The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-05 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

is a neatly-written puff, and nothing more :
through fifty-four closely-printed pages, wi
upwards of forty lines in each page, there is
hardly a single word of dispraise. " The
Laureate can do no wrong," is the one princi-
ple of the writer's criticism : " sapiens uno
" minor est Jove . . . rex denique regnm,
" pra3cipue sanus," even "cum pituita molesta
" est:" under the influence of which disorder,
in rather an aggravated form, we imagine Mr.
Tennyson's last poem to have been composed.
The last paper, on "Education and Classi-
cal Stldies," is a pleasantly-written, chatty,
and sensible defence of the good old system
of classical and mathematical training against
the inroads of new notions, or, as Mr Carlyle
would say, a few good words for " old clo'."
Mr. Clark would still make the study of Greek
and Latin, of pure and mixed mathematics,
compulsory on all members of a university,
as a means of training the three great mental
faculties, reason, memory, and imagination.
The arguments which he employs are not new;
but they are agreeable and forcibly placed be-
fore the reader, and will be perhaps more
readily accepted in the present day, inasmuch
as the author does candidly acknowledge the
past deficiencies of Cambridge in satisfying
the requirements of professional education.
We have been obliged to omit from our list
the two essays on " The British Navy " and on
the " Limitations to Severity in War," both
subjects of considerable interest just at pre-
sent., but both rather loosely treated. The
latter paper is written iu a spirit of com-
mendable impartiality, and attempts to estab-
lish principles which, if carried out, would be
eminently beneficial to humanity.

History of Rome. By Henry G. Liddell, D.D.,

Dean of Christ Church, late Head Master of

Westminster School. London : Murray.
IN feasts of literature, as in less intellectual
repasts, there is often danger, either of a sur-
feit as to digestion, or of appetite as to taste.
" Too much" not only sickens the body but
palls the palate; and hence the great masters
of the culinary art cater for variety. Authors
and artists adopt similar precautions against
monotony. Unhappily for reviewers, the case
is different. We are compelled to be critical
upon new works. We cannot adjourn our
examination of important books, even though
too many of one kind appear together; and it
is with some feelings of apprehension that we
observe five volumes of history from two dis-
tinguished Deans of the Church side by side
with those of the picturesque Macaulay.
We feel reassured, however, on recollecting
that the historical volumes of Mr. Macaulay,
the Dean of St. Paul's ("History of Latin
Christianity," vols. iv., v., and vi.), and the
work now before us, are totally different as to
tone, style, object, and execution. Mr.
Macaulay wrote to the reading public at large.
His audience in coffee-houses, as well as
colleges, was always present to his mind. In
Dean Milinan's important work the author
chiefly regarded scholastic readers, divinity
students, and a few philosophical inquirers
unattached to the great Universities. Dean
Liddell, on the other hand, desired to meet a
pressing want of the time. All parties are
agreed that a good history of Rome for schools
is much required. An annotated and revised
" Goldsmith " will not answer the purpose.
Even in school-books there must necessarily
be some reference to the revolutions that have
taken place in what we shall call the science
of Roman history.
Dean Liddell long since proposed, as he tells
us, to meet this want ; he then laid by his
work, and afterwards took it up, and enlarged
it into the present form We turned to his
volumes with much interest. The Dean's
popularity at Westminster School was well
deserved, and it is a security that he will be
efficient in his new post at Oxford, where his
practical intellect and conciliating disposition
will be eminently valuable. Yet our respect
for the character of the estimable Dean must
not be allowed to bias our critical opinion of
the author. The qualities required in the
head of a great English school, and in a popu-
lar historian, are not likely to be frequently
united,

mrsz--;

SATURDAY,

Dean Liddell's performance is too learned
for a school-book, and scarcely finished enough
for a complete history of Rome. The two
volumes contain nearly a thousand pages ; and
it is satisfactory that the work is ended, un-
like the several fragmentary histories which
have been offered to the public within the last
few years. Its greatest merit is the vast quan-
tity of valuable matter compressed into it; ex•
tensive information of the sources of Roman
history, under its German interpreters, is dis-
played. Its greatest defects are, that the
author evidently vacillated between a mere
school-book and a history for a higher audi-
ence, and, last but not least, that the charms of
style have scarcely in any place been applied
to his theme.

The arrangement of the matter is also in
many respects unsatisfactory. The first chap.
ter commences with a geographical description
of Italy, in which present and past are mingled
together, much in the style of one of Dr.
Arnold's early lectures on Roman history.
Then the author proceeds to narrate the first
legends of Rome, and in his fifth chapter he
discusses their authenticity. But, after re-
verting again to the stream of narrative, we
find him applying his sixteenth chapter also
to the sources of Roman history. Nor is this
a solitary instance of want of due arrangement.
In his third chapter (p 59) Dean Liddell
writes, " This will be a convenient opportunity
" to give some account of the city of Rome,
" with its hills, walls, and gates," and enters
upon the topic. Afterwards, in the sixth
chapter of his second book (p. 91), the Dean
again disserts upon the description of the
city. This returning to a half-treated topic
has a most crude appearance. In his discus-
sion of the social classes of Rome similar de-
fects may be observed.
The style does not compensate for this want
of method. Colloquial, and almost affectedly
idiomatic, the author disregards the aid of
effect. The Stirling drama of the Punic wars,
than which in the whole of ancient or modern
history no story is m're rich in grand vicissi-
tudes land lasting human interest, is not
spiritedly told by Dean Liddell. His matter
is generally well selected, but his manner is
too dry. An historian may be too stinted in
the use of colour ; its abuse by some recent
writers is not to banish its aid in proper
places.
Yet we confess that we have found some-
thing most agreeable in the austere simplicity
of Dean Liddell's English style. its homely
flavour is wholesome to the literary taste after
the seasoned dainties of Mr. Macaulay and
the favourite• French historians of the time.
There is a copious stock of good Saxon words
throughout the text, and we never read a
history of Rome with so few polysyllables.
The quantity of matter in the work, as we said,
is its leading merit. All the main facts of the
Roman annals are narrated. The sentences are
not spun out, reflections are sparse, episodes
are avoided, and ingenious dissertations are
not introduced to show the author's learning.
It is not easy by extracts to show its character,
but as it is an important publication we shall
select some representative passages.

We doubt whether Dean Liddell has distinct
appreciation of the genesis of the historical
myth. The subject did not escape the atten-
tion of ancient critics ; and even after all that
Niebuhr and others have written, it contains a
mine of unexplored thought. The grand
Asiatic myths have not been sufficiently cons-
pared with those of classical antiquity, and
the schools of Hegel and Strauss have added
many fallacies to the true philosJphy of the
Mythus. In trying to mark the distinction
between the heroical and religious myth, Dean
Liddell observes of the Greek legends:—

The direct and easy way in which the imagination of
such persons accounts for marvellous phenomena is to
refer them to the operation of persons. When the atten-
tion is excited by the regular movements of sun and moon
and stars, by the alternations of day and night, by the re•
currence of the seasons, by the rising and falling of the
seas, by the ceaseless flow of rivers, by the gathering of
clouds, by the rolling of thunder and the flashing of light-
ning, by the operation of life in the vegetable and animal
worlds—in short, by any exhibition of an active and motive
power—it is natural for uninstructed minds to consider
such changes and movements as the work of divine per-
sons. In this manner the early Greek legends associate
themselves with personiflcation of the powers of Nature.
All attempts to account for the marvels which surround us

P

dothkitv 5, 1856.

are foregone—weverything is referred to the Immediate ope-
ration of a god. " Cloud-compelling " 'Lens Is the anthot
of the phenomena of the air ; " earth-shaking " Poseidon
of all that happens in the water under the earth; nymphs
are attached to every spring and tree ; Demeter, or Mother
Earth, for six months rep ces in the presence of Proser-
pine, the green herb, her daughter, and for sik months
regrets her absence in dark abodes beneath the earth.
This tendency to deify the powers of Nature is doe
partly to a cleat atmosphere and sonny climate, which in-
clines a people to live much in the open air in close com-
minion with all that nature offers to charm the senses and
excite the imagination, partly to the character of the people,
and partly to the poets who in early times have wrought
these legendary tales into works, which are teed with in-
creased delight in ages when science and method have
banished the simple faith which procared acceptance fcr
the legends.
Too much is here attributed to " the personi•
" fication of the powers of Nature " by the
Greeks. Even in the majority of the legends
of that most imaginative people there is a
positive foundation (more or less) of some
actual historical truth. The myths of the
deeds of Hercules, the Argonautin expedition,
the wanderings and adventures of Ulysses,
cannot by any means be considered as mere re
presentations of generalised thoughts, founded
on a poetical personification of the powers of
Nature. We agree with Julius Miiller in
thinking that the whole Grecian mythology rests
upon an historical basis (or, as that learned
Gerinan.put it "upon a copious recollection
" of an earlier and nobler period, and upon
" the deeds and destiny of a more powerful
" race." The complex nature of the philosophy
of the myth is visible in the variety of
meanings in which the word has been em-
ployed by poets, philosophers, and critics.
Suidas explains "myth" as "a speech of
" falsehood imaging the truth "—a meaning
foreign to the use of the word by the EDielt-
retina, though it is used by Plato frequently,
as in the " Republic," in order to denote by it
the fictions by which the nurse and mother
ought, to form the mind of children, though
the dialogue afterwards distinguishes between
the various kinds of myths. Unfortunately,
"the nurses" have a vast work in false educa-
tion. Dryden writes :

By education must have been misled,
So we believe because we so were bred.
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.
Nations, like individuals, have their childhood
and old age. A special examination of the
myths that have been produce" in ages of
decline would be most interesting.
There is too much looseness of assertion in
the following passage
This tendency to hero-worship, which is indicated by
the prevalence of the heroic legend, generally exerts its
influence to a very late period in a nation's life, or rather
it may be said never to die away entirely. A correeter
natural philosophy has banished from most minds this
belief in particular divine beings exercising particular in-
fluence on streams, and skies, and trees. But no sooner
does a man occupy any space in the public mind than all
kinds of tales concerning his sayings and doings pass cur-
cut from mouth to mouth, and things are believed of him
either for good or evil which have very slender Foundation
in truth. To children their parents, to young people their
masters, to grown men their poets and philosophers, their
statesmen and generals, or any one who raises himself
above the crowd by extraordinary 'talons, good or bad,
have an existence more or less mythical; that is, they are
the heroes of many tales, which are unconsciously in-
vented, transmitted, altered, magnified, and believed. Edu-
cation and the press have done much to diminish this
propensity to inytliology—the more persons are brought
into immediate contact with the great the more are they
disabused of imaginative fancies with regard to them. But
the spirit can never wholly be eradicated, nor Indeed Is its
eradication productive of unmixed good. It is Impossible
to conceive a society of men so penetrated by philosophical
culture as to have become incapable of inventing and re-
ceiving legendary tales in some shape or other.

" A correcter natural philosophy " could
have had little influence on nationt in the
peculiar social state of the Romans; and what
was the influence of physics amongst them,
when the later emperors took to deifying
themselves ?
We think also that mixingup " hero-worship"
(as it is understood in our time) with the
consideration of historical myths, tends to
confusion. Sarcastic critics might see in the
foregoing passage a vein of remark not in•
apin•opriate to Mr. Macaulay's semi-deification
of King William. The New Zealander will
doubtless have opportunities of subtilising his
intellect in the history of (to quote Dean
Liddell's words) " heroes of many tales, which
" arc unconsciously invented, transmitted,