temporaneous history, all branches of ler's shop at Lugdunum, and, no doubt, literature were allowed full scope; so that still more gratified at seeing his own "the license, which was extended to works among the books which had most writings at this period, was undoubtedly recently arrived from Rome. The inaccepted by the great mass of the rising fluence of philosophy over a people who generation of educated men, as compen- have not received the light of revelation, sation for the restraints imposed upon is always a deeply interesting study; and, them in active life." Literary acquire- in this branch of literature one name ments became the fashion; and no person, stands prominently forward at this period: with pretensions to rank as a gentleman, it is that of Seneca. No writings, perhaps, was without his ephemerides, or common- of a heathen author breathe a more genuplace book, into which he copied extracts ine spirit of philanthropy; no others, from distinguished authors, or wrote his perhaps, can be found to contain like inown observations on men and things. dications of a political liberality and largeThere are constant allusions in Juvenal ness of view. "Virtue," he says in one to the mania for writing, to the inflictions place, "embraces all men together-freedto which the clients and debtors of long-men, slaves, and kings. We are born to winded and prosy authors had to submit, a common inheritance; wisdom invites to the public recitations at the baths of all the new publications. Measured by the standard of our own days, the activity of some Latin authors is appalling. We smile on reading that Nero himself proposed to write a history of the affairs of Rome, and that a flatterer suggested that the work ought to extend to at least four hundred volumes; but the vast compilations of the Emperor Claudius, of Servilius Nonianus, and Aufidius Bassus, were not only written, but found readers. The elder Pliny, besides composing his celebrated encyclopædia and other works, made extracts, and notes of conversations, which extended, at his death, to one hundred and sixty volumes.

In estimating the influence of this oppressive mass of information, we must be careful not to exaggerate the effect of the modern invention of printing. Some of our readers may be astonished to learn that "curious calculations have been made, to show that the rapidity with which copies could be multiplied by hand from dictation, was little less than that of printing. It is not impossible that a limited number of copies, a hundred for instance, could be written off quicker at the librarian's workshop, than a single one could be set up in type by the printer." The labor employed was, of course, that of slaves; but so abundant was it, that a book of Martial, containing seven hundred lines, "smoothed with pumice, and elegantly bound," could be had for 3s. 4d., whilst inferior copies were sold for 1s. 6d., and some even as low as 4d. These

prices caused a demand for literature even in the provinces, and the younger Pliny was agreeably surprised to find a booksel

the human race to live together in amity." But his practice was strangely inconsistent with his principles. Although the clemency of Nero, at the outset of his reign, is generally attributed to the influence of the philosopher, it would have been well for Seneca's reputation if he had never been associated with'the imperial court. It is, indeed, impossible fairly to balance all the difficulties by which he was beset; we can never know how great was the danger that Agrippina would recover her sway over the mind of her son, or how far the disposition of the prince rendered compliance to some extent with his vices the only means of maintaining any hold upon him. But we are unable to trace in Seneca any high objects, to attain which he might have deceived himself into the necessity for doing evil that good might come. He supported, indeed, the authority of the Senate, as a counterfoil to the intrigues of Agrippina; but not with the intention of raising up a firm and legitimate check on the power of the Emperor. We are hardly able to reconcile Mr. Merivale's estimate of his character with the accounts which he has given us of his conduct.

Seneca's view, of tempering tyranny is to edu"The only mode," says our author, "in cate the tyrant himself in virtue. His was the self-denial of the Christians, but without their anticipated compensation. It seems impossible to doubt that in his highest flights of rhetoric— and no man ever recommended the unattainable with a finer grace-Seneca must have felt that he was laboring to build up a house without foundations; that his system, as Caius said of his style, was sand without lime. He was surely not unconscious of the inconsistency of his own position, as a public man and a minister,

with the theories to which he had wedded himself; and of the impossibility of preserving in it the purity of his character as a philosopher or a man. He was aware that, in the existing state of society at Rome, wealth was necessary to men high in station; wealth alone could retain influence, and a poor minister became at once contemptible. The distributor of the imperial favors must have his banquets, his receptions, his slaves and freedmen; he must possess the means of attracting, if not of bribing; he must not seem too virtuous, too austere, among an evil generation; in order to do good at all, he must swim with the stream, however polluted it might be. All this inconsistency Seneca must have contemplated without blenching; and there is something touching in the serenity he preserved amidst the conflict that must have perpetually raged between his natural sense and his acquired principles. Both Cicero and Seneca were men of many weaknesses, and we remark them the more because both

Stoic philosopher. And even if he had a clearer conception of what was true, to what purpose was it to proclaim that virtue was objective, except that he might be the better able to comprehend and obey its demands? By all the greater amount of conviction with which he was endued, the heavier should be our condenmnation of Seneca's crimes. Nor can we comprehend in what sense he can be said to have had "a heart for conversion to Christianity." There have been men amongst the Heathen who seemed to desire, above all things, the knowledge of truth, and to have hearts to follow it, when known, at all risks: to such men these words might be applied-but such was not Seneca.

Whilst it was becoming more and more

were pretenders to unusual strength of charac-manifest that the heathen philosophy was ter: but while Cicero lapsed into political powerless to regenerate mankind, the errors, Seneca can not be absolved of actual providence of God was preparing the soil crime. Nevertheless, if we may compare the of Rome for the reception of the seed of greatest masters of Roman wisdom together, Divine truth. An elaborate account of the Stoic will appear, I think, the more earnest the state of religion at Rome, exhibiting of the two, the more anxious to do his duty for combined research and accuracy, is a feaits own sake, the more sensible of the claims of mankind upon him for such precepts of virtu- ture of the present volume. There is a ous living as he had to give. In an age of unmasterly sketch of the growing influence belief and compromise, he taught that truth of the Jewish residents. We seem to was positive, and virtue objective. He conceiv- see their marked features, their strong ed, what never entered Cicero's mind, the idea national enthusiasm contrasting strangely of improving his fellow-creatures: he had, what with the prevailing indifference, their Cicero had not, a heart for conversion to Christ-proud exclusiveness in a land where they ianity."-Pp. 293, 294.

Now we are obliged to admit that none of Mr. Merivale's decisions have puzzled us so much as that just quoted. It should be remembered that he believes Seneca to have been privy to some of Nero's most unnatural crimes-to have approved of the murder of Agrippina by her own child-to have not only approved but even planned the the viler enormity of giving poison to the youthful Britannicus, and the detestable hypocrisy with which upon his brother's death Nero claimed the sympathy of the Senate as the sole remaining offspring of the Cæsars. In all this Mr. Merivale traces the hand of a master in state-craft, and can only ascribe it to one man. Nor was Seneca's character free from disgraceful stains in a private capacity: and the revolt in Britain is said to have been due to his rapacity, and to his sudden calling in of the sums which he had put out at an enormous rate of interest. In these respects, at any rate, Cicero will contrast favorably with the

were regarded as inferiors, forming a large and widely mixed, but still a separate, element in Roman society. "They thronged together in particular quarters of the city, which they almost made their own; their numbers soon amounted to many thousands; and the turbulence which was early remarked as characteristic of them, caused the Senate to regard them with jealousy, its orators to de nounce them as dangerous subjects." But they secured the patronage of Julius and Augustus; they were permitted to exer cise their own form of worship; and the mysteriousness of their faith, and the earnestness of its followers, made a great impression upon the Roman mind. To dally with Judaism became a fashionable excitement; "the Emperor's palace itself seems to have been a nursery of Jewish usages and opinions. The Columbaria of Claudius, recently discovered, reveal a number of Hebrew names among the imperial freedmen." We may be sure that those who compassed sea and land to make one proselyte did not neglect the oppor

thorities, I crave a fair consideration for another | mained comparatively uninjured, the Dosuggestion that the suspicions of the Roman mus Transitoria by which they were mob were directed against the turbulent Jews, connected fell a prey to the flames. This notorious for their appeal to the name of Christ, building seems to have been composed of as an expected prince or leader: that these

fanatics, arrested and questioned, not so much a series of galleries built upon open of the burning as of their political creed, sought arches, which allowed a free circulation of to implicate the true disciples, known to them the traffic below them: the new colonand hated by them, however obscure and inof-nades are said to have been three in numfensive in Roman eyes, in the same charge: ber, and each of them a mile in length. that the true Christians, thus associated in the charge of Christ-worship, avowed the fact in their own sense, a sense which their judges did not care to discriminate: that the believers became thus more or less sufferers, though doubly innocent, both of the fire and of political disaffection: finally, that our historians, misled by this false information, finding that the name of Christ was the common shibboleth of the vic-painting, precious stones, and statuary; amidst tims, too readily imagined that the persecution was directed against Christians only."- Pp. 280, 281.

It was in vain, however, that Nero enavored to divert the suspicion that he I himself caused the destruction of the ient city. It had been the boast of ustus, that he had found Rome of and left it of marble; but Nero was Is still further to beautify the city, ignify it with his own name. It confessed that the plans of the nent for the rebuilding were carwith a vigor and decision that amazing. The construction of ved portions of the metropolis, the enormous palace of the as to have been completed in The whole appearance of hanged. The long, narrow, is disappeared, the old ItaTre was every where supGrecian style, marble and lace of brick or wood, at ment stories, even of the Subura, whilst open very block of the new the alteration. We new city was more ly than that which it isers of the good old ed the loss of the narrow lanes had aze of an Italian provements were ence with which Mr. Merivale uspicion of the out the golden ilst the palace atine, and the Esquiline, re

"But the epithet of 'golden,' which this palace obtained, was derived from the splendid decorations which distinguished it. Externally it was adorned with all the luxury of art and taste at their highest eminence, with gilded roofs and sculptured friezes, and panels of many-colored marble. Within, it was a rich museum of

the rubbish of its long-ruined chambers some of the choicest works of ancient art have been discovered, and the modern frescoes which we most admire seem to have been copied by stolen glimpses from walls unveiled for a moment and again shrouded in darkness. The grand entrance from the Forum and the Sacred Way was adorned with a marble statue of the Emperor, one hundred and twenty feet in hight, the colossus which afterwards gave its name to the amphitheater of Vespasian. When Nero at last took possession of this gorgeous habitation, he remarked complacently that now he was lodged as a man should be."-Pp. 175, 176.

Had the despot, however, been possessed of foresight, he might have seen the natural result of his extravagance. To carry out such huge undertakings, vast sums of money were required, and the provinces groaned under the weight of taxes, although disguised with the name of free gifts. A deeper wound still was inflicted by the violent seizure of works of art which had long been the pride of the subject States, and were the last mementoes of more glorious days, whose memory was pleasant, though their fruits were lost; and they had hitherto been spared or even restored to them by former Emperors. When once the storm began to gather, there was but little power in the government to allay or to resist it; and although the reign of Nero lasted yet a few years, its ultimate overthrow might probably be traced to the Golden House, as that of the Bourbons to the building of Versailles.

We must refer our readers to Mr. Merivale's pages for an account of the closing years of Nero's reign. At his death the sacred family of Julius, the god-sprung race of Venus and Anchises, was extinct but the character of his suc

tunities which were thus afforded them, I of persons who were fully instructed in the to tell to listening ears the wonders of system of the law. Sinai, or to dilate upon the glories yet to be revealed at the coming of Messiah. But at length the "strangers of Rome," on returning from the Penecostal feast at Jerusalem, proclaimed that Messiah is already come, has suffered for sin and risen again; that the long line of prophecies has been fulfilled in a Child of the house of David; and they found those who were prepared to believe the testimony, and to rejoice in an inward witness vouchsafed to them of its truth.

The persecution of the Christians in the reign of Nero has long been a subject of difficulty to historians. That the sect was deemed to be inoffensive, is proved by the release of St. Paul after an imprisonment of two years' duration: and the suddenness of the storm which broke over them the year following is unaccounted for by any historical facts. We are told, indeed, in the well-known words of Tactitus, that the Emperor denounced them as the authors of the fire which consumed the city, Most interesting is it to be able to "in order to propitiate the popular feeltrace in the remote past any point in which ing; for none others were so detested for the lines of civil and religious history cut their strange and mischievous superstition, one another, or are for a time united. or so generally held guilty of the most Such a point of contact we have in St. abominable crimes, of the crime, indeed, Paul's journey to Rome. With our of hatred towards the whole human knowledge of the eventual success of his race;" but no facts are alleged to account mission, what a profound importance at- for this hatred. Nor is there any thing taches to the visit of the Apostle of the in the known habits and teaching of early Gentiles to the capital of the Roman Christianity which can explain the existworld! And yet the wildest dreamer ence of such a disposition. On the concould not have pictured a conqueror in trary, it is matter of history that the first more unlikely guise than that of the Jew- converts quietly pursued their customary ish prisoner. But contrast him for an in- avocations, that their teachers carefully stant with the master of heathen philoso- inculcated obedience to the existing phy of whom we have spoken above. authorities, and that in all external rites, None knew better than St. Paul-witness not involving the worship of idols, they the opening of his Epistle to the Romans followed the customs of the people -how widely the flood-gates of iniquity amongst whom they dwelt. Christianity, had been opened, and how universal was indeed, up to a later period, attracted but the spread of the contamination; but no little attention at Rome; and when "the thought of the least compromise with evil offense of the cross" began to be experever influenced his mind: none knew bet-ienced, and the lives of the disciples were ter than he-for he was well acquainted with heathen learning-what difficulties beset the introduction of Christianity; but he was confident that it would yet prevail. If we can trace in his words, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel," a sense of the contumely by which it would be met, his conduct proved the full conviction that it was the power of God unto salvation. But we must not linger over a tempting theme. Some acute remarks will be found in the work before us on the character of the Church in Rome, as gathered from St. Paul's letter addressed to it. We pass by with the remark, that if the logical and argumentative form into which it is cast proves that it was intended for well-educated readers, the whole line of argument, and the numerous allusions to Jewish customs, proved that, if not mainly of Hebrew extraction, the Church at Rome was at least composed

felt to be a reproach to those who came into contact with them, their antipathy found its vent in far milder language than that which Tacitus and Suetonius employ. Such being the case, it was suggested by Gibbon that the Roman authors were mistaken in applying the name of Christians to the sufferers, and that the fury of the populace and the Emperor fell, not upon the Church, but upon the Jews. We know not how much weight should be attached to the supposition of Dr. Milman, "that the popular fury against the Christians, and the belief in their guilt, were caused by their vaunts of an impending conflagration of the world." Mr. Merivale has started a theory which fairly meets the necessities of the case, and may at least lay claim to much ingenuity.

"For myself," he says, "perplexed by the received accounts, yet scrupling to admit such entire misapprehension on the part of our au