Mr. CROWE has finished his Abridgment of the History of
France, in three volumes. It forms a creditable portion of LARD- NERS " Cyclopmdia." An abridgment of the entire history of a great nation in a small space, is an undertaking of a vastness which is but little understood. It is commonly thought to be a small task, in proportion to the smallness of the work ; whereas, in point of fact, the difficulty of the enterprise varies inversely with the scale of the undertaking. To write the history of France in fifty volumes, would be a work of labour and intelligence ; but to write it in three, implies the power of condensing the results of much reading in a small space—it supposes the gift of the histo- rical coup d' ceil. The writer who does this, is one who can extract the essence out of a vast load of materials, and who must more- over be master of a pure and lucid style. Abridgment is not the science of omission, but of generalization. We are far from say- ing that Mr. CROWE.S History of France comes up to all our no tions of what it should be: he has not given either time or labour enough to make it that ; but we can confidently state, that it is far the best abridgment of the history of France we possess; and that it is liberal, intelligent, and full. It reaches to the final deposition of NAPOLEON.
The History of' the Bourbons, in the Cyclopmdia of the same editor, is but a poor and ill-digested performance, though it con- tains a great many curious facts.
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