FISKE'S "CRITICAL PERIOD OF AMERICAN HISTORY.”*— -We have become accustomed to expect that any writing of Mr. Fiske's, in all the wide range of subjects with which he has dealt, will be found very suggestive and will set us thinking in new lines. However widely we may disagree with the conclusions reached we rarely fail to see facts in a new light, or to find the relations of things to one another, the lines of cause and effect-the really important meanings of facts-made so plain that we cannot miss them. This book is no exception to the rule.

It is a matter of congratulation, too, that a book of this kind, on a period so full of political lessons, should be given us at a time when events seem to promise a new era of thoughtfulness and painstaking in the settlement of political questions. To be sure the specific problems of that age are very different from those of ours. But the most important lesson which the men of that time had to teach themselves is the same that we must learn. It is a good thing to have it made clear to us from the experience of our fathers that a great political problem is not to be settled by an apostrophe to liberty or by a torch-light procession, and that a man who appeals to passion or prejudice instead of to reason in the face of a serious national difficulty, comes dangerously near the moral guilt of treason. There is no "preaching" in the book however, its lessons are left to plain and easy inference and are in no wise obtruded on the reader.

One further impression which the book leaves upon the mind should be noticed. Some prominent accounts of the period dwell almost exclusively on the difficulties which beset the central government, on the discord and jealousies between the different States, and on the confusion, almost anarchy, which seemed to reign everywhere. One closes the reading of Von Holst's incisive chapter, for example, with a feeling that the Americans were in some way very blameworthy for the condition of political disorder into which they had fallen and that if they had been such wise statesmen as we are accustomed to think them they would, long before they did, have established a strong central government and brought order out of chaos. It is, of course, to be expected that such an impression will be made by a chapter written with the perhaps half-unconscious motive of showing our national pride in the work of that time to be hardly well-founded-a mo

*The Critical Period of American History, 1783-1789. By JOHN FISKE. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1888.

tive to which Von Holst gives virtual expression in his concluding paragraph. But although such a judgment is not without its justification and its beneficial influence it is nevertheless only a partial and one-sided one. No doubt the constitution was 66 extorted from the grinding necessity of a reluctant people." The point is a necessary one to keep in mind but it is only half the truth. The real matter of surprise should be that under the circumstances a government meriting the high praise it has received could be even extorted. In this book the author quotes his earlier judgment that the work of the convention is "the finest specimen of constructive statesmanship that the world has ever seen" and fortifies it with the identical opinion of Mr. Gladstone. He might now add that of Mr. Bryce. Such estimates do not seem extravagant when we look at the circumstances. When we remember that the American people had had no experience whatever of a strong national government that all real government had been up to that time local, and that all their past history had been training them to look for serious danger in any government interference from without; when we remember these facts we may insist that we have a just right to be proud that a government which was to prove itself so successful in almost every way was formed so early. It could have been done by no people who had not thoroughly acquired the habit of self-government, and that indefinable sense which guides a really self-governing people, the sense which is continually evolving from the chaos of what seems to be only selfish and ignoble party or personal wrangling an orderly and successful government; which tells when to insist upon a point and when to compromise, and above all how to make a compromise ;--that instinct which the foreign observer often finds it difficult to understand, in cases of its practical working if not in theory, and of which it is easy to say, as is somewhat the fashion in Germany just now, that its possession by any people is an expensive luxury.

The book makes the political confusion of the time as clear as possible but in such a way that we see it to be the unavoidable result of the past, and close the account with a feeling that the making of such a government at all is a ground for our pride in the work of the convention, equally with the character of the government made. It is even more justly a ground of hope for the future, provided we can retain or increase such willingness as then existed, to be convinced by argument and to yield local or personal interests, however important they may seem, to general considerations.

GEORGE B. ADAMS.

is a book which every

PELLEW'S "IN CASTLE AND CABIN" one should read who wishes to understand the state of feeling in Ireland with regard to the various public questions that are being discussed there. The author, with plenty of the best introductions, spent some months in visiting every part of the island, and sought every opportunity to make himself acquainted with the facts. The book is made up of reports of a very large number of conversations that he had with people of all shades of opinion; from the Lord Mayor of Dublin to "drummers" whom he met in the railroad cars, and to working people in their cabins. He has collected a mass of information with regard to "Home Rule," the recent Land Acts, the feelings of the Roman Catholics, the subject of Protection, the "Bounty System," the hopes and expectations of the people, the value of which cannot be overestimated.

LETTERS FROM WALDEGRAVE COTTAGE form a collection of the "reminiscences" of an accomplished Episcopal clergyman, who during a long life has known many distinguished public men. Among these are Chief Justice Jay; Bishop Brownell; Bishop Hobart; Bishop Onderdonk, of New York; and Dr. Haight. The book has a special interest from its many allusions to New Haven, and to the surrounding country, to the University, and to its Professors. A chapter on college life at Yale, fifty-seven years ago, is valuable for its descriptions, and its allusions to Professor Silliman, Professor Olmsted, Professor Goodrich, and others. Mr. Nichols was a classmate of the late Professor Thacher, and an appreciative tribute to his memory which the book contains is specially interesting as coming from one who knew him as a student. The book is illustrated with the portraits of many of the distinguished men whom he has known.

THE ART AMATEUR for January contains two attractive colored studies, one of "Daffodils" in oils, and the other a portrait of a young woman, in water colors. The designs in black and white include a double page of birds (magpies and fly catchers), a lamp vase decoration (jack-in-the pulpit), decorations for a plate *In Castle and Cabin, or Talks on Ireland in 1887. By GEORGE PELLEW, of the Suffolk Bar. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York. 1888. 12mo. pp. 309. Letters from Waldegrave Cottage. By Rev. GEORGE W. NICHOLS, A.M. 1888. 12mo. pp. 253. Price $1. To be obtained by addressing the author, Rev. George W. Nichols, Norwalk, Conn.

(orchids), a fish-plate and a Royal Worcester vase, a design for an embroidered chair-back and one for a pede-cloth, a page of Gothic bands for wood-carving, and two carved mirror frames. The frontispiece is a study of "Winter in the Woods." The specially practical articles are those on flower painting, tapestry painting, and water color painting, and a useful "Letter to a young lady who asks if she can learn China Painting." The department of amateur photography is of interest. The series on "Home Decoration and Furniture" is resumed, and there are numerous other articles and illustrations relating to similar topics, including needlework both church and secular. Important current events specially noticed are the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Academy and Architectural League Exhibitions. Price 35 cents a single number. Montague Marks, publisher, 23 Union Square, New York. $4.00 per year.

THE JANUARY MAGAZINE OF ART contains a full page engraving of the statue of Gen. C. G. Gordon, by Hamo Thornycroft, R.A., in Trafalgar Square, London. A photogravure of the picture "Saving the guns at Maiwand," by R. Caton Woodville. A very instructive Article on " Expression in Drapery," by Miss Annie Williams, illustrated with four original studies of drapery by Sir Frederick Leighton, for his picture "Captive Andromache." A descriptive Article on "Salisbury Hall," with five illustrations, after drawings by W. E. Symonds. Four engravings from the Liverpool Corporation Collection: the Walker Art Gallery. An Article on the Portraits of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Four illustrations after the works of the French artist Gustave Boulanger; together with American art notes. (Cassell & Co., Limited. New York City. Yearly subscription, $3.50. Single number, 35 cents.)

PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY.

LEIBNITZ.*-The different numbers of the series of Philosophical Classics, to which this book belongs, differ in merit ; but among the more excellent none is better than this one by Professor Dewey. The difficulties, or, rather the temptations, which stand in the way of any writer who aims at the critical exposi

* Leibnitz's New Essays concerning the Human Understanding, ▲ Critical Exposition, by JOHN DEWEY, Ph.D., Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Company. 1888.

tion of a philosophical master-piece, are many and subtle. Few are able wholly to resist them. Nor are minds fitted to the work of interpretation at all frequently to be found.

After three introductory chapters on Leibnitz, "the Man," "the Sources of his Philosophy," and "the Problem and its Solution," his controversy with Locke is presented, as it concerned the questions of "Innate Ideas," "Sensation and Experience," "The Impulses and the Will," "Matter and its Relation to Spirit," "Material Phenomena and their Reality," the conceptions of "Substance," and "Infinity," and "the Nature and Extent of Knowledge." After this comes a chapter on "the Theology of Leibnitz"; Professor Dewey finishes his work with a brief criticism of certain fundamental points of Leibnitz's philosophy.

We consider the work of interpretation in the chapters composing the body of this book to be uncommonly well done,-so well done, indeed, that it would be quite feasible to take a class of seniors in college through this critical exposition and bring them out upon its farther side with a somewhat clear conception of the real opinions of the great German thinker.

The excellence of clear exposition renders this book particularly valuable; for Leibnitz himself produced no body of philosophical writings, which set forth his views in a systematic way; and even the "Nouveaux Essais," as Professor Dewey says, "is a compendium of comments, rather than a connected argument or exposition." Leibnitz, then, has peculiar need of popular and yet critical exposition.

As might be expected, we find in the closing chapter, which criticises Leibnitz's positions, several points to be called in question, and one or two from which we dissent. To mention only one of the latter, we cannot think that Professor Dewey is right in ascribing to Leibnitz's views so much positive influence upon Kant's position in the Critique of Pure Reason. One has only to read carefully Kant's remarks on the "amphiboly of the conceptions of reflection " to see how completely he intended to cut up, root and branch, both Leibnitz's method and also all his principal conclusions. When Kant, in replying to Eberhard's claim that the Leibnitzian philosophy contained a critique of reason just as well as the modern, rejoined that he was himself the true continuator of Liebnitz, "since he had only changed the doctrine of the latter so as to make it conform to the true intent of Leibnitz," he was speaking ironically. At Eberhard's time it was not