REVIEWS OF BOOKS July buildings of St. James's look unworthy of a royal palace, and Wyndham said,' If it does not look like a palace it does not look like anything else.' The same may be said of these volumes, which if they do not look like a book for a royal palace do not look like anything else. MAEY BATESON. John Russell Colvin , the last Lieutenant-Governor of tlte North-West under the Company. By SEE AUCKLAND COLVIN, K.C.S.I., K.C.M.G., CXE., lately Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western

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... Provinces. (Rulers of India.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1895.) THIS concluding volume of the ' Balers of India' series has a unique value of its own. It is a filial tribute to a very distinguished civil servant whose great services never received adequate recognition ; it is an original contribution, based on hitherto unpublished material, to the history of British India ; and, lastly, it is an important historical rectification of a view which since the time of Sir John Kaye had taken possession of the field. There is no need here to sketch the life which Sir Auckland Colvin records with charming literary taste and genuine historical appreciation. It will be read by all by whom Indian history is studied and to whom the Mutiny is still a tale of absorbing interest. I need only call attention to the important points in which Sir Auckland Colvin adds to our knowledge of the circumstances of the first Afghan war. He dwells upon the despatch from the board of control, dated 25 June, which decided Lord Auckland's subsequent policy and was the ultimate caase of the war. To this despatch Sir John Eaye makes no reference. In his sketch of the events which resulted in the war the author is able, by reference to documents which Sir John Eaye, at least in later life, could have consulted, but was content to ignore, to reverse entirely the common verdict against Lord Auckland and his advisers. Sir Auckland Colvin's conclusive demonstration renders a part of Captain Trotter's life of this governorgeneral in the same series palpably misleading. Passages in which the blame for the disastrous imbroglio appears to be laid upon Lord Auckland and, still more, upon Colvin and Torrens, must be modified in any future edition. This 13 the most important historical point in Sir Auckland's book, but every chapter has an interest and attraction of its own, and it is impossible to read the account of the noble self-sacrifice of the last few months without emotion. The History of the United States. By E. BBNJAMH ANDBEWB, President of Brown University. (London : Smith, Elder, & Co. 1895.) MB. ANDBBWS'S book is clear and sensible, and is evidently based on a careful study of good authorities. But in a measure it falls between two stools. Its ^imnngirmq leave it beyond the sphere of ""mntla O.TIA textbooks. A somewhat monotonous and unimpressive style, a lack of individuality and freshness in its conception of men and events, and a total absence of references keep it out of the category of high-class literary work. It fails, too, somewhat in the matter of proportion. In little more