t from surprises still in store at Rome, and
the manifest abundance of Philadelphia, the knowledge which is common
property, within reach of men who seriously invoke history as the final
remedy for untruth and the sovereign arbiter of opinion, can add little
to the searching labours of the American.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 401: _English Historical Review_, 1888.]

XVI

THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH. By JAMES BRYCE[402]

_THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH_ cancels that sentence of Scaliger which
Bacon amplifies in his warning against bookish politicians: "Nec ego nec
alius doctus possumus scribere in politicis." The distinctive import of
the book is its power of impressing American readers. Mr. Bryce is in a
better position than the philosopher who said of another, "Ich hoffe,
wir werden uns recht gut verstaendigen koennen; und wenn auch keiner den
andern ganz versteht, wird doch jeder dem andern dazu helfen, dass er
sich selbst besser verstehe." He writes with so much familiarity and
feeling--the national, political, social sympathy is so spontaneous and
sincere--as to carry a very large measure indeed of quiet reproach. The
perfect tone is enough to sweeten and lubricate a medicine such as no
traveller since Hippocrates has administered to contrite natives. Facts,
not comments, convey the lesson; and I know no better illustration of a
recent saying: "Si un livre porte un enseignement, ce doit etre malgre
son auteur, par la force meme des faits qu'il raconte."

If our countryman has not the chill sententiousness of his great French
predecessor, his portable wisdom and detached thoughts, he has made a
far deeper study of real life, apart from comparative politics and the
European investment of transatlantic experience. One of the very few
propositions which he has taken straight from Tocqueville is also one of
the few which a determined fault-finder would be able to contest. For
they both say that the need for two chambers has become an axiom of
political science. I will admit that the doctrine of Paine and Franklin
and Samuel Adams, which the Pennsylvanian example and the authority of
Turgot made so popular in France, is confuted by the argument of
Laboulaye: "La division du corps legislatif est une condition
essentielle de la liberte. C'est la seule garantie qui assure la nation
contre l'usurpation de ses mandataires." But it may be urged that a
truth which is disputed is not an axiom; and serious men still imagine a