such as the parting of Briseïs and Achilles; the combat of Paris with Menelaus; the capture of Dolon and the horses of Rhesus; the death of Patroclus, and the funeral games in his honour; Vulcan forging for Achilles the sacred arms, and Thetis with her attendant Nereids bringing them to her son. The last combat and death of Hector is a favourite subject; and in one instance we see Achilles preparing to drag the body of his slaughtered foe around the sepulchre of Patroclus, whose shade or spirit (clad in complete armour, like the ghost in Hamlet) hovers over his tomb, apparently about to gloat over the vengeance inflicted on his enemy. Still more interesting are those vases which recall to us that most touching of all scenes in the Iliad (or in any other poem) when the aged Priam suddenly presents himself in the tent of Achilles, and, kneeling at his feet, kisses those dreaded hands that had slain so many ' of his sons.'

Far more numerous are the representations of incidents in the Trojan war that either preceded or followed the events related in the Iliad. We are certainly not disposed to adopt the explanation of this circumstance suggested by Mr. Birch -that the Homeric poems did not, in the age of the earlier vases, enjoy the same paramount reputation which they afterwards attained -- a supposition negatived by the whole history of Greek literature. The reason is obvious enough. The Iliad was merely one great episode in the long cycle of mythical history—the tale of Troy divine,' which, after being current in a more detached and irregular form throughout the Hellenic world, was embodied in the series of poems known as the Epic Cycle; and the reason pointed out by Aristotle why so few tragedies were based upon the Iliad, as compared with other parts of the Trojan story, will apply with nearly equal force to the pictures on our vases. That great poem formed one organic whole in its epic unity, while the inferior poems of the Epic Cycle inferior among other reasons for the want of this very unity abounded in incidents which, from their detached and unconnected nature, might each form the subject of a separate composition. The same wide field of poetic legend was open to the painter as to the dramatic poet, and both were alike familiar, from their earliest years, with these beautiful stories in their pristine simplicity.

For we must not forget that these legends were to the Greeks of the early ages not mere poetic fictions, but living realities. The artists of those days did not only admire the tales of the poets, but they believed them. Hence it was not their purpose to illustrate a scene from Homer as a modern

painter does one from Shakspeare or Spenser, but to represent the scene itself as they supposed it to have occurred. The details supplied by the poet's fancy had doubtless been assimilated by their own minds, and worked up into their conception of the event; but it was still the event itself, and not the creation of the poet, which they intended to depict. In later times, indeed, a change had in some degree come over this feeling; and some of the vases of the best period afford indications that they are (in the modern sense) illustrations of Homer rather than scenes from the war of Troy; but it was not till the declining periods of the art that we find the change complete. Scenes from the tragic, and even from the comic, poets were introduced upon vases of the latest style; but nothing of the kind can be found on those of the earlier periods, during which the traditionary feeling was preserved in its original purity.

We cannot attempt to follow the artists of the vases through the wide field of ancient mythology, over which they were free to roam at will. But it may be worth while to observe that the same marked predilection for particular subjects, to the neglect of others apparently of equal or even greater interest, which distinguishes the later periods of Græco-Roman art, is found also on the vases of the earlier styles. The battles with the Amazons, the combat with the Centaurs, the chase of the Calydonian boar, are repeated again and again; while the incidents of the voyage of the Argonauts, so fertile in striking episodes, are rarely found, and only on vases of the latest periods. The same thing may be remarked of the wars against Thebes, and indeed of the whole cycle of Theban legends, from Cadmus to the Epigoni. Among the heroes whose exploits are the most prominent Hercules occupies unquestionably the first place; every incident of his life, from his birth to his apotheosis, may be illustrated from paintings on different vases, and many of them, such as his combat with the Nemean lion, the capture of the Erymanthian boar, and the contest with Apollo for the tripod at Delphi, are found repeated upon numerous vases of different periods and from different localities. Next to Hercules comes Theseus, the tutelary hero of Athens, a circumstance that has been urged as an additional proof of the Attic origin of the vases in question. Nor is the argument without weight; for though it may be admitted that the celebrity of Theseus was such as to entitle him to rank among the heroes of Greece in general, rather than of Athens in particular, yet the same thing might be said of several other heroes, whose exploits on the contrary are rarely found.

Historical subjects, properly so called-Mr. Gladstone must excuse us for not including the events of the Trojan war in this category- are of rare occurrence. The same predilection for the heroic and mythical periods of their history which was so characteristic of the early Greek literature, pervades also every branch of their fine arts, and is conspicuous in the vase paintings, especially on those of the older and purer styles. The only instances, indeed, of what can be called strictly historical subjects, are the burning of Croesus on the funeral pile, and the meeting of Alcæus and Sappho; both of them belonging to the third period, but in the 'strong' style, and retaining much of an antiquated character about them. It is hardly necessary to add, that both of these are of a date long subsequent to that of the personages whom they represent. On the other hand, the very curious vase belonging to the Duc de Luynes, and figured by Mr. Birch as the frontispiece to his first volume, which represents the weighing out of the silphium (the precious drug of Cyrene), in the presence of Arcesilas, king of that country, may perhaps be a contemporary picture of a custom wholly strange and foreign to the Greeks. But in this respect, as in several others, that remarkable vase is too isolated an exception to serve as an authority. The cup from Vulci (also figured by Mr. Birch), on which appears the name of Anacreon, is another instance of a historical personage, though we cannot determine the incident which it is intended to represent. Of the various other attempts that have been made to identify historical subjects, where these are unsupported by inscriptions, few or none can pretend to be anything beyond mere conjectures.

It is one of the merits of Mr. Birch's book, that he has, in this instance as in most others, kept himself clear from those vague and fanciful speculations which are the besetting sin of too many writers in this as in most other branches of antiquarian inquiry. The researches of M. Panofka, in particular, as well as of the late Dr. Emil Braun, notwithstanding their learning and ingenuity, are disfigured throughout by this tendency to far-fetched and questionable theories. So great, indeed, is their ingenuity, and so beautiful the symmetry of the airy 'vision' they construct, that it requires considerable care in their readers to observe how utterly baseless is the goodly fabric before them. We are the more forward to acknowledge the merits of Mr. Birch's book, because we have found ourselves compelled to notice severely those defects which go far to mar its usefulness; and which are the more provoking, because the greater part of them might have been easily avoided.

ART. IV. — 1. Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de mon temps. Par M. GUIZOT. Vol. I. Paris: 1858.

2. Memoirs to illustrate the History of my Time. By F. GUIZOT. Vol. I. London: 1858.

3. M. de Châteaubriand, sa Vie, ses écrits, son influence littéraire et politique sur son temps (La Tribune Moderne, Première partie). Par M. VILLEMAIN. Paris: 1858.

1814

4. Histoire du Gouvernement Parlementaire en France. 1848. Précédée d'une Introduction. Par M. DUVERGIER DE HAURANNE. Vols. I. and II. Paris: 1857.

THE

HESE works are the offspring of very different minds; and the course of public affairs, as well as the impulses of personal character, have tended to divide rather than to unite their respective authors. M. Guizot relates with a stern simplicity of language the occurrences he has witnessed in political life. M. Villemain describes with more animation, and not without a touch of satire, the life of another celebrated performer in the last generation of Frenchmen. M. Duvergier de Hauranne, whose own parliamentary life was spent in opposition, has undertaken the task of tracing the constitutional government of France from its infancy to its dissolution, and of weighing in the scales of history its errors and its misfortunes. Probably the view taken of any given event or act of policy by these distinguished men would be as different now as it was amidst the turmoil of contending parties, and we shall not attempt to reconcile their divisions. But on one fundamental point their intention is the same. They represent the great party of constitutional freedom and limited monarchy in France with as much fidelity in these days of proscription and defeat, as they did when all the powers of the State lay within their grasp. Whatever else may have changed in France, it will ever be remembered to the honour of her parliamentary statesmen, that ten years after the calamitous revolution which levelled the throne and the liberties of the nation in the dust, not one of those illustrious men who had served her in freedom condescended to govern her under despotism. The possession of absolute power, the acquisition of wealth, the desire of what are called honours, may be more easily satisfied by a successful minister under the Imperial régime than amidst the perils and resistance of parliamentary life; but these vulgar attractions have not seduced a single man of real eminence from the principles he had embraced, and history can produce no finer example of constancy to an unsuccessful cause.

This sentiment has dictated every page of the volumes now before us. To retrace step by step the outset and the progress of a free government in France, as it existed under the elder and the younger branch of the Bourbons; to preserve a record of the intentions, the difficulties, the perils, and the principles which marked the course of that great experiment; and to hand down to another generation that momentous problem of the union of freedom and authority which the lives and labours of three preceding generations have failed to solve, are now the tasks which not unworthily employ the retirement of these eminent men. The active portion of their own lives is past. With the consciousness of great efforts directed to noble objects, which secure to them personally a lasting place in the annals of their country, is doubtless mingled that sense of disappointment which is rarely absent even from the least unsuccessful of human achievements: but their faith in the principles which have hitherto governed and guided the progress of civilisation is indestructible, and the failure of their last venture has not driven them either to seek a refuge behind the ranks of military force, or to abandon that cause which can alone redeem the French Revolution from its inconsistencies and its crimes. We know not what the future may have in store, for that depends on the temper and spirit of a generation of men who have at present given to the world no intelligible indication of their political opinions; but the parliamentary statesmen of the late monarchy, equally distinguished by literary ability and by political eloquence, have left no part of their task unperformed, since the sources of the history of their eventful times will hereafter be found to be amply illustrated by their own writings.

Amongst this band of great and honourable men we think that M. Guizot will retain in history, as he has occupied in life, the first and highest place. Other writers, gifted with livelier powers of imagination, and appealing more directly to the sentiment of their contemporaries, may, like M. de Châteaubriand, have exercised for a time a more powerful influence on the literature of France. Other orators may have kindled fiercer passions in the audiences they addressed, and may leave on some memories the impression of more intense dramatic power. Other statesmen have enjoyed far more of popular sympathy in their day, for they fought under a banner to which M. Guizot was steadily opposed; and, whilst they spoke with the energy of assailants, his public life has been, for the most part, spent in the service of the crown and in the discharge of the positive duties of government. But in the depth and variety