Chapter VI: Part 6

_Directly_. Many of the English writers of the present day, use this word in a manner inelegant and unsanctioned, I am convinced, by any standard author. They appear to think that it has the same meaning as the phrase "as soon as." For instance: "The troops were dismissed _directly_ the general had reviewed them." "The House of Lords adjourned _directly_ this important bill had passed." I am happy to find that the writers in this country have not fallen into it.

_Mutual_. When persons speak of an individual's being _a mutual friend_ of two others, who perhaps may not know each other, they attach a meaning to the word mutual which does not belong to it. A and B may be mutual friends, but how C can be the mutual friend of A and B it is difficult to comprehend. Where is the mutuality in this case? We should say, C is the _common_ friend of A and B. Several of the associations for interment which have lately been instituted, have seized upon the word _mutual_ and used it very absurdly. They style themselves "Mutual Burial Societies." How can two individuals _bury each other_? and yet this is implied by the term "_mutual_."

Is not the familiar phrase, "now-a-days," a corruption of "in our days?"

"_If I am not mistaken_." This is evidently wrong. If what I say to another is misunderstood, I am _mistaken_, but if I misunderstand what is said to me, I am _mistaking_, and so we should speak and write.

_Degrees of perfection_. "The army," says president Monroe, in one of his messages, "has arrived at _a high degree of perfection_." There can be no degrees of perfection. Any thing which is _perfect_ cannot become _more_ {389} _perfect_, and any thing which falls short of perfection is in _a degree of imperfection_.

"_Is being built_." This form of expression has met with many and zealous advocates. It is an error almost exclusively confined to print. In conversation we would say, "the house is _getting_ built," and no one would be in doubt as to our meaning. _Being built_ is the past or perfect participle, which according to Lindley Murray, signifies action perfected or finished. How then can prefixing the word _is_ or _are_, words in the present tense, before it, convert this meaning into another signifying the continuation of the building at this moment? We say, "the house _being built_ the family moved in," and imply absolute completion by the phrase _being built_, as people are not in the habit of moving into unfinished houses. To say that the house is being built, is no more than saying that the house is built, and by this we understand that the building is completely finished, not that the work is still going on.

I do not know that any of Shakspeare's hundred and one commentators has noticed the pun in Hamlet's address to his father's ghost, "Thou comest to me in such a _questionable_ shape, that I will _speak_ to thee." Perhaps the great bard meant to exhibit the coolness of his hero by placing a jest in his mouth. Hamlet immediately after proceeds to _question_ the spirit.

_Editorial_.

LYNCH'S LAW.

Frequent inquiry has been made within the last year as to the origin of Lynch's law. This subject now possesses historical interest. It will be perceived from the annexed paper, that the law, so called, originated in 1780, in Pittsylvania, Virginia. Colonel William Lynch, of that county, was its author; and we are informed by a resident, who was a member of a body formed for the purpose of carrying it into effect, that the efforts of the association were wholly successful. A trained band of villains, whose operations extended from North to South, whose well concerted schemes had bidden defiance to the ordinary laws of the land, and whose success encouraged them to persevere in depredations upon an unoffending community, was dispersed and laid prostrate under the infliction of Lynch's law. Of how many terrible, and deeply to be lamented consequences--of how great an amount of permanent evil--has the partial and temporary good been productive!

"Whereas, many of the inhabitants of the county of Pittsylvania, as well as elsewhere, have sustained great and intolerable losses by a set of lawless men who have banded themselves together to deprive honest men of their just rights and property, by stealing their horses, counterfeiting, and passing paper currency, and committing many other species of villainy, too tedious to mention, and that those vile miscreants do still persist in their diabolical practices, and have hitherto escaped the civil power with impunity, it being almost useless and unnecessary to have recourse to our laws to suppress and punish those freebooters, they having it in their power to extricate themselves when brought to justice by suborning witnesses who do swear them clear--we, the subscribers, being determined to put a stop to the iniquitous practices of those unlawful and abandoned wretches, do enter into the following association, to wit: that next to our consciences, soul and body, we hold our rights and property, sacred and inviolable. We solemnly protest before God and the world, that (for the future) upon hearing or having sufficient reason to believe, that any villainy or species of villainy having been committed within our neighborhood, we will forthwith embody ourselves, and repair immediately to the person or persons suspected, or those under suspicious characters, harboring, aiding, or assisting those villains, and if they will not desist from their evil practices, we will inflict such corporeal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained; that we will protect and defend each and every one of us, the subscribers, as well jointly as severally, from the insults and assaults offered by any other person in their behalf: and further, we do bind ourselves jointly and severally, our joint and several heirs &c. to pay or cause to be paid, all damages that shall or may accrue in consequence of this our laudable undertaking, and will pay an equal proportion according to our several abilities; and we, after having a sufficient number of subscribers to this association, will convene ourselves to some convenient place, and will make choice of our body five of the best and most discreet men belonging to our body, to direct and govern the whole, and we will strictly adhere to their determinations in all cases whatsoever relative to the above undertaking; and if any of our body summoned to attend the execution of this our plan, and fail so to do without a reasonable excuse, they shall forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred pounds current money of Virginia, to be appropriated towards defraying the contingent expenses of this our undertaking. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands, this 22d day September 1780."

CRITICAL NOTICES.

SPAIN REVISITED.

_Spain Revisited. By the author of "A Year in Spain." New York: Harper and Brothers._

Some three months since we had occasion to express our high admiration of Lieutenant Slidell's _American in England_. The work now before us presents to the eye of the critical reader many if not all of those peculiarities which distinguished its predecessor. We find the same force and freedom. We recognize the same artist-like way of depicting persons, scenery, or manners, by a succession of minute and well-managed details. We perceive also the same terseness and originality of expression. Still we must be pardoned for saying that many of the same _niaiseries_ are also apparent, and most especially an abundance of very bad grammar and a superabundance of gross errors in syntatical arrangement.

With the _Dedicatory Letter_ prefixed to _Spain Revisited_, we have no patience whatever. It does great credit to the kind and gentlemanly feelings of Lieutenant Slidell, but it forms no inconsiderable drawback upon {390} our previously entertained opinions of his good taste. We can at no time, and under no circumstances, see either meaning or delicacy in parading the sacred relations of personal friendship before the unscrupulous eyes of the public. And even when these things are well done and briefly done, we do believe them to be in the estimation of all persons of nice feeling a nuisance and an abomination. But it very rarely happens that the closest scrutiny can discover in the least offensive of these dedications any thing better than extravagance, affectation or incongruity. We are not sure that it would be impossible, in the present instance, to designate gross examples of all three. What connection has the name of Lieutenant Upshur with the present Spanish Adventures of Lieutenant Slidell? None. Then why insist upon a connection which the world cannot perceive? The Dedicatory letter, in the present instance, is either a _bona fide_ epistle actually addressed before publication to Lieutenant Upshur, intended strictly as a memorial of friendship, and published because no good reasons could be found for the non-publication--or its plentiful professions are all hollowness and falsity, and it was never meant to be any thing more than a very customary public compliment.

Our first supposition is negatived by the stiff and highly constrained character of the _style_, totally distinct from the usual, and we will suppose the less carefully arranged composition of the author. What man in his senses ever wrote as follows, from the simple impulses of gratitude or friendship?

In times past, a dedication, paid for by a great literary patron, furnished the author at once with the means of parading his own servility, and ascribing to his idol virtues which had no real existence. Though this custom be condemned by the better taste of the age in which we live, friendship may yet claim the privilege of eulogizing virtues which really exist; if so, I might here draw the portrait of a rare combination of them; I might describe a courage, a benevolence, a love of justice coupled with an honest indignation at whatever outrages it, a devotion to others and forgetfulness of self, such as are not often found blended in one character, were I not deterred by the consideration that when I should have completed my task, the eulogy, which would seem feeble to those who knew the original, might be condemned as extravagant by those who do not.

Can there be any thing more palpably artificial than all this? The writer commences by informing his bosom friend that whereas in times past men were given up to fulsome flattery in their dedications, not scrupling to endow their patrons with virtues they never possessed, he, the Lieutenant, intends to be especially delicate and original in his own peculiar method of applying the panegyrical plaster, and to confine himself to qualities which have a real existence. Now this is the very sentiment, if sentiment it may be called, with which all the toad-eaters since the flood have introduced their dedicatory letters. What immediately follows is in the same vein, and is worthy of the ingenious Don Puffando himself. All the good qualities in the world are first enumerated--Lieutenant Upshur is then informed, by the most approved rules of circumbendibus, that he possesses them, one and each, in the highest degree, but that his friend the author of "_Spain Revisited_" is too much of a man of tact to tell him any thing about it.

If on the other hand it is admitted that the whole epistle is a mere matter of form, and intended simply as a public compliment to a personal friend, we feel, at once, a degree of righteous indignation at the profanation to so hollow a purpose, of the most sacred epithets and phrases of friendship--a degree, too, of serious doubt whether the gentleman panegyrized will receive as a compliment, or rather resent as an insult, the being taxed to his teeth, and in the face of the whole community, with nothing less than all the possible accomplishments and graces, together with the entire stock of cardinal and other virtues.

_Spain Revisited_, although we cannot think it at all equal to the _American in England_ for picturesque and vigorous description (which we suppose to be the forte of Lieutenant Slidell) yet greatly surpasses in this respect most of the books of modern travels with which we now usually meet. A moderate interest is sustained throughout--aided no doubt by our feelings of indignation at the tyranny which would debar so accomplished a traveller as our countryman from visiting at his leisure and in full security a region so well worth visiting as Spain. It appears that Ferdinand on the 20th August, 1832, taking it into his head that the Lieutenant's former work "A Year in Spain" (esta indigesta produccion) esta llena de falsedades y de groceras calumnias contra el Rey N. S. y su augusta familia, thought proper to issue a royal order in which the book called _un ano en Espana_ was doomed to seizure wherever it might be found, and the clever author himself, under the appellation of the Signor Ridell, to a dismissal from the nearest frontier in the event of his anticipated return to the country. Notwithstanding this order, the Lieutenant, as he himself informs us, did not hesitate to undertake the journey, knowing that, subsequently to the edict in question, the whole machinery of the government had undergone a change, having passed into liberal hands. But although the danger of actual arrest on the above-mentioned grounds was thus rendered comparatively trivial, there were many other serious difficulties to be apprehended. In the Basque Provinces and in Navarre the civil war was at its height. The diligences, as a necessary consequence, had ceased to run; and the insurgents rendered the means of progressing through the country exceedingly precarious, by their endeavors to cut off all communications through which the government could be informed of their manœuvres. The post-horses had been seized by the Carlist cavalry to supply their deficiencies, "and only a few mules remained at some of the post-houses between Bayonne and Vitoria."

The following sketch of an ass-market at Tordesillas seems to embody in a small compass specimens of nearly all the excellences as well as nearly all the faults of the author.

By far the most curious part of the fair, however, was the ass-market, held by a gay fraternity of gipsies. There were about a dozen of these, for the most part of middle stature, beautifully formed, with very regular features of an Asiatic cast, and having a copper tinge; their hands were very small, as of a race long unaccustomed to severe toil, with quantities of silver rings strung on the fingers. They had very white and regular teeth, and their black eyes were uncommonly large, round-orbed, projecting, and expressive; habitually languid and melancholy in moments of listlessness, they kindled into wonderful brightness when engaged in commending their asses, or in bartering with a purchaser. Their jet-black hair hung in long curls down their back, and they were nearly all dressed in velvet, as Andalusian majos, with quantities of buttons made from pesetas and half {391} pesetas covering their jackets and breeches, as many as three or four hanging frequently from the same eyelet-hole. Some of them wore the Andalusian leggjn and shoe of brown leather, others the footless stocking and sandal of Valencia; in general their dress, which had nothing in common with the country they were then in, seemed calculated to unite ease of movement and freedom from embarrassment to jauntiness of effect. All of them had a profusion of trinkets and amulets, intended to testily their devotion to that religion which, according to the popular belief, they were suspected of doubting, and one of them displayed his excessive zeal in wearing conspicuously from his neck a silver case, twice the size of a dollar, containing a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Saviour in her arms.

Four or five females accompanied this party, and came and went from the square and back, with baskets and other trifles, as if engaged at their separate branch of trade. They had beautiful oval faces, with fine eyes and teeth, and rich olive complexions. Their costume was different from any other I had seen in Spain, its greatest peculiarity consisting in a coarse outer petticoat, which was drawn over the head at pleasure instead of the mantilla, and which reminded me of the manta of Peru, concealing, as it did, the whole of the face, except only a single eye.

I asked a dozen people where these strange beings were from, not liking to speer the question at themselves; but not one could tell me, and all seemed to treat the question as no less difficult of solution than one which might concern the origin of the wind. One person, indeed, barely hinted the possibility of their being from Zamora, where one of the faubourgs has a colony of these vermin, for so they are esteemed. He added, moreover, that a late law required that every gipsy in Spain should have a fixed domicil, but that they still managed, in the face of it, to gratify their hereditary taste for an unsettled and wandering life. He spoke of them as a pack of gay rogues and petty robbers, yet did not seem to hold them in any particular horror. The asses which they were selling they had probably collected in the pueblos with a view to this fair, trading from place to place as they journeyed, and not a few they had perhaps kidnapped and coaxed away, taking care, by shaving and other embellishments, to modify and render them unknown.

I was greatly amused in observing the ingenious mode in which they kept their beasts together in the midst of such a crowd and so much confusion, or separated them for the purpose of making a sale. They were strung at the side of the parapet wall, overlooking the river, with their heads towards it and pressing against it, as if anxious to push it over, but in reality out of sedulousness to avoid the frequent showers of blows which were distributed from time to time, without motive or warning, on their unoffending hinder parts, and withdraw them as far as possible from the direction whence they were inflicted. As they were very much crowded together, there was quite scuffling work for an ass to get in when brought back from an unsuccessful effort to trade, or when newly bought, for these fellows, in the true spirit of barter, were equally ready to buy or sell. The gipsy's staff, distributing blows on the rumps of two adjoining beasts, would throw open a slight aperture, into which the nose of the intruding ass would be made to enter, when a plentiful encouragement of blows would force him in, like a wedge into a riven tree. The mode of extracting an ass was equally ingenious, and, if any thing, more singular; continually pressing their heads against the wall with all their energy, it would have required immense strength, with the chance of pulling off the tail if it were not a strong one, to drag them forcibly out; a gipsy, taking the tail of the required animal in one hand, would stretch his staff forward so as to tap him on the nose, and, thus encouraged, gently draw him out.

The ingenuity of these gipsies in getting up a bargain, trusting to be able to turn it to their own account, was marvellous. Mingling among the farmers, and engaging them in conversation on indifferent subjects, they would at length bring them back to the favorite theme of asses, and eventually persuade them to take a look at theirs. "Here is one," measuring the height of an individual with his staff, "which will just suit you;--what will you give for him? Come, you shall have him for half his worth, for one hundred reals--only five dollars for an ass like this," looking at him with the admiration of a connoisseur in the presence of the Apollo; "truly, an animal of much merit and the greatest promise--_de mucho merito y encarecimiento_--he has the shoulders and breast of an ox; let me show you the richness of his paces," said the gipsy, his whole figure and attitude partaking of his earnestness, and his eye dilating and glowing with excitement. He had brought the unwary and bewildered countryman, like a charmed bird, to the same point as the eloquent shopkeeper does his doubting customer when he craves permission to take down his wares, and does not wait to be denied. Vaulting to the back of the animal, he flourished his staff about its head, and rode it up and down furiously, to the terror of the by-standers' toes, pricking it on the spine with his iron-pointed staff to make it frisky, and pronouncing the while, in the midst of frantic gesticulations an eloquent eulogium on its performances and character, giving it credit, among other things, for sobriety, moderation, long suffering, and the most un-asslike qualification of chastity. To add to the picturesque oddity of the scene, an old monk stood hard by, an interested spectator of some chaffering between a young woman and a seller of charms and trinkets stationed beneath an awning, and no accessory was wanting to render the quaint little picture complete.

In our notice of the _American in England_, we found much fault with the _style_--that is to say, with the mere English of Lieutenant Slidell. We are not sure whether the volumes now before us were written previously or subsequently to that very excellent work--but certain it is that they are much less abundant than it, in simple errors of grammar and ambiguities of construction. We must be pardoned, however, for thinking that even now the English of our traveller is more obviously defective than is becoming in any well educated American--more especially in any well educated American who is an aspirant for the honors of authorship. To quote individual sentences in support of an assertion of this nature, might bear with it an air of injustice--since there are few of the best writers of any language in whose works single faulty passages may not readily be discovered. We will therefore take the liberty of commenting in detail upon the English of an entire page of _Spain Revisited_.--See page 188, vol. i.

Carts and wagons, caravans of mules, and files of humbler asses came pouring, by various roads, into the great vomitory by which we were entering, laden with the various commodities, the luxuries as well as the necessaries of life, brought from foreign countries or from remote provinces, to sustain the unnatural existence of a capital which is so remote from all its resources, and which produces scarce any thing that it consumes.

This sentence, although it would not be too long, if properly managed, is too long as it stands. The ear repeatedly seeks, and expects the conclusion, and is repeatedly disappointed. It expects the close at the word "_entering_"--at the word "_life_"--at the word "_provinces_"--and at the word "_resources_." Each additional portion of the sentence after each of the words just designated by inverted commas, has the air of an after-thought engrafted upon the original idea. The use of the word "_vomitory_" in the present instance is injudicious. Strictly speaking, a road which serves as a vomitory, or means of egress, for a population, serves also as a means of ingress. A good writer, however, will consider not only whether, in all strictness, his words will admit of the meaning he attaches to them, but whether in their implied, their original, or other collateral meanings, they may not be at variance with some portion of his sentence. When we hear of "a _vomitory_ by which we were _entering_," not all the rigor of the most exact construction will reconcile us to the phrase--since we are accustomed to connect with the word _vomitory_, notions precisely the reverse of those allied to the subsequent word "_entering_." Between the participle "_laden_" and the nouns to which it refers (carts, {392} wagons, caravans and asses) two other nouns and one pronoun are suffered to intervene--a grammatical arrangement which when admitted in any degree, never fails to introduce more or less obscurity in every sentence where it is so admitted. Strict syntatical order would require (the pronoun "we" being followed immediately by "laden") that--not the asses--but Lieutenant Slidell and his companions should be laden with the various commodities.

And now, too, we began to see horsemen jantily dressed in slouched hat, embroidered jacket, and worked spatterdashes, reining fiery Andalusian coursers, each having the Moorish carbine hung at hand beside him.

Were horsemen, in this instance, a _generic_ term--that is, did the word allude to horsemen generally, the use of the "_slouched hat_" and "_embroidered jacket_" in the singular, would be justifiable--but it is not so in speaking of individual horsemen, where the plural is required. The participle "_reining_" properly refers to "_spatterdashes_," although of course intended to agree with "_horsemen_." The word "_each_," also meant to refer to the "_horsemen_," belongs, strictly speaking, to the "_coursers_." The whole, if construed by the rigid rules of grammar, would imply that the horsemen were dressed in spatterdashes--which spatterdashes reined the coursers--and which coursers had each a carbine.

Perhaps these were farmers of the better order; but they had not the air of men accustomed to labor; they were rather, perhaps, Andalusian horse-dealers, or, maybe, robbers, of those who so greatly abound about the capital, who for the moment, had laid aside their professional character.

This is an exceedingly awkward sentence. The word "_maybe_" is, we think, objectionable. The repetition of the relative "_who_" in the phrases "_who so greatly abound_" and "_who for the moment had laid aside_," is the less to be justified, as each "_who_" has a different antecedent--the one referring to "_those_" (the robbers, generally, who abound about the capital) and the other to the suspected "_robbers_" then present. But the whole is exceeding ambiguous, and leaves a doubt of the author's true meaning. For, the words "_Andalusian horse-dealers, or, maybe, robbers of those who abound about the capital_," may either imply that the men in question were some of a class of robbers who abounded, &c. or that they were men who robbed (that is, robbers of) the Andalusian horse-dealers who abounded, &c. or that they were either Andalusian horse-dealers, or robbers of those who abound about the capital--i.e. of the inhabitants of the suburbs. Whether the last "_who_" has reference to _the robbers_, or to _those who abound_, it is impossible to learn from any thing in the sentence itself--which, taken altogether, is unworthy of the merest tyro in the rules of composition.

At the inn of the Holy Ghost, was drawn up a highly gilded carriage, hung very low, and drawn by five gaily decorated mules, while two Andalusians sat on the large wooden platform, planted, without the intervention of springs, upon the fore-wheels, which served for a coach-box.

This sentence is intelligible enough, but still badly constructed. There is by far too great an interval between the antecedent "_platform_" and its relative "_which_," and upon a cursory perusal any reader would be led to suppose (what indeed the whole actually implies) that the coach-box in question consisted not of the platform, but actually of the fore-wheels of the carriage. Altogether, it may safely be asserted, that an entire page containing as many grammatical errors and inaccuracies of arrangement as the one we have just examined, will with difficulty be discovered in any English or American writer of even moderate reputation. These things, however, can hardly be considered as more than inadvertences, and will be avoided by Lieutenant Slidell as soon as he shall feel convinced (through his own experience or through the suggestions of his friends) how absolutely necessary to final success in any undertaking is a scrupulous attention to even the merest _minutiæ_ of the task.

ANTHON'S SALLUST.

_Sallust's Jugurthine War, and Conspiracy of Catiline, with an English Commentary, and Historical Indexes. By Charles Anthon, L.L.D. Jay-Professor of Ancient Literature in Columbia College, and Rector of the Grammar School. Sixth edition, corrected and enlarged. New York: Harper and Brothers._

In respect to external appearance this is an exceedingly beautiful book, whether we look to the quality of its paper, the clearness, uniform color, and great accuracy of its typography,[1] or the neatness and durability of its covering. In this latter point especially the Harpers and other publishers would do well, we think, to follow up the style of the present edition of Sallust--dropping at once and forever that flimsy and unsatisfactory method of binding so universally prevalent just now, and whose sole recommendation is its cheapness--if indeed it be cheaper at all. These are things of which we seldom speak--but venture to mention them in the present instance with a view of seizing a good opportunity. No man of taste--certainly no lover of books and owner of a library--would hesitate at paying twice as much for a book worth preservation, and which there is some possibility of preserving, as for one of these fragile ephemera which it is now the fashion to do up in muslin. We think in short the interest of publishers as well as the taste of the public would be consulted to some purpose in paying more attention to the mechanics of book making.

[Footnote 1: In the course of a very attentive perusal we have observed only one typographical error. On page 130, near the top, we see _Fatigatus a fatre_ in place of _fratre_.]

That Mr. Anthon has done more for our classical literature than any man in the country will hardly be denied. His Lempriere, to speak of nothing else, is a monument of talent, erudition, indefatigable research, and well organized method, of which we have the greatest reason to be proud, but which is perhaps more fully and more properly appreciated in any other climate than our own. Of a former edition of his Sallust, two separate reprints, by different editors, total strangers to the author, have appeared in England, without any effort on his part, as we are very willing to believe, for procuring a republication of his labors. The correct and truly beautiful edition now before us, leaves nothing to be desired. The most striking emendation is the placing the narrative of the Jugurthine war before the conspiracy of Catiline. This arrangement, however, as Mr. Anthon we believe admits, has the merit of novelty in America alone. At least we understand him to make this admission in saying that the order he has {393} observed is no novelty on the continent of Europe, as may be discovered from the works of the President De Brosses, the Abbé Cassagne, and M. Du Rozoir. At all events we have repeatedly seen in England editions of Sallust, (and we suppose them to have been English editions,) in which the Jugurthine war preceded the Conspiracy. Of the propriety of this order there can be no doubt whatever, and it is quite certain to meet with the approbation of all who give themselves even a moment's reflection on the subject. There is an obvious anachronism in the usual arrangement--for the rebellion of Catiline was nearly fifty years subsequent to the war with Jugurtha. "The impression produced, therefore, on the mind of the student," (we here use the words of our author,) "must necessarily be a confused one when he is required to read the two works in an inverted order. In the account of Catiline's conspiracy, for example, he will find frequent allusions to the calamitous consequences of Sylla's strife with Marius; and will see many of the profligate partizans of the former rallying around the standard of Catiline; while in the history of the Jugurthine war, if he be made to peruse it after the other, in the ordinary routine of school reading, he will be introduced to the same Sylla just entering on a public career, and standing high in the favor and confidence of Marius. How too will he be able to appreciate, in their full force, the remarks of Sallust relative to the successive changes in the Roman form of government, and the alternate ascendency of the aristocratic and popular parties, if he be called upon to direct his attention to results before he is made acquainted with the causes that produced them?"

The only reason assigned for the usual arrangement is founded upon the order of composition--Sallust having written the narrative of the Conspiracy before the account of the Jugurthine war. All the MS.S. too, have followed this order. Mr. Anthon, however, justly remarks that such an argument should weigh but little when positive utility is placed in the opposite scale.

An enlarged commentary on the Jugurthine War, is another improvement in the present edition. There can be no doubt that the notes usually appended to this portion of Sallust were insufficient for the younger, if not for all classes of pupils, and when this deficiency is remedied, as in the present instance, by the labors of a man not only of sound scholarship, but of great critical and general acumen, we know how to value the services thus rendered to the student and to the classical public at large. We subjoin one or two specimens of the additional notes.

Page 122. "_Ingenii egregia facinora_." "_The splendid exertions of intellect._" _Facinus_ denotes a bold or daring action, and unless it be joined with a favorable epithet, or the action be previously described as commendable, the term is always to be understood in a vituperative sense. In the present passage, the epithet _egregius_ marks the character of the action as praiseworthy.

Page 122. "_Quippe probitatem, &c._" "Since it (i.e. fortune) can neither give, nor take away integrity, activity, nor other praiseworthy qualities." _Industria_ here means an active exercise of our abilities.

We might add (with deference) to this note of Professor Anthon's, that _industria_, generally, has a more variable meaning than is usually given it, and that the word, in a great multiplicity of instances, where ambiguities in translation have arisen, has allusion to mental rather than to physical exertion. We have frequently, moreover, remarked its connection with that idea which the moderns attach to the term _genius_. _Incredibili industriâ_, _industriâ singulari_, are phrases almost invariably used in the sense we speak of, and refer to great mental power. Apropos, to this subject--it is remarkable that both Buffon and Hogarth directly assert that "genius is nothing but labor and diligence."

Page 133. "_Vos in mea injuria_," _&c._ "_You are treated with contempt in the injustice which is done me._" _Despicere_ always implies that the person despising thinks meanly of the person despised, as compared with himself. _Contemnere_ denotes the absolute vileness of an object.

We may here observe that we have no English equivalent to _despicere_.

Page 135. "_Quod utinam_," _&c._ "_But would that I may see._" The use of _quod_ before many conjunctions, &c. merely as a copulative, appears to have arisen from the fondness of the Latin writers for the connexion by means of relatives.

Page 135. "_Emori_." "_A speedy death_." The infinitive here supplies the place of a noun, or more correctly speaking, is employed in its true character. For this mood, partaking of the nature of a noun, has been called by grammarians "the verb's noun" (_ονομα ρηματος_.) The reason of this appellation is more apparent, however, in Greek, from its taking the prepositive article before it in all cases; as _το γραφειν_, _τον γραφειν_, _τω γραφειν_. The same construction is not unknown in English. Thus Spencer--

For not to have been dipped in Lethe lake,
Could save the son of Thetis from to die.

Besides the new arrangement of matter, and the additional notes on the Jugurthine war, the principal changes in the present edition are to be found in two convenient Indexes--the one Geographical, the other Historical. We are told by Mr. Anthon that his object in preparing them was to relieve the Annotations from what might have proved too heavy a pressure of materials, and have deterred from, rather than have invited, a perusal. The geographical and historical matter is now made to stand by itself.

The account of Sallust himself, and especially the critical examination of his writings, which appeared in the ordinary way in previous editions, is now resolved into the form of a dialogue, and has gained by the change much force and vivacity, without being at all deteriorated in other respects. Upon the whole, any farther real improvement in the manner of editing, printing, or publishing a Sallust would seem to be an impossibility.

PARIS AND THE PARISIANS.

_Paris and the Parisians in 1835. By Frances Trollope, Author of "Domestic Manners of the Americans," "The Refugee in America," &c. New York: Published by Harper and Brothers._

We have no patience with that atra-bilious set of hyper-patriots, who find fault with Mrs. Trollope's book of _flumflummery_ about the good people of the Union. We can neither tolerate nor comprehend them. The work appeared to us (we speak in all candor, and in sober earnest) an unusually well-written performance, in which, upon a basis of downright and positive truth, was erected, after the fashion of a porcelain pagoda, a very brilliant, although a very brittle fabric of mingled banter, philosophy, and spleen. Her mere political {394} opinions are, we suppose, of very little consequence to any person other than Mrs. Trollope; and being especially sure that they are of no consequence to ourselves we shall have nothing farther to do with them. We do not hesitate to say, however, that she ridiculed our innumerable moral, physical, and social absurdities with equal impartiality, true humor and discrimination, and that the old joke about her _Domestic Manners of the Americans_ being nothing more than the _Manners of the American Domestics_, is like most other very good jokes, excessively untrue.

That our national soreness of feeling prevented us, in the case of her work on America, from appreciating the real merits of the book, will be rendered evident by the high praise we find no difficulty in bestowing upon her _Paris and the Parisians_--a production, in whatever light we regard it, precisely similar to the one with which we were so irreparably offended. It has every characteristic of the _Domestic Manners of the Americans_--from the spirit of which work, if it differs at all, the difference lies in the inferior quantity of the fine wit she has thought proper to throw away upon our Parisian friends.

The volume now issued by the Harpers, is a large octavo of 410 pages, and is embellished with eleven most admirable copperplate engravings, exclusive of the frontispiece. These designs are drawn by A. Hervieu, and engraved by S. H. Gimber. We will give a brief account of them all, as the most effectual method of imparting to our readers (those who have not seen the work and for whom this notice is especially intended) a just conception of the work itself.

Plate 1 is the "_Louvre_." A picture gallery is seen crowded with a motley assemblage of all classes, in every description of French costume. The occasion is an exhibition of living artists, as the world chooses to call the exhibition of their works. Poussin, (consequently) Raphael, Titian, Correggio and Rubens, are hidden beneath the efforts of more modern pencils. In the habiliments of the company who lounge through the gallery, the result of newly acquired rights is ludicrously visible. One of the most remarkable of these, says our authoress, is the privilege enjoyed by the rabble of presenting themselves dirty instead of clean before the eyes of the magnates. Accordingly, the plate shows, among a variety of pretty _toques_, _cauchoises_, _chaussures_, and other more imperial equipments, a sprinkling of round-eared caps, awkward _casquettes_, filthy _blouses_, and dingy and ragged jackets.

Plate 2 is "_Morning at the Tuileries_." It represents that portion of the garden of "trim alleys" which lies in front of the group of Petus and Aria. In the distance are seen various figures. In the foreground we descry three singular-looking personages, who may be best described in the words of Mrs. Trollope herself.

It was the hour when all the newspapers are in the greatest requisition; and we had the satisfaction of watching the studies of three individuals, each of whom might have sat as a model for an artist who wished to give an idea of their several peculiarities. We saw, in short, beyond the possibility of doubt, a royalist, a doctrinaire, and a republican, during the half hour we remained there, all soothing their feelings by indulging in two sous' worth of politics, each in his own line.

A stiff but gentlemanlike old man first came, and having taken a journal from the little octagon stand--which journal we felt quite sure, was either 'La France' or 'La Quotidienne'--he established himself at no great distance from us. Why it was that we all felt so certain of his being a legitimatist I can hardly tell you, but not one of the party had the least doubt about it. There was a quiet, half-proud, half-melancholy air of keeping himself apart; an aristocratical cast of features; a pale, care-worn complexion; and a style of dress which no vulgar man ever wore, but which no rich one would be likely to wear to-day. This is all I can record of him: but there was something pervading his whole person too essentially loyal to be misunderstood, yet too delicate in its tone to be coarsely painted. Such as it was, however, we felt it quite enough to make the matter sure; and if I could find out that old gentleman to be either doctrinaire or republican, I never would look on a human countenance again, in order to discover what was passing within.

The next who approached us we were equally sure was a republican: but here the discovery did little honor to our discernment; for these gentry choose to leave no doubt upon the subject of their _clique_, but contrive that every article contributing to the appearance of the outward man shall become a symbol and a sign, a token and a stigma of the madness that possesses them. He too held a paper in his hand, and without venturing to approach too nearly to so alarming a personage, we scrupled not to assure each other, that the journal he was so assiduously perusing was 'Le Réformateur.'

Just as we had decided what manner of man it was who was stalking so majestically past us, a comfortable looking citizen approached in the uniform of the National Guard, who sat himself down to his daily allowance of politics with the air of a person expecting to be well pleased with what he finds, but, nevertheless, too well contented with himself and all things about him to care overmuch about it. Every line of this man's jocund face, every curve of his portly figure, spoke contentment and well being. He was probably one of that very new race in France, a tradesman making a rapid fortune. Was it possible to doubt that the paper in his hand was 'Le Journal des Debats?' Was it possible to believe that this man was other than a prosperous doctrinaire?

Plate 3 is "_Pro patria_"--and represents two uniformed soldiers in a guard-room of the National Guard.

Plate 4 is entitled "'_Ce soir, à la Porte St. Martin_'--'_J'y serâi_,'" and is full of humor. Two conspirator-like republicans stand in the gardens of the Luxembourg, with short staffs, conical hats, dark bushy eyebrows, fierce mustaches, and countenances full of fate. The hand of the one is clasped in the hand of the other with a vice-like impressiveness and energy, while the taller, looking furtively around him, lays his hand upon the shoulder of his associate, and is whispering some most momentous intelligence in his ear. This plate is explained thus in the words of Mrs. T.

It seems, that ever since the trials began, the chief duty of the gendarmes (I beg pardon, I should say of La Garde de Paris) has been to prevent any assembling together of the people in knots for conversation and gossippings in the courts and gardens of the Luxembourg. No sooner are two or three persons observed standing together, than a policeman approaches, and with a tone of command pronounces "Circulez Messieurs!--circulez s'il vous plaît." The reason for this precaution is, that nightly at the Porte St. Martin a few score of _jeunes gens_ assemble to make a very idle and unmeaning noise, the echo of which regularly runs from street to street, till the reiterated report amounts to the announcement of an _émeute_. We are all now so used to these harmless little _émeutes_ at the Porte St. Martin, that we mind them no more than General Lobau himself: nevertheless it is deemed proper, trumpery {395} as the cause may be, to prevent any thing like a gathering together of the mob in the vicinity of the Luxembourg, lest the same hundred-tongued lady, who constantly magnifies the hootings of a few idle mechanics into an _émeute_, should spread a report throughout France that the Luxembourg was beseiged by the people. The noise which had disturbed us was occasioned by the gathering together of about a dozen persons; but a policeman was in the midst of the group, and we heard rumors of an _arrestation_. In less than five minutes, however, every thing was quiet again: but we marked two figures so picturesque in their republicanism, that we resumed our seats while a sketch was made from them, and amused ourselves the while in fancying what the ominous words could be that were so cautiously exchanged between them. M. de L---- said there could be no doubt they ran thus:

'Ce soir à la Porte St. Martin!'
_Answer_--'J'y serai!'

Plate 5 is the "_Tuileries Gardens on Sunday_," in which the prominent and characteristic group is a "_chère maman_" in half toilet, and seated beneath a tree reading, or attempting to read, while her children, attended by their _bonne_, are frolicking about her knees.

Plate 6 is "_Porte St. Martin_," and commemorative of one of the thousand and one little _émeutes_ which have now become too much a matter of course at Paris to excite very serious attention, and which are frequently (so we are assured by Mrs. Trollope) quieted by no more effective artillery than that of a slight shower of rain. The prominent figures in the plate, are two gentlemen of the National Guard, who are vehemently struggling to secure a desperate and mustached republican, equipped _cap à pie_ à la Robespierre, and whose countenance is indicative of deadly resolve, while a little urchin in a striped jacket, not having before his eyes the horrors of an _arrestation_, and being probably body squire to the republican, shoulders manfully a banner somewhat larger than himself, and, standing upon tiptoe, amuses himself with bellowing _Vive la République!_

Plate 7 is a "_Soiree_," in which the peculiarities of Parisian sociability are humorously sketched. All the countenances are especially French. The prominent group is that of two little awkward-looking specimens of imperial noblesse who are making love upon a _chaise-longue_. The opinions of Mrs. Trollope are quite orthodox in the matter of hereditary grace. Some of her good things upon this topic we must be allowed to quote, for the sake of their point, without being responsible for their philosophy.

I have heard that it requires three generations to make a gentleman. Those created by Napoleon have not yet fairly reached a second; and with all respect for talent, industry, and valor, be it spoken, the necessity of the slow process very frequently forces itself upon one's conviction at Paris.

It is probable that the great refinement of the post-imperial aristocracy of France may be one reason why the deficiences of those now often found mixed up with them is so remarkable. It would be difficult to imagine a contrast in manner more striking than that of a lady who would be a fair specimen of the old Bourbon _noblesse_, and a bouncing _marechale_ of imperial creation. It seems as if every particle of the whole material of which each is formed, gave evidence of the different birth of the spirit that dwells within. The sound of the voice is a contrast; the glance of the eye is a contrast; the step is a contrast. Were every feature of a _dame de l'Empire_ and a _femme noble_ formed precisely in the same mould, I am quite sure that the two would look no more alike than Queen Constance and Nell Gwyn.

Nor is there at all less difference in the two races of gentlemen. I speak not of the men of science or of art; their rank is of another kind: but there are still left here and there specimens of decorated greatness, which look as if they must have been dragged out of the guard-room by main force; huge mustached militaries, who look, at every slight rebuff, as if they were ready to exclaim, 'Sacré nom de D----! Je suis un héros, moi! vive l'Empereur!'

And again. My parvenue duchess _is_ very remarkable indeed. She steps out like a corporal carrying a message. Her voice is the first, the last, and almost the only thing heard in the salon that she honors with her presence--except it chance indeed, that she lower her tone occasionally to favor with a whisper some gallant _décoré_ military, scientific, or artistic, of the same standing as herself; and, moreover, she promenades her eyes over the company as if she had a right to bring them all to roll-call.

Notwithstanding all this, the lady is certainly a person of talent; and had she happily remained in the station in which both herself and her husband were born, she might not, perhaps, have thought it necessary to speak quite so loud, and her _bons mots_ would have produced infinitely greater effect. But she is so thoroughly out of place in the grade to which she has been unkindly elevated, that it seems as if Napoleon had decided on her fate in a humor as spiteful as that of Monsieur Jourdain, when he said--'Your daughter shall be a Marchioness in spite of all the world; and if you provoke me I'll make her a Duchess.'

Plate 8 is "_Le roi citoyen_." He is represented as a well-looking, portly, middle-aged man, of somewhat dignified appearance. His dress differs from that of any common citizen only by a small tri-colored cockade in the hat, and he walks quite at his leisure with one hand clenching a rough-looking stick, and the other thrust in his breeches-pocket. A republican, habited in full Robespierrian costume, is advancing towards him with a very deliberate air, and eyeing him nonchalantly through a _lorgnon_.

Plate 9 is entitled "_Prêtres de la Jeune France_." The flowing curls, the simple round hat, the pantaloons, &c. give them the appearance of a race of men as unlike as possible to their stiff and primitive predecessors. They look flourishing, and well pleased with themselves and the world about them: but little of mortification or abstinence can be traced on their countenances; and if they do fast for some portion of every week, they may certainly say with Father Philip, that 'what they take prospers with them marvellously.'

Plate 10 is the "_Boulevard des Italiens_," with a view of _Tortoni's_. The main group is "a very pretty woman and a very pretty man," who are seated on two chairs close together and flirting much to their own satisfaction, as well as to the utter amazement and admiration of a young urchin of a Savoyard, or professor of the _gaie science_, who, forgetting the use of his mandoline, gazes with open mouth and eyes at the enamored pair. To the right is seen an exquisite of the first water promenading with an air of ineffable grace, and deliberately occupied in combing his luxuriant tresses.

Plate 11 is called "_V'la les restes de notre revolution de Juillet!_" and like all the other engravings in the volume is admirable in its design, and especially in its expression. In the back ground are seen the monuments erected at the _Marché des Innocens_ over some revolutionary heroes, who fell here and were buried near the {396} fountain, on the 29th July 1830. A mechanic leans against a rail and is haranguing with great energy a young girl and a little boy, who listen to him with profound attention. His theme is evidently the treatment of the prisoners at the Luxembourg. We cannot too highly praise the exquisite piquancy of the whole of these designs.

In conclusion, we recommend _Paris and the Parisians_ to all lovers of fine writing, and vivacious humor. It is impossible not to be highly amused with the book--and there is by no means any necessity for giving a second thought to the _political_ philosophies of Madame Trollope.

PAULDING'S WASHINGTON.

_A Life of Washington. By James K. Paulding. New York: Harper and Brothers._