Lord Mersey, who was still Mr. Clive Bighazn when he
wrote The Kings of England, 1066-1901 (Murray, 218.), had the laudable desire to make a portrait gallery of our monarchs, as a protest against the dehumanizing character of the average textbook. On the whole he has succeeded in making them live, and the earlier kings, like Henry II and Henry III, are not the least interesting of the series when the evidence of the chroniclers is properly utilized. Lord Mersey is a kindly biographer and tries to do justice even to Mary and James I and James II, though he is severe towards George IV. The attentive reader will conclude that England has in the main been fortunate in her rulers throughout the ages. Few of them were incompetent, like Henry VI, and even that saintly nonentity had his merits, as all Etonians know.
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