istan, drained the treasury, and saddled the country with a heavy debt. Then came the "conquest of Sindh," for which there was scarcely more excuse; and then the war in the Punjab, which, when it came, was inevitable, but which probably would never have broken out but for the aggressions by which it was preceded.

The war in Affghanistan, indeed, was the origin of all the evil. Mr. Campbell has clearly shown the financial embarrassments which have resulted from it. It is hard to say what amount of good might have been done with the money thus recklessly expended. When, therefore, the question is asked, why none has yet been done for the improvement of the country, and the amelioration of the condition of the people, since the last charter was granted to the East India Company, it would be well to ask at the same time who is responsible for all the evils of the war in Affghanistan. We are now, it is to be hoped, at peace-though some uneasy murmurings in Burmah have again disquieted the heart of the philanthropist-and the financial condition of the country is improving and if we can only keep our armies at rest, we may again set our artificers at work, and carry out the benevolent intentions of the East India Company-a Company which has always set its face steadfastly against all unnecessary wars.

The chapter on Indian Finance is one of the best in Mr. Campbell's book. It is worthy of attentive study at the present time. Indeed, the entire book is one which ought to be well and carefully studied. There are some passages, however, to the statements in which we must demur. For example, Mr. Campbell says, "The Progress of Christianity in India, by the influence of private Missionaries, cannot in truth be said to be great. I believe that they have some success in the South, where the Jesuits had preceded them, and where they found a large body of Christians, but even there the Protestants were few, and in all parts of the Bengal Presidency, it must be admitted, that the attempt to Christianize the natives had entirely failed." It is very doubtful whether the missionaries themselves will "readily admit" this. We have recently read (in the Calcutta Review) some detailed statements of the results of Missionary labour, apparently derived from the most authentic sources, which show that in Kishnagur, and other parts of Bengal, our Christian missionaries have made great progress; and there is every reason to believe that in large numbers of cases the converts are anything but merely nominal ones.

And as Mr. Campbell depreciates the Indian missionaries, so he does something more than depreciate the Indian press. After narrating how Sir Charles Metcalfe, during his brief tenure of the Governor Generalship, removed the restrictions which had hitherto impeded the free utterance of public opinion, the author goes on to say, "It is certain that the Indian press has become unscrupulous beyond all precedent, and extremely false and libellous, and that it is only tolerable because most of the papers have rendered themselves discredited and contemptible." This is a strong opinion, but it is couched in somewhat general terms, and contains no specific allegations; but further on, Mr. Campbell says, with reference to the trial of Jootepersaud, the great contractor, "I am certain that no rational person, who knows anything about the matter, really suspects the Indian Government of misconduct of this kind. (True.) The editors of Indian papers certainly do not, although it has suited them, for a consideration, to make an interested outcry in Jootepersaud's

behalf. They are always willing enough to side against Government, but in the instance alluded to, they must undoubtedly have been stimulated by bribes, because the popular opinion in every Indian cantonment ran very strong against the commissariat, and they wrote in the teeth of the feeling of the great majority of their subscribers. The accused was rich, in danger, and ready with the money." This is a very heavy accusation. It is as though some four or five Company's judges were charged, by name, with the crime of taking bribes in their individual capacity. We know nothing about this particular case, except that Jootepersaud's counsel was connected with a newspaper published in the Northwest provinces of India; but we believe that the charge, as respects the Press generally, is utterly without foundation.

From all we have heard on the subject from competent witnesses, we should infer that the Indian press is as little corrupt as any press in the world. "I cannot take much credit to myself," said a gentleman, for some years the redacteur en chef of a daily paper in Calcutta, when we interrogated him on this delicate subject, "I cannot take much credit to myself for never having taken a bribe, for I never had one offered to me." Neither is there, we believe, anything very uncommon in the spectacle of an Indian newspaper enunciating opinions at variance with those entertained by the great bulk of their readers. It would be easy to name journals, which have endangered their popularity, and damaged their exchequer, by denouncing unjust wars. All wars are popular with the majority of Indian newspaper readers; but all wars are not supported by the entire Indian press. It is hard to say who would bribe the Indian editors to advocate principles of peace. This notion of bribery seems to run overmuch in Mr. Campbell's head, for he says, with reference to the re-occupation of Affghanistan in 1842, "In the summer, General Pollock advanced by the Khyber Pass, got through it by the help of bribes as usual, there (where?) met the Candahar forces, blew up the bazaar in a kind of triumph to show what we could do, and retreated." Now, the fact is, that General Pollock did not get through the Khyber "by the help of bribes." An attempt was made to purchase a safe passage through the Pass, but the negotiations broke down, and an instalment of purchase-money, which had been advanced to the chiefs, was brought back before the army advanced; and we fought our way through the Pass after all.

These, however, are but small defects, considered with reference to the magnitude of the work, and the mass of accurate information it contains. Mr. Campbell has not the art of the practised literateur, and, perhaps, he has not manufactured quite as attractive a book as a more experienced hand would have made out of such ample and varied materials, but he deserves the gratitude of the public, for having brought together so large an array of facts, and reproduced them in so readable a volume.

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WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. *

WE consider Miss Kavanagh to have done good service in giving to the world these brief memoirs of women exemplary for piety and charity. We wish we could think that this work would be as popular as her former piquant book on the Women of France in the 18th century; but there is of necessity too much similarity in the career of the good to render their biographies so full of anecdote, gossip, and adventure, as are the accounts of people leading less regular lives.

The work is written in the usual graceful style of the author of "Madeleine." She discovers a nice discrimination in the portrayal of character. There is a reverent tone pervading the book, the reflex probably of her study of the lives of these pious women, and the author has laboured with an evident love of her subject worthy of all praise.

Beginning from the days of the apostles, traversing the period of the fall of the Roman Empire, the Dark and Middle Ages, and coming down to our own day, seeking out examples from all countries, and consulting many forgotten books, Miss Kavanagh has spared no labour, to prove that "in charity and devotedness man has not as yet surpassed woman." The story of the Conversion of St. Augustine from the pleasures and aims of this world, by the tearful prayers of his mother Monica, is one of the most interesting in the book. The account of Elizabeth Fry, too, though we have had so much about her, is good, showing the power of an original mind to invest old themes with novelty. The following anecdote might be borne in mind with advantage even in this day. There still exist Albinas, and more than one Cerealis, and let us hope many Marcellas :—

"When Jerome came to Rome, Marcella was advancing in life, and had been a widow for many years. Her husband died in the seventh year of their marriage: she was young, and celebrated for the beauty of her person. Cerealis, an old and wealthy consul, wished to marry her. Marcella refused; and to her mother, Albina, who observed, that Cerealis, being aged, would not live long, she replied, "If I wished to marry, I should look for a husband, and not for an inheritance.''

* Women of Christianity exemplary for Piety and Charity. By Julia Kavanagh, Smith, Elder, and Co.

Want of space compels the Editor to omit notices of the following Works: -“Lena; or, the Silent Woman;" "Agatha Beaufort ;" "Perils of Fashion ;” "Adventures of a Beauty;" "History of Corfu ;""Literature and Romance of Northern Europe;" "Audin's Life of Henry VIII."-They will appear in our

next.

UNSUCCESSFUL GREAT MEN.

BY PROFESSOR CREASY.

Τὸ μὲν γὰρ Πέρας ὡς ἂν ὁ δαίμων βουληθῇ πάντων γίγνεται· ἡ δὲ Προαίρεσις αὐτὴ τὴν τοῦ cvμboúkov diávorav onλe.-DEMOSTHENES, De Corona.

Ir may fairly be doubted whether the writings of Cicero have not been far more prejudicial than useful with respect to our knowledge of the Constitutional history of Rome. The affectionate admiration with

which we justly regard him as an orator, as a philo sopher, and as a moralist, blended with the esteem which we feel for his personal purity and probity in an age of foul corruption, make us prone to adopt his opinions as a politician, and to echo his eloquent revilings or eulogies of the statesmen, who were his contemporaries, and also of those who had preceded him in the Roman Commonwealth. A more unsafe guide it would be difficult to select. Not only did Cicero carry into politics the loose-tongued disregard of facts, and unmeasured malignity of invective, which have in all ages been the discreditable privileges of the bar; but he was so completely a party man, he was so thoroughly imbued with all the prejudices of the senatorial faction, as to be incapable of doing justice to any one, who either in the Ciceronian age, or in former ages had opposed the Roman aristocracy; and in particular he was judicially blind to the high qualities and wise statesmanship of the two illustrious tribunes of the people, who had perished in the attempt to reform the Roman republic, at the commencement of its final century of revolution. Moreover, Cicero, after his Consulate, was painfully conscious that he himself was open to attack for having put Roman citizens to death without a legal trial, (however much the notorious guilt of Catiline's accomplices might have clamoured for such punishment); and he therefore eagerly seized every opportunity of eulogizing the slayers of the Gracchi, and of citing the conduct of Nasica and Opimius as laudable precedents for his own. The Roman rhetoricians and moralists of succeeding ages took up the same strain; and whenever a sonorous common-place about sedition was to be rounded off, the Gracchi were sure to be introduced as the very types of the character of the factious demagogue. Hence, and also from the portentous blunders which long prevailed among medieval and modern scholars, about the nature of the Agrarian laws, a cloud of unmerited obloquy has for nearly two thousand years rested on the memories of two of the purest patriots that the world ever saw. The same evil fortune that preyed on them while living, has persecuted them beyond the grave. It is one of the highest honours of modern German scholarship, that it has redressed this flagrant iniquity. Until about fifty years ago, the belief was almost universal, that the Gracchi in their celebrated reforms attacked the rights of private pro

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perty; that their object was to confiscate the landed estates of the rich, and to parcel them out among the populace. They were regarded in fact, as the first levellers and socialists.

It was about the close of the last century that Heyne and Heeren pointed out the real object of the Agrarian laws; but the knowledge circulated slowly and imperfectly before the appearance of the great historical treatises of Niebuhr. But the subject is now well understood; and, at the same time, the assertions of Cicero about the manner in which the Gracchi sought to effect their reforms, his insinuations that they wished to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their country's constitution, and his panegyrics on those who slew them, have come to be valued at their true worth. Cicero, as a witness, is now cautiously scanned. The French historian Michelet (whose eloquent voice in the University of Paris has lately been silenced by the present usurper of France), has done good service here. In Michelet's "Histoire Romaine" the great orator of Rome is depicted in his true colours when viewed as a politician; and generous justice is done to those whose fame has so long suffered under Ciceronian misrepresentations. There will soon be few educated men, or even children, who will regard the Gracchi in any other than their true light ;-that of constitutional reformers, who respected the rights of property, and who sought to renovate, not to destroy, the institutions of their country.

The condition of Rome at the time when the elder Gracchus first came forward (about 132 B.C.) is admirably described by Heeren,* and it must be thoroughly understood in order to judge the Gracchi fairly. We must not be deceived by the appearance of tranquillity which we meet with when first looking to that epoch. The favourite maxim of one of our own statesmen "Quieta ne movete," is only conditionally wise. It depends on whether the placidness of the political body is that of healthy action, or whether it is the stillness of decay, and the silent engendering of corruption. There is unfortunately far more truth in Montesquieu's expression respecting the Roman Commonwealth in its best times. "Un gouvernement libre, c'est à dire toujours agité."

When Tiberius Gracchus proposed his first Reform Bill at Rome, she had already reached her seventh century. After a long series of wars, she had made herself mistress of all Italy; and then, engaging in the life-or-death struggles of the Punic wars, she had crushed her great rival, Carthage,-a conquest which placed within her grasp the dominion of the ancient world. Eight provinces beyond Italy were actually annexed to Rome about the time when Carthage perished. These were Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, Illyria, Macedonia, the best part of Greece, under the title of Achaia, and the fertile North African coast, which had once been the territory of Carthage. The legions had already been victorious in Asia; and the Senate had formed political connexions with numerous Asiatic and other states, which became completely dependent upon Rome, under the title of "Allies of the Roman People." Abroad Rome saw no rival; at home she felt no feud. The old dissensions between the Plebeians and Patricians had long died away; ever since the time when the Plebeians obtained an equality of civic rights; and the Patriciate, though not abolished, became a mere title.

Geschichte der Staatsunruhen der Gracchen.

H