Two Thousand Years Hence. By Henry O'Neil, A.R.A. (Chapman and
Hall.)—This is by far the most offensive appearance which Lord Macaulay's New Zealander has yet made. A certain Governor Robin- son, living in A.D. 3867, addresses to his friend at Auckland a number of letters in which he describes English life as he finds it to have been about two thousand years before that date. A writer who affects to occupy the position of remote posterity assumes a character which it is apparently easy, but really very difficult to support. He must avoid all dogmatism of tone, which is sure to offend readers who never can forget that he is really a contemporary, and ho must preserve the due proportions of what he relates. Mr. O'Neil, we think, fails in both respects. It is intolerable to find a hundred controversies on various Ada' and political questions settled in the most off-hand fashion by one whom we know to be no better informed than ourselves, and it is equally ludicrous to see the prominence given to trifles which we feel sure must be forgotten before two, not to say twenty, centuries are past.
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