LITERARY NOTICES. 



417 





the second essay, on the " Nature of De- 

 mocracy," 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 de- 

 mand 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 antece- 

 dents ; and that " its connection with wis- 

 dom 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 cal- 

 culated to minimize them or to neutralize 

 them altogether." Its success, and the suc- 

 cess 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 Consti- 

 tution 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 



>i 



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 struct- 

 ure, 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 Ameri- 

 vol. xxix. 27 



cans 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 fu- 

 ture 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 coun- 

 tries 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 anx- 

 iety. 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 sen- 

 timent to be laughed at," but an active pas- 

 sion, where " children grow who seem once 

 more to understand what was meant by 

 4 merry England.' " The book includes ob- 

 servations 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 be- 

 fore Englishmen who desire to see a federa- 

 tion 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 char- 

 acteristics," and, " let Fate do its worst, the 



