' like a religious or political novel; you cannot meet it effectively by mere argument to put it down at all, you must win the public ear and fancy, by a counter-novel.' But a theory, like a novel, may introduce a train of thought, not the less fertile in consequences, because at first indeterminate and difficult to seize and limit,-to meet or to support by definition and argument. Mr. Newman has introduced such a train of thought, and he will be no more able to stop its consequences, as regards his new communion, than he was willing to do as regards his former one. He has raised questions, which if England cannot answer, Rome cannot either. For these consequences, so far as he gave his authority to a theory which he had not mastered, for an end which he wanted other means to bring about, he is deeply responsible to the whole Christian Church.

We are glad to notice that the Bishop of London has published, in an authentic form, his 'Speech on the Second Reading of the Ecclesiastical Appeal Bill,' (Fellowes.) In a short Preface, the Bishop 'indorses' Mr. Gladstone's able pamphlet on the Supremacy.

Mr. Chapman has forwarded to us Mr. F. Newman's Phases of Faith.' We extract one passage:-'A new stimulus was given to my mind by two 'short conversations with the late excellent Dr. Arnold, at Rugby. I had become aware of the difficulties encountered by physiologists in believing 'the whole human race to have proceeded in about 6,000 years from a single 'Adam and Eve; and that the longevity (not miraculous, but ordinary) 'attributed to the patriarchs was another stumbling-block. The geological 'difficulties of the Mosaic cosmogony were also at that time exciting much 'attention. To my surprise, Dr. Arnold treated all these questions as mat'ters of indifference to religion; and did not hesitate to say, that the ' account of Noah's deluge was evidently mythical, and the history of Joseph "“a beautiful poem." I was staggered at this.'-Pp. 110, 111.

6

Of Sermons we have several to acknowledge, practical as well as controversial:-of volumes: one by Archdeacon Wilberforce; 'Sermons on the New Birth of Man's Nature,' (Murray :) one on the Church Catechism,' by Mr. John Miller, of Worcester College: a valuable volume, 'One Lord, one Faith,' (Rivingtons,) by Dr. Besley. Mr. Sewell's warm-hearted Discourses, Pilate and the Spirit of the Age,' preached at Whitehall, (J. H. Parker;) a volume by Mr. Vaughan of Leicester, (Rivingtons ;) another by Mr. Henry Hughes, (Rivingtons ;) six impressive sermons, The End of the Year,' &c. (Pickering,) by Mr. Anderdon of Leicester: and of single Sermons, The Spirit of the World,' &c. (Skeffington,) by Mr. Jackson of S. James's; 'Adelaide, the Queen Dowager,' (Batty,) by Mr. Bedford of Hoxton; an Occasional Sermon, (Hatchard,) by Mr. Jefferson of Thorganby; and two exceedingly important Sermons, on a subject which it is as necessary as difficult to treat with faithfulness and propriety, preached at S. Peter's, Radley, by the Warden, Mr. Singleton, Uncleanness,' &c. (Masters.)

The following Erratum was corrected in part only of our impression of No. LXVIII :—

Vol. XIX. page 342, line 30, for Samosata, read Antioch.

THE

CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER.

OCTOBER, 1850.

ART. I.-The Oration of Hyperides against Demosthenes, respecting the Treasure of Harpalus. The Fragments of the Greek Text, now first edited from the Facsimile of the MS. discovered at Egyptian Thebes in 1847; together with other Fragments of the same Oration cited in Ancient Writers. With a Preliminary Dissertation and Notes, and a Facsimile of a portion of the MS. By CHURCHILL BABINGTON, M.A. Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. London: J. W. Parker. 1850. THE reflections suggested by the recovery of any fragment of Greek or Roman antiquity, are of a very chequered character. Few scholars are so extravagantly unreasonable as not really to be contented with the range of classical literature, which has withstood the ravages of time, or the inroads of the Goths and Vandals. It is indeed an area sufficiently ample for a man. to expatiate in, during the hours he can appropriate to such studies from his term of threescore years and ten. And yet an involuntary feeling of regret will occasionally steal over us when we reflect upon the loss of ancient literary treasures. Could not the ruthless hand of time have spared us a few more plaintive odes of Sappho-a few martial songs to which Alcæus attuned his golden lyre? Would that we had inherited Pindar's bequest of his soaring Dithyrambs, however arduous a task we might have found it to decypher their meaning!

'What rapture! could we seize
Some Theban fragment, or unroll
One precious, tender-hearted scroll
Of pure Simonides.'

No one can read of the effect which Phrynichus' great tragedy produced upon an Athenian audience, and not deplore the loss of the Capture of Miletus. And Menander too, the originator of the New Comedy-the idol of his contemporaries-whom St. Paul quoted and Terence imitated-what would we not give even for one of his truthful and polished dramas! Of the Greek Historians, Polybius has left too little, and Timæus and Dicæarchus

have totally disappeared. In Latin it is the same. Had more remained of Cincius Alimentus, or of Cato's Origines, Niebuhr would have been saved an immensity of labour. Varius the noble Epic, and Gallus the Elegiac poet, 'known with his Lycoris to the East and the West,' now only live in the encomiums of their contempories.

But by the side of these vain regrets there arises in the mind a suspicion (a horrid one, perhaps,) that we could have spared somewhat from our present abundance. Neither Thucydides nor yet the garrulous Ionian would come within this category: but some few of the most unintelligible dialogues of Plato would scarcely have been missed, nor, it must be admitted, should we greatly grieve at the loss of some of the treatises which pass under the great Stagirite's name. We should, individually, experience no great shock at the abstraction of some of Cicero's most laboured orations-including the Verrine, aye, and the Catilinarians; but always excepting the Milo and the Cluentius. The number of his philosophical tractates might also, we think, be diminished, with no perceptible disadvantage to the reading public. To say that we would willingly surrender any portion of Livy's pleasing narrative, would perhaps appear ungracious, and yet the news of the discovery of another decade, especially now that the moderns have come to such an amicable and satisfactory arrangement on the subject of Roman history, would indeed be alarming intelligence to older heads than those which adorn undergraduate shoulders.

Such opinions (of course we mean with regard to the entombment of authors we have-not the exhumation of authors we have not,) are strictly esoteric, and can only, without danger, be advocated anonymously. To promulgate them, in propria person, among classical scholars, if it did not immediately suggest the statute de lunatico inquirendo, would at any rate call forth cries of prevarication, disloyalty, and treason,―terms but too feebly expressive of the wrath which convulsed the auditory. The loathing and abhorrence in which the unhappy wight, whose evil genius had tempted him to reveal the Eleusinian or Cabirian mysteries of old, was held among the less profane initiated, is as nothing when compared with the obloquy and scorn which would inevitably await the renegade scholar at the hand of his quondam associates. The reason is natural and obvious. All entertain, in their heart of hearts, sentiments somewhat similar to those enunciated, and like Marshal Ney, they are anxious to prove their innocence by reviling the traitor, until a more fitting opportunity occur of joining his ranks. Meanwhile they indulge largely in the conventional

language of the classic school, and groan over the few remnants of antiquity which have escaped the wreck of ages. To their minds Plato is an unprolific writer, and Aristotle anything but voluminous. Euripides has actually left but seventeen tragedies and one satyric drama! Oh! for the seventy plays of Eschylus, and the hundred and thirteen authentic tragedies of the less niggardly Sophocles! Of Cicero they are willing to think well, but the scantiness of his remaining works prevents a due appreciation of his talents. And, finally, are not the extant poems of Ovid usually comprised in three moderately sized volumes?

But it is time that we should leave our friends to their hallucinations, and proceed more immediately to the subject of our notice. With the battle of Mantinea, fraught with such consequences to the destinies of Greece, contemporary historical evidence fails us. We part with Xenophon, as with an old friend-far from unprejudiced and not over-wise-whom we value principally for old associations and because we have no one to supply his place. Yet the period which followed the last conflict of Epaminondas (it was certainly not a physical, though it may perhaps be considered a moral victory) was one of stirring and momentous interest. Now for the first time appeared actively upon the stage a new character: a power not genuine Greek, nor yet actually barbarian: its government—a pure monarchy-as utterly discordant with the idea of the aristocrats on the banks of the Eurotas, (in spite of their two phantom kings,) as it was opposed to the practical principles of the Athenian admirers of Harmodius and Aristogiton: a form of government which Sparta, as well asAthens, had assisted in demolishing, although they disagreed as to the fabric they should erect on its ruins. The chief feature of this eventful epoch is the gradual encroachment of the Macedonian (the intellectual vigour of the sovereign seconded by a robust soldiery, disciplined by conflicts with their savage neighbours), first over the tributary marts of the Greeks on the north of the Ægean; thence insinuating himself into the national broils, and advancing his troops into the territories of central Greece, until the fatal day of Chæronea laid the liberties of the Greeks at his fect, and enabled his son and successor (all opposition in Europe being now removed) to found by conquest an empire, which was the greatest the world had yet seen, and was only to be surpassed in extent by one, whose colossal dimensions even now strike us with wonder and amazement. By the side of this development of force in the Macedonian, it is interesting to observe the conduct of the Greeks themselves: the oblivion of the hereditary enmity of Lacedæmon and Athens, as in the Persian war; the profligate

venality among the smaller states, and even at Athens; the heroic stand made by a band of Athenian patriots, against the aggression from the north; and above all, the superhuman, but too unsuccessful efforts of one master mind, to arouse his countrymen from their degenerate apathy, to rekindle in their breasts the heroism of their ancestors, their scorn of foreign dictation and fixed resolution to die or be free.

Such are the leading characteristics, external and internal, of this most interesting period of Grecian history. Theopompus and Ephorus are on all hands allowed to have been historians worthy of such a theme; but they are like the 'summer-dried fountains,' which unfortunately fail when their need is most sorely felt. For however creditable a writer Diodorus Siculus may be, an author in the time of Augustus can ill supply, at second hand, the want of contemporary testimony. The orators of the time ought to be auxiliaries towards historic investigations, but in the absence of strictly historical narrative, we are fain to appeal to their invectives, as primary, instead of secondary documents. And yet with their party views and prejudiced feelings, they must necessarily give us a coloured, if not a distorted view, of the foreign relations and domestic politics of their time. We should indeed be sorry to have to gather our information about our present relations with the continental powers solely from the speeches of my Lord Palmerston or my Lord Aberdeen. Nor could the parliamentary harangues of Lord John Russell or Mr. Disraeli be entirely depended upon as trustworthy exponents of our condition at home. Still oratory is a most valuable historical criterion. The truth in our own day probably lies between the apologies of the Ministry and the invectives of the Opposition. And so also in the last period of Athenian greatness we are enabled to play off in turn Demosthenes against Eschines, and Eschines against Demosthenes. Mr. Mitford's great advantage over his English predecessors as an historian of Greece was this: that he was not satisfied with merely following in the wake of the later Greek historians, but instituted a careful examination of the writings of the contemporary orators. He, however, unfortunately transferred to the fourth century B. C. the political notions of his own age, and refused to see any nobility of soul in the champion of democracy, even though that champion were Demosthenes. Would that the recent historian of England had not rendered himself liable to a similar charge, by viewing transactions, now nearly two hundred years old, with the distorting vision of his own times and party!

With the exception of the speeches of Demosthenes but little remains of the political orators who flourished in the latter half