The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1907-08-04

! houses, but few of them of any note"
| which Is not ct all the same thing.
| Trifling, ills true, but as old Bardo
| hath 1t in "Romola," Accuracy is the
| soul OF scholarship" At times, Mr..
! Doyle's confession of Ignorance is so
artless and ingenious as not only to
/ disarm criticism but to excite IN the
reader a feeling of respect---not for the
Ignorance, of course, but for the con-
lfeSsion
AT the very beginning Up. 81 Of this
bulky volume, quoting from the diary
I OF Timothy Walker, of Concord" New
Hampshire, wherein that worthy farm
| el.-divine intersperses the record or
/ his ministerial labors and agricultural
operations with such tragic entries
concerning his little flock as Richard
Blanchard scalped,' '.Bishop captured
| by the Indians" ~ ohm Bradley and ais
/ appends to the last entry this naive
| foot NOTE IL am at a loss to know
| what and ais stands for!" If Mr..
\ Doyle will look into any old volume of
| law reports or Cases Of a century
ago. he will find it on we'll nigh every
page instead of "ct nlii.'
Again (p. 313) the author quotes a
| Minute of the Boston S"Selectmen" In
regard to compelling the free negroes
|
| their share Of the puolc work on Bos-
| ton Neck. The negroes were ordered
| to attend the Selectmen, "and" ESQ the
Minute reads) ION this day tho follow
ing negroes attended,: Bristol Jeffries.
who will do what work he Is ordered
to do; Pompey Blackman, who agrees
to pay half,a dollar per day for so many
! days as lie shall be ordcred; Leicester
Black, do; Dick Tynge to pay half a
dollar as above" Whereupon Mr.. Doyle
gravely remarks, ITO pay must mean
to be paid" Not at all. The express
sion Is common in records. The mean
| ing is simply that Pompey Blackman
and his dusky fellows agreed to pay
| the amount opposite their respective
| names for continued exemption from
the work they were ordered to do. AS
has been limited, the book swarns with
misprints and errors in citation, and
| is disfigured by a number of slips.
| MEADE" appears as MEAD" "Hening"
as "Heming," .1ngle'. as "Inglis," Ma
| llemie" as Mackenzie and SO on. The
errors in citing volume and page Of
authorities quoted are too numerous for
our space. Other slips there are, for
.many of which Mr.. Doyle is no doubt
not responsible, but this cannot be true
OF all. 1t is true, as stated before, that
they are not in themselves of grave ilIl-
port, yet, all the same, they are irri-
tating to exact students, and in quite
a number Of instances must prove con-
fusing to the general reader who knows
| little Of the time.
Noteworthy is the confusion as to
the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries: on p. 2G7 (seventh line) "eigh-
teenth" is printed for "sevGnternth,' y
and on p. 274 (ninth line) Seventeenth"
for eighteenth" Equally noticeable
is the confusion as to North and South
/ raj HIM . r1,o1 of TOW ycN ,ot
colony Gas 1t is the patriotic McCrady's)
"a people of extraordinary culture
public spirit and refinement-while
| there is no denunciatory epithet too
i vioAent for the fornler-"semi barbar-
GUS" "thriftless," dishonest" land of
dull, unreceptive barbarism," where
robbery and murder were common
After all this invective, and much more
of q like kind scattered over these
l pages, 1t Is rather startling to the
average reader to come upon this sen.
tence p 91): Everything tends to
Il show that the general standard OF
4 intelligence aud public spirit was far
I higher in North than In South Caro-
line!
Again one reads q. 4os): "After the
} Forty-five body of Jacobite refugees
, Flora Macdonald and her family among
, them, took refuge in South Carolina.
! Flora Macdonald settled in North ant
! not in South Carolina, and, perhaps, Mr.
Doyle knows the fact as well as an!
] OF us.
, One or two more instances and the
} ungracious task is done Of pointing
out slips, which must be even NOR,
annoying to scholar of Mr.. Doyle'
: intelligence than they can be to thu
most eXacting reviewer. In his yer.
interesting chapter on the Colonial
ton of Georgia" (Which Is however
open to grave criticism on more thai
one point, the author undertakes t,
! describe John Wesey's courtship o
| tho sprightly damsel who nurse,
through an illness the young mission
airy who had left Oxford with her Sin
] effable charm to save souls in TIL
: wilds of America, demurely consultin,
e him, as their intimacy increased as t.
the sort OF frocl1 he liked best to Sc
, her in and coyly yiefding to his unro
: mantle advice ITO sup earlier and no
! Immediately before she went to bed.
S It was this aindiscreet episode tina
$ drove Wesley from Georgia, and MI
\ Doyle does we'll to describe 1t Mt som
e length. But even after such, an zen
$ gagement" as this, no one likes his o
: her name to be "spe1led wrong In tn
Gazette" This coquettish paragon O
!,