Men who Have Made the Empire. By George Griffith. (C.
Arthur Pearson. 7s. 6d.)—There is in this series of bio- graphies too much of Jubilee fervour and grandiloquence half a year old, too much of "the battle-cries of the old Sea-Kings of the North, chanted to the music of their churning oars, and the rush and the roar of the foam swirling away under the bows of their long ships, and from them going on ringing and thundering through the centuries, ever swelling in depth and volume as more and more of the races of men hear it rolling over the battle-fields of conquest." Mach, however, may be forgiven to a writer who holds that "the British Empire as it stands to-day is the greatest moral and material fact in human history," and who can write in a readable style. Boys, at least, will appreciate the vigour with which Mr. Griffith tells the stories of the long roll of Empire- makers, from William of Normandy to" Cecil Rhodes of Rhodesia." Full justice is done to Clive and Cromwell, Drake and Hastings, Cook and Gordon, as well as to Nelson and Wellington. It is to be regretted that Mr. Griffith should, when writing of Mr. Rhodes, have introduced into a book that, from its character, ought to have been quite free from partisanship, a sneer at "all the work of all the societies and associations of amiable old ladies of both sexes for the Protection of the Aborigines and the Elevation of the Savages."
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