at that time, not much in use--honorary titles we mean; but had our prefix of 'Right Honorable' existed, it would have been assigned to burglars, and by no means to privy-councillors; as again our English prefix of 'Venerable' would have been settled, not on so sheepish a character as the archdeacon, but on the spirited appropriator of church plate. We were surprised lately to find, in a German work of some authority, so gross a misconception of Thucydides, as that of supposing him to be in jest. Nothing of the sort. The question which he represents as once current, on speaking a ship in the Mediterranean--'Pray, gentlemen, are you robbers?' actually occurs in Homer; and to Homer, no doubt, the historian alludes. It neither was, nor could be conceived, as other than complimentary; for the alternative supposition presumed him that mean and well-known character--the merchant, who basely paid for what he took. It was plainly asking--Are you a knight grand-cross of some martial order, or a sort of costermonger? And we give it as no hasty or fanciful opinion, that the South Sea islands (which Bougainville held to be in a state of considerable civilization) had, in fact, reached the precise stage of Homeric Greece. The power of levying war, as yet not sequestered by the ruling power of each community, was a private right inherent in every individual of any one state against all individuals of any other. Captain Cook's ship, the Resolution, and her consort, the Adventure, were as much independent states and objects of lawful war to the islanders, as Owyhee, in the Sandwich group, was to Tongataboo in the Friendly group. So that to have taken an Old Bailey view of the thefts committed was unjust, and, besides, inefectual; the true remedy being by way of treaty or convention with the chiefs of every island. And perhaps, if Homer had tried it, the same remedy (in effect, regular payments of _black-mail_) might have been found available in _his_ day.