These are the first-fruits of freedom for them. For us they are the legitimate use of victory. It only remains that we shall mildly, but firmly, instruct all officers of the Government that it is time for some policy to be adopted which shall involve such uses of victory. The country will be encouraged, the moment it sees that the freedmen are finding their proper places in the new civilization. The country expects its rulers not to wait for chapters of accidents or for volunteer boards to work out such policy, but themselves to provide the system of administration, and the intelligent men who shall promptly and skilfully avail themselves of every victory. REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. _History of the Romans under the Empire._ By CHARLES MERIVALE, B. D., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. From the Fourth London Edition. With a Copious Analytical Index. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. Vols. I. & II. People of the last century had a very easy time with their Roman history, and any gentleman could pick up enough of it "in course of his morning's reading" to answer the demands of a lifetime. Men read and believed. They had no more doubt of the existence of Romulus and Remus than of the existence of Fairfax and Cromwell. As to the story of those dropped children being nursed by a she-wolf, had it not been established that wolves did sometimes suckle humanity's young? and why should it be supposed that no lupine nursery had ever existed at the foot of the Palatine Hill? After swallowing the wolf-story, everything else was easy; and the history of the Roman Kings was as gravely received as the history of the Roman Emperors. The Brutus who upset the Tarquins was as much an historical character as the Brutus who assassinated Caesar and killed himself. Tullia had lived and sinned, just like Messallina. The Horatii were of flesh and blood, like the Triumvirs. So was it with regard to the Empire. The same short work that was made with Regal Rome and the early Republican period was applied to the Imperial age. Julius Caesar was the destroyer of Roman liberty, and Pompeius was the unlucky champion of his country's constitution. With few exceptions, the Emperors were the greatest moral monsters that ever had lived and reigned. It is true that two or three critical writers had so handled historical subjects as to create some doubts as to the exact correctness of the popular view of Roman history; but those doubts were monopolized by a few scholars, and by no means tended to shake the faith which even the educated classes had in the vulgar view of the actions of the mighty conquering race of antiquity.