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and were directed against every kind of superstition, a comprehensive formula in which he would have included every kind of religion. His chief weapon was ridicule, and he has been often compared, not inaptly, to Voltaire. With this he assailed Christianity and paganism alike. Christianity survived the attack, but he gave mortal wounds to paganism.

Plutarch and Arrian have already been mentioned among the historians of the imperial epoch. Appian and Dion Cassius wrote Roman histories, and Herodian continued the narrative of the latter. Pausanias stood to these writers in the position occupied by Strabo with reference to the antiquarian historians of the age of the Cæsars. We may be spared the trouble of marking the subsequent steps in the gradual decay of the old heathen literature. It is not a very inviting subject, and the names of the remaining writers of this class are little known, while their works are never read. We must, however, call attention to three chapters in Dr. Donaldson's work which he has devoted severally to the early literature of Christianity, to the echoes of the old literature' in the fourth and fifth centuries, and to the literature of the Byzantine empire.

Dr. Donaldson, we think, has shown that there was an increasing antagonism between classical and Christian literature,' from the second to the fourth century. The earlier Christian writers, as Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, held the literature and philosophy of the heathen in high honour. Origen endeavoured to reconcile Christianity with the speculations in which he had been educated by Ammonius Saccas. Eusebius, on the other hand, wrote with the express purpose of proving the worthlessness of the heathen philosophy, except in so far as it had been (as he believed) drawn from Jewish sources. With reference to this subject, we cannot refrain from observing that Dr. Donaldson has somewhat needlessly paraded his own views on Inspiration in this and other chapters of his otherwise meritorious work, while he has not scrupled to speak in terms of unmerited contempt of those who, whether rightly or wrongly, differ from him. When he tells us that the Church gradually attributed to certain writings of the earliest Christians-i. e. the New Testament-'a distinctive and exclusive character which necessarily tended to nullify the pretensions and to qualify the value of all works of merely human genius,' we can only say that we think Dr. Donaldson has shown remarkable discretion in refraining from all criticism on the writings in question. But Dr. Donaldson goes on to tell us that this transplanted Israelitism has taken such deep root in Europe, that, although John and Paul were content to preach, in combination with their

revealed truths, the Platonism which they had learned either from the original sources or through the muddy channels of Philo's learning' (a very questionable statement), though Justin and Clement recognized an evangelical preparation in Greek philosophy no less than in Jewish theosophy, and though even Augustine declared that Socrates was the philosopher of the Catholic faith, modern fanatics are permitted to insult with the name of Neo-Platonist those cultivated theologians,' (e. g. Dr. Donaldson himself?) who in our days teach the pure doctrines of a spiritual religion, and refuse to bear the yoke of a Semitic and Pharisaic sacerdotalism which was formally discarded when the good tidings of salvation were proclaimed to the universal family of mankind.' Bona verba, Dr. Donaldson! We forbear to quote similar observations, too often of a flippant nature, which are introduced not very sparingly into Dr. Donaldson's work. We cannot, however, quit the subject without asking that gentleman, who by his own confession believes in neither angel nor spirit, how the belief in a celestial hierarchy necessarily flows from the acceptance of a dualistic hypothesis, as he informs us in vol. iii., pp. 205, 206?

In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries we find a temporary revival of literature, a flash in the socket of the dying light. Nonnus, Coluthus, Quintus Smyrnæus, and others more or less successfully imitated the ancient epos. Their productions may be compared to the Gothic architecture of the early half of the seventeenth century, of which it is hard to say how much is to be assigned to a tradition, and how much to a renaissance. One of the most curious features of the literature of this age, is the growth of prose romances, chiefly pastoral poems without metre, and almost exclusively of an erotic tendency.

Dr. Donaldson has made short work of the long story of Byzantine literature, and so shall we. The thousand years during which it existed is not more wonderful than the strange longevity of the fabric under the shadow of which it flourished. We doubt whether it is possible to fix its termination at any precise point. We believe that it will be found that there is a catena of Greek writers, of whatever value, lasting from the fall of Constantinople to the declaration of Greek independence.

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EARL OF DUNDONALD.*

N his eighty-fourth birthday Lord Dundonald has given to

disappointments of his own memorable career. The famous Lord Cochrane of the great naval war, the terror and then the idol of the Spanish coast, the hero of Basque Roads, and the founder of the liberties of Chili and Brazil, has attained, in the evening of his eventful life, to tranquillity after many sufferings, and to honour after unmerited and heartbreaking disgrace. After proving his fitness for command by a series of marvellous exploits, he was driven from his country's service and stripped of the honours he had gloriously won. He was convicted on a shameful charge and condemned to an ignominious punishment. Expelled from the Navy and from the House of Commons, he carried his consummate skill in warfare to aid the South Americans in their struggle for independence against their masters of the Old World. The most complete successes gained by the smallest means were cheated of all reward by the ungrateful chicanery of the governments which owed their existence to the terror of his name. After creating a navy and teaching it to win victories; after sweeping the Spanish flag from the Pacific coast of South America, he quitted the Republic of Chili, disgusted by its ingratitude and dishonesty, and entered the service of the newly-elected Emperor of Brazil, for whom he achieved triumphs equally astonishing, and who suffered him to be robbed of his hardly-earned emoluments by the same despicable artifices. The grandeur of the language and the baseness of the acts of these governments present human nature under one of its most repulsive aspects. They had the cunning to perceive in Lord Cochrane's great abilities and impetuous character an instrument of unequalled power which they might use and afterwards fling aside. He returned to England with a reputation for almost superhuman skill and daring, and bringing with him a few ribbons and stars, and many bundles of papers in support of claims which in after years he urged to very little

1. The Autobiography of a Seaman. By Thomas, tenth Earl of Dun-
donald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet,
&c. &c. Vol. i. London. Bentley. 1860.

2. Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil, from
Spanish and Portuguese Domination. By Thomas, Earl of Dun-
donald, &c. &c. In 2 vols. London. Ridgway. 1859.
VOL. II.

2 Q

purpose upon the nations who owed to him that their political existence was not quenched in its feeble infancy.

The autobiography of Lord Dundonald contains many mournful passages; nor is it a book which should be placed in the hands of youth to inculcate the belief that a diligent use of the abilities which God has given, is sure to win from a grateful country a substantial recompense of wealth and honour. Here was a man of brilliant genius, of determined industry, and of heroic courage, thwarted in all his plans, hated by officials, hampered by imbecile commanders, condemned to pine in inactivity when he was capable of leading fleets and armies to assured victory, persecuted by political hostility, and finally convicted on a false charge and thrown into prison at the very moment that the ship lay ready for sea in which his country hoped to see him do to the United States as he had done to Spain and France. To think that a career so glorious should be blasted at its moment of highest promise by a conviction for a stock-jobbing conspiracy; to see a man of rare capacity for war compelled first by the jealousy of his superiors, and afterwards by the long continuance of European peace, to feel that his life was ebbing away without finding adequate employment for the powers which he knew himself to possessthe contemplation of such a history is not unfruitful of useful lessons; but it is by no means calculated, like that of Nelson, to inspire youthful minds with the firm belief that the zealous discharge of duty cannot fail of its appropriate reward.

The Earl of Dundonald is the tenth who has borne the title; and with a Scotchman's love for ancestral lore he is careful to inform us of the deeds and sufferings of the Cochranes of Renfrewshire, in the turbulent reigns of the Scottish kings. One of the most remarkable of his progenitors was Robert Cochrane, created Earl of Mar, who won the favour of King James III. by fighting a duel in the royal presence, and kept it by his skill in architecture, and thus raised himself to be one of the chief ministers of that monarch. Afterwards becoming obnoxious to the lawless nobles he was seized by them and hanged in the midst of the feudal array of the whole kingdom assembled round the royal standard. It was in the church at Lauder, that Archibald Bell the Cat gained his homely surname by undertaking to be the first to begin hostile measures against this formidable favourite of the sovereign. It is remarkable that in personal courage, in inventive skill, and in unpopularity with the wealthy and the powerful, we have in Robert Cochrane some of the same features which so strongly mark the character of his descendant. The turn for mechanical contrivance and for researches

in natural science appears to have been hereditary in this talented but unprosperous house. The ninth Earl of Dundonald -the father of the subject of this article-left nothing to his son beyond the naked dignity of a peerage, having dissipated every shilling of his property in costly experiments, and still more costly speculations by which he hoped to reap the benefit of discoveries which brought to him, however, only barren or bankrupt honour, while more dexterous adventurers contrived to appropriate all the profit. And as with the father, so also with the son. By the light of his own bold invention, he showed the way to destroy, as it lay at anchor, a French fleet which was the terror of the British colonies. Men of inferior abilities, but more skilful in dealing with the world, first marred his design by their stupidity and then usurped the larger share of credit for that measure of success which they had not been able by their blundering incapacity to prevent. And, again, when, with the aid of some three hundred British and American seamen, Lord Dundonald had contrived to destroy the Spanish navy in the Pacific, the political chiefs of Chili and Peru took the full advantage of all the efforts and all the sacrifices which he had obtained from his devoted followers, and then stripped him of every means of redeeming the promises he had made to the men who under his command had performed almost incredible exploits.

It cannot fail to strike the reader that Lord Dundonald has shown all the fertility of warlike genius which marked his renowned countryman the conqueror of Scinde, and also an intractability of character which, both in its features and its results, recalls painfully the history of the short but splendid services and the long obscurity, the ardent energy, the disappointments, and the embittered life of Sir Charles Napier. It was the misfortune of both these distinguished men to reach the prime of their capacity for war at the commencement of a long peace. Nor does the parallel between these two victims of official prejudice and routine stop here. After playing a distinguished part at the battle of Corunna, and losing in Sir John Moore a patron who knew and could have given a fair field to his abilities, it was the cruel fate of Sir Charles Napier to be employed during almost all the rest of the Peninsular war in drilling soldiers at Bermuda. And at the time when the United States were profiting by the corruption and mismanagement of the British navy, and by their own innovations upon the practice of maritime warfare, Lord Cochrane, the most earnest reformer of abuses, and the most enterprising and original of commanders, was driven from parliament and from the navy, and locked up in

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