ter and expositions of policy by the abundant
materials for differing judgment which the historian himself supplies.

_Life of Andrew Jackson_. By JAMES PARTON, Author of the "Life of Aaron
Burr," etc., etc. 3 vols. 8vo. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860.

We criticized Mr. Parton's "Life of Aaron Burr" with considerable
severity at the time of its appearance; and we are the more glad to meet
with a book of his which we can as sincerely and heartily commend. The
same quality of sympathy with his subject, which led him in his former
work to palliate the moral obliquity and overlook the baseness of his
hero, in consideration of brilliant gifts of intellect and person, gives
vigor and spirit to his delineation of a character in most respects so
different as that of Jackson. This man, who filled so large a place
in our history, and left perhaps a stronger impress of himself on our
politics than any other of our public men except Jefferson, was well
worthy to be made a subject of careful study and elucidation. Mr. Parton
has given us the means of understanding a character hitherto a puzzle,
and deserves our hearty thanks for the manner in which he has done it.

We think the book remarkably fair in its tone, though perhaps Mr. Parton
is now and then led to exaggerate the positive greatness of Jackson,
who, as it appears to us, was rather eminent by comparison and contrast
with the men around him. But there were many strong, if not great
qualities in his composition, and so much that was picturesque and
strange in the incidents of his career and the state of society which
formed his character, that we have found this biography one of the most
instructive and entertaining we ever read. If Mr. Parton sometimes
exaggerates his hero's merits, he is also outspoken in regard to his
faults. If here and there a little Carlylish, his style has the merit of
great liveliness, and his pictures of frontier-life are full of interest
and vivacity.

Mr. Parton begins his book with a new kind of genealogy, and one suited
to our Western hemisphere, where men are valued more for what they
themselves are than for what their grandfathers were,--for making than
for wearing an illustrious name. He shows that Jackson came of a good
stock,--pious, tenacious of opinion and purpose, and brave,--the
Scotch-Irish. He then tells us how young Jackson imbibed his fierce
patriotism, riding as a boy-trooper, and wellnigh dying a prisoner,
during the last yea