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the editor whether he obtained the approbation and consent of the gentlemen whose work he has taken such liberties with; but we understand from other quarters that such is not the case. If Mr. Drisler has been guilty of such a neglect of the comity usual between gentlemen and scholars, his conduct in this respect is worthy of rebuke. He has been taught in a bad school. But we heartily commend the honest manner in which he assigns to all parties their shares in the credit of the book. We like him for the pains he has taken to state clearly and precisely what he has himself done, and for the care with which he has guarded against appropriating to himself what belongs to others. This is done elaborately in the Preface, and in the Appendix, besides generally marking the articles in the body of the work to which additions or corrections have been made. This is all fair and above board. It remains to be seen what is the real value of these alterations and corrections, and, in general, of the editorial labor which Mr. Drisler has expended upon this edition. The carefully written Preface contains his own account of the matter, which we think will be borne out by an examination of the work.

We are sorry to find so sensible a man talking in such unmeaning terms about literary criticism being made " a vehicle for illnatured, one-sided, and undeserved attacks, which have no other object in view than to gratify private enmity or personal pique," just after he has aimed a side-thrust at an American work of high critical merit, which his language implies that he has never even seen. We refer to a note on page ninth of the Preface, where he says, "This work," meaning Carmichael's on the Greek Verb, "has been, as the editor learns, reprinted in this country, but in a mutilated condition, and without due credit being assigned to the author." What kind of criticism is this, to charge such high literary misdemeanours upon the author of a book which the critic confessedly has never read? The truth is, the American work is from the pen of a scholar who adds to the favoring circumstance of Hellenic birth a critical knowledge of MSS. and of the labors of European philologists, and a most exact and minute acquaintance with the Greek language, through all its changes down to the present day. It is a work in every respect superior to Carmichael's, which it resembles in its general plan, but from which it differs by avoiding the errors of the European writer, by being founded on a more extensive survey of Greek authors, and by being arranged on more philosophical views. Its value has been recognized by teachers of the highest character in the United States, and it is not very creditable to Mr. Drisler not to have studied it, and used it in editing Liddell and Scott. If Mr. Drisler will read the introductions to both these works, and compare

the very first article, that on ȧáw, he will see the unfairness of his disparaging and ignorant remark, and perhaps will have the magnanimity to exclaim, with the hero in the Iliad, Méy' daσáμŋv.

The merit of Passow's Lexicon has long been acknowledged, wherever the Greek and German languages are known. Its leading excellence consists in the scientific and historical manner in which the significations of the words are unfolded. His plan, if fully carried out, would contain a history of every word in the Greek language, during at least the classical ages. He lived to execute his plan only partially. It was very completely executed with regard to the language of Homer and Hesiod; less so with regard to the early post-Homeric poets and Herodotus. Messrs. Liddell and Scott have not simply translated Passow, but have endeavoured to add from their own studies enough to supply the deficiencies which the early death of the author prevented him from supplying himself. Their work has already passed into a second edition, in which many improvements have been made upon the first. Mr. Drisler began with the first English edition, but while he was carrying it through the press, the second came out. He has made numerous additions and corrections, for which, of course, there is always room, in a lexicon of such a language as the Greek. Some of his additions are superfluous, some are useless, but most of them, if we may venture to form an opinion upon a partial examination only, are of real and substantial value. The narrow limits of a critical notice restrain us from many specifications; but to illustrate what we mean, we will mention one or two. On the first page, the word dáw is defined. Mr. Drisler

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adds, immediately after the contracted 1 aor. m. doáμŋv, the reference, 3 sing. oaro, Il. 19. 95." Now this reference would be useless here, in any event, because the passage is distinctly cited below, to illustrate the meaning of the word, in the middle voice. On the other hand, a few pages farther on, in the article áyén, Messrs. Liddell and Scott have attempted to explain a peculiar signification of the word, growing out of the domestic institutions of Crete. Passow does not refer to it, and Pape gives it in general terms, as a classification of boys who were brought up together. Liddell and Scott, referring to Müller's Dorians for authority, define the ȧyéλai as "the bands or classes in which the youths were trained up to the age of seventeen"; for which Mr. Drisler substitutes "the bands or classes in which the youth lived together from their eighteenth year till the time of their marriage, and consequently even after they had attained the age of manhood."

The mistake of Messrs. Liddell and Scott is very singular; for the language of Müller, in the passage to which they refer, ex

that

pressly declares that "it was not until their seventeenth year they were enrolled in the agelæ." For this statement, Müller's authority is Hesychius, who defines an añáyeλos, that is, a boy not yet admitted into an agele, as ὁ μέχρι ἐτῶν ἑπτακαίδεκα, a boy until the age of seventeen. It is true, there is some doubt in the matter. Strabo (1. X.), describing from Ephorus the Cretan institutions, says that "the boys were required to frequent the agelæ, so called, and the full grown men the syssitia, which they denominated Andreia."

Mr. Drisler is to be praised for his diligence in tracking Liddell and Scott to their authorities, and correcting them accordingly. In this particular case, we think it most probable that, as to the fact, they are right; though they are wrong in citing Müller. Müller's language is not easily reconciled with the statements of others, though it is founded on the common reading of Hesychius. Manso, in his elaborate and learned work entitled Sparta,* says, "the reception into the agelæ took place between the seventh and seventeenth year; for unquestionably the reading in the Lexicographer (Hesychius) should be παῖς ὁ μέχρι ἐτῶν ἕπτα καὶ δέκα, and not ἑπτακαίδεκα.” So that Liddell and Scott may be substantially right.

An important addition made by Mr. Drisler is the insertion of the proper names. In this part of the work, he acknowledges his indebtedness to the excellent lexicons of proper names, by Crusius and Pape. For the convenience of students in schools and colleges, this improvement of Mr. Drisler's is of great importance.

The praise of correctness in the printing is also due to Mr. Drisler, who revised all the proof-sheets, and whose laborious care in this respect cannot be too much commended. In other points, the typographical execution of the work is highly creditable to the press from which it comes.

4.- Memoir of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. By WILLIAM SMITH. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1846. 12mo. pp. 157.

THE press of our good friends is usually better employed than in republishing a book like this. It is so sublimely abstruse, when it undertakes to present its hero's views, if that expression may be allowed us, and performs its short task with so dull a subtilty, that

*B. I. 2 Th. s. 107.

we should leave its readers to make the most of it, without any comment of ours, if it were not for the duty of holding up to reprehension one or two of the passages that it contains. Fichte was, on the one hand, a sturdy, bold, restless man, of an eminent virtue and rare personal qualities, though they were rather of a rough cast. He was an ardent lover and a stout champion of freedom. Living in an age of great events and high political excitement, he partook largely of its spirit. He was an earnest patriot, and sought to exert as much influence upon public affairs as was consistent with his secluded habits and studious life. We honor him for the noble moral stand that he took, and for the eloquence with which he maintained it. On the other hand, he was one of those gigantic shadows in the shape of philosophy, that have flitted over the stage of German thought in such strange succession for the last century. While he has been extravagantly overpraised as a thinker in some quarters, his philosophical theory has been most uproariously laughed at in others, that were held in no less respect among his own countrymen. We consider his philosophy to have been resolved some time ago into the clouds, from which it was gathered and painted up into a likeness of reality, and into which many swelling pretensions that have followed his are hastening to be forgotten. He was a hard dogmatist in his day, though his system was one of pure idealism. But the day was not a long one, and his "I = I," and the "I and the not I," soon became formulas that were used in sport rather than with any sober wonder. There were many admirable things about Johann Gottlieb Fichte; but we do not consider that either his metaphysical doctrine or his manner of exhibiting it belonged to the number.

Wild Henri Heine makes merry with Fichte's principal intellectual operation, under the figure of an ape, sitting before the fire and boiling his own tail, supposing that the real culinary art did not consist merely in cooking objectively, but also in having a subjective consciousness of the cookery. He tells us at the same time of having seen a caricature that represented a Fichtean goose. The liver of the poor creature had become so large, that she no longer knew whether she was liver or goose. Upon her belly was written, "II." We doubt, however, whether any caricature could be more comic than the description in this very book, copied from the Autobiography of Henry Steffens, and describing Fichte in his lecture-room. Gentlemen,' said he, collect yourselves, into yourselves, for we have here nothing to do with things without, but simply with the inner self.' Thus summoned, the auditors appeared really to go into themselves. Some, to facilitate the operation, changed their position, and stood up; some drew them

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selves together, and cast their eyes upon the floor; all were evidently waiting, under high excitement, for what was to follow this preparatory summons. 'Gentlemen,' continued Fichte, 'think the wall.' This was a task to which the hearers were evidently all equal; they thought the wall. 'Have you thought the wall?' asked Fichte. Well, then, Gentlemen, think him who thought the wall.' It was curious to see the evident confusion and embarrassment that now arose."

Thus much for the philosopher. As for his English biographer, Mr. William Smith, we know nothing of him, but from the present work. He is evidently an accomplished person. We do not deny that he writes in a good, scholarly style; his performance is in several respects highly creditable. But we perceive in him a taint, that infects a pretty large class of writers at the present day, both in England and America, and which we will not cease to mark with the warning reprobation that we think it deserves. On the 119th page, he brings together Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Priestley, Fichte, and the "deeply religious Shelley," in the same category with Christ and the Apostle Paul, as persons who suffered persecution on account of their more enlightened spiritual views. Now, apart from the bad taste of such a combination, it seems to us to indicate an unsoundness that is of a most serious nature. Even if we should grant what he asserts of Shelley to be true, and we consider it a monstrous perversion of the truth, yet to mention thus in company the author of Queen Mab and the divine Founder of the gospel shows plainly enough to what class of thinkers he that ventures upon such a mode of speaking must belong.

But we have a worse charge to bring than this. He quotes with evident content a passage from an essay by Forberg, fortified with a preface by Fichte, that runs thus:- Two great poets have expressed this faith of good and thinking men, with inimitable beauty. Such an one may adopt their language." Then follows the often-quoted passage from Goethe's Faust, beginning with, -"Who dares to say, I believe in God? Who dares to name him, and to profess I believe in him?" and ending with, "Then call it what thou wilt,- Happiness! Heart! Love! God! I have no name for it. Feeling is all; name is but sound and smoke, veiling the glow of heaven." Here is recommended to us, as the "faith of good and thinking men," the creed of Dr. Faustus when under the instigation of Mephistopheles the devil, which he uttered as a part of his plan for the betrayal and ruin of an innocent maiden. And this precious confession of faith, all in poetry, though the verse is rather ragged, is found in a deliberate essay, "On the Definition of the Idea of Religion"; or else in No. 134.

VOL. LXIV.

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