personal feelings and interests awaken active interest and sympathy. The recital of the events of which he had personal knowledge stands out in bold relief from the hazy back-ground of general descriptions and the dry details of dates, numbers, and results. Hence a snatch from the diary of a soldier on a march, a brief letter after a battle, a personal narrative of what he saw and felt in a charge or repulse, is often more attractive and even more instructive than scores of official summaries and despatches. The few diaries which were faithfully kept in the stirring times of England, as those of Evelyn and Pepys, the personal recollections of Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, and the stately recordings of Burton in his Cromwellian diary, are not only valued above all price for the distinctness with which they bring again to life those exciting times, but they have given suggestions for scores of imitations in manifold fictitious autobiographies and diaries. A few series of letters from an active correspondent to his intimate friend like those of Horace Walpole, are sometimes of great interest and service. Indeed a bundle of old letters, freshly gathered from some forgotten chest or dusty closet may aid the imagination and move the heart more than a score of elaborate volumes. The zealous student of history is moved by the true historic spirit, to fill his library with books and collections of this sort, and is never weary with ruminating over the past which he ever anew recreates to the eye of his mind out of these fragmentary hints, and these tattered, seared, and dusty memorials. An old letter reveals a new world; an old account-book recalls a past generation, with its ways of getting and spending, of buying and selling, of marrying and burying, of clothing and furnishing. We have read a manuscript correspondence of sixty years from a friend in England to a friend in the United States that seemed to introduce us to much that was most important of the inner life of England during the interesting

and exciting period which it covered. An old musket or a soldier's outfit represents a battle-field of another time; and an old diary unrolls a pictured procession of deaths and burials, of weddings and funerals, of famines and pestilences, in which the long dead reappear upon the earth, inhabit their old houses, and walk the once-frequented streets. The imagination of many a Dr. Dryasdust is pictured all over with unwritten romances; and his heart, which seems as desolate and forbidding as his dusty and disorderly den, is brimming over with the tenderest recollections. Peace to his ashes, for in them slumber the glowing embers of the loved and therefore the unforgotten past!

CHAPTER XIII.

A COURSE OF HISTORICAL READING.

WE proceed next to give an outline of a course of Historical Reading. It will be remembered that we do not propose to furnish a list of books for the student, but only for the general reader. We begin with the earliest period, and follow the order of time.

The best and most readily accessible general history of the earliest nations is Philip Smith's History of the World, from the Earliest Records to the Present Time, of which the history of the nations of antiquity is complete, and comprises three volumes. This History has the very great advantage of using the results of the latest researches and explorations in literary and monumental remains, and is written and compiled with a distinct recognition of the critical method which we have already noticed. It suffers, as was unavoidable, under the disadvantage of being a compilation. It is of necessity not written with the enthusiasm and earnestness which those writers only attain who have limited their investigations to a single country or a single period, and are not constrained by the necessity of condensation. It is especially serviceable as an introduction to more special and particular histories. This work cannot be recommended too earnestly as compared with Rollin, Prideaux, Shuckford, and numerous writers like them, whose usefulness and authority have been superseded, and whose occupation ought by this time to be gone. It is to be feared that notwithstanding the progress of civilization, shoals of their works will continue to be multiplied by the zeal of interested publishers, and that book-agents will

still sell them as standard histories. Niebuhr's Lectures on Ancient History, etc., in three volumes, treat of special topics with learning and freshness. They are of a general character, and are in striking contrast with those excessively minute and learned investigations which were given to the world in the first volumes of his History of Rome, and which have occasioned the impression that Niebuhr in all his writings is unintelligible to those readers who are not scholars. C. L. Brace's Races of the Old World is an excellent companion in all historical studies.

A. H. L. Heeren, in his Politics, Intercourse and Trade of Ancient Asiatic Nations and his Politics, Intercourse and Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, treats of these special topics with great freshness, and has the great merit of continually confronting and comparing the past with the present, making the ancient world to seem a real world to the modern reader, and its life to be reproduced as an actual and present reality. He writes for the historic imagination as well as for the historic judgment. Rawlinson's History of the Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World is a recent work, which is at once original, drawn from direct research, critical, and reverent of things and truths which are sacred. Rawlinson's Herodotus ought to be named in this connection. Le Normant and Chevallier's History of The Oriental Nations of Antiquity, 2 vols. partially satisfies a long-felt want. A. H. Layard's Discourses on Nineveh and Nineveh and its Remains would naturally be consulted here.

In the history and antiquities of Egypt, Sir J. G. Wilkinson is the highest authority, and he may be read either in his larger work, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 3 vols. 8vo., or in the more popular and abridged Popular Accounts of the Ancient Egyptians, 2 vols. 12mo. Uhlemann's Three Days in Memphis is as successful an attempt at reviving the Egyptian world to the imagination

of the moderns as could be expected. Osburn's Monumental History of Egypt is a work of interest and authority. Egypt Ancient and Modern, by M. Russell, is a brief compend of Egyptian history. Egypt and the Books of Moses is an elaborate work, by E. W. Hengstenberg. Egypt Past and Present, by Dr. J. P. Thompson, is carefully prepared. Egypt, its Place in the World's History, by Baron Bunsen, has the characteristic excellencies and defects of its wellknown author.

If we pass from Egypt to Palestine, we have for the general reader the well-known and the well-written History of the Jews, by the eloquent and scholarly H. H. Milman. This work is not as frequently and faithfully read as it deserves to be. It is written with the critical spirit of a thorough scholar, with the candor of an enlightened Biblical student, with the imagination of a poet, and the faith of a believing Christian. Jahn's History of the Hebrew Commonwealth, from the German, is solid and trustworthy, but heavy in style. Ewald's History of the People of Israel, from the German, translated in part, is masterly for its learning and originality, but abundant in capricious and not always well-sustained suggestions. M. T. Raphall's Post Biblical History of the Jews is a faithful and painstaking History by a well-known learned Rabbi. For the understanding of the Hebrew institutions in their relation to the Hebrew literature, Herder's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, from the German, is invaluable. No intelligent and thoughtful reader can fail to be delighted and instructed by its eloquent pages. Isaac Taylor On Hebrew Poetry, and Robert Lowth on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews are both excellent adjuncts. Helon's Pilgrimage, an historical novel, from the German of F. Strauss, published more recently also under the title of The Glory of the House of Israel, is a very successful attempt to reproduce in a tale the life of the Jewish people in the century preceding the