'We parted the next morning. Keraumut Allee was as sorrowful as if he was about to separate from a brother, for it was long since his heart had been gladdened with so much khoosoobut, [pleasant converse,] and when we had marched on some distance, he broke a long silence by exclaiming, "Hei Irân! Irân! your people may be rogues and liars; but I swear you are such pleasant companions that one would live among you on any terms!"-vol. ii. pp. 278-282. We think the whole of Lieut. Conolly's remarks included in the section headed Overland Invasion of India,' well worthy of attention. It is clear that India can never be taken by a coup de main-and that it will require a succession of years before Russia could sufficiently advance into the bowels of the land' to master any secure position from which to direct ultimate operations, and upon which her forces, if any disaster befel them, might retire. To organise such an invasion would require the talents of a chief, such as perhaps has never yet been known in Russian military history; and to lead it on to success, amidst all the wiles of the numerous tribes through which it would have to pass, checked by the great difficulties of procuring food, assailed by the vicissitudes of climate, and after all, with the certainty of meeting troops just as well disciplined, better accustomed to the climate, and with gigantic resources of all sorts about and behind them, would require the head of a Cæsar, a Buonaparte, or a Wellington. On the whole, we strongly recommend this book, as containing much amusement and information. ART. III.-History of Roman Literature, from the earliest Period to the Augustan Age, in 2 vols. 8vo. 2d Edition, 1824; and during the Augustan Age, in 1 vol. 8vo. By John Dunlop, Esq., Author of the History of Fiction.' WRITERS RITERS on the History of Roman Literature' have added greatly to their own labours, and to the fatigue of their readers, by endeavouring to trace the language of the Romans up to its remotest origin. Now Rome, it is confessed, was formed of the colluvies of savage tribes. What, then, could be its earliest language but a barbarous jargon? But these tribes, it is said, were either a part of the Tuscan nation, or had been united, by conquest, under its dominion. And of what was the Tuscan population composed?-of all that the ocean, from the east and south, had vomited on their shores, and that the mountains had poured down in torrents from the north; for, concerning the numerous sources to which different theories have exclusively re ferred ferred the whole of the Tuscan nation, only enough has been adduced to prove that each has contributed a portion,—and that a Tuscan was 'A man akin to all the universe.' But even admitting the Tuscan to be traceable to one pure source, and that the court language, at least, of Romulus was pure Tuscan, of what possible avail could the knowledge of that be in elucidating the history of Roman literature, which had no existence for centuries afterwards, while, in the interval, the language had been so perpetually changing, and so completely changed, that a treaty, made about the middle of the third century of Rome, was unintelligible, as Polybius tells us,* at the beginning of the seventh and the language of the Twelve Tables, promulged in the beginning of the fourth century, had not only become obsolete at the commencement of the eighth, but Cicero at that time cites, on a particular case, old commentators (veteres interpretes) as declaring their inability to understand, and offering conjectures only on the meaning of the law. If such could be the obscurity of this important record, of which Livy says 'fons omnis publici privatique est juris ;' and of which Cicero relates, that in his youth all law-students were required to get it by heart, § what must have been the mutability of language in common intercourse, where accuracy was little required, and among a nation which for centuries naturalized every conquered people, and where neither victors nor vanquished had any standard of taste to curb the caprices of colloquial phraseology? Accordingly, we find from inscriptions, and the other few remaining scattered documents of which the dates can be ascertained, that for the first five hundred years the language of Rome was in a constant fluctuation -not of orthography, nor of neologies and archaisms merely, but of the most important parts of grammatical construction. About the commencement of the fifth century, two causes conspired to give birth to Roman literature. Rome, in its incessant wars with all the closely neighbouring states, had been perpetually environed with the most imminent dangers, and leisure was known to no one that was able to carry arms; even extreme youth was occupied in learning warlike practice, and extreme age in instructing youth, and in consulting for the immediate safety of the state but when, by successive conquests, war was removed from the vicinity of the city, and the allies-as the subjugated nations were called-formed half of the armies of the republic, Rome was left in peace, and its inhabitants in comparative leisure. At this period was effected the conquest of Magna Græcia, which intro*Lib. iii. c. 22. + De Leg. ii. 23. ‡ L. iii. c. 34. § De Leg. ii. 23; but he adds-'quas jam nemo discit.' duced duced an intimate knowledge of the arts and refinements of Greece, and letting in the light of literature just when Rome was prepared to imbibe, she soon became fitted also to reflect it. The drama, as most calculated to attract attention, became the subject of imitation; and the first regular literary compositions that are recorded to have existed in the Latin language are the dramatic pieces of Livius Andronicus. Nor was he a native of Rome, but of Magna Græcia. And this, perhaps, was fortunate : he would bring with him a just partiality for the noble Greek hexameter, with a thorough knowledge of its construction; and though its sonorous grandeur could not find an echo in the Latin tongue, yet its varied cadences, its majestic march, and flexible strength, were all capable of being communicated to the Roman language, but might never have been so, had the excellence of a native poet given previous reputation, as well as currency, to any inferior measure, such as the Saturnian, in which Andronicus (probably to conciliate his new countrymen) had translated the Ödyssey. This consideration may explain the finished structure of the only four consecutive lines which remain among the fragments of this poet, and which, from their polish, have been suspected not to be his; yet, even in this short passage, there is a trace of the Grecian,-for when he says, Dirige odorisequos ad cœca cubilia canes,' he seems forcing the Latin upon compounds, and 'sesquipedalia verba,' into which the Greek glides with such spontaneous facility. Another consequence of his foreign origin was the adoption of Greek stories for his dramas, which in most instances were probably mere translations, as were those of all (so far as we have any knowledge) of his successors on the stage of republican Rome. Such regular compositions, however, were a great improvement on the buffoonery, and extemporaneous ribaldry, and personality of the old Fescennine verses, whose authors, Horace tells us, were not reclaimed 'formidine fustis.' Of the real merits of these ancient dramatists,—Andronicus, Ennius (who was also an epic poet), Nævius, Pacuvius, Attius, &c., we can form but a very imperfect judgment, the fragments that remain being mere scraps. Nor can any certain inference be drawn from the estimation in which they were held by many persons in the most refined period of Roman literature, to whom probably was applicable the observation of Andronicus himself, 'Mirum videtur quod sit factum jam diu ;' at least we know Cicero said of Andronicus, that his works were not worthy of a second perusal (Brut. 18); and Horace (Epist. 21.) complains grievously of the ancient poets being preferred to the modern, merely because they were ancient. Suetonius, too, speaks speaks of Andronicus and Ennius in particular, as themselves half Greeks, and of their works as mere translations from the Greek.* Horace indeed admits that there was, now and then, a graceful expression, and here and there a polished line; and as, in the few fragments remaining of these ancient poets, we may find some things to admire, and some even that have been imitated by their most celebrated successors, we may fairly give them credit for much more of the same kind; especially when it is considered that the shreds and patches we possess were not preserved as patterns of beauty or excellence, but (except in the case of Ennius) principally adduced by ancient grammarians as authorities for the signification of some single word. Senecat has applauded Nævius's sentiment, and Cicero repeatedly applied it,‡ Virgil's Lætus sum Laudari abs te, pater, laudato viro.' 'Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem, was no doubt suggested by the less elegant but more pithy phrase of Attius Virtuti sis par, dispar fortunis patris.'-ap. Macrob. 1. vi. c. 1. The celebrated tyrant's maxim, adopted by Caligula,§ declaimed on by Seneca, || and, as Erasmus says of it, a nemine scriptorum non usurpata, præcipue M. Tullio familiaris,' was that of Atreus in Attius- Oderint dum metuant.' Ovid (in Meta¶ morph. xiii. 20) has copied the coarseness of Pacuvius, who (in Armorum Judicio) makes his hero say, 'An quis est, qui te esse dignum quicum certetur putet?' instead of imitating the elegance of Attius on the same occasionNam trophæum ferre me a forti viro Pulchrum est: sin autem et vincar, vinci a tali nullum est probrum.' The first sentiment was not more appropriate to the temper and fate of Ajax, than the latter to the character of Ulysses. These specimens of the few fragments that remain may give some little idea of the style of writers called ancients by those whom we denominate the classic authors of Rome. Their versification was rude, though a great improvement on the harsh and irregular Saturnian; and Ennius in particular seems to have succeeded in completely establishing the hexameter introduced by Andronicus. *De Illustr. Grammat. c. i. This, however, could not have been just with regard to Ennius's most celebrated work-'The Annals.' + Epist. 102. Tusc. 4. Ep. ad Div. 5, 12, and 15, 16. Pison. 7, &c. § Sueton. Calig. 30. He, He, too, by refining and combining passages of the rude old popular poems with others from the Greek comic writers, gave commencement to the regular satire, in which alone the Roman literature can claim originality; though Ennius himself had no such pretension, not only borrowing, as we have said, from Greeks and Tuscans, but from his immediate predecessor, whom he affected to despise; a proceeding on which Cicero tells him'a Nævio vel sumsisti multa, si fateris ; vel, si negas, surripuisti." 6 When authors can obtain an easy celebrity by imitation, they will not be at the trouble of original composition: and at the time of the first Roman writers, as Mr. Dunlop has observed, the productions of Grecian literature were almost as new to the Romans as the most perfectly original compositions would have been.' And though, by these imitations, they made an earlier approach to the knowledge of the best models, they were, from the same cause, prevented from attaining equal excellence by efforts of their own ; quia nunquam par sit imitator auctori ; tura est rei semper citra veritatem est similitudo.' hæc na Of the 'Annals' of Ennius, there remains so much both of power and beauty, that Mr. Dunlop's designation of them as a versified newspaper,' however applicable to the inartificialness of the plan, is by no means a just description of the matter; and this much some of the critic's own citations may prove. For a like reason, the classing under such a description the Araucana of Ercilla and the Henriade of Voltaire, is equally indefensible. The latter especially had to contend with an unpoetical language, and, as far as the ancient style of epic is concerned, an unpoetic generation; the 'amantes mira Camœnæ' would only have been ridiculed in an age which Voltaire himself had unhappily taught to delight in sarcastic incredulity. The popularity which the genius of Ennius, and the vanity and patriotic enthusiasm of the nation gave to his historic poems, produced a long succession of similar works, (ceasing only with the decline of literature under the empire,) many of which have perished; but probably very favourable specimens remain in the regular and sustained poems of Lucan and Silius Italicus, and in the shorter flights of Claudian. Variety of composition cost Ennius nothing, for he was a borrower, and had the whole range of Greek literature whereon to levy contributions; and perhaps the work which had the greatest influence on society was a translation of the romantic story of Evemerus, who professed to have discovered an island where he found records of the births and deaths of the principal deities, and therefore asserted the whole generation of Olympus to have been * Brut. 19. mere |