III.
Notice of the third Volume of Niebuhr's Roman History.
The lovers of Roman history and admirers of Niebuhr[1]
had looked forward with lively interest to that portion of his
work, which was to embrace the period following that with
which the second volume of the first edition closed. The
elaborate and abstruse investigations which traced the early
history of the constitution were not adapted to the taste of all
readers ; yet many who either felt little concern in their results,
or could not command the patience necessary for following
them, would have been very thankful for the new light which
the author's sagacity and learning might have been expected
to throw on those parts of his subject, with which they were
more familiar, or which appeared to them more attractive:
while those who had no less keenly enjoyed the researches
themselves by which he had been led to his immortal disco-
- ↑ I trust that these two classes of persons may still be coupled together without impropriety, though the critic who reviewed Niebuhr's work in the 102nd number of the Edinburgh Review appears to intimate that a reverence for Roman story and Roman institutions is not consistent with a similar feeling toward Niebuhr. But perhaps the writer did not mean this to be taken seriously, at least by everybody. It seems more probable that as he more than once betrays a lurking consciousness of his own incompetence for the task he had undertaken—of which a pretty strong proof, though a very minute specimen, was given in No. 1 of this Museum, p. 197—he intended nothing more by his concluding paradox than a playful confession, which those who knew him would easily understand, and which might even be divined by others without any extraordinary sagacity. Thus interpreted, he may be supposed to say: "Niebuhr is said to have devoted the greater part of his life to the study of Roman history; and it is droll enough that I, who care nothing about the subject, and know nothing about his work except what I have picked up in skimming over a few pages of a translation, should have been pronouncing a judgment upon both!" In suggesting this explanation, however, I do not mean to defend the writer's conduct: which, though it may have been a source of amusement to his friends who were in the secret, was not respectful, nor indeed just toward the public. Nor should I have alluded to a production of which it is scarcely possible to speak with gravity, but that I wished to offer a word of praise and congratulation to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review. Every person in his situation, when he orders a piece of criticism, is liable to be now and then taken in by a counterfeit article. In the present case the Editor has made the most honourable and satisfactory amends for the imposition which he was the involuntary instrument of practising upon the public. He has put the same subject into the hands of a totally different person : one who, beside the great advantage of having read the work he professes to review, possesses the capacity of understanding it and appreciating its merits: and who has thus been enabled, instead of a frothy declamation, to give the public a clear and instructive account of its contents.
