in this island, and very well founded too, that so great is the proportion of the free, that there is no manner of danger from insurrection of the slaves. Fully to enjoy the comfort of this idea, there seems to have been a pretty general consent to diminish the number of slaves. But whoever has travelled in the cultivated parts of the island, which is an extensive portion of the whole surface, where a few caballerias of land call for a hundred labourers-whoever considers the imposing fact that in the twelve Partidos of the province of Havana alone, in 1817, there were no less than 625 sugar estates, and 779 coffee estates; and that both have been increased, the latter astonishingly, since that time, perhaps doubled in number, in consequence of the high price which coffee then bore, will have no difficulty, I think, in allowing the above estimate of the slave population of the island." pp. 152–154.

The yeomanry of Cuba, known as "Monteros," being a large majority of the free white population, and always armed, in common with every other white man in the island, form a military force abundantly sufficient to suppress any internal commotion. Combining activity, courage and hardihood, with a familiar use of their weapons, this important class will present a preponderating influence in any future revolutionary movements; at least, no important or violent political change can be effected without their concurrence.

We regret that our space is too limited to permit us to proceed farther in the examination of the work before us, but we feel confident that enough has been said to draw the attention of our readers towards a book so well deserving their notice.

ART. VI.-1. The Republic of Cicero, translated from the Latin; and accompanied with a Critical and Historical Introduction. By G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH, Esq. Fellow of the Geological Society of London; of the American Philosophical Society; of the Lyceum of Natural History of New-York, &c. &c. &c. New-York. G. & C. Carvill. 1829.

2. M. Tullii Ciceronis de Repvblica, librorvm reliquiæ e palimpsesto. Ab ANGELO MAIO, nuper ervtæ ad editionem Romanam diligentissime expressa. Boston. Everett. 1823.

WE should be very sorry to consider this pretended translation of Cicero's Republic, by a "Fellow of the Geological Society of London," as a fair specimen of the scholarship of New-York. Although it may argue ourselves unknown, we candidly confess

we had not the honour of knowing Mr. Featherstonhaugh even by name, until we took up this little volume. Our expectations were, therefore, any thing but extravagant. We had not the most distant hope of seeing in it a version worthy of the original. We were even willing to forego a comparison which an author would seem fairly to provoke, by treading in the footsteps of Middleton and Melmoth. But we took it for granted that he had measured his own strength with some degree of caution, before he undertook his labours. We gave him credit for a decent share, as it is called-for some little tincture at leastof classical learning. We thought that at any rate, he could construe and parse a plain sentence, and that, if he were not very profoundly versed in Roman antiquities, he had been at the pains of acquiring for the nonce, such an acquaintance with them, as his subject made absolutely necessary, and as a boy in the fourth form would not be very vain of possessing. To translate any part of Cicero, indeed, in a style at all approaching to the excellence of the original, requires gifts such as it would be quite satirical to mention in connexion with Mr. Featherstonhaugh's name. But to interpret him faithfully-to do him into good, intelligible, appropriate English-is a task which a man might very well perform, albeit he were, as the slave in the play says, "Davus and not Edipus." We felt, therefore, every disposition to do justice to the merits, and make all reasonable allowance for the defects of the work. We sat down to our examination of it with a conscientious and solemn impartiality, which the event made absolutely ludicrous. We collated the translation with the original, sentence by sentence, for pages together, until we were entirely satisfied that any further prosecution of the disgustful labour was altogether supererogatory. Indeed, we might have augured as much from the "Critical and Historical Introduction," as the author facetiously calls the puerile and trivial common-place prefixed to his version. Although the great fault of this part of the work is its total want of all merit, yet we thought we saw in it some very decided, positive blemishes. We are told, for instance, that Clodius brought forward a law that "whoever had taken away the life of a Roman citizen uncondemned, should be interdicted bread and water." We have heard of such a thing as a man's being interdicted "water and fire"-we know that Cicero speaks of himself as having incurred this interdict at the instance of Clodius-and that interdicere is used absolutely, for aqua et igni interdicere-but we had never heard of an interdiction of "bread and water," until we had the good fortune to read this "Critical and Historical Introduction."

VOL. IV.-No. 7.

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The body of the work, however, is worse than one would anticipate even from such omens. Our readers have a right to expect that we shall make out this charge. They will bear with us, therefore, for a few moments, while we execute this very unpleasant but necessary part of our office, and inflict a wellmerited chastisement upon a hardy and presumptuous offender. We verily believe, as we have said over and over again in the course of our labours, that we shall never do any thing as a literary people, worthy to be had in remembrance by posterity, until we shall have prepared the way by a course of classical education, very different from the wretched system under which the time of the child and the money of the parent have been hitherto, alike, so prodigally and so uselessly squandered. But zealous as we are in this great cause of learning, of truth and of excellence-deeply as we regret and deprecate the vain wisdom and false philosophy of those who have lent whatever of authority or influence their own studies have given them, to the disparagement and depression of this most vital branch of discipline-there is one thing which, if possible, we abominate still more. It is the enemy in our camp. It is the absurd pretensions of sciolists and smatterers, whose ignorance has made scholarship among us the by-word of vulgar scoffers. One such example of a practice, scandalously at variance with profession, does more harm in such a country as this, than the speculative opinions of a hundred men like Dr. Rush and his school-of considerable cleverness and information in other departments of knowledge, but more than suspected of speaking quite conjecturally, however dogmatically, upon this subject. Classical studies are good for nothing unless they be elaborate and critical. Better a thousand times that they were altogether exploded-that a boy should never so much as look into a Greek or Latin grammar-than waste upon the acquisition of such an imperfect knowledge of them, as for any practical purpose, just amounts to no knowledge at all, eight or ten of the most precious years of his life. What might he not acquire in the same period, if his attention were confined to his own language! How much more profitably would he be occupied in awakening his imagination and his sensibilities, in forming his taste, and storing his memory with the beauties of Shakspeare, and Milton, and Spenser; of Barrow, Jeremy Taylor, Hume, Addison, Atterbury, than in learning to repeat by rote a few uncouth grainmar rules in a dead language, and making English nonsense of the matchless eloquence and poetry of antiquity! The system of education, we repeat it, which obtained universally in this country a few years ago, and is far from being entirely reformed

even now, was the most profligate and insane waste of time and money, that was ever tolerated by an intelligent people, and we regard him as the very worst enemy of classical studies who preaches a different doctrine, or does any thing that has a tendency still further to debase the standard of excellence where it is already so much lower than it ought to be. But to our task. The following is the first paragraph of this translation :

"For without the strong feeling of patriotism, neither had G. Duelius, Aulus Atilius or L. Metellus freed us from the terror of Carthage; or the two Scipios extinguished with their blood the rising flame of the second Punic war. Quintus Maximus would not have weakened, nor M. Marcellus have crushed the one which was springing up with still greater strength or P. Africanus turning it from the gates of this city, have borue it amid the walls of our enemies. Yet it was not thought unbecoming in M. Cato, an unknown and a new man, by whom all of us who emulate his course are led as a bright example of industry aud virtue, to enjoy the repose of Tusculum, that healthy and convenient situation. That insane man, however, as some have considered him, preferred when urged by no necessity, to contend amid those waves and tempests to extreme old age; rather than pass his days in the most agreeable manner, amid so much ease and tranquillity. Men without number I omit, each of whom were benefactors to the State, and who are not far removed from the remembrance of this generation. I forbear to commemorate them, lest any one should reproach me with neglecting to speak of himself or his immediate friends. This one truth I would mark, that nature has so strongly implanted in man the necessity of virtue, and so powerful an inclination to defend the common welfare, that this principle overcomes all the blandishments of voluptuousness and ease.

Now, to say nothing of the poverty and inelegance of the style-an objection which it is a sheer waste of words to make here the ignorance of all sorts discovered in these few lines is really lamentable. Fabius Maximus and Marcellus are represented as crushing a war "which was springing up" after that in which Cuæus and Publius Scipio had perished. If Mr. Featherstonhaugh had ever looked into Livy he would have known that the Scipios were cut off in Spain in the course of the very same year that Marcellus took Syracuse-namely, the sixth or seventh of the second Punic war. However, it might be exacting too much of such a writer to require him to think of any thing dehors the record, as lawyers express it, and we are willing to excuse any deficiency of this kind, provided always that he comprehend the text of his author. But unhappily he was, in this instance, misled by that very text, in which the word excitatus happens to be used in rather an uncommon sense. The

words of Cicero are-"Non duo Scipiones oriens incendium belli Punici secundi, sanguine suo restinxissent nec id (i. e. idem) excitatum majoribus copiis aut Q. Maximus enervavisset aut M. Marcellus contudisset, &c. This "Fellow of the Geological Society of London," does not know that excitatus sometimes means "increased," "aggravated," "inflamed," "raised to a higher pitch or degree," &c. So he takes the meaning of the word which seems to approach nearest to the vernacular and translates it "springing up" in utter contempt of historical truth, and the obvious exigency of the context. So the other line printed in italics is a gross contre-sens. The author, speaking of the influence of that virtue which prompts to heroic achievement and self-sacrifice, exemplifies it in the conduct of the elder Cato, who might, had he been so disposed, have remained at Tusculum, (his birth-place) taking his pleasure in ease and quiet, but who chose rather to be tossed about in the storms of political life, even to an extreme old age, than to enjoy that blissful but inglorious repose.

M. Catoni &c. certè licuit Tusculi se in otio delectare, &c.

But it will make our remarks more intelligible to print a page or two of the translation, with the original en regard, beginning at the second chapter.

"Nec uero habere uirtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare. Etsi ars quidem, cum ea non utare, scientia tamen ipsa teneri potest; uirtus in usu sui tota posita est; usus antem eius est maximus ciuitatis gubernatio, et earum ipsarum rerum, quas isti in angulis personant, reapse, non oratione, perfectio. Nihil enim dicitur a philosophis, quod quidem recte honesteque dicatur, quod non ab his partum confirmatumque sit, a quibus ciuitatibus iura descripta sunt. Ünde enim pietas? aut a quibus religio? unde ius aut gentium, aut hoc ipsum ciuile quod dicitur? unde iustitia, fides, aequitas? unde pudor, continentia, fuga turpitudinis, adpetentia laudis et honestatis? unde in laboribus et periculis fortitudo? nempe ab his, qui haec disciplinis informata, alia moribus confirmarunt, sanxerunt autem alia legibus. Quin etiam Xenocraten ferunt, nobilem in primis philosophum, cum quaereretur ex eo quid adsequerentur eius discipuli, respondisse, ut id sua sponte facerent

"Yet to possess virtue, like some art, without exercising it, is insufficient. Art indeed, when not effective, is still comprehended in science. The efficacy of all virtue consists in its use. Its greatest end is the government of states, and the perfection not in words but in deeds, of those very things which are taught in the halls. For nothing is propounded by philosophers, concerning what is esteemed to be just and proper, that is not confirmed and assured by those who have legislated for States. For from whence springs piety, or from whom religion? Whence the law, either of nations, or that which is called civil ?— Whence justice, faith, equity? Whence modesty, continence, the dread of turpitude, the love of praise and esteem? Whence fortitude in trouble and dangers? From those who having laid a foundation for these things in early education, have strengthened some of them by the influence of manners, and sanctioned others by the influence of laws.

*It must be owned that Cicero himself seems to have confounded the dates of these events; but he does not say what his translator puts into his mouth.