious personages, at least as far as relates to the extent and numbers of their seraglio.

The review closes thus:

Of the latter part of the poem little need be said. The author does seem somewhat more at home when he gets among the actors and musicians, though his head is still running upon Orpheus and Eurydice, and Pluto, and other sombre gentry, who are ever thrusting themselves in where we least expect them, and who chill every rising emotion of mirth and gayety.

He appears, however, to be so ravished with this sketch of festive pleasures, or perhaps with himself for having sketched them so well, that he closes with a couplet, which would not have disgraced a Sternhold:

These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

Of Mr. M.'s good intentions there can be no doubt; but we beg leave to remind him, that in every compact of this nature there are two opinions to be consulted. He presumes perhaps upon the poetical powers he has displayed, and considers them as irresistible;-for every one must observe in how different a strain he avows his attachment now and at

the opening of the poem. Then it was,

If I give thee honor due,

Mirth, admit me of thy crew.

But having, it should seem, established his pretensions, he now thinks it sufficient to give notice that he means to live with her, because he likes her.

literature if he had elected so to employ his talents. He wrote an easy, pure, and forcible style, and always good English. Indeed, he had direct hereditary claims that might have promised him distinction in this walk, for his mother's father, and the author of the Beggars' Opera, were brother's sons. By nature as well as name, too, as Doctor Copleston often pleasantly tells us, his mother was Gay and cheerful. She lived till she was ninety-two, and retained to the last her constitutional cheerfulness and good-humor. "It is delightful to think," says the good bishop, and very delightful to us to repeat what he says so kindly, "that this innocent playfulness and light-heartedness was not disturbed, even in extreme old age; there was no fretfulness, no pain, no fear, or anxiety about quitting this world. She seemed quietly to sleep away." His father had died some seven years before, being then eightytwo; and it is singular to remark the interest taken by the bishop throughout the latter years of his life in all ascertainable instances of longevity. probably arose from some unconscious connection of it in the instance of his parents with speculations as to the chance of his own age equalling theirs. He lived to seventy-three.

It

We should not omit to mention his continued love and reverence for those parents as one of the beautiful traits of his character. They are the first to whom all his joys and successes are told, and he is to the last their" dutiful and affectionate son."

The old gentleman must have had some proud and happy days among his sons and grandsons.

Nov. 6, 1828. My father and mother arrived from Exeter, both in good health-one near eighty, the other eighty-two.

Sunday, Nov. 9. My father and his grandson John served the church in the morning; my brother read prayers and I preached in the afternoon. This remarkable union of three generations in my native place made a strong impression upon us all, and upon the whole parish. Only two individuals of the congregation were there, whom my father found at his first coming to Offwell, in 1774.

Jan. 8, 1829. Dined at Fulham. The bishop had all his near relations there except his brother, viz., his father, mother, and two sisters. It is remarkable that this family coincides nearly with my own, viz., a father, mother, and two sisters, and we are the only bishops on the bench whose fathers are living.

It is pleasant to quote another passage from the diary in which the names of all his old opponents in the Edinburgh are good-naturedly mentioned.

May 15. Wrote a letter of remonstrance to Mr. Brougham, on the false charge against myself in an article on the Catholic question, in the ninetieth number of the Edinburgh Review, said to be written by him. He answered my letter by return of post very civilly, and stated that before he received my letter he had written to Jeffrey to correct the erroneous statements.

Upon the whole, Mr. Milton seems to be possessed of some fancy and talent for rhyming; two most dangerous endowments, which often unfit men for acting! June 11. It being necessary that I should hold a an useful part in life, without qualifying them for chapter at Chester on the 23rd, which might last some that which is great and brilliant. If it be true, as days, and to begin my residence there for the summer, we have heard, that he has declined advantageous I set out by way of Birmingham, having brought all prospects in business, for the sake of indulging his matters of college business to a settlement, and having poetical humor, we hope it is not yet too late to pre-seen the college in a tranquil, orderly state, which vail upon him to retract his resolution. With the seemed likely to continue till the 27th, the day of help of Cocker and common industry he may become commemoration. Sydney Smith was a fellow-pasa respectable scrivener; but it is not all the Zephyrs, and Auroras, and Corydons, and Thyrsises, aye nor his junketing Queen Mab, and drudging Goblins, that will ever make him a poet.

It can hardly be doubted that Doctor Copleston might have left behind him a considerable name in

senger. His facetious good-humor was highly amusing, as well to myself as to two young ladies, passengers, who were returning from Paris to Dublin with their brother.

But it must not be supposed, because Doctor Copleston defended Oxford against the extreme

position taken by the Edinburgh Reviewers, that not be passable for a coach-no one knew. We came he was by any means her thick and thin defender on next morning to Oxford-a procession of six against all assailants, however moderate or well- coaches-having traversed the fields again about four intentioned. We have seen this asserted more than miles, and passed a flock of wild geese feeding, which once, with how much truth let the following pas- took no notice of us, so severe was the weather. sage from one of his letters bear witness:

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GENEVA IN 1816.

When mystical divinity has had its run, perhaps I am very glad to hear so high a character given of the other purposes of life, for which our faculties her [Madame de Stael] by the most respectable were given us, will begin to receive due attention at families of the place. In England there seems to be Oxford. For the last two years, I understand, Oxford so strong a propensity towards detraction, that if has exhibited a practical specimen of the Caliph once a person (a lady especially) has attained to emiOmar's maxim-" Burn the books; if they are in nence, there are a thousand ill-natured stories circuaccordance with our faith they are useless; if against lated, in revenge for having carried off the prize of it, they ought to be destroyed.' Science and literature fame. Mrs. H. More has not been able to escape this will now, I trust, raise their heads again. persecution. For my own part, I think it fairer to trust the opinions of those who know the habits and manners of life of a person by long experience and frequent intercourse, instead of listening to some tale of single indiscretion, which is no evidence of general character; and as for writings, every one may judge for himself. Very different is the judgment of people here respecting Lord Byron, who has fixed himself on the neighborhood, but

His biographer also takes occasion to remark: I am not able to refer to any written sentiments of Dr. Copleston upon the subject of " A Commission of Inquiry into the State of our Universities," nor would I venture to ascribe to him any precise opinion as to the expediency or propriety of such interference. But it would be wrong to withhold here what will be in the recollection of many of Dr. Copleston's friends -namely, that he would sometimes express freely and strongly his regrets that some of our collegiate societies had not done more towards meeting the educational demands of the age. When Oxford was unjustly attacked as an ignorant and incompetent teacher of youth, she found her ablest defender in Dr. Copleston; but his candid mind refused to gloss over defects, which a partisan spirit might indeed plausibly excuse, but which could not, as he thought, be reconciled with impartial and enlarged views of duty. From the letters we subjoin other passages likely to interest the reader:

*

That sudden stop (which we presume to be the biographer's, not the letter-writer's) is very awful.

BROUGHAM'S ELOQUENCE.

Brougham's last speech on the Ashburton Treaty was a wonderful display of his greatest talents. Three hours and five minutes by the clock-no hesitation, no fault of a syllable, no defect in the arrangement, even of a sentence, much less of the matter of the argument, his periods varied, complicated, sometimes of vast length and amplitude, yet perfect in their structure, rich in epithets and imagery and rhythm, all delivered with the intonations which a practised actor would give to a well-known and often-repeated part, yet not one of these sentences apparently prepared

TRAVELLING FROM MAIDENHEAD TO OXFORD THIRTY- beforehand. He launches boldly on the ocean, tossed

SEVEN WINTERS AGO.

and turning as he goes along under the gusts of passion and imagination, yet secure of his course, and never for a moment impressing you with an idea of his danger. But, with all this, the event is transient. You do not go away convinced.

*

Copleston joined the Literary Club after he was a bishop, and puts into his diary some talk of Lord

Stowell's about it which reads like the harmless

twaddle with which our facetious friend Punch used to joke on this subject :

Lord Grenville sent me in his carriage to Maidenhead. When I came there no chaise was to be had, and I was obliged to come on outside a coach. It was the first day after an interval of four that the coach had travelled; and such was the state of the roads, that with great difficulty and much peril we reached Benson that night, twelve miles short of Oxford. Once we were upset-completely-all the outside passengers, seven in number, tossed over the hedge, happily into a deep bed of snow, and not the slightest injury done to any one. But as the dusk came on December 19. Called on Lord Stowell. Conversed our journey was most hazardous; the people on for some time about Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua, and horseback whom we met answered the anxious other members of the club. He seemed in gool inquiries of the coachman by advising him not to spirits, and pleased with talking on these subjects. proceed; but the day was near its close, and it seemed Johnson, he said, never liked to meet Gibbon at the too late to return. We were then six miles from club. Reynolds he now and then snapped rather Benson, obliged to leave the road, and drive over sharply. One day Reynolds had been relating a ploughed fields for at least five miles, often full gal-dream, which he thought curious, and ended with lop, for fear of being benighted. The coachman saying-" Locke would have made something of declared he knew nothing of the way, and was guided this." Upon which Johnson observed, "I don't only by a coach before us. Once, owing to some know, sir, what Locke would have made of it; I can accident in the harness, we were obliged to stop, lost make little indeed of it, sir." He thought it a silly sight of our leader, and the man exclaimed-" We thing in Reynolds to talk about it. are lost!" Upon our talking of walking, he strongly dissuaded it, and I believe with good reason; for it is impossible, without experience, to conceive the change Last evening, at M-'s, I had a very amicable in the whole aspect of the country, especially after argument with Lord M- on the wrongs of Ireland, daylight-the cold in the mean time intense, and the as he called them, and the excuses they furnished for snow so deep, that we could not have advanced two the turbulence and rebellious spirit of the Irish. The miles on foot from mere fatigue.-This, I believe, is rest of the company listened to us, and, I believe, felt the immediate cause of fatal accidents in snow. Per-I had the best of it, for the burden of my song wassons are soon exhausted who attempt to walk; they lie down, and never rise again. Under all these circumstances, we at length reached Benson, about 6 p.m., chiefly in consequence of having fetched up our way by a gallop till we got in sight of the leading coach, and that over ground which might or might

Our last extract is on a very old theme:

their wrongs have been in a progressive course of redress for the last sixty or seventy years, and yet in proportion to our good treatment has constantly been their increased violence and rancor. And now that they have nothing left to complain of, they say we repudiate the connection. This is not a generous, but

a servile spirit, (as I told him,) to behave worse in proportion as we behave better and kinder.

We recommend the last pregnant remark to the consideration of our Catholic fellow-countrymen in Ireland.

From the Times.

MR. THACKERAY'S FOURTH LECTURE.

within him dreams of future glory. He, too, should sing-he, too, should love. Of love, indeed, Pope did not make a great deal, and as his addresses to Lady Wortley Montague were a failure, so was his first amour a sham love for a sham mistress. A particular pleasure in reading the works of Pope consists in the fact that they bring the reader into the very best company-a company whose manners are, to be sure, a little stiff and stately, and whose voices are pitched somewhat beyond the ordinary THE fourth lecture on the "Humorists," which conversation key, but there is something ennobling was delivered by Mr. Thackeray, on Thursday, 19 about them. A propos of this peculiarity, Mr. June, was devoted to two stars of lesser magnitude Thackeray took occasion to dwell with great unc-namely, Prior and Gay, and one whom he re- tion on the advantages of high society, and said, garded as the most illustrious of all, namely, for the benefit of any young hearer who might be Alexander Pope. present, "Young hearer, keep company with your Matthew Prior he characterizes as the foremost betters." Addison, as we have seen, is Mr. of lucky wits, abounding in good-nature and acute-Thackeray's moral hero. He considers, however, ness. He loved he drank-he sang. Some verses that he has one great blemish in his dislike of at Cambridge first rendered him an object of notice, Alexander Pope. The young poet was too conand, by the " 'City Mouse and Country Mouse," which, jointly with Montague, he wrote against Dryden, and which, Mr. Thackeray ironically asserted, all his hearers knew, of course, by heart, he gained the post of secretary to the Embassy at the Hague, in accordance with the usage then prevalent of rewarding a talent for correct alcaics or biting epigrams with important diplomatic appointments. However, his fortune was but transient, since he fell with his patron Montague. As a poet, Mr. Thackeray praised Prior highly, calling him the most charming of English lyrists, and comparing him with Horace on one side and Moore on the other. At the same time he referred to a certain statement that Prior, after he had spent the evening with the first men of the day, would retire to Long-acre to smoke a pipe with two very intimate acquaintances-a soldier and his wife-adding that many of his writings seemed to be under the influence of his Long-acre friends.

66

Gay was pointed out as a remarkable instance of kindliness and good-humor, gaining the love even of the most savage wits of the day, and incurring the hatred of none. The ferocious giant, Swift, loved him as the Brobdignag loved Gulliver, and was afraid to open the packet which contained the tidings of his death. This kindliness is an especial feature in Gay's writings, even in his Beggars' Opera, and as Rubini was said to have une larme dans la voix," so was there in all that Gay produced a tone of the gentlest pathos. This peculiarity he illustrated by reading the wellknown story of the two devoted lovers struck dead by lightning. As for Gay's life, it was easy enough. He failed, indeed, to make his fortune, but he led a comfortable existence with his noble patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensbury, living like a little round French abbé, eating and drinking well, and growing more melancholy as he increased in fat.

But the grand hero of the lecture was Pope, for a guarantee of whose merits Mr. Thackeray especially referred to the Rape of the Lock and the Dunciad. He insisted on his claims to admiration as a great literary artist, always bent on the perfection of his work and gladly adopting the thoughts of others if they would serve to complete his own. This peculiarity of carefulness was early shown in the fact that Pope began by imitation. The five happiest years of his life were devoted to the study of the best authors, especially poets, and the intellectual enjoyment was heightened by the feeling that genius was throbbing in his heart and awakening

scious of his own powers to be a mere attendant at the court of King Joseph, and King Joseph did not like this independence. The support given by the Addison clique to Tickell's translation of Homer might naturally enough be construed by the Pope faction as proceeding from an ungenerous wish to depreciate their chieftain's version, and they might easily suppose that what was emulation in Tickell was envy in Addison. The verses which Pope wrote on this occasion and sent to Addison had the satisfactory effect that the great Joseph was civil ever afterwards. But still Mr. Thackeray surmised that their sting was never forgotten, and that the saintly Addison might be painted as a Sebastian, with this one arrow sticking in him.

The causes that led to the writing of the Dunciad were laid down, chiefly with a view of justifying the author, though Mr. Thackeray admitted that Pope's arrows are so sharp, and his slaughter so wholesale, that the reader's sympathies are often enlisted on the side of the devoted inhabitants of Grub street. The vile jokes and libels that were aimed against the illustrious poet, and the paltry allusions to his personal defects, were brought forward as sufficient motives; and the lecturer dwelt with admiration on the personal courage which the "gallant little cripple" displayed when the indignant dunces threatened him with corporeal chastisement. At the same time, he declared it his conviction that the Dunciad had done the greatest possible harm to the literary profession. Prior to its publication there were great prizes for literary men in the shape of government appointments, and the like; but Pope, a lover of high society-a man so refined that he kept thin while his friends grew fat-hated the rank and file of literature, and, if there was one point in his assailants on which he dwelt with savage partiality, it was their abject poverty. He it was who brought the notion of a vile Grub street before the minds of the general public; he it was who created such associations as author and rags-author and dirt-author and gin. The occupation of authorship became ignoble through his graphic descriptions of misery, and the literary profession was for a long time destroyed.

Pope's well-known affection for his mother, on which Mr. Thackeray feelingly expatiated, and the love which his friends entertained for him, were introduced as a sentimental relief in describing the character of a man whose career Mr. Thackeray compared to that of a great general, obtaining his end by a series of brilliant conquests.

From the Westminster Review. with the decline of the free cities, and their incor

schen Burgerthums. (History of the Cities of Germany, and of German Citizenship.) By F. W. Barthold. Leipsig: Weizel, 1850. London: Williams and Norgate.

If there is any literary subject to which the principle of the division of labor can be advantageously applied, it is to that of history. The business of collecting the facts which are to form the raw ma

terial of the historian is so different from that of

Geschichte der Deutschen Städte und des Deut-poration into the various monarchical states, that it sank into a political rank so far below what its extent, natural advantages, and high intellectual culture, might justly entitle it to hold. To trace the rise of these cities, the manner in which the ideas and the practice of liberty and self-government, so foreign to the middle ages, were gradually formed within them-to observe the conditions of their social life in the highest development which it attained, and point to the causes, for the most part, of internal corruption which led to their decay employing rightly the facts so collected, that they and the loss of their independence-this would be, are likely, in few instances, to be well performed either in a literary or a patriotic point of view, as by the same person. If the historian is required useful a task as a German could undertake. Mr. always to collect his materials at first-hand, his time Barthold proposes, besides, to present us with an and patience will often be exhausted before he com- animated picture of the domestic character of these mences what is properly his task; and what should remarkable communities; their manners and cushave been a history will turn out to be little more toms, their sport and their earnest; their trades than a contribution towards forming one. Of this unions; their strange quaint festivals; "their May we have an example in "Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell," which, whatever games and archery meetings; their feasts and drinking bouts, and mummeries; their geschlechter or its excellences, can, we think, scarcely be regarded in any other light than in that of a heap of well-patrician families; their Junker Courts and Artus Courts," and the whole grotesque, richly colored, arranged building materials. Yet, on the other but often harsh and stern system of their social life. hand, the danger of a historian taking his facts upon The materials for such a work as this would be, trust at second-hand is sufficiently obvious. If it however, by no means easy to obtain; they do not were not, we have recently had an example of that, lie near the surface, nor within any limited area; too, in the singular mistake of Mr. Macaulay, of but scattered about, and hidden in a thousand nooks which so much has been said. The business of and corners in almost every old city in Germany; collecting and verifying materials for the historian, and it is, possibly, to the difficulty of collecting though comparatively a humble one, is not by any and putting them together in even the roughest means so easy as it might appear. Of course, be- form, that we may attribute the author's failing, in fore all things, it needs to be executed conscien- a great measure, to fulfil the expectations the subtiously, and with unwearying diligence, and, unfor-jects had excited. The present work, besides, is, tunately, if ever so well performed, it would be, we imagine, little likely to bring to the laborer any harvest, either of praise or profit; it is, therefore, not at all surprising that such works are exceedingly rare, though in Germany, where the largest amount of literary labor is performed for the smallest possible remuneration, they are by no means so uncommon. Perhaps there are few ways in which the funds of literary societies can be more advantageously employed than in the encouragement of works of such high utility, but in which the general reading public must always take so slight an interest. Many literary "hands" also might be thus more usefully, and, we may add, more honorably, employed, than in the production of works of higher pretension, indeed, but predestined to the trunkmaker. To the historian, could he rely on such assistance, the advantage would be incalculable, of having papers and documents judiciously arranged for use, instead of having to dig them painfully from the quarry for himself. We have been led into these remarks by the consideration of the vol

ume before us.

The history of the cities of Germany is a theme highly deserving the labor of the historian. It is in their chronicles that we first find a refuge from the deplorable details of oppression and misery that for ages formed the history of the rural population of lords and serfs. It was the greatness of the free cities that afterwards raised Germany to so proud a position among the nations of Europe; it was *We allude, of course, to the charge brought against William Penn. We may, however, take this opportunity of expressing our conviction, (having had some occasion to look into that point long before the publication of Mr. Macaulay's history,) that though his mistake in this particular fact necessarily threw some discredit on his testimony, his general view of Penn's character was perfectly correct.

more extensive, to embrace the history of the "Gerwe find, only intended to form a part of one greatly man people, represented in the past and the present as a foundation for the future;" and, notwithstanding its extent, worked out in a no less elaborate manner. Should these promises be kept, we could hardly expect a work of less than three or four times the length of the Pictorial History of England; and could, perhaps, considering the somewhat dilatory habits of German literary men, scarcely look for its conclusion within the term of our natural lives. This, however, is not our present business, and we therefore proceed to give, as far as our space will admit, some idea of the contents of Professor Barthold's volume.

Among the ancient Germanic tribes, there were, as we know, no towns at all. They abhorred towns; and when they began to discontinue their wandering habits, they preferred fixing themselves in scattered dwellings, where a spring, a field, or a wood, took their fancy. From this preference for rural attractions, may be explained the great number of German names of places ending in the born, bach, feld, hain, holtz, wald, &c.,) spring, field, grove, wood, forest,) time having changed those lonely dwellings into villages and towns.

The Romans had, in the course of the first cen

tury, established firmly their dominion in South Western Germany, and covered it with prosperous colonies and stately municipalities, adorned with temples, theatres, baths, aqueducts, and all the conveniences of the southern houses; they had con nected them with roads and bridges, and brought to them the corn, vegetables, and fruits of their happier climate; but the magnificence of their creations did not, it appears, excite in the wild Germans any desire to possess them. They sought only to destroy. By the end of the fifth century nearly all

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