Though we cannot conscientiously say, judging from this book, that Mr. Hamilton has inherited the literary skill of his father, it is very clear that he is the faithful depositary of his political antipathies.  At the earliest possible moment the hereditary rancor against John Adams bursts forth, and it bubbles up again whenever an opening occurs or can be made.  His patriotism, his temper, his manners, his courage, are all in turn made the theme of bitter, and of what is meant for strong denunciation.  His journeys from Philadelphia to Braintree, though with the permission of Congress, are “flights”; his not taking the direct road, which would bring him in dangerous vicinity to the enemy, is a proof of cowardice!  His free expression of opinion as to the conduct of the campaign in the Jerseys—­made before the seal of success had certified to its wisdom—­was rancorous hostility to Washington, if not absolute conspiracy against him; and so on to the end of the chapter.  As this volume only brings the history of the Republic, as contained in that of Hamilton, then in the twenty-second year of his age, to 1779, we tremble to think of what yet awaits the Second President, as the twain in one grow together from the gristle into the bone.  What we have here we conceive to be the mere sockets of the gallows of fifty cubits’ height on which this New England Mordecai is to be hanged up as an example to all malefactors of his class.  We make no protest against this summary procedure, if the Biographer of the Republic think it due to the memory of his father; but we would submit that he has begun rather early in the day to bind the victim doomed to deck the feralia of his hero.

The literary execution of this book is not better than its substantial merits deserve.  The style is generally clumsy, often obscure, and not unseldom harsh and inflated.  Take an instance or two, picked out absolutely at random.—­“The disaffected, who held throughout the contest the seaboard of the State in abeyance, driven forth, would have felt in their wanderings there would be no parley with them.” p. l27.  Again, “It became the policy of the Americans, while holding the enemy in check, to draw him into separate detachments, in successive skirmishes to profit of their superior aim and activity, and of their better knowledge of the country, and to keep up its confidence by a system of short and gradual retreats from fastness to fastness,—­from river beyond river.” p. l29.—­These sentences, taken at hap-hazard from two consecutive leaves, are not unfair specimens of the literary merits of this intrepid attempt to convert the history of the nation, at its most critical period, into a collection of Memoires pour servir to the biography of General Hamilton.