is still a matter of regret, that we should see all the embellishments, all the artifice of modern diction used to adorn this beautiful Grecian monument, so grand even in its negligence. We shall conclude, that if a progressive state of refinement in language is inevitable, the selection of a new subject becomes necessary; and that it is better not to translate a work, even with genius, than to change manners and modes of expression, at the same time that you retain the dramatis persona themselves. Nevertheless, the translations of Pope, will always remain a monument of the art of writing in a language brought to a state of perfection. But the glory of Pope, resting on this great work, and not supposing the merit of originality, has been subjected to more than one contradiction and one censure, in the country of this great writer. The reproach of timidity and of mediocrity has been lavished on him. And the new school of literature affect to discard him with contempt. It is to be presumed that the strength, purity and elegance of the style of Pope, will survive these unjust prejudices. Lord Byron has already tendered an expiatory homage. The mob of modern poets, require the ostracism of Pope, because, like the Athenians of old, they are tired of hear ing of his virtues; they have founded a Mosque by the side of a Grecian temple, of the most magnificent architecture." Posterity will never place him in the same rank with Shakspeare and Milton; but he ought to be held up as a model of correctness and of poetic elegance, in a language which is spread over a large portion of the globe. In addition to his poetic talent, Pope possessed the power of writing prose with great purity and satiric force. His Essay on the Art of Sink ing in Poetry,' and 'Martinus Scriblerus,' have all the energetic raillery of Swift. In his numerous correspondence, there are many letters of the most delightful description, and which are distinguished by a greater degree of natural simplicity, than is to be expected in a writer so correct, and studied. All the productions of Pope have been translated into our language; some of them frequently. The Essay on Man,' in particular, already published by the able Duresnel, has received the joint efforts of Delille and of Fontanes. The pure taste, and correct versification of Fontanes, seem well calculated to give a correct version of Pope; but these qualities failed to give to the Essay on Man,' either interest or variety. N. The August number of the Southern Review is learned and spirited, splendid and critical, political and poetical, amusing and instructive, with a touch of law here and there, beside the 'legal outlines,' and medical. The following extracts from the article on Cicero de Republica, will we think be acceptable to our readers. 'As it is our purpose to avail ourselves of some future opportunity to consider, in detail, the philosophical writings of Cicero, we shall confine our observations in this article to his political opinions, and especially to those opinions as they are expressed in "The Republic." Except a little volume on Invention, written while he was yet a young man, and the Treatise de Oratore, published about the year 698, this was the earliest of his literary productions. It was given to the world A. U. C. 700, just before its author set out for his proconsular government in Cilicia. He was then in his fifty-third year. Formed by nature for philosophical pursuits, and always more or less addicted to them, he felt his taste for them growing upon him with his age, and confirmed by the circumstances of the times. They had been the discipline of his youth; the effective auxiliary of his riper powers; the ornament of his prosperity and greatness-they now filled up the measure of their blessed influence, and were his solace and his refuge in despondence and gray hairs. He began to be weary of the world-to be disabused of its illusions-even (though not without many a struggle of rebellious nature) to look with some indifference upon its masks and mummeries, its grandeur and its honours. Above all, he was filled with gloomy forebodings for his country-for that country which no patriot ever loved with a purer love, which no statesman ever watched over with a more filial solicitude. There was but too much in the state of affairs to excite his apprehensions. All the elements of society were thrown into disorder, and those clouds had been long gathering which soon burst forth in wrath and desolation. The laws were violated with impunity by the bad-were trampled upon with scorn by the powerful. Pompey dictated to the senate-Clodius rioted with the mob. This ruffian at the head of an infuriated gang of slaves and gladiators, mixed with the dregs and sweepings of the populace, infested daily the streets and public places. The forum-the campus-the via sacra-were a scene of disorders and abominations such as no government, that deserved the name, could have tolerated for a moment, and few civilized nations have ever been condemned to suffer. Cicero saw his brother's house burnt down by these wretches in broad day-light. He was himself pursued by them as a victim, and narrowly escaped being murdered under the eyes of the magistrates. He was afflicted with the deepest sorrow at this state of things, and frequently gives vent to his sensibility in epistles to his friends, written about this * * time.' 'Cæsar was still in Gaul, training his legions to discipline and victory; but nobody yet saw or even imagined in the conqueror of Ariovistus and the Nervii, the fated chief of Pharsalia. Alas for the fears and the foresight of man! who can reflect without emotion, that a day was at hand, when the fulfilment to the letter of the very worst of Cicero's forebodings might have been reckoned as mercy and deliverance for Rome, and for the world—a day of slaughter and shame, and hopeless, irremediable servitude-when the bands of the faithful were to be scattered in every battle, and the "last of the Romans" should "invoke death with vows as their chief good and final hope,” and the gory head of the orator himself should be set up in mockery upon his own Rostra, a hideous trophy of parricide, drunk with its bloody orgies, and ruffianing in its own unhallowed do mination; and the very name of his adored Republic should be blotted out and gone forever, and ages of despotism and degradation and vice and barbarous ig. norance should come like primordial night and cover up, as with a cloud, the whole face of the earth! O dark, dark, dark, Irrecoverably dark-total eclipse, 'It was under such circumstances and in such a state of mind, that Cicero "sought to the sweet, retired solitude" of his Cuman and Pompeian villas to compose his treatise De Republica. He seems to have felt it as a very serious undertaking. In the letter to Atticus, from which we quoted a passage just now, he speaks of it as a work requiring much time and labour: and it appears, accordingly, to have cost him more than he ever afterwards bestowed upon the composition of any of his philosophical writings. Most of these we know to have been published in the course of a single year. It may convey some idea of the rapidity with which he wrote them, as well as of the uncommon accuracy of his knowledge, to mention that he dispatched his Topica during a short excursion at sea. But he composed "The Republic" with great deliberation and pains. Not to mention that he still felt somewhat of the anxiety of a debutant, he no doubt wrote it under deep and serious impressions of duty, and not without the hope of doing something by it to enlighten and to correct public opinion. The object and spirit of his work, as we shall presently have to remark more particularly, were highly patriotic. He wished to bring the constitution back to its first principles, by an impressive exposition of its theory-to inflame his contemporaries with the love of virtue by pourtraying the character of their ancestors in its primeval purity and beauty-and while he was raising a monument to all future ages of what Rome had been, to inculcate upon his own times what it ought still to be.' * * * 'As in the treatise De Oratore, Cicero had put his sentiments into the mouths of Crassus and Antony-the two greatest orators that had ever appeared in the forum before his time-so in this, he was not less attentive to a sort of dramatic propriety in the choice of his personages. His chief interlocutors are the younger Africanum, Lælius, Philus and Manilius, the last a lawyer of great eminence for that day. These were accompanied by as many young men, viz: Q. Tubero, P. Rutilius Rufus, Scævola and Fannius-all of them persons of the very highest rank and consideration. Tubero became an eminent jurisconsult. Scævola was the renowned augur under whom Cicero, when he assumed the toga virilis, was placed by his father to be initiated into forensic pursuits and the study of the civil law. P. Rutilius Rufus was also celebrated for his knowledge of the laws, for, (without having had time to compare dates with any precision) we take him to be the same to whom Gravina assigns the highest rank in his Jurisprudentia MeVOL. III.-No. 4. 7 dia, and whom he pronounces, for many instances of exalted virtue in public life, a togatus et consularis Socrates. The æra, too, of the supposed conversation was, for the object which Cicero appears to have had in view, the most favourable that could have been selected. The elder Scipio, says Paterculus, opened us the door to power-the younger, to luxury. Whatever may have been the ultiinate consequences of their victories, their æra-the interval, especially, which olapsed between the triumph at Zama and the fall of Numantia-exhibits the lappiest instance that is to be found in the annals of any nation, of a union of Insurpassed military glory, with the stern morals of a primitive, and the graces of a polished age. Even while Cato thought with more than a censor's severity, and lived with more than a Roman's virtue, the pupils of Carneades and Panætius were becoming imbued with the elegance and philosophy of Greece. The literary productions of the age, to which the old censor himself, (who is said, be it remembered, to have studied Greek at a very advanced age) contributed not a little, shew how rapid was the progress and how wide the diffusion of improvement. At the same time, the voice of civil discord was mute-the tribune almost forgot how to pronounce his veto-the very name of Dictator was falling into desuetude. From the beginning of the fifth century, when the Plebeians may be considered as fairly relieved from all constitutional disabilities, until the seditions of the Gracchi-some apprehensions only of which are hinted in the work before us-the history of the Republic is one bright record of virtues and achievements, almost too heroic for the infirmities of human nature. It was at the close of this most extraordinary period, in the annals of mankind, that Polybius went to Rome to study her constitution, and to write her history-that is to say, to illustrate what he considers as the unrivalled excellence of the former by its best fruits made visible in the latter. He became the protege and companion of the Scipio and Lælius who figure in this dialogue, and who exemplified in their own character and pursuits, the happy union of qualities, of which we have just spoken. They were the most accomplished men of the day, and they stamped their own character upon their age; of which they have ever been regarded as the fittest representatives. As Terence was supposed by some of his contemporaries to have been indebted to their assistance for the grace and elegance of his style, so there can be little doubt, (and we have been forcibly struck with the idea in reading this fragment) that the Greek philosopher just mentioned, derived from them many of his very judicious opinions concerning the government of Rome. Such men might well be supposed to contemplate the constitution of their country through the happiest medium, from the "regions high of calm and serene air" in which they seemed "to live inspired." For this reason we have always felt that there was as much propriety as beauty and grandeur in the Somnium Scipionis. It costs no great effort of the imagination to conceive of the Scipios as transfigured into "those immortal shapes of bright aerial spirits" who, without iningling in the passions of the world, watch over all its concerns with a tutelary care and interest. The high tone of sentiment-the enlightened love of countrythe heroic self-sacrifice-the wisdom and moderation—the philosophic dignity and repose, that pervade that fine vision, are just what we should expect to characterize any thing uttered in the form of advice and exhortation by one Africanus to the other. And never, surely, did a noble theme inspire a loftier strain! The whole soul of Cicero seems to kindle up into enthusiasm at the contemplation of those great men. He sees in them the beau ideal of the Roman character-the image of his country, in all her original brightness, "glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy." It was impossible that he should have selected a better æra or more suitable characters. Still further, to excite the interest of his readers in this dialogue, he very seriously assures them that they are by no means to regard it as a mere fiction of his own; the substance of it having been communicated to him in conversation of several days, at Smyrna, by that very P. Rutilius Rufus, of whom we have already spoken as one of the dramatis persona.' * 'True liberty, like true eloquence, is founded on the most elevated moral sentiments, and is incompatible with any other. C'est le culte des ames fieres, as Madame Roland nobly expresses it. But it requires something more even than this sublime spirit, rare as that is. Liberty is law-liberty is truth-liberty is reason, and “always with right reason dwells, and from her, hath no dividual being." The greatest men, in such a country as this, ought to be considered, (what they really are) as completely insignificant in comparison of the smallest principle. It is of the very essence of republican government, that the laws, which all are free to choose, should be implicitly obeyed by all. And as law has been defined to be "reason without passion," so those who administer and execute it, should partake of the same unblemished nature. It is in this respect that Washington stands without a similar or a second. He was living law—the very personification of the purest, the sternest, the most dispassionate, the most sublime republicanism. In this point of view, his character does not seem to have been sufficiently contemplated-we mean, contemplated with fervid admiration as an object at once of taste and example-under the head of the sublime and beautiful, as well as of moral duty. We hope it has been reserved as a subject for a hand worthy of treating it-and that we shall see the "awful goodness" of that incomparable man transmitted to posterity in contrast with Napoleon's guilty and little ambition, and fitly associated with the grandeur of Milton's genius.' We will add another remark of some importance in this connexion. The idea of liberty among the ancients was very different from that which we attach to the word. This difference, as well as the aristocratic sentiments adverted to just now, sprung undoubtedly out of the institution of domestic slavery, and that principle of their jus gentium, which doomed captives in battle to perpetual bondage. From whatever causes, the Ionian and Dorian races--but especially the former-attained to a remarkable superiority over the rest of mankind. In the neighbourhood of despotisms, they established popular and limited governments; in the midst of darkness and ignorance, they cultivated philosophy and the arts which body forth ideal beauty, while the hosts of the Mede sunk beneath their prowess in the field. The other great race, with whose institutions and modes of thought we are made familiar by our early studies, without excelling as much in merely intellectual pursuits, carried the pre-eminence which civilization gives in war and in policy, to a still higher pitch. "Their empire comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind,” and kings and tetrarchs were glad to become their clients and retainers That these pri |