Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/148

 1 38 Revieivs of Books name of Lavisse, lack coherence and unity. It appears to the reviewer that the Cambridge Modern History falls far short of the moderate excellence attained even by them. This volume, moreover, bears the simple name Napoleon on the back to indicate its covering the epoch of that great man. It contains chapters on Great Britain and Ireland, 1792-1815, and on the British empire for the same years. But the act of Napoleon which has had a more profound significance in later history than any other is barely mentioned, the sale of Louisiana; and while it is true that the history of the United States for these forty-three years had no determinative influence on that of Europe at the time, yet its career as a neutral power was uncommonly interesting in Great Britain at the time and its history was far more pregnant for the later destiny of the world than that of most European powers, let alone Canada, India, or the West Indies. To Americans the omission must seem very strange indeed. Considerable wonder must also be felt as to the public for which such a volume is made. The expert scholar will find little satisfaction in disconnected monographs, even by careful compilers; the intelligent lay- man must feel strangely confused by the contradictory views of the same events in the different divisions, where they so constantly overlap; the popular taste has not been consulted at all. Cyclopedias have their uses, and as a book of reference this one has a certain value, though it is neither a monument of British scholarship nor of Continental, there being neither continuity nor unity in the product of a well-meant effort to weld the two. The earlier years of the period are described, for dif- ferent purposes, four different times; the second quarter, six; the third, eight; and the last, ten times; either wholly or partially. A single author might do this with clarity, sixteen cannot; and the limit of possible editorial revision and change for the sake of unity is quickly reached. The impersonal, mechanical quality must be avoided at all hazards in every manufactured article, much more in what purports to be history. Of course, there is excellent work in this fasces of historical tracts. Viewed singly, most of them are good, especially those on the Codes, the Concordats, the Continental System, and the Peninsular ^^■ar. The last chapter, that on St. Helena, is a dispassionate summary of excellent quality. Moreover, where so much has to be omitted, the selection of matter is generally judicious. For the adventurous reader the great channel of Napoleon's career is well charted and buoyed. Yet such will be few; there is little charm of style anywhere, no quality of mysterious evolution in the subject which compels attention, no magisterial char- acter in the book to command the highest respect. As to the biblio- graphy, no arrangement could have been invented more forbidding to the searcher after authors, titles, or subjects.