We have now to follow him to Rome. The correspondence is here, as indeed throughout these volumes, very entertaining; and it would be utterly impossible to convey to our readers, in our brief survey, a fair impression of the sort of interest this work possesses. The memoir may be regarded as merely explanatory of the letters, and the letters themselves are not distinguished so much by remarkable passages as by a constantly sustained interest. They are not learned, for the erudite portion of the correspondence has been omitted, but they are never trivial; they perpetually suggest some topic of reflection, and are thoroughly imbued with the character and personality of the writer. We have lately had several biographies of eminent men written on the same plan, the letters being set forth as the most faithful portraiture of the man; but in none of these, so far as we can recall them to mind, are the letters at once so valuable in themselves, and so curious for the insight they give us into the character and feelings of the writer. In reading Niebuhr’s letters from Italy, we must always bear in mind that they are written by one of warm and somewhat irascible temper, and who has a standard of moral excellence which would be thought of a most inconvenient altitude by the people of any country in Europe. He is honest as the day, but open to receive very sudden and much too strong impressions. We must also look at the date of his letters, and ask ourselves what changes may have taken place since Niebuhr wrote. With these precautions, they will be found to convey many very instructive hints. From his first entrance into Italy to the last hour of his residence, he expresses the same opinion of the low standard of intellectual culture amongst its educated classes. Whilst he is yet at Florence, he writes thus:— “My preconceived opinion of the scholars and higher classes in Italy has proved perfectly correct, as I was convinced would be the case, because I possessed sufficient data to form an accurate idea of them. I have always allowed the existence of individual exceptions, as regards erudition; but even in these cases, there is not that cultivation of the whole man which we demand and deem indispensable. I have become acquainted with two or three literary men of real ability; but, in the first place, they are old men, who have only a few years longer to live; and when they are gone, Italy will be, as they say themselves, in a state of barbarism; and, in the second, they are like statues wrought to be placed in a frieze on the wall—the side turned towards you is of finished beauty, the other unhewn stone. They are much what our scholars may have been sixty or eighty years ago. No one feels himself a citizen....