Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/408

398 Revieivs of Books . I history from the author of The Mohavjk Valley, and therefore this I " companion book to The Mohawk Valley " is not a disappointment. The i book is apparently not constructed upon any particular plan ; although j the title suggests an account of the history of an old frontier homestead, I the author wanders far afield in many of the chapters — in one chapter ! as far west as Detroit. The topics treated in the volume are thrown ] together in a bewildering fashion, and the task of the reviewer, there- ! fore, in following out the instructions of the Review to give a brief out- | line of the contents of the book is difficult. j The opening chapter gives a very graphic description of the parting j between young William Johnson and his Irish sweetheart. We see ! young William " striding along a country highway leading to the , port town of Drogheda " ; we see " the drooping form of a comely girl ■ leaning on a stile constructed in a break in the hawthorne hedge which 1 formed a border to the road he was travelling "' ; we hear the affectionate 1 parting kisses. Fiction swamps history in the account but it is inter- | esting reading. The succeeding three chapters deal with the life of j Johnson and the history of the events with which he was connected. | Chapter five is an odd combination of remarks on the character of Judas j Iscariot and scrappy information about John Johnson. For several sue- j cessive chapters we now make strenuous efforts to follow the thread 1 of Revolutionary history in the Mohawk Valley. Chapter seven con- ; tains the journal of one William Colbraith, a soldier of Colonel Ganse- | voort's regiment stationed in Fort Schuyler during the siege. One ' entire chapter is given to a verbatim quotation of the will of Sir William. ! The concluding chapter of the volume contains an account of a summer ; ramble of the author and a couple of friends to Dadanascara. j C. H. R.MMELKAMP. | Alexander Hamilton: an Essay on American Union. By Frederick 1 Scott Oliver. (London: A. Constable and Company; New | York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1906. Pp. xiii, 502.) In this book we have an attempt to write an essay on American • political life at a time of its most important crisis the central figure and ; consideration of which shall be the career of Alexander Hamilton. The j result is that we get neither a sketch of Hamilton's activity in a properly digested narrative nor a systematic discussion of the American Union in the days of its infancy. The plan is somewhat disjointed; and no more unifying fact appears than a rather inflexible admiration for the subject of the book. It is natural for an Englishman who writes about the con- troversy between the French and British factions of American society in the days of Hamilton to have his sympathy enlisted for the British ; party. It is also natural for him to admire Hamilton. But he ought to have enough discrimination to see the point of view of the other side and to recognize that his own favorite had some shortcomings. Neither of these things has Mr. Oliver done. Not only are the Democrats ^