The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1867-12-31
Literary.

| The OLD ROMAN WORLD: The Grandeur and Failure OF
| its Civilization. BY John Lord, LID. New York
Charles Scribner & Co.: 1867. Charleston-John Rus
sell.
DR.. Lord is professionally a lecturer on history.
| Without the resources either of an original inves-
tigator or a profound scholar, he contents him.
SELF with the comparatively easy task OF complla-
ton. He requires that his statements shall be
/ taken on trust, for few authorities are adduced in
the margin of his work. Indeed, the omission is
| claimed as a distinguishing excellence. ga fellow
of Christ's Church, says the author, contemptu-
ously referring to the pupils of the accomplished
and painstaking Arnold, may demand authorities,
even if he never consults one of them, but E. men,
Der of Congress may wish to see learning en-
bodied in the text and animated by genius after
the fashion of the ancient historians, who never
| quoted their sources of knowledge. The ages in
/ which thew fiourished attached no value to pedan-
| tic DISPLAYS of labor, or evidences Of learning pa
| raded in foot-notesl" The members of Congress
| will. no doubt, be thankful for the suggestion. 1t
| is refreshing to know that henceforll' history re-
| quires no vouchers, and law, the function OF Rome,
| no paraded authorities and no pedantic irQce1ents;
and that fact and right are no longer 10 re studied
in the Old monuments, where, with revrent hands,
| Bunsen, Niebuhr and Arnold have bushed away
| the lichen and deepened the holy rule, but must
be honored as embodied" in living men. AL
| thing are new nowadays. Why should not the
sold Roman World" be rejuvenated into q modern
| commonplace-blown into a gauiy balloon for
Buncombe-carved into q wooden nutmeg forcon-
venient handling for purposes Of trade.
We would not deal hardly witt DR.. Lord. We
would not reject the lecture from the curriculum
of popular education. We welcome the lecturer,
whose object is not so much tc communicate new
and profound truth as to ~createa taste for historic
| studies, to convey to the popuhr mind tho more
| important results of learned investigation, to in
\ terest the fancy and the feelings Of men in the
| great events, institutions and characters bcqueath-
cd to us by the past. But let lot this nero GEM
| pier of the works and reporter OF the achieve
ruents of others forset observation-disclosures Tho
: Uloeonite int6e historic sanctuary, the IL c.atten-
| dant at its altars-the newer Of wood and the drawer
of water-provokes laughter when he personates
| the high-priests who minister at the secret shrine.
He constrains us to tell him that he forgets his
place.
We must also insist that the compiler who TN
dertakes to give an abstract shall con6ne himself
to his subject. We really do not understand how
the old Roman World is chargeable with the wick
edness of the Southern rebellion Up. ~, or the sin
of American slavery Up. 599), and cannot remem-
Der any instance in which those g~raceless ibellers,
Plautus, or Lucian, have held up the Puritans of
New England to ridicule Up. SOY. We do not un-
derstand why to Pagan antiquity should be as
signed the honor of proclaiming DR.. Lords bran
new opinions upon every subject whatever
whether literary or scientific, ! social, moral or re-
igious. Perhaps we are not as thankful as We
should be when standing iii pensive thought upon
q Wondering arch Of the Colosseum and beholding
in rapt fancy the procession of the ages. We find
ourselves summoned to look upon q puppet show,
where Romulus, the Era Of Force, and Numa, the
Era of Law, become historic and march arm In
arm with Augustus and Rienzi (ch. iii.)-where
Grant fraternizes with Frederick the Great, and
Sherman with Marlborough Up. a), and Ambrose
and Augustine, Watts and Wesley, Luther and
| Heber, interchange their hymns Up. 598).
and even if such incongruities could be pardon
| cd on the score that a lecturer cannot be q critic,
and that his sketches must be we'll spiced with
| historic illusions, yet the introduction of a whole
| chapter on Greek philosophy (ch. viii. }, and Of q
| hall chapter Of Greek g%eniuses among the Roman
| Iiteati (ch. vii J, and again Of u third chapter of
| Greeks, under the heading Scientific knowledge
among the Romans" (ch. ix.), c~onstrain the con-
| vic6on that DR.. Lord was more concerned about
the size than the symmetry Of his production. 81
must cite" he urges, ''the examples Of Grecian as
| wellas Roman genius, since Greece became o part
of that grand empire, and since Grecian and Ro-
man culture is mixed up and blended together
| Why not, also, introduce q dissertation upon the
Isis worship of Egypt, which found a place in the
Romsr.i dolatry; and another upon the oracies of
that holier faith which silenced The Sybils, and
overthrow the affairs of the Pantheon? Or would
| it no. have been better still to devote a chapter to
the Roman spirit, to the topography Of the metrop-
| oils, to the genius of the language and people, to
that peculiar municipal civilizationHto which we're
| due the success Of the commonwealth and the
overthrow Of the empire-in a word, 10 have given
us q philosophical idea Of that a Old Roman
| World2 What We want is a monograph, not IN
encyclopedia.
Our author gets hopelessly e~ntangled in the
multitude OF details. His style becomes involved.
He con:radicts himself-sometimes in the same
paragraph, as in his critique on Aeschylus who
combined religious feelings with lofty morel SEN
timent" (p. 1861, but who 'was proud and impa-
tient, and whose poetry was rather religious than
moral" u. 26~6)-sometimes in the same sentence,
as in his critique on Sophocles Up. 267), who "has
no rival, Shakespeare alone excepted, in the whole
realm Of dramatic poetry, unless it be Aeschylus
himself" he is u-ngrammatical. AS in his no.
tice of Cicero Up. 1881, of whom he says: "It was
| in forensic eloquence that he was pre-eminent, and
in which be hal but one equal in modern times.
He is puerile and absurd, as Shen he says OF the
| Stagyrite with Aristotle ethics formed only one
branch ofhis attention" (p. 1897, or of the writer's
OF history: sSome will be minute and others gen.
e%ralizing' Up. 2s0). His loose sentences run out
into knots and strings like the tail Of a kite; as,
for example, that which brings Demosthenes to
his grave .p. 295l: 'Recalled from exile, on the
| death OF Alexander, he reused himself for the de-
~liverance Of Greece without success, and, hunted
| by his enemies, he took poison in the sixty-third
year OF his age, having vainly commended for the
freedom Of his country ,-one OF the noblest spirits
of antiquity, spotless in his public career, andlofty
! in his private life" The extrayagances OF our
author defy computation dictionary and grammar
are tortured for superlatives to celebrate a2clont
| glory; it is 'unrivalled, " "never surpassed" per
feet in art, " more perfect, " absolute perfecticn,"
'matchless, " ''priceless, =" 'inimitable, "tran seem
dent" Each ancient genius is the greatest OF
men. Herodotus mastered everything;" Thuci-
dydes enjoyed a proud pre-eminence," and was
supriyalled;' Caesar was a 'transcendent genius,
the most august name of antiquity" Tacltus held
sthe highest rank as a historian, :" and was equal
to Ihucidydes." In lyric poetry the author claims
that the Greeks attained to absolute perfection,
having the richest collection Of odes that the world
has produced; yet, a few pages altor, ne ADMITS
that "it is in lyric poetry that the moderns have
chiefly excelled the ancents' (pp. 265, 27S)'
But enough of DR.. John Lord. Handsomely
bound, beautifully printed, superficial, chatty,
often s~prightly, sometimes eloquent, his book will
find acceptance among a certain class of readers.
It's errors will not harm them. Its various intor-