The second volume in the series of Early Western Travels, edited by Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites and published by the Arthur H. Clark Co. of Cleveland, is a reprint of John Long's "Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader" from the original edition of 1791. The period covered by these travels was from 1768 to 1782, during most of which time Long was living among the Indians of the northwest, between Lake Superior and Hudson's Bay; adopting their customs, trading with them, taking a part in the foray of tribe against tribe, and sinking well down toward

their level so far as the general standards of civilization are concerned. He was a typical adventurer of a lawless time and region, and in his Journal he set down simply and plainly, without literary artifice or moral extenuation, the things which he did and witnessed and the wild life of which he formed a part. This is altogether an engaging story of adventure, and it possesses a serious interest for the historian and ethnologist.

The

The ninth and tenth volumes of the documentary history of "The Philippine Islands 1493-1898," published by the Arthur H. Clark Company of Cleveland, cover the years from 1593 to 1599. The documents reproduced in these volumes relate to the internal development of the islands and various details of the administration. There is a second embassy to Japan; there is a more or less futile effort to repress insurrection in Mindanao, which then, as now, was one of the chief storm centres in the islands; and there were endless bickerings between the military and civil authorities and between both and the religious dignitaries. head which wore the crown of Spain at that time,-that of Felipe II-can rarely have rested easily, when every ship from the islands brought reports and counter reports, charges and counter charges from the various officials, who were usually at sword points' with each other. Not the least diverting letter in these volumes is the solemn epistle in which the Audiencia at Manila apprised the king of the objectionable practice of the Captain General, Tello, in conducting the judicial sessions of the Audiencia "wearing a short cloak and a hat with colored plumes" and in holding court "sometimes with a colored cloak and sometimes without any." The volumes are illustrated with fac-similes and maps, and are attractively printed.

And shook a dreadful thunder in the air;

Spun betwixt earth and sky bright as a berg

That hoards the sunlight in a myriad spires,

Crashed: and struck echo through an army's heart.

Then paused Goliath and stared down again.

And fleet-foot fear from rolling orbs perceived

Steadfast, unharmed, a stooping shepherd-boy

Frowning upon the target of his face. And wrath tossed suddenly up once more his hand;

And a deep groan grieved all his strength in him.

He breathed; and lost in dazzling darkness prayed

Besought his reins, his gloating gods, his youth:

And turned to smite what he no more could see.

Then sped the singing pebble-messenger,

The chosen of the Lord from Israel's brooks.

Fleet to its mark; and hollowed a light path,

Down to the appalling Babel of his brain;

And, like the smoke of dreaming Souffrière.

Dust rose in cloud, spread wide, slow silted down

Softly all softly on his armor's blaze.
Walter J. de la Mare.

The Monthly Review.

THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER. Love came to the princess

In the high tower.

"I will have none of Love," she said, "Tears are Love's dower."

Love hid his face from the princess In the high tower;

And "Would I knew the tears," she said,

"That are Love's dower."

Ethel Clifford.

VOLUME XXIV.

FROM BEGINNING Vol. CCXLII.

"Time," says Bacon, "is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter all things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?" Has this aphorism held true in the case of the American Constitution, which, saving the anti-slavery amendments, has gone without material alteration for a century during which "the greatest innovator" has been pretty actively at work?

Gladstone deemed the American Constitution the greatest of all original productions in its line. This was high praise from a high quarter. It was remarked at the time that the production in great part was not original. The authors had before them, besides their own convention as a basis, the model of Parliamentary government in England, of which they unquestionably availed themselves largely, though as authors of a revolution they naturally did not care to refer to it. Their credit, however, if their work was good, was not the less because they made the best use of the materials with which experience had supplied them.

Nor is it to be imputed as a fault to

the framers of the Constitution that they embraced the view of humanity current in their day and embodied in the Declaration of Independence without limitations and safeguards which we now know to have been required. With the great social and political thinkers of their age, they assumed the natural equality of man and regarded human form as a presumptive title not only to freedom, but to the possession of political power. What they had before them as the basis of their polity was the educated, lawabiding, civilized, and substantial population of the Northern states. The slave-owning South, in their eyes, was a transient anomaly. The Red Indian was an utter alien. They could not foresee the vast inflow of foreign immigration. They could not foresee the growth of factory life. They could not foresee the slums of New York and Chicago. They could not foresee the Trust or the multi-millionaire.

Not that the Fathers recommended universal suffrage, or that there is any reason for assuming that the wisest of them looked forward to it. It is morally certain that some of them

would have been opposed to it. They were themselves members of a sort of aristocracy of property, culture, and even family, combined with a powerful clergy, and there was nothing to warn them that in the womb of the future was mob-rule incarnate in Andrew Jackson.

All due allowance, however, having been made for the shortness of mortal sight, there were faults, and as the result has shown, disastrous faults in the work of the Fathers, who, though men of great sense and experience,

were men.

In

The seat of the sovereign power was left unsettled. This may have been a necessity of the case. The States, some of them at all events, would have refused to come into the Union if they had known that their sovereignty was being resigned. Mr. Lodge goes so far as to hold that the Constitution was universally regarded as an experiment from which each and every State had a right peaceably to withdraw. This may be rather an extreme view. But any one who has studied the tendency and temper of those times will be inclined to think that it is at least nearer the truth than its direct opposite. the North the national idea gained ascendency over that of State sovereignty as time went on. New States were added practically on a national footing. To some of them secession would have been physically impossible, as they were without a seaboard and were locked in by adjoining States. Nor in the North was there any separate and threatened interest to be guarded by State right. In the South there was such an interest and one the importance of which tremendously increased as time went on; besides the local and traditional conservatism of the people, and the geographical position of the old States, each of which had a seaboard and was thus physically capable of secession. The result,

as we know, was that the question indefinitely postponed by the framers of the Constitution had to be settled at last by a tremendous war, a war which has left profound traces on the character of the nation. Even since that war the seat of the sovereign power has not been thoroughly settled. So good

an authority as the Honorable Daniel K. Chamberlain holds that it is divided between the nation and the States, though how a sovereign power can be divided it is difficult to see! delegated, of course, it may be. When a labor agitator is depriving the continent of fuel, and the Governor of the State shrinks from acting, the head of the nation can do nothing but enter into negotiation with the agitator. The character of the whole nation is being lowered in the eyes of the world by the lynchings, and the lawlessness which they breed is becoming generally infectious; yet the national government, after the enormous sacrifices made to assert its ascendency, looks on without power to interfere. The Fifteenth Amendment is cynically nullified by the South, and the national legislature does not venture to interpose.

The Fathers evidently allowed themselves to be led astray by Montesquieu. Montesquieu's style is superb. His air is highly philosophic. Perhaps he was really advanced as a pioneer of political science for his day, though his analysis is not superior to that of Aristotle. But he misread the British Constitution, under which, though the legislative, administrative, and judicial functions are separate, as in advanced civilization they must always be, the power which controls them is one, and has passed in the course of history from the Crown, its original seat, to Parliament, and finally to the elective House. The consequence of following Montesquieu we see. Whereas under the British system the executive and the legislature work together, the legisla

ture being led by the members of the executive, under the American system they are severed from each other and not seldom at variance, while the two Houses of the legislature are severally left without constitutional leadership; the Senate being under caucus leadership, the House of Representatives being saved from anarchy by the departure of the Speaker from his proper office as impartial chairman to act as the leader of a party.

Again, there were inserted into the Constitution two compacts, which, however inevitable in themselves, had surely no business in that document. One was the compact with slavery. It seems vain to contend that there was not a compact with slavery, or that the compact was not morally broken when the North countenanced Abolitionism, practically nullified the fugitive slave law, and elected an antislavery President. The breach may have been glorious. It certainly was happy for humanity. But we can hardly deny that there was a breach, or maintain that the right of secession from the Union did not thereupon apparently accrue to the Slave States.

The other compact was that with the minor States, assuring them of equal representation with the great States in the Senate. This also has had consequences unforeseen and disastrous. By the multiplication of States with small populations, the anomalies of representation in the Senate have become in their way hardly less striking than were the anomalies of representation in the English House of Commons before the Parliamentary Reform Act of 1832. This Mr. McCall's article in the Atlantic Monthly has shown. Taking Nevada, with its population of 42,000 and its two Senators, as the scale, we find that the Senate represents the merest fraction of the American people. The case, in fact, is in one aspect worse than that of the unreformed

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Parliament of England, since the owners of nomination boroughs often exercised their patronage by sending to Parliament young men of promise, and the nation drew some of its greatest statesmen from that source. No such opening is afforded in the case of the Senate. The character of that body as shown by the early debates on the question of the commercial relations with Cuba is that of a representation of commercial interests combined for their mutual protection. Of breadth of view, of anything worthy of the name of statesmanship in the Senate, not much is seen. Its great object of interest seems to be the tariff. Comparing its intelligence with the general intelligence of the American people, one is almost inclined to say that American traders are statesmen and American statesmen are traders. Elections to the Senate being vested in conclaves seem to be carried in an increasing degree by the influence of wealth, if not by its actual application, and the ambition of Mr. Addicks appears to be not chimerical though it may be unblushing. His foot is on the threshold; nor perhaps, should he effect an entrance, would he find himself utterly without mates. Meanwhile the Senate has been gradually drawing power to itself. The framers of the Constitution probably expected that the chief seat of authority would be in the popular House. But the members of that House are elected for too short a term to learn statesmanship or even to find their legislative feet. Re-elections appear to be not very common, the feeling being that the honor and pleasure of sitting in the House and residing at Washington should go round. The hubbub which prevails in the Chamber and which has been compared to the sound of the waves chopping on the beach, is an index to its chaotic state; while in the Senate comparative