of quite limited value or applicability, such as the statements that scepticism is favourable to progress, or that over-legislation is detrimental to society. No doubt such commonplaces might be so treated as to acquire the practical value of new contributions to history. But to treat them so requires subtle analysis of the facts generalised, and all that Mr. Buckle did was to collect miscellaneous evidences for the statements in their rough, ready-made form. Of generalisations that go below the surface of things, such as Comte's suggestive though indefensible Law of the Three Stages, we find none in Mr. Buckle. The only attempt at such an analytic theory is the generalisation concerning the moral and intellectual factors in social progress, wherein Mr. Buckle's looseness and futile vagueness of thought is shown perhaps more forcibly than anywhere else in his writings. It is not of such stuff as this that a science of historic phenomena can be wrought.

In Mr. Stuart-Glennie's reminiscences, which seem to be most carefully and honestly reported, these characteristics of Mr. Buckle-his warm, impatient temperament and his lack of mental subtlety or deep penetration—are continually brought to our notice ; and all the more forcibly because of the absence of

any such intent on the part of the fellow-pilgrim to whom we owe these interesting notes of discussion. To examine the details of these conversations would carry us beyond our limits, and would hardly be justified by their intrinsic importance. One little point we must note as characteristic, with regard to Mr. Buckle's temperament as a historian. While Mr. Stuart-Glennie seems to have his whole soul stirred within him by the historic associations clustering about the places visited, and is moved to reflections always interesting and often suggestive, Mr. Buckle, on the other hand, though sufficiently alive to the beauties of nature, seems quite oblivious to historic memories. At the sepulchre of Christ his thoughts were mainly on political economy, "the state of society and the habits of the people." In such trivial details some light is thrown, perhaps, on that lack of intellectual sympathy with the past which was one of Mr. Buckle's most notable defects as a historian.

But with all this intellectual narrowness and looseness of texture, the narrative gives one a very pleasant impression of Mr. Buckle personally, and, furthermore, enables one to comprehend how, with such slight qualifications, he should have become so interesting

to the world. One leaves Mr. Stuart-Glennie's book with the regret experienced on parting with intelligent and kindly companions. As we close it and lay it aside, we feel that yet another charming moment of our reading-life has gone to be numbered with the things of the past.

March 1876.

XI.

THE RACES OF THE DANUBE.

IN the famous Eastern Question, which so long has disturbed the peace of Europe, may be noted two aspects of a process which, under great variety of conditions, has been going on over European territory ever since the dawn of authentic history. The formation of a nationality—that is, of a community of men sufficiently connected in interests and disciplined in social habits to live together peacefully under laws of their own making-has been the leading aspect of this process, in which the work of civilisation has hitherto largely consisted. But along with this, as a correlative aspect, has gone the pressure exerted against the community by an external mass of undisciplined barbarism, ever on the alert to break over the fluctuating barrier that has warded it off from the growing civilisation, ever threatening to

undo the costly work which this has accomplished. Though the enemy has at times appeared in the shape of unmitigated tribal barbarism-as in the invasion of Huns in the fifth century and of Mongols in the thirteenth-and at other times in the shape of an inferior type of civilisation, as exemplified by the Arabs and Turks, the principle involved has always been the same. In every case the stake has been the continuance of the higher civilisation, though the amount of risk has greatly varied, and in recent centuries has come to be very slight. At the present day the military strength of mankind is almost entirely monopolised by the higher civilisation, and it is no longer in danger of being overwhelmed by external violence. But when the Greeks confronted a social organisation of inferior type at Marathon and at Salamis, the danger was considerable; and in prehistoric times it may well have happened more than once that some germ of a progressive polity has been swept away in a torrent of conquering barbarism.

Until the rise of the Roman power the chief military business of the cultivated community had been to drive off the barbarian, to slaughter him, or reduce him to slavery; but the more profound policy of Rome transformed him, whenever it was possible, into a citizen, and enlisted his fighting power on the