Syria and Mesopotamia. These remarks are borrowed from Spanheim's learned Dissertation De Præstantia et Usu Numism. p. 436. In the same work we have representations, or accounts of Greek coins, struck in various parts of Asia; amongst others, one of Hidricus, a Carian potentate; another of the Termessenses, a people of Caria. A still more decisive testimony to the fact, that Greek was well understood in Caria, is afforded by the Aphrodisian monument, illustrated by Chishull, Antiq. Asiat. p. 150. containing a letter of Mark Antony, and a Senatusconsultum, both in Greek; the latter having been translated from the original decree at the request of Solon, the ambassador of the Aphrodisians at Rome. More than one inscription prove that Greek was spoken in Galatia, in the time of Augustus and Tiberius; and although the Ancyran monument itself is in Latin, the other honorary inscriptions in the same temple are Greek. We come now to the state of Greek learning in Italy. Our author remarks, that there is no reason to suppose any great knowledge of Greek to have emanated from Magna Græcia to Rome, in the times of the earliest Roman authors. But what is this to the purpose? The question is, whether two or three centuries afterwards, the intercourse of the Romans with the different Grecian states, and the influx of Greeks into Italy, had not rendered the Greek language familiar to a great part of the Roman people? The derivation of Greek from Latin is a point of no importance whatever to this question. He says, that the advocates for the universality of Greek adduce, as one proof, and almost the only proof of their plan, the well known assertion of Cicero, in his oration for Archias,-" Nam si quis minorem gloriæ fructum putat ex Græcis versibus percipi quam ex Latinis, vehementer errat, propterea quod Græca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus; Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur." He argues that Cicero only refers to well educated people, who understood Greek as our gentry understand French. Our author's reasons are ingenious, and learned, but not, we think, decisive. The very circumstance mentioned by him, that Tiberius forbad the insertion of a Greek word in a public decree, proves that the people of Rome were very apt to mix Greek phrases with their vernacular tongue, an affectation which is censured by Horace. The author maintains that Latin was a more general language than Greek, in the time of the Apostles. His own quotations prove the contrary. Apollonius of Tyane told Vespasian, that the Governor of the Peloponnese "knew nothing of Greek, nor did the people know any thing of him.

Hence arose innumerable mistakes. From this it is clear that the people there knew nothing of Latin. Apollonius of Rhodes, in the time of Cicero, did not understand Latin; and therefore Cicero declaimed to him in Greek (Plut. Cic. p. 444.) How are we to reconcile these facts with an expression of Plutarch's, quoted by our author, that in his time almost every body used the Latin language? That this assertion must not be understood to the letter, his own example proves. Plutarch's meaning seems to have been, that Latin was coming into general use, with Greek; which agrees with Juvenal's expression, (xv. 110.)—

"Nunc totus Graias, nostrasque habet orbis Athenas.”

As for the common use of Greek by the Roman females, the same poet speaks very strongly, even if we make allowance for satirical hyperbole, (vi. 187.)

"Omnia Græce,

[Quum sit turpe magis nostris nescire Latine]
Hoc sermone pavent, hoc iram, gaudia, curas,
Hoc cuncta effundunt animi secreta."

But all these testimonies, our author contends, relate only to the higher classes. Perhaps they may; if by the higher classes we understand all those, who had the advantage of education. The comparison which he draws between the use of Greek at Rome, and of French in England, is not just; had he instanced the use of French in Russia, it would have been more accurate. That the Roman people of quality were accustomed to converse in Greek, appears very probable from the circumstance related by Plutarch, that when Cæsar exclaimed to Casca, who had wounded him, Scelerate Casca quid agis? Casca said to his brother, in Greek, adeλpè, Bondel. The author says, that when Quintilian advises that the pupil should begin with Greek, he is not speaking of the humbler, or even the middling classes of the community: but he omits to notice a remarkable fact, to which Quintilian alludes in the next sentence, that most of the Roman boys, for a considerable time in the early part of their education, learned and spoke Greek only-the consequence of which was that they were very apt to retain the Greek idioms when they came to speak Latin. Something similar to this happened to Gibbon, when he first attempted to write English after his education at Lausanne. The fact seems to be, that education itself was confined to the better classes at Rome, and that the sons of tradesmen, generally speaking, had little or none. Horace mentions it to his father's credit,

that instead of sending him to school with the sons of colonels, to learn accounts, he took him at once to Rome.

The author thinks it strange in Mr. Walpole to suppose that any of the foreigners who were called Astrologi and Chaldai were Greeks. It is rather strange in him not to have known that Chaldai was a general term for all who professed judicial astrology. The expression of Cicero, (Divin. 1. 1.) Qua in nationi Chaldæi, non ex artis, sed ex gentis vocabulo nominati," &c. proves that in common parlance the term Chaldæus referred to the art, and not to the nation.

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He argues that the early Syriac, the Coptic, and Sahidic versions of the Scriptures, would not have been necessary, had Greek been universal. If this argument be valid, it is equally valid against the general prevalence of Latin, which the author maintains. When we speak of the universality of Greek, all that we mean to say is, that Greek was far more generally understood in those times than any other single language. There was no city of importance in Italy, or the Roman provinces, in which the principal inhabitants did not understand Greek. And this is all we want to prove; if, indeed, we want to prove even this; for it will probably appear that this question, of the universality of one language in the age of the Apostles, has very little to do with the enquiry in what language they wrote. Still the investigation is curious, and not unimportant.

With regard to Gaul, our author seems to have overlooked the express testimony of Strabo, that the example of the inhabitants of Massilia (Marseilles) had made the Gauls so fond of Greek, that they even wrote their contracts in that language; and betook themselves to those studies, "not only individually, but as a public body," and sophists were hired both by private citizens and by cities, (iv. 5.) This, however, of course, applies only to that part of Gaul which was in the more immediate neighbourhood of Marseilles.

Upon the whole, even if we concede to our author that the Greek language was not spoken by the mass of the people in the provinces (for he has not proved that it was totally unknown to them), he has certainly not shown that the Latin was in more general use. He says, in the conclusion of his first Disquisition, that "Latin must have been the language in which our Lord was tried, and which was spoken by those who guarded his cross, and perhaps, his tomb." This is a bold assumption. Before we can grant it, he must prove that the trial of our Saviour was conducted according to the strict forms of Roman Jurisprudence, a supposition which the circumstances of the case render, in some degree, improbable. But even if we allow that this has been proved by

Eckhard, it does not affect the question in any way whatever; for it only proves that Pilate must have interrogated Jesus and his accusers by an interpreter; this was all the trial that took place; no pleading of advocates, no appeal to the judices.

The length to which we have extended this article compels us to reserve the rest of our observations for a future Number. The discussion into which we have been insensibly led, might perhaps, in great part have been spared; for, as we have already observed, the solution of the question, in what language did the sacred penmen write? does not, after all, depend upon the universal prevalence of this or that language; but, in great measure, upon the question, what language was best understood in common by the writer, and by those for whom he wrote. In the absence of other testimony, the existence of the writings themselves in a particular language, is a prima facie proof that they understood that language. What we mean is this, that having certain books, which profess to have been written for certain people, in a certain language, and having the best historical evidence which could be expected, under the circumstances of the case, that they were originally written in that language, we have in fact one strong ground of probability for the supposition, that the writers, or the persons for whom they wrote, did understand that language, in such a degree as was requisite for the purposes of the communication. If it can be satisfactorily proved that they were better acquainted with any other language, we shall be naturally led to suspect that the documents were originally in that language. But we think that no reader of the Palæoromaica will consider this first position to be established by our author; of whom, for the present, we take our leave.

(To be continued.)

ART. II. A History of the British Empire, from the Accession of Charles the First to the Restoration; with an Introduction, tracing the Progress of Society, and of the Constitution, from the Feudal Times to the opening of the History; and including a particular Examination of Mr. Hume's Statement, relative to the Character of the English Government. By George Brodie, Esq. Advocate. 4 vols. 8vo. Longman & Co. 1822.

THERE is no portion of English history about which political writers are so much at variance as the reigns of the first James and Charles. That a great change took place in the opinions

of men at that period, in regard to the principles according to which it behoved them to be governed, is admitted on all hands; but whether that change was connected with the revolutionary spirit which had recently animated the greater part of Europe, and had led to considerable innovation upon the established order of things; or whether it was entirely provoked by an unusual stretch of prerogrative, and by the introduction of tyrannical maxims and practices in the government of this kingdom in particular, is a point which is not yet by any means determined.

The obscurity which naturally belongs to such an enquiry as this, has all along been amazingly increased by the mists of prejudice and party feeling. For nearly a hundred years after the death of Charles, history, in most cases, appeared under no better form than that of special pleading; and it was not, in fact, till about the middle of last century that the tone of public sentiment had become sufficiently moderate to admit of any reasoning on this subject, which did not openly and avowedly proceed either to a direct defence or to a pointed condemnation of that unfortunate monarch. Thus we find, as soon as we have opened the pages of Clarendon, Sanderson, Symmons, Warwick, and Carte on the one side, or those of Prynne, Neal, Whitelocke, Harris, Oldmixon, and even Birch, on the other, that we are perusing the arguments of counsel, retained by the spirit of party, and actuated solely by the love of their cause, or by hatred of its opponents. The most upright and conscientious of these writers are at very little pains to conceal the bias which affects all their movements, or to repress the animosity towards certain men and principles which inflames their zeal, directs all their researches, and modifies almost all their conclusions. The ascendancy of monarchical feeling immediately after the Restoration, discouraged, during many years, all free enquiry into the causes and history of those important events which had led to the interruption of kingly power in England; whilst, during an equal period after the Revolution, the popularity of whig principles withheld the patronage of public favour, with a force not less sensibly felt, from every attempt to set in a clear light, the apparent motives of the two great contending parties, and to estimate with precision the amount of the change ultimately induced, by their struggle, upon the practice of the British Constitution. Hume was the first who undertook to write the history of Charles, with any just claims to impartiality; and nothing could illustrate so strikingly the prejudiced and irritable state of mind which even at that period prevailed both among whigs and