events and men of these times, and for this reason the essays must always be highly valued.

It is singular how much, in studying English history, we have to rely upon books similar to this, and indeed how defective English literature is in standard works on the history of England. Hume's history, although published without the aid of the sources of information now accessible, has, after the lapse of a century, no rival. This great work, even when corrected by reading those of Mr. Hallam in connection with it, gives a very superficial account of the times of our ancestors. It has sometimes surprised us that none of our American historical scholars have paid attention to the times of the Plantagenets. As the history of our own race it should be attractive, but independently of ethnological reasons few historical subjects are more fascinating than the lives of the Edwards and Henries-than the story of Cressy, Poictiers and Agincourt, and the more melancholy one of domestic wars, and the conflicts of York and Lancaster. Yet far more faithful pictures of the exploits of Plantagenets and Tudors are to be found in the pages of the dramatist and novelist than in those of Hume or Lingard, or any other historian, not excepting paradoxical Mr. Froude. With the seventeenth century we are well acquainted; no other can boast so many and so able illustrators. But the reign of Anne, so long boasted as the Augustan age of England, which would seem most likely to be a favorite subject with historirians, still wants a single good one. Two eminent authors have barely missed it. Lord Macaulay's incomparable work, of which we may say, as Sir Walter Scott did of Christabel, that, like the Torso, it defies the ability of man to complete it, and in its fragmentary state will excite feelings of admiration and despair in our posterity, ceases just as it is entering upon the career of the great queen. Lord Stanhope's history begins two years before her death.

It is this fragmentary condition of English history that makes the critical essays of such writers as Sir George Lewis so valuable. To write the entire history of England is a task of too great magnitude and requiring too versatile powers for us ever to expect to see it done by one man. Not that it can well be divided into parts; the history of no nation forms so complete and connected a tale. Brilliant as may be made the story of any part of it, that part will lose much of its value and interest when separated from what preceded and succeeded it. Isolated by nature, language,

and manners, of the English people it can be said with especial truth that they have grown; and every portion of that growth is so intimately connected with the rest that the most skilful selection and treatment cannot prevent its being greatly injured by any separation.

Macaulay attempted to remedy this difficulty by his two brilliant introductory chapters; and then to trace the history of his country down to a time "within the memory of men now living." Long after he had given up all hopes of doing this, he did not despair of connecting it with the work of Lord Stanhope. He has made, however, the history of the revolution as familiar as a novel among a much larger class than usually interests itself in such subjects, and has settled the place in public opinion of a large number of characters. Especially is this true of James the Second, who, though in truth the most odious monarch that ever filled the English throne, has found a crowd of defenders. The halo of romance which the genius of Scott has thrown around the Stuarts and their adherents, the natural partiality which Englishmen would feel for the last line of truly English monarchs, and the many unfavorable comparisons which may be drawn between national manners and national feelings of these, and the unwise obstinacy with which their successors still insist upon clinging to German customs, German sympathies and German alliances, had combined with their misfortunes to foster a morbid partiality to James. To all such feelings Macaulay has given the death-blow. The James of history will now be James as he has painted him, and every effort on the part of writers of the school of Miss Strickland and Mr. Mark Napier to stay the tide which for fifteen years has been steadily setting in against him, will be as useless as the labors of Mrs. Partington.

Lord Macaulay also attempted to settle the position in history of William the Third, but in this he has been less successful. Although we speak with diffidence, we cannot join him and many others in their earnest admiration of that monarch. Had Macaulay been less truthful, he might have drawn from his imagination a most admirable character; but in his narrative he adhered closely to history, and therefore all his ingenious excuses and powers of advocacy fail to conceal the many repulsive features of the real portrait. Great as William was in many respects; eminent as were his services to England, there is little in his character beyond his simple ability to admire or respect, and still less to love or revere.

The selfishness of his motives destroys the illusion of his most brilliant achievements, and makes his plots against his uncle and father-in-law and his manoeuvres to obtain the English throne-actions which only the most exalted character could fully justify-no more creditable to him than those of any other man who has not allowed the most sacred family ties to stand in the way of his ambition. Yet Macaulay has been so truthful as to William that we should not go beyond his pages to substantiate our own opinion.

The judicial calmness of Sir George Lewis eminently fitted him for historical criticism, and although inferior to Macaulay in comprehension, in knowledge, and, above all, in those gifts as a writer in which the latter has no equal, he was never a partisan, and his inferiority as a word-painter made him safer in his judgments. Macaulay always appeared in the court of history as counsel, sometimes as the unrelenting prosecutor, exposing without favor or mercy the wickedness of James or Marlborough or Barrere, tearing to atoms the flimsy sophistries of weak defences; sometimes more gently assisting it in coming to a just conclusion on the characters of Machiavelli or Clive or Hastings; and often in warm and earnest defence of Cromwell or William; but judicial qualities are for the most part wanting, and we fear that had he possessed them he would have been a far less fascinating writer. These qualities particularly distinguished Hallam; they belonged also to Sir George Lewis, and we regret that he did not use them in a more extended examination of English history than any he has left behind him. After this rather wandering introduction, we shall give our readers some thoughts of our own in regard to the English statesmanship of the present century, and not attempt to follow Sir George Lewis in a chronological analysis of the administrations he discusses.

Should the members of our cabinet ever have seats given them in congress, as was proposed at the last session, and ably advocated by Mr. Pendleton, General Garfield, and others in the House of Representatives, the interest attaching to the parliamentary statesmanship of England would be greatly enhanced to American readers. As it is, our statesmanship bears a closer resemblance to that of Great Britain than to any other; for although the last republican government of France was expressly modelled from our Constitution, the difference in race, temperament and position prevented its practical operation from bearing a similar resemblance. All

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the liberal constitutions of continental Europe resemble that of England in giving the members of the executive government seats in the legislative body, and in establishing some degree of ministerial responsibility to the legislature. In order to establish this in the United States, there must be great changes in the Constitution, much greater than, even if they would be wise, there is any present prospect of of the people's desiring or permitting. How far Congress, now that it has annually to devise the ways and means for an enormous revenue, can do without the assistance of the Secretary of the Treasury in the House of Representatives remains to be seen. But if this minister should have a seat there, and should propound his own budget, its rejection would embarrass the administration more than declining to comply with the recommendations of his annual report. It is in this view that a careful examination of all the European systems of government will probably become necessary in order to discover whether our own may not be rendered more efficient in the relations between the executive and legislative departments.

From the death of Queen Anne to the accession of George the Third, the whig aristocracy, supported by the great body of the people, monopolized the government of England. The first two monarchs of the house of Hanover naturally looked upon the tories as hostile to their dynasty. The nation at large, convinced that their religion and liberties would be unsafe under the Stuarts, distrusted them for the same reason. The tories therefore, although thoroughly supported by the country gentry, the University of Oxford, and the inferior clergy, were in as hopeless a minority as the whigs were a few generations after. But they were powerful enough to give at times no small annoyance to the government. Their exclusion and opposition became less general after the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. But it was not until after George the Second's death and the rise of Lord Bute to power, that they were admitted to a real share in the government of the country. The new king strongly favored · them; they in turn abandoned the Stuarts. A large part of the upper classes, caring more about enjoying the sunshine of royal favor than for abstract principles, passed over to them; while the people, no longer fearing the Stuarts and tired of the whigs, either inclined to the tories or were indifferent. Lord North's was, to all intents and purposes, a tory administration; and after the overthrow of the whigs in

1784, the tories enjoyed the entire monopoly of the government until 1830, except during the few months in 1806-7, when Lord Grenville's whig government was in power. Thus between 1715 and the passage of the Reform Bill the two great parties had about an equal share in the government.

The Reform Bill has again changed this balance. Since its passage there have been eight general elections and eight parliaments. In only one of these have the conservatives obtained a majority of the House of Commons, namely, in 1841, when they had the aid of all who were interested in the maintenance of agricultural protection. In the thirtyfive years which have elapsed since 1830, the liberals have been in power twenty-eight years. The conclusion, we think, is natural and necessary, that under a constitution as liberal as Great Britain now is, a conservative party must expect to spend most of its life in opposition. Such was the fate of the American whig party. The conservatives themselves account for it by ascribing it to Sir Robert Peel's desertion of protection in 1846, but they are very much in error. Had Sir Robert Peel adhered to protection, and had the country been subjected to two more years of the agitation of Anti-Corn-Law League, the election of 1847 would have almost annihilated him and his party. Viewed simply as a matter of party tactics, his course displayed admirable wisdom, as it took the wind entirely out of the sails of the opposition. The tactics were spoilt by the obtuseness of Lord Derby (then Lord Stanley) and his followers, who could not, or would not, perceive that it had become a war between them and the people, and that they must yield. If the conservatives had submitted to free trade it is possible that they might have again gained a majority in the election of 1847. But Lord Aberdeen's foreign policy would have been pretty sure to shipwreck them before another parliament. We think the conservatives are likely to succeed at the coming general election, but if they do it will be owing to a variety of causes, which will prevent the constituencies from returning that liberal majority which, as now organized, they will return four times out of five.

Although it has sometimes been contended that there is nothing in common, except the name, between the great political parties of the present century and their predecessors in the time of Walpole, we think they have maintained most of their distinguishing characteristics. Any differences which there may be are easily ascribable to change in time