who cannot well afford to lose. Scientific | behalf in this matter, notwithstanding. In men give the toil of their brain, their time, its general distrust of new and startling and their lives, to these grand enterprises; discoveries, which transcend its experience it is proper that great capitalists should and therefore its measures of probability, it second their efforts by such means as they still acts pretty much in accordance with have to give, and take their chance of losing the very maxims of that "inductive" phiwhat they can afford to lose, or of gaining a losophy, the chief triumphs of which, it is great prize; of verifying the old proverb thus supposed to depreciate or despise. It about "making a spoon or spoiling a horn." is precisely because it has found pretenThey may thus be great benefactors of sions falsified in so great a number of cases, their species, at the same time that they in comparison with those in which it has benefit themselves; and if neither be the found them verified; the number of theories case, they can sit down content to bear the which could not be realized, and of macost of the experiment. But let not those, chines that would not work, compared with who wish to make a little provision for wife those that will; of the number of flaming and children, endanger it in the hope of "patents" and magnificent promises that doubling it. come to nought; it is on these grounds that Similar observations apply to such an en- the world, and not unreasonably, exercises terprise as that of M. de Lesseps. There a preliminary distrust of high-sounding may be no physical impossibility about any promises, as to the probable fulfilment of such work, any more than there was about which in the particular case, experience can the attempt of Nero to cut the Isthmus of tell them nothing, while of the frequent Corinth. That M. Lesseps' project is not non-fulfilment of which, in general, it can tell physically impossible is plain from what has them so much. The world's incredulity, in been already said; for it is one of those fact, however lamentable may be the results which simply imply so much time, toil, and in special cases, is a very philosophical inmoney. Man can supply all, if he pleases. credulity. And the proof is found in this: But what will be the expense of the ade- that nobody in the world doubts that if, in quate maintenance of such a work-how every case, or a majority of them, the promlong it will last without such repairs as will ises of the transcendant success of new scibe tantamount to the cost of frequent recon-entific applications had been fulfilled (as it struction how often it will be in parts has been in the case of gas, the steam-enchoked with sand - how often, for other gine, or railroads), the "Public" would long reasons, rendered for a time impassable, since have been cured of its imputed inand therefore for such time unprofitable, all credulity, and taken, as usual, its concluthis is matter of future experiment; and sions as to the future from an indication of every one must wish that the cost might be examples in the past. borne by those who can afford to bear it. In truth, though this distrust of novel sciPerhaps the same may be said of the pro-entific pretensions on the part of discoverers digious tunnel now in course of construction through Mount Cenis.

The "Public" is often rebuked for distrusting, even deriding, the brilliant projects and inventions of scientific genius; which, it is said, are first laughed at as the . dream of visionaries and enthusiasts; and then loudly applauded and eagerly adopted; while their authors struggle in vain to get a fair hearing for them, and too often die in poverty after having spent their all in perfecting some piece of mechanism which is to make the world rich, though it has made them poor. And so, when praise and reward are alike valueless, a statue and a niche in the Temple of Fame are voted by acclamation! The sad story has been too often told. Still, though it may be hardly worth while to enter on the defence of the poor" Public,"-being, as Horace Walpole says, "quite big enough to take care of itself," there is something to be said in its

and inventors is a commonplace of invective against the world in general, it is by no means certain that the world does not quite as often run into the very opposite error, namely, of embracing every specious project too readily and greedily; just as it will also take quackish nostrums in spite of large experience of their futility. For how many specious projects does this same unreflecting "world" find the capital, which it might just as reasonably throw into the sea!

Take for example, the Great Eastern steamship. It is true that she "behaved so well" in the recent expedition, that one cannot help forming more favourable auguries respecting her, and hoping that her brilliant future will obliterate the remembrance of her disastrous past. But whether it will hereafter be commercially profitable to employ vessels of so large a size or not, there certainly was enough, when the project was first propounded, to startle the

doubts of a world which is accused of being city were destroyed; that it would be on so suspicious of novelties! It was, in many that account very doubtful policy of any respects. in most prodigious defiance of all government to use her as a convenient the ordinary lessons of experience. A transport ship; for if she went to the botthousand things in her construction, as to tom, it would be tantamount to the loss of which experience was silent, were perfectly 10,000 men, without a battle. All these novel. She was to be built without a dock, and a thousand other things might, in the and experience had so little to say in the prodigious novelty of this experiment, have matter that she cost 100,000l. only to get so powerfully affected the imagination of her into the water. If she met with an acci- people as to make them at least as prone to dent, there were few ports in the world that distrust of great scientific improvelarge enough to receive her; she drew wa- ments with which they are so often charged, ter enough to bring her within the reach of as in other cases. Yet there does not seem rocks of the existence of which no charts to have been much difficulty in getting the could inform her; and once in her brief his shares taken, and the money subscribed. tory she seems to have been brought by that Precisely the same may be said of the very cause into the greatest jeopardy. As world's willingness to take up a thousand to the economic limit, it seemed yet more visionary projects launched by "Compaproblematical. There was hardly a port in nies" of all kinds; so that there is reason to the world to which she could take a full suspect that credulity rather than increducargo; and if she took one to many, and lity is the prevailing temperament of manmade a voyage almost of circumnavigation kind in this matter. in delivering it, she would lose in time, and its cost, the advantages of her larger freight. If none but large capitalists were ever If she went only partially filled she would engaged in such ventures, -if they who not pay the expense of maintenance, as can afford to lose were the only persons inindeed was proved to be the case. It might volved, one would not much care about it. again, have struck the imagination that it Where there is a reasonable chance of sucwas hardly wise to send so much to sea "incess, a moderate sum of money, if it can be one bottom"-"to put so many eggs," as the easily spared, cannot be better risked or saying is," into one basket". -as must be lost than in an attempt to decide the worth the case if she was to have her complement of some scientific project which may largely of passengers and cargo; that if she should involve the progress of civilization and the be lost, it would be the same thing as if a interests of humanity.

THE Literarieches Ceretralblatt, No. 43, reviews Dr. Shirley's Catalogue of the original works of John Wycliff, in which the reviewer call Dr. Shirley's attention to a Codex, said to be in the autograph of Huss, containing five unpublished philosophical works of Wycliff, writen in Latin, not noticed by that gentleman, which is preserved in the Royal Library at Stockholm. The Reader.

THE late Sir W. R. Hamilton, whose death we noticed a few weeks ago, was the inventor of that new algebra, which he called the theory of Quaternions. He was, it is known, occupied upon a new work in development of his invention. Those who take interest in the matter will be glad to hear that the printing of this new work was all but finished when he died, and that it will shortly appear.

From the Saturday Review.
CICERO AND HIS FRIENDS.

was once, however unworthily, occupied by Marcus Tullius?

The work of M. Gaston Boissier affords a good opportunity for re-opening this question, but such a rehearing of the Ciceroni an case would far exceed our limits. We must content ourselves with a few of its more salient features. In the first place, M. Gaston Boissier recommends himself to the reader by the temperate spirit in which_he writes. He is not a partisan of either Cæsar or Cicero, of aristocracy or democracy, neither does he veil under an ancient garb the opposite and very dissimilar phenomena of modern politics. This is a positive merit at a time when German scholars attempt to justify absolutism in Prussia, and French writers imperialism in Paris, by the examples of Sylla and the Cæsars. In the next place, he has diligently studied the writings of Cicero and his contemporaries, and thrown some new, and generally very agreeable, light on Roman society at that period. He examines the private as well as the public life of Cicero-surrounds him with his family and his friends, contrasts him with Cæsar and Pompeius, and furnishes us with a valuable running commentary on his political and familiar writings.

CICERO is a signal instance of the uncertainty of reputation. There was a time when he was regarded as a burning and a shining light in philosophy, as an almost unerring guide for the history of his own times, as a consummate statesman, speculative and practical, and as a nearly perfect patriot. Fathers of the Church did not blush to own him for their master in language; men of far greater genius than he possessed did him willing homage. His forensic and rhetorical exaggerations were once accepted as oracles of truth and wisdom, although few writers more frequently contradict themselves, are more swayed by the passion of the moment, or more often change their opinions. To question his public or private virtues was once accounted a literary heresy; to set Cæsar above him was almost a symptom of an unsound mind. But this glory has long since departed, and Cicero, in the present generation, has come in for his full measure and running over of blame and depreciation. In the hands of such historians as Drumann and Mommsen he fares little better than Piso, Antonius, or even Catilina fared in A parallel is drawn in the Introduction to his. With them he is a renegade, a time- this volume which, at first sight, may apserver, a self-seeker, one upon whose actions pear to savour of Macedon and Monmouth. no man could count, upon whose word no The letters of Cicero are compared to those one could rely. As an historian, his testi-of Madame de Sévigné. What fellowship, mony is pronounced to be worthless; as a philosopher, he does not know even the alphabet of the systems he discusses, and which he so lamely attacks or defends; even his style is censured as verbose and affected a reflection of his own vanity and insincerity. The idol of Longolius, Bellenden, and Conyers Middleton in past times, and of Mr. Forsyth in the present, is shown to be as hollow as Daniel's dragon itself. Even those who have in some meas

ure

the reader may fairly ask, can there be between the lively French lady and the king of the Roman Forum? The resemblance lies in their respective temperaments, and in their eminent qualifications for epistolary correspondence. Had M. Gaston Boissier been an Englishman he would doubtless have placed Horace Walpole, as a writer of letters, beside Cicero; but, being what he is, he could not in this particular respect have found a better counterpart for him - as, for example, Abeken and Mr. than one whom Walpole, with pardonable Merivale taken his part, are little better enthusiasm, calls the "divine Maria." Of than iconoclasts: instead of applauding, the salvage from the wrecks of ancient litthey frame excuses for him, in place of in- erature no one item is comparable for its cense they tender him pity. But has he not worth to the preservation of Cicero's letsunk in these revolutions of taste as much ters. In them we possess what history so below his proper level as he was once exalt- rarely affords, a living and almost speaking ed about it? Were the scholars of the six- portrait of the time at which they were teenth and the following centuries, were the written. Were Atticus ten or a hundreddoctors of the middle ages, were the Fath- fold more selfish than he is commonly reputers of the Church all wrong in their esti- ed to have been, we are bound to hold his mate of his merits? May not the present name in reverence forever for the good turn depreciation of his character and writings he has done us in rescuing these precious be in some degree not merely a reaction, chapters of history from oblivion. Had Cicebut a consequence of an increasing disposi- ro's philosophical writings perished, though lion to elevate Cæsar to the pedestal which we should have lost much valuable insight

into the opinions and systems of the Greek | and conveniences of life; since the French schools, neither ethical nor metaphysical had linen on their backs and glass in their science would have been much a loser. Had windows, ate with their forks instead of his orations been lost, or handed down to us their fingers, and did not consider assafoelike those of his contemporaries in a few tida a sauce inseparable from a haunch of meagre fragments only, we might not have venison or a boiled turkey. But in postal known the full capacity of the Latin lan- arrangements at that time the Most Chrisguage, but we should not have been depriv- tian Kingdom was not very far in advance ed of much valuable material for history. of the Pagan Commonwealth. Twice a But, had his letters been destroyed, there week only could the communicative Maria, would have been no compensation for their without employing special messengers, deabsence, not even if every decade of Livy spatch her lively news-letters to her correhad come down to us intact, or the narra- spondents; accordingly there was ample leitives of Sisenna, Pollio, and Sallust been sure, not merely for collecting, but also for preserved. In Cicero's correspondence we conveying in the most agreeable forms, the have memoirs scarcely less copious or in- intelligence of the day. Horace Walpole, structive than the memoirs of De Retz, though living so near London, was not Madame de Longueville, or St. Simon, and much better accommodated in these respects. letters scarcely less diversified or admirable He describes the post as lighting upon one than those of Sévigné. Most fortunate also toe at the Twickenham letter-office, turning is it that Atticus, and not the writer of on it while exchanging bags, and chasséing them himself, was the editor of these epis- back to town. Cicero, indeed, had no lettles. Had Cicero published them, at least ter-bags or boxes, but then he had a cohort half of their present charms would have of slaves at hand whom he could despatch vanished. He would have done by them at any hour of the day from any one of his what Johnson did with his letters and memo- many country-houses to his numerous corranda from the Hebrides. By elaborate cor- respondents. To some of his political rection and grave afterthoughts he would friends, indeed, he sends official despatches, have congealed their spirit and cast a rhe- we might almost call them pamphlets, on torical blight upon their ease and humour. the state of parties in Rome. But these In the room of these spontaneous outpour- savour of the orator, and are the least inings of his thoughts, feelings, fears, and structive and entertaining portions of his jealousies, of these delightful pictures of his correspondence. When, however, he writes vanity, infirmity of purpose, and inconsis- in haste, he is incomparable. He displays tency, we should have had such solemn cox- an almost childish delight in change of combry as we find in the Letters of Pliny. place. When he is once again at TuscuBut Dii Meliora — and we are as well, or lum, or Antium, or Formiæ, he feels that he even better, acquainted with Cicero than can never leave those pleasant retreats; we are with Bacon or Shakspeare, thanks when he returns to his house on the Palato the pious care of his freedman Tiro and tine, he marvels at his ever having buried his friend Atticus. himself in the country. His personal history is inscribed in his letters. Those which he composed in exile are one long wail of despair; those which describe his return and progress from Brundisium to the capital are one continuous song of triumph. While Proconsul of Cilicia, and pining for the expiration of his year of office, he affects a vein of pleasantry; but his wit is forced, and the mask he assumes does not hide his troubled brow. When Atticus has sent him new books, or a new statue, or some choice sample of the skill of Mentor or Myron for his sideboard, he prattles with delight; when the bill comes in for these curiosities, or for the yet more serious cost of masons, carpenters, and decorators, he writes as other gentlemen in difficulties are wont to do. And so Madame de Sévigné is never so well pleased as when the woods of Brittany receive her under their shadows, un

Besides an insatiable spirit of curiosity and a lively interest in every movement of the age, Madame de Sévigné and Marcus Cicero had another quality in common; to each of them a confidant was indispensable, to each a fully sympathizing spirit. The former possessed in her daughter, in Bussy Rabutin, and in other members of her inner circle; the latter, in Atticus in the highest degree, and in a secondary one in Brutus, Servius Sulpicius, Marcellus, and Pollio. Had we, however, received the Epistola ad Familiares only, we should have beheld little more than a ghost of the writer of them; whereas in those addressed to Atticus alone we have as living a portrait of the original as it is in the power of words to draw. Paris and France generally, in the seventeenth century, were in advance of Rome and Italy in many of the comforts