Foreseeing that this work will make its way to the future as a classic, we would mention a few points in which the correction of mere phraseology may give it that character more completely. Our list, like the preceding, is, as might be expected, quite brief, and is submitted rather in the way of suggestion than of authoritative decision. Such discussions, too, have something of a general interest.

Can we say that a frontier is "marauded by bands of savages?"—Vol. i, p. 233. We are unacquainted with We are unacquainted with any authority which gives the verb maraud other than a neuter signification. Yet, for aught we know, some dominant writer, like Mr. Irving himself, may have changed the substantive maraud into a transitive verb, stamped the coin with his imperial authority, and rendered it as proper to speak of marauding a country as of officering an

army.

To this Prescott demurred, that those employed to convey them, and who were already jaded with toil, might not return to his redoubt."-P. 472. Except in the mere technical language of litigation, do we ever use the word demur as signifying a verbal reply objecting to a previous proposition? Would the author have spoken of Prescott's surrejoindering, if he had carried on the dispute further between him and Putnam?

Speaking of Morgan's riflemen: "They will be found of signal efficiency in the sharpest conflicts of the revolutionary war."Vol. ii, p. 21. Observe, they are to be found by the readers of the history, who were not present in the sharp conflicts of the war. Might it not, therefore, be better said, they will be found to have been of signal efficiency, &c.? The phrase, as it stands, befits a poem rather than a history. Only a vivid imagination can be supposed to transport the reader into the scene of the conflict.

"Militia had to be the dependence until a new army could be raised."-Vol. iii, p. 25. Such a bald colloquialism grates harshly in the midst of hundreds of pages of the purest classical writing; and, though justified by the high authority of Burke, we are not altogether reconciled to the use of dependence in an objective sense, to express the thing depended upon.

"Such parts of the country which he might think the enemy intended to penetrate."-P. 86. Evidently a mere lapsus pennæ.

"His own valiant spirit required it."-P. 198. It should be Washington's own valiant spirit required it. The remark refers to Washington, and as he has not been mentioned for more than a half page, and the mention of other subjects and other personages has intervened, the word his conveys not immediately the author's meaning.

Is it exactly correct to speak of the cover of a wood as equivalent to intrenchments?-P. 231. The Americans do not appear to have had time to throw up intrenchments.

"Joined a force under General Fellows."-P. 264. This force

had just been previously described, p. 260. So we would say, "joined the force," &c.

In the rapidity of composition, there occurs some less than a half dozen sentences of an incomplete syntactical structure; such, for instance, as the following: "Israel Putnam was a soldier of native growth. One of the military productions of the French war, seasoned and proved in frontier campaigning."—Vol. i, p. 412.

"Stark hunters and bush fighters, many of them upwards of six feet high, and of vigorous frame, dressed in fringed frocks or rifle shirts, and round hats."-Vol. ii, 21. See also p. 14. The difficulty here, however, is rather one of punctuation than of style. The verbless subjects are evidently in apposition with the predicate nouns of the preceding sentences.

"Polemical battles" (vol. i, p. 11) we have heard objected to by high authority as tautological. But as usage confines the word polemical to controversial theology, the expression seems correct, and unaffected by strict etymology. Thus, there may be polemical as contradistinguished from military battles.

Owing, we presume, to the same cause of rapid writing before suggested, no explanation accompanies the mention of the Quebec act," vol. i, p. 403. The other occasions of colonial discontent had been sufficiently elucidated. Marshall, or Sparks, gives or describes the Quebec act.

"Arnold's old adversary, Major Brown."-Vol. ii, p. 155. No opposition has yet been seen between Arnold and Brown.

"Assisted by the cannon at Governor's Island."-P. 351. We have not yet been told how Governor's Island got out of American into British hands. Marshall specifies the occasion.

P. 477.-It has not been shown how and where Gates returned to his army.

"His former encampment at Philipsburgh."-P. 509. Not mentioned, we believe, before.

We dislike, in a work of such elevation and dignity, the introduction of such provincialisms as perriaugers, which occurs on page 272 of the same volume. To a large majority of readers, this word will be utterly unintelligible, except as they may collect the meaning from the tenour of the narrative. It is the French pirogue, Americanized into perriauger.

P. 488. We must quarrel with the prosaic translation of the epitaph on Col. Rahl:

"Hier liegt der Oberst Rahl,

Mit ihm ist alles all."

"(Here lies the Colonel Rahl,
With him all is over.)"

Had our author kept a poet laureate to share the honour of his historic labours, he might have been helped to some such inadequate couplet as this:

Here lies the chieftain Rahl,

Forever lost to all.

Such, we believe, is the amount of our prying, yet dubious, animadversions through three bulky tomes. If we have made them with any exceptionable purpose, we are sufficiently punished by the result. We could not have framed a handsomer compliment to Mr. Irving's standing as a writer. A list of delinquencies like this would not have injured the reputation of a deliberately written letter of three pages, much less of three delectable, valuable, and remarkable volumes.

So the pedant inspector dismisses his more gifted and thorough-bred pupil from the stand.

ART. III.-LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MAIMONIDES.

Opera Maimonidis. 8 vols. in 4. Folio. Vienna.

WHILE the Israelites can boast of a host of Rabbins, highly distinguished in the various branches of literature; in the great man, of whose life and writings we are now going to treat, they have produced a profound philosopher and divine, whose literary fame has elicited for him that immortal and well-known Jewish proverb, "From Moses to Moses, there was none like to Moses," i. e., from the great Lawgiver to Moses bar Maimon.

Maimonides has, in their esteem, exercised the greatest influence, not only on his contemporaries and on his nation, but also on the civilized world in general: an influence which still, after the lapse of centuries, is felt, and even found on the increase, the more the improvements of mankind place them on a level with a sage, whose great mind and enlightened liberality outstripped his own age, and has not yet been attained by ours.

Rabbi Moses bar Maimon, called "Moses the Egyptian," "Hasphardi" (see Nachmanides), "Hacordovi" (see Wolf and De Rossi), "Abu Amran Musah ben Abdallah ben Maimon" (see Casiri), or, with the Greek termination that has since been affixed, "Maimonides," and among the Israelites, by a peculiar species of abbreviation with which they are familiar, "Rambam," was born at Cordova, a city of Spain, on passover eve, being the 30th of March, A. D. 1131, according to Wolf and De Rossi, or 1135, according to Carmoly and Zeenz, or 1139, according to others, at the expense of his mother's life, who died in giving him birth.

Said to be descended from Rabbi Judah the Holy (the compiler of the Mishna), and therefore by a female line from king David.

Rabbi Maimon, his father, held the dignity of judge of the Israelites in his native city, Cordova. He was very highly distinguished for his great learning, and is said to have been descended from an ancient and distinguished family, which had, during seven successive generations, held the dignified office of judge.

Buxtorf quotes this his own statement of honourable pedigree, as found in the conclusion of his commentary on the Mishna: "I, Moses, son of Maimon the judge, son of Joseph the sage, son of Isaac the judge, son of Joseph the judge, son of Obadiah the judge, son of Solomon, son of Obadiah the judge;" yet, the renown he himself acquired has eclipsed all these.

In early life, however, Maimonides was remarkably indolent and unpromising in genius. His slothful disposition, which rendered vain and useless all paternal efforts to educate him, completely alienated him from his father's affections, who, in a moment of passion, very severely chastised and reproached him. This kind. of treatment the pride of the youth could not endure, even at the hands of his father. He, therefore, quitted his paternal home and sought refuge in the synagogue. Being overcome with grief, he fell asleep; and on awaking he resolved to throw off his habits of idleness, and, by industry and intense application, to render himself worthy of a long line of distinguished and virtuous ancestry.

In accordance with this firm resolution, he took the road to Lucena, a city of Spain, Andalusia, thirty miles S. S. E. of Cordova. In this place he found a very warm friend in the person of Rabbi Meir, son of Rabbi Joseph ben Megas, who took him as a pupil; and in his very celebrated school, our youth made a considerable progress in the manifold branches of learning then taught. Up to about A. D. 1150, the youthful student was almost neglected by his father. The peace of Maimon's family was very much disturbed during almost all the period of the youth's absence. An effort, therefore, on the part of Maimon to find out his son and bring him home, would have been only adding one more trouble to his many other troubles. This was owing to the general confusion which then prevailed throughout the Moorish dominions in Spain, in consequence of the persecutions to which the Almohad monarch, Aabd-al-Mumen, in his zeal for the propagation of Islamism, subjected the Israelites-persecutions which raged with very particular severity at Cordova, under the immediate eye of the Moslem despot. Indeed, so severe was the persecution, that at one time any Israelite staying a month longer, without embracing Mohammedanism, was to forfeit his life, and his children were to be reduced to slavery.

On leaving Lucena, his benevolent teacher kindly furnished him with letters of recommendation to several influential Israelites

at Cordova, and through them he was invited to address the congregation in the synagogue on the Sabbath after his arrival. Up to the moment when his public discourse ended, our noble and distinguished youth was carefully guarding the secret of his descent. No premature discovery was to lessen the enjoyment of the noble triumph which he meditated. In his address, which was very eloquent and impressive, Maimon's son shone with all the brilliancy of his acute and profound mind. The auditors were entranced, but more so Maimon, who received his once missing child with rapture, and, amidst the acclamations and congratulations of the affected congregation, conducted him to his beloved home.

Restored to the affections of his parent, he returned to his studies with redoubled ardour. In order to perfect himself in the knowledge of the Arabic language, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, he frequented the very celebrated schools (according to Leo Africanus), of Ebn Tophail Ebn Saig, and more particularly the great Averroes, whose great learning and profound investigations of the Aristotelian system of philosophy, assembled round him a very great number of pupils. It was from this learned Arab that the son of the Hebrew judge received his knowledge of Aristotle, whose works were brought into Europe by the Arabs, where they gained an influence, which, for many centuries, pervaded the whole of Christendom.

The events which happened both to Averroes and Maimonides, and nearly at the same time, bore a singular coincidence. Averroes, whose full name is Aabd-Allah Mohammed Ebn Omar Ebn Roshd, first placed at Cordova as a cadi or judge (an office held both by his father and grandfather), by the African prince of the Mohadites, commenced delivering in that city, a public course of instruction, by which he gained many personal enemies. Accused of having spoken with disrespect of the Alcoran, he was stripped both of his dignity and entire fortune, A. D. 1163. In his distress he sought a refuge among the Israelites of Cordova; some say even in the house of Maimonides. Soon after this escape he fled from that city and took refuge at Fez, in Africa, where he was compelled to undergo a very humiliating penance at the door of the mosque, and to recant some of his opinions, which were considered adverse to the religion of the Alcoran. He afterwards returned to Cordova, where he was soon reinstated by Yoseph ben Jacob, king of Morocco, both in his former dignity as a judge, and his office as professor, which he continued to exercise during the space of about forty years.

While the storm was bursting over the head of the devoted victim, Averroes, Maimonides was accused of having shared the deistical opinions of his friend and teacher, was exposed to all the calumnies which malice could invent, and to all the persecutions