The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-02-24
THE UNITED KINGDOM.

|
! Tt Is somewhat curious that the two
best books on the United States have
been written by foreigners. Bryce's
American Commonwealth is entitled to
first place. DR. Goldw in Smiths United
| States is probably next. AS a political
study of the nation it is not eQualed and
though reader may agree with its
every estimate and statement, yet mona
can escape the interest, ripeness and
scholarship of the work. It's success
naturally led Dr. Smith to do for Great
Britain what he had done for America
! and at the end of the preface to his new
| work, The United Kingdom we find
this sentence: 1.-The friends who urged
the writer to undertake this task know
that it has been performed by theShand
of extreme old age
More than forty years ago DR.. Smith
was regius professor of modern history
at Oxford; it is over thirty years ago
that he came to this country to fill the
chair of English and constitutional his
tory in Cornell university, and for TWEEN
ty-nine years he has been one OF the
most distinguished of Canadians; so it
may be true that the work was per-
formed by the hand of extreme old age
but a reading OF this, his last work
shows incontestahly that, though the
hand may have been aged. the mind was
as clear as direct and as competent as
It it had not lived through the better
part of a great century, many of whose
important events he has personally wit
messed
In truth, DR.. Smith has done great
good, not only for history hut for people
who want to read history with enjoy
ment. The manner in which he has
handled the events, tendencies and eVo-
lutions of the dozen and more centuries
and told the continuous story of the
United Kingdom is beyond all praise.
Dr.. Smiths text is this sentence from
Pym "The best form Of government is
that which doth actuatc and inspire
every part and member of d state to the
common good" Beginning with the
statement that England has taken the
lead in solving the problem of ccnstitu-
tional government and that she it is
who more than any other has had to
deal with great internal problems. he
traces the rise of the kingdom to the
middle of the present century, very wise
ly emitting references to contemporaries
and modern leaders-eVen to Disraeli or
Gladstone-and writing strictly as his
torian, but with a positiveneSS of opin-
ion that makes every page alive anu en-
tertaining He is delightfully."- candid In
his portraiture For instance, he calls
Queen, Elizabeth "a virago who spat
sWore and cuffed,'' who was false and
perhdinuS, heartleSs and selfish and ca
pable at times of hateful cruelty, even to
melting murder itself.
Of another figure of English history he
says: "The name of George III. cannot
be penned without a pang-can hardly
be penned without curse, such mischief
was he fated to do the country" and in
this connection DR.. Smith says that the
moral Improvement of the nation which
by this time had begun, was due less to
the influence of the court than to that
court had little to do and of the evan
gelical movement within the establish
ment which Methodism set on foot"
His treatment of the War of the Revo-
luton Of the American colonies is neces-
sarily brief but intensely interesting.
He takes the view that the separation
was sure to come, and in the end the
loss of the colonies was to Great Britain
q gain in disguise
This is his opinion of the War of 1872:
"a fratricidal and fruitIess conflict was
closed at last by treaty in which no
mention was made of either of the two
oStenSible causes of the war. American
historians fancy that this was a second
war OF Independence. Had Napoleon, by
the help of the Americans triumphed
over the English and European freedom,
would Louisiana now be a state of the
Union? Might not his. Unsuitable ambi-
ton have trampled on the Union itself@"
Thus we see that DR. Smith gives us
something to think overland often to
der points, whether his readers be Amer