But all has been changed. For half a century, learned men have been busily employed in pulling down the edifice of Roman history, until they have unsettled everybody's faith in that history. No one now pretends, seriously, to believe anything that is told of the Romans farther back than the time of Pyrrhus. Clouds and darkness rest over the earlier centuries, and defy penetration. What Sir Thomas Browne says of Egypt is not inapplicable to early Rome. History mumbleth something to the inquirer, "but what it is he heareth not." Not even the story of Curtius now finds believers. He must have been a contractor, who made an enormous fortune at the time of the secession of the plebs, and ruined himself by the operation. So far as relates to early Roman history, want of faith is very natural; for what documents have we to go upon in making up an opinion concerning it? None to speak of. But it is strange, at the first thought, that there should be any difficulty in making up a judgment concerning the history of the last century or two of the Republic, and of the Imperial period. Of those times much that was then written still survives, and many of the works that were familiar to the Romans are even more familiar to the moderns. Yet there is a wide difference of sentiment as to the character of the Roman Revolution, and the objects and the actions of the eminent men who figured in that Revolution are yet in dispute; and the contention is almost as fierce, at times, as it was in the days of Pharsalia and Philippi. There are Pompeians and Caesarians now, as there were nineteen centuries ago, only that the pen with them is indeed mightier than the sword. Caesar's case has been reviewed, and the current of opinion is now setting strongly in his favor. Instead of being looked upon as a mere vulgar usurper, who differed from other usurpers only in having a greater stage, and talents proportioned to that stage, he is held up as the man of his times, and as the only man who could fulfil the demands of the crisis that existed after the death of Sulla. According to Mr. Merivale, who is a very moderate Caesarian, Caesar was "the true captain and lawgiver and prophet of the age" in which he lived. When such an assertion can be made by an English gentleman of well-balanced mind, we may form some idea of the intensity of that Caesarism which prevails in fiercer minds, and which is intended to have an effect on contemporary rule. For the controversy which exists relative to the merits of Romans "dead, and turned to clay," is not merely critical and scholastic, but is enlivened by its direct bearing upon living men and contending parties. Caesarism means Napoleonism. The Bonaparte family is the Julian family of to-day. Napoleon I. stood for the great Julius, and Napoleon III. is the modern (and very Gallic) Caesar Augustus, the avenger of his ill-used uncle, and the crusher of the Junii and the Crassi, and all the rest of the