When Niebuhr with sad feelings finisht the second volume of his history of Rome, he exprest in that remarkable preface his longing for some rest to enable him to hasten to the completion of the third volume. Four months later he was called to eternal rest, and left behind him the work which immortalises his name, in the form which he there intimates, “what was comprehended within the limits of the original second volume, was already planned, the remainder down to the first Punic war only wanted a last revision.” It was not granted him to bring it to completion. There remained then for his nearest friends, to whom the last will of the deceast had confided the care of his manuscripts, only the melancholy duty of preserving this precious bequest in its purity, and of giving it to our age and posterity as the only possible compensation for the irreparable loss of the complete history of Rome. The honorable charge of undertaking the business of editor was conferred on me by those revered persons. They thought that the circumstance of my having been closely connected in love and veneration with the deceast during the last four years preceding his death, which forms the greatest happiness of my life, rendered me worthy of such great confidence. If my love and veneration for the memory of Niebuhr could justify their confidence, I might hope to possess some claim to it.