9 APRIL 1870, Page 23

_National Self - Government in Europe and America. By J. W. Probyn.

(Triinner.)—It is somewhat provoking to read through a lair-sized volume dealing with the uppermost political questions of the day and tied nothing that one can pick a quarrel with. Mr. Probyn writes with irreproachable fairness and xnederation ; he keeps steadily to the via media, inclining, perhaps, to the liberal side of the road, abhors despotism -and reproaches the excesses of democracy, and sees his ideals of rulers in our own gracious Queen and in Leopold of Belgium. If we have a halt to find with him, it is that he is too much of an optimist, and as optimism is not a thing that moves one to active wrath, we might hint Ifecond charge, that he is a little dulL But any one who wants to see a judicious and carefully written sketch of "constitutional history" during the laat half-century may find it here.