THE HISTORY OF ROME. BY THEODOR MOммSEN. Translated, with the Author's Sanction and with Additions, by William P. Dickson, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow. The Provinces, from Cæsar to Diocletian. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The above is the principal title-page; the second one, however, which expressly confines the purpose to an historical study of the Roman provinces, conveys the accurate meaning of these two volumes, Professor Mommsen's latest addition to his monumental history. In the German original the matter of these volumes is printed as the eighth volume of the history of Rome. But in the English translation it has been deemed best to emphasize the subtitle and issue the work as practically distinct from the earlier volumes.

Dr. Mommsen has resumed his labors after a lapse of thirty years, and assuredly time has not blunted his powers. He tells us that it was in accordance with a general and urgent wish that he undertook the completion of his work, though the history of Rome was essentially finished on the author's original plan, when he discontinued his labors before. Yet for a continuous and complete study of Rome there are still two volumes lacking, which we are given to understand will be classed as the sixth and seventh; the first will deal with the struggle of the republicans against the establishment of the empire and the definite establishment of the latter; the second with the distinctive character of monarchical rule and the fluctuations of the monarchy, as well as the general relations of government as influenced by the personality of the individual rulers. In the portion now given to the world, the history of the several provinces from the time of Julius Cæsar to that of Diocletian, a field is covered, the comprehensive survey of which, in other books, is difficult if not impossible to find. All these portions of the great Roman Empire had been nations, many of them of great power and place in the world's history, before the all-conquering arms of the Roman legions subdued them.

the proconsul, an authority always judicial rather than aggressive, carried with it the seeds of ultimate disintegration. But the logic of such a destiny was involved in the very fact of such an enormous and unwieldy mass. The successful retention of imperial authority for so many centuries before that disintegration began, is the achievement in statesmanship which we marvel at. At the zenith of her greatness, Roman authority was paramount throughout the then known world, except in China and India, and the territories in Northern Europe and Asia which were regarded as too inclement for civilized life, and fit only for the barbarous hordes who inhabited them-in a word, countries not worth the conquering. Yet by the irony of fate it was from these very regions whence issued the successive migrations of valiant and ferocious tribes which finally destroyed the Roman Empire.

In his study of the Roman provinces, Dr. Mommsen indicates how, after they became conquered countries, the Roman civilization, though never imposed on the peoples with violence (as the policy was always to respect local laws and traditions), gradually and surely, by the superiority of its laws and customs, established its supremacy and moulded divers peoples into its own form and substance. The Britons and Gauls conquered by Cæsar were perhaps as radically different from their Roman conquerors as possible to be conceived. Yet little more than a century had elapsed after their subjugation, before Britain and Gaul were as essentially Roman as the City of the Seven Hills itself. No attempt was made to overturn religion or custom, but these insensibly vanished in less than three generations. The study of the working of these forces is followed by our historian with great ability and care, and the result is illuminating. Yet while laws, traditions, habits, and political forms insensibly became assimilated with those of Rome, the original languages, though much modified by contact with the Latin, preserved all the vigor of their original characteristics, and, in some instances, altogether resisted the Latin invasion. How far the language of Roman Britain was affected by Latin it is not easy to tell; but, assuming that it was strongly

the Saxon supremacy, the Anglo-Saxon speech, though it shows the influence of the Keltic, indicates no trace of Latin whatsoever as derived through the Keltic. The chapters in the first volume which will be found of special interest are those treating on the Gallic prov

inces, on Roman Germany and the Free Germans, and on Britain. Greek Europe and Asia Minor, which are also included in this volume, are topics of great interest under Dr. Mommsen's treatment. The second volume includes the Euphrates frontier and the Parthians, Syria and the land of the Nabatians, Judæa and the Jews, Egypt, and the African provinces. As we have before indicated, these fresh studies of the German historian are suggestive not merely in the direction of war and conquering armies, of violent convulsion, and the dramatic clash of human passions. Their significance is also derived from the study of the forces of civilization, the evolution of society, government, and order. From time to time, to be sure, the empire suppressed insurrection, and did it with most unsparing and revolting cruelty more than once. The innate brutality of the Roman character never failed to assert itself at such times. But Roman law and polity were averse to unnecessary cruelty, though they could be as savagely barbarous in reprisal and punishment as the North American Indian of to-day. Professor Mommsen, we think, lays undue stress at times on these sporadic exhibitions of brutal and merciless punishment, and does not fully emphasize the fact that they were the rare exception in Roman methods of governing.

The two volumes are illustrated with ten excellent maps made by Professor Keepert, the well-known cartographer. There is a copious and well-planned index which greatly increases the value of the work for the student. Like most German historians, Dr. Mommsen seems to be indifferent to the charms of style. His sentences are often long, involved, and not easy to carry in the mind. The reader must carry in his mind the purpose of the student. But, this difficulty overcome, the serious reader will find in these later studies of Dr. Mommsen matter of great interest and importance. translation appears to have been made with competent intelligence, and the typographical work of the English edition is reasonably good.

The

MR. H. RIDER HAGGARD, before leaving for Egypt, confided the work of dramatizing his novel Dawn" to Mr. Stanley Little. That gentleman sought the assistance of Mr. Haddon Chambers, and the work is now completed, and will probably be presented to a London audience very shortly.

STRENUOUS efforts are being made in the Punjab for carrying out the recommendations of the Education Commission, especially with respect to primary education, and with that object the Punjab Government have provided for a grant of a lakh of rupees in the current year. The general progress of education in the province during the year 1885-86, recently reported on to the Government of India, has been satisfactory, there having been a considerable increase in the number of pupils at both primary and secondary schools.

MUCH satisfaction is felt in educational circles in Bengal at the announcement recently made by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta, that the University of Oxford had consented to arrangements enabling students from the affiliated colleges of the Calcutta Uni

A DISCOVERY of some interest to the lovers of old ballad literature has recently been made in the finding, in an old house in Cheshire, of a MS. book of early Jacobean date, put together by one Robert Hassall. It contains the ballad on the death of the Earl of Essex beginning, Sweet England's pride is gone, waile-a-daie, waile-a-daie, differing somewhat from known copies; also a complete copy in sixteen verses of "A Lamentable Mone of a Souldier for the Losse of his derely beloved Lorde," as well as further ballad and other entries that seem to be entirely original. The pith of the book will shortly be given to antiquaries through the pages of the Reliquary.

MR. SPENCER WALPOLE has undertaken to write the life of the late Earl Russell from

who has obtained honors in any one of the languages specified may subsequently offer any other of them, so long as he is not of more than twenty terms standing-will constitute, in fact, six separate though allied examinations in which honors may be obtained.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Some time professor of Roman Law at University College, London, and now M.P. for Dundee, has written a little book illustrating the burning political question of the day from the point of view of experience acquired during several visits to America. While fully recognizing the broad difference between the two cases, he aims at showing how the relations between the Federal and the several State governments may help toward a solution of the Irish problem. The book will be called " American Home Rule: a Sketch of the Political System in the United States ;" and it will be published by Messrs. A. & C. Black, of Edinburgh.

UNDER the title of "The Best Books," Mr. W. Swan Sonnenschein has in the press a classified bibliography of about 25,000 current books in all departments of literature, with the prices, sizes, dates of first and last editions, and the publisher's name of each. The following is the classification of subjects adopted:

The

and literatures of the Teutonic, the Romanic or Neo-Latin, and the Celtic groups. Each candidate may offer as his principal subject either English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, or Irish and Welsh. The examination in each language is to include the different periods of its history. The examination in English is to include necessarily the Anglo-Saxon period. Candidates offering English or German will be examined in Gothic, and those who offer French, Italian, or Spanish will be examined in Latin. The literature of the language is to form an essential part of the examination. Written composition is to be a necessary part, and the colloquial use of a language an optional part of the examination. The subject or subjects in which the candidate obtains honors is to be notified in the class list; and this provision, together with another-that a candidate

Non-Christian Religion and Mythology, Philosophy, Society, Geography and Ethnography, History and Antiquities, Biography, Science, Arts and Trades, Literature and Philology. The work will form a quarto volume of about 650 pages.

THE death of Elias Lönnrot has been quickly

followed by that of his best-known disciple, Johan Fredrik Cajan, who passed away on the 28th of February at the village of Piippola, of which he was parish priest. Cajan was the author of the first history of Finland written in the Finnish language; this he began in 1838 at Lönnrot's desire. He was born at Sotkomo, in Finland, in 1815.

SWEDEN has lost her most eminent living historian, and the last survivor of the great school of the beginning of the century, in the death of Carlson, which occurred at Stockholm on April 17th. The deceased was not less prominent as a statesman than as a man of letters, but it is in the latter capacity that I speak of him here.

Fredrik Ferdinand Carlson was born in Upland on June 13th, 1811. He took his degree at Upsala in 1833; two years later he was called to be Docent in history at that university.

In 1837 he was appointed tutor to the sons of Oscar I., and after the death of Geijer became Professor of History at Upsala. The first two volumes of his "History of Sweden under the Kings of the Palatinate House" were published in 1855-56, and gave him a great reputation. Around Professor Carlson there grew up a school of young historians, out of which all that is best in recent Swedish history has proceeded. In 1862 Carlson allowed himself to be attracted to public affairs. He took office as chief of the Ecclesiastical Department, and was a member of the Privy Council for eight years.

After 1870 he returned, although with several intervals of active public life, to his historical studies, and published five more volumes of his great history. His masterly study of Charles XI. is usually looked upon as the finest passage of his writings. Carlson wrote the life and edited the works of Kjellander. In 1859, at the death of Agardh, Carlson was elected to be one of the eighteen members of the Swedish Academy, of which he had for some years been the Nestor.

MISCELLANY.

HITTITE INSCRIPTIONS. The mysterious Hittite inscriptions first found by Burckhardt in A.D. in 1808, and rediscovered in 1872, have long baffled every attempt to decipher them. It is now announced that Captain Claude Conder, R.E., has succeeded in reading and translating them. The documents showing how he has arrived at this discovery have been placed in the hands of Sir Charles Wilson and Sir Charles Warren. In about a month particu

lars will be published by the Palestine Exploration Fund. We are informed that much light is thrown on the early chapters of Genesis, and certain names in ancient history hitherto unintelligible are now capable of explanation. -English Churchman.

MANUFACTURE OF DIAMONDS.-Of late years the ingenuity of the Parisian chemists has resulted in compositions which imitate not only diamonds-the old paste shams being nowaday's quite out of date-but rubies, amethysts, and other stones, so perfectly that again and again experts have been deceived, and, it is all but certain, a great many other people who cannot claim that distinction. 'Diamond-faking" has especially become an art. It is largely practised not only in London, which is the mart to which all the knaves bring their wares, but in Amsterdam, the centre of the diamond-cut

ting trade, and in New York, where much easily-earned money goes into flashy stones. The color of a diamond being an important element of its value, the most lucrative branch of this roguery is to make a yellow or "off-color" stone look like one of the purest water. There is, for instance, a red diamond which, though weighing only five grains, is valued at £700. A blue stone, which was originally in the French crown, after being missing for some years turned up in three pieces, one of which was purchased by Mr. Hope, of Amsterdam, a second by the "famous Duke of Brunswick," while the third was many years later picked up in Vienna by Mr. Streeter. What this gem was originally worth it is hard to say. But a green brilliant of seven grains is now appraised at £500. Bluish-white stones command the greatest prices, as much as £20 the carat being given for some not of the very first quality, while white stones of the best description are readily purchasable for from £12 to £40 the carat. As for gems of the second quality they range from £8 to 12, while "off-color" stones will fetch only from £5 to £10 the carat. But even the Americans, who have of late been the principal purchasers of the bluish-white brilliants, are beginning to grow timorous over recent revelations. The Old World scamp has been one too many," as they would say, for the New World millionaire; for in his laboratory he has managed to so manipulate an off-color stone worth £5 the carat, that it can pass muster for a bluish-white gem salable at

eight times the price. All that is required is to adroitly apply some blue paint—indigo or blue ink will do-to the girdle or edge round the

setting line of the stone, and then after it is

44

glaze such as photographers use for enamel dry covering it with some hard, transparent ling their prints. The stone is then so set that the faked" girdle is concealed by the gold, though the blue line, being refracted by the different facets, the result is a tint which it is hard to distinguish from the genuine one, produced by the chemistry of Nature. In daylight, indeed, any one might be deceived. But by gaslight detection is more easy, for instead of the faked stones appearing black as night, as bluish-white ones always do, they preserve their color intact. Again, a drop of nitric acid will speedily destroy the indigo or inky hue, and even ordinary soap and water, while harmless to a real gem, will soon dissolve the enamel-covered paint. Moreover, as diamonds have of late years been cut, not with a rough girdle, but to a sharp point at every angle, or

what is known as a "knife edge," the sophistication is only possible with stones cut prior to the year 1870, when the Bessemer process came very generally into use. So far there is no great occasion for alarm. But the holders of diamonds have other reasons for mortification, if not for dread. First-class gems, if not too costly, are always salable. It is only when Kohinoors and Braganzas come on the market that purchasers do not appear, so that while it is easy to figure up the value of these treasures, it might be found a great deal more difficult to realize anything like the amount at which they are valued if they were exposed to auction. Small diamonds and off-color ones, however, fare less kindly. The immense discoveries of diamonds in South Africa within the last ten years have seriously lowered the price of these stones; and if the reputed field at Welsh's Prospect in Barkly West should turn out well, there cannot fail, especially at a time when money is not very plentiful for superfluities, to be a further fall in the diamond market. Still, that is not all. If the chemical imitator of stones has proved equal to "faking" poor stones into the likeness of first-class ones, he has been almost as successful in actually manufacturing ones out of the basest materials. "Diamonds" are at present on sale which flash as brilliantly as the real article -indeed, the only trouble is that they flash really too well-and will defy every test except that of the spectroscope.—Morning Advertiser.

THE PARISIENNE.-The Parisienne lives in a whirlwind. Eager for amusement, greedy for sensation, the one unforgivable sin, the one insupportable circumstance of life is dulness; graceful, febrile, intelligent, superficial, alive to her finger-tips, she is always on the movecoming, going, here, there, everywhere-she has solved in her person the problem of perpetual motion. She reads little, she studies less; but she observes everything, she participates in everything. She is not exactly pretty; but she is piquante, dainty, distinguished in her air. A suggestion of mutinous coquetry marks her bearing. Her talk is animated and incisive; her gestures eloquent. She mingles her topics with a light hand, mixes philosophy with chiffons, politics with fashions. She has a clear crescendo voice, a gay vibrating laugh. Her costumes are always beautifully harmonious, apt for every occasion, and sufficiently

varied to suggest her view of existence to be a masquerade. Her home, be it a single room, an apartment, or a château, is always cared for in every detail of its arrangement, and becomes a characteristic background to her own personality. Her impulse, in one word, is to make her life artistic, vivid, and emotional. The Parisienne is alert from the moment she awakes. If she takes her chocolate and hot roll in bed, she glances over the Figaro as she takes this early meal. Its columns bring all Paris to her bedside-its fêtes and its charities; its scandals and occupations-she does not want more. Outside of Paris nothing exists for her. In Paris, she holds, you live; elsewhere you vegetate.-Lady's World.

AN ARAB ANECDOTE.-The beverage of the Arab epicure is dushab—a mixture of nebidh, date-wine, and dibs (wine-juice reduced to a very thick and luscious syrup). From time immemorial this has been the favorite drink of the Bagdad gourmands; and an anecdote of Mohdi, the second Abbaside Khalif, who loved the brew not wisely but too well, may here be given. Out hunting one day, he took shelter in the cabin of a peasant, who served him with a plain meal of bread and curdled milk. The poor man was so won by the affable manners of the stranger that he presently produced a bottle of excellent datewine. The Khalif took a good draught, and, turning to the peasant, said, "Do you know who I am?" No," replied the man. "I am a eunuch of the Court," said Mohdi. "May Allah bless you!" replied the cottager. The Khalif took another pull at the bottle. "Do you know who I am?" he again asked. "I am one of Mohdi's generals." May your grave be sanctified !" exclaimed the peasant. The Khalif took a third draught, and again said, Do you know who I am? I am the Commander of the Faithful." The peasant made no remark this time, but took the bottle from Mohdi's hand and locked it away. What does this mean?" exclaimed the Khalif; give me the wine again." "Not a drop more do you get," said the peasant. "You drank once and you were a eunuch at Court; a second time, and you were Mohdi's general; a third time, and you were the Commander of the Faithful. If you drink again you'll be the Prophet himself!"-St. James Gazette.