“With a little more quiet, my position would be one more completely in accordance with my wishes than I have long ventured even to hope for. There is such a real mutual attachment between my acquaintances and myself, and our respective studies give such an inexhaustible interest to conversation, that I now really possess in this respect what I used to feel the want of; for intercourse of this kind is quickening and instructive. The lectures themselves, too, are inspiriting, because they require persevering researches, which, I venture to say, cannot remain unfruitful to me; and they are more exciting than mere literary labours, because I deliver them with the warmth inspired by fresh thoughts and discoveries, and afterwards converse with those who have heard them, and to whom they are as new as to myself. This makes the lectures a positive delight to me, and I feel quite averse to bring them to a close. What I should like, would be to have whole days of perfect solitude, and then an interval of intercourse with the persons I really like, but not to remain so many hours together with them as is customary here. It would be scarcely possible to have less frivolity and dulness in a mixed society. Schleiermacher is the most intellectual man amongst them. The complete absence of jealousy among these scholars is particularly gratifying.” It is not long we are allowed to pause upon this agreeable and fruitful era of intellectual activity. Two volumes, however, are published of that history of which it is not here our purpose to speak, of which we would not wish to speak lightly or inconsiderately, which we admire and would cordially applaud, but which, we feel, has not yet received its exact place or value in the historical literature of Europe. We have not the time, nor will we lay claim to the profound erudition requisite, to do full justice to Niebuhr’s _History of Rome_. We do not regret, therefore, that the present occasion calls for no decided verdict; and that it does not devolve on us to draw the line, and show where just, and bold, and discriminating criticism terminates, and where ingenious and happy conjecture begins to assume the air and confidence of history. On one point there can be no dispute—that his work exercised a great, and, upon the whole, a most salutary influence on historical criticism. It is not too much to say, that no history has been written since its appearance in which this influence cannot be traced.