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1 40 Rci'iezvs of Books marked by the same character. Moreover, he has well succeeded in his undertaking. His work shows careful study of sources, good sense in handling materials, and commendable skill in composition. He has a quick eye for the picturesque and romantic elements, in which his subject is so rich, and a facile pen in turning them to good account. His nar- rative is not indeed the narrative of Mr. Parkman, but it is orderly, clear, and in vigor and animation well sustained. It is also pleasant to find him not unfrequently correcting the errors of older and better-known writers and adding new facts to our knowledge. He also often shows an admirable grasp of the large relation of things, as witness the following on the connection of the Northwest with our early national history: "In its defense Washington first learned the art of war ; Franklin realized its possibilities and interested himself in its development : Pat- rick Henry planned with George Rogers Clark for its conquest ; John Jay and Franklin and John Adams drew about it the lines of the United States ; Thomas Jefferson bestowed upon it the inestimable boon of free- dom ; Washington's chief of engineers led its first settlers, and ]Iad An- thony Wayne subdued its savage inhabitants and received the surrender of its frontier posts." But Mr. Moore does not always show as firm a grasp as this of the large features of his subject ; he does not always make the reader vividly see and strongly feel the master forces that are working behind, or rather in, the events, and so fashioning important history. The defect is not com- pensated for by good descriptions of the French traders and boatmen or the interesting story of forest warfare. Sometimes there is no indication of the existence of important questions mooted among historians that have arisen out of the facts which the author relates. Occasionally, too, we notice errors in matter of detail. John Cabot did not discover America in 1498, but in 1497. There is no discussion of the policy that prompted the drawing in 1763 of the "King's Line," as it was called, between the heads of the rivers flowing to the eastward and to the westward from the flanks of the Appalachian mountains. We have a good account of the Pontiac war, and particularly of the siege of De- troit, as a series of events, but no plain statement of the ideas and plans of Pontiac. In dealing with the Quebec Act the author quotes the well- known indictment of the King on this score found in the Declaration of Independence, but we have no discussion of the policy of the act in re- lation to the Thirteen Colonies beyond these two sentences : "Taken as one of the many reasons by which the ministers of George III. sought to curb and suppress the Colonies, the Quebec Act was unwise and imjiolitic. Viewed from the standpoint of a quiet ad- ministration of England's new territories, it was so successful that during the Revolution the Americans failed m all their efforts to detach the Canadians generally from their allegiance to the British." Now, it is not wholly certain that the English ministers sought by the Quebec Act " to curb and suppress" the colonies, nor that it was owing to this act that the Americans failed " to detach the Canadians