LITERARY NOTICES. 



"3 



printed in large, clear type, presenting an 

 attractive page, and its illustrations are nu- 

 merous and of a superior order. 



A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the 

 Eye. By Robert Brudenell Carter, 

 F. R. C. S. With numerous Illustra- 

 tions. London: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 

 591. Price, $4. 



This work, by one of the most promi- 

 nent ophthalmic surgeons of London, has 

 been some time published, and has an excel- 

 lent character with the profession. Atten- 

 tion being increasingly drawn to the impair- 

 ment of the health of the eye in our schools, 

 and by various kinds of mismanagement, we 

 were anxious to consult some modern au- 

 thoritative work on the maladies of the eye, 

 and selected this volume for the purpose. 

 Dr. Carter is a philosophical student of his 

 subject, and twenty-five years ago published 

 an interesting volume on the influence of 

 civilization in modifying diseases of the ner- 

 vous system. But, although he writes as 

 a thinker, the author has made the present 

 work thoroughly practical. It comprises 

 his lectures at St. George's Hospital on 

 common forms of eye-disease which he had 

 occasion to deal with in practice ; and it is 

 this circumstance which gives to the trea- 

 tise its chief merit. It contains many illus- 

 trations of the structure of the eye, ophthal- 

 mic instruments, and modes of operation. 



A History of England in the Eighteenth 

 Century. By William Edward Hart- 

 pole Lecky. New York: D. Applcton 

 & Co. Two volumes. Pp. 1,325. Price, 



$6. 



Mr. Lecky has won an assured and dis- 

 tinguished place as a philosophical historian. 

 We were among those who had no hesita- 

 tion in saying that he fully established this 

 character in the publication of his first con- 

 siderable work, "A History of the Rise and 

 Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in 

 Europe ; " and his claim as an original his- 

 torical thinker was confirmed by the subse- 

 quent appearance of his " History of Euro- 

 pean Morals." The direction of thought, 

 partially opened by Macaulay, and more 

 vigorously pursued by Buckle, which takes 

 account of the great pacific forces that have 

 been involved in modern civilization, is 

 adopted by Mr. Lecky, and has been fol- 



VOL. XIII. 8 



lowed out by him, systematically and most 

 ably, in his successive treatises. The old 

 and vulgar conception of history as a mere 

 narration and chronicle of incidents, a gos- 

 sipy delineation of the great personalities 

 that have figured in public affairs, a picture 

 of court manners, a threading-out of diplo- 

 matic intrigues, with abundant description 

 of battles, campaigns, wars, conquests, and 

 the overturning of dynasties, Mr. Lecky 

 leaves to those who can be satisfied with it. 

 These are very much surface-effects, well 

 fitted, indeed, to strike the imagination, but 

 of trivial moment in comparison with those 

 profounder agencies by which modern soci- 

 ety has been shaped and the real work of 

 civilization carried forward. Science has 

 been at the bottom of a revolution in recent 

 times, which has compelled not only a re- 

 estimate of the importance of subjects to be 

 dealt with in history, but a reversal of for- 

 mer judgments, by which subjects long neg- 

 lected must henceforth have supreme regard. 

 The influence of scientific habits of thinking 

 has deepened the study of history, anti- 

 quated its superficial methods, and carried 

 us down to those deeper and wider causes 

 that have determined the amelioration of 

 humanity. Mr. Lecky takes up the work of 

 the historian avowedly from this point of 

 view, and, in the two solid volumes now be- 

 fore us, he has applied it to an important 

 period of the history of his own country. 

 It is a splendid theme, for England has 

 a central and commanding position in the 

 movement of national development ; and the 

 times considered by Mr. Lecky were fruit- 

 ful of profound changes and the most im- 

 portant results. The purpose and plan of 

 his work are thus indicated in his preface: 



" I have not attempted to write the history of 

 the period I have chosen year by year, or to give 

 a detailed account of military events, or of the 

 minor personal and party incidents, which form 

 so large a part of political annals. It has been 

 my object to disengage from the great mass 

 of facts those which relate to the permanent 

 forces of the nation, or which indicate some of 

 the more enduring features of national life. The 

 growth or decline of the monarchy, the aristoc- 

 racy, and the democracy, of the Church and of 

 Dissent, of the agricultural, the manufacturing' 

 and the commercial interests, the increasing 

 power of Parliament and of the press, the history 

 of political ideas, of art, of manners, and of be- 

 lief ; the changes that have taken place in the 

 social and economical condition of the people, 



