is to be seen the unbroken mosaic of an earlier structure, perhaps that of the era of the republic. The excavations as they go on will doubtless add much to our maps of ancient Rome. They bid fair to settle the questions, so far as they are still unsettled, of the Sacra Via, the rotunda of Romulus, and the outline of the Palatine. The richness of present discoveries heightens expectation. C. F. P. Bancroft. BOOK NOTICES. THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. Two Courses of Lectures. By J. R. SEELEY, M. A. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1883. The relative proportions in area, population, and other particulars, which the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland bears to the British Empire, as a whole, will appear from the following figures for the year 1881, the last census year: Area in square miles, the United Kingdom, 120,892; the British Empire (including the United Kingdom), 8,025,007. Population, the United Kingdom, 34,929,679; the British Empire, 252,558,375. Revenues, the United Kingdom, £84,041,288 ; the British Empire, £193,972,085. Expenditures, the United Kingdom, £83,107,924; the British Empire, £197,105,424. Total imports and exports, the United Kingdom, £694,105,264; the British Empire, £1,094,423,613. It is of the British Empire regarded as a whole – of Greater Britain that Professor Seeley treats in two courses of lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge, now published under the title of "The Expansion of England." He does not attempt to trace the history of kings or parliaments, nor does he discourse upon any progress of the race peculiar to England. By England he means the state or political community which has its seat in England, and the most important development of the English state, in his view, has been and is the extension of the English name into other countries of the globe, the foundation of the Greater Britain. The internal union of the three kingdoms was brought to completion substantially under Queen Anne; "the creation of a still larger Britain, comprehending vast possessions beyond the sea," began with the first charter granted to Virginia in 1606, but did not stand out in distinct prominence before the world, "in its gigantic dimensions and with its vast politics," until the eighteenth century. The history of England in the eighteenth century, says the author, was not in England, but in America and Asia; and the succession of wars between England and France, which, with intervals of peace or of nominal peace, were waged from 1688 to 1815, were, in fact, one long duel for the possession of North America and for the sovereignty of India. "There was once a Greater Spain, a Greater Portugal, a Greater France, and a Greater Holland, as well as a Greater Britain, but from various causes those four empires have either perished or have become insignificant. . . Greater Britain itself, after suffering one severe shock, has survived to the present day." What is to be the future of this Greater Britain? Will it fall to pieces, as the other empires referred to have done? Will its colonies demand and obtain, each in turn, national independence for themselves, as did the American colonies in the eighteenth century? These are the questions the vast importance of which Professor Seeley urges upon the consideration of the young men of Cambridge, the future public and professional men of England, -and which he endeavors to answer. In relation to the Indian Empire, Professor Seeley admits that it is precarious and artificial, and that it greatly increases British dangers and responsibilities, while it is a question whether it does or can increase British power or security. He urges, however, that, in view of the commercial interests involved, so far as England is concerned, and still more for the sake of India itself, the empire should not be abandoned. "To withdraw our government from a country which is dependent on it, and which we have made incapable of depending upon anything else, would be the most inexcusable of all conceivable crimes, and might possibly cause the most stupendous of all conceivable calamities." But what is to be the destiny of the Dominion of Canada, of the West India possessions, of the group of colonies in South Africa, and of Australia? Turgot said, a quarter of a century before the Declaration of Independence, that colonies were like fruits, which cling to the tree only till they ripen; and he added that when America could take care of herself she would do what Carthage had done. "What wonder that when this prediction was so signally fulfilled the proposition from which it had been deduced rose, especially in the minds of the English, to the rank of a demonstrated principle? This, no doubt, is the reason why we have regarded the growth of a second empire with very little interest or satisfaction." But why were the American colonies lost to England in the last century? Professor Seeley lays the blame, and justly, upon the colonial system, so called, which, in a word, was based on the idea that colonies exist mainly for the use and benefit of the mother country. Bacon, in his essay on Plantations, had taken a more enlightened view; but the statesmen and merchants who came after him believed, as one of the latter, Sir Josiah Child, expressed it in 1669, that "colonies and foreign plantations do but endamage their mother kingdoms, when the trades of such plantations are not confined to their said mother kingdoms by good laws and the severe execution of those laws." The American Revolution has been truly described as a liberation from commercial rather than political thralldom; but the British colonies to-day chafe under neither political nor commercial thralldom. They may and do enact tariff laws which operate against the mother kingdom precisely as though she were a foreign country; and under what is known as responsible government they enjoy a degree of political freedom just short of absolute independence. And yet, the colonists are not entirely satisfied. The relation which they sustain to the empire, politically, is not that to which they can look forward as a permanency with complacency. They do not stand in London as they wish to stand, and they do not receive there the recognition in all respects to which they think they are entitled. The tone of the English press toward them is apt to be unappreciative, patronizing, irritating, almost insolent. We have heard some of them speak of themselves as "the pariahs of the empire." What is the remedy for this state of things? How may the loyalty of these men to the Crown be perpetu ated? Professor Seeley says: "We must cease to think that the history of England is the history of the Parliament that sits at Westminster, and that affairs which are not discussed there cannot belong to English history. When we have accustomed ourselves to contemplate the whole empire together, and call it all England, we shall see that here, too, is a United States. Here, too, is a great homogeneous people, one in blood, language, religion, and laws, but dispersed over a boundless space." The author does not touch upon the question of local government, although, of course, it is in his mind, nor does he attempt to show how the affairs of the empire should be administered in the future. Many think that a legislative body should sit in London for the transaction of imperial business, in which every part of the empire should be represented. These lectures are admirable in thought and expression, avoiding equally, to quote their own language, the bombastic and the pessimistic. They do not contain the faintest hint of jingoism, but they are conceived in a large and liberal spirit. Novalis said, Every Englishman is an island certainly the views which Professor Seeley here urges upon our attention are not insular; on the contrary, they may be said to be as comprehensive as the globe. Hamilton A. Hill. Bos A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. Pp. 360. IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES, FROM BASQUE-LAND TO CARCASSONNE. BY MARTIN R. VINCENT, D. D. With Etchings and Maps. Pp. 276. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1883. Spain, once in arts and arms the foremost nation in Europe, is now the most backward. This fact is both the delight and the distress of those who visit her. The fragments of her splendid past are her chief attraction, and if she had only taken better care of these we could easily forgive her neglect of modern improvements. The Spaniards claim to be in the very front rank of civilization. There is a semblance of this in the large cities. We naturally expect Spain to be civilized, but, in point of fact, one finds out that she is oriental, and even partially barbarous. There is a proportionate disappointment and irritation. The Spanish character does not readily lend itself to instruction from outsiders. But there is gain. Within a few years a crowd of charming writers have been acting the double part of ushers and admirers to Spain. Meantime, railroads, telegraphs, barely decent hotels, and all the vastly convenient but rather unheroic and vulgarizing instrumentalities of modern times have given access to almost all the corners and treasures of her decayed mediævalism. Only six of the twenty-two chapters of Mr. Warner's "Roundabout Journey" are devoted to Spain, but these six are so good that one wishes there were more. His book, a bundle of papers originally published in various periodicals, begins at Paris, and carries the reader along a route of quaint description and witty observation to Avignon, Nîmes, Montpellier, and the adjacent coast of France; then skips over to Italy by way of Munich and Innsbruck; gives us a glimpse of Orvieto and its cathedral; crosses to Sicily; rummages through the doleful gallery of the dead at Palermo, and among the classic remains of Taormina and Syracuse; lands at Malta to tell us how the women coquet with the faldetta; sails to Gibraltar, thence by the most wretched short sea passage in the world to Tangier, and so to Spain at Cadiz. There the author meets the usual exasperating difficulties with which the Spanish officials make miserable the life of the traveler, especially at a seaport, and which are obviously almost too much for even Mr. Warner's good humor. Chapters on the Alhambra, the Bull-Fight, Monserrat, and "Random Notes," follow, and the book ends with a description of Wagner's "Parsifal" at Baireuth. No one who has read Mr. Warner's other sketches need be told with what finish, keenness of insight into men and things, droll conceits, and delicious surprises of fun this attractive bill is filled up. He is at his best in picturing what makes up so much of a tourist's life, - the accommodations and dis-accommodations of hotel, railway, and diligence, and all the endless by-play of the journey. His perfectly original humor, his cool, shrewd, Yankee way of looking at things, never fails him. He speaks of table d'hôte as "that great European ritual," of "the sustenance contained in the garlic-laden air of the interior" of a diligence; notes the similarity between the growth of the cactus and the German language; and in passing a prison observes that "we do not select our people for the jails with much discrimination." We wish he had not thought it necessary, in order to discharge a "traveler's duty," to exert his best powers in spreading before us all the dreary and disgusting details of the bull-fight, till he was "glad to escape from the demoniac performance" and seek "refuge in an old church near by, to bathe his tired eyes and bruised nerves in its coolness and serenity." On the whole, Mr. Warner gives a fair judgment respecting the advantages and disadvantages of Spanish travel. We cannot fully agree with him when he says that "the real Spain is the least attractive country in Europe to the tourist. The traveler goes there to see certain unique objects. He sees them, enjoys them, is entranced by them, leaves them with regret and a tender memory, and is glad to get out of Spain. There are six things to see: the Alhambra [better say Granada], the Seville Cathedral and Alcazar, the Mosque of Cordova, Toledo and its cathedral, the Gallery at Madrid, and Monserrat. The rest is mainly monotony and weariness." Has not Mr. Warner forgotten the old port and cathedral of Barcelona, one of the finest in Europe; the charm of Tarragona and Poblet; the costumes and fruit market of Valencia? Of course the others are the plums of the pudding. The great trouble with Spain, from the standpoint of the traveler, is not the lack of objects of interest, but that it is inhospitable. There are few cushions, and little that is gracious and homelike. Needless annoyances abound. In the presence of the great sights which have been mentioned, one can put up with these; but they put a heavy discount on the average attractions, which otherwise would fascinate. In general, our author is right when he says, "In Spain the traveler is pretty certain to be rubbed the wrong way, most of the time. He is conscious of an atmosphere of suspicion, of distrust, of contempt, often," and always, we might add, even at his dinner, of bad tobacco. one of Mr. Hale's "Seven Spanish Cities " is a random, racy, and a trifle romancing little book, packed full of rather rose-colored information and jolly good-nature. He is clearly in love with Spain. He is never rubbed the wrong way while there; indeed, one is very sure that it would be an extremely difficult matter ever to rub Mr. Hale the wrong way; he has so many ways and is so captivatingly good-natured in them all. His persistent optimism, however, becomes a trifle wearisome, and soon raises the suspicion, especially in the mind of one who has experienced some of the indifferent delights upon which he dilates, that Mr. Hale's Spain is the product of Mr. Hale's exuberant disposition to make everything Spanish the best. He has been a week in Spain, and has "yet to see the first flea," and this in summer! One envies Mr. Hale many things, but not the least among these is his cuticle. He found no liars, but a “very civil, friendly, self-respecting, and thoughtful people, ready to oblige, and not seeking the usual European pence or shilling." Did Mr. Hale escape counterfeit money and the supercilious contempt of Spanish bankers and officials? But Mr. Hale is in holiday mood: "the restorations of the Alhambra are so perfect that they need a trained eye to tell where they begin; " the rust on the pavement is "the blood-stain where the thirty-six Abencerrages chiefs were killed;" the almost hideous elaboration and deformity of richness in the Cartuja at Granada strike him as making the vestry "perhaps the finest room in Europe;" the king is a "young man admirably fitted for his delicate position, the most interesting and remarkable men in Europe." Mr. Hale jocosely remarks that he had no opportunity of talking politics with the king, as the king did not send for him. It was a great pity, for in view of the recent conduct of this interesting but very weak and pleasureloving young man it would have been of the greatest value if he could have heard and followed the sound advice which Mr. Hale would cer tainly have given him. But with this general discount, that it is far too rose-colored, Mr. Hale's book is direct, bright, and thoroughly readable. No one must take it as gospel, unless he is very sure he has Mr. Hale's traveling temperament. He must not expect to find in Seville a hotel equal to the best to be seen in Europe for two dollars a day for everything. He must not expect to find an interpreter at the railway stations. He must expect that in general Spain and the Spaniards will treat him as though he had no business there, and that they will not put themselves out for him a hair's breadth. A good average for the ordinary traveler about to visit Spain would be struck by taking three parts of Mr. Warner's book and one part of Mr. Hale's, and simmering them together over a slow fire of small expectations. We are glad Mr. Hale did not go to the bull-fight, but that he did go to church; that he investigated worship, politics, and education, and gives some good statistics upon them; that he went to Palos, or rather La Rapida, and tells us about Columbus; and finally, that he took the diligence route north, over the Pyrenees, which is sure some day to be vastly popular, and which he describes with inimitable charm. This brings us to Dr. Vincent's little book, with its three or four maps and as many etchings, which is not so much about Spain proper as about the Basque-Land. It is carefully written, and is full of easy description of Bayonne, Biarritz, San Sebastian, the Pyrenees, miracle-working Lourdes, and ancient Carcassonne. We are given delightful glimpses |