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Notices of New Boohs. 283 powers. He has however made an important provisional contribution towards such a work, by producing a highly creditable (though very far from perfect) Greek text, formed by a laborious comparison of the read- ings contained in previous Greek and Latin editions, (including Bick- ell's recent Geschichte des Kirchenrechts), together with occasional con- jectures. His modest and sensible notes are almost entirely critical ; so that the illustrations are chiefly confined to the unusually full and sug- gestive indices. The preface gives an admirably condensed literary history of the Constitutions, and describes the several modern theories, especially those of Krabbe, Drey, and Bunsen. TJeltzen singularly refrains from pronouncing any opinion of his own, in which respect we shall take leave to follow his example, merely calling attention to an able and independent article on the subject in the Christian Remembrancer for April. This volume is, we trust, the beginning of a series of labours, in which English scholars ought to take a leading part. Several MSS. have yet to be collated or recollated : and then it will require years to effect, with due care, the resolution of the patchwork into its elements, the removal of petty interpolations, and finally the exegetical illustration of the whole.] F. J. A. H. H. W. J. Thiersch. Politik und PMlosoplde in ihrem Verhaltniss zur Religion unter Trajanus, Hadrianus, und die beiden Antoninen. 8vo, pp. 33. Marburg. [A short but pregnant historical tract, by one of the soundest and ablest critics of Germany. His object is to investigate the attempts at restoration in the imperial policy of the West and the philosophy of the East, culminating together in the Grseco-Roman Imperator Philosophus, M. Aurelius. Most of the single parts of his view (which we have not space to describe in detail) are familiar enough : but its total effect is to shed much new light on the forces in operation during the " after-sum- mer" of Roman greatness that succeeded the death of Domitian. Per- haps the chief fault is a habit of merging individual peculiarities in broad tendencies, and overlooking men for principles : thus the distinctive characters of the several emperors are but vaguely handled. Thiersch is also too ingenious in finding recondite allusions. But these are trivial blemishes in an author whose importance it is difficult to overvalue. One who sees so clearly the mischief of separating ecclesiastical from civil history, cannot write without imparting fresh life to both.] F. J. A. H. Valerii Maximi Factorum et Dictorum memorabilium libri novem cum incerti auctoris fragmento de pronominibus. Recens. et emend. Car. Kempfius. Berolini, impensis Georgii Reimeri. 1854. 8vo, pp. 792. 3i Thlr. [M. Kempf in an elaborate preface gives a life of Valerius, drawn altogether from his work ; a discussion defontibus Valerii, in which many passages are proved to be borrowed from Cicero, Livy, and others; another on the credibility of Valerius, in which M. Kempf states that