sages of his day, we
should pass over many of his weaknesses in silence, and allow his
pretensions to our esteem to pass almost unchallenged. But we
demand a nearer approach to the perfection of human wisdom and
virtue in one who sought to approve himself the greatest of their
teachers. Nor need we scruple to admit that the judgment of the
ancients on Cicero was for the most part unfavorable. The
moralists of antiquity required in their heroes virtues with which
we can more readily dispense: and they too had less sympathy with
many qualities which a purer religion and a wider experience have
taught us to love and admire. Nor were they capable, from their
position, of estimating the slow and silent effects upon human
happiness of the lessons which Cicero enforced. After all the
severe judgments we are compelled to pass on his conduct, we must
acknowledge that there remains a residue of what is amiable in his
character and noble in his teaching beyond all ancient example.
Cicero lived and died in faith. He has made converts to the belief
in virtue, and had disciples in the wisdom of love. There have
been dark periods in the history of man, when the feeble ray of
religious instruction paled before the torch of his generous
philanthropy. The praise which the great critic pronounced upon
his excellence in oratory may be justly extended to the qualities
of his heart, and even in our enlightened days it may be held no
mean advance in virtue to venerate the master of Roman
philosophy."

LORD MAHON'S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Incomparably the best history of our struggle for independence that has
been written by a foreigner is that of which we have the larger portion in
the just-published fifth and sixth volumes of Lord MAHON'S _History of
England from the Peace of Utrecht_, comprising the period from 1763 to
1780--from the commencement of the popular discontents until the virtual
conclusion of the war.

The character of Lord Mahon as a historian has long been established. When
Sismondi, in 1842, had brought his History of France down to the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, he lamented that he could no longer be guided by Lord
Mahon, and expressed a hope that his "brilliant labors" would be
continued. The portion of his work on which the illustrious Frenchman thus
set the seal of his approval has been reprinted in th