Siculus devoted thirty years to his history. One of Pascal's Provincial Letters occupied him twenty days. John Foster retouched and polished his works to the last degree. The manuscript of Paul and Virginia was copied nine times by the author, that he might render it more perfect. Robertson wrote all his sentences first on small slips of paper, polished and rounded them, and then copied them into a book, which also underwent much revision. Let no one be deceived by the idea that genius is a substitute for labor. Let no one imagine himself a genius, and therefore abjure labor. The order of this world is work, work, work, and few may hope to escape from the common lot of man. But the fruits of labor are always sure. Sow, and you will reap. Facts of this kind are encouraging to those who have sometimes imagined that they are without genius, and therefore destined never to succeed. Patient endurance and laborious energy are better than genius. Work and genius, vainly so called, stand often in the same relation to each other as the tortoise and the hare in the fable. The hare thought he had time to lie down and rest a while, and that he should still win the race. But the tortoise kept plodding on, and, Mr. Hare, oversleeping himself, the tortoise arrived at the station first. While genius is delaying, sure of a triumph, labor has already accomplished the work, and done it a great deal better. It pleases us to fall in with statements and illustrations of this kind, because we think them adapted to the times, and to the character of the persons who, in this age, are coming up to sway an influence on the world-men that need encouragement-men who have learned patient endurance in an early life of hardship and toil-men inured to labor-men who expect to attain and accomplish nothing without work. The facts of the case are all in their favor. The experience of centuries bids them take courage. We might pursue the topics suggested by this work farther, and enrich our pages by illustrations drawn from its fruitful parterre, but we have already given our readers a taste of its many excellences. The few points of interest we have suggested lie obviously on its pages. Hundreds of useful suggestions will, doubtless, arise to those who make the book a frequent companion, and invigorate themselves by glancing from time to time within the charmed circle of its never-failing narrative. ART. III.-SMEAD'S PHILIPPICS OF DEMOSTHENES. The I., II., III. Philippics of Demosthenes, with Historical Introductions and Critical and Explanatory Notes. By M. J. SMEAD, Ph. D. Professor in William and Mary College, Virginia. Boston: J. Munroe & Co. 1851. ALTHOUGH a considerable interval has elapsed since the appearance of Professor Smead's edition of the Orations of Demosthenes against Philip, no formal attempt, so far at least as our knowledge extends, has hitherto been made to investigate its merits. We cannot think that this delay has arisen from indifference on the part of those, who, on account of their anxiety for the diffusion of classical knowledge and the advancement of sound education amongst all classes of our countrymen, are most nearly interested in the publication of accurate and trust-worthy editions of the great writers of antiquity; much less that it is to be regarded as an evidence of their non-appreciation of the value and importance of the present contribution to the literature of Demosthenes, since we unfeignedly believe that those who have had an opportunity to examine the work, which we now purpose briefly to review, and to compare it with its predecessors in the same field of classical inquiry, must entertain the same opinion of its general utility and excellence as that, to which a careful perusal of its contents justifies us, at the very outset of our remarks, in giving cordial expression. For we are persuaded that those who have already made trial of this book in the class-room, or who may hereafter do so, will cheerfully acknowledge that in imparting a thorough knowledge of historical detail, and a faithful insight into the form, spirit, and meaning of these orations, it realizes to no inconsiderable extent the intention of the editor, and fully meets the more important wants alike of the teacher and the tyro. In the execution of his task the editor has enjoyed no ordinary advantages. His preface informs us that the volume he has now submitted to the public was prepared for publication during a residence of several years in the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen, and under the immediate instruction of some of the ablest Demosthenean scholars in Germany. Hence we are not surprised at the extensive range of reading, the minute, and, generally speaking, accurate criticism, the comprehensive and extended knowledge of the civic and political institutions of Attic civilization, which he has brought to bear upon the illustration of his author. Throughout the whole extent of his labors we are furnished with conclusive proof of a well-sustained and praiseworthy endeavor to collect, as it were, into one focus, whatever illumination could be derived from those results of learned research in every part of Europe, which, by being concealed beneath an Ossa upon Pelion of Teutonic disquisition in voluminous and costly editions, or dispersed in monographs and the pages of literary journals, are as inaccessible to the large majority of our students as the remains of Greek orators and historians now buried in the tombs of Egyptian Thebes. If in some instances the desire to furnish a complete apparatus for the study of the orations contained in the present volume (with which the De Pace and the De Rebus Chersonesi should, in our judgment, have been associated) has betrayed the editor into explanations which are pursued to a somewhat unnecessary length, it may at least be urged in his defence that they are never wasted upon insignificant trivialities, and that, after all, fullness of annotation in a work, which is the first to introduce these speeches into our colleges and schools, is preferable to the contrary error of "becoming obscure in the painful labor to be brief." In addition to these considerations we may state, as the result of our own experience, that the intelligent and diligent pupil generally evinces during the progress of his studies the greatest anxiety for exact and copious commentary, and frequently occupies his intervals of leisure in profitable endeavor to digest and master the instruction it imparts. In one respect the volume before us is singularly free from the besetting sin of many recent editors, we mean, the introduction of long grammatical citations, lexicographical definitions, and analyses of verbal forms, in which the pupil should be left to his own unassisted efforts, or requires no information. On the other hand, in its repeated references to standard works, which the pupil cannot command and which few teachers or even college libraries possess, it is not so free from objection as we could desire. Placing ourselves in the situation of those for whose benefit text-books are prepared, what can be imagined more useless and provoking than to find, for example, no other notice of a rare and difficult construction, where assistance is really need ed, than a reference to the German work of Bernhardy on Greek Syntax, or to the Latin annotations (often more abstruse than the passages they professedly explain) of Hermann upon Viger? We would press upon the attention of all future editors of elementary books upon the ancient classics, the indispensable necessity of keeping constantly in mind the subsidiary appliances which are, within their own knowledge, really accessible to our students, and of making collateral reference to these, whenever they treat at all satisfactorily upon the matters that require elucidation, rather than to unattainable German or English authorities. It must certainly be pronounced an unfortunate circumstance, so far as the general usefulness of this volume is concerned, that the editor should have made it his rule to quote German monographs, of which excellent and reliable translations can be purchased at our shops, and that he has made such scanty allusion to the writings of American scholars, even when treating upon questions which they have ably and successfully discussed. After an eloquent tribute to the varied excellence of Demosthenes as an orator, statesman, and patriot, and the expression of his obligations to those great scholars, under whose able guidance during his residence in Germany he "applied himself to the study of the prince of Attic orators," the editor proceeds in a preface, which will richly repay attentive perusal, to speak of the method he adopted in the constitution of his text. Considerable favor is shown to the opinion expressed by many modern critics, that in the very earliest times, perhaps during the life-time of Demosthenes,† several editions of his writings were extant. In support of the former conjecture, W. Dindorft has recently appealed to the authority of Ulpian, Hermogenes, and more particularly of Harpokration, who in three passages (ς. 'Ανελοῦσα, Εκπολεμῶσαι, Ναυκρατικά) makes mention of certain ancient copies which he styles 'Attikiavá,§ The reviewer would be understood to refer more particularly to Böckh's Public Economy of Athens, C. F. Hermann's Political Antiquities of Greece, Wachsmuth's Historical Antiquities of the Greeks, and Schömann's Athenian Assemblies. + Cf. Smith's Dict. of Biography, Vol. I. p. 988, a. In his edition of Demosthenes, of which seven volumes are now com pleted. Oxford. 1846-1849. On the fidelity with which the readings of the Attician recension have been adhered to in the Codex 2, see Sauppe, Epist. crit. ad G. Hermannum, p. 49 sq. in all probability transcribed by that Atticus, whose diligence and accuracy in collating and copying ancient manuscripts are commemorated by Lucian.* The second theory, or that of Spengel, which attributes two editions of his orations to Demosthenes himself, has been in Vömel's opinion successfully opposed by Funkhänel in his Gratulationschrift an G. Hermann, 1840. Next follows a highly interesting, but unfortunately incomplete description of the existing manuscripts compared by Reiske and Immanuel Bekker. The editor distributes them into three families, of which the Codex Σ of the 10th, the Codex Augustanus primus of the 11th, and the Codex Marcianus of the 13th century are the respective representatives. Funkhänel adopts a different principle and makes the following classification (the recapitulation of which, for the sake of its brevity, we borrow from Vömel's Preface to Didot's edition, p. iii. Note): 1) Genus additamentis prorsus liberum, cujus est . 2) Hic illic vitiatum, e quo ductus ei esse videtur Y. 3) Saepissime interpretatione impletum, raro cum generibus 1 et 2 consentiens, cui generi adnumeravit F . u. v. 4) Recentissimum plurimis locis alienis vitiatum. Huc Aug. 1 refert, quia in eum codicem irrepserunt quae additamenta esse aliena apparet. Mr. Dindorf, in the Preface to the Oxford edition, p. vi. sqq., divides them into three principal classes: the first consisting of the Parisian Codex ; the second of the Marcianus Venetus (F) and the Monacensis (B), which have been shown by his own and Bekker's collation to correspond most closely with each other; and the third of the Augustanus (A), formerly compared by Wolf and Reiske, and now more carefully by himself. The remaining manuscripts of less antiquity and value examined by Bekker are then collected into three lower or intermediate groups: the first of which (including Y. O. II.) is placed between the first and second classes; the second (comprising . t. p. u. v. q. o.) is assigned to the same archetypal transcript as the Codd. F. B., and whatsoever is valua ble in the third (embracing k. r. s.) is stated to be drawn from the Codex A. With the latter part of this arrangement we cannot wholly coincide, since an examination of the various readings exhibited by the manuscripts enumerated under the second and third intermediate groups, does not reveal so great a difference as to justify their separation into distinct families, ' Vol. III, pp. 100–119, ed. Bip. 1 |