As to the manner in which this service has been performed, it is impossible to speak very highly. The book has evidently cost its author great pains; it is filled with detail, and with considerable gossip concerning the hero, which is piquant, and, if true, important. The style is meant to be lively, and in some passages is pleasant enough; but it is marked with a flippancy, which, after a few pages, becomes very disagreeable. It abounds with the slang usually confined to sporting papers. According to the author, a civil man is "as civil as an orange," a well-dressed man is "got up regardless of expense," and an unobserved action is done "on the sly." He affects the intense, and, in his pages, newspapers "go rabid and foam personalities," are "ablaze with victories" and "bristling with bulletins,"--the public is in a "delirium,"--the politicians are "maddened,"--letters are written in "hot haste," and proclamations "sent flying." He appears to be on terms of intimacy with historical personages such as few writers are fortunate enough to be admitted to. He approves a remark of George II. and patronizingly exclaims, "Sensible King!" He has occasion to mention John Adams, and salutes him thus: "Glorious, delightful, honest John Adams! An American John Bull! The Comic Uncle of this exciting drama!" He then calls him "a high-mettled game-cock," and says "he made a splendid show of fight."
Such little foibles and vanities might easily be pardoned, if the book had no more important defects. It professes to explain portions of our history hitherto not perfectly understood, and it contains many statements for the truth of which we must rely upon the good sense and accuracy of the writer; yet it is full of errors, and often evinces a disposition to exaggeration little calculated to produce confidence in its reliability.