1766, covers the territory from Virginia to Louisiana, and owing to his special knowledge of the field of early Southwestern history, devotes nearly one half the book to the Spanish and French colonies. This feature is a novelty, and a distinct addition to our knowledge, but in the account of Virginia and the Carolinas some things are left to be desired. The economic and institutional sides are not well developed, and such a significant event as Bacon's rebellion is scantily dealt with and inadequately explained. Nevertheless, the animated style and general ease of treatment make the volume attractive.

The fourth volume, on The Middle States and Maryland, by Mr. Jones, is what might be called a workmanlike production. It is well-planned, and with the exception of an occasional vagueness in statement, well written. It appears to be based on the most recent works, and to cover the ground without especial errors. As in Mr. Hamilton's volume, the economic and institutional sides are not largely developed, but in the midst of the book stands out one feature with unique prominence. Mr. Jones gives full, almost elaborate treatment to the intercolonial diplomacy of the English, Swedish, and Dutch governments, and in so doing makes a real contribution. In the fifth volume, by Mr. James, on the Colonization of New England, no such special distinction appears. The ground is covered in systematic manner without errors of importance, and without anything new. The book, like that of Mr. Avery above-mentioned, seems to be best characterized by such terms as intelligent or adequate. But there is, in all these books of Mr. Lee's series, a greater literary ease than in those of the American Nation. The tightly-reined, terse self-restraint is not so manifest, for although the actual space devoted to events is not much greater, the authors were under less constraint as to their manner in filling it.

Now how, in general, does our colonial history fare at the hands of these writers? The first striking feature is the modera

tion in critical judgment of all these works. In spite of the savage and inconoclastic historical writing of recent years these authors, without exception, adopt a catholic tone and regard their province as constructive rather than the reverse. All of them, it is pleasant to observe, speak with sympathy of Columbus, admitting his failings but finding true greatness in him. Recent bitter attacks, whose aim seems to be to strip the Genoese of every claim to respect for character, aspiration, or achievement, are uniformly passed over as hypercritical. Or, to take another example, it is satisfactory to notice the treatment accorded to John Smith, the colonial adventurer undoubtedly best known to the traditional, anecdotal history of the country. Of late the narrative of the boastful explorer had been mercilessly assailed as the tale of an unqualified liar, but all of our historians, with the exception of Mr. Channing, persist in retaining Smith's account of early days in Virginia, and three of them - Chancellor, Tyler, and Hamilton-fully accept the Pocahontas rescue.

In another quarter where tradition has established an unfavorable impression, most of these writers labor to reinstate the victims. Ever since Irving's Knickerbocker History the tendency to regard the Dutch governors as a succession of ridiculous figures has persisted in spite of every effort of indignant New Yorkers. But only Mr. Avery seems inclined toward the traditional view, while all the others present Van Twiller, Kieft, and Stuyvesant as reasonable beings, and Channing maintains that they were really able men.

On the other hand, when it becomes necessary to pass judgment upon the Puritans the influences of the present day are too strong to permit the retention of a vestige of the filial eulogy once customary. People simply do not like Puritanism and no longer respect it. It is more remote from the present, more difficult to appreciate than the spirit of the discov erers, the explorers, or the buccaneers. Probably no more difficult task is im

posed upon the historical imagination than that of representing the Puritan state of mind in the seventeenth century without caricature or repugnance. It is not surprising, then, to find in the works of Avery, Tyler, Andrews, or James a visible lack of sympathy with the essentially Puritan and Calvinistic features of Massachusetts Bay, and to meet with undisguised condemnation when we read of the persecution of Antinomians or Quakers. In the words of Mr. James they regard their conduct as "beyond measure of excuse or condemnation."

But Mr. Channing, who manifests no sympathy whatever with the bigotry of the Puritans, makes two points clear which the other writers scarcely notice. It should be recognized that the laws concerning religion were much the same in nearly all the colonies and in England at one time or another, so that the attention focused upon the behavior of Massachusetts has given that colony an altogether undue prominence. Moreover, the Calvinistic faith practically obliged the Puritans to adopt a policy of compulsion, and in this they were, if no better than all other sects except Quakers, at least no worse, and they were honestly conscientious. The consciences of the Puritans, observes Mr. Channing, should be given some consideration as well as those of their victims. It certainly cannot be ideally fair history which leaves as the last word an unsympathetic narrative and a moral condemnation.

When we turn from the matter of these new histories to consider the manner in which facts are treated, we find a striking contrast to older general works. The two centuries ending with 1660 were the age of romance in American history, the years over which older writers lingered fondly. Adventure in all its forms shed its magic over them. Everywhere men of diverse nations and characters, from motives material or ideal, good or bad, rushed into the unknown; fighting, struggling, dying, showing fiendlike or saintly heroism. From the misty figures of the Norse

men to the mailed Spaniards, the reckless English, the devoted Puritans, the daring French traders and Jesuits, an unending succession of dramatic, bloody incidents and stories comes to us. Over and around all brooded the darkness and mystery of the primitive forest which stubbornly withstood intrusion, and baffled uncounted hundreds of invaders; while in the path of every adventurer rose the painted, doubtful faces of the puzzled Indians, whose first fickle friendship always changed to a bitter hostility, making the life of Spaniard, Frenchman, or Englishman a constant struggle with an invisible, merciless enemy. To the elder writers - Bancroft, Fiske, Parkman - it was an age of great heroic figures looming large, men like Columbus, Magellan, Cartier, Champlain, Hudson. Stout hearts and devoted lives founded colonies

- such as Smith and Dale, Bradford and Standish, Winthrop and Endicott, whom pride of ancestry exalted to more than human proportions and virtues.

Now all is changed. In these new works the brilliant colors and stern romance of the early centuries have faded to a pale glow; not one of the writers except Mr. Chancellor follows the old-time methods or seeks the old-time ends; the drama and the pageantry have vanished. Each work is written in a careful, lucid style occasionally brightened with an adjective, but never enthusiastic, never eulogistic, never rising above the preoccupation of truthful statement. The anecdote is gone, there is no room for it; and its exact veracity is too open to question. Only where the author quotes from the narratives of explorer or settler do we feel a touch of the old-time magic. Almost never does any author frankly display anything resembling hero-worship, and as for the filial magnification of the colonial fathers, - Pilgrim or other, that, too, is gone forever.

The illustrations indicate the same change. We no longer find imaginary pictures of the explorers floating on unknown rivers; we no longer are shown

the dramatic events, the sufferings and struggles of the settlers, the meetings of Europeans and Indians. Now only authentic images appear. Old portraits stare gravely at us, misshapen maps show us how the ill-informed and imaginative men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries guessed at the new regions; medals and relics and reproductions of early contemporary prints fill out the list. But one of the volumes, not avowedly popular in aim, that of Mr. Avery, admits imaginative drawings in the shape of effective symbolical chapterheadings.

What do we gain from the new histories to fill the void left by the stepping out of romance? In the first place we gain a sense of reasoned cause and effect, for each one of these works aims at making events logical and clear. We know why things happened. In seeking causes, writers go back of the personalities of the settlers to larger reasons. The connection of the life of Spanish, French, or English colonists with the life of the home country, and the influence of European international and domestic politics is clearly brought forward. Economic facts are dwelt upon with a new emphasis. We hear less of the doings of particular men and women, but we learn far more of how

the mass of colonists found their food and earned a living. Above all, the institutions of the settlers are analyzed with fullness and insight. Government finds the first place in such a volume as Tyler's or Andrews's of the American Nation Series, to almost the same extent as in Mr. Osgood's professedly institutional history.

It is dry, undeniably dry. History written in this way is more true than the older history, but its color is dull, and its mystery gone. Yet this cannot be the whole truth; for in the lives of explorers and settlers it is clear that economic and institutional facts wholly failed to destroy the sense of adventure. In the reaction toward actual truth and away from sentimental or partisan or filial history, the emphasis has come to be placed mainly upon the prosaic and material side of colonial growth; but the mental life of Spaniard, Puritan, Virginian, or Jesuit missionary, the thoughts and feelings of these people about themselves, their sur roundings and their dangers, were no less real than the ways they tilled the soil or slaughtered the savages. They must in some future historian's pages be recreated, beside economic, legal, and political facts, to revive for us the true picture of the days of adventure and wonder.

MINOR ARTS

"You cannot save your hearts,
You will not save your souls,

Save your heels, Save your heels"

is the cry of a vendor of brass heel-tips, I hear daily under my window. The first two statements are a long, reverberating, melancholy cadence; the injunction is brisk, energetic, and the suggestiveness of the phrase lingers with me after he turns into the street of Tor de' Specchi. Tower of Mirrors, how magic are those street names of the older quarters of Rome! The Tower of Mirrors recalls the tradition of a tower lined with mirrors, where Virgil sat and watched in their reflections all the secrets of the city; and there is the Street of the Golden Keys, and of the Sword of Roland, and of the Marble Foot, and of the Fairy Morgana, -all summoning up a world of folk-lore. A black alley, called after bright Phoebus, emphasizes its own darkness; and a little by-way, called after Tata Giovanni, commemorates the pious cobbler whose heart was stirred to pity for the waifs of his neighborhood and gathered them into a school and taught them for love, and, in return, was called Daddy John by his little beneficiaries. All this, a hundred years ago, when the streets were unlighted and people emptied their slops out of the front windows.

In threading the narrow streets of old Rome, what strikes one most is the subdivision of trades and the sense of each artisan that his is an art. The very names of the streets emphasize the idea. This is the way of the shoe-makers, that of the slipper-makers, this of the chair-makers, that of the hamper-makers, or little basket-makers. In this tiny shop a handsome woman with white hair à la Pompadour, fits gloves and subtly flatters, it is part of her art; in one place they

weave hose, in another nothing is made but baby-shoes. There are broiderers in gold and broiderers in white, broiderers in silk and broiderers in wool. This woman is a button-hole maker, that a hemmer. A tiny sign over yonder door says: "Rammendatrice" (darner), and in a little cubby-hole near by is the "ovana" (egg-woman) whose sole commodity is eggs of different degrees of freshness. Near by is a shop where nothing is offered but the wafer used in celebrating the mass.

Varnisher, gilder, carver, cabinetmaker, the list might be indefinitely prolonged; and though I have lived all my life in Rome, I have not mastered the ramifications, nor do I know, when a job is to be done, which artist I need, - and artist he is when he comes. Art for art's sake is in the fibre of the Italian people. A carpenter summoned to drive a nail for a picture cannot stop at that. He squints his eye to see which is the best light, where it will look best in relation to other things; he must express his opinion. I went the other day to order a rushbottom chair of uncommon shape. The man's shop was a fragment of a house pulled down to make way for the Victor Emmanuel monument. I gave him the measurements and my idea; his face lighted up; of course he understood, would I allow him to make a design? He knelt on the ground, a dismantled chair for table, with a stump of pencil and a dirty piece of wrapping-paper. Three children swarmed up his legs and back, to see him do it. With a face rapt in the joy of conception, he drew just what I wanted, adding a few improvements in the antique manner, showing an interest in the work, apart from profit, which is one of the curious contradictions of the Italian character. When completed, a small boy and a baby brought home the