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Mezzofanti's System of Learning Languages Applied to the Study of French. Second French Reader. Illustrated with historical, geographical, philosophical and philological notices. By I. ROEMER, Professor of the French language and literature in the New York Free Academy. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1851. 12mo. pp. 478.

We do not find many traces of Mezzofanti's system in this volume-or the system of any one else-but we have a large number of extracts from recent and living French writers, giving us the language as actually used by the best writers of the present time.

Poems by Grace Greenwood. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields. New Haven: Thomas H. Pease. 1851.

The lady who bears this nom de plume, pleases the public so well with her prose, that they certainly will be glad to see a volume of her poetry. She does not give them her real name, but she condescends to give them a sight of her portrait, which will attract some buyers to the book.

Christ Knocking at the Door of Sinners' Hearts; or, a solemn entreaty to receive the Savior and his Gospel, in this the day of Mercy. By Rev. JOHN FLAVEL. 1689. Revised edition. Published by the American Tract Society, 150 Nassau street, New York. 12mo. pp. 400.

Repentance, Explained to the Understanding of the Young. By Rev. CHARLES, WALKER, D. D., pp. 80, 18mo., with frontispiece.

Faith, Explained to the Understanding of the Young. By Rev. CHARLES WALKER, D. D., pp. 92, 18mo., with frontispiece.

These two volumes present the doctrines of Repentance and Faith in their practical bearing, with a simplicity of thought and style adapted to the young. The subjects are chiefly exhibited in the form of narrative, especially in the history of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Daniel, David, Peter, and the Prodigal son.

Life Inexplicable, Except as a Probation. A discourse delivered in the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rhinebeck, New York, July 15, 1849, at the funeral of Mrs. Catherine Garretson. By STEPHEN OLIN, D. D. New York: Lane & Scott. 1851.

Mrs. Garretson was esteemed a remarkable example of Christian excellence while she lived. She shed the lustre of eminent piety upon a large circle of persons of wealth and influence, upon the banks of the Hudson, and died in the triumph of faith at the age of ninety-six. This sermon is an interesting memorial of her worth.

The Life of John Randolph, of Roanoke. umes. New York: D. Appleton & Geo. S. Appleton, 164 Chesnut street. 83 Chapel street.

By HUGH A. GARLAND. Two volCo., 200 Broadway. Philadelphia: 1850. New Haven: T. H. Pease,

These are intensely interesting volumes. We shall speak of them hereafter.

The Country Year-Book; or, The Field, The Forest, and The Fireside. By WILLIAM HOWITT, author of the "Book of the Seasons," "Rural Life in England," &c. New York: Harper & Brothers, 82 Cliff street. 1850. The general character of the writings of this author is so well understood as to preclude the necessity of any special remarks upon the present work. Popular Education: For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of both Sexes. Prepared and published in accordance with a resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan. By IRA MAYHEW, A. M. Late Superintendent of public instruction. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 82 Cliff street. 1851. This work is made up of lectures delivered before the legislature of Michigan. It contains many interesting facts and useful suggestions. We hope it may have an extensive circulation.

THE

NEW ENGLANDER.

No. XXXIV.

MAY, 185 1.

ART. I. THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE.

A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Antient Greece. By WILLIAM MURE of Caldwell. London: Longman & Co. 1850. 3 vols. 8vo.

In looking at the three substantial octavos of which this work consists, and thinking then how scanty are the extant relics of the literature which it describes, the general reader may be pardoned if he feels that there is a want of proportion between text and commentary. The poems of Homer and of Hesiod, with a few thousand lines of epic and lyric fragments-such is all that remains to us from the ante-Pisistratic literature of Greece. Of the imposing edifice we find two noble halls still in tolerable preservation; a few entire columns more or less defaced: and a multitude of dispersed and mutilated fragments. And some will feel, that, however magnificent may have been the original structure, it is scarcely worth while to bestow so much of time and pains upon its broken ruins. The wreck, however, is not so complete and hopeless, as might, at first view, be imagined. Many works, which have been lost, are more or less known to us in their general character and contents. In many instances, where only the title, the subject of a piece, has been handed down to us, the analogy of surviving pieces enables us to divine the treatment of the author. We must own indeed that much is left in the dark: many puzzling questions present themselves, which we are not able, and in all human probability, never shall be able to answer. Yet on the whole it is not too much to affirm, that we are in condition to obtain, as regards all the main 11

VOL. IX.

points, a tolerable conception of this ancient and ill-preserved literature. The scope and compass of its subjects, the modes in which they were handled, the forms and styles that distinguished it, the ideas that informed it, the spirit that animated it-are, or may be, known to the critical scholar. He has the means of knowledge in his hands it is his own fault, if he does not use them rightly.

We do not mean to represent the literary historian of this period as proposing to himself an easy task. His materials lie scattered up and down through the whole range of ancient literature. Many are to be sought in the arid pages of grammarians and scholiasts, on which no man would think of entering, unless prompted by the selfsacrificing spirit of scientific adventure. Much patient diligence is necessary to collect them: and much judicious combination to elicit from them, when collected, the results which they are capable of yielding. Nor is it to be wondered at, if the inquirer, after arriving at his conclusions by this tedious process, should estimate their value by the trouble they have cost him, and reproduce in his report the slow prolixity of his investigation.

The literature discussed in this work is one which eminently deserves a full and thorough study. Though exclusively poetical, and indeed confined to three departments of poetry, the epic, didactic, and lyrical, it was yet wonderful for its variety and richness. The epic style of Homer is everywhere distinguished for its dramatic character, and in many parts is little more than a continuous dialogue. The didactic poetry embraced many subjects of religion, morals, social order and the economy of life, which at a later period were regarded as falling more properly within the province of prose composition. As to the lyric poetry of the early time, there is no end to its varieties, of matter and of form. It is elegiac, autobiographical, satirical, sentimental, political, and everything else, according to the mood of the writer and the circumstances that environ him. But apart from its intrinsic interest, this primitive literature has claims on our regard, as being the starting point and the basis of all Grecian culture. If we wish to understand any phenomenon, we must study it in its beginnings. And this is the more necessary in the literature of Greece, as it was to a great extent self-developed not, like a house, built up with materials gathered from different quarters, but shooting up, like a tree, by steady natural growth, on its own soil and from its own roots. Thus it happens, that even works, which we mourn as lost, are not completely lost to us they have disappeared from the world, yet they have not perished altogether: though dead, they did not wholly die: they survive in their results. Something of Archilochus and Sappho yet remains to us in Pindar and Sophocles, in Plato and Aristotle, even in Herodotus and Thucydides and Demosthenes. The earlier author still addresses us through the eloquent lips of his successors:

he acts upon us still through that general Grecian culture, to which he has contributed a substantive portion of elements and influences, and which, in its integral form, is destined to exert an indestructible influence on the thinking of the world. To study his works, whether in the fragments that remain to us, or in the scattered notices of ancient writers, or in the learned restorations of modern scholars, is no more than an act of natural piety on our part: it is tracing our own intellectual genealogy-going back to the authentic ancestors of our own minds.

The obscurity, which hangs over the subjects of this work, makes it difficult to treat them with succinctness. History here must often give place to discussion. Instead of concise, perspicuous statements of undoubted truth, we are forced to content ourselves with uncertain estimations of conflicting probabilities. Discussions of this nature, if not drawn out with fullness, are liable to become unintelligible and repulsive to all but the scientific reader. And whatever may be the subject of a work, time is always an essential element of its effect. That which is held up to view for an instant, to be as instantly withdrawn, can take but little hold upon the reader's interest, and will make no permanent impression on his memory. It is only where an author can assume a previous familiarity with his subject, or expect that his work will be read with careful study, that he can safely go to the extreme of brevity. The History of Greek Literature, written by K. O. Müller, and published by the Useful Knowledge Society, may be mentioned as an illustration of this remark. Though a most original and valuable work, its conciseness must preclude it from gaining general popularity. Unfortunately too it was never completed. The untimely, though not inappropriate death of its lamented author, in Greece, and in the cause of Greek archæology, interrupted this with many other plans, which promised fair for the advancement of classical learning.

The work now before us, is evidently not addressed exclusively to an audience of scholars. In presenting the results of his long continued and widely extended researches, the author has endeavored to set them forth in a popular form, such as may command the interest and attention of the general reader. If in this attempt he has sometimes failed between two scarcely compatible objects-if he should seem too learned for the general reader, and too popular for the scholar-it is a difficulty inherent in the nature of the undertaking. He has perhaps surmounted it as well as could have been expected. He has not the brilliant declamation with which Bulwer has illustrated the literature of Athens: nor has he that freshness of thought and honest strength of expression which give a singular charm to the literary chapters of Grote. His style is carefully elaborated, but lacks force and point. The thought does not always fill the words that invest it, and moves tardily and cumbrously

under the burthen of its draperies. The reader may grow weary with the slow progression and the measured uniformity of his author; and in his impatience may stigmatize him as tedious and long winded. But the most impatient reader will not deny that he is clear, sensible, ingenious, and in general fair-minded. At times, we seem to detect something that looks like special pleading-a disposition to press into his service all that can be said in favor of his proposition. Yet on the whole he impresses us strongly as an honest, diligent and successful seeker after truth. His work is the thoughtful production of a thoroughly accomplished scholar, a standard authority on the subject which it treats.

ture.

The author appears perhaps to least advantage in the higher department of literary criticism; which, however, does not occupy any very large space in his work. Thus, his comparative estimate of ancient and modern literature is exceedingly superficial and unsatisfactory. He confines himself to two points, the greater variety of modern, the greater originality and formal beauty of ancient literaSo far he is in the main right enough; but he has left out of view many most characteristic and important points of difference. He says nothing as to the diverse treatment of external nature : nothing as to the greater complexity of form, which distinguishes the literature of modern times and nothing as to its greater depth. of spiritual life and feeling. In point of taste, he prefers Racine to Shakspeare, as being more chaste; that is, as he explains it, conforming more perfectly to the ideal laws of art. He maintains, indeed, that in modern times, originality and artistic perfection have appeared as incompatible qualities, the one diminishing with the progress of the other. It must not be supposed, however, that he condemns indiscriminately every departure from the ancient models. He draws a just distinction between the principles and the rules of composition principles of universal truth and application-rules for particular cases which vary with the different data and conditions of each different case. And in this sense he affirms, what in this sense no one would think of denying, that the classic and the romantic are both alike subject to the same principles of beauty. The difficulty would be to determine in each instance whether a given form were to be referred to the class of special rules, or brought under the category of general principles. Mure insists, that the genuine principles of dramatic art, as recognized by the Grecians, and valid for all time, exclude the mixture of the serious and burlesque and we may presume, though he does not expressly say it, that this is one of the particulars in which Shakspeare showed his deficiency as an artist. But he has not attempted to prove, that the contrast of these elements must always be offensive, and can never subserve the purposes of art. And this he hardly seems to hold for the same principle must extend, we should suppose, to

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