By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols.
I. and II. London, 1855. Vol. III. London, 1857.
This work has a double claim to attention in America;--first, on
account of its great intrinsic merit as a narrative of the
beginnings of the European settlement of this continent; secondly,
as containing a thorough and exceedingly able account of the
planting of Slavery in America, and the origin of that system which
has been and is the great blight of the civilization of the New World.
Mr. Helps is endowed in large measure with the qualities of an
historian of the highest order. A clear and comprehensive vision, a
wide knowledge and careful study of human nature, free and generous
sympathies are united in him with a penetrative imagination which
vivifies the life of past times, with a reverence for truth which
excludes prejudice and prepossession, and with a profoundly
religious spirit. The tone of his thought is manly and vigorous, and
his style, with the beauty of which the readers of his essays have
long been familiar, is marked by quiet grace and unpretending
strength. There are many passages in these volumes of wise
reflection and of pleasant humor. In the drawing of character and in
the narration of events Mr. Helps is equally happy. The pages of his
book are full of lifelike portraits of the great soldiers and great
priests of the time, and of animated pictures of the scenes in which
they were engaged.
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