Arnold, and William Harris, appear equally competent for fomenting strife of a sort to threaten every essential element of civil society, and for averting all permanent harm while putting on trial the most revolutionary theories.  On page 337, Mr. Arnold has a note most characteristic of a large portion of his whole theme, as covering both his men and their measures.  Many of the documents, of an official character, written by citizens, towns, or rulers in Rhode Island, were of such a sort in language and matter, that the town of Warwick did not think them fit for the public records, and so enjoined that the clerk should keep them in a file by themselves.  This was known as “the Impertinent File,” and, more profanely, but not less appropriately, as “the Damned File.”  A certain “perditious letter,” written by Roger Williams himself, serves as the nucleus of this deposit; and we read of another of the documents as being as “full of uncivil language as if it had been indited in hell.”

Mr. Arnold picks his way through all these dissensions, and finds a full reward in the nobleness of the men and the principles with which he has in the main to deal.  His only abatement of praise to Roger Williams is on account of his bitter feud with William Harris.  He repels, as slanderous, the imputations founded on alleged interpolations restricting religious liberty in the code, and cast at Roger Williams for undue severity to Quakers and for favoring Indian slavery.  Randolph’s visit, Andros’s administration, the suspension and resumption of the Charter, bring him out into broader matters, which he treats with frankness and skill.

The more histories we have from the pens of competent writers, even though they go over the same ground, the more lively and interesting will the pages be.  We need not fear that like fidelity and ability in the use of the same materials by different writers will reduce our modern histories to a dead level of uniform narration.  None but those well-skilled in our annals are aware what scope they afford, not only for special pleas, but also for honest diversity of judgment, in viewing and pronouncing upon many test-points vital to the theme.  Indeed, when the historic vein shall have been exhausted, it will be found that there is more than a score of special and contested points, in each of our first two centuries, admirably suited for monographs.  We have but to compare a few pages in each of the two excellent works now in our hands, to see how men of the highest ability, of rigid candor, and scrupulous fidelity in the use of the same materials, while spreading the same facts before their readers, may tell different tales, varying to the whole extent of the diversity in their respective judgments and moralizings.  We can easily illustrate this assertion from the pages before us.  Though Dr. Palfrey stops more than a half-century short of the date to which Mr. Arnold carries us, the former indicates exactly how and where he will be at issue