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The author of the following work desires to acknowledge his obligations to two preceding writers who have dealt with the life and times of Count Frontenac, the late Mr. Parkman, and M. Henri Lorin. The merits of the former are too well known and too thoroughly established to need any commendation at this time. If he charms by the lucidity and picturesqueness of his style, none the less does he achieve a high level of historical accuracy, and manifest the control of the true spirit of historical criticism. The work of M. Lorin is, perhaps, less attractive in point of style, but it treats the whole subject from an independent point of view, and in a very comprehensive manner. It is a treasure-house of carefully sifted facts in relation to the career of Canada's most famous governor under the old régime. A certain French writer once complimented another—a dim recollection suggests that it was Buffon who so complimented President Debrosses in regard to his work on language—by saying that whoever treated the same subject "après lui" would also have to do it "d'après lui"; and such the author inclines to think has, to some extent, been his situation in relation to his two able and industrious predecessors. At the same time the present work has not been written without consultation of original sources, and it is trusted that it will be found—for Canadian readers especially—a not unserviceable or uninteresting narrative.

W. D. LE SUEUR