s _History of England
from the Accession of James II_.

In accordance with the labor-saving spirit of the age, we have in these
volumes an admirable example of history made easy. Had they been
published in his time, they might have found favor in the eyes of the
poet Gray, who declared that his ideal of happiness was "to lie on a sofa
and read eternal new romances."

The style is that which lends such a charm to the author's essays,--
brilliant, epigrammatic, vigorous. Indeed, herein lies the fault of the
work, when viewed as a mere detail of historical facts. Its sparkling
rhetoric is not the safest medium of truth to the simple-minded inquirer.
A discriminating and able critic has done the author no injustice in
saying that, in attempting to give effect and vividness to his thoughts
and diction, he is often overstrained and extravagant, and that his
epigrammatic style seems better fitted for the glitter of paradox than
the sober guise of truth. The intelligent and well-informed reader of
the volume before us will find himself at times compelled to reverse the
decisions of the author, and deliver some unfortunate personage, sect, or
class from the pillory of his rhetoric and the merciless pelting of his
ridicule. There is a want of the repose and quiet which we look for in
a narrative of events long passed away; we rise from the perusal of the
book pleased and excited, but with not so clear a conception of the
actual realities of which it treats as would be desirable. We cannot
help feeling that the author has been somewhat over-scrupulous in
avoiding the dulness of plain detail, and the dryness of dates, names,
and statistics. The freedom, flowing diction, and sweeping generality of
the reviewer and essayist are maintained throughout; and, with one
remarkable exception, the _History of England_ might be divided into
papers of magazine length, and published, without any violence to
propriety, as a continuation of the author's labors in that department of
literature in which he confessedly stands without a rival,--historical
review.

That exception is, however, no unimportant one. In our view, it is the
crowning excellence of the first volume,--its distinctive feature and
principal attraction. We refer to the third chapter of the volume, from
page 260 to page 398,--the description of the condition of England at the
period of the accession of James II. We know of nothing like it in the
entire range of h