tinct features of the land, and will furnish a standard of reference in all questions of Biblical geography.

Our author has accomplished much for the Christian scholar: his researches have cleared up many dark points, and brought to light treasures which have been concealed for centuries. Yet much remains to be done. Dr. Robinson, having no idea of the brilliant discoveries which his unwearied diligence has accomplished, was not prepared with suitable instruments to carry out and verify his observations. But it is to be hoped that the day is not far distant when we shall be presented with an accurate and scientific survey of the whole of Palestine. Then we shall not need to rely upon the reports of occasional travelers, but shall have an undoubted standard of authority to which we can refer. We rejoice at what has been accomplished by private undertaking, for these volumes will stand as a monument of the untiring zeal and sound scholarship of our countryman.

New-York, August 17, 1841.

ART. II.-A Classical Dictionary, containing an Account of the Principal Proper Names mentioned in Ancient Authors, and intended to elucidate all the Important Points connected with the Geography, History, Biography, Mythology, and Fine Arts of the Greeks and Romans; together with an Account of Coins, Weights, and Measures, with Tabular Values of the same. By CHARLES ANTHON, LL.D. One vol., 8vo., pp. 1420. NewYork: Harper & Brothers. 1841.

IN fulfilling a promise given in a former number, we now proceed to notice, in a manner better corresponding to its bulk and merits, this last and greatest of Dr. Anthon's learned labors. But, in doing this, we have to confess a higher object in view, and that is, to make it the groundwork of an argument among the most vital, we deem, for the intellectual and spiritual interests of our country -the right apprehension of classical learning in its bearings upon national character, and more especially upon the interests of the church.

But we must first do justice to our more immediate subjectthe Dictionary itself. On this point, however, we speak rather from a sense of duty than to instruct the public, who, it seems, have not waited for our critical judgment, but have put their own stamp of approval upon it, by calling already for a second edition,

almost before the pages of the first were dry. We content ourselves, therefore, with saying, that we hold the public right in their decision, and that we know of no similar work in the market which, for accuracy and variety of learned information, can be compared with it. The public at large, and instructors in particular, owe to Dr. Anthon a debt not easily over-estimated, nor, indeed, likely to be rightly paid, except by those who take the trouble, not only to compare his narratives with what they supersede, but to try also the labor of extracting the gold without the dross from the stories of heathen gods and goddesses. The task of separating the dross from the pure gold is seldom estimated at its true worth, since it leaves behind no marks of the labor bestowed. Like rough ground leveled, nothing remains to tell the traveler of the perseverance or skill of the workman, and yet both may have been greater than that exhibited to the eye by many a showy structure. So is it with the Christian scholar who prepares for Christian use the materials of a Classical Dictionary; and we honor proportionally the scholar who, for conscience' sake, takes upon himself such an amount of unseen, and therefore, in a worldly sense, unrequited labor. For illustration of this merit, let us compare Anthon's Classical Dictionary with Lempriere's, which it supersedes, in an article which very naturally suggests itself as a test question. On turning to the article "Venus" in Lempriere, we find it to be as disproportionally full in detail as it is offensively and needlessly indelicate. It occupies a space in the Dictionary greater, for instance, than the very important article "Athens," twice as great as "Egypt," five times as great as "Italy," and ten times as great as "Attica,” as well as being such in its details as no pure mind can read without disgust, and no youthful one, certainly, without contamination. The same article, "Venus," in Anthon, stands thus in comparative amount: occupying less than one-third of the space given to "Athens," one-fourth of that to "Italy," one-eighth of that to "Rome," and one thirty-fourth of that appropriated to the newly-opened fountain of classical antiquity, "Egypt;" while, at the same time, all requisite knowledge is given, and that in language free from taint; neither conveying nor awakening impure thought. The mere substitution, for instance, of "nude," the more appropriate term of art, for "naked," as used by Lempriere, in speaking of the statue of the Gnidian Venus, will show how much may be done by a pure mind and good taste in defecating of their licentiousness such topics of classical instruction. Could this not be done, we should hold it a doubtful balance between the value and the risk of all knowledge of heathen mythology. But that it can

be done, and that without the sacrifice of any needful knowledge, Dr. Anthon has here proved, and for this we hold him entitled to high praise. The licentiousness of especially this portion of classical learning has long been its opprobrium. He, therefore, does good service to ancient scholarship who removes that stumbling-block out of the path of the Christian student. He, indeed, makes classical knowledge to be more true as well as more pure. That ancient mythology consists in a familiar knowledge of its impure fables may now be held an exploded dogma; it belongs to an age of classical criticism gone by; to scholars who still repeat as authentic history the prodigies of Herodotus and Livy. To the philosophic student heathen mythology has another aspect, and offers to him another handle, one that defiles not him who touches it. The fable is not the thing fabled. Mythology was a veil, stained and impure indeed, but still one that covered up much hidden truth; and the main object of the scholar is now recognized as being in the wisdom, and not in the folly, of these ancient "myths;" in a clear apprehension of their historic bearing, and not in the grossness of their individual details. It is a maxim of Christian as well as heathen philosophy, that "Nulla falsa doctrina est, quæ aliquid veri non permisceat,"-No prevalent error is without its truth. Even in the foulest depths of ancient mythology there lie pearls of price; and he alone dives rightly into that dark stream who brings up the jewel, and not handfuls of putrefying mud. Disfigured truths of early revelation are there; symbolic representations of the spiritual wants of man; eternal verities struggling to imbody themselves amid surrounding darkness; and, above all, the vain gropings of self-condemned natural conscience, seeking to lay hold on somewhat for its support out of the man himself; these all lie at the bottom of heathen fable, and, once recognized in it, enable the well-meaning mind both to view and narrate its mythic tales without impurity. We do not say that the heathen thus regarded them. We know, on the contrary, that the great mass did not, but that with them licentiousness was of their very essence, and that for this "God gave them up to a reprobate mind," "to their own hearts' imagination;" but still we do say, that the rightly-instructed Christian may and should view them in another and a purer light, and thus at once elevate the study of heathen error, and keep himself pure from its defilement. Now this all-needful corrective of ancient licentiousness is, we think, afforded in the present volume of Dr. Anthon, and we have dwelt the longer upon this, its high merit, as being, besides, the threshold of our greater argument, to which we now proceed, in favor

of the extension of classical studies generally in our country, and more especially among the ministry.

Nor would we confine our recommendation here. To such as seek the actual acquisition of the classical languages we commend the previous works of Dr. Anthon, now for some years before the public, and whose merit is established by adequate experience. His "First Latin" and "First Greek Lessons," prepared expressly for beginners, "with appropriate Exercises," will be found well suited for those just entering on a classical course, while his "Greek Grammar," "Reader," and "Prosody," his "Cesar," "Sallust," "Cicero," "Horace," and "Latin Prosody," will afford ample materials for the advancing progress of the scholar.

Of what value, may some say, are classical studies to the practical man-to the nation generally? The Greeks and Romans are men gone by, it is said, and to us and our duties are as if they had never been. Their languages are dead as well as themselves, and on their arts, and sciences, and forms of government, we have made such advances that their records can teach us nothing. To what end, therefore, shall the best years of youth be wasted in laboring at acquisitions which, whether retained or lost, are alike valueless for the business of life? But all this is prejudging the question. It is presuming that the knowledge of the classics has no relation to that improved state of the mind which is necessary in practical life. This is the very gist of the question at issue. The basis upon which a superstructure rests is usually concealed. True education, unlike to false, is at all times a result. What we see is the fruit, not the seed that was sown: that is covered up. Thus is it especially with classical studies; that they are not themselves directly applicable in the ordinary business of life is not conclusive against them. The true question is as to their results-the product, not the raw material-and to ascertain them, we must look to experience. Now how is it upon this point either with nations or individuals? What national literature is there, deserving the name, that has not been founded upon Greek and Roman models? What fame belongs to those countries that have neglected them? Have they not been to modern Europe the very fountain head of taste and refinement, while they who have not drunk of those Castalian streams have remained in barbarism? And to our country, above others, is not this lesson needful, from the obvious tendency of all things around us to measure themselves only by the utilitarian question, "Cui bono?" "Dollars and cents" are with us the unit of value, and whatever study cannot be thus estimated is but too frequently shoved out of the account. Now this we all know to

be the besetting sin of our country; it is the reproach from abroad that rests upon us; it is the snare at home that entangles us, and it is a position as false as it is dangerous. National prosperity and national character repose on deeper foundations than gold or silver. Next to religion, they rest on education-education on those studies mainly which go to elevate, to refine, to dignify, and to soften the mind of man. Nations are made up of individuals who have souls; and by the traits of honor, and worth, and intellect, and all nobleness, which these individuals show forth, nations are estimated; and alone, by posterity, remembered. Such should be the feeling resting in the breast of every American citizen who feels for the glory of his country; and within the circle of his influence should he seek to patronize and advance these studies of classical antiquity, which Christian Europe has long united in designating as the studies of humanity—“humaniores literæ,"

66 Quas didicisse

Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros."

Nor is the influence of classical studies over the individual mind less marked or less desirable than over the nation. It was a saying of Johnson's, that no man rose in society without feeling some inferiority in his ignorance of them. Whatever, then, be their actual benefit, this opinion doubles it; for whatever men think to be powerful is powerful. Opinion, as well as knowledge, is power, and that, too, of the highest kind-of all forms of power the least resistible. But it is more than opinion; and of all forms of intellectual cultivation, that of classical studies is acknowledgedly the most influential. Let him, we say, who doubts this, but watch the changes of learned academic discipline over some ripe but untutored mind. It is such as to change, within the short period of a college course, almost the identity of the man. Rude talent, under its influence, passes into polished strength, in thought as well as in language; and timorous distrust, or ignorant arrogance of mind, into the measured self-possession of the scholar, neither over nor under valuing either itself or others; while narrow prejudices and bigotry, yielding to liberal studies and to wider views. of mankind, grow into a sure knowledge of the past, a prudent foresight of the future, and an enlarged comprehension of the present. Such metamorphoses have we often seen, and on such conviction of their source are we now willing to go heart and hand for whatever will tend to spread a taste for such learning throughout the land, and, when early education has passed without it, for what will afford to the adult student the next best substitute, a