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with expert and deadly slingers. Spanish infantry and fierce Numidian horsemen mingled in the ranks of her mercenary army. Her gold and silver mines in Spain, and copper ore from Cornwall, enabled her to purchase alliance with powerful states, build and equip formidable navies and splendid commercial fleets. Her government excited the admiration of the world. Aristotle wrote in its praise. During four centuries no civil commotion disturbed the peace, no domestic despot trampled upon the rights of citizenship; no Tyrian Walpole, or Sidonian Rockingham imposed the badge of servitude upon the commonwealth of Carthage. Abroad, the skill of her naval commanders, and the supernatural daring of her military chiefs, spread the terror and the glory of her name. Rome had but one rival, and that rival was Carthage.

These Tyrian colonists were not illiterate men. Mago embellished his military prowess with the refinements of literature. His treatise on agriculture, in twenty-eight volumes, was translated by order of the Roman senate. Hanno's account of his circumnavigation of Africa is still extant in Greek. Terence, educated at Rome, was a Carthaginian by blood.

Three great colonizing powers have passed under review-the Romans, the Greeks, and the Phoenicians. With the first, a permanent connection of the colonies with the mother country was the sole aim of their gigantic but vicious system of colonization; with the second and third, the basis of the system was no artificial, political tie, but the bond of natural sympathies, language, religion, and mutual interests. Take the results of these opposite systems, and ancient history unequivocally declares that the permanent connec tion of the mother country with her colonies is not desirable.

In our next article we shall demonstrate that this verdict is not subject to any material modification when tested by the results of modern colonization. M. H.

The Essayist.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

THE old year had not yet gone when it was almost forgotten. It is true that letters were still headed with the accustomed "1862;" that entries were made in the ledger and cash-book in its name; but that was all. Matters of business or pleasure, to take place in the future, had relation to the New Year. The booksellers' windows were loaded with almanacks and diaries to chronicle its every day; annuals, and souvenirs, and forget-me-nots, beautifully bound and elaborately decorated, were got up to do it honour, and to form suitable presentation volumes on its advent. The confectioner and the toymaker exhausted their resources at the command of their patrons, who gave feasts to their friends on its opening days, and

toys and sweetmeats to their little ones. Public amusements were made specially attractive, in anticipation of the hosts who would then, if at any time, seek recreation and diversion. The old and careworn, renewing their youth in the young year, put from them grief and trouble, and with the youngest, thought only of joyousness and hilarity. And then, when the year dawned-the first day of the New Year the first moments of the New Year, indeed, were devoted to time-out-of-mind customs. The god or goddess presiding over its destinies, propitiated only by those of a dark countenance, commanded that on that day doors should first be opened and dwellings entered by those who were not "fair or very fair," but who bore some resemblance to Shakspere's dusky Moor. Then, when the door was opened, and the dwelling entered, the hearty words, "A happy New Year!" would ring right joyously in the hearts of its occupants; and thoughts of the future, with no clouds or storms darkening its horizon, would, for the moment at least, dawn upon their cheerful spirits.

As the day passed on, groups of men and boys would be observed pressing into the dwellings of those who had a reputation for being cheerful and generous, uttering, in loud and good-humoured tones, their wishes for "a happy New Year." Even the little girls, taught only to amuse themselves with their playmates on the morning of the New Year, betook themselves to the new, and, as it would seem, congenial employment of wishing their neighbours a happy New Year." And even the paupers, the occupants of the workhouse and the almshouse, would taste for that day, at least, some of the comforts and nourishing meals which previously had an existence only in their imagination; surely they were right in wishing each other "a happy New Year!"-for who had so much need of one?

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On that morning, too, how many heart-sores were healed! Heartaches and festerings which had corroded and sickened many of the hours of the old year, with a better mind and a more generous purpose, would be spirited away to give place to mutual good wishes for " a happy New Year." The most sacred of God's altars -the altars of the home and the fireside-glowing with the holy fervour of a father and mother's prayers, had resting upon them the special benizon of the God of all grace, and of all gracious gifts. Well might they anticipate, judging from the calm confidence with which they were possessed, that their children would enjoy “a happy New Year." On that first morning of the New Year, when a brother, forgetting his waywardness and fretfulness, presented his sister with a token of his affection, and she returned it with some mark of her love, it might surely be surmised that they had entered upon a happy New Year."

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But not to all did the New Year of 1863 usher in joyous hopes and pleasurable anticipations. Tens of thousands of families in the New World, having lost a father, a brother, or a son, in the suicidal struggle rending the nation to its centre, can anticipate no happiness in the New Year. Be the war ended as speedily as it may, no power

on earth can restore to them that loved presence which was at once their stay and comfort. How often in the old year did many a mother gaze proudly upon her boy, anticipating for him a position of eminence and of trust! He went to the wars, and was soon numbered with the victims of the national folly. What will supplant the recollection of that boy in the heart of his mother? No; the New Year must be for her one of mourning and lamentation; and no wonder if, like one of old, she refuses to be comforted. But more than that; severe as the loss may be, it is more severe when the husband and father, shot down in the strife, renders his wife a widow and his children fatherless. What happiness does the New Year bring to the home of that widow and those fatherless children? No; the New Year will bring for them a largess of sorrow and increased accumulations of woe. But if, in the national decimation, some families experience the singular fortune to lose none of its members, they still cannot escape scathless; they must lose the friendships of some of those with whom they were delighted to associate; they will have their hours of social ease and relaxation embittered by the absence of some loved face; and their sources of comfort must also be dwarfed and curtailed by the inexorable taxman, to pay the expense of the national madness.

But not only in the New World does the New Year present a dark and lowering aspect; the Old World has its troubles, and its many sources of sorrow. Tens of thousands of operatives, who would cheerfully follow their accustomed callings, as the result of the American war are shut out from their factories and workshops, and are compelled to become recipients of the national almsgiving. Many of them had stored up a little hoard of savings, which soon vanished, ere yet many weeks of the cotton famine had passed; and then the stock of comfortable clothing, bought in brighter and happier days, was carried piece by piece to the pledge office. Did the New Year's day dawn joyously for them? As they retraced their accustomed steps to the mill and workshop door, finding it closed, and the whole place cold and dreary; and then, on returning to their homes, finding a provision made for them just to keep life in, what hopes or heart-boundings could they have towards the New Year? True, they might be reminded that the "darkest hour is just before the dawn," and many other "saws" and apposite sayings; but they could point to the war still going on, with all its fierceness and madness, and demand to know why they should hope? No doubt, even for Lancashire, the American war will have its blessings. It will create the supply from other markets, of the raw material, so that in the future, if it shall so please the Americans to waste their national life in war, the workers in England's cotton districts may look on without a consciousness that the struggle involved the loss of all their physical comforts, the wasting of their little stores of earnings, and the destruction of their hopes. So, like grim poverty, the war has a blessing to offer for its wrong. Shakspere, who has chronicled every sentiment worth preserving, says,—

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

The difficulty is to get it generally believed that a blessing can come out of adversity. And yet even our own experience, if suffered to offer its testimony, will prove that blessings have come from vexations, sorrows, and losses. Sickness, which has caught a man in the mid-career of vice, has, in thousands of instances, been the turning-point in the commencement of a new life. The admonitions of a parent, fruitless during his life, have sprung into fruition when he has been laid in the cold grave. Commercial losses have frequently generated habits of care and thoughtfulness, which have resulted in blessings and material accumulations. Physical deprivations even, when used and not uselessly bewailed, have resulted in innumerable advantages and untold blessings. The greater abstraction which the loss of John Milton's eyesight enabled him to obtain resulted in the production of the most wonderful of his word-pictures and life-thoughts, which the world, in the multitude of its mental possessions, will not let die. And Dr. Kitto, who might well have considered the loss of his hearing as the greatest earthly deprivation, was enabled, nevertheless, to add the most enduring additions to the monuments of Biblical literature. On one occasion, during his residence in Bagdad, which was at the time in a state of siege, he wrote,-"In such circumstances my deafness is no small benefit to me. I am not disturbed by the noise of artillery and musketry, and of other commotions around." And, no doubt, his wonderful labours would not have been accomplished without the inducements to study which his deprivation engendered. Conversation with his friends could only be carried on with difficulty and inconvenience; he would find, therefore, the greater pleasure in the communion of his own thoughts, and in his intercourse with the records of the past, and the writings of the mighty dead. How true in his case, then, the words of Horace!" Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant."

Surrounded then, as we may be, by adverse circumstances, there is no reason why we should despair. There is every reason, on the contrary, to be stout of heart, to be determined in purpose, and fearless in resolution. We are not of those who dream about some" good time coming," and so postpone exertion until the golden period dawns. For all true men the good time has come,-the time for increase in wisdom and knowledge, and, therefore, the attainment of priceless blessings. It is true we may not now increase in "much goods," but we may by diligent exercise so discipline our mental powers that we may find ourselves capacitated to better our state and condition in life. Surely he that so resolves has entered upon the means to secure for himself "a happy New Year;" and he will, if he be wise, soon discover that the secret is not in whining, but working-doing, not dreaming.

J. J.

The Reviewer.

A Revised Translation of the New Testament. By the Rev. H. HIGHTON, M.A. London: Bagster and Son.

In the early part of 1857, the question, "Is a revision of the Authorized Version of the Scriptures necessary?" was discussed in our pages. Those who were interested in that discussion will find in this work a test-book for their opinions. The author, who was formerly Principal of Cheltenham College, and a fellow of Queen's, Oxford, is a gentleman of some mark as a classical scholar. He thinks that "a revision is both feasible, and may be made with advantage," and he intends this work as "a contribution towards bringing about that object." The book is eminently conservative and safe. The Authorized Version is reverentially dealt with. No alterations are made for the mere sake of altering. Nowhere is the itch of an innovator perceptible. The pith and sinew of the longassociated words of our old version is always retained, and there are few changes made which do not at once secure the consent of the scholar. At the same time, the text in its clear Saxonicity is maintained, and there is no mistaken effort made to Grecize the tongue "which Shakspere spoke," and the pilgrim fathers carried into "a far country" as a choice treasure. Indeed, many might read the greater part of the book without noticing the quiet adaptations to suit the modern genius of the language which have been made. Perhaps the most violent change which would attract attention would be a passage frequently quoted, and therefore closely inwrought with the memory, e. g., Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the proof of facts which are not seen," Heb. xi. 1. We have not, however, noticed this book to decide upon its mere merits. We have a higher aim. We desire to direct careful students of the divine Word to a revision wherein they may search out all the passages whose interpretation distresses or embarrasses them, and wherein they will in general find either the Authorized text adhered to, or a new version given. The preface is sedate and sensible; the notes are numerous, and strictly confined to the rendering of the Word aright as far as the translator can effect that. The chief use, however, of the book is as a test-work upon the muchdisputed question alluded to above. Thoughtful readers of Scripture will be glad to know that in the main the usual version is fairly representative of the Greek text.

Poems. By ARTHUR H. CLOUGH. With a Memoir. Macmillan and Co., Cambridge.

THE reputation of Arthur H. Clough among all intellectual men was so great, that it must have been difficult to justify public hope

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