The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-20
Ferrero's Ancient Rome
 And Modern America"
GA REVIEW
By A. LATADY

It has been said: Critics are but brushers to better mems clothes" and as rule they amount to but little more having eyes to inspect a site-not con template the heavens.
 Reviewers" are however of a wor- thier class and to association with the latter is the aspiration of the Re viewer" of Ancient Rome and Mod ern America" by Dr. William Ferrero, (G. P. Putnam's Sons. Publishers, New York City.)
 With ancient Rome and the streets, alleys. by-ways and cul-de-sacs there of, and with the habitues of her public places, Dr. Ferrero the Italian historian is as familiar as is our ancient friend Grote with Greece; and the larger part of his book, owing to this same famil- iarity with ancient Rome, and the un- pretentious style of Ferrero, may be likened in it's persual to the perfect companionship established between the reader and the writer by such an one as DeFoe, during the reading of whose works the reader feels as though DeFoe were his auditor. or that DeFoe was reading aloud; or that the reader and the writer were pouring over the work together
 perfect cordfality is established be- tween them, and this is especially true of the chapters of the Third part of the book. Italians have a genius for his tory which they inherit from their Roman ancestors who had the vantage place of the very ground plan of a great people to build upon, and in that peculiars-Lranch of effort known as "comparative history" they have at tained to a past-maSterShip in the order established by old Nick Machiavel him. self who was the father of "compara- tive history" he being about the first 1. ,Irfa de of mans experiences to illustrate events of his own times, and who, by fixing on parallels in periods, and on similar persona ges, and on similar facts was, as it were, lantern to the feet of the people of his day. Ferrero is not a mere chronicler of events, but a true historian, and preemently, an Italian historian and one of the few to enjoy the blessed privilege of seeing his writ ing in print and published to the world during his own times, for, what with the torch and the torture, and the in- dex, nearly all of them left their works to be published by posterity, some of the works not appearing for over an hun dred years after the death of the his- torian. Giannone enjoyed the privi- lege of seeing his works in print, but he paid the penalty which others had avoided through that instinct which, like that of Jobs warehouse, snuffed the danger afar off. Poor Giannone placed upon his own head a crown of thorns, and, though he took the wings of the morning and sought refuge in the uttermost parts of the earth, yet were the torch. and the torture, and the index there to bring him to justice for his temerity, and he ended his days in a dungeon
 To what extent the extreme care of these early Italian historians may be attributed to their consciousness of in- ability ever afterward to correct ex- plain or modify their writings, we may surmise only; but it may be that the greater liberty now afforced them may give rise in them to that which the Latins would term "indolence." Ca word