Our author everywhere regards public opinion in America as specially predominating and salutary. "In no country," he says, "is public opinion so powerful as in the United States; in no country can it be so well studied." (vol. iii., p. 11). "Toward this goal (government by public opinion'), the Americans have marched with steady steps, unconsciously as well as consciously. No other people now stands so near it." (vol. iii., p. 22). "Towering over Presidents and State governors, over Congress and State legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out, in the United States, as the great source of power, the master of servants who tremble before it." (vol. iii., p. 25).

One chapter in Mr. Bryce's discussion of the phenomena of public opinion in America is entitled "The fatalism of the multitude." It is a chapter of much interest, the result of a curious and somewhat esoteric analysis or view of the facts and appearances which seem to have suggested it. Our author identifies it at first with "what is commonly called the Tyranny of the Majority," since it "disposes men to acquiesce in the rule of numbers." Remarking that "no race is naturally less disposed to a fatalistic view of life than is the Anglo-American," he still thinks that "even in this people the conditions of life and politics have bred a sentiment or tendency which seems best described by the name of fatalism." (vol. iii., p. 115). In immediate juxtaposition, he uses, apparently as equivalents of fatalism, the terms "self-reliance," "independence,” “individualism," "personal consequence," and other like terms. We have read Mr. Bryce's ratiocination at this point with highly aroused interest and have interrogated ourself whether there were really anything in it, anything which answered to the thing described or to the description. We are not unwilling to be shown a new thing, albeit it has been for long under our eyes.

Mr. Bryce's fatalism is, so far as we can comprehend it, a new species of fatalism. As the conclusion of some philosophizing, he finds that the basis of our fatalism lies in the fact that "the belief in the right of the majority lies very near to the belief that the majority must be right." (p. 121). Now, if this be fatalism, are the Americans, characteristically or to any

appreciable degree, subject to it? We must answer that we think not, neither the more intelligent nor the less intelligent. The right of the majority to rule is cordially admitted and firmly held in the United States, but one is quite at a loss to find any evidence, any facts, which seem to support the view of Mr. Bryce. He presents none; his chapter is a pure tissue of ratiocination or speculation. But if we "descend from this top of speculation," what do we find? A fatalistic acquiescence in the judgment of the majority? A discouraged, reluctant, or weak assent of the defeated minority to the omniscience or even ordinary wisdom, of the majority? Our observation answers, No. We find deeply rooted in the same soil with the doctrine of the right of the majority to rule, the doctrine, firmly acted on ordinarily by all classes of our great electorate and people, that for all purposes except as a source of government, a working rule of administration, "one, with God, is a majority;" that at the audit of reason, of morals, of conscience, votes are, as Carlyle mourned that they were not, "weighed, not counted." Nothing can exceed the confidence with which we reject Mr. Bryce's reflections at this point. The less intelligent Americans are not more subject to what our author calls fatalism, than the more intelligent. What is discontent or petty rebellion with the former, is disapproval and high resolve to make might mean right by the same rule of the majority, with the latter.

With Mr. Bryce's succeeding chapter on the "Tyranny of the Majority," we are in hearty agreement. With Tocqueville, whose searching words he quotes—“ La majorité trace un cercle formidable autour de la pensée. Au dedans de ces limites, l'ecrivain est libre, mais malheur à lui s'il ose en sortir,-he finds in this fact one of the chief stains on our history, and, we cannot help adding, he acquits us too easily of some degree of like tyranny at present. (Vol. iii., pp. 141, 142).

Though we must pause here, we devoutly wish every American might read and re-read Chapters XCV. and XCVI. on “The true faults of American Democracy," and "The Strength of American Democracy." Our praise here shall be ungrudging and unmixed. The entire chapters are faithful, just, tonic, in

spiring, and may well close our examination of the contents of Mr. Bryce's book, already prolonged beyond the ordinary limits of a modern magazine Article.

Of the moral qualities and value of Mr. Bryce's work we have decided opinions which, after some criticisms and a few strictures, we are the more willing to set forth. We rate it for accuracy of information, for variety and fulness of research. for fairness and sobriety of opinions, and for unbiased conclusions, among the great books of the day. We should be sorry to think that our criticisms might lessen the estimate it has already won or which it might hereafter win and hold. But we will be candid; in a purely literary or a purely forensic aspect. this book cannot rank at all with several other English books which discuss our constitution, government, and institutions. The even, clear, fine, texture both of style and thought is wanting. We name here Maine's "Popular Government," Bagehot's "English Constitution," and Dicey's "Law of the (English) Constitution." These writers are all great masters of thought and style. Indeed, it is our long-settled opinion that Sir Henry Maine's style, for the purposes to which he has pu: it, is absolutely unsurpassed anywhere. Mr. Bryce's book has almost no resemblance, in this great respect, to the works we have named. He has painted a vast canvas: in it he has set a great number of figures; the measurements and proportions are generally accurate; the separate items of the painting may be exactly drawn; but we miss the precise effect of a great picture. It is necessarily too crowded for the best art, has too many figures or points of attention, lacks the subtle effects of light and shade, as well as the total impression, of a true masterpiece. We do not quarrel with the work; we receive it with respect and gratitude; it is the work of a noble-minded, true friend. one who has treated us here with high friendship, and in doing this work has well earned our praise and respect. But now, to understand what we mean by our qualifications of praise, let one take down one's "Democracy in America." Here is a great style, even as seen in translations. Here too, in spite of a recent critic's remark of its "simple philosophizing,” is the eye of a philosopher and prophet, and the hand of an artist.

The work is imperishable; for it has what Mr. Lowell tells us is the only warrant of permanence in literature-style,—that literary something to be felt rather than described, or which, in the fine phrase of Buffon, "is the man himself." One passage from "Democracy in America,"* will best point this contrast and close our review :

"On the continent of Europe, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, absolute monarchy triumphed over the ruins of the oligarchical and feudal liberties of the middle ages. Never were the notions of right more completely confounded than in the midst of the splendor and literature of Europe. And at the very time, those principles, which were scorned or unknown by the nations of Europe, were proclaimed in the deserts of the New World, and were accepted as the future creed of a great people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put into practice by a community so humble that not a statesman condescended to attend to it; and a legislation without precedent was produced off-hand by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of this absolute democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither generals, nor philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the face of a free people and pronounce amid general acclamations the following fine definition of liberty:

"Nor would I have you mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected both by men and beasts to do what they list; and this liberty is inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty 'sumus omnes deteriores;' 'Tis the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty, which is the proper end and object of authority; it is a liberty for that only which is just and good; for this liberty, you are to stand with the hazard of your very lives, and whatever crosses it is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained in a way of subjection to authority; and the authority set over you will, in all the administrations for your good, be quietly submitted unto by all but such as have the disposition to shake off the yoke and lose their true liberty, by their murmuring at the honor and power of authority."+

From such conceptions of civil liberty and government, our nation chiefly took its rise and early strength. Its youth is past; *Reeves' Translation, p. 42.

+ Gov. Winthrop, in Mather's Magnalia Ch. Am., vol. ii., p. 13.

its years roll into the centuries; it attracts the attention of the nations and excites the hopes of patriots and philanthropists,— the generous and thoughtful of all lands;-each generation as it passes across the stage will make or mar its fortune and destiny; but our generation may well be grateful to Mr. Bryce for his impulse towards what is good, and his warning of what is evil, in our government, our institutions, and our people.

New York City.

D. H. CHAMBERLAIN.