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made by the author via Cape Town to Australia and New Zealand, and home by way of Samoa, the Sandwich Islands, San Francisco, Salt Lake, Chicago, and New York, in 1884-85. Of the places visited he gives historical sketches, his own observations, personal experiences, and speculations as to the future, describes the sights, etc.; all his records being interesting, and most of them valuable. He makes his visit to Cape Town the occasion of a résumé of not only its history and condition, but of his own connection with SouthAfrican affairs in 1874. In Australia he is struck by the general imitation of England, and asks, "What is the meaning of uniting the colonies more closely to ourselves? They are closely united: they are ourselves; and can separate only in the sense that parents and children separate, or brothers and sisters.» Here too he sees that the fact that he can take a ticket through to London across the American continent, to proceed direct or to stop en route at will, means an astonishing concordance and reciprocity between nations. In the Sandwich Islands he finds "a varnish of Yankee civilization which has destroyed the natural vitality without as yet producing anything better or as good." He pronounces the Northern

men

as

of the United States equal in manhood to any on earth; has no expectation of Canadian annexation; thinks the Brooklyn Bridge more wonderful than Niagara, New York almost genial as San Francisco, and New York society equal to that of Australia, though both lack the aristocratic element of the English. In conclusion he states his feeling that as it was Parliament that lost England the United States, if her present colonies sever the connection, it will be through the same agency; but that, so long as the mother country is true to herself, her colonies will be true to her. Mr. Froude, as is well known, is no believer in the permanence of a democracy, and on several occasions in this work expresses his opinion of its provisional character as a form of political life.

Four Georges, The, by William Make

peace Thackeray. As the sub-title states, this work consists of sketches of manners, morals, court and town life during the reign of these Kings. The author

shows us "people occupied with their every-day work or pleasure: my lord and lady hunting in the forest, or dancing in the court, or bowing to their Serene Highnesses, as they pass in to dinner.»> Of special interest to American readers is the frank but sympathetic account of the third George, ending with the famous description of the last days of the old King: "Low he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the poorest; dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his throne; buffeted by rude hands; with his children in revolt; the darling of his old age killed before him, untimely,—our Lear hangs over her breathless lips and cries, 'Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little!>» These essays do not profess to be history in any sense certainly not in that in which Macaulay understood or McCarthy understands it, still less in that which Mr. Kidd predicts it will some day assume: they express the thoughts of the kindly satirist, of the novelist who sees not too deeply, but whose gaze misses nothing in the field it scans. Written in much the manner of Esmond' or 'Vanity Fair,' and in the author's inimitable style, they give delight which their readers never afterward wholly lose.

Diary of Two Parliaments, by H.

W. Lucy. (2 vols., 1885-86.) A very graphic narrative of events as they passed in the Disraeli Parliament, 1874-80, and in the Gladstone Parliament, 1880-85. Mr. Lucy was the House of Commons reporter for the London Daily News, and as "Toby, M. P.," he supplied the Parliamentary report published in Punch. His diary especially undertakes descriptions of the more remarkable scenes of the successive sessions of Parliament, and to give in skeleton form the story of Parliaments which are universally recognized as having been momentous and distinctive in recent English history. It includes full and minute descriptions of memorable episodes and notable men.

Democracy in Europe: A History, by

T. Erskine May. (2 vols., 1877.) A thoroughly learned and judicious study of popular power and political liberty throughout the history of Europe. Start ing from an introduction on the causes of freedom, especially its close connection with civilization, the research deals with the marked absence of freedom in Oriental history, and then reviews tha

developments of popular power in Greece and Rome, and the vicissitudes of progress in the Dark Ages to the Revival of Learning. It then traces the new progress in the Italian republics, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, and England. The work shows careful study of the inner life of republics, ancient and modern; of the most memorable revolutions, and the greatest national struggles for civil and religious liberty; and of the various degrees and conditions of democracy, considered as the sovereignty of the whole body of the people. The author regards popular power as an essential condition of the social advancement of nations, and writes as an ardent admirer of rational and enlightened political liberty.

Discoveries of America to the year

1525, by Arthur James Weise, 1884. A work of importance for its careful review and comparison of the various state ments of historical writers concerning the voyages of the persons whom they believed to have been the discoverers of certain parts of the coast of America between Baffin's Bay and Terra del Fuego. The full statements are given, as well as a judgment upon them. "It appears," says Mr. Weise, "that Columbus was not the discoverer of the continent, for it was seen in 1497 not only by Giovanni Caboto [or John Cabot, his English name], but by the commander of the Spanish fleet with whom Amerigo Vespucci sailed to the New World." The entire story of the discoveries of the continental coasts, north and south, apart from the islands to which Columbus almost wholly confined his attention, is of very great interest. John Cabot was first, about June 1497. Columbus saw continental coast land for the first time fourteen months later, August 1498. It was wholly in relation to continental lands that the names New World and America were originally given; and at the time it was not considered as disturbing in any way the claims of Columbus, whose whole ambition was to have the credit of having reached "the isles of India beyond the Ganges"-isles which were still 7,000 miles distant, but which to the last he claimed to have found. names "West Indies" and "Indians» (for native Americans) are monuments to Columbus, who did not at the time think it worth while to pay attention to the continents. It was by paying this attention,

The

and by a remarkably opportune report, which had the fortune of being printed, that Vespucius came to the front in a way to suggest to the editor and publisher of his report the use of the word "America » as a general New World name not including Columbus's "West Indies." That inclusion came later; and from first to last Vespucius had no more to do with it than Columbus himself.

Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,

by E. S. Creasy, describes and discusses (in the words of Hallam) "those few battles of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes.» The obvious and important agencies, and not incidents of remote and trifling consequence, are brought out in the discussion of the events which led up to each battle, the elements which determined its issue, and the results following the victories or defeats. The volume treats, in order: The Battle of Marathon, 413 B. C.; Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse, 413 B. C.; The Battle of Arbela, 331 B. C.; The Battle of the Metaurus, 207 B. C.; Victory of Arminius over the Roman Legions under Varus, A. D. 9; The Battle of Châlons, 451; The Battle of Tours, 732; The Battle of Hastings, 1066; Joan of Arc's Victory over the English at Orleans, 1429; The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588; The Battle of Blenheim, 1704; The Battle of Pultowa, 1709; Victory of the Americans over Burgoyne at Saratoga, 1777; The Battle of Valmy, 1792; The Battle of Waterloo, 1815.

The author concludes: "We have not (and long may we want) the stern excitement of the struggles of war; and we see no captive standards of our European neighbors brought in triumph to our shrines. But we witness an infinitely prouder spectacle. We see the banners of every civilized nation waving over the arena of our competition with each other in the arts that minister to our race's support and happiness, and not to its suffering and destruction.

"Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war."

expedition into Poland, its consequences, his invasion of Russia and pursuit of Peter the Great, his defeat at Pultowa and retreat into Turkey, his sojourn at Bender and its results, his departure thence, his return home, his death at the siege of Frederickshall in Norway. Intermingled with the narrative of battles, marches, and sieges, we have vivid descriptions of the manners, customs, and physical features of the countries in which they took place. It resembles the "Commentaries of Cæsar in the absence of idle details, declamation, and ornament. There is no attempt to explain mutable and contingent facts by constant underlying principles. Men act, and the narrative accounts for their actions. Of course, Voltaire is not an archivist with a document ready at hand to witness for the truth of every statement; and many of his contemporaries treated his history as little better than a romance. But apart from some inaccuracies, natural to a writer dealing with events in distant countries at the time, the History of Charles XII.' is a true history. According to Condorcet, it was based on memoirs furnished Voltaire by witnesses of the events he describes; and King Stanislas, the victim as well as the friend and companion of Charles, declared that every incident mentioned in the work actually occurred. This book is considered the historical masterpiece of Voltaire.

Historic Americans, by Theodore Par

ker (1878), contains four essays, on Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, essays originally delivered as lectures, shortly before the author's death in 1860. They were written when the antislavery agitation was at its height; and the preacher's uncompromising opinions on the evils of slavery decide their point of view and influence their conclusions. Yet in spite of the obsoleteness of that issue, the vigorous style and wide knowledge displayed in the papers insure them a permanent interest. Franklin, the tallow-chandler's son, is in the author's opinion incomparably the greatest man America has produced. Inventor, statesman, and philosopher, he had wonderful imagination and vitality of intellect, and true originality. In Washington, on the other hand, Mr. Parker sees the steady-moving, imperturbable, unimaginative country gentleman, directing the affairs of the nation with the same

thoroughness with which he managed his farm. Level-headed and practical, Washington had organizing genius; and it was that attribute, with his dauntless integrity, which lifted him to command. He had not the mental power of any one of his ministers. Yet he was the best administrator of all. John Adams possessed the qualities of a brilliant lawyer, and the large forecast of a statesman. At the same time he was extremely impetuous, outspoken, and high-tempered, and made many enemies. Jefferson, like Washington, and unlike Franklin and Adams, was a man of position and means; and was perhaps the most cultivated man in America. With these incitements to aristocratic views, he was yet the truest democrat of them all, and did more than any one of the others to destroy the inherited class distinctions which were still so strong in this nominally republican country for years after the separation from England.

Mr. Parker follows the plan of considering the life and achievements of each of his subjects, by periods, and then examines his mental and moral qualifications, his emotional impulses, and his religion. This method, while it detracts somewhat from the literary grace of the essays, is admirably adapted to afford a vivid and incisive presentment of char

acter.

Characteristics, by Anthony Ashley

Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. The three volumes of Shaftesbury's Characteristics appeared anonymously in 1713, two years before the death of the author at the age of forty-two. These, with a volume of letters, and a certain preface to a sermon, constituté the whole of his published works. The Characteristics? immediately attracted wide attention; and in twenty years had passed through five editions, at that time a large circulation for a book of this kind. The first volume contains three rather desultory and discursive essays: A Letter concerning Enthusiasm'; 'On Freedom of Wit and Humor'; 'Soliloquy; or, Advice to an Author. The second volume, with its 'Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit,' and the dialogue The Moralists: A Philosophical Rhapsody,' forms his most valuable contribution to the science of ethics. In the third volume he advances various Miscellaneous Reflections, including certain defenses of his philosophi

cal theories, together with some essays on artistic and literary subjects.

From the first appearance of the 'Characteristics, it was seen that its philosophical theories were to have an important part in the whole science of ethics. De Mandeville in later years attacked him, Hutcheson defended him, and Butler and Berkeley discussed him,- not always with a perfect comprehension of his system. Its leading ideas are of the relation of parts to a whole. As the beauty of an external object consists in a certain proportion between its parts, or a certain harmony of coloring, so the beauty of a virtuous act lies in its relation to the virtuous character as a whole. Yet morality cannot be adequately studied in the individual man. Man must be considered in his relation to our earth, and this again in its relation to the uni

verse.

The faculty which approves of right and disapproves of wrong is by Shaftesbury called the moral sense, and this is perhaps the distinctive feature of his system. Between this sense and good taste in art he draws a strong analogy. In its recognition of a rational as well as an emotional element, Shaftesbury's "moral sense» is much like the "conscience" described later by Butler. While the "moral sense" and the love and reverence of God are, with Shaftesbury, the proper sanctions of right conduct, a tone of banter which he assumed toward religious questions, and his leaning toward Deism, drew on him more or less criticism from the strongly orthodox. By his 'Characteristics' Shaftesbury became the founder of what has been called the "benevolent » system of ethics; in which subsequently Hutcheson closely followed him.

Literary and Social Essays, by George

William Curtis. The nine essays which compose this volume were collected from several sources, and published in book form in 1895. Written with all the exquisite finish, the lucidity and grace which characterized every utterance of Mr. Curtis, these essays are like an introduction into the actual presence of the gifted men of our century in whose splendid circle the author was himself at home. Emerson, Hawthorne, and the placid pastoral Concord of their homes, are the subjects of the first three chapters, and are treated with

the fine power of apt distinction, with the richness of rhetoric and the play of delicate humor, which those who heard Mr. Curtis remember, and those who know him only in his published works must recognize. To lovers of Emerson and Hawthorne these chapters will long be a delight, written as they were while the companionship of which they spoke was still warm and fresh in the author's memory.

Equally interesting and valuable as contributions to the biography of American letters are the chapters on Oliver Wendell Holmes, Washington Irving, and Longfellow. Perhaps no one has given us more intimately suggestive portrait-sketches of the personalities of these familiar authors than are given in these collected essays. Particularly interesting to American readers are the occasional reminiscences of personal participation in scenes, grave or humorous, where the actors were all makers of history for New England. The book contains Mr. Curtis's brilliant essay on the famous actress Rachel, which appeared in Putnam's Magazine, 1855; a delightful sketch of Thackeray in America, from the same source; and a hitherto unpublished essay on Sir Philip Sidney, which is instinct with the author's enthusiasm for all that is strong and pure and truly gentle.

onstable, Archibald, and his Lh

Cons

erary Correspondents, by Thomas Constable. (1873.) The story of the great Edinburgh publishing-house which established the Edinburgh Review; became the chief of Scott's publishers; issued, with valuable supplementary Dissertations by Dugald Stewart, the fifth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ›; initiated the publication of cheap popular volumes of literature, art, and science; and by a bold liberality in payment of authors, with remarkable sagacity in judging what would succeed with the public, virtually transformed the business of publishing. An apprenticeship of six years with Peter Hill, Burns's friend, enabled Constable to start as a bookseller, January 1795. He began by publishing theological and political pamphlets for authors, but in 1798 made some ventures on his own account. In 1800 he started the Farmer's Magazine as a quarterly. The next year he became proprietor of the Scots Magazine, and in

October 1802, the first number of the Edinburgh Review appeared. The gen. erous scale of payment soon adopted,twenty-five guineas a sheet,- startled the trade, and greatly contributed to make Constable the foremost among publishers of his day. He began with Scott in 1802, a part interest only, but secured entire interest in 1807 by paying Scott a thousand guineas in advance for 'Marmion,' and the next year one thousand five hundred pounds for his edition of Swift's 'Life and Works. Differences arising now separated Scott and Constable until 1813, but in 1814 Waverley' appeared with Constable's imprint. The financial breakdown of various parties in 1826 not only overthrew Constable, but involved Scott to the extent of £120,000. Constable died July 21, 1827.

Sheridan, by Mrs. Oliphant, is a bi

ography in the English Men of Letters > series. This agreeable history begins by picturing Sheridan as the young man of genius, setting ordinary regulations at defiance, taking up positions untenable by every rule of reason, yet carrying through his purposes by the force of brilliant natural gifts; careless of literary fame; set most on achieving power,- even if by unsound methods. Earlier, there are indolent school days at Harrow; a romantic youthful marriage, followed by extravagant London housekeeping; the triumphs of dramatic authorship; the proprietorship of Drury Lane Theatre. "There are some men," the author says of this period of his life, "who impress all around them with such a certainty of power and success, that even managers dare, and publishers volunteer, in their favor. Sheridan was evidently one of these men.» Then came amazing social success; a great and growing reputation as a wit; the friendship of Fox and Burke; entry into Parliament; two great orations at the trial of Warren Hastings; home, business, and public troubles; an unfortunate friendship with the Prince of Wales; a second marriage; financial ruin in the burning of the Drury Lane Theatre; the loss of a seat in Parliament; arrest; poverty; death,- these are the main features of the history that is made to pass before us. The picture at the end is different: "Through all these contradictions of character, Sheridan blazed and exploded from side to side in a reckless

yet rigid course, like a gigantic and splendid piece of firework; his follies repeating themselves, like his inability to follow success, and his careless abandonment of one way after another that might have led to a better and happier fortune. His harvest was like a southern harvest, over early while it was yet but May; but he sowed no seed for a second ingathering, nor was there any growth or richness left in the soon exhausted soil. His plays are analytically and critically considered, a whole chapter being given to The School for Scandal' and 'The Critic.' The book is attractively written in six chapters, as follows: Youth,' 'First Dramatic Works, The School for Scandal, Public Life,' 'Middle Age,' 'Decadence.' It is the story of the most brilliant man of the most brilliant period of the eighteenth century,- a man, who, but for a certain residuum of conscience, might be called an astonishingly clever juggler; who, while youth, health, and novelty favored, kept the ball of prosperity flashing hither and yon through the air, only to see it fall and shiver to atoms when these attributes failed him. Yet the vices of Sheridan were those of his time and his fellows; and his virtues, if not too many, were always charming and lovable. Indeed, so sympathetic is Mrs. Oliphant's story of him, that the reader involuntarily recalls that kind judgment, -Tis said best men are molded out of faults.»

Book of Snobs, The, a series of sketches

by William Makepeace Thackeray, appeared first in Punch, and was published in book form in 1848. The idea of the work may have been suggested to Thackeray when, as an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1829, he contributed to a little weekly periodical called The Snob. In any case, the genus Snob could not long have escaped the satirical notice of the author of Vanity Fair.' He was in close contact with a social system that was the very nursery of snobbishness. In his delightful category, he omits no type of the English-bred Snob of the university, of the court, of the town, of the country, of the Church; he even includes himself, when on one occasion he severed his friendship for a man who ate peas with a knife,—an exhibition of snobbery he repented of later, when the offender had discovered the genteel