Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne, and Savoy. By General Meredith
Read. 2 vols. (Ghetto and Windus.) — General Meredith Read was Consul-General of the United States for France and Algeria from 1869 to 1873, and Minister to Greece from 1873 to 1879. Returning from Greece he made some stay at Lausanne. There he heard much about Gibbon, whose career and character had always interested him. Further, he found in Gibbon's old house, La Grotte (which has now ceased to exist) a great store of MSS.,—unpublished letters from the historian and from other celebrities of the eighteenth century, among whom may be mentioned Voltaire, Rousseau, and Malesherbes. The collections of materials, historical and biographical, which he made are included in this volume. Had General Read lived—he died, after a short illness, at Paris, in 1896—he would probably have done something more towards sifting them. As they stand, they are something of a rudis indigestaque moles. There is an index, it is true, but no table of contents, and the reader may well be alarmed by the thousand closely printed pages of the two volumes. It soon becomes evident, on the one hand, that there is much that is but of little interest. The copious biographical details about Madame de Warms are an example. On the other hand, we can see that the volumes will have to be consulted by writers of the future, especially such as may have to deal with Voltaire, Gibbon, and Rousseau. We are bound to say that none of the three are altogether raised in reputation by what is to be found here though the Englishman suffers less than the two Frenchmen.
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