CURRENT LITERATURE.
M. SAROLEA'S ESSAYS.
Essais de Litterature et de Politique. Par Charles Sarolea. (Weissenbruch, Brussels. Hachette et Cie., London.)—M. Sarolea, who is a Professor of Edinburgh University, has collected in one volume a number of valuable studies on topics as diverse as Saint-Simon's "Memoires" and the work of Belgium on the Congo. We are entirely in agreement with M. Amile Faguet, who contributes the preface, on the value of such comparative studies in national character and letters. As is fitting for a Scotch Professor, the place of honour is given to a long and sympathetic review of the genesis of modern Scotland, based on Sir Henry Craik's work. Then follows an exhaustive analysis of Froude's work, which is as kindly as it is shrewd. There are two studies of English statesmen—Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain ; a paper in English on "Democracy and Liberty," in which the assumed connection between the two conceptions is disproved; and a clever and amusing dialogue on British Imperialism between an English Attache and a Belgian Radical Deputy. We would especially recommend the final essay, which is a comparison of the English and French Press. N. Sarolea argues that the French Press is a more powerful political engine, more artistic, more personal and impassioned in its tone, but less independent and incorruptible, because financially in a more precarious position. In this book M. Sarolea shows himself a keen observer of politics and a widely read student of letters, and he shows, too, that gift of his countrymen for lucid and compact expression -which is all too rare in the work of our own publicists.
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