Historical Essays. -By James Ford Rhodes. (Macmillan and Co. 9s.
net.)—Most of these eighteen papers and addresses have been read or delivered to various societies and at sundry public functions; a large proportion of them have been previously printed. Five of them are devoted to English historians (Gibbon, S. R. Gardiner, W. E. H. Lecky, Sir Spencer Walpole, and John Richard Green) ; three deal with American authors and journalists. Four have for their subject history as a science, the methods of writing it, and the materials to be used. Two deal directly with American history. In " The Presidential Office " we have an appreciation of the Presidents of the United States from General Jackson down to Mr. Roosevelt, and the essay which follows gives an account of President Hayes's tenure of office. Finally, we have a summary of S. R. Gardiner's account of Oliver Cromwell. All the book is worth reading ; but we have found "The Presidential Office" the most interesting. What a very flexible thing this said office is ! What a very different thing it was in the hands of Lincoln from what it had been before and was to be afterwards. Some of the special criticisms, too, are noteworthy. Dr. Rhodes thinks that President Cleveland's bellicose Message in the Venezuela affair was a mistake. The United States Government does not think so highly of its protegee- as it did. " Protection," says our author, a propos of President McKinley and the Dingley Tariff, " is attractive to those who allow immediate returns to obscure prospective advantages." Unfortunately, this preference is the most common of human failings.
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