To those who require in a history nothing but a series of facts presented in a clear style, without any animation in the narrative, the work of Mr. Hildreth will be very acceptable, and we have little doubt that his labors of research and composition will be rewarded. It seems to us, however, that there is a great difference between facts as they are in themselves, and facts as they are treated by Mr. Hildreth. Whatever view may be taken of our fathers, there can be no doubt that they were alive, and we have a right to demand that the narrative of their actions, however close it may adhere to the literal truth, shall represent living men and living events. The representation of a fact, therefore, implies a sympathy with it either personal or imaginative, and a capacity to convey it to another mind not only in its form and dimensions, but in its coloring and spirit. The difficulty with Mr. Hildreth’s facts consists in their lifelessness. He is “down among the dead men,” not up and striving with the living, and his style being deliberately and elaborately destitute of glow and spirit, rejecting all ornament, and varying not with the variations of his subject, is as uninteresting as a newspaper account of a railroad accident. In his narrative of our history, as far as we have read it, there are strictly speaking no events. The landing of the Pilgrims he recounts in a style which would hardly suit an account of a New Yorker’s visit to Hoboken, for the purpose of enjoying a cooler air than he found in the city. The most adventurous and heroic actions, the grandest displays of disinterested piety and affection, sink into dull commonplace as treated by Mr. Hildreth. If this be history, then history is hardly worth the attention of a live man. We should rather call it historical geology, having for its subject the fossil remains of men and institutions. We know there is a large class of readers who consider this mode of writing history as the best, and who are ready to stigmatize all realization as romance. To such a class we can commend Mr. Hildreth’s production. He certainly deserves praise for his diligence, and the strength of understanding he has evinced in educing a connected narrative from his multitude of scattered authorities. But he has not succeeded even in this department of his labors to such a degree as to justify his sneering allusion to other histories of the country as “Continental Sermons and Fourth of July Orations in the guise of history.” This hardly does justice to such a man as Bancroft, whose History of the United States, whatever may be its faults, has merits of investigation, narration and reflection, which Mr. Hildreth’s more prosaic work does not approach. * * * * *