the Crown towards Parliament and the Cabinet after Reform, when for the first time for centuries England had a sovereign who was content to occupy a really constitutional position towards Parliament, and to abstain from all interference in the election of its members.

Further than this, the Peel volumes throw much additional and oftentimes new light on Wellington, Canning, Liverpool, Grey, Russell, Melbourne, Palmerston, Graham, Gladstone, Disraeli, Bentinck, Cobden, Bright and O'Connell; in fact on nearly every statesman or politician who was prominent in Parliament between the Union and the end of Peel's last administration. The chapter on the life and character of Peel by his grandson, the Hon. George Peel, with which the third volume is brought to a close, is so helpful to readers, especially to those not familiar with all the ins and outs of English politics during Peel's long career, that it would have been well had it been given an earlier place in the volumes.

EDWARD PORRITT.

[For

Cavour. By the Countess EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO. eign Statesmen Series.] (New York: The Macmillan Co. 1898. Pp. 222.)

THIS book has several claims to consideration. In the first place, it is the first biography written in English of the European statesman who, with Bismarck, dominates the last half of the nineteenth century. The hasty memoir which Mr. Dicey compiled and published a few weeks after Cavour's death, cannot be seriously considered in any discussion of Cavour biographies, and De La Rive's invaluable recollections lost their fine edge in being translated into English; so that to Countess Cesaresco belongs the credit of a pioneer. She is also the first to present, in any language, an epitome of the voluminous material which has accumulated during the past twenty years. But this would not suffice of itself to stamp her book with the distinction which characterizes it. She has achieved the double feat of making the personages she has to deal with live, and of keeping a proper balance between biography and history. It is as rare to find an historian who can breathe life into his characters as it is to find a novelist. In this very series, for example, Mr. Frederic Harrison, writing on William the Silent, and Mr. Richard Lodge, writing on Richelieu, do not always make us feel that William and Richelieu were once alive. Countess Cesaresco, on the other hand, never suggests that Cavour was merely a lay-figure on which she clothes certain historical abstractions. So, too, although in her summary Cavour's work predominates, as it should, the share which other actors took in the unification of Italy is clearly and accurately stated, and the general principles involved are well defined. Her book might be used as a syllabus by any one wishing to master this most fascinating period; but it differs from other syllabi in being full of sparkle and interest.

Among the points which the author has dealt with especially well is

the hostility of the Vatican to the reform of clerical abuses in Piedmont. In another chapter Countess Cesaresco brings out for the first time the immense burden which Cavour carried between his compact with Napoleon III. at Plombières, in July, 1858, and the declaration of war, in April, 1859. It has come to be the fashion to speak as if Cavour, having persuaded the Emperor at Plombières, had little more to do until war came; in fact, however, the intervening nine months of suspense tested his immense versatility to the utmost. Throughout this volume, the specialist will value the lucid description of the shifting policy, now hot, now cold, of official England towards the Italian cause. Being an Englishwoman married to an Italian, Countess Cesaresco is able to follow intelligently the international relations of both governments. Elsewhere, in her allusions to French politics she shows an equal familiarity with the country from which even more than from England Cavour got indispensable aid. There are few persons so conversant with Cavour's life that they cannot find some new points, or old ones set in new and striking fashion, in this admirable epitome. It has throughout a wit and charm seldom met with in any historical writing nowadays, qualities which, being accompanied by adequate knowledge, contribute to give the book permanent value. Judging from the present tendency of our producers of historical books it will be long before we have an equally excellent biographical summary of Washington or of Lincoln, though it is greatly to be desired that their lives should be told with just such clearness, condensation, truth and charm.

WILLIAM R. THAYER.

The Annals of the Voyages of the Brothers Nicolo and Antonio Zeno in the North Atlantic about the end of the Fourteenth Century and the claim founded thereon to a Venetian Discovery of America; A Criticism and an Indictment. By FRED. W. LUCAS. (London: Henry Stevens Son and Stiles. 1898. Pp. xiv, 233.)

THIS elaborate work has already been well described and epitomized, and in this brief notice one must proceed directly to the few points selected for attention, simply adding a recognition of the obligation the diligent and courteous author has placed us all under by his valuable labors.

The author claims to have convicted Zeno the Younger of a "contemptible literary fraud;" and tells us that, at the time he wrote, "any man with a few ducats in his pocket" could have commanded the material for the narrative. In fact, he maintains that he has furnished "the last word" on this subject. The tone and language of the author are those of the victor, but possibly he is too victorious. His positions are by no means impregnable.

Mr. Lucas objects to apocryphal things in the narrative; yet on this ground Mather's Magnalia might be dismissed. The best attested nar

ratives bear marks similar to those of Zeno. In 1607, the colonists in Maine reported nutmegs in the land, with a lake of hot water; yet Mr. Lucas is troubled about a volcano in Greenland, a volcanic country, even though Ruysch, in his map of 1507, shows the site of an island off the east coast of Greenland that was destroyed by combustion. He is disturbed, too, about alleged quotations from Olaus Magnus, even though Barlow, in his description of his voyage in 1584, quotes without credit from Verrazano of 1525. Gosnold in 1602 also quotes, without recognition, the narrative of the Florentine.

The charge that Zeno plagiarized Olaus Magnus, even if true, proves nothing, as critics, upon reflection, must acknowedge; while Mr. Lucas forgets to inquire where Olaus himself received his information, and why Zeno the Elder, having lived before Olaus, could not have obtained information from the same source. One could fill a page with leading, yet unnoticed questions. In the past too much has been claimed for Zeno's narrative, which errs both by excess and deficiency, though nevertheless the narrative is what one might expect under the circumstances. The question is not, how much is true and how much false, but whether there was any voyage at all in 1380.

The question turns largely on the map of Zeno. It is admitted, that "by far the strongest argument ever put forward in favor of Zeno the Younger" is that of Humboldt, who said that the narrative contained "descriptions of objects of which nothing in Europe could have given the author the idea.' This statement, however, did not go far enough, and Major wrote, that the geographical information was "very far in advance not only of what was known by geographers in the fourteenth century," but of "the sixteenth century when it was published." This was the ground taken distinctly by the present writer four years previously. Others took the ground that Zeno did not obtain his knowledge of Greenland from sources accessible in his day. Mr. Lucas, however, gives maps including four undated manuscript maps, from which Zeno must have drawn his map. There is no proof that Zeno ever saw these maps. He, indeed, might have seen them, yet no possibility of this kind could convict him of forgery. We could with equal reason say, that the maps in question were bad copies of his ancestor's ancient map, for they were bad copies of some map. Mr. Lucas was under obligation to suggest an origin for those maps, yet he ignores the all-important question. He first refers to a printed map of Ptolemy, of 1482, with " many of the Zenian names. This map shows a country plastered upon the western coast of Europe ten degrees east of Norway. This appeared in numerous editions prior to 1558, and a glance at the map of Zeno proves that he knew the ignorance of the Ptolemy map and repudiated it. Cartographers cannot entertain for a moment the notion that this bastard map served Zeno in any capacity. It was as bad as the debased map of Mercator, 1554. The Zamoisky and the three Florentine maps of the fifteenth century likewise fail to answer the requirements. Our author assumes that Zeno framed his map from these, but offers little

more than assumption. He avoids the issue, failing to attempt any proof of his assumption. A comparison of these maps with the Zeno map indicates that, if Zeno the Younger ever saw them, he repudiated them; for it must be shown that Zeno's map follows them all, whereas it repudiates all. They show not so much as a single mark of priority in respect to Greenland, the crucial point. These four maps are of one and the same type, and show their maker's ignorance of the situation of Greenland, by this error closely approaching still later maps which ignorantly delineate Greenland very much in the form of a cow's tail, attached to the west coast of Europe and switched off a little way into the Atlantic, nearly the entire bulk lying east of Ireland, instead of west. Zeno, on the contrary, places Greenland west of Ireland, where it belongs, putting it in its proper relations to the new western lands, portions of the continent of America, its distance from Europe being at that time well known. By degrees the situation of Greenland was wholly lost to cartography, and Ptolemy and Mercator only show the popular ignorance of the times. The Zamoisky map puts the west coast of Greenland near longitude 10°, and Zeno places it in 64°. It is idle to say that Zeno's idea was taken from either of the maps mentioned, which show the approach of that debasement and ignorance which soon came to prevail. The debasement is emphasized by the fact that the Zamoisky map indicates the settlement of Greenland on the east coast, whereas our author himself admits that it was on the west, and only relatively east. The aforesaid Florentine maps also show the incoming ignorance of the country.

But granting, for the sake of the argument, a resemblance between the Zeno map and the four Italian maps, we must meet the question, where did their author get their conceptions? This opens a most important but unexplored field, and, before Mr. Lucas is credited with the demolition of Zeno, he must take up the investigation; for if in the middle of the fifteenth century these map-makers found Greenland map material, why could not Zeno the Elder have done the same at the more favorable period of 1380? Indeed, it must be evident to all, that the question is still far from final settlement. Evidently there was a very ancient and reliable map or maps of the North, showing Greenland correctly, being the result of generations of voyages, beginning with the first voyage of Eric the Red; and if Zeno's map was not the original, it at least is the oldest and best now known to us. It antedates all others, as its own internal evidence proves.

The Vatican archives and other sources of knowledge which the writer of this notice has personally studied, show that at the time when Zeno made his voyage Italy was in communication with Greenland; and it at least may be inferred that any information or misinformation common to both Zeno and Olaus Magnus must have been derived from similar ancient sources. If however the charge of plagiarizing from Olaus by Zeno were sustained, it would not, in the slightest degree, invalidate the voyage, and on that and on similar points Mr. Lucas has bestowed quite all the labor justified. Zeno probably anticipated Olaus, and while

he borrowed much, he knew much from actual observations, realizing that Greenland was a vast country, across the western ocean and associated with a continent. Our conclusion is, that Mr. Lucas, if he intends to hold the ground, must restudy the whole subject, and fairly meet the issues, a few of which, in this too brief article, are now pointed out. For ourselves, from material now at command, we could make a stronger argument against Zeno than our author has, though we fear that in the face of opposing facts, of a solid character, the result would not offer a satisfactory proof of the charge, that Zeno the Younger was guilty of an impudent forgery.

B. F. DE COSTA.

Letters to Washington and Accompanying Papers, published by the Society of The Colonial Dames of America. Edited by STANISLAUS MURRAY HAMILTON. Vol. I., 1752-1756. (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin' and Co. 1898. Pp. xxi, 395.) THE Society of The Colonial Dames of America has issued the first volume of the Letters to Washington, and proposes to continue the series until the period of the Revolution is reached. It is to be hoped that no such limit will be maintained. Nothing that the society can do will better justify its existence, or prove more grateful to all interested in American history, than to publish the entire series of letters to Washington, now in the Department of State. The field is exceedingly rich, practically untouched, and is essential to a proper understanding of the man and of his We would go further, and collect all letters to Washington to be found in other collections, public and private, and so make the publication more complete, more approaching a finality. The society deserves all praise for its patriotic undertaking, and as the book is not to be issued in a limited edition, it is within the reach of all willing to pay the somewhat stiff price.

The manner in which the volume has been edited by Mr. S. M. Hamilton calls for some comment, if only to serve as a note of warning. The limits of an editor's functions are not fixed, but depend much upon. personal qualities. Certain features may be laid down as generally demanded. The text must be accurate, and as the writer made it. Doubtful points are to be explained in notes or made clear by insertion of bracketed words. Non-essentials, such as a chance dash or dot, or the use of a dash for a period, may be disregarded, just as a blot, a scrawl or a flourish may be passed over. Capitals and abbreviations are interesting from the study of character they permit; but inserted words may be embodied in the text, and altered words, unless they materially altered the original meaning, may be omitted. A number of such general rules may be framed, and more will suggest themselves to any one familiar with manuscript material. The principal object to be attained is a clear text.

It is with regret, therefore, that it becomes necessary to point out how much below this object the work of Mr. Hamilton proves. He