the natives of this country. If these circumstances be considered, it will appear that the capital crimes committed during the last seven years, with no capital execution, have, in proportion to the population, not been much more than a third of those committed in the first seven years, notwithstanding the infliction of death on forty-seven persons. The intermediate periods lead to the same results. The number of capital crimes in any one of these periods does not appear to be diminished either by the capital executions of the same period, or of that immediately preceding: they bear no assignable proportion to each other.

"In the seven years immediately preceding the last, which were chiefly in the presidency of my learned predecessor, Sir William Syer, there was a remarkable diminution of capital punishments. The average fell from about four in each year, which was that of the seven years before Sir William Syer, to somewhat less than two in each year. Yet the capital convictions were diminished about one third.

"The punishment of death is principally intended to prevent the more violent and atrocious crimes. From May, 1797, there were eighteen convictions for murder, of which I omit two, as of a very particular kind. In that period there were twelve capital executions. From May, 1804, to May 1811, there were six convictions for murder, omitting one which was considered by the jury as in substance a case of manslaughter with some aggravation. The murders in the former period were, therefore, very nearly as three to one to those in the latter, in which no capital punishment was inflicted. From the number of convictions I of course exclude those cases where the prisoner escaped; whether he owed his safety to defective proof of his guilt, or to a legal objection. This cannot affect the justness of a comparative estimate, because the proportion of criminals who escape on legal objections before courts of the same law must, in any long period, be nearly the same. But if the two cases one where a formal verdict of murder, with a recommendation to mercy, was intended to represent an aggravated manslaughter; and the other of a man who escaped by a repugnancy in the indictment, where, however, the facts were more near manslaughter than murder be added, then the murders of the last seven years will be eight, while those of the former seven years will be six

teen.

"This small experiment has, therefore, been made without any diminution of the security of the lives and properties of men. Two hundred thousand men have been governed for seven years without a capital punishment, and without any increase of crimes. If any experience has been acquired, it has been safely and inno

cently gained. It was, indeed, impossible that the trial could ever have done harm. It was made on no avowed principle of impunity or even lenity. It was in its nature gradual, subject to cautious reconsideration in every new instance, and easily capable of being altogether changed on the least appearance of danger. Though the general result be rather remarkable, yet the usual maxims which regulate judicial discretion have in a very great majority of cases been pursued. The instances of deviation from those maxims scarcely amount to a twentieth of the whole convictions." pp. 506, 507.

We suppose, that, with all the versatility and compass of Mackintosh's mind, he can hardly be called an original thinker. We are not aware of any contribution exclusively his own to the previously existing stock of ideas in morals, politics, or literature. But if he has not enlarged the bounds of human knowledge, it is no small praise that he has made no addition to the rubbish of baseless and worthless theories and speculations, which serve no conceivable purpose except as buoys to keep their authors' names afloat. On the other hand, he has done much towards disentangling and systematizing the materials that lay before him, and has touched no subject without leaving upon it the indubitable impress of a sound, clear-sighted, and judicious intellect. In imagination, in wit, in those discursive powers, which, even when most gracefully exercised, are prone to play the judgment false, he was undoubtedly deficient; but instances of the healthful and vigorous use of the rational and æsthetic faculties on so wide a range of subjects are so rare, as on that ground alone to entitle him to the place which at the outset we professed ourselves ready to assign him, among the world's few great men.

We should be glad, had we time, to trace with some minuteness of detail the beautiful development and growth of his character. As a young man, he seems to have been fickle, impulsive, reckless, and given to some of the less censurable irregularities cominon among youth of that day. No wonder that he should have been so; for he lacked all the essential benefits of early domestic discipline, having been neglected by his father, and over-petted by his slighted mother, while a circle of indulgent aunts supplied every needed additional means of spoiling the child. At the age of ten, he left their roof, and, with hardly any subsequent check or guidance, was thenceforward virtually his own master. An imprudent mar

riage with a woman of the rarest excellence of character seems to have put a period to whatever of objectionable license may have tinged the first years of manhood; and her early death constituted a marked epoch in his moral growth. From that time we trace the constant outraying of his benevolent sympathies, and recognize an expansive love of his race and a sincere interest in every thing appertaining to the welfare of humanity as pervading elements in every form of his activity. Generous, self-forgetting devotion to the happiness and improvement of friends and strangers, the few and the many, the near and the distant, was the prominent trait of his moral nature, and moulded his whole character into the most lovely and attractive forms and expressions. Few men have had so many intimate friends; few have loved their friends. with so genial and unselfish an attachment. Nor was sincere religious faith wanting to add its crowning grace to a life so rich and beautiful in all its manward aspects. In his early sorrows, we find him seeking relief by trust in a fatherly Providence; recognitions of the worth and power of Christianity grew more and more frequent with the growing experience of life; and his Saviour's name, coupled with expressions of faith and love, was almost the last word that fell from his lips in dying.

ART. II.1. The History of Rome, from the First Punic War to the Death of Constantine. By B. G. NIEBUHR. In a Series of Lectures, including an Introductory Course on the Sources and Study of Roman History. Edited by LEONHARD SCHMITZ, Ph. D. London. 1844. 2 vols. 8vo.

2. A History of Rome, from the Earliest Times to the Death of Commodus, A. D. 192. By DR. LEONHARD SCHMITZ, F. R. S. E., Rector of the High School of Edinburgh. New York: Harper & Brothers. Published also at Andover, by Allen, Morrill, & Wardwell. 1847. 12mo.

A SINGULAR fatality seems to attend the history of Rome. While that of Greece has been written again and again, and

by able hands, the student looks in vain for any corresponding work on the most important period of the Roman annals. The posthumous volume of Niebuhr's immortal work leaves us at the First Punic War; and the third volume of Dr. Arnold's history, also published after its author's death, breaks off just before the battle of Zama. The interval between this point and that chosen by Gibbon for the opening of his history, a period which embraces the entire career of Rome as mistress of the world, is yet open, and offers unquestionably the noblest unappropriated field for historical composition. But one shudders to think of the almost impossible combination of powers which the successful execution of such a task must require. Nor is it likely soon to be accomplished, for a great work of this kind is not usually undertaken all at once. It is first dissected, and its several portions are worked out by various hands. Then comes the master mind, to sit in judgment on their labors, reducing them to their just proportions, and moulding them into a perfect whole. But in the present case, the partial scenes and scattered biographies of this interesting period are by no means so thoroughly completed as to leave nothing for a diligent gleaner. The life of Julius Cæsar, for instance, has never been so written as to drive competition out of the field; nor has Middleton's right to Cicero become so firmly vested as to silence every other claim. The reign of Augustus, too, forming as it does the transition stage from republicanism to monarchy, is a subject which has attracted far less attention than it deserves. What its capacities are may be guessed from Wieland's beautiful essays on the character of that emperor and his friend Mæcenas.

The imperfect and unsettled state of this portion of history imparts a high degree of interest to every contribution, however cursory or fragmentary, which it receives from respectable writers. But when those whose living voice was an oracle speak to us as from the grave, we catch with reverent curiosity these last memorials of departed wisdom. No man can have studied the writings of Niebuhr without being profoundly impressed with his amazing knowledge and his more amazing use of it. By his side, the herd of philologists, antiquaries, and compilers, great as they may have been in their generation, dwindle into dwarfs. The whole firmament of history lies open before him, and he awes the reader by the wonder

ful ease with which he draws from its recesses the scattered rays which had eluded less observant eyes, and collects them into obscure but yet distinguishable points. In the too much neglected constitutions of the early Swiss republics, for instance, he finds the best illustration of the relations subsisting between Rome and her municipalities and colonies; and attributes the removal of his doubts respecting the agrarian laws to a study of the ryot tenure in Hindostan. We lay ourselves open, we are aware, to the charge of idolatry, when we say that he seems to us to have possessed the greatest intellect which has been applied to history in modern times. But we doubt if any one, after studying his works, for they must be studied, and not merely read, will venture to place any other name in competition with his. Whatever comes from such a man, however casual and hasty, must bear the stamp of his mind, and be valuable. Dr. Schmitz, therefore, deserves our gratitude for the great pains he has taken to reproduce, from his own notes and those of his fellow-students, the Lectures on Roman history delivered by Niebuhr at the University of Bonn. The introductory course, in particular, on the historians of Rome, is inestimable, as containing his deliberate opinions on a subject of which no man was a more competent judge.

But it is not our purpose to enter on a discussion of the merits of these Lectures. We confine ourselves to a few remarks on the manner in which the editor has discharged his office. His labor was a difficult one, for Niebuhr's oral style, though familiar and colloquial in its tone, was a series of "anacoluths"; a fault of which, as we are told, he was painfully conscious, though it was probably attributable in part to the perverse structure of the German language, which to his rapidity of thought must have been intolerable.

The style, therefore, of these volumes must belong chiefly to Dr. Schmitz; and he seems to us to have done his work remarkably well. He has succeeded in breaking up into correct and easy English sentences the crude materials with which he had to deal. More than this, however, was incumbent on him. He was bound, so far as was possible, to free the text from those oversights and misstatements, to which, in the haste of extemporaneous delivery, every one is liable. And it was especially his duty, in no instance to make Niebuhr accountable for any of his editor's mistakes. It appears from