Domestic and Foreign. 



1827.] 



an O' Flaherty, his own cousin who has 

 long been his guardian angel, and by the 

 aid of his foster-brother, has rescued him 

 from more than one danger, moral and 

 physical. He is now desperately in love 

 with her, and resolves to break away from 

 the seductions of Lady Knocklofty. In the 

 meanwhile, a pamphlet he had written at 

 Cong during his convalescence's published, 

 and a wan ant issues for his arrest. While 

 evading the tip-staffs though fully intend- 

 ing to surrender on the trial he encoun- 

 ters Lady Knocklofty, on the mountains, in 

 the dead of uight. She proposes to screen 

 him from danger, and he insists at all 

 hazards on seeing her home. She beguiles 

 him to a secluded spoi ; his better resolves 

 vanish ; and he is finally surprised in the 

 lady's bower, and safely lodged in Kihnain- 

 ham gaol. 



Lady Morgan had advanced thus far with 

 her story, and found herself at the end of the 

 fourth volume, and was of course obliged 

 to compress. The Eclair cissement follows 

 some years after. O'Brien, it seems, 

 escaped by the aid of the abbess entered 

 the French service, attained high rank, and 

 finally married his vivacious and ubiquitous 

 cousin. 



Though unequal, there are capital scenes 

 in the novel particularly the review the 

 drawing- room and the claret feast. 



The Roman History, by G. B. Niebuhr ; 

 translated from the German, by F. A. 

 Walter, one of the Librarians of the British 

 Museum, 2 vols. Svo. 1827. This history, 

 which was published in Germany about fif- 

 teen years ago, Niebuhr is said to have 

 lately revised, or rather he is stated to have 

 remodelled the whole of his very sagacious 

 and elaborate performance. The necessity 

 for some revision every man at all acquaint- 

 ed with the work with its obscurities and 

 general unconnectedness must forcibly 

 feel. He is said also now that he is a 

 counsellor of state to have done so for the 

 purpose of changing the general tone of it 

 of lowering the high and ardent sentiments 

 which mark the writer's former zeal for the 

 welfare of mankind, and which form, per- 

 haps, the main value of his volumes. This 

 purpose we are unwilling to credit. If ever 

 writing carried with it marks of deep feel- 

 ings and firm convictions, Niebuhr's does ; 

 and to find such a man flinching, to please 

 the great, would be one of the most morti- 

 fying events that can well be imagined. Of 

 this revision of Niebuhr's, however, of what- 

 ever character it may be, a translation has 

 been for some time announced ; but the one 

 before us of the original edition, by Mr. 

 Walter of the British Museum, is a work so 

 ably executed that it would be an act of po- 

 sitive injustice to pass it by, in expectation 

 of what may never appear, and" may not be 

 better, without the commendation due to 

 its unquestionable merits. The translation 



35 



of such a work BO full of intricate criticism 

 of profound views in politics, and sub- 

 tile speculations in metaphysics writ- 

 ten in a style of unusual complication, and 

 with an abruptness of manner that frequently 

 misleads, is itself a task of no common dif- 

 ficulty; and to have successfully overcome 

 such difficulty, and then to have the labour 

 lost, is exceedingly vexatious. For such 

 disappointments there is, however, no re- 

 medy. If the second work prove the supe- 

 rior, the first must be abandoned ; and Mr. 

 W. must be content with the credit of good 

 intentions, and the merit of doing well all 

 that was in his power to do. 



In the perusal of Niebuhr's history now 

 that we have a translation the general 

 reader will be Avoefully disappointed ; and 

 the Quarterly Review, which first excited 

 the public attention in its favour, must 

 answer for that disappointment for com- 

 mending it, we shall not say, extravagantly, 

 but undistinguishingly for awakening ex- 

 pectations, winch the woi'k is not calculated 

 to gratify. Niebuhr's history is the produc- 

 tion of a scholar, and addressed to the in- 

 telligence of scholars ; it is full of discus- 

 sions, in which the general reader will not, 

 and cannot, take an interest. He will find 

 him too to his farther disappointment 

 more ready in pulling down than in building 

 up. In the conflictions of evidence, to attain 

 any high degree of probability is rarely pos- 

 sible, and in the confusions of fable and fact 

 scarcely less so ; but to exhibit incompati- 

 bilities, and expose absurdities, is generally 

 no difficult matter. To make ruins, in short, 

 is the easier labour ; and ruins Niebuhr 

 has made in abundance, and made them re- 

 lentlessly not that he is incapable of re- 

 construction for he is a man of the highest 

 reach of ability, of extraordinary research, 

 and of boundless ambition. He has no 

 rival in criticism and classical attainments 

 in this country accompanied as they are 

 with a warmth of temperament, an active 

 and yet disciplined imagination, and a saga- 

 city and power of combination rarely paral- 

 leled. 



The history before us extends to the year 

 416 of tne eternal city, when the constitu- 

 tion of Rome may be said to have been per- 

 fected by the Licinian law, which opened 

 the consulate equally to plebeian and patri- 

 cian. Through this long period the thread 

 of Niebuhr's narrative is scarcely traceable 

 so perpetually is it broken by critical 

 inquiries and episodical matters never en- 

 tirely irrelevant, but sometimes not very 

 intimately connected. In general he gives 

 not the results of his researches, but the 

 researches themselves and these, what- 

 ever may be the effect in the mind of the 

 scholar, familiar with such discussions, will 

 as often confound as enlighten those who 

 run as they read. The early history of 

 Rome is full of obvious fable ; nobody se 

 riously credits the thousand and one events 



4 M.2 



