France; nor, we fear, is France likely to amend her still more numerous defects by the example of England. The proper interest of each country appears likely to be buried in the turmoil of military preparations, and their relative retardation in improvement will be of course in proportion to the years consumed on belligerent matters. War is the bane to civilization among the equally civilized, though the sword may become the propagator of science in the case of inequality of natural endowments. M. Jobard falls foul at the onset of the Greeks, denying to them even the name of industrious: certainly to no ancient nation could he have done less injury by such an observation. Since were we to describe a nation whose technical skill appears far in advance of the surrounding powers, we should assign this honour to them. Even Juvenal, though he charged them with quackery, admits their varied talents. "Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, Augur, schoenobates, medicus, magus, omnia novit." Costume, dice, needles, pins, combs, all fall under one sweeping censure. Yet M. Jobard might remember that the cogged dice found in Pompeii would seem to indicate, in the second article at least, considerable mechanical skill; and, when we consider that the needle is a quotation, and a fair one, of high excellency in art, needing the rare combinations of temper, sharpness, pliancy, in a most wondrously small compass, and that, probably, that fatal implement wielded in the time of that martyr to good housewifery, who is reported to have died by its prick, scarce matched the Greek, the boasted modern improvement seems rather questionable. We are, we confess, of that unpopular class that lean to periods of revival and decline: "Alter erit tunc Tiphys, et altera quæ vehat Argo Delectos heroas erunt etiam altera bella, Atque iterum Troja magnus mittetur Achilles." We admit the clumsiness of much of what is Greek; we know the ancients did not possess the principle that velocity may supersede power. The cannon ball surpasses their battering ram. But we cannot think the screw of Archimedes so low an invention as M. Jobard appears to rate it. If not a water mill, it at least is a valuable instrument for the raising of water, and he who reduced the quadrature of the circle to the determination of the ratio between the diameter and circumference at least deserves respectful mention by those who have as yet never trisected the obtuse angle, nor arrived at the duplicature of the cube after a trial of 2,000 years. The clock we allow to be one of the most superb trophies of modern invention, though clock-work was probably known to Homer; but the clepsydra might be adjusted with some accuracy. We are pleased to find M. Jobard allowing to the ancients at least praise for their pottery, that of Egypt has never been rivalled, and probably never will; and Wedgwood has to acknowledge every excellence in his varied art to Etruscan vases, and might even improve his elegant shapes by some yet resting in the collection, the unsold collection, of Athanasi, which contains vases perfectly novel, even to eyes long accustomed to Greek and Egyptian forms. The woven wind of Juvenal is also no inelegant description of thin and exquisite workmanship in linen if not silk. The quotation of Epaminondas, in proof of the paucity of dresses of the ancients, we think unlucky as an illustration, first as a Theban, next as a poor man, not being the first of the latter unhappy genus who has been confined to his bed while his clothes have been in the suds. From the days of Robert of Normandy these crosses have alighted on both gentle and simple, suzerain and villain, when the auri sacra fames was on them, but ungratified. There is, too, another circumstance, that the applications of all nations have been invariably to particular branches, whether in literature, art, or manufacture. M. Jobard concedes to Greece the mastership in philosophy, literature, architecture, and sculpture, and to us the humble office of being scholars and imitators in these branches; but he exclaims they never discovered printing, steam, powder, spinning, railroads, gas lights, double sluices, balloons, the telegraph, post, compass and America, chemistry, anatomy, surgery, algebra, descriptive geometry, the decimal system, geology, statistics, notes, founts of type, zinc, platina, nickel, mirrors, and coals, heliography, galvanism, felt, fire-ships, the cutting of the diamond, the telescope, the microscope, the rotundity of the earth, and all that exists upon its surface. Arago would except steam from the above, which was known, he considers, to the ancient Egyptians. Railroads, also, we are prepared to contend are ancient, or, at least, questionable: gas we concede. Balloons also, but the flight of Dædalus looks wondrous like aerostation. The telegraph, the post, the compass (yet the properties of the magnet were known), though not applied to naval tactics, and the singular story of Abaris carried on an arrow round the world, Herodot. 4, 35, seems to hint at the compass in his ship, and he is also represented as divining by the arrow. The ships of Alcinous, which were animated by such an intelligence that they needed not on the darkest night to stay their way, look wonderfully like compass-steered vessels. Jamblichus also tells us of Abaris, that Pythagoras stole from him the golden arrow with which he directed his way; probably, simply a gilded magnet. China has been acquainted with the compass from remotest time. When shall we have a history of this singular people from a competent judge of their language, and a deep antiquarian and orientalist? America is questionable, for who peopled her? If the antiquity of Mexican remains attain the tenth of what has been claimed for them, their origin would induce a belief of a navigation of higher power than the ancient trireme, and yet where did not the Phonicians penetrate, even with that simple style of naval architecture only? In chemistry the Egyptians, however, could not have been unskilled; and the atomic theory, its great triumph, is, most probably, of a highly remote antiquity. Anatomy, as far as outward observation of the just configuration of the muscles, the Elgin marbles prove; and the Egyptian could not be ignorant of the same, since even embalming must have led to some proximate causes highly favourable to further investigation. The simple surgery of Homer could not be much amended on the battle plain. Algebra is the clear production of the Arabians. The Diophantine problems have certainly worked our brains for one of Granta's children, and the mutilated form in which they remain contained evidently higher points than even these, which however carry us to the simple quadratic. Our triumph here with what is lost, not before us, even in this single writer, is not so highly eminent or perfectly conclusive. In mixed geometry we possess unquestionable advance, but in the pure our progress is exceeding low. Decimals, and to these might have been added logarithms, are a great step assuredly. Geology has to attain fixity before it can much advantage us. It requires also such a combination of excellencies to form the perfect geologist, that we doubt extremely whether the conclusions of this science will be trustworthy for some time. Statistics were followed to a limited extent compared with our own researches, and the philanthropy of statistics, a principle originated by Christianity, is certainly the unique product of our æra. The bill of exchange, the product of Jewish invention, possibly the result of persecution, which induced them to give money this shadowy shape, must have been known to the Phoenician in all countries. He could not have used gold or silver in all cases, and barter must have quickly led to bills of parcels, and these to bills of exchange or something analogous. Printing with moveable types is the greatest modern discovery, and may certainly be considered purely modern, always excepting block printing, which, as we have recently shown, is of the remotest antiquity. Zinc, platina, and nickel, the evidence in favour of these, is extremely doubtful as points of discovery confined to the moderns. Glass the Egyptians manufactured in vast profusion, but certainly do not seem to have applied it to mirrors. Coals are very questionable. Theophrastus certainly mentions avogaxes ex Tns yns, cap. 136. Heliography, perfectly unique, of slight value, but curious in physical fact,, since writing with sunbeams up to the present age has been rather a fanciful allusion than a living reality. Of Galvanism we do not possess any knowledge sufficiently accurate to enable us to state the extent of ancient information; but the probability is that it was unknown in the galvano-plastic form. With respect to electricity, it is clear that Numa possessed the art attributed to Franklin of eliciting the lightning from the clouds, whence arose the worship of Jupiter Elicius; and that Tullus Hostilius, less happy in his practical knowledge than his predecessor, perished by a similar death to that of Reichman in his trial of Franklin's experiments. It was through a failure in his physical process that Hostilius perished, his war-hand was out of practice in philosophy. Livy says, lib. i. 31, "Ipsum regem tradunt volventem commentarios Numæ cum ibi quædam occulta solemnia sacrificia Jovi Elicio facta invenisset operatum his sacris se abdidisse: sed non rite initum aut curatum id sacrum esse; nec solum nullam ei oblatam speciem sed ira Jovis solicitati prava religione fulmine ictum cum domo conflagrasse. Felt we fully concede as far as known. Fire-ships also. Diamond cutting, probably not known; yet the perfection of the ancient intaglio seems to presume great excellence in working a material very nearly approaching in hardness this precious stone. The telescope, purely modern we believe, but still difficult to conceive as such in any thing like a long progress of ages. The microscope, modern inventor unknown; but instruments somewhat analogous must have been in use in those minute works of the Ilias shut up in a nut shell, and the ivory ants of Callicrates, so minute that others could not distinguish their members, which appear to indicate high artificial resources; and even the powers assigned to the Nauscopite of the Mauritius seem scarce superior to his who could number the galleys issuing from the harbour of Carthage at Lilybæum, distant 125 miles. The mighty inventor of the burning lenses had doubtless drawn the deduction as to their other powers; and if so, the microscope is but a brief remove. The rotundity of the earth was certainly known by the Hebrews; and, we conceive, was a doctrine of very remote antiquity, familiar to the Babylonian calculator of eclipses, and Thales, who predicted a solar eclipse. It is somewhat surprising in the above enumeration, that the electrical telegraph should not have been specified, and the whole reasoning of M. Jobard is the reverse of his expressed opinion. He maintains the direct negative on this question, and conceives that we have to relearn what was once known to the ancients, and that most modern discoveries are the simple reaction of principles that formerly prevailed. Probably this is paradoxical as a general principle; but it is true in numerous individual instances assuredly, and should somewhat humble the arrogant pretensions of the moderns, who, whether in the Battle of the Books or Sciences, maintain an empire of very inferior extent compared to the enormous proportion to the past claimed by themselves. M. Jobard appears to appeal triumphantly in favour of modern progress, to the impossible case of civilization being checked; but does the reign of the Czar over Paris appear an event less improbable in the chapter of accidents than Alaric at Rome? Would the city of the modiste and the mantua-maker, the cuisinier and the restaurateur, remain, then, in all its exquisite refinement? It would retrograde assuredly in these points and numerous others; for no ambitious state, no highly belligerent power, no empire that has universal rule for its object, can attend highly to the arts and sciences. Virgil says of his countrymen, Excudent alii spirantia mollius æra : Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus: (Hæ tibi erunt artes) pacique imponere morem, And so it must be. Ambition knows no rival in the heart: she may pride herself on statues and pictured trophies of her victories, the arts may be invoked to embellish them and perpetuate; but this is placing them in a false position-they should be loved for their own lustre, not for transmitted light. On this principle, had Charlemagne been as ignorant as M. Jobard, on the erroneous statements of Gibbon, supposes, to us it had not been wondrous in the king of the Romans; but the pupil of Alcuin could assuredly write. Eginhard, the very authority appealed to in proof of this monstrous assertion, informs us that Charlemagne wrote the history of the ancient kings in verse; and Lambecius declares that the imperial library still contains a MS. corrected by the hand of Charlemagne himself. Accounts, too, vary most wondrously, if M. Jobard be right, who states that the people and the priests were clothed in skins wild as the Cossacks, and that on days of ceremony they simply threw over them a covering of linen, surplice (superpelles). We doubt this statement excessively; since we find Clovis so struck with the external pomp of the Roman Church, with the splendid apparel and ceremonies at his baptism, that he simply demands, and manifests certainly no small igno |