The National Quarterly Review

2. Monumens des Arts du Desin chez les Peuples tant Anciens que Modernes. Recueillis par Vivant Denon, pour servir à l'histoire des Arts; décrits et expliqués par AMAURY DUVAL. 4 vols., fol. 3. Catalogue of the Arundel Manuscripts in the British Museum, (with plates, engraved and colored. By HENRY SHAW.) Folio. 4. Paléographic Universelle: Collection de fac-similes d'Ecritures de tous les peuples et de tous les temps, tirés des plus authentiques documents de l'art graphique chartes, et manuscrits.. publiée d'après les modèles écrits, dessinés et peints sur les lieux mêmes, par M. SILVESTRE, et accompagnés d'explications historiques et descriptives par MM. CHAMPOLLION-Figeac et Aimé Champollion fils. 4 vols., folio.

....

IX. DIRECT AND INDIRECT TAXES AT HOME AND ABROAD..

1. The Danger of Indirect Taxation, in its Effects on the Industrial Interests of the Country. Pamphlet.

2. The Difference between Direct and Indirect Taxation. By JAMES W. HAZLETON, Barrister-at-Law.

3. Histoire de l'Economie Politique en Europe depuis les Anciens jusqu'à nos jours. Par ADOLPHE BLANQUI. 3d Edition.

X. NOTICES AND CRITICISMS..

Education and Science.
Belles-Lettres.

History and Biography.
Miscellaneous

New Publications.

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THE

NATIONAL QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. XI.

DECEMBER, 1862.

ART. I.-1. Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia, disegnati della, Spedizione scientifico-letteraria Toscana in Egitto. Distribuiti in ordine di Materie, interpretati ed illustrati, dal Dottore IPPOLLITO ROSELLINI, direttore della spedizione. Tom. I., II. Pisa, 1835, 8vo. With an Atlas and Plates, large folio, in livraisons.

2. Materia Hieroglyphica; containing the Egyptian Pantheon, and the Succession of the Pharaohs from the earliest Times to the Conquest of Alexander; with Plates and Notes, explanatory of the same. By J. G. WILKINSON, Esq. Malta, 1828. Accompanied by a Vocabulary and Appendix.

3. Pantheon Egyptien: Collection des Personnages Mythologiques de Ancienne Egypte, d'après les Monuments; avec un texte explicatif par M. J. F. CHAMPOLLION le Jeune; et les figures d'après les dessins de M. L. J. J. Dubois. 15êmé Livraison. Paris. 1825. 4. De Prisca Egyptiorum Litteratura Commentatio Prima, quam scripsit JOANNES GODOFREDUS LUDOVICUS KOSEGARTEN, SS. Theol. Doct., ejusdemque et Litterar.

5. Egyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschiclite, &c.-Egypt's Place in the History of the World: an Historical Treatise, in five Books. By CHRISTIAN CHARLES JOSIAS BUNSEN, Phil. and LL.D. Vols. I.III., 8vo. Hamburg. 1845.

6. Egypt and the Books of Moses; or, the Books of Moses illustrated by the Monuments of Egypt. With an Appendix. By Dr. E. W. HENGSTENBERG, Professor of Theology at Berlin. From the German, by R. D. C. ROBBINS; with Additional Notes by W. COOKE TAYLOR, Esq., LL.D., M.R.A.S., of Trinity College, Dublin. Edinburgh: Clark.

It is a very common habit, among a certain class, to make a jest of the study of antiquity. There are many who think they are called upon to smile, as upon a visionary, at even a

VOL. VI.-NO. XI.

passing allusion to any period more remote than the Christian era; and those who do so would feel highly indignant if their intelligence, or even their ability to instruct others, were called into question.

Still, let us not be too ready to blame such; let us rather admit that there is some reason for their prejudice against antiquity; for the subject is too often treated as if the writers made it a point to be as dry, technical, and obscure as possible. They think that, in order to be considered learned, they must make use of a sort of dialect which none but the favored few can pretend to understand. However, there is reason for this, too. Of all the moderns, it is the Germans who have paid most attention to antiquities; and, of all the moderns, it is the same people who are most grave and ponderous in their writings, especially on recondite subjects. That modern learning and civilization owe them much, far be it from us to deny; none appreciate their indefatigable and invaluable labors in the pursuit of knowledge more than we do our selves. It is not they we would blame, but their imitators; for, if German authors write in a grave style, they address themselves to grave readers. In other words, those who read their long, involved periods, are a patient and dreamy, if not a thoughtful or brilliant, people. Thus it is that a work which is considered highly a:tractive in Germany, has few readers in England, even when translated; still fewer in this country, and scarcely any in France. This fact is lost sight of by those who think that, in order to get credit for German learning and profundity, it is necessary to affect a German style.

It is not strange, then, that the study of antiquities is regard. ed by the thoughtless in the light of a bore; whereas, the greatest thinkers are those who use the simplest and most perspicuous language. Who, for example, can have any difficulty in understanding the dialogues of Plato, let their subjects be what they may? If it be urged that he treated of the pres ent and the future more than of the past, the same objection will not hold against Herodotus, whose history of the nations of remote antiquity is as lucid and as full of vivacity as an Eastern tale. If all would bear in mind that, whether they are treating of the ancients or of the moderns, their first duty is to render themselves intelligible to the greatest number, taxing the attention of their readers as little as possible, there would not be half so many as there are who would see anything so very absurd or ludicrous in spending, as it were, an hour or two among the ruins of cities and empires that existed thousands of years ago, and of which even the sites are but matters of conjecture.

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