MILLS. The History of the Crusades for the Recovery and Possession of the Holy Land, by Charles Mills, Esq. 2 vols. octavo, 1l 4s

The History of Chivalry, or Knighthood and its Times, by the same Author, 2 vols. octavo, 1/4s The History of Mohammedanism, 1 vol. octavo, 10s

Mr. Mills says the object of his book is by extracting the substance of the different volumes on Mohammedanism, (many of them elaborate and rare,) to collect to one point the principal lights which writers have thrown upon it, and to form a connected and concise account of the religions, political and literary history of the disciples of the Arabian prophet.

The works of this author are distinguished for learning, fidelity, and elegance.

ROBERTSON. The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, by Dr. William Robertson, 3 vols. octavo, 19s, 4 vols. duodecimo, 16s The historian of Charles the Fifth possesses so many excellencies, that it is almost sacrilegious to detract from his merit: he relates the councils, as well as the wars of nations, with all the vehemence of Demosthenes, and the rapid eloquence of a Ciceronian philippic. The style is glowing and animated in a high degree. Dr. Knox.

Horace Walpole, in a letter to the Reverend William Mason, takes notice of a visit paid him byDr. Robertson, for the purpose of inquiring where he could find materials for the reign of King William and Queen Anne, which he intended to write as a supplement to David Hume. Walpole says, "he cares not a straw what he writes about the "church's wet nurse, goody Anne, but no Scot is worthy of being the "historian of William, but Dr. Watson. I once wished he should write "the history of King William, but his Charles the Fifth and his Ame"rica have opened my eyes, and the times have shut his."

Letters, v. 4, p. 561. D'Israeli has bestowed a well merited castigation upon Horace Walpole, for this and other unmerited sarcasms against Robertson. RUSSELL. Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe, from

the Peace of Utrecht, by Lord J. Russell, 4to. 21 2s, 2 vols. post octavo, 18s

IN TECHNICAL CHRONOLOGY

Dr. Johnson recommends the student to refer to Le Clerc's Compendium of History; and afterwards, for the historical part of chronology, procure Helvicus's and Isaacson's Tables: to attain the technical part, consult Holden's Account of Time, Hearne's Ductor Historicus, Strauchius, the first part of Petavius Rationarum Temporum, and at length, Scaliger de Emendatione Temporum. For instruction in the method of his historical sketches he may consult Wheare's Lectures, Robinson's Directions for the Study of History; and for ecclesiastical history, Cave and Dupin, Baronius and Fleury,

HISTORICAL TABLES.

Chronological Tables, by John Blair, folio, 51 5s, with maps, 67 68

BREDOW. Chronological Tables of History and Literature, by Professor Bredow, enlarged and corrected by Major Bell, royal folio, half bd. 17 10s

The tables of Professor Bredow offer advantages of simplicity and efficiency above all other works of a similar description; they present a concise and connected view of the most important facts of universal history, under the following arrange

ment.--

1. Each table embraces a grand epoch of general history.

2. The nations co-existent within such epoch are placed in collateral columns. 3. The collateral columns severally exhibit a chronological chain of the principal events in every separate state.

4. The whole are transversely combined by the contemporary events of the different columns being kept as nearly as possible in horizontal alignments; thus offering either a rapid glance from side to side at the history of all nations at one given period, or a distant and uninterrupted survey (downwards) of the history of any one particular state.

LAVOISNE. The Genealogical, Historical, Chrono

logical, and Geographical Atlas, by Lavoisne, coloured, folio, 67 6s

TOONE. The Chronological Historian, 2 vols. 8vo. 1/ 12s 6d

Greek Literature.

They who study the poets only, resemble him, who, captivated with the enjoyments of the fountain, reposes himself by it without regarding the fertility of the surrounding field and the luxuriance of the fruit which are the products of its expanding waters ;-while they who content themselves with the study of prose, are like him who is satisfied with the fruits of the fertilizing streams, but has no zeal to explore the fountain which would enable him to give freshness to his domains and increase their products.

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Herodotus is justly styled the father of history, because he is the first who wrote general history, and the first who adorned it with the graces of eloquence; to him indeed is applicable, in its full force, the praise which is given to Nestor in Homer :

Τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκιων ῥέεν αὐτὴ
-in persuasion skill'd,

Words, sweet as honey, from his lips distill'd.

So delightful and so engaging is he in his narrative, and such perfect simplicity is there in his manner, that we fancy we see before our eyes a venerable old man just returned from his travels in distant countries, and sitting down in his arm-chair, relating without restraint all that he had seen and heard; not omitting even some wonderful things to which he gave no credit himself. His style seems to have been formed merely by his native good taste and by practice, rather than by the rules of art; for at that period the writing of prose was not very common. It was first cultivated in Iona by the philosophers, but very slowly; then by the historians, Hecatæus, Hellanicus, Charon of Lampsachus, and Xanthus of Lydia. But the lustre of these writers was overpowered by the superior brilliancy of Herodotus, just as the divine genius of Homer overwhelmed the mediocrity of all the preceding poets.

Next to Herodotus is Thucydides, a writer also of the very first rank, but excelling in a different way; he has taken a less extensive subject, confining himself to the affairs of Greece alone, and chiefly to the events of the Peloponnesian war; and of that he does not relate all that he saw or heard, but only those things which were worthy of being recorded. But with all this compression of style and matter, what wonderful grandeur and sublimity of thought does he possess What weight in his opinions-How just an estimate does he always make of virtue and vice! With what sagacity does he unfold the human heart and explore its inmost recesses! In truth, as respects the art of writing, his works come to us under very different circumstances from those of Herodotus; for Thucydides not only had his master, Antiphon, to instruct him in composition, but Anaxagoras, likewise, to teach the art of thinking.

The third, and of the same rank, is Xenophon; who has tempered that severity of style which Thucydides adopted, and has made the sweetness, perspicuity and simplicity of Herodotus his model.Xenophon had the advantage of instruction in his youth, under the most celebrated masters of eloquence and philosophy; in the former Prodicus, in the latter Socrates, whose elegant and popular mode of reasoning, so admirably adapted to all the purposes of life, he has preserved in particular treatises, and also infused into his larger historical works. These three authors flourished so nearly together that each one of them, if he attained to old age, might have lived to see his successor just commencing his career;-from the birth of Herodotus to the death of Xenophon, there was a space of one hundred and twenty-four years. In their age historical writing is thought to have possessed all the vigour, purity and elegance, which belong to that species of writing. From the age of Xenophon to that of Polybius, there was a period of about two hundred years, during which, it is wonderful to observe how many eminent historians there were, who, in extent of knowledge and variety, were not inferior to the triumvirate, though in purity of composition they kept degenerating from that standard. In the Macedonic age, under Alexander and his successors, arose an innumerable multitude of writers in every branch of learning, and among them, consequently, historians of eminence. Of these some came forth from the sound, and as yet incorrupt discipline of the schools of rhetoric; such were Ephorus, Theopompus, and Timous; others were from the schools of philosophy, of whom was Aristotle*, and almost every one of that band of Peri

* Speaking of Aristotle, the following account of the preservation of his writings is extremely interesting.

patetics which followed him, as Theophrastus, Callisthenes, Dicæarchus, Aristoxenus, Phanias, and Agatharchides; others again belonged to the school of grammarians, as Callimachus, Eratosthenes, Apollodorus; while still another class came from the hardships of

hid

The writings of Aristotle appear to have been beyond the taste, and probably the comprehension of his contemporaries and country. Theophrastus, his favourite disciple, to whom he left them, may have understood and valued them; but that this elegant Athenian should, in his disposal of them, pass by all his ingenious countrymen, and even all the cultivated state of Greece, and bequeath them to Neleus, an obscure inhabitant of an obscure city of Pergamus in Asia, whose heirs locked them up in a chest, seems to imply that they were compositions not suited for his own times and nation, though destined to interest a remote posterity. They remained in this chest till the Pergamenian Kings searching every where for books, then only manuscripts, to form a great library in their metropolis, the descendants of Neleus fearing to be deprived of what, though useless to them, they supposed to be valuable at least as property, them from human sight and knowledge, in a vault under-ground. Here they lay unknown and untouched for one hundred and thirty years. By that time the possessor of this buried treasure wanting money, and finding that Appellico, a rich citizen of Athens, was giving large prices for rare works to put in his library, they brought Aristotle out of his sepulchre, and sold them to the wealthy book collector. He found them so rotten from damp and age, that they would scarcely lay together, and were in many parts illegible; he had them copied, and the chasms made by the moisture and worms supplied, as well as the ability of the day would allow, by conjectural insertions, which have geuerally made the difficult parts more difficult than before. But here they slept undisturbed upon his shelves till Sylla, about eighty-five years before the christian era, coming to Athens and seizing this library, transported these with their bibliothecal companions to Rome; not to study them, but to make them a part of that library which he wished also to be a portion of his popular reputation.

But fortunately for Aristotle, there was a man at Rome, Tyrannion, who having been carried there a prisoner from Pontus, was under the patronage of Cicero, reading lectures in that city. This expatriated student was intimate with Sylla's librarian, was himself a great book collector, and revered the memory of Aristotle, seeing the copy of this philosopher's works in Sylla's library, he obtained permission from his friend to copy it, he communicated his labours to Andronicus Rhodius, who from the MS. first made the works of Aristotle known to the public, nearly two hundred and fifty years after the hand which had composed them had mouldered into dust. Sharon Turner.