86 LITERATURE. [1899.
light is thus thrown upon the relics of primaeval man in older countries — on the mass o f evidence, for instance, brought together by Dr. Robert Munro in Prehistoric Sootlaud and lis PUoe in European Civilisation
(Blackwood). This is a general introduction to the "County Histories of Scotland," and forms a useful archaeological study of one particular country without making much attempt to advance generally the science of comparative anthropology or folklore.
Biography.
Books of biography, or bearing in some way on biography, have been exceedingly numerous, and in many cases of great interest. They may be classified under three heads — Biographies proper, autobiographies, and collections of letters ; and the first class naturally divides itself into lives of historical or literary celebrities of the past, and memoirs of those of our own day compiled by relatives or intimate friends. In the class of historical biography, undoubtedly the most important book is Dr. S. R. Gardiner's Oliver Cromwell (Goupil), of whom two or three other lives of less importance also appeared last year. This sumptuous work belongs to a series of lives of monarchs published by the same firm which contains Bp. Creighton's " Elizabeth "; and it may specially be regarded as a companion volume to Sir John Skelton's " Charles I." in the same series. Their illustrations form an important feature in these books, and the "Cromwell" contains many highly interesting portraits rarely seen by the public. From the literary point of view the life is well worthy of the high reputation of its author. He treats the life of the Protector, as Sir John Skelton did that of the Protector's rival, in a spirit of eulogy ; but he is careful to observe what Cromwell's biographers have so often neglected, the impartiality and candour of the true historian. In its breadth of treatment combined with com- plete accuracy of detail, the book is a model of what such a biography should be.
Another book, also dealing with an historical figure which has attracted many other biographers, is Sir Herbert Maxwell's Ufe of "Wellington (Sampson Low). Whilst it is not a work of such high authority as Dr. Gardiner's "Cromwell," it has some claim to take its place as the standard life of the great duke. Though a civilian himself, Sir Herbert Maxwell deals clearly and adequately with Wellington's military career ; but his book has the special merit of supplying the want of a discriminating study of the duke as a man, not as a commander, which is free from the inevitable tendency to panegyric displayed by earlier biographers. A military and political celebrity of the generation before Wellington, who has been rather unduly forgotten, was recalled in 8ome Aooount of the Military, Political and Social XAfe of the Bight Hon. John Manners, Marquis of Granby (Macmillan), by Mr. Walter Evelyn Manners. The Marquis of Granby, popular as he was in his day, suffered from the criticisms of Horace Walpole, and his real merit became obscured. In Mr. Manners' book he is vindicated as a soldier who showed great capacity in the campaigns of the Seven Years' War, and as a disinterested statesman. The life of 8ir Robert Peel (Murray) was begun by Mr. Charles Stuart Parker in 1891, and in 1899
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