JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.* THIS volume contains only a gleaning of
the Motley letters, but there are some good handfuls which it was quite worth while to gather. There is, for instance, a correspondence with Bismarck. Perhaps the most interesting letter is one which J. L. Motley wrote from London in the September of that annul mirabVis 1870. In this be counselled moderation in the terms which victorious Germany was to impose on France. Such moderation would " inspire confidence for the future." What answer Bismarck returned to his old friend—they
• John Lothrop Motley and his Family. By his Daughter and Herbert St. John Idildmay. London John Lane. [16s. net.] had been at College together—we do not know, but he wrote " damn confidence" on the margin of the letter. Then there are seven letters from Oliver Wendell Holmes addressed to one of Mr. Motley's daughters, the first written a few weeks after her father's death—he died in England in May, 1877, in his sixty-third year—the last dated June, 1893, very near the end of the writer's life. Motley's own letters of the Civil War period are, of course, noteworthy. The editors tell us that they have omitted some " rather strong expressions of opinion on the subject of the American Civil War." To judge by what has been left, these must be more than "rather strong." Motley did our Government the justice of acknowledging that it had resisted invitations from France to recognise the Confederacy, but he says : " the English hate us." Surely that never was true. As for the " bullying between 1807 and 1812," we were fighting for our lives. Afterwards we were very much afraid of them in the matter of Canada, and we had more than once been grossly affronted. However, at such a time men cannot be expected to measure their words. The story of the great book which has given Motley so high a place among the historians of the world is more interesting than flattering to our intelligence. It was refused by John Murray, and finally published at the author's risk by Chapman. But then we may urge that the author did not even look for a publisher on his own side of the Atlantic. As soon as it made its appearance its success was assured. J. A. Froude admired it greatly, but, oddly enough, proposed to review it along with Prescott's Philip IL, which was then about to be published. No one now would think of classing Prescott and Motley togethei. We must give a good story told in a letter of 1863. A Com- mittee of Public Safety had been formed at Warsaw, and the Russians did not like it. The Grand Duke Constantine asked a certain General whether he had made any discoveries as to the people who composed it. " Yes," he replied. "Who are they ? " " Let me just tell you who don't belong to it. I don't for one. Your Imperial Highness does not, I think, for another. But for all the rest of Warsaw I can't say."
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