hierarchy, the greater the means of self-indulgence, the less the chance of long life. People have so long been accustomed to look upon the possession of wealth as the best guarantee for a flourishing bodily condition, that they will be surprised, perhaps, to hear that in proportion as the wholesome stimulus of labour is withdrawn from any class, in the same proportion the value of its average term of life is shortened. And yet our common experience but tallies with the results of scientific inquiry in this matter. When a man who has lived a long and active life, suddenly retires with the idea that he has earned his ease, and that it is time for him to enjoy himself, ten to one but he has taken the most effectual method of shortening his life; and much as we may smile at the taste of the retired soapboiler, who always made a point of going down to his old shop onboiling days,' yet we can see that his instinct directed him rightly, for we can none of us bear idleness, least of all those who have long practised industry. Regularity, sobriety, and activity of mind and body, are the pabulum on which vital force is fed, while, on the contrary, luxury, licentiousness, and sloth are the cankers of life. A comparison of the longevity of the different educated classes proves this in a remarkable manner. Let us take, for instance, the three learned professions. If the reader were asked whether the clergyman, the lawyer, or the physician lived longest, most probably he would say the lawyer. Accustomed to venerable age on the judgment-seat, and struck with the fact that our leading law lords have generally been, and still are, noblemen of very advanced age, he would perhaps be justified in giving the palm of longevity to them. Yet in truth, as a class, they are the shortest lived. The race is neck and neck, it is true, but they lose by a neck. The clergyman, as we should naturally suppose, enjoys a higher standard of health, and attains a greater age, than any member of the community, excepting poor Hodge, the humblest member of his flock. His average age, taking those persons only into account who have passed their 50th year, is 74.04 years, or rather better than one year longer than the physician, who lives to an average age of 72.95 years. This trifling difference, we should expect, as the latter is subject to many chances of infection, and lives more a town life than the former. If the comparison is made, however, between the highest grades of the two professions, between archbishops and bishops, and baronets who have filled the posts of physicians and surgeons to the sovereign, the latter have the advantage by four years, and in both cases the lawyer lags behind in the race with clergymen and physicians: with the latter in his ordinary rank by a few days only, and with the class of medical baronets, as compared with judges, upwards of four years-how much hard study, alternated with tawny port, has to do with the difference, we should scarcely like to say. The gentry may be reckoned to be about as long lived as the clergy; well-housed, well-fed, and living an agricultural life with active habits, they have few diseases, and are especially exempt from consumption. Officers of the navy have slightly the advantage of those of the army-say one year of life. From this point, where the social hierarchy takes a leap, and clothes itself in the purple and fine-linen of nobility-the lamp of life begins rapidly to burn low. The aristocracy of this country are shorter lived, by more than one year, than he who works with all the cares and anxieties of the priest, the lawyer, or the physician; and members of royal houses (calculated from the ages of members of continental as well as English royalty) descend the ladder of life so rapidly, that they have three years less of existence than the peer; and, lastly, we come to the 'round and top of sovereignty itself." The potentate who stands on the highest pinnacle of human greatness, surrounded, it would seem, with every condition favourable to comfort and longevity, fenced about from casualties which constantly beset the paths of ordinary mortals, his would appear indeed a charmed life; yet the hard fact will stare us in the face that the sands of life run far quicker with him than with any other of the educated classes. His years are on an average but 64, or 10 less than the clergy, who probably have to fight the hardest battle in the world-the fight of comparative poverty against appearances. It could be clearly shown,' says Mr. Neison, in his Vital Statistics, by tracing the various classes of society in which there exists sufficient means of sub'sistence, by beginning with the most humble, and passing on 'to the middle and upper classes, that a gradual deterioration in 'the duration of life takes place; and that just as life, with all 'its wealth, pomp, and magnificence, would seem to become 'more valuable and tempting, so are its opportunities and 'chances of enjoyment lessened. As far as the results of figures 'admit of judging, this condition would seem to flow directly 'from the luxurious and pampered style of living among the 'wealthier classes, whose artificial habits interfere with the 'nature and degree of those physical exercises which, in a sim'pler class of society, are accompanied with long life.' Truly, there is a spirit of compensation in this life, if we could only 'distil it forth.' The poor countryman of thirty years of age, who takes his frugal repast under a hedge, has a chance of thirteen years' longer life than the monarch of the same age clothed in purple, and lord, perhaps, of half the habitable world! 6 ART. II. The History of Herodotus, a new English version, edited with copious Notes and Appendices, &c. By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford; assisted by Col. Sir HENRY RAWLINSON, K.C.B., and Sir J. G. WILKINSON, F.R.S. 4 vols. 8vo. London: 1859. THE appearance of Mr. Rawlinson's long-expected transla tion of Herodotus will have been hailed with satisfaction by every scholar and student of ancient history. More than seven years have elapsed since the work was first promised to the public. But the causes which led to this long postponement have contributed materially to the value of the work itself, and we have no doubt that the advantage to the student will fully compensate for the delay. The main object of this book was not merely to present to the reader the Father of History' in an English garb, which may render him accessible to those who are unfortunately precluded from reading the original. Such a task would have presented comparatively little interest to the scholar; and we might fairly be disposed to question whether a new English translation of Herodotus was much required. Vague and unfaithful as are the renderings of Littlebury and Beloe, they would probably suffice for the purposes of the general reader, while those who may be disposed to make more critical researches into questions of ancient history or geography, without being able to consult the original text, would have several literal translations ready to their hands. No less than three English translations of Herodotus have indeed been published within the last thirty years, of which that by Mr. Laurent, of Oxford, seems to be the most popular, while one by Mr. Isaac Taylor (published in 1829), of which Mr. Rawlinson speaks in terms of commendation, was apparently so little known that Mr. Rawlinson himself was unaware of its existence until after he had completed his task; and we must confess to a similar ignorance on our own part. It is but little commendation to say that Mr. Rawlinson's translation is the best that has yet appeared in the English language; and is indeed the first that can fairly be said to meet the requirements at once of the general reader and the historical inquirer. He has endeavoured, and in general not without success, to hold a middle course between a loose paraphrase like that of Beloe, and that sort of literal rendering of the words of the original, which loses all the spirit and vigour of an author in the attempt to adhere closely to the precise form of his language. But the original announcement of the book before us seven years ago-promised us much more, and something much better, than merely a new English translation of Herodotus. It professed to collect for the use of the student, and bring to bear on the illustration of the author, the important results of modern researches and discoveries, both in regard to history and geography-to show us in a compendious form what light these researches had thrown on points previously obscure and doubtful, and how far they tended to invalidate or corroborate the authority of the most ancient of historians. Very much the same task had been, indeed, undertaken at an earlier period by the French translator, Larcher, whose version of Herodotus was published in 1786, with copious historical and geographical notes, and is still a useful work of reference. Many important illustrations from modern sources had also been furnished in the copious notes appended by Bähr to his valuable edition, first published in 1830. But since the time of Larcher and even since that of Bähr, the accessions that have been made to our knowledge of the East have been so extensive that it was become absolutely necessary to embody them afresh. - Not only has the geography of the countries with which the history of Herodotus is principally concerned, been more fully explored, and their monuments more carefully investigated, but new sources of historical information have been opened to us, which have already yielded many new and unexpected results, and which promise a yet more abundant harvest for the future. It is scarcely necessary to say that we allude to those two latest branches of philological research the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics and that of the cuneiform inscriptions of Persia, Assyria, and Babylonia. To embody 'the chief results, historical and ethnographical, which have 'been obtained in the progress of cuneiform and hieroglyphical 'discovery,' is one of the professed objects of Mr. Rawlinson's work, and is undoubtedly the part of his undertaking the most calculated to arouse the expectations and attract the attention of the scholar; while the names of his two coadjutors, Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir Gardner Wilkinson, are sufficient warrant that this important task has not been entrusted to incompetent hands. Both branches of study are indeed of very recent date. For though our knowledge of the Egyptian hieroglyphics may be considered as having attained a state of comparative maturity, yet less than forty years have elapsed since the first steps in the right path were taken by Dr. Young, and for a VOL. CXI. NO. CCXXV. D considerable part of this interval the successive steps of the process were slow and difficult. The other is still more modern. The first clue to the interpretation of the Persian arrow-headed characters was indeed obtained by Professor Grotefend (who has been aptly termed the Young of cuneiform interpretation') as early as the year 1815; but the results were for some time confined to the deciphering of a few royal names and titles; and it was not till more than twenty years later that the simultaneous researches of Major (now Sir Henry) Rawlinson in Asia and of MM. Burnouf and Lassen in Europe, opened a way to the complete interpretation of this first species of cuneiform writing. The translation of the great inscription on the rock at Behistun, containing the annals of the first five years of the reign of Darius Hystaspes, compiled and engraved by the order of that monarch himself, is certainly one of the most interesting additions to our knowledge of ancient history that has been made in modern times, and will remain a lasting monument of the learning and sagacity of its ingenious decipherer. But there still remained the far more difficult task of unravelling the mysteries of the Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions. Almost simultaneously with the discovery of the clue to the Persian characters, and before the results had been fully given to the world, the excavations of M. Botta at Khorsabad, and of Mr. Layard at Kouyundjik and Nimroud, had as it were called anew into existence that great Assyrian Empire, which had long been seen looming through the mists of antiquity, but in so vague and dubious a form that its very reality had appeared questionable. Interesting as were the sculptures thus unexpectedly brought to light as pictures of ancient life, and as the earliest contemporary records of Oriental civilisation, their highest value was still wanting, until the inscriptions by which they were accompanied could be deciphered and interpreted. This task was undertaken by Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had already borne so important a share in deciphering the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, and to whom unquestionably belongs the chief credit of the advance that has as yet been made in this second and more complicated branch of the same study. The progress of the work has been necessarily slow; the steps often uncertain; the ingenious interpreter has not unfrequently been obliged to abandon his first conclusions, and discard readings which he at first put forward with confidence; nor can we conceal from ourselves that there still hangs too much of doubt and uncertainty about many of the results to allow of their being made the subject of satisfactory historical criticism. Hence we feel almost inclined to regret that the work before us, long |