suggest that the moral influence of the Gospel had providentially prepared the Roman world to appreciate the virtues of Marcus Antoninus.
We have indicated those aspects of Cæsar's public character and achievement in which our estimate differs fundamentally from that formed by Mr Froude. But any notice of his book would be very incomplete which concluded without a cordial acknowledgment of its many excellences. A literary artist of such brilliant accomplishments as Mr Froude could scarcely have finer subjects than the Gallic campaigns and the civil war. It might be said that Mr Froude's narrative has the two merits which most conspicuously distinguished Cæsar's strategy, clearness of plan and swiftness of movement. Nothing could be better than the following statement of Cæsar's position at the beginning of the war in Gaul, and of the peculiar feature of the task which lay before him (p. 203):—
"The points in his favour were these. He was the ablest Roman then living, and he had the power of attracting and attaching the ablest men to his service. He had five years in which to look about him and to act at leisure—as much time as had been given Pompey for the East. Like Pompey, too, he was perfectly free. No senatorial officials could encumber him with orders from home. The people had given him his command, and to the people alone he was responsible. Lastly, and beyond everything, he could rely with certainty on the material with which he had to work. The Roman legionaries were no longer yeomen taken from the plough or shopkeepers from the street. They were men more completely trained in every variety of accomplishment than have perhaps ever followed a general into the field before or since. It was not enough that they could use
