The History of France. By Eyre Evans Crowe. Vol. V.
(Long- mans.)—Mr. Crowe completes in this volume a work on which he has bestowed a great amount of conscientious labour, and which will doubtless possess a permanent value. We doubt, indeed, whether, with the sources of information that are now open, it is possible for any man to perform such a task satisfactorily as writing the whole history of a great country like France. Mr. Crowe, for instance, gives to the description of the battle of Austerlitz less than a page, to that of Waterloo little more than two. It is manifest that this method of writing history admits neither of completeness nor of brilliancy. It is not possible within such limits either to discuss or to describe. Those who have once enjoyed Macaulay, Motley, or Froude will never be satisfied with anything so meagre.
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