145 



ROMAN HISTORY JULIUS CLESAR.* 



[QUARTERLY REVIEW, MARCH, 1851.] 



STRANGE though the fact may seem, at a time when 

 learned and ingenious men are seeking subjects through- 

 out every domain of human knowledge, it is certain that we 

 have no English work, deserving the name of a history of the 

 Roman Empire, prior to the point at which Gibbon takes up 

 his vast and splendid theme. Nay, this deficiency, it can 

 hardly be denied, extends over much of the antecedent 

 period. It might fairly be deemed a vacant field to which 

 Dr. Arnold came, when he undertook the work which was 

 abruptly and unhappily terminated by his death. His 

 learning and candour fitted him well for the task; and 

 though there are some defects of method in its earlier part, 

 no writer need disdain the task of completing what he has 

 thus begun. Such completion is imperatively required to 

 sustain the fair fame of our literature ; so faulty on this 

 subject, that even now it is difficult to place before the 

 student any English book which creditably relates the great 

 events intervening between the close of the second Cartha- 

 ginian war and the death of Sylla.f The work of Middleton 



* A History of the Romans under the Empire. By Charles Merivale, B.D., 

 late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 2 vols. 8vo. 1850. 



Feb. 1862. The seventh and concluding volume of Mr. Merivale's History is 

 now, we believe, on the point of publication. The work thus completed, forms 

 a most important and valuable addition to English historical literature. 



f The valuable History of Rome by the present Dean of Christchurch had 

 not been published when this article was written. 



L 



