fore in her name and in her honour, who said of herself "that her mission was to be a quêteuse," I solicit an alms for my poor parish, for my ruined church. None of Eugénie's readers will, I think, refuse her posthumous request, or decline to add a stone to her memorial.

If you were to visit the birthplace of Eugénie and her brother, you would be painfully struck by the decayed condition of our church. The pilgrims who have come to see Le Cayla, and to pray at her grave, have, some of them, described the feelings of regret with which they have noticed it. One of them writes: "We arrive in front of a more than humble building; for age has so deteriorated its walls that the tower threatens soon to give way. church of Andillac. We descend a few steps, and find ourselves in the interior, which is almost as simple and as poor as the stable of Bethlehem."

This is the

The kindest sympathy and encouragement from distinguished persons have stimulated my efforts for this undertaking. His Eminence Cardinal Villecourt thus ends the letter he has been so good as to write to me: "I reckon on France: with her many resources, and her great zeal for the relief of every kind of suffering, she will fulfil our hopes for the church of Andillac,-Andillac! the birthplace and the last resting-place of our holy Eugénie."

Monseigneur de Jerphanion-too soon, alas! removed by death from his diocese and a clergy devotedly attached to him-blessed our work, and expressed his interest in it in the following letter:

"MONSIEUR LE CURE,-Since the publication of the Journal and of the Letters of Eugénie de Guérin-works which unite a rare beauty of style with the deepest sensibility and the highest Christian principles a particular interest has attached itself to the spot where that pious lady lived, and where her brother and herself rest side by side. This general feeling has suggested to you the idea of collecting alms among the numerous readers of Mademoiselle de Guérin's writings for the rebuilding of the church of Andillac, where she used to perform her religious duties with such edifying devotion. I approve of your intention, and give the undertaking my hearty blessing. I wish every possible success to your laudable efforts. I will send you my subscription. If it is a smaller one than my goodwill would desire, it is that a Bishop "has the solicitude of all the churches" in his diocese.

"Receive, M. le Curé, the assurance of my sincere attachment in Christ.

J. J. M. EUGENE,

"Archbishop of Alby."

Monseigneur Lyonnet, our present worthy and learned prelate, has likewise granted us his powerful protection, and joined in the wishes expressed by his venerated predecessor. This is his letter: "Alby, February 10th, 1866.

"MONSIEUR LE CURE,-With all my heart I join in the sentiments expressed by my revered predecessor shortly before his death. Could any thing be more encouraging and more pleasing to you than his letter, each syllable of which breathes a true sympathy in your undertaking? Those words of his, his dying accents we may call them, together with the names of Eugénie and Maurice de Guérin, which sound so pleasantly in the ears of numerous readers, will, I trust, touch many hearts and open many purses. May each of the letters of which it is composed bring you a bank-note, or at least a piece of gold, for your good work! I cannot resist the impulse, and I forward to you at once 500 francs as my subscription.

"With very best wishes for your success, I beg you to accept the assurance of my devoted and affectionate regard in Christ,

"J. P., Archbishop of Alby."

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered up four times a year for all benefactors.

Donations can be forwarded directly to M. le Curé d'Andillac, Département du Tarn; or, if preferred, to the care of Lady Georgiana Fullerton, 27 Chapel Street, Park Lane, London, or of the Editor of The Month, 50 South Street, Grosvenor Square.

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Our Library Table,

1. DYER'S History of Rome.

2. MERIVALE'S Conversion of the Northern Nations.

3. BOUGAUD, Histoire de Ste. Monique.

4. DE BROGLIE, L'Eglise et l'Empire Romain.

5. GORINI, Défense de l'Eglise.

6. MRS. BYRNE's Cosas de Espana.

7. KEON'S Dion and the Sibyls.

8. GURY, Compendium Theologiæ Moralis.

9. SULLIVAN's Translation of Bellarmine on the Psalms.

The

1. Some courage is required to oppose an opinion general among the scholars of the day, and adopted, if not simply on the authority, at least in accordance with the views, of recent eminent men. tyranny of genius begets the worse tyranny of public opinion; and even clever and well-informed minds are apt either indolently to acquiesce in an established view, or, whatever their convictions, to hesitate to attack a position defended by formidable names. Of late years we have seen a case of this sort in the theories maintained about the credibility of early Roman history. Niebuhr rejected the narratives of Livy and the late Roman and Greek writers as utterly untrustworthy; Arnold, with his usual fidelity to his great master, thought the general picture of those times to be a mere fantasy; and Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though thinking for himself, and taking much pains to apply the test of comparison to the credibility of the histories of Livy and Dionysius, came to the conclusion, "that the discrepancies are too wide, too numerous, and too fundamental to admit of the supposition that there was in existence a brief annalistic series of events derived from authentic registration, and recognised as true by all historians." So Livy has been pretty generally given up as an historical authority, and his graphic narrative looked upon in great measure as the creation of a fervent and patriotic imagination. Mr. Dyer, however, whose accurate scholarship and intimate acquaintance with the subject are well known to the public through the elaborate article on Rome which he contributed to Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography, has now put forward, we are glad to see, in the Introduction to his new work on the History of the City of Rome," a protest against the prevailing

* History of the City of Rome, its Structures and Monuments, from its foundation to the end of the Middle Ages. By Thomas Dyer, LL.D. London,

VOL, V.

G

scepticism, and exposed the fallacious methods by which Niebuhr and his school arrived at their conclusions. At present he has contented himself with stating the reasons which have led him to reverse the decisions of modern critics about some prominent facts of that history, and about the existence, or the value, of the sources on which it professes to be founded. He has done enough to justify the course he has adopted in his work, of following the narrative handed down by ancient authors. But the whole subject is worth discussing at full length; and it is to be hoped that one so well qualified to treat the question will not rest satisfied till he has set before the world a thorough exposition of the grounds for a return from the scepticism of the modern school of critics, and a restoration of Livy to the pedestal from which he has been so unceremoniously thrown down.

The great question is, to what sources of history Livy had access, and what was their value. If the Annales Maximi were still in existence when the earliest Roman annalists wrote, there can be no doubt that they were the principal record whence they drew their materials. And a very satisfactory authority they were; dry, doubtless, and jejune, as official statements commonly are, and as these are described to have been by the unanimous testimony of ancient authors, but all the more, trustworthy as a register of facts. For Cicero tells us that the Pontifex Maximus entered in them regularly all the events of each year as they happened, and with such minutiæ that, though the records were brief, the work filled eighty volumes. But Niebuhr would not admit the preservation of the originals, deeming it certain that they perished at the burning of the city by the Gauls. This certitude of Niebuhr's was, however, based on a whole series of conjectures, against the express testimony of the best writers; and, strangely enough, at the very time that he says Livy does not specifically mention the Annales among the books destroyed, he adduces him as an authority for their destruction. Sir G. C. Lewis adds, that Livy ought to have noticed the exception, if they really were preserved. But Mr. Dyer justly replies, that the thing must have been notorious, and that the special mention of a less important work as having perished implies the escape of the more important. Another argument for their destruction has been drawn from the material on which they were written. Cicero is quoted as declaring that they were written on wooden tablets; and it is argued that as they were not yet transferred to books, there was little likelihood of their being saved in the hasty alarm of the fire. But this theory is in direct contradiction of the statement of Cicero, who says that the Pontifex Maximus first wrote down the events in books, and then had a copy made on a white board, which was exposed to public view outside his house, where we may well suppose it to have hung for a while, and then to have been taken down, repainted, and a fresh extract supplied to the curiosity of the people. The notion of the Pontifex keeping a whole library of white boards in his house is too preposterous to need refutation. Such is a specimen of the arguments which Mr. Dyer has had

the honesty to examine and the courage to dissect. It cannot be doubted that he has reason on his side, especially if it be considered into what embarrassment and absurdities the sceptical school necessarily fall. They leave unexplained the existence of such undoubtedly ancient works as the Tullianum, the Cloaca Maxima, and the Servian Wall; they reject the concurrent testimony of antiquity, without so much as substituting a counter-theory of any sort; and they refuse or neglect to take into account the security for at least the main facts of history being truthfully handed down in funeral orations, inscriptions, treaties, laws, senatusconsulta, archives of neighbouring states, traditions, family memoirs-all of which we know to have existed, and to have been jealously preserved. There is much force in Mr. Dyer's argument,—and it would be well if modern critics would give it a wider application, when he says: "How is it possible to believe that a nation which had arrived at such development as we have described, which had executed works like the Cloaca Maxima, the Servian walls, the temple of Jupiter, and others, and which possessed the art of writing, should have utterly forgotten all the acts, nay, even the very names, of its kings at the time of the Gallic conflagration, only one hundred and twenty years after their expulsion? Or, if these were then extant, that they should have been utterly obliterated by that catastrophe? although the Romans took, at that time, the greatest pains to recover what laws and treaties they might have lost. To believe this possible seems to us to demand no ordinary credulity; and the conjecture that it was possible-for, after all, it is nothing but a conjecture-should at least have been supported by the example of some nation, equally civilised with the Romans of that period, among whom so extraordinary a phenomenon has occurred."

But it is not enough to show that the authors from whom Livy and Dionysius drew had the means of knowing the truth, unless there is reason to believe that they are themselves to be trusted. Now, of course, it is impossible for us to attain any very high degree of proof of their veracity or fidelity; though it must be remembered always that Livy and the later historians had the means of correcting their statements by large numbers of original documents still extant in their day. The works themselves have now perished, and we can judge of their contents only from the pages of Livy and others who used them. It cannot be denied that these furnish us with pretty numerous discrepancies; that Livy and Dionysius differ widely in their estimate of the accuracy of some amongst them; and that, whatever else they were worth, they were at least bad hands at chronology. Without, however, entering the lists in their defence, we need not hesitate to accept the general outline of their narratives as substantially true. Where there is hopeless contradiction, or no evidence forthcoming to reconcile statements which might be reconcilable if we only had the missing links supplied, we must make up our minds to wait till further research or some lucky discovery helps us to some opinion which we can