ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN.*
WHETHER a child will like this or that book of stories can, scarcely be known for certainty without actual experiment,. but the volume before us has every look of being likely to please. "F." begins with the coming of the English, and we recognise the necessity of limiting the subject, though we are • sorry to miss Caractacus and Boadicea and the origins of Christianity in the island. Starting from this point, she takes us down to Waterloo, giving an epilogue in which the national love of justice and freedom is indicated. In a book of this kind two difficulties must always be prominent. There is the question • of details. To banish them altogether for generalities is to be dull—" scientific" history is sadly at fault in this matter— • but what is to be done when fourteen hundred years have to be compressed into less than a third of that number of pages ? "F." seems to have done as much as was possible in this direction, choosing the right things, the things which we could. not do without. What would the story of the Armada be - without Drake and his game at bowls P Then the judgments • on persons and events have to be summary. There can be no weighing of arguments "pro" and "con." "F." will not please every one. "Captive temptress" of Mary Queen of Scots. willdisgust some chivalrous persons north of the Tweed. And doubtless there are some who will be vexed to see no traces of the whitewash which has been so elaborately laid on Richard III, and other historical villains. But to write such a history on any but " popular " lines would be a great • mistake. On the whole, "F." has managed the situation admirably. Now and then we could wish some little change. Two pages and a half are given to the campaign which ended:, at Agincourt; but the account of the battle is not satisfactory. A note might have been added telling where the different,. tribes of the English invaders were settled. Children remember - such things because the names are familiar.
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