United States, himself seeking to influence the action of other States, and sometimes with signal success, himself striving to educate American opinion, and to give direction to the legislation as well as to the executive policy of his country. But then it has to be remembered, first, that under the working of the American Constitution, Mr. Roosevelt is, though he did not begin his Presidential service as, the elect of the American people; and, secondly, that, also under the Constitution, he enjoys a scope for action much wider than that possessed by the President of the French Republic. Broadly speaking, it may be said with sufficient approach to truth, that the American President wields powers analogous to those exercised by the British Sovereign in the eighteenth century, while the constitutional powers of the French President correspond much more closely to those which, in practice, are recognized as now attaching to the British Sovereign. The American Cabinet, to take only one example of the practical difference between the respective positions of the two Republican Chief Magistrates, consists of the nominees of the President, and cannot be turned out by any vote of the Congress. The acts of the French President must be countersigned by a Minister, and no French Minister can stand against hostile Chambers. does not follow that a French President might not constitutionally play a

The Economist.

It

more prominent part in the guidance of public affairs than has been usual with those who have filled the Chief Magistrate's chair, and with M. Loubet in particular. It is possible that M. Doumer, if elected, might have read his duty so. But it is tolerably clear that in electing a politician who, it was well understood, would walk in the footsteps of M. Loubet, the great majority of French Republican politicians must be taken to mean that they want no substantial change in their President's interpretation of his functions. They wish him to be the constitutional chief of the modern European type, standing for the most part in the background so far as the direction of policy is concerned, and only in the front for purposes and occasions of state and ceremony. It is hardly possible to say with certainty whether the French people are of the same opinion, for they have had no direct voice in the election. The Chamber is three years old, and only a third of the Senate has of late been partially renewed, and that not by direct suffrage. But in the fact that M. Fallières is, to all appearances, a specially favorable product of the great countrybred bourgeoisie, which constitutes the backbone of the conservative-though anti-clerical-Republic, there seems to be a powerful presumption that, in the main, the National Assembly in choosing him has uttered the voice of the nation.

Mr. H. W. Brailsford, who has made a personal study of conditions in Macedonia and has made five visits to the near East, including a winter spent among the Macedonian villages after the insurrection of 1903, has written a

book on Macedonia which is to be published in the spring.

The widow of the late William Sharp announces that she intends to write a memoir of her husband, and,

through the London literary journals, she asks for the loan of any letters or other documents likely to be of service, whether of a personal nature, or relative to his work as William Sharp or Fiona Macleod.

Among the literary men elected on the Liberal side to the new Parliament are Mr. A. E. W. Mason, the popular novelist, Mr. Herbert Paul, a prominent contributor to the reviews, Mr. C. F. G. Masterman, literary editor of The Daily News, and Mr. G. P. Gooch, author of a History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century.

The Life of the late Professor Henry Sidgwick has been completed by his widow and Mr. Arthur Sidgwick, his brother, and will shortly be published by Messrs. Macmillan. The chief materials upon which the work is based consist of a large autobiographical fragment dictated during Henry Sidgwick's last illness; an intermittent journal which he kept between 1884 and 1892, and sent at intervals to John Addington Symonds at Davos; and private letters. The life is largely made up of extracts from these

materials.

Apropos of the recent publication of a "Little Book of Graces" The Academy remarks:

We are afraid that the beautiful habit of what our Scotch neighbors call "asking a blessing" is not so common as it was in the days when Bewick drew his tail-pieces. Those who know Bewick's charming tail-pieces may remember one in which a gaunt Northumbrian hind, evidently a bachelor, is seated at the kitchen table, with his hands outstretched over a bowl of

porridge, on which he is asking a blessing with closed eyes, while all the time the domestic cat is liberally helping itself to his supper. No one sat down to a meal without "asking a blessing on it," and there must be some curious and quaint graces that were once well known in country districts, but which have never found their way into print. A variety there was bound to be, because of the differences of custom; in one house the head of the family invariably said grace, while in another the task was allotted to the youngest, and as there is no set formula some of the expressions were curious.

Mr. Henry George Jr.'s "The Menace of Privilege" (The Macmillan Company) is further described in the subtitle as "A Study of the Dangers to the Republic from the Existence of a Favored Class." In this striking, not to say startling volume, Mr. George has marshalled an extraordinary array of facts tending to support his contention that through the growth of monopolies built up on special privilege and abundantly able to purchase its continuance, the republic is endangered and the ultimate overthrow of existing institutions is made possible. He does not deal in generalizations but cites specific instances and concrete cases with fearless freedom. He has, of course, a remedy at hand, the same remedy for which his father stood, the single land tax. Whatever one may think of this remedy, it is impossible for a

disinterested and thoughtful American to read these trenchant chapters without being impressed with the real gravity of the evils which Mr. George describes and assails. The book is not one to be dismissed offhand. Cheerful optimists may deny it a reading: but it is certain to exercise a wide-reaching influence.

Under the above title I published in this Review two articles, in February1 and April of. last year respectively. The articles having aroused considerable interest in wide circles, I was asked to give various lectures in London and Edinburgh and elsewhere. Finally, the two previous articles mentioned, together with the substance of the lectures, amplified by further discussions, were published at the end of September last, in book form. ("The Failure of the Higher Criticism of the Bible," Nisbet and Co.)

These articles, lectures, and my little book have raised, in various periodicals and newspapers, a storm of indignation against the writer. More particularly Professor Driver, of Oxford, has filled the columns of The Record and other ecclesiastical papers with an astounding number of letters, each of great length, and all thundering against my ignorance, arrogance and incompetence. Although I was fully aware of the folly of missing such an excellent opportunity of advertising my little self extensively by replying to each of the numerous "letters" pub lished against me; yet, as a matter of fact, I replied only once. It was folly. I ought to have known better. But it is my business to be so foolish. Or does it really matter whether I am as "unmethodic, inaccurate and sweeping" as my adversaries try to make out? Magna est veritas, et praevalebit. I have focussed all my energies on the completion of my "General History," in which during these thirty-three years, without haste or impatience, I have tried to do in History what Bichat did in General Anatomy, Savigny in Roman Law, Bopp and Pott in General Linguistics. This work, the first vol1 "The Living Age," Mar. 25, 1905.

I.

ume of which will soon be published, is the only one in which I have the physical space to expand, to go into sufficient detail, to show my reading of the sources. I am sincerely not at all angered by the cold and sceptic or antagonistic attitude with which my books, so far published, have been received at the hands of some critics. Small books on big subjects have seldom taken; will seldom take. People want ponderosity; they hate ideas. Has not my "Select Documents Illustrating Medieval and Modern History” (1905) been received with unqualified praise? It is, of course, a ponderous book of close on 800 pages. May I assure my friends, the enemies, that the first volume of my "General History" will likewise be one of close on 800 pages, with a "crush" of learned footnotes in twelve languages? After over thirty years of steady preparation, I really wanted to write a "General History" in 100 pages. For, entre nous, all that I have to say about "General History" could very well be pressed into 100 pages. But people want bulk. They shall have it.

This much, then, I should like to reply to my adversaries. As to Professor Driver my reply is shorter. I said and say, as all my readers and hearers know, that the method of the higher critics is identical with the method of the inquisitorial judges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I added, that as these judges could readily prove the guilt of any person accused of any crime, even so the higher critics can, by means of the inquisitorial method, prove anything they like. Could I therefore wonder when Professor Driver proved (in the Record of August 18th, 1905) that I, too, was 2 "The Living Age," May 20, 1905.