386 Reviews of Books the final solution was not found in 1895, nor the Liberal cause forever lost. Coming events cast their shadow^s over many pages, and it is much to be hoped that Mr. Paul may at no distant time write the story of the rehabilitation of Liberalism in the years from 1895 to 1906, and not leave us and the party at its overthrow, as he insists on doing. The qualities of the earlier volumes naturally characterize the pres- ent performance, though the rapidity which marked the earlier work at times descends here almost to hurry. More than ever is it evident that Mr. Paul is a journalist. His work, clever and useful as it is, has no claim to be judged by the standards of de la Gorce or Rhodes. What- ever it gains in vividness, direct and striking statement, and that evanes- cent quality known as brilliance, by contrast with them it loses in the surer if less dazzling results of greater pains and patience. This is not saying that it is not excellent of its kind. But its kind is not that of de la Gorce and Rhodes. This is particularly apparent in two directions. The first is that Mr. Paul lives so strongly in the present that its influ- ence tinges his narrative in many places, as for instance in the account of the Oxford meeting of the Conservative Association and its tariff reform resolution of 1887 (pp. 112-114). The second is the often-noted habit of judging individuals frankly and unashamed. It is his manifest intention to be fair, and in the main he is so. But he writes largely from the standpoint of a Gladstonian Liberal, and he is at times some- what severe on Lord Salisbury and in particular on Mr. Chamberlain. Of the latter, his highest encomium is that he was " an adept in the arts of the caucus and the lobby" (pp. 63-^4), while his opinion of Lord Salisbury (p. 115) is somewhat less favorable in certain directions than Bismarck's classic characterization. With respect to men outside the sphere of British politics, Bismarck's name offers a further illustration of the fact noted before, that in the case of matters and men apart from the direct current of English affairs there is apparent a certain super- ficiality of judgment. In the present instance, the statement of the position and activities of Germany and her chancellor in the partition of Africa (pp. 121-123, 131) is, at least, inadequate. In the way of bibliography, Mr. Paul has been fortunate in having Mr. Churchill's life of his father to use. But this book, with Morley's Gladstone, O'Brien's Parncll, Fitzmaurice's Granville, Clayden's Eng- land under the Coalition, Lyall's Duffcrin, and the Times, are literally the only sources quoted in the foot-notes of his main narrative, and most of these appear but once. Morley's Gladstone, of course, remains the mainstay of the book. It would be as absurd to imagine that these were all the works consulted by Mr. Paul as to judge his book by its foot-notes or bibliography ; but these matters, with others in the present volume, seem to betray increasing haste or weariness, which the clever- ness cannot wholly conceal. In this connection the proportions of the volume are interesting. The period from 1885 to 1890 receives 182 pages, that from 1890 to 1895 ninety-two. The rest of the book is made up,
