Слике страница
PDF
ePub

chantment, a consuming fire absorbing and drying up the very source from whence it was derived.

It should also be remembered that the benefits we have derived from this Constitution, the blessings we have enjoyed under its benign and successful administration, have all flowed from the exercise of those powers which it unquestionably possesses. 'The constructive claims of the Government have only partially, and in a very few unimportant instances been yet exerted. They exist, at present, rather in theory than in practice. We therefore raise, while it is yet time, a warning voice against their extension, because we feel persuaded that whenever these doctrines shall be fully developed, whenever they shall be made to press in their undefined extent on the different portions of this country, instead of connecting them more closely together, instead of cementing the Union of our great confederacy, they will prove only sources of dissatisfaction and of discord, and, like the cords wound around the sleeping Sampson, will be broken as a thread, and become like flax that is burnt with fire, before the energy of an awakened and irritated people.

The union of the States has been from the first assemblage of delegates in 1774, to the present hour, the wish, the hope, the ardent aspiration of every patriot of America. It has grown with our growth, it has strengthened with our strength. It has become a feeling rather than a principle. It is mingled with every calculation of our future greatness or felicity, with every anticipation of permanent prosperity or of national glory. It has been cherished in no portion of our country with more devotion than in the South; it has been supported no where with more unanimity and disinterestedness. In all the questions which have agitated our country, one only excepted, this section of the union has been, if not passive, at least defensive in its position. The only measure engendering acrimonious feelings, which has ever been brought forward by the people of the Southern States, was our late war with Great-Britain; and that war, if we except those sentiments of national honor, which we know are common to every portion of our country, was undertaken altogether for Northern interests, for the protection of commerce and navigation, not of agriculture. The South suffered by it most severely, but it has never repented of its sacrifices; and our citizens are still prepared to make great concessions to friendship and to peace. In every event that may occur, they will have the proud boast of having done nothing to disturb the harmony of the Union. No discordant note will originate with them. If ever a separation of the States shall take place, it will only occur when some portion of the confederation shall find the Government no longer

one of equal rights or equal benefits; when it shall discover that the Constitution will no longer afford to all, protection for their property, nor security for their lives.

If ever that evil day should arrive, when the Constitution of our country shall offer no barrier to the projects of designing or ambitious men, no limits to the speculations of any one who shall proclaim the general welfare to be his sole end and aim, his guide and his exclusive principle, the rights of confiding members of this confederacy may indeed be violated-but not with impunity and from the errors of misguided, even if honest statesmen, posterity may have to mourn over the fragments of that mighty Republic, which, in its dawn, offered to the world so bright an example, and promised to itself so proud a destiny.

ART. II.-1. Roemische Geschichte. Von B. G. Niebuhr, 1ste und 2te Theile. Berlin, 1811, 1812.

2. Roman History, by B. G. Niebuhr, translated from the German, by F. A. Walter, Esq. F. R. S. L. One of the Librarians of the British Museum. 2 Vols. London, 1827.

HISTORY is to morals and politics precisely what experiment and observation are to physics. In either case, without well ascertained facts, it is vain to marshal our inductions and to make a parade of propositions; our systems, conceived only in the brain, will never admit of application to any thing out of it. It is because past authentic history furnishes the only means by which we may predict the future, that it becomes indispensable for regulating the conduct of mankind upon important occa

sions.

These observations may serve as an apology for the labours of those authors whose chief delight appears to be derived from the detection of error, and whose excursions on the sea of history appear to be designed rather for sport than for use.

Mr. Niebuhr, the author of the work on "Roman History" now before us, is certainly not at all behind others in a wary scepticism, though this fault, (if it is one) is, in a great degree, redeemed by the masterly manner in which he endeavours, upon all occasions, to divine and explain the true nature of ancient institutions. His doubts are not all new, for many of them had occurred to the ancients, and, in modern times, M. De Beaufort has pushed this matter to the utmost, by denying the authenticity and credibility of the whole of the first five centuries in the history of the eternal City. Ingenious as his book is, it at least leaves us as much in suspense as it at first found us. That we have the history, in its present form, is indubitable; but at what age was it at first palmed upon the world for a true narration of facts? To practise such deception upon the credulity of mankind is plainly impossible. Too many were acquainted with the truth to suffer the fraud to remain long undetected, nor can we readily conceive whose interest it would be to practise it. A single treatise on a particular subject may be, as is proved by several remarkable examples, composed for the paradoxical purpose of building up a reputation upon the success of a spurious work, while the secrecy necessary to that success would seem to be incompatible with all reputation. But we hazard nothing in asserting, that the annals of a whole nation were never yet forged or corrupted. It is a difficult labour, from which no one could derive any pleasure, the result of which he could never hope would be believed, and from which, therefore, he could not possibly reap any share of admiration and applause.* Whoever expects to find, in Mr. Niebuhr's book, a regular "Roman History," will be greatly disappointed. It is, strictly speaking, a series of dissertations on the most important subjects of early Roman History, chronologically arranged. The plan is evidently formed upon Gibbon, but the work is not near so much subjected to historical models as the latter. It begins with the settlements made in Italy, anterior to the foundation of the city. Upon that almost hopeless part of the history of the Roman soil, Mr. Niebuhr labours with great diligence and some success. He cannot, of course, make new authorities, while those which existed have been so often handled as to be quite exhausted. He does what most readers will consider a more acceptable service; he enables them to understand, with some clearness, the origin, the state, and the wanderings of the nations, whether Greek or Barbarian, who first possessed the country.

* "-Attamen a tam multis traditam (historiam) et a pluribus creditam probatamque, in quâ non unius civitatis, sed plurium populorum res gestæ, regumque distincta series exponitur, omnino falsam esse atque fabulosam vix mihi persuadere possum, præsertim quum nec a temporum ratione sive Chronologia diserepet atque dissentiat."-Nardini. Rom. Vet. lib. i.

The objections, since urged by Sir I. Newton, to the great length of the reigns of the kings, may, in part, be obviated, by recollecting that the old Roman year consisted of ten months, or three hundred and four days. (See Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 208.) It is true, Numa reformed the Calendar, but the popular computation would, in all probability, prevail for a considerable time.

[blocks in formation]

Mr. Niebuhr's chief merits consist, in the skill and ability he has shewn in discerning and pointing out a foundation for true history amidst the traditions by which it is obscured; in the diligence with which he has gleaned authorities, neither trite nor obvious; and, most of all, in the judgment he has displayed in selecting for discussion and elucidation those passages which have the strongest bearings upon politics and manners. Before we proceed, however, to exhibit instances of his merits in these particulars, we deem it necessary, for the satisfaction of our readers, to advert to several subjects, which have excited much controversy, and without which, Roman History itself must be very crudely apprehended.

These subjects may be reduced to three points of discussion :1. On the date of the invention of Letters.

2. On the originals of Roman History.

3. Concerning the effects produced upon these by the devastation of the Gauls.

Writing, like many other arts, has, in all probability, been discovered by more nations than one. Necessity begets invention, and there is a period in the march of society, when writing becomes an absolute want; an instrument, without which, the business of life must stand still. The wampum of the Indian, the pictures of the Mexican, the hieroglyphics of the Egyptian, are only so many steps in the progress of the same great art. We cannot suppose that either of these nations borrowed from the other, nor is there any reason to doubt, that, in more improved forms of society, more expeditious methods would have been discovered, exactly as, in our common writing, we abridge the words or have resource to tachygraphic symbols, according to the measure of celerity which we find it expedient to adopt. If we may believe Cæsar, merchants are the great civilizers of mankind. They not only supply wants which actually exist, but create new ones, that they may have the pleasure or the profit of supplying them. Their delight is in the discovery of new markets, and in the prosecution of gain; time and space are to them nearly annihilated. The regularity and rapidity with which their concerns must be despatched, induces the necessity of discovering correct and easy forms of recording them. It is not too much to assert, that no commerce, to the amount of fifty tons, could ever be carried on without the aid of some species of writing. We hazard nothing, therefore, in affirming that merchants were the first inventors of that kind of writing which

à cultu atque humanitate Provinciæ longissimè absunt; minimèque ad eos mercatores sæpe commeant, atque ea, quæ ad effeminandos animos pertinent, important. Cæs. de Bel. Gal. lib. i.

has been called epistolographic, or popular. The hierarchy too of every country, probably had its recording symbols; but they were rather intended for the purpose of remembering than of communicating thoughts or facts. Accordingly, the earliest merchants, the Phœnicians, by the universal consent of antiquity in the West, have been handed down to us as the inventors of this invaluable art. Their colonies, on both sides of the Mediterranean, at Carthage, Gades, Sicily and Malta, and, in all probability, in Etruria, supposed a very ample commerce, and it is certain that the vestiges of their language are to be traced throughout all those regions to the present day; the basis of that of Malta being a pure Phœnician, and bearing a strong affinity to the ancient Etruscan.* The Phœnicians were, for a long period, settled on the Red Sea, antecedent to their migration to the coast of Canaan. Their writing might probably have had its origin in the remotest East, and in their migrations, they may have borne it along with them as the most precious of their treasures. However this may be, there can be no doubt that the Greekst and Romans traced up their knowledge of the art to the Phœnicians.

Phœnices primi, famæ si creditur, ausi
Mansuram rudibus vocem signare figuris.
Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere biblos
Noverat: et saxis tantum, volucresque feræque
Sculptuque servabant magicas animalia linguas.

Phars III. 220 &c.

Instead, therefore, of inquiring into the period at which the art was first invented, the more proper mode would be, to fix upon some æra of chronology, and examine whether or not the practice of writing was known at or about that time.

We are no further concerned with this question, at present, than to shew, that about the time when Rome is reported to have been founded, letters were so far diffused, as to render it

Il chiarissimo Prevosto Gori, che più d'ogni altro con felice riuscimento s'affaticò a dilucidare l'Etrusca favella, confessa come li due candelabri da me accennati, furongli di lume alla lingua Etrusca, tratto dalle scrizioni Puniche che vi si leggono incise col carattere Punico o sia Cartaginense, giacche questa e l'Etrusca sono gemelle, figlié d'una Madre, qual' è la lingua di Fenici.-Agius de Soldanis della Lingua Punica, p. 47.

† Οἱ δὲ Φοίνικες οὗτοι οἱ σὺν Κάδμῳ ἀπικόμενοι, τῶν ἔταν οἱ Γεφυραῖοι, αλλά τε πολλά, οἰκησαντες ταύτην τὸν χώρην, ἐςήγαγον διδασκάλια ἐς τους Ἕλληνας, καὶ δὴ καὶ γράμματα, οὐκ ἐόντα πριν "Ελλησι, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκέειν. Herod. V. 58, et The tradition seems to have been express and circumstantial. The epithet "Phœnician," attached to the letters, and the fact, attested by Herodotus himself, that the Cadmian letters were the same with the Ionian, (Lib. V. 59) are strong presumptions in favour of the Phœnician claims to the immortal discovery.

seq.

« ПретходнаНастави »