The Sun.
London, England, 1821-12-27 00:00:00

GUY'S POCKET CYCLOP,EDIA.

Paris, 1821.

This day was published, the Eighth Edition, containing a co-
pious List of Authorities, to which the Student is referred
for more extended Information, in 12mo. price es. bound, of
rrIIE POCKET CYCLOPEDIA; or Mis-
cellany cellany of UseCnl Knowledge, from the latest and best
Authorities, designed as a Clim-book for Senior Scholars, and
for young Persons in general; containing much useful In-
formation on various Subjects necessary to be known by all
Persons, and yet not to be found in Books of General Use in
Schools.

By JOSEPH GUY,
Formerly Professor of Geography, at the Royal Military Co',

lege, Great Marlow.
••• Young people, after receiving what is termed a genteel
education, have been often found ignorant of the nature and
quality of the numerous objects with which they are sur-
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cations together properly supply the information. To remedy
this grand defect, and furnish young persons before they
leave school, or on their first appearance in the busy scenes
.of life, with a regular course of digested and connected in-
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censure if ignorant, bat a gentleman or lady above twenty
would he inexcusable without some tolerable acquaintance
with subjects that occur in every conversation, and in every
newspaper, and which have some connection with every ob-
ject that presents itself in life.
London : Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, Pater-
noster•row ; by whom are also published, the following
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I. GUY'S SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY, with seven Maps,
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1. The English School Grammar, sth Edition, price is. 6d

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FOREIGN LITERATURE.

No. MIL
VOYAGES de POLYCLETE, i. e. Travels of Polycletus ;
or Roman Letters. By the Baron de THEIS. 3 vols. Bvo.

History relates only the principal acts of the
life of a people. It describes their intestine
struggles, their foreign wars ; but in these vast
pictures which exhibit the birth, growth, exten-
sion, and decay of societies, an essential part of
man is lost, because in these masses minute de-
tails are unavoidably imperceptible. The part
omitted, however, is not the least interesting : it
consists of the dometic life of a nation, corn-
prizing its familiar habits, its manners, and

usages.
Our view is bounded : we cannot seize every
thing at the same moment ; 'we occupy only a
part of duration and space-; w€: cannot say and
hear every thing at one time e iwnce that neces-
sity of distributing all human knowledge into di-
visions which we call sciences or arts; and hence

also that inability of grasping at the same instant
the masses and the details of any one subject.
History, therefore, describes the events of the
State, but it does not paint those of families ; it
shews us one instant man disputing in the public
square, but it does not follow him from the pub-
lic square to his fire-side; it neither exhibits his
dwelling nor the form of his garments, nor his re-
lations with his wife:. and children ; it does not
follow him to his amusements pr-the theatres ; it
does not shew: us how he -employs 'bis .leisure,
how he reasons on the laws, on justice, on morals.,
and on the Divinity. Nomenclators and scholars
furnish us, in alphabetical chapter and order,
with all that-Thueydides, Livy, or Tacitus have
not stated respecting-the life of the Greeks and
Romans : but who has the courage to go through
enormous volumes in order to ascertain how na-
tions lived who have disappeared from the globe
centuries past ?
.A scholar who. bad passed many years in stu- '
dying Grecian literature and history, without
.losing in these dry researches the, powers of his
imagination, felt the necessity of animating those
precious details of the life, of ,nations ; he did
not exhibit armour and dresses, as -they are sus-
pended in museums, but he clothed the Greeks
with their ;he -made them move before-the eyes
of the reader ; -bedid not explain their mode of
thinking and speech, hut made them talk and
shew themselves in their conversation. This was

. _
paintilg, and not, as some do, drawing out an in-
ventory. The author of- Anacharsis was the crea-
tor of a genuine species of writing as necessary.
as history itself, and which ought to relate
those particulars into which, Ole latter cannot
enter. •ti .

Ever?, tiiing:thafsatisfies:a.desire of the-human
mind is surety rodtice lively sensation. The
work of :--Bartlietem:delighted his age ; a new
and grand, coirreption' a happy. execution, and_a
continual flow of elegance,.justify_the•success of
this beautiful- production, and promise to render
it permanent. 'Still it must be • admitted that it
is a modern .work -on an antique subject ; and
while we admire it according to its merit, we
may be permitted -to wish that it possessed, not
greater:niaterial fidelity, but a little more appa-
rent'rettlity in the tone, a little of the beautiful
antique of Telemachus. It is, notwithstanding,
a model of taste, which does honour to . the
author and his country.
We were. prepared to -expect new essays of
this nature, for success always excites .emulation.
The unfavourable appellation of imitators should
not, hoWever, be given to those-who- come. after
Barthelemy, for they are-no more deserving of
that reproach than the later
.historians can be
called the imitators of the earlier ones, becaUse
like them they related human events.. To paint
the manners of a people -after Anacharsis, and
with the same means, is to cultivate a true style,
which is highly necessary, and in which no dis-
tinction should be made between, the first And
the last corners, except that of talent.
After Greece there remained Rome ; and the
subject, though very different, was not less grand,
and demanded an able painter ; he has been
found in M. de Theis. We announce this work
as a very remarkable production, and though we
have many observations to make on the manner
in which the subject is treated, we shall offer
them with the respect due to such an important
composition, and the length of time bestowed on
it. The time of man is precious, and when a
great portion of it is devoted to a single work,
we ought to respect the object on which it is em-
ployed. Criticism is not permitted to decide in
a moment of levity, with a dash of the pen, on
what has cost nearly the whole of a man's exist-
ence to accomplish.
Greece presented not so vast a subject as
Rome, but more varied :—a family of republics
always divided,except in times of common danger;
Athens, Sparta, Thebes, that is to say Epami-
noudas, succeeding one another in ruling over
resisting Greece ; a • hundred towns, a hundred
worships, a hundred systems ; the Arts almost
brought to perfection, the Sciences at least budding
forth ; the heroic times at its origin, extreme civi-
lization and its disgusting attendants at the end ;
every kind of genius, from the grandest and
richest imagination to the most ingenious subtlety,
all the degrees of intelligence, from the penetra-
tion of the Athenian to the stupidity of the
Boeotian; every description of manners, extreme
austerity and extreme licentiousness ; every form
of government, from democracy to absolute mo-
narchy.; lastly, a condensed view of humanity
and its phenomena in a few islands and a small
continent; this was the subject which presented

itself to Barthelemy, and to which he has given
motion and life.

Rome exhibited quite another spectacle :
city raised by robbers on an usurped soil, peopled
by them with ravished wives, and which marched
with a firm and sure step, sometimes faster and
at other times slower, to the conquest of the
world ; a single people, a single character, a
single passion, that of aggrandizing itself ; a long
and bloody contest between the high and low
orders which interrupted not conquests and ended
in despotism ; grave and serious habits, a pro-
found love of country, a supernatural heroism,
a passionate taste for the Arts, and, in spite of
an excessive pride, an .humble imitation of the
Greeks ; lastly, extremes of all kinds ; and after
the passion of grandeur that of frivolities and the
most unheard of luxury ; such is Rome, and this
subject, though less rich, less general and exhibit-
ing less than Greece the different varieties of
man, presents however a large portion of humanity,
and requires a vigorous pencil.
The most important consideration is a good
selection of the period. That which M. de Theis
has chosen is no doubt very grand : the wars of
Marius and Sylla form a vast picture ; the figure
of Sylla itself, the greatest and the most charac-
teristic perhaps contained in history, was one
motive for preferring this period. Rome, be-
sides, had nearly achieved her conquests ; she
was on the point of ceasing to be virtuous, and
she was rich ; so many reasons determined, and
perhaps misled, M. de Theis.
Time has, like space, a perspective; we ought
to place ourselves there, and be able to compre-
hend every thing in an able sketch. Rome was
at first austere, frugal, and disinterested, and
afterwards rapacious and addicted to every spe.,
cies of debauchery and luxury. All this should
appear in the same picture ; and since
.we can go
back to the past by recitals, as we have always
the resource of an antique family representing
olden ages, and since we cannot, on the con-
trary, anticipate the future, except by a magic
shield, bearing in relief the destinies of a people,
which is only allowable in epic poetryi it is al-
ways better to place ourselves in later, than in
earlier times..
Under Sylla, Greece was scarcely known ;
the new manners were not then introduced
Cicero had not yet spoken, and Lucullus had not
given any banquets in the hall of Apollo: Every
thing is. best 'appreciated by • contrasts.. The
most striking moment among a people •is that
wheit'ancient and modern manners come in oppo-
sition„ .for the contest gives things all their
energy. The ancient austerity- reappeared with
a kind of excess in Cato ; the republic, its man
tiers, its liberty; all ancient Rome, in short,
struggling and tatting with the hero of Utica;
Caesar. or modern Rome, armed with the good
will of the soldiery, assisted by every species of
seduction, and powerful as a single mind, a de-
spotic sway; Cicero placed between them, moral
because he..was enlightened, and,• because he
was enlightened loving also all that was sub-
lime and beautiful; .the new aura; Cicero
going from Cato- to Caesar, • and negociating
be-
tween the two; all this exhibited the picture of
republican Rome and of imperial Rome, and here
it is that we ought to place ourselves.- We know
that. the republic died under Sylla ;:or rather,
we think, she was condemned under Sylla, and
did not really die until the time of Caesar and
Augtistus. llowever, there is nothing irreparable.
What a.number of good works err in a funda-
mental point. That of M. de Theis, however,
is possessed of considerable merit.
We have another observation to make, of a
much more serious nature, which is, that the
vast picture of M. de Theis wants action. PO-
lycletus is at Rome, but he is there without
terest, regretting continually his country, taking
part in nothing, recounting by letters what he
sees, as an author would by chapters. Man is a
curious and inquisitive being, but curiosity may.
be fatigued ; new manners, customs, and'us'ages
excite attention, but they must be clothed in
forms, and, if they are inanimate, the eye is tired
with beholding them. We do not mean to say
that he should have written a romance ; but he
ought to have , composed an historic drama.---
The passions of the human heart are not what
is required to be made known to us ; but
there is a certain point at which the passions
operate only in animating characters and manners,
and this is the precise point which the author
should have seized.. It was not necessary that
Polycletus should come to Italy to be in love, for
Mitliridates in love displeases us ; but he ought
to have taken part in passing events, mix himself
up in all the concerns of Rome, examine the
various classes, and pass from private to public
life. The friend of a young Roman, and the
husband, if you please, of a Roman Lady, cm-
bracing one- party, he ought to have attached
himself to their concerns by making them his own.
We expected, for instance, to see a conqueror en-
joying the honours of a triumph, in whom we should
have taken an interest, as connected with Polycle-
tus, to walk with him over the sacred way, to live in
short at Rome the same day. In all these things
have we been disappointed : we have only found
some pages,, which tell us what was done at the
Capitol on these great occasions.
e therefore venture to say, that though this
production is of considerable importance, yet it
is deficient of spirit and animation. After an
eminently dramatic opening, the beauties of
which shall he hereafter noticed, we arrive at
Rome, we languish there with Polycletus, who
describes incessantly, and who finishes, after an
accurate and faithful nomenclature, 'by tracing
some scenes of the civil warp very beautiful, it is