One of the most astonishing successes, in a literary line, of recent years is Col. Higginson's "Young Folks' History of the United States." Published originally as a book for general readers, its superlative merits commended themselves to teachers, then led to the introduction of the work, as a text-book of history, into very many schools. No other work of the kind, we believe, has met with such signal favor or so richly deserves it. So far as it goes, it is by all odds the _ne plus ultra_ for school use.
The same author has recently published what he terms _A Larger History of the United States_,[12] which, however, ends only with the close of President Jackson's administration. So far we fail to discover any _raison d'etre_ of the volume, unless its purpose is distinctly to bring together in a re-arranged form the series of illustrated papers on American history contributed by Mr. Higginson to Harper's Magazine during the past two years. If such is the author's purpose, then we have no fault to find with the work. But the term "_Larger_ History" is, in this case, a misnomer. The book does _not_ contain as much matter as the earlier work to which we have alluded, and it is not, so far as we can make out, written for older readers. It does not strike one as being a history at all,--that is, a straightforward, logical, and continuous narrative coinciding with those exemplar types of historical writing bequeathed to us by Macaulay or by Motley. The book ends, as we have said, with the close of Jackson's administration; but we glean very little concerning the _administration_ and we are told much relative to "Old Hickory."
Now, then, this may seem like finding fault with Mr. Higginson's book. If so, we have plainly asserted our reasons. But with his subject matter, and with his manner of treating it, everybody must be pleased. We have never read more charmful essays on the First Americans, the Visit of the Vikings, the Spanish Discoverers, the French Voyageurs, the Dawning of Independence, and the Great Western March, than appear between the covers of this beautiful volume. They are full of meat, and have the savor of fresh and studious investigation, and we feel grateful to their author for having provided so tempting a feast. What he says and the way he says it make us the more to regret the unfortunate title of his book.