of the state by assuming the powers of the various powers of the magistrates. He was at first appointed Imperator or general of all the armies, and was afterwards made tribune for life. He was made proconsul of the provinces. He again made a very prudent arrangement by which he divided the provinces between himself and the senate. The more secure provinces he left into the hands of that assembly, and it was provided that all new provinces shall fall under his administration. In fact he concentrated into his hands all the powers of monarchy, under the cloak of moderation. He enacted many salutary police regulations, and restored peace and order in the city; raised the salaries of the governors of the provinces and thus prevented them from carrying on oppression any longer, and entrusted the administration of the city to the proctors. He transferred the power of electing magistrates from the senate to the assemblies of the people, and made the people believe that they were again in the possession of civil liberty, while in fact all real political freedom was lost. He also introduced important changes in the finances of the Empire. The income of all the provinces which were left in the charge of the senate was to be given into the royal treasury for defraying current expenses; while that of the provinces entrusted to him was to go to his private treasury and support the armies.

Answer Fourth.-During the reign of Tiberius, Germanicus was appointed commander of the countries situated on the banks of the Lower Rhine. He suppressed the rebellion that arose among the nations of Germany, and gained many victories over the several barbarous tribes of those regions, of whom the chief were the Chatti, the Syambri and the Usipetes. He displayed intrepid valour and uncommon dexterity throughout the whole of his career, and was deservedly beloved both by the legions placed under his command as well as by the populace of Rome. Tiberius who was a prince of a most distrustful character became suspicious of that young warrior, and in order that he might prevent his gaining any ascendancy over the Roman people he contrived to send him to the East, immediately after his arrival at Rome, to reduce the insurgent province of Armenia. At the same time he appointed Piso, the Governor of Syria, accompanied by his wife Plancina. Germanicus carried on his measures in Armenia very vigorously, and would soon have accomplished his desired object, had it not been for the intrigues of Piso who, as it was afterwards suspected, secretly poisoned him. Thus was the glorious career of Germanicus cut short by an untimely and violent death, brought on at the instigation of the jealous and cruel prince Tiberius.

Answer Fifth.-Tiberius after having ascended the imperial throne, found that the Romans were virtually deprived of their political freedom, and that they no longer entertained an ardent

love for civil liberty. He, therefore, found it convenient to transfer the functions which peculiarly belonged to the assemblies of the people to the Roman senate, and the power of electing Magistrates was henceforth vested in that assembly. This charge was however effected from motives of self-interest, as he afterwards used the senate as a tool in his own hand. Moreover, he introduced a very importaut change in the criminal law. Hitherto all crimes committed against the republic or the monarch were only recognized and punished as high treason, but Tiberius passed a regulation by which it was enacted that any act or speech or writing against the Majesty of the Emperor was an offence of high treason. It was in consequence of this enactment, that the set of people known by the name of denouncers (delatores) originated, who acted as legal spies and were turned to convenient instruments in the hands of tyranny. In the commencement of his reign, Caligula introduced some beneficial changes in the law, the principal among them was the enactment by which he again vested the power of electing Magistrates in the hands of the Comitia. He also set aside the class of people called denouncers and abolished some oppressive taxes.

Answer Sixth.-The Emperor Claudius was from his birth possessed of a very weak constitution both of body and mind. His mother used to call him hominis portentum. He was really born with some defects in his mental character, and these were further increased as he grew up by the ill-treatment he received from all the other members of his family. It was for this reason that he displayed a habitual timidity whenever he spoke or did any thing before the public.

That the natural tendency of his mind was not prone towards cruelty may be proved by the very first acts of his reign. As soon as he was invested with the imperial purple, he granted a general amnesty to all those who had any hands in the demolition of the republic, and at the same time pardoned most of those who headed the conspiracy against his predecessor Caligula. These two facts alone are sufficient to show that he was not as a tyrant as some historians have styled him. It was the natural weakness of his temper which allowed the women and freedmen of his palace to gain an uncommon ascendancy over him. Some of his wives and freedmen were the persons who exercised the greatest influence over his mind, and the principal of them were Agrippina, Pallas and Narcissus.

Answer Seventh.-The moral condition of Rome under the late Emperors was in its lowest depravity. The licentiousness of the commonalty, the avarice of the great and a general effiminacy of character accompanied by a cruelty of heart disgraced the very name of the Romans. Patriotism, national spirit and all noble and manly feelings

disappeared from the Roman world. Even the most urbane part of the populace lost all sense of decency and a love of sensuality and voluptuousness rose to an incredible height. That there was a total absence of humanity and sensibility in the heart of the degraded Romans of this age may be proved by a reference to the inordinate love they entertained for the inhuman games in the amphitheatre, where the gladiators displayed their talents and dexterity in killing one another. The agonies of death and the most horrid scenes of cruelty which would draw tears from the breast of the bravest of a civilized community of modern times were to them a source of pleasure and enjoyment.

Answer Eighth.-The commerce of the Romans multiplied in proportion to their wants. The Roman Merchants imported furs from Scythia, amber from the shores of the Baltic, and aromatics, precious stones and silk from the oriental countries. The immense sum of

800,000£ sterling was annually spent to procure the luxuries of the East, which the Romans exchanged for the gold and silver they procured from the mines of Spain. The principal marts to which the Roman Merchants resorted were Alexandria, Antioch, and Marsailles. They also carried on inland commerce with the European provinces by the road that led through the Alpine regions.

Answer Ninth.-The Greek proverb that the language of a nation is the type of their lives was remarkably exemplified in the case of Rome. The corruption of the Latin language kept pace with the moral and political degeneracy of the nation that used it. It was owing no less to the misfortunes than the vices and follies of the Romans. The loss of the political freedom on the one hand and the moral depravity of the people on the other were the sole causes of the corruption of the Latin tongue. When the Romans became amalgamated with the general mass (free-born) of the provincials, the gravity of the language was for ever gone, and the Greek language very soon gained the ascendancy. The cultivation, in fact, of the mother tongue was totally neglected by the fashionable class of the community, and their children were regularly trained up in a foreign language from the period of their infancy. The Roman literature reached its highest perfection in the time of Augustus which historians have proverbially termed as the golden age of literature. It was at this period that Virgil and Horace flourished.

Answer Tenth.-Since the loss of the political freedom, public oratory was no longer cultivated but in the shape of encomiums and on the rare occasions of funeral obsequies. Among the later historians of eminence, the chief were Matorculus, Seutonius and Tacitus.

Answer Eleventh.-All the liberal arts were in a most flourishing state in the time of the 1st Augustus, and particularly that of architecture rose to its utmost perfection from the great impulse that was given to it by the Emperor himself. It was in his time that the temple of Mars and Jupiter, the porticoes of Octavia and Livia and the Pantheon were erected. The arts flourished tolerably in the time of Nero, but no great progress was made in them during the reign of that bad monarch. They were very much encouraged by Vespasian who by his economy was enabled to ruin the magnificent temple of Peace, the public library and some other public buildings. The great amphitheatre was also constructed in his time. The magnificent villa of Tibur was the production of the age of Hadrian.

Answer Twelfth.-Jesus Christ was born in the year 3 B. C., in the 18th year of the reign of Tiberius. The disciples who at first followed his doctrines were very few in number. They rose however gradually to an immense number. Christianity was making a slow but steady progress as if it was destined to compensate for the falling greatness of Rome. Notwithstanding the persecution of this religion under the unnatural Nero, the timid Domitian and most of their successors, it firmly stepped forward in the path of its progress. It spread far and wide in the reign of Constantine the Great who was at first the protector of, and afterwards a proselyte to the Christian Church. The very fact of the Emperor himself becoming a convert of Christianity induced many to follow him, some joined him out of pure, while others flocked to the protection of the cross from self-interested motives. The nobles were in the same manner followed by their attendants. The people of Armenia and Iberia did not hesitate to adopt the faith of the nation who were their protectors; the labours of missionaries disseminated the truth of the Gospel to the distant shores of India and the unexplored recesses of Africa, and it is still making continual progress in various parts of the globe.

PROTAP NARAIN SINGH.

Hooghly College.

Answer to the First Question.-The art of Printing properly so called had no previous existence in ancient times. What the ancients knew may be properly called the art of imprinting. The inscriptions on some old" Babylonian bricks and cylinders, the Chinese method of taking impressions on wooden blocks the method which a brother and sister of the ancient family of Cunid

disclosed to the world in 1284 or 1285, of taking rude cuts of saints and pictures of cards on blocks of wood, can scarcely entitle the ancients to the honor of so noble an invention as Printing. The actual date of the invention must be the time when characters were printed from Moveable types and that time assuredly falls within the limits of modern history-for it was the time of Guttenburg, Fust and Peter Schaffer all of whom lived in the middle of the 15th century.

It is a curious fact in the history of the arts and sciences, that Printing which has thrown so much light on every department of knowledge has thrown none or little on the history of its own birth. Various claims have been urged by various countries and various individuals to the honor of this noble invention, and it has been often remarked that there are as many cities claiming its birth as pretended to have given birth to Homer. But among these the claims worthy of consideration are those of Harlaem, Strasburg and Mentz. Harlaem claimed it for its citizen Lawrence Castor but the pretensions of this individual are founded upon the narrative of Hadrianus Junius, whose account being liable to several sound objections almost all billiographers except Meerman have unanimously rejected Castar's name from the list. The credit then falls upon John Guttenburg a native of Mentz but who resided for a great length of time at Strasburg. The claim is therefore removed to Germany. But even Guttenburg can not be said to have been the sole inventor of the art. That he was much assisted by Fust is indisputable and the invention of "punches of engraved steel," of which according to many the essence of the art consists is universally ascribed to Peter Scheffer, so that the credit of the invention falls upon this noble triumvirate Guttenburg, Fust and Scheffer.

Answer to the Second Question.—The modern art of Printing was first excercised at Strasburg in Germany, and it immediately extended itself to Holland, and Italy. The honor of having introduced the art into England is claimed by William Caxton and Edward Corsellies but the superior claims of the former are now unanimously acknowledged.

Answer to the Third Question.-The following is a list of the books that were first printed.

A work on human Salvation.

The Mazarin Bible.

The Pfister Bible.

The Psalter.

The Bamberg Bible.

The Offices of Cicero.

The Boccacio DeCameron and several others.