It is an agreeable surprise to find that the new
life of George TVashington, by Mr. Shelby Little (Routledge, 16s.) is both easy to read and truthful, for no man has suffered more from his biographers. The author has made use of the best sources and presents a very human and interesting Washington instead of the plaster hero. He is at pains to -show the immense difficulties with which the General and the President had to struggle. Washington's countrymen gave him more trouble during the war than did the British com- manders. Even' after Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown Washington almost despaired of winning the ,war, so ill- disciplined and ill-equipped were his forces and so 'vexatious the politicians in the revolutionary Congress. He-accepted the Presidency with reluctance, fearing that his popularity would disappear amid the quarrels of the factions. He left it at the end of his second term with profound relief. No serious student of Washington's life could suppose that Washington hesitated for a moment in rejecting the offer of a third Presidential term, after the humiliations of his eight years of office. Mr. Little describes Washington's private life with not a little humour, never transgressing the bounds of good taste. A few more dates would make the narrative dearer, but the book as a whole is well done.
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