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as compared with Rollin, Prideaux, Shuckford, and numerous writers like them, whose usefulness and authority have been superseded, and whose occupation ought by this time to be gone.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 Fire 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

advent of Christ. It was prepared with great care, with competent learning, and as an aid to the study of the Jewish history and institutions, as well as a successful interpreter of the Jewish faith and worship, is worth a score of professed and formal commentaries. Its merits are far superior to many extemporized and superficial imitations purporting to be reproductions of the times of the Old Testament and the Jews, that seek to supply what they lack in historic accuracy, by exaggerated diction, ill-conceived illustrations, and extravagant portraiture.

No thorough student of Jewish history would be willing to overlook the works of Josephus, the only, but not always to be trusted authority upon many points. The ordinary reader cannot but find great advantage in reading portions of these works, if for no other reason than that they so effectually transport him back into the past, and enable him to understand and to sympathize with the spirit of the enlightened political Jews of the times. The Geography of Palestine has been treated in an exhaustive and critical way by the eminent Professor Robinson in his Biblical Researches, and his Geography of Palestine. The Sinai and Palestine, in connection with their History, by Arthur P. Stanley, is more popular in its form, and is better adapted to the use of the general reader. The Maps of Palestine that were edited by Dr. Robinson are very carefully corrected, and the Map of the Holy Land, by C. W. M. Van de Velde, is in every respect deserving the highest confidence. Raas' Map of Palestine, an imitation of maps in relief, is at once ornamental and instructive, and should be in the hands of every student of Biblical History. The Dictionaries of the Bible and the Encyclopedias of Religious Literature which we shall notice in the Chapter on Religious Reading are indispensable auxiliaries.

From Palestine to Greece is but a short distance, and the transition is not unnatural from the Hebraic to the

Greek history. C. Wordsworth's Greece, Pictorial, Descriptive and Historical, and a History of Greek Art, is an admirable introduction to the study of the geography, history and literature of that wonderful country. The extended and carefully written History of Greece by George Grote has superseded almost every other, and no objection can be urged against it, except its excessive minuteness and its length. A good abridgement of it for schools and beginners has been prepared by William Smith. W. Mitford's History of Greece is written with great spirit and with masterly vigor; but it is excessively partisan in its character, the writer being a desperate enemy to popular institutions of every kind, and finding in the convulsions and changes of the states of Greece abundant confirmations for his political sympathies. C. Thirlwall's History of Greece is carefully written, but it wants the spirit of Mitford, and the critical research and masterly insight of Grote. E. Curtius' Manual History, from the German, from the reputation of the author, must be accepted as of high authority. Anacharsis' Travels, by J. J. Barthelemy, from the French, is an attempt to recall the Greece that was, in a series of imagined travels taken in the palmy days of the Grecian States. Pausanias's Greece, an itinerary from a careful traveler and antiquary of the second century, is invaluable as a record of places, buildings, and works of art as seen by Greek eyes and judged by a Greek mind. W. A. Becker's Charicles is a brief and formal, but for its purposes, an admirable historical novel, the design of which is to reproduce Greek life as it has been re-created and interpreted by the thorough critical researches of modern scholarship. It is fortified and illustrated by abundant notes, which refer to the classical writers. C. J. Felton's Greece Ancient and Modern, is learned and spirited. Athens, its Rise and Fall, by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, is eloquently written, and serves to quicken and aid the historic imagination,