Browne, J. H. Balfour. Essays, critical and political. 2v. *$5. Longmans.
The greater part of these essays appeared in the Westminster review between the years 1876 and 1886. Among subjects discussed in the “Political” volume are: Russia, 1877; Afghanistan, 1881; African slave trade; English supremacy, and England in Egypt. They are principally valuable for the historical interest of opinions expressed. The “Critical” volume includes among its subjects Michael Angelo, Machiavelli, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Landor, Dickens and Macready.
“A writer of substantial merit, though hardly of the first rank. He is too fond of putting his subjects into the box as it were, and submitting them to a severe cross-examination.”
| + − | Ath. 1907, 1: 380. Mr. 30. 590w. |
“The ‘Political’ volume is too far outdated to have any particular value in this twentieth century.”
| + − | Dial. 42: 232. Ap. 1, ’07. 90w. |
“The essays on Landor, Dickens, Michael Angelo, and Machiavelli all show an insight and are written with a force quite out of the common.”
| + − | Nation. 85: 104. Ag. 1, ’07. 330w. |
“Harmless in their original form they may have served well enough to occupy the leisure hours of an aspirant to legal fame, but it is hard on the reader that they should be forced again upon his notice under the cover of a name now well known in a sphere not that of literature.”