424 
travels again and picks up another—revisits 
his holiday friends, and meets again with 
the odd fellow, who again furnishes a tale 
—and finally, returning to the inn, encoun- 
ters the painter himself, in whose room he 
had been so much alarmed—who has his 
own adventures to relate. 
And so about a dozen tales are collected, 
making a very agreeable lounging volume, 
though doubtless better fitted for the glanc- 
ing pages of a magazine—than to be thus 
given in bundles. These things weary in 
troops—for you must go on, till you get to 
the end. 
Hannibal’s Passage over the Alps, by 
Messrs. Wickham and Cramer, 2d Edi- 
tion.; 1828.—This guestio verata of the 
critics, philological and geographical, seems 
now brought to a close; and this second 
edition of Messrs. Wickham and Cramer’s 
book, not in the least differing from the 
first, as to the line of march, but more com- 
plete, from the final and perfect survey of 
the possible passes of the Alps, and the 
thorough sifting of adverse authorities, has 
the merit of satisfactorily terminating a dis- 
cussion, which might have been terminated 
long ago, if writers had made as much use 
of their eyes, and unprejudiced understand- 
ings, as their books. 
The original authorities are Polybius and 
Livy... The Roman has always been more 
read than the Greek, and especially by the 
French, who, till of late years, in all geogra- 
phical discussions, have, always been more 
distinguished than the English. Now Livy 
decidedly points to Mount Geneyre, and the 
French authorities, accordingly, all labour 
to establish that route. But Livy’s account 
is not only stuffed with extravagancies, but 
is full of inconsistencies, and, especially, is 
irreconcileable with Polybius, though to 
Polybius he plainly trusted for his general 
story ; sometimes obviously and grossly mis- 
apprehending him, and at other times, after 
his manner, adorning, and amplifying, and 
blundering ; moreover, from knowing no- 
thing of the scene which he ventured upon 
describing. He wrote, too, nearly two cen- 
turies after the event. 
Polybius, on the other hand, published 
his account of the passage within forty years 
of Hannibal’s expulsion from Italy ; was 
himself a sober, unpoetical person—a mili- 
tary man too—and surveyed the ground 
with his own eyes, and with a direct view to 
the passage ; but though careful in marking 
distances, and not defective in descriptions 
of the country, he is sparing of particulars, 
and especially of names, and of course has 
not furnished the more obvious means of de- 
termining the precise line of march. The 
probabilities are thus all obviously in favour 
of Polybius’s accuracy ; and the writers of 
the volume before us, taking Polybius in 
their hands, set out with the express pur- 
pose of tracing his descriptions, step by step, 
and have produced a body of evidence con- 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Ocr. 
clusive, certainly, against Livy’s Genevre, 
and apparently, almost decisively, in favour 
of Little St. Bernard. 
Polybius, we have observed, was careful 
in marking distances, and has fixed two 
points on the Rhone—the crossing of Han- 
nibal’s main army 100 miles from the mouth, 
and the march along its banks upwards of 
175 miles. The first points out Roquemaure 
(confirmed by the additional fact recorded 
by Pansanus, that the river is there un- 
broken by islands) a little above Avignon, 
and the latter, Vienne. 
From Vienne, the obvious course to 
Italy was by Les Echelles, Aiguebellette, de 
l’Epine, or Mont du Chat, all passes of the 
Alps, within a few miles of each other; the 
latter, for sufficient reasons, is the one 
adopted, and Bourget (near Chamberi) is 
concluded to be the town or fort which pro- 
tected the pass, and was taken by Hannibal 
after the battle. From this place the de- 
clension of the country took him to the 
Isere, at Montmaillan; from thence the 
valley of the Isere, along its windings 60 or 
70 miles, to Scez, was an open route ; from 
thence again the passage of the Little St. 
Bernard was right before him ; from Little 
St. Bernard, the valley of the Doria Baltea 
led him to Aoste and Ivrea, and from 
thence he finally reached Turin: the 
whole corresponding throughout with Poly- 
bius, with as much closeness as in a matter 
of description can well be expected. 
The main fact to establish is the point of 
divergence from the Rhone—from thence 
all is comparatively easy. Livy stops at the 
point where the Isere falls into the Rhone, 
and does not take Hannibal over the Isere. 
Turning from this point, along the left bank 
of the Isere, the course to Italy was natu- 
rally by the Cenis, or the Genevre, and 
Livy leads him over the Genevre—in his 
time the Genevre had become a common 
pass. Polybius, however, though he does 
not specifically speak of Hannibal’s crossing 
the Isere, yet represents him on the right 
bank, and considerably to the north, and 
actively engaged there. He describes what 
was called the Insula very minutely, which 
he would have had no occasion whatever 
to do, if Hannibal had not crossed the 
Isere. The Insula, he compares in size and 
form with the Delta of Egypt, where he 
himself had been, and with which it corres- 
ponds in those respects. The angle is 
formed by the lines of the Rhone and the 
Isere, and the base of it by the line of hills, 
which constitute the first step of the Alps 
on. the western side, and of which the Mont 
du Chat is a part. This insula was the 
country of the Allobroges, for the sove- 
reignty of which two brothers were at the 
time contending, the eldest of whom Han- 
nibal fled and established, and in the mean 
while~suspended his course. Nothing is 
said of his returning, nor is it probable he 
did return to re-cross the Isere; and when 
he was in the insula, the obvious line was 
a 
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