HISTORY OF THE GAULS.{A}

'Tis a pleasant thing to turn from the present, with its turmoil and its
noise, its clank of engines and its pallid artizans, its political
strife and its social disorganization, to the calm and quiet records of
the past--to the contemplation of bygone greatness: of kingdoms which
have passed away,--of cities whose site is marked only by the mouldering
column and the time-worn wall--of men with whose name the world once
rang, but whose very tombs are now unknown. If there is any thing
calculated to enlarge the mind, it is this; for it is only by a careful
study of the past that we come to know how duly to appreciate the
present. Without this we magnify the present; we imagine that the future
will be like unto it; we form our ideas, we base our calculations upon
it alone; we forget the maxim of the Eastern sage, that "this too shall
pass away." It is by the study of history that we overcome this
otherwise inevitable tendency; we learn from it, that other nations have
been as great as we, and that they are now forgotten--that a former
civilization, a fair and costly edifice which seemed to be perfect of
its kind, has crumbled before the assaults of time, and left not a trace
behind. There is a still small voice issuing forth from the ruins of
Babylon, which will teach more to the thinking mind than all the dogmas
and theories of modern speculators.

When we turn to the study of ancient history, our attention is
immediately riveted on the mighty name of Rome. Even the history of
Greece cannot compare with it in interest. Greece was always great in
the arts, and for long she was eminent in arms: but the arms of her
citizens were too often turned against each other; and the mind gets
fatigued and perplexed in attempting to follow the endless maze of
politics, and the constant succession of unimportant wars. There are,
indeed, many splendid episodes in her history--such as the Persian war,
the retreat of the Ten Thousand, a few actions in the Peloponnesian
contest, and the whole of the Theban campaigns of Epaminondas; but the
intervening periods have but a faint interest to the general reader,
till we come down to the period of the Macedonian monarchy. This,
indeed, is the great act in the drama of Grecian history. Who can peruse
without interest the accounts of the glorious reign of Alexander; of
that man who, issuing from the mountains of Macedonia, riveted the
fetters of despotism on Greece, w