Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. 273 The Progress of Nations; or, the Principles of National Development in their Relation to Statesmanship a Study in Analytical History. Longmans. [An extremely interesting and thoughtful treatise, devoted to the same subject which occupied the speculations of Vico and Montesquieu, but written from a different point of view.] Memorials, Personal and Historical, of Admiral Lord Gambier; with Original Letters from Lords Chatham, Nelson, Castlereagh, Mulgrave, Mr. Fox, Mr. Canning, &c. Edited from Family Papers by Lady Chatterton. 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett. Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, from the Mission of Augustine to the Death of Howley. By the Rev. Dr. Hook. Vol. I. Bentley. Studies from Life. By the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." Hurst and Blackett. [A reprint of slight and miscellaneous papers, among which are some lively and pleasant reminiscences of the author's childhood.] My Life, and what shall I do with it? A Question for Young Gentlewomen. By an Old Maid. Longmans. [A sensible and thoughtful volume; full, too, of observation.] Autobiography of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle; containing Memorials of the Men and Events of his Time. [Reviewed in Article X.] Blackwood. The Story of Burnt Njal. A Translation from the Icelandic of the Njal Saga. With an Introductory Essay and Map of Iceland. By J. W. Dasent. Hamilton and Adams. Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar. By Thomas Adolphus Trollope. Chapman and Hall. Autobiography of the Earl of Dundonald. Vol. II. Bentley. Shakespere his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood. By John R. Wise. Illustrated by W. J. Linton. Smith, Elder, and Co. 1861. [This is a very beautiful book. It throws all the light on Shakespere, his life, character, and writings,-his local allusions and forms of expression,-that could be collected by a mind thoroughly acquainted with Stratford and with Warwickshire, and capable of turning this knowledge to uses both deep and graceful. It is likely to take permanent rank as the classical guide to Stratford-upon-Avon, and to be in the hands of many generations of pilgrims to that shrine.] Political Ballads of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Annotated by H. Walker Wilkins. Longmans. Legends and Lyrics. By Adelaide Procter. 2 vols. Bell and Daldy. A Book about Doctors. By J. C. Jeaffreson. 2 vols., with engravings. Hurst and Blackett. The Horse and his Rider. By Sir Francis B. Head, Bart. Murray. A Journey in the Back Country. By Frederick Law Olmsted. Vol. III.: "The Slave States." [Reviewed in Article XI.] Sampson Low. Recollections of the Druses, and some Notes on their Religion. By the Earl of Carnarvon. Murray. T 274 Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. Nineteen Years in Polynesia: Missionary Life, Travels, and Researches in the Islands of the Pacific. With Illustrations. By the Rev. George Turner. Snow. [An interesting volume, full of all the excellencies, and containing some of the defects, of the evangelical missionary spirit.] A Personal Narrative of Two Years' Imprisonment in Burmah, 1824 to 1826. By Henry Gouger. Murray. [Rather out of date, but full of very painful interest.] The Discovery of Carthage. By Dr. Davis. In 3 vols. Bentley. Travels in Canada, and through the States of New York and Pennsylvania. By J. G. Kohl. Translated by Mrs. Percy Sinnett. Manwaring. Narrative of the Canadian Red-River Exploring Expedition of 1857, and of the Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858. Copiously Illustrated. By Henry Youle Hind. Longmans. Two Years in Switzerland and Italy. By Frederika Bremer. Translated by Mary Howitt. 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett. [Lively and interesting, though more sentimental than is quite accordant with English taste.] Turkish Life and Character. By Walter Thornbury. 2 vols. Smith and Elder. Hopes and Fears; or, Scenes from the Life of a Spinster. By the Author of the "Heir of Redclyffe." 2 vols. J. W. Parker and Son. [Reviewed in Article IX.] Over the Cliffs. By Charlotte Chanter, Author of "Ferny Combes." 2 vols. Smith and Elder. [Somewhat unequal and inartistic, but vigorous and original; just such a novel as might have been expected from the sister of Charles and Henry Kingsley.] The Wortlebank Diary, and some Old Stories from Kathie Brande's Portfolio. By Holme Lee. 3 vols. Smith and Elder. [A reprint of short tales of different degrees of merit, strung together upon a very poor thread manufactured for the occasion.] Valentine Duval; an Autobiography. Edited by the Author of "Mary Powell." Bentley. [A curious and pleasing biography of the last century.] Popular Tales of the West Highlands. lation by J. F. Campbell. 2 vols. Orally collected, with a Trans- Lavinia. By the Author of " Dr. Antonio." 3 vols. Smith and Elder. [ A painfully interesting novel, with considerable ability, but a want of Legends from Fairy Land. By Holme Lee. Smith and Elder. [Pleasant tales for children, but a little too symbolic. "Deeper meanings" abound, which is objectionable.] THE NATIONAL REVIEW. APRIL 1861. ART. I.-M. DE TOCQUEVILLE. Euvres et Correspondance inédites d'Alexis de Tocqueville, précédées d'une Notice par Gustave de Beaumont. 2 vols. Paris, 1861. IT is a very difficult question to decide at what distance of time after a great man's death his biography should be given to the world. If it is put forth at once, as interest and affection would naturally dictate, while the world is yet ringing with his fame, and his friends yet grieving for his loss, when every one is eager to know more of a man of whom they had heard so much, the sentiments it excites will be more vivid, and the treatment it receives will be more gentle; it will be read more widely, and handled more tenderly; enmity will be silenced and criticism softened by the recency and the sadness of the severance. But, on the other hand, much must be sacrificed for the sake of those advantages. If the deceased has been a statesman, considerations of political propriety compel silence, or only half disclosures, in reference to transactions which perhaps more than most others would throw light upon his character; his reasons for what he did himself, and his judgments of what was done by others, have often to be suppressed out of generous discretion, or from obligations of promised secrecy: and thus only a mutilated and fragmentary account of his thoughts and deeds can be laid before the public. Or if, without being a politician, he has mixed largely with his fellows, as most great men must have done,-if he has lived intimately with the celebrated and the powerful, and poured out in unreserved correspondence with his friends his estimates of the characters and actions of those whom he has known and watched,-and if his abilities and op No. XXIV. APRIL 1861. portunities rendered these estimates of singular interest and value, we are doomed to a still severer disappointment. For these, which are precisely the things we most desire to learn, and for which we should most treasure his biography, are precisely the things which must be withheld. His contemporaries and associates, the objects of his free criticism, and it may be of his severe judicial condemnation, are still living; their characters must be spared, and their feelings must be respected; the work must be garbled and impoverished by asterisks and omissions, and all the richest and most piquant portions of it must be postponed to a more distant day. If, in order to avoid these inconvenient and enforced discretions, the publication of the life be delayed till the generation to which it belonged has passed away, the necessity for suppression will be escaped, but half the interest in the subject will have died out. The man, unless he belonged to the very first order of great men, will have become one of the ordinary figures of history; his memory may still be cherished by many, but his name will no longer be in every mouth. The delineation of his character may be incomparably more complete and perfect than it could have been at an earlier period, but comparatively few will care to read it; it may be infinitely more instructive, but it can never be half as interesting, for those who would especially have drawn interest and instruction from its pages are gone where all biography is needless. If the subject of the narrative were a public man, his life may still furnish valuable materials for the history of his times; if he were a great thinker, or philosopher, or discoverer, the details of his mental formation and operations may throw much interesting light upon psychology and morals; but if he were only, or mainly, a good man or a social celebrity, it is often hard to see why after so many years any account of him should be given to the world at all. But these are not the only doubtful questions which those who contemplate biography have to consider. It is not easy to decide who would be the fittest person to undertake the delineation of the character and the narration of the career—a widow, a son, or a brother, or a bosom friend-or an unconnected literary man, capable of full appreciation, but not disturbed by too vivid sympathies. The family of the deceased may of course be expected to know him more thoroughly than any mere acquaintance could do; they have watched him more closely and more continuously; they alone have seen him in his most unbent and therefore most natural, though not perhaps his best, moments; they, more than others, can tell what he was in those private relations of life which, usually but not always, afford the clearest insight into the inner nature of the man. But, on the other hand, they will seldom have known him in his younger days-his widow rarely, his son never; they will generally be withheld by reverence from any keen critical judgment of his attributes or actions; or, if not, their criticism will carry with it a semblance of unseemliness, and they will scarcely be able to estimate rightly the real space which he filled in the world's eye, the particular points which the world will wish to hear, and the degree and kind of detail which it will bear. They will be apt to fall both into indiscriminate and excessive eulogy, and into voluminous and wearisome minuteness. A very intimate and attached friend, especially if he be not also a man of the world, will be exposed to many of the same dangers, though in a less degree. On the other hand, if the materials are put into the hands of a professional writer, well chosen, and really competent by comprehension and just appreciation to treat the subject, the probability is that he will give the public what it wants to know, and will bestow that righteous and measured admiration which the general judgment can ratify; but it is certain that he will never satisfy the family, who will be pretty sure to condemn him as unsympathising, critical, and cold. Again: how, and on what principle, is the biographer to hold a fair balance between what is due to his readers and what is due to his hero? The real value of a biography consists in its fidelity, fullness, and graphic truth;-in displaying the character in all its weaknesses as in all its strength; in glossing over nothing, and painting nothing in false colours; in concealing nothing and distorting nothing which can render the picture genuine as an honest delineation, or useful as a moral lesson, or instructive as a mental study. If, out of regard to the fame of the deceased, or the feelings of his family, events or materials are suppressed by which admirers are deceived as to their estimate, or psychologists misled in their philosophical inferences, integrity has been violated, and mischief has been done. The very facts concealed may be precisely those which would have explained the origin of perplexing anomalies in the character, and have thrown a luminous clearness on the dark places of metaphysic science. A "Life" that is not scrupulously faithful is a narrative only-not a Biography, and fails of its highest purpose as well as of its implied promise. An analogous moral question relates to the discretion which the biographer is called upon to exercise as to the literary reputation of his friend. Here, as in the points first referred to, he has to discharge tacit engagements to two parties, whose respective claims he must reconcile. In determining what remains he shall give to the public, is he to consider first and mainly what will elucidate the |