One observation on that historical criticism we will at once permit ourselves to make, because it has a distinct bearing upon the intellectual character of Niebuhr, as well as on the peculiarities of his historical work. The distinguishing character of that school of historical criticism, of which he may be considered the founder, is not its scepticism, for it was no new thing to doubt of the extraordinary events related of the early periods of Roman, or of any other history. There have been always people sceptically disposed. Our David Hume could very calmly give it as his opinion that true history begins with the first page of Thucydides. It was nothing new, therefore, to disturb our faith in the earlier portions of the Roman history, or to pronounce them to be fables. The novelty lay in the higher and more patient and more philosophical manner in which those fables were investigated, and their origin, and their true place and connection with history, determined. The elder sceptic, having satisfied himself that a narrative was fabulous, threw it aside: the modern critic follows the spirit, the life of the nation, into the fable itself. He does not attempt, as the half-doubting, half-believing historian has done, to shape it at once to the measure of modern credence, by merely modifying a few of the details, reducing an extravagance, or lopping off a miracle; but, taking his stand on whatever facts remain indisputable, or whatever knowledge may be obtained from collateral sources, he investigates thoroughly the fabulous or poetic narrative. He endeavours to transport himself into the times when men thought after a poetic fashion—or, at all events, when pleasure and excitement, not accuracy and instruction, were the objects they aimed at; he labours to form an estimate of the circumstances that kindled their imagination, to show _how the fable grew_, and thus to extract from it, in every sense of the word, its full historical significance. How difficult such a task, and how precarious, after all, the result of such labours, we must leave at present to the reflection of our readers. What we have here to observe is, that such a method of historical criticism is not to be pursued by a mind stored only with dry erudition, or gifted only with the faculty of withholding its belief. Such store of erudition is indispensable, but it must be combined with that strong power of imagination which can recall into one vivid picture the scattered knowledge gained from many books, and which enables its possessor to live in the scenes and in the minds of the bygone ages of humanity. Accordingly, it is this combination of ardent imagination with most multifarious erudition that we meet with in Niebuhr; and it is not the life of a dry pedant, or of one of cold sceptical understanding, or of a mere philologer, that we have here presented to us.