The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

MAY 9, 1857.

•
If a ray of light could be imagined conscious that in
taking the course prescribed by the law of retraction it
were tollowin4 the principle of least action, and by choice
selecting the shortest and easiest ratite compatible with
the conditions offered by the refracting medium, this
would be a far less wonderful result than that the tin•
conscious mechanically-conatituted series of waves in an
insensible ether, or of molecules in a projected beam,
should by necessity fulfil such a law, as a consequence of
their pre-ordained nature combined with that of the media
they traverse. In like manner, that a conscious iminate-
rial agent should by volition perform intellectual acts
through the medium of an organised brain, would be a
far less wonderful case, than that the brain itself, by the
mere action of determinate physical causes, should itself
be the agent of thought. The materialistic doctrine, it it
were trite, so far trom being derogatory to designing wisdom
and power, would, in fact, present a far higher and more
striking instance of it.

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Mr. Bridges essay upon " The Jews of
Europe in the Middle Ages " will be found by
many persons the most attractive in the
number—it deals with so nitwit new matter,
and is written in so SZ pirited and masculine a
style. It has, we believe, already received the
stamp of Academic approval in the shape of
the Arnold Prize, but it will not be on that
account the less novel to the general public.
The opening paragraph is very happy :

The story of the Jews in the middle ages deserves to be
told, for reasons of very different kinds. It is a tragedy
self niale, and more terrible than any poet's fiction. It
has, too, the interest of all masterpieces, that we are fami-
liar with all that has gone before. Our childhood is nursed
with tales of the childhood of the Jewish nation. Peace•
ful patriarchal families coalescing into a tribe, creeping
with stealthy defiance from the treacherous hospitality of
Egypt, hardened by their desert life, and moulded into a
nation of w•trriors by the greatest of lawgivers, shattering
the giant Aniskim by the force of faith and law, and giving
birth to sublime prophets and a long line of kings i—such.
is the ancient story, which we know far better than the
tale of Saxon, l)ane, and Norman. But the line of con-
tinuity is strangely broken. We follow them into their
exile, their happy restoration, the magnificent fury of their
last defiance, and then we lose them utterly for many
centuries, to find them in the present day rising once
again from misery and defilement, reverend, like (E,liptis,
for age and sorrow, and gifts not earthly; shunned, like
fur memories of awful and mysterious sin.

The prospect of the restoration of the Jews
leads Mr. Bridges into some general reflec-
tions upon national permanence which we fear
are a little extravagant. The assertion that a
great nation never dies is pleasant from its
very boldness; but unless the words be used
in some " non-natural sense," we see not how
it is reconeileable with facts. Nor do we
attribute any very great weight even to the
examples he adduces. We do not see how the
fact that certain Roman customs exist in Italy
at the present day moves that the Romans
and the Italians are the same people.
Mr. Sella'. on Thucydides is sober, thought•
ful, and substantial. Some of the best parts
of his essay are those devoted to the speeches
introduced into the historian's narrative. He
says generally : . . .

The iirominen-ce assigned to such speeches is sometimes
complained of as a defect in the ancient historians. These
addresses certainly are at variance with the pure idea of
his'ory, the natural function of which is to represent only
what actually has been done or said, not what might have
been done or said. It is not necessary here to vindicate
the practice of other writers; but of Thncyilides it may be
sAid that he lived in an age and in a State,in which public
speech was not only a real power, but was indeed the chief
mover of action. In the free States of the modern world,
where the press contributes so much to the formation of
public opinion, and where so many impediments to sudden
political movements exist, the influence of oratory is weak,
compared with what it was upon the Athenians from the
age of Pericles to that of Demosthenes. In the history of
the Peloponnesian war we find sometimes a second
day's debate altering intentions, and on one occasion
reversing a most important resolution, which wouldother-
wise have been followed by immediate conger-penes.

The reader may consult with advantage some
remarks of Lord Bolingbroke upon this subject
in the " Spirit of Patriotism." His words are
a curious anticipation of Mr. SeHar's on the
prominence of oratory in both Greek and
Roman statesmanship.
It does not appear to us that the de-
scription of character and motives, and
the habit of summing up what can be
said on either side, which we find in the
Pages of Thueydides, is in reality any greater
departure from histoi ie truth than is to be met
with in modern writers. In Mr. Macaulay,
for instance, the cases of conflicting parties
are often stated at considerable length, and
differ only in form from the harangues in
Thucydides and Livy. He does not attempt
to put their arguments as the men themselves
would have done in a popular assembly, but
rather as they would come out from the revi-