ed over them, not through his own military power, but through their internal dissensions. As it was, unanimity was preserved by never broaching subjects that were liable to dispute.

The moderation of the patriots in another respect afforded an additional guaranty of their subsequent success. They were not animated by a spirit of propagandism; they had no new theories to be preached to other nations, and no restless desire for extending the sphere and influence even of those opinions of the truth of which they were thoroughly convinced. It was deemed important, it is true, for military purposes, to get possession of Canada; but the expedition sent out for this purpose was exclusively a military affair, not a republican crusade. The arms and munitions of war captured at Ticonderoga and Crown Point had been of material service to them; and it was deemed of great importance to secure in addition the stores in a place so well furnished as Quebec, and thereby, also, to protect New England and New York against invasion from the north. It was an expedition to conquer, not convert, the French Canadians, although unquestionably some hopes were entertained that the inhabitants of a province so recently subdued by the British would not be unwilling, on the whole, to shake off their yoke, though they should not, by so doing, return to their former allegiance to France. The expedition failed because it was not actively supported by the Canadians, who had so long regarded the English colonists as their nearest and most dangerous enemies, that they could not now be brought to act in concert with them. With this exception, the leaders of the American Revolution maintained strictly a defensive warfare; whatever their own opinions were, as to the fitness of the people to govern themselves without the aid of kings and nobles, they sought not to disseminate them. It was fortunate for them that they practised this reserve, as a different course would have excited the jealousy of other European governments, without whose coöperation the war might have been indefinitely protracted. Louis XVI. would not have been over anxious to support their cause, had he foreseen that the principles which they were defending were soon to cause the subversion of his own government, and bring his own head to the block. It was not by professions of irreconcilable hostility to monarchical institutions that Dr. Franklin, Deane,

Lee, and others obtained at first secret aid, and afterwards treaties of open alliance from the courts of France, Holland, and Spain.

If, in enumerating these characteristics of the American Revolution in its earliest stage, we seem to have dwelt in preference on those by which it is broadly distinguished from all the revolutions that have subsequently taken place in Europe, and which have nominally had the same object in view, that of vindicating the rights of the people against their oppressors, we answer, that none have been mentioned which were not evidently essential to the success of the movement, while they were at the same time highly honorable to the wisdom and the patriotism of the chief actors in it. If these remarks, then, tend to chill the ardor of our sympathy with the recent revolutionary attempts in Europe, they tend in the same degree to exalt our veneration for the memory, and our attachment to the principles, of the men who achieved our own national independence, and established our national institutions. We are too zealously attached to American republicanism, too proud of it, and too jealous of its spotless reputation, to be willing to see it confounded with any form of French Jacobinism, or with the Red Republican and Socialist theories which are now agitating all the great capitals of Europe, and menacing the whole continent with anarchy, if not with a return of barbarism. Thank God, our own great national crisis was not blotted with any of the excesses which have made the cause of republicanism in the Old World hopeless for at least a century to come! Our cause was not stained with blood shed by the assassin, nor with any of the heart-sickening brutalities which always attend a contest waged in the streets of a great capital by one class of the population against another. The battle was long and hotly contested; but the ranks arrayed on either side were actuated in the main by noble and generous sentiments, and did not seek to increase the necessary horrors of war by causeless atrocities. If the tomahawk and the scalping knife were brandished in it, they were in the hands of the Indians who knew no other weapons, and of an alliance with whom both parties had the grace to be more than half ashamed, while they did all that was in their power to restrain their savage impulses. And the earlier scenes, of

which we now particularly speak, were not polluted by any gratuitous horrors. In spite of the embittered feelings which always grow out of a contest that partakes of the nature of a civil war, the combatants showed an evident desire to spare the needless effusion of blood, and to lighten the misfortunes of the vanquished. And the hostile feelings which had raged during the strife subsided entirely at its close. Some of the Tories returned to us; all, we believe, might have done so with impunity. There was probably but one man the Traitor who could not safely have landed upon our shores after peace was declared.

Edmund Burke was a consistent and steadfast friend to the Colonies throughout the war. He advocated their cause, he defended their rights, he eulogized their conduct, in some of the noblest of those speeches, which will live as long as the master-pieces of Greek and Roman oratory. But some fifteen years afterwards, when his wisdom was matured and his eloquence rendered more impressive by age, though he had lost nothing of his youthful enthusiasm and fervid admiration of freedom, he denounced with equal energy and still more thrilling effect the principles and the men of the first French Revolution. He had worshipped the true Goddess of Liberty, but he would not bow down before the blood-stained idol which the Parisians had set up. He could not sympathize with the destroyers of the Bastile after they had raised the guillotine in its place. He could not admire those who had opened the prison-doors for the victims of royal despotism, after they closed them again upon crowds of aged priests and helpless women, whom they subsequently butchered in cold blood. And who dares now accuse Burke of inconsistency for the opposite views which he took of the American and the French Revolutions? Who does not rather admire the penetrating sagacity which detected at so early a day the true character of the French imposture, and the prophetic wisdom which set forth the terrible effects that it was about to produce in Europe? His reflections on the French Revolution are now often published in the same volume with his noble speeches on American Taxation and on Conciliation with America; and the firmness and consistency of his political principles cannot be duly appreciated if they are not studied together.

We need not here extend this comparison to the attempts which have been made during the last two years to carry out revolutionary principles in most of the countries of Europe. The end of these is not yet, and he must be a bold prophet who will venture to estimate all their probable consequences, whether for good or evil. But enough of their true character has already appeared to teach caution to those who are inclined to exult at every instance of rebellion against the established governments of Europe, and to award to the insurgents the glory of acting as the champions or the martyrs of true republican principles. The question is not, whether the ancient monarchical institutions of the several states of Germany and Italy are deserving of our respect as the best which the people of those countries are capable of maintaining; or whether they are administered, on the whole, as kindly and wisely as circumstances will permit. The answer to both these questions, we fear, must be decidedly in the negative. But a graver doubt arises, whether the rebellion against them proceeds from an enlightened love of freedom, or from an impatience of any law or wholesome restraint whatsoever; whether the people of the whole country, of whatever class or locality, are engaged in it, or whether it is a revolt only of the dregs of the populace of a great city against the other classes in the state, and against the power which has hitherto curbed their licentious and savage inclinations; whether the insurgents are likely, if successful, to establish a more wise and equitable government than that which they have destroyed, or whether, the single demon of royal despotism being expelled, seven other devils of anarchy and popular cruelty and licentiousness are not likely to enter in, and make the latter state of that nation worse than the first. We cannot sympathize with every revolt against government and law, though it be dignified with the name of a revolution against monarchy; even if a pope, a king, or a nobility be among its first victims. We first require some evidence, that the actors in it and the motives by which they were urged bear some resemblance to the characters and principles of the men who established our own independence and founded our national institutions. And it is on this account, among others, that we attribute so much importance to the study of the details, the minute.

- no, not

history, of the American Revolution, together with its causes and consequences. The Siege of Boston, as we have said, is now an old story, and it has been often told; but we have more reason to recur to it with attention and honest pride, than the inhabitants of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Milan, Naples, and Rome have to rejoice in the history of their own renowned cities during the last eventful year of European Revolutions.

ART. VII.-1. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiqui ties. Edited by WILLIAM SMITH, LL. D.

Second Edition. Boston: Little & Brown; London: John Murray. 1849. 8vo. pp. 1293.

2. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Edited by WILLIAM SMITH, LL. D. Boston: Little & Brown; London: John Murray. 1849. 3 vols. 8vo.

It is a very common thing to compare the scholars of the present age disadvantageously with their predecessors. "There were giants in those days" is often quoted, implying that in these days the earth is inhabited only by pigmies. If there were giants, it should be remembered that these overgrown and misshapen monsters are exceedingly apt to be weak in the knees. A similar notion prevailed for a long time with regard to the comparative stature of the doughty champions of chivalry, and their supposed degenerate descendants. But the Eglington tournament, if it did no other good, dispelled this illusion, by showing that the rusty armor of the Middle Ages was considerably too small for the sturdy limbs that then and there essayed to put it on. If we cannot wear the mailed coats of the olden time, it is for another reason than because we are not big enough to fill them out. Diomedes says, so may say the scholars of our times:

Ημεῖς τοι πατέρων μέγ' ἀμείνονες ευχόμεθ ̓ εἶναι.

As

Let us not be accused of irreverence towards the great names of the past. We pause with unspeakable awe before the mighty tomes of Grævius and Gronovius; we contemplate Fabricius with distant respect. We never think of Tiberius