the second essay, on the "Nature of Democracy," he gives reasons for thinking that, in the extreme form to which it tends, democracy is, of all kinds of government, by far the most difficult. In a third essay, on the "Age of Progress," he argues that the perpetual change which, as understood in modern times, progress appears to demand is not in harmony with the moral forces ruling human nature, and is apt, therefore, to lead to cruel disappointment or serious disaster. In the fourth essay, in which the Constitution of the United States is examined and analyzed, he aims to show that the birth of that law was in reality natural, from ordinary historical antecedents; and that "its connection with wisdom lay in the skill with which sagacious men, conscious that certain weaknesses which it had inherited would be aggravated by the new circumstances in which it would be placed, provided it with appliances calculated to minimize them or to neutralize them altogether." Its success, and the success of such American institutions as have succeeded, appear to him "to have arisen rather from skillfully applying the curb to popular impulses than from giving them the rein. While the British Constitution has been insensibly transforming itself into a popular government, surrounded on all sides by difficulties, the American Federal Constitution has proved that, nearly a century ago, several expedients were discovered by which some of those difficulties may be greatly mitigated, and some altogether over come."
Oceana; or, England and her Colonies. By James Anthony Froude. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 396. Price, $2 50.
Mr. Froude's mind has been occupied for many years with questions concerning the destiny of England and her colonies. Are they to remain substantially united, in spirit, aim, enterprise, and political structure, as they are now, each free to act for itself in its own concerns, but all combining for the propagation of Anglo-Saxon power and civilization, or are they destined to drop away from one another and become rivals? The question is one of great importance to Englishmen and to colonists, to us Americans as well as to them, and to all the world and all the friends of civilization and liberty. Many years ago, as a student of England's history, and believing in its future greatness, Mr. Froude imagined for himself the Oceana—a general Anglo-Saxon corporation—that might be. But, having no personal knowledge of the colonies, he could not make definite utterances, or form definite conceptions, concerning it; so he determined "to make a tour among them, to talk to their leading men, see their countries and what they were doing there, learn their feelings," and correct his impressions of what could or could not be done. He was then prevented from prosecuting his journey farther than to the Cape of Good Hope, and was not permitted to complete his design for ten years. "But," he says, "I do not regret the delay. In the interval the colonies have shown more clearly than before that they are as much English as we are, and deny our right to part with them. At home the advocates of separation have been forced into silence, and the interest in the subject has grown into practical anxiety. The union which so many of us now hope for may prove an illusion, after all. . . . However this may be, in the closing years of my own life I have secured for myself a delightful experience. I have traveled through lands where patriotism is not a sentiment to be laughed at," but an active passion, where "children grow who seem once more to understand what was meant by 'merry England.'" The book includes observations at sea, in the Cape Colony, in the several Australian colonies, New Zealand, and the United States, covering all the phases of the subject which was uppermost in the author's mind, besides many subjects not directly related to it. Of the United States, Mr. Froude expressses the opinion that "the problem of how to combine a number of self-governed communities into a single commonwealth, which now lies before Englishmen who desire to see a federation of the empire, has been solved, and solved' completely, in the American Union." In logical conclusion, "it is something to have seen with our own eyes that there are other Englands besides the old one, where the race is thriving with all its ancient characteristics," and, "let Fate do its worst, the
