Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/908

 898 Reviezvs of Books serious shortcoming of having- neither index, list of letters, nor explana- tory notes. The text itself, so far as there is duplication of selections, shows unimportant variations from the two leading collections ; and the forms given by Mrs, Eyre have the appearance of being the older ones. Of the Lear matter we are given by Mrs. Eyre a reproduction of the copies of the letters made by Benjamin Lincoln Lear for Sparks, who in his own collection, as is well known, made liberal corrections with the purpose of making Washington's style conform to modern standards. Mr. Ford adopted the better plan of making only those changes which a reasonable desire to avoid eccentricities would suggest. Mrs. Eyre's text conforms more closely to Ford's in those few letters which are included in both collections, and where there are variations her forms seem more antique, which raises the presumption that she has fol- lowed the originals with pretty fair exactness. But it must be said that the reviewer has not been able to compare her texts with the original letters, and that, of course, is the only means of coming to a sure judg- ment on this point. The history of the letters to Lear is an interesting story, and one Tiot easily attainable. The originals went after Lear's death to his son, Benjamin Lincoln Lear, who died intestate, leaving a widow and one "daughter, Mrs, Eyre. When the widow died the daughter was in Europe. On her return she learned that the correspondence in ques- tion was in the hands of another relative, and brought suit to recover. Judgment was given for the other relative, but in the end the letters passed into the hands of the latter's lawyer, from whom they passed to his stepson, a recently prominent American literary man. The latter kept them together till his death, but since that event many of them have come into the hands of Mr. W. H, Bixby, of St. Louis, who has printed what he had in a limited edition. While the papers were in the hands of Benjamin Lincoln Lear, he made copies of the letters and of his father's account of the last days of Washington for Jared Sparks, who later presented these copies bound in a volume to Mrs, Eyre with an in- scription which she has reproduced in the volume now under review. It is from this manuscript volume that she takes her text of the letters and the narrative as well. It was inevitable that George Washington should come at last into the Heroes of the Nations series, but it is a little disappointing that his entrance should be made in so sorry a plight as in Professor Harrison's romantic volume. This author seems to write under the spell which John Esten Cooke by his History of Virginia casts over the old and unscientific school of Virginia historians. He presents his story in a wealth of fantasy which Cooke himself would never have used. Presi- dent Woodrow Wilson has made for us a beautifully idealized portrait of Washington in the style of a master painter, Mr. Paul Leicester Ford has given us a satisfactory account of Washington's inner life in most of its phases, and Mr, Lodge and others have presented valuable and