The first book ends with a high eulogy on the capabilities of the country; the probability of its containing great mineral wealth, as well as the certainty of its yielding abundant produce, “for yt hath (even beside necessary helpes, and commodities for life) apparent proufs of many naturall riches.”  The second book gives a very interesting account of the various attempts to colonize this portion of America, from the time of the discovery to the expedition of Lord Delawarr,—­of which Mr. Major has given an excellent epitome in his introduction.

Looking at the period when this work was probably written, and especially at the arguments used by the earnest writer, we cannot but think it likely that it may have aided the Pilgrim Fathers in their determination to seek on the farther shores of the Atlantic that freedom which was denied them here.  Although in manuscript, it may have been well known; for we have several instances of copies being made of works not intended for the press.  In this instance, two copies are still extant; and the circumstance of that in the Ashmolean Collection being dedicated to Sir Allen Apsley, Lucy Hutchinson’s father, affords strong probability that it would soon become known to the Puritans, since the wife of Sir Allen,—­as we learn from her daughter’s delightful memoir,—­was a warm adherent to their cause.  The incidental benefits which Strachey anticipates for the natives by their intercourse with civilized and Christian people were strongly dwelt on by the exiles at Amsterdam; and the very motto on the title-page of the work before us—­“This shall be written for the generation to come:  and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord”—­was so often used by them, that in the record of their settlement at Plymouth it might almost have been taken for their motto.  If such were the case, if the book before us gave, indeed, the impulse to that devoted band of settlers, how mighty was its influence:—­for seldom have greater destinies been enshrined in a frail bark than those that freighted the May-flower!—­Mr. Major merits much commendation for his careful editorship and his illustrative notes:  nor should the excellent etchings by his lady be overlooked, inasmuch as they give additional interest to a very interesting volume.

* * * * *

[From the Times.]

THE GREAT LORD MANSFIELD.

Lord Campbell has learned to take a broad and manly view of the Profession which his own erudition adorns.  In his temporary retirement he paid homage to literature; and literature, as is her wont, rewards her worshiper by extending his vision and emancipating his mind.  A more intimate acquaintance with the transactions and passions of the past, a disinterested and unbiased survey of the lives and triumphs of his illustrious predecessors, has prepared our present Chief Justice for his eminence by teaching him, above all things, that judicial fame does not arise from a dull though perfect knowledge of the technicalities of law, and that there is all the difference in the world between a splendid ambition and the groveling prosecution of an ignoble trade.