Charles Martel (who our author gravely informs us was a German leader!); with the conquests of Charlemagne, and the formation of the new Roman Empire; with the struggles for supremacy between emperors and popes, and with the rise of free cities. Then we have the papal dominion under Leo X., with a slight episodical account of Greece in the time of Plato! the Reformation under Luther, and the principle of justification by faith the Thirty Years' War! the formation of the kingdom of Prussia; the peace of Utrecht; the Seven Years' War; the philosophy of Kant; the poetry of Herder and Klopstock! and the political opinions of Goethe, Schiller, and Niebuhr! Why not the erection of the Great Wall of China, and the researches for El Dorado and the kingdom of Prester John?

Suppose we try and picture to ourselves what would have been the result had any of the writers of ancient history proceeded on the fortunately novel plan adopted by our historian: had Sallust, for instance, in his Conspiracy of Catiline, undertaken to treat the subject ab ovo usque ad mala, and to favor the Augustan readers with his views on every thing that had occurred in Rome-or out of it-from the genealogy of the wolf that suckled Romulus to the moment when the stylus should fall from his failing hand. Manes of the unflinching and eloquent Roman forgive us the supposition! it seems profanation to mention thy name even by way of contrast in juxtaposition with that of the modern bibliographist. But, assuming the possibility of the Augustan author indulging the proclivities of Mr. Bancroft, we may imagine what temptations would have beset him. Dire visions arise of a work which should have contained the entire history of Rome, from the fabled arrival of Æneas into Latium; the biography of Æneas himself; the loves of Venus and Anchises; the judgment of Paris and the Trojan. War-perhaps the building of Troy and the stories of Laomedon and Hesione-undoubtedly intermingled with general disquisitions on the nature of the gods, goddesses, heroes, and sea-monsters. Hesione might have suggested Andromeda, which would have furnished an excuse for en

larging on the history, natural and political, of Africa. Of course we should have had a full account of Mauritania and Numidia, with the story of the building of Carthage, and the loves of Æneas and Dido-possibly an excursion into Egypt and the kingdoms of the East. Greece, of course, could not have been omitted, and the historian would then probably have taken a northward flight and instructed his readers in the antiquities of Ultima Thule!

Mr. Bancroft might have been forgiven his want of fidelity to his subject, had its sole effect been to protract the length of his book, and put additional money into the pockets of the enterprising publishers-for we would not accuse him of doing so on the principle of the peripatetic vender of “pure Orange County milk," who combines three quarts of water, more or less, with every four quarts of the lactean fluid. But other and much more serious results have arisen from the unfortunate tendencies to which we have alluded. Whatever may be the character and object of an historical work, there are certain qualities which it is essential that it should possess. It should be accurate; it should be lucid; it should be written in a good style; it should be logical; and it should deal principally with the subject of which it professes to treat.

It is not too much to say that in Mr. Bancroft's History all of these qualities are conspicuous for their absence; and, moreover, that it is to the presence of the two abovementioned characteristics-namely, a discursive, garrulous tendency, and a disposition to sermonize on the affairs of other nations, that these defects are in a great measure attributable. Where the attention of an author is confined to one subject, a moderate amount of care will usually suffice to insure accuracy. As the sphere of his inquiries enlarges, the danger of error increases; and a proportionately greater degree of attention becomes requisite to avoid perpetrating grievous blunders. What must then be the risk encountered by one who, while proposing to write the history of his own country, has undertaken to clucidate that of all the principal nations of both continents? It is clear that he has prescribed for himself a task

exceeding any of the labors of Hercules; and the amount of crude matter which he has brought together can be worked up roughly, as it is, only at the expense of accuracy on many important details. This privation is sometimes so obvious that it is astonishing it should have escaped the notice of the author himself; as, for instance, where he tells us that

"The Turkish empire affected the course of American affairs both during the war and at its close. The embroilment of the Western maritime kingdoms seemed to leave its border provinces at the mercy of their neighbors."—p. 54.

It does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Bancroft that, although this statement shows that the course of American affairs affected the Turkish empire, it does not, in the least, tend to show that the Turkish empire affected the course of American affairs. This confounding of cause and effect is not an uncommon blunder with our author.

One of the subjects to which Mr. Bancroft has given especial consideration is the Republic of the United Netherlands. He appears to have considered it in some degree necessary to connect the Republic with the history of the United States, in order to account for occupying so much time and space with her concerns; and he accordingly tells us that

"The deepest and the saddest interest hovers over the Republic of the Netherlands, for the war between England and the United States prepared its grave."-p. 57.

Mr. Bancroft has devoted the greater part of two chapters (xii. and xx.) to the discussion of the affairs of the Dutch Republic; and in both chapters he has shown that the United Netherlands not only refused to connect themselves in any way, direct or indirect, with the United States, but carefully avoided every step which England could possibly construe into favoring their cause. According to his own

statement,

"The Dutch Government, through all its organs, met this only overture of the Americans by (sic) silence and total neglect. It was neither put in deliberation nor answered."-p. 261.

The real reason for which England declared war against

the Dutch Republic was that the latter evinced a disposition to accept the maritime code instituted by the Empress of Russia. This is stated elsewhere by the author himself, as follows:

"The contemporary documents show that England declared war on the Dutch Republic solely to prevent her from being unconditionally received into the armed neutrality.”—p. 9.

Now, this armed neutrality was organized by the European powers for the sole purpose of protecting the commerce of the neutral nations from being preyed upon by belligerents, under pretence of searching for contraband of war, or of enforcing a paper blockade. With this view they fitted out naval forces to protect the ships of such nations as adhered to the alliance, in navigating the Mediterranean and waters of the coast of Europe. It was particularly displeasing to Great Britain that the Netherlands should be received into this alliance, as they had done most of the carrying trade with France, and afforded the most tempting prizes to the British cruisers. The United States was of all others the belligerent to whom this armed neutrality had least reference, and what reference it had was antagonistic, as it was originally suggested to the Russian Empress, by the fact that

"An American privateer hovered off the North Cape, and took geven or more British vessels bound for Archangel."-p. 257.

Mr. Bancroft has nowhere made it appear in what manner the destiny of the Dutch Republic was affected by the war with England, but it is matter of history that this war did not annihilate its independence; the Government of the United Netherlands is well known to have endured until their conquest by France in 1794.

These curious inconsistencies and self-contradictions are of such constant occurrence that we can hardly open a volume of the History without encountering instances of them. In a very foggy dissertation on the state of affairs in the Spanish provinces we find the following marvellous statement:

"The remoteness of the provinces on the Pacific still more weakened the tie of supremacy, which was nowhere confirmed by a common language, inherited traditions, or affinity of race."-p. 49.

It would be difficult to point out a single province "on the shores of the Pacific" in which the traditions and the dominant race were not those of Spain. It should be borne in mind that Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, were among the oldest on the American continent; that our author is speaking of the latter part of the eighteenth century when the Spanish was the predominant race in every one of these colonies; and that, moreover, they were bound to the mother country by the tie of a common religion, which a large portion of the English colonies in North America were not.

On the subject of the influence of Marie Antoinette in promoting the alliance of France with the United States, Mr. Bancroft has involved himself in a flat self-contradiction. In the first chapter of the volume before us he informs us that

"She had an ascendency over the mind of the king, but never aspired to control his foreign policy, except in relation to Austria. For the moment her emotions ran with the prevailing enthusiasm for the new republic; but they were only superficial and occasional, and could form no support for a steady conduct of the war."-p. 45.

In direct opposition to this statement, we are subsequently informed that

"While Frederic was encouraging France to strike a decisive blow in favor of the United States, their cause found an efficient advocate in Marie Antoinette."--p. 111.

It will be seen from these instances, which might be multiplied ad infinitum, that Mr. Bancroft's History is neither accurate nor logical. The discursiveness and love of enlarging on European politics which are characteristic of our author's statements, and to a great extent accountable for his shortcomings in these respects, have exercised an equally pernicious effect on his style. When an author, instead of confining himself to his subject, flies off at a tangent at each idea as suggested, it is to be expected that he will involve himself in laby rinths of confused sentences, the thread of which altogether escapes the reader, if not the writer. Moreover, it would seem as if the veneration with which Mr. Bancroft regards European sovereigns prompted him always, in speak