lectual into
social intercourse, received from a chance circumstance the name
of "blue-stockings." There were to be seen Burke, Fox, Hannah More,
Johnson, Lord Lyttelton, etc. Subsequently, Mrs. Montagu fitted up
a room whose walls were hung with feathers, and thence came Cowper's
well-known lines and Macaulay's passage: "There were the members
of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised and exchanged
repartees under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montagu." After
her husband's death a great deal of business devolved on her in the
management of his estates, and here she showed those qualities which
are singularly conspicuous in Englishwomen of rank. She went down to
Northumberland, inspected her farms, visited her colliers, and
made acquaintance with her tenants. She seems particularly to have
appreciated the people in Yorkshire, and her descriptions of them
recall in no slight degree some of those of the sisters Bronte. Her
principal seat was at Sandleford in Berkshire, where she spent
large sums in improvements under the celebrated landscape-gardener
"Capability Brown."

She survived her husband twenty-five years, and about twenty years
before her death removed to a fine house which she had erected in a
then new part of London, Portman Square, and which is still known as
Montagu House. But the entertainments there given were, though more
splendid, less notable than in the humbler mansion in Hill street, for
Mrs. Montagu herself was getting into years, and many of those who had
been the brightest ornaments of the Hill street parties were passing
away. Mrs. Montagu died in 1800, at the age of seventy. She was of an
affectionate disposition, but had somewhat less sensibility perhaps
than most men would like to see in a woman; yet, on the whole, she
played her part in life extremely well, being wise, generous and true.

The book is particularly interesting for the rich aroma of association
around it, and would have been far more so had Dr. Doran taken the
trouble to give a few notes, of which there is not a single one in the
whole book--a serious drawback, more especially to American readers.

* * * * *

The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, Execution, and the
Discussions relating thereto. By Caleb Cushing. New York: Harper &
Brothers.

Mr. Cushing has given another proof of the great capacity of some
men to do very clever work, but to fail utterly in giving an adequate