THIS book, if all its parts are ta ken together, may be said to give an account of the new age of classical study. In this, as in all departments of knowledge, there has not been a uniform progress. Its changes and fluctuations may perhaps be best understood by assigning to it four periods since the revival of letters. The first of these periods we may terminate with the middle of the sixteenth century. In this age the ancient classics served as guides and masters, to awaken taste and the spirit of philosophical inquiry, and through the imperfection of modern books were the principal sources of knowledge. The age, like a man to whom the stores of knowledge are just opened, was one of ardent curiosity. Manuscripts were hunted after to fill the libraries of the great; the Greek classics were turned into Latin; Plato being now first known, a school of ardent Platonists arose at Florence, and Aristotle began to be to many an abomination; antiquarian researches were pushed to a considerable extent, especially those which related to the Roman republic. The pioneers in this age were Italians and Greek exiles. The greater number of books were printed at Venice and other Italian towns. The editions, though now valuable to the editor, as giving readings from manuscripts which may have disappeared; and though eagerly sought for by bibliomanists, on account of their scarcity,† dis

Classical Studies, by Proff. Sears, Edwards, and Felton. Boston, 1843.

A principal reason for the scarcity of many of the first editions is, that books were read to pieces, and worn out in the uses of the lecture-room. This is particularly the case with the Rhetores Græci of Aldus, in 2 vols., Venice, 1508-9, a book much used in teaching the rules of style. Prof. Walz, of Tubingen, who for the second time edited these writers and

play little critical skill, and are deformed, not only by mistakes of the press, but also in some cases by unfortunate conjectural emendations. Nor was it the practice of the editors to give an account of the sources of their text. During this age, by degrees, classical learning passed from Italy to the more northern countries of Europe; and at its close, Roman Catholic orthodoxy was frowning upon the language of the New Testament in Italy; while the thirst for knowledge, spread by the Reformation, and the investigations consequent upon that event, had awakened a zeal for ancient letters among the Protestants. Towards the end of this age, Basel became a literary center, where learned men were congregated, and from which the more important editions were scattered abroad.

The second period may include the next hundred years, down to 1650. This was an age of thorough and universal scholarship-the manhood, or at least the vigorous youth, of classical studies. In it every kind of knowledge relating to this department received a new start. Now first the want of a thorough revision of the text of ancient authors began to be felt, and now first arose men whom all succeeding scholars have looked to as occupying the first rank. It is remarkable that the most eminent of these scholars were Frenchmen of the Protestant faith, who spent the best part of their lives in

others of the same kind from the manuscripts a few years since, mentions in his preface that he knew of but two entire copies of the Aldine edition in Germany, seven in the Italian libraries, and two at Paris, besides one for sale at Florence, for which the bookseller asked $50. When the mode of teaching rhetoric changed, the book ceased to be called for, and no new edition was published for three centuries.

foreign countries. Joseph Scaliger, Casaubon, and perhaps Salmasius, deserve to be put at the head of the literati of their time. Scaliger excelled by the force of his genius, and among other services to the cause of letters, first brought chronology out of its chaotic state. Ca saubon, on account of his vast learning and sound judgment, may claim the first place among classical scholars, particularly in Greek. Salma sius, far inferior in acuteness to many who have had a less name, explored the nooks and crannies of ancient literature, as an antiquarian, and exhibited in his works rather vast reading than sound judgment.

From the middle of the seventeenth until the latter part of the eighteenth century, which forms our third period, the attention to classic al literature rather declined than advanced. Whether this was owing to the wars which in the middle of the seventeenth century absorbed the interest of England, France and Germany, and in a measure barba rized the latter country, or to the increased attention now paid to native and modern literature, or to the advancing study of the scienceswhatever may have been the cause, the fact was as we have represented it. Any one may satisfy himself of the fact, by running over the leaves of a bibliographical manual, and examining the dates of the editions. He will find the years from 1550 to 1650 fertile in reprints of the classics, while those from 1650 to 1750 were comparatively barren. In England, the singly truly eminent scholar of this period is Bentley; and his controversy with Boyle shows the low state of classical learning at Oxford, where the most eminent scholars lent their aid to Boyle, but could not stand up against a blow from the little finger of the Cambridge giant. The only other country where these studies were pursued with much ability and zeal, was Hol, land.

Holland indeed had produced from age to age since the Reformation, crops of plodding and accurate scholars, and had been an asylum for foreign literati, whose Protestant opinions drove them out from their native lands. Since the University of Leyden was founded, a succession of eminent men had taught, such as no other seat of learning in Europe can boast of. In no other place perhaps in the world can an exhibition be made, like that which is presented in the unpretending hall where the portraits of the professors of Leyden are collected.

In the volume before us appears an account of the Dutch school of philosophy in the last century, prepared by Prof. Edwards, of Andover. It begins with Hemsterhuys, who was contemporary with Bentley at the beginning of the century, and ends with Wyttenbach, who died in 1820. It will be read with great interest by the classical scholar, as a learned and careful account of several men who have done service to the cause of letters. The materials for the lives of the principal Dutch scholars are ample. Ruhnken has set forth the merits of his master, Hemsterhuys, in a eulogy almost unrivaled for its Latinity. Wyttenbach has written the biography of Ruhnken, and in turn has been commemorated by one of his pupils. Perhaps this careful regard for the memory of these three men, and the entertaining mode in which that memory has been preserved, have exalted them unduly above two of their friends and compeers, Wesseling and Valckenaer, who would not fall below them as useful guides to subsequent scholars. If we look at the characteristics of the Dutch school as it is called, we may be led to doubt whether it deserves the name of a school, and whether there was any decided mark by which we can distinguish the successors of Hemsterhuys from those who went before him. They all had the same

way of writing annotations, the same habit of loading their common-place books with parallel passages collected from every quarter, the same often unnecessary display of learning. It must be confessed, however, that Hemsterhuys mingled something of French genius and direct ness with Dutch scholarship; that he surpassed his immediate predecessors in the knowledge of Greek literature, and that he took a very broad view of what was required to form a finished scholar. But if compared with Bentley, he must be pronounced to fall far below him, both in acuteness and invention. We will say nothing of the highly finished scholarship of Ruhnken, the evidences of which for posterity are ample, but lie within a small compass; nor of his successor, Wyttenbach, who revived the study of Greek philosophy. But of the literati of Holland during the last age, in general it may be said, that, while they made no brilliant discoveries or improvements in their branch, they deserve to be remembered for setting examples of a scholarship more complete and elegant than had before been seen. They were guilty, however, of the fault of putting too much value upon scholarship in itself considered, and did not come to the ancient writers with those serious purposes reaching beyond the text, which characterize many of the earlier scholars.

Towards the close of the last century arose in England a school prop erly deserving the name, and differing in some respects, from any that had preceded it. Dr. Sears speaks of English scholarship as follows:

This is just, and the cause of the defect was owing, it would seem, partly to the practice in the English schools of composing Greek verses, as the scholar's most serious task, and partly to the national trait of being content to follow in the steps of a leader, without having the enterprise or independence of seeking to go beyond him. Had Porson liv ed to old age, and been a man of good habits and high principles, there is every reason to believe that he would have opened many other paths for his successors; although in that case he would probably have gone into the church, and received preferment, unless his politics had stood in the way. He was a man of incomparable acuteness, of vast reading in Greek literature and wonderful memory, and if not gifted with a philosophical mind, was qualified in some respects to go beyond any scholar of the last century. Be ing such as he was, he did but little. He opened one path, new though narrow, and was of essential service in calling the Germans to the study of ancient meters, and to nicer ob servations of style, than had been known before. His followers in his own country did little besides correcting and extending his researches in one direction. The consequence of this limited range of study was, that when the English scholars, af ter the peace of Europe, became familiar with the labors of their con tinental brethren, their native school lost much of its respect in their eyes, and now the best of them are more nourished by the fruits of German scholarship than of their own.

A considerable portion of the work before us is taken up with a sketch of the German school, with speci mens of its literary correspondence,

and with biographical accounts in the shape of notes of the more eminent German scholars. This part is executed by Dr. Sears, of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Newton; and no scholar in our country, exclusively devoted to teaching the classics, could have shown more familiarity with this subject, or given better proof that he understood the progress of classical study in Germany and the respective merits of the German scholars. We must acknowledge ourselves his debtors for much useful information, and can vouch for the great accuracy and judgment of those parts which

are not new to us.

Dr. Sears dates the improvement of German scholarship from Winkelmann and Heyne, the former of whom, first of the moderns, understood and appreciated ancient art; and the latter, forsaking the dull plodding manner of earlier German lecturers, first felt the soul of ancient poetry. To Winkelmann certainly great praise is due, and yet the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the rise of the new school of sculpture, ought not to be overlooked, as causes which turned the mind of Europe to the characteristics of ancient art, and awaken ed a general sense of the beautiful. With regard to Heyne we are disposed to be more in doubt. He may have been as a one-eyed man among the blind, and in a certain sense have been the first name on the list of the age; but he was not a very great scholar. His Latin style, it is known, is but indifferent. His critical powers are not of a very high order, and if he is alive to the beauties of poetry, we are not aware that his remarks show any profound sense of the laws of taste.

The true causes of the excellence of the German scholars must be found in the history of the times, and the rise of a new literature and a new philosophy. The times, by their changeful and wonderful events,

acted with mighty power on the minds of those who thought at all; and in Germany, where action is fettered, much of this excitement spent itself in speculation and in historical inquiry. A new literature, too, was rising in Germany; the language began to be regarded as fit for something else than to talk to horses in; the chords of the national mind were moved by lyric and dramatic poets. Lastly, philosophy appeared under a new form; a rev. olution in opinion took place, and aroused multitudes of minds to vigorous action, calling forth talent in every department of thinking, just as a revolution in government, involving strife and war, calls out military talent.

One of the first characteristics of the modern German scholar, which developed itself was literary skepti cism. Emancipated by the spirit of the times from the restraints of authority, he trampled it in the dust, and took delight in setting it at naught. There are not many ancient authors the integrity of whose works was not now attacked. Wolf, a man of powerful mind, led the way, and soon a person needed courage to avow his belief that Homer knew how to write, or had any thing to write with, or wrote if he knew how, or that there was any personal Homer. It is needless to go into particulars: such an epidemic fever of skepticism is not deep seated in the human mind, and can not last long. It passed away therefore like a mist, and left clear sky behind. Good was done by it. The close examinations of style and siftings of evidence to which it called, showed some passages to be interpolations and some works to be spurious, but showed likewise that tradition was right in the main, as to the genuineness of ancient works. And it is not likely that, for several generations to come, there will be another ebullition of this skeptical spirit. The danger now lies rather in the other direction.

The German scholars have direct ed their attention with great ability to the study of history and antiquities. In these respects the school of Bockh, at Berlin, takes the lead. He and his pupils have thrown the clearest light upon the economical and judicial system of Athens, upon the history of the tribes and states of Greece, upon that of literature and of art. In this school the taste and imagination and the love of historical research are exercised, rather than the logical power. Its fault is one which is eminently German, and which renders writers of this class not always the safest guides,-the tendency to establish a conclusion by means of brilliant combinations of particulars not always in themselves certain. This conclusion is perhaps a favorite hypothesis, which seemed probable and beautiful, before the writer looked around for ar guments to support it.

The school of Hermann, at Leipsic, was of earlier date, and chiefly given to inquiries terminating not on the facts communicated by language, but on language itself. The great improvements in grammar and meter, and the revisions of texts made by this school, are familiar to every one who has paid any attention to the subject. This school displays great niceness and subtlety in observing and reasoning. Its tendency of course must be to confine the mind to the exercise of the critical

and logical powers. Hence its permanence can not be expected: it is merely preparatory, and having accomplished great good, and laid a foundation, must pass away. The fault of this school is, that it subjects the ancient remains, too narrowly, to the laws prescribed by the individual understanding. A grammatical rule must be so, because to Hermann's mind nothing else is logical, and even texts are altered on the same principle. Hermann's acuteness drew the rules of meter from the classics; but, not content

with this humble work, he must have, at the beginning of his met rical elements, a logical founda. tion dependent on the philosophy of Kant. The result is, as might be expected. No one reads, or if he reads, receives the philosophical part, while the part resting on observation is valuable and rich in acute re marks. In these censures we have no intention to condemn the appli cation of a truly philosophical spirit to any branch of human inquiry: all we mean to say is, that a simply logical mind can not interpret poet ry, art or life, in a philosophical way.

Probably no age has been so ac tive as the present in branch every pertaining to ancient learning. In none have there been such extensive and thorough collations of manuscripts, and we therefore possess texts freer from corruptions, and even from unnecessary emendations, than the best of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In none have the studies relating to words made such progress. The true knowledge of ancient meter can hardly be said to have had existence before the la. bors of Hermann and Bockh were given to the world; and comparative grammar, a study peculiar to the age, is now modifying and correct. ing the grammatical systems of the past. What has been done in lexicography may be estimated from the demand for two enlarged editions of the huge Thesaurus of Stephens,— which had not been reprinted since the original one in 1572,-and by a number of new and excellent dic tionaries, both Greek and Latin. No age has been so fertile in reprints of the classics. There is scarcely & writer, of whom but a few frag ments remain, whose relics have not been gathered from scholiasts and grammarians, by some German wor shiper of antiquity, and deposited by themselves, entombed, an ill-natured person might say,-in a new book, where copious legends of the