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Cambridge Jllodcrn History, IX. N'apoleoii 135 the fault. It exists however and examples of its consequences might be pointed out. It would be a difficult task to translate in a quite satis- factory manner such a book, full of finely penned observations, of deli- cate, of eloquent pages ; but among works of its kind few do better deserve a translator. Charles Borgeaud. The Cambridge Modern History. Planned by the late Lord Acton, LL.D. Edited by A. W. Ward, Litt.D., G. W. Prothero, Litt.D., and Stanley Leathes, M.A. Vol. IX. Napoleon. (Cambridge: University Press; New York: The Macmillan Company. igo6. Pp. xxviii, 946.) This volume deals with the history of the world for a few short years; years, however, in which the furnace was heated seven- fold, and when much that had long passed for sterling metal was proven to be base, flowing ofif into oblivion with the slag. Bound up together in this work are twenty-four monographs by sixteen different authors: British, French, German, Swiss, and Russian. Within the covers are about four hundred thousand words of text and fifty thousand, more or less, of bibliography, chronology, and index. The contents deal with the his- tories of all historic lands in this fiery epoch, except with that of America. In some sense the career of Napoleon Bonaparte affords the observation tower from which events are viewed, but every one of the contemporary sovereignties has its turn in that capacity, so that the eye of the mind is occupied now with one perspective, now with another, and frequently is confused by the overlapping of two or more historic sys- tems, conceptions, and methods. Throughout there is an apodictic air of ultimacy, a magisterial appearance of soundness, completeness and finality. The reviewer has not read this ponderous work in its entirety: few persons are likely to do so, except those whose time and diligence are not limited nor otherwise engaged. Yet he has noted, almost at every venture with the book, certain facts which must not be overlooked and which are proven, on further examination, to be characteristic of the enterprise as a whole. Granting that the plan here executed remains substantially that marked out by Lord Acton before his death, a claim frequently reiterated, we must nevertheless remark that the excellent editors who carry his charge, as ably as they may, have nevertheless been unable to string the bow of Ulysses. There are both assumptions and contradictions which would not have escaped his eye; from the array of facts as given in the book, conclusions are drawn which are illogical and must for consistency's sake be regarded as based on a quite different statement of the case; the authorities given in the bibli- ography have either been overlooked or rejected: and. finally, there is that which, according to Lord Acton's letters, his soul loathed — an air