The Story of Bacon's Rebellion. By Mary Newton Stannard. (Neale
Publishing Company, Now York. 4s.)—Mrs. Stannard tells us that she has "earnestly endeavoured to give an exact and unbiassed account" of the incidents which she relates ; and we willingly believe her. But every one must have bias,—have We 'not been lately told that the austere Thucidides was pro- foundly influenced by it? For Mrs. Stanuard'a language is cer- tainly anything but judicial in its tone. Nathaniel Bacon—first cousin three degrees removed to the great Chancellor—was a popular champion in Virginia during the years 1675-7G. The political questions concerned are not very easily understood ; but the relations with the Indians was one of them. Bacon was abolutely merciless in his dealings with them, not altogether a
fault a country where the ,only `Cgood, Indian" is "dead Indian"; it is also plain that he was a man of violent temper. Mrs. Stannard has a way of raising opposition in her readers ; but that there is, much to be said for her hero we do not doubt; in any case, there is much that is picturesque and interesting in her story ; the scone, for instance, of the Indian Queen of Pan- flukey in the Virginian assembly, with her "plait of white and black wampumpeag, three inches broad, in imitation of a crown," replying to all the questions put to her with the words " Totapot- amoydead!"—he was her husband.
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