What the worthy Rollin has compiled from Livy and from Freinsheim’s supplements, is not to be reckoned a Roman history. With very little talent, he shows such a respectable, virtuous, and upright disposition, that men were perfectly justified in putting it into the hands of youth; yet it is a dry book, which now-a-days scarcely any one would read through. His learning is very defective; he is destitute of all critical judgment, and without any insight into the state of affairs. People at that time, as a very witty writer remarks, treated ancient history as if it had never really happened. Somewhat later,[31] Hooke wrote a work, with which indeed I am but slightly acquainted, and which, generally speaking, is not known in Germany. He took notice of Beaufort’s views, without, however, entering into any deeper questions; and he treated the history of those times only which he held to be historical. This is no less the case in Ferguson’s history of the Roman Republic, which is a complete failure. He was judicious and honest, but unlearned; and he had not the remotest conception of the constitution. He gives full details only from the times of the Gracchi, and treats history pragmatically and morally. For the knowledge of history the book is of no value. Levesque’s history is downright trash: he deems the account of the earliest times to be nonsensical stuff, but quite in an arbitrary manner makes exceptions in favour of particular events. There is a low tone about the book, and there is no erudition in it. Micali’s _Italia avanti il dominio de’ Romani_ is likewise a wretched work. He rouses himself into a strange passion against the Romans, and invents histories of the Italian States which could not be arrived at by any. Micali wrote at the time of the French ascendancy, and so he was glad to be able on this occasion to say something against the exclusive dominion of any one people; but he thus allowed himself to be betrayed into an unreasonable heat, and into unfairness against the Romans. Besides which, he is quite an unlearned man.