CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Four Civilisations of the World: an Historical Retrospect. By Henry Wikoff. (Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott and Co.)—The book before us, under the title of An Historical Retrospect, comprises nothing less than the whole period of the history of mankind, from the earliest records of its existence down to our modern times. So ambitious a task could only have been entered upon by an American, as 1 seems to us. The reader will wonder how it can be possible to compress the course of six thousand and odd years into a pocket volume. Never- theless the feat has been accomplished, after a fashion. Like the posts and flags which a surveying engineer plants along the lino he is directed to map out, Mr. Wikoff's work is distributed into divisions, akin to landmarks, and each epoch or stage characterised by some colour and features peculiar to itself. To do this must have cost the writer a vast amount of sustained reflection, which, with a capacity of bringing out the leading points of the narrative as the world's story unwinds itself, enables him to enchain the attention of the reader without putting too fatiguing a strain upon it. The book recalls, in some sort, the effect of those "dissolving views" of the "diorama," where the scenes succeed one another in harmonious re- lation. But the leading merit of the author consists in the endeavour— and we must Bay a not unsuccessful endeavour—to keep his eye fixed on certain fundamental principles, or social agencies, which he shows to have been constantly in operation throughout past ages, and to have be- come developed at this present time into full and mature supremacy. The various phases wherein the principle of resistance to unjust power is seen at work ; in the improved methods of that resistance, as civili- sation advanced ; the diversity of the forms of oppression under which the inferior classes were stimulated to revolt at intervals ; the gradual steps by which wholesome securities were, at great sacrifices, obtained for the people, both from their clerical and lay oppressors ; all these chapters of human history are treated with a perspicacious and almost with a philosophic pen. Occasionally a passage occurs wherein, extreme brevity notwithstanding, the light of generous philan- thropy breaks across the picture. Of course, the dominant colour of the author's mind is democratic, and accordingly, it is in describing the rise of the great Republic that his style becomes at once more animated and effective. Perhaps it is not too much to say of the chapters relating to the early growth of American institutions, that they present a sort of "microcosm " of the events of the latter part of the eighteenth century, such as may claim to imbue the student of modern historywith unusually clear and correct ideas of that stage of political history. The rapid sketch of the stream of French national affairs is, of course, too fleeting to leave any solid or lasting impressions. At the same time, we feel bound to admit that the reflections suggested by the comparison of the English with their French neighbours "point a moral" of an instructive kind. The long subjection of the French people to their rulers, whilst the English were always striving to countervail the prerogative of the Ring, from the Conquest down to the memorable crisis of 1688, when the "Constitution" was permanently established,— this contrast we regard as skilfully followed out in Mr. Wikoff's pages. As a specimen of his narrative style, the subjoined passage may be acceptable to the reader :— " A goodly number of the Puritans, however, remained in England, and caused Queen Elizabeth no small vexation. A certain Peter Went- worth, Member of the Commons, was a great stickler for the privileges of Parliament, and was frequently sent to the Tower. In 1571 he got up 'A Petition to the Lords to be Suppliants with the Lower House to the Queen.' This was the old combination of the aristocracy and middle- class which had given so much trouble to Elizabeth's predecessors. The project was nipped in the bud by locking up Wentworth in the Tower. Nothing daunted, we find the plucky Puritan, four years later, declaiming in Parliament for the light of 'free speech' Two things,' he said, do great hurt here. One, a rumour which rtinneth about the House, "Take heed what you do, the Queen's Majesty liketh not such a matter." The other is a message sometimes brought into the Howie, either commanding or inhibiting,—very injurious to the freedom of speech and consultation. Would to God, Mr. Speaker, that these two things were buried in hell! The King bath no peer or equal in the kingdom but he ought to be under God and the law, because the law maketh
kingdom, a King.' Of course Wentworth was again assigned to the Tower Wentworth's curiosity cost him a third trip to the Tower. No wonder Elizabeth lost her temper with these inquisitive Puritans. The genius of the future Yankee might be discerned in their prying propensities. There can be no doubt that England prospered under the intelligent despotism of Queen Bess. In agriculture, com- merce, and navigation the nation made progress ; letters flourished; the finances were economised ; Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world ; Bacon's philosophy and Shakespeare's poetry immortalised the epoch. Yet Monarchy was never so despotic since the date of Magna Charta." We venture to predict a wide circulation of this "Synoptic Chronicle" in America, if not in "the old country," since, apart from its utility as a condensed history (serving as a " handbook " of the past), Mr. Wikoff's work really deals with and expounds the fluctuations of social and political forces in a singularly pointed and original manner. One of the salient characteristics of the book is that few events of any significance are suffered to go unaccounted for. Whether the interpretation be always the true one we cannot undertake to say, but it is an attractive quality in an author to be ever ready to offer one to the reader's mind.
— H. G.
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