Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/822

8 1 2 Reviews of Books turned to Europe to pass the remaining half of life in various houses of the Jesuit order. He had access to valuable sources of information which he used with great industry, if not always with good judgment. To write the history of the New World became his ambition. Besides an account of New France, he wrote histories of San Domingo and of the famous Jesuit mission in Paraguay, which he depicts as a concrete realization of More's Utopia. Perhaps his history of Japan marks a survival still in the eighteenth century of the conceptions that associated America with the far East. Charlevoix's New France is of great value, though of course he is only a secondary authority for the greater part of the period which • he covers. Considering the age he is fairly free from party passion, but he holds always a brief for the Jesuit order. He was too much the man of the world to have the simple credulity of some of his brethren, and his skilful sifting of authorities is an anticipation of the better historical work of our own day. Parkman however charged him with carelessness. He is sometimes proli.^;. This fault is more especially in evidence in the work on New France, yet it is a sound bit of history. He wrote in 1743, just before the first of the two wars broke out in which France's power in North America was overthrown, and it is pathetic to remember that he died in 1761, just when his country, whose colonizing efforts he had studied with such minute care, was overwhelmed by disaster in the new world. His book attracted immediate attention. Both German and English editions soon appeared, so that Dr. Shea had before him pioneers in the work of translation. Dr. Shea himself is too well and too honor- ably known as an historical scholar of the first rank for any tribute to his memory here. The memoir prefixed to this edition is no adequate recognition of his fame — the bibliography alone having any real value. There is danger in reprinting a translation such as this with the translator's original notes unchanged. Dr. Shea wrote more than thirty years ago. Since that time a whole generation of scholars has worked upon the history of European effort in North America. The best of Parkman' s work has been completed. Mr. Justin Winsor's great history has appeared. M. de Rochemonteix has given us his history of the Jesuits, and the band of enquirers into the early history of European dis- covery, among whom M. Harrisse stands pre-eminent, have added enor- mously to our knowledge. Not only therefore, in this edition, is Charle- voix himself out of date ; so also is his editor and translator, and no hint is given of the new sources of information. So much we may say by way of criticism ; yet we are glad to have this handsome edition of Charlevoix with its clear type and broad margins. Dr. Shea printed his works in editions often absurdly small, and they are, therefore, scarce. This first volume contains Charlevoix's chronological tables of the history of New France down to 1743, the time of writing ; his list of authors consulted (for the time remarkably full) ; and the first three books of his History. These cover the early efforts of France in the St. Lawrence valley, the history of the French colonies in Brazil and Florida which ended in such complete disaster, and the story of the first