survive as the surest witnesses of the past, defying the tooth of time, the ravages of violence and the denials and assumptions of a crazy scepticism. Camp, Court and Siege: A Narrative of Personal Adventure and Observation during Two Wars, 1861-65, 1870-71. By Wickham Hoffman. New York: Harper & Brothers. Had the third of this book which is devoted to the writer's reminiscences of the late civil convulsion in his own country been omitted or reserved for expansion into a separate publication, the remainder would have had more unity and attractiveness. The latter is by far the more interesting portion. Expanded and fortified by details, references and documents, Major Hoffman's account of his experience as secretary of legation at Paris in the year of the siege might have filled--and may yet be made to fill--an important place among memoirs of its class. His narrative style is clear and pleasant, if never vivid or impressive. It harmonizes with the complexion of truth, and truth is the first thing we ask from the diarist and observer. Our confidence is won by his direct and unambitious way of telling what he saw and shared. We should think it not improbable that the writer will adopt this course, and use more fully the material which must be at his command for illustrating, from an exceptionally favorable point of view, the fall of the Second Empire and the double fall of its capital. The American legation, under Mr. Washburne, was brought into close relations with the Empire, the Republic and the Commune by means of its delegated character as protector of North German subjects during the war. It was, for that period, much the most notable among the foreign embassies in France. While those of the principal European powers, as for most of the time the French government itself, left the capital, it, with the representatives of two or three minor states, remained at its post. Outside of the very onerous function assumed by it at the request of the German government, it had other great cares and great opportunities for good. These appear to have been encountered and used with remarkable tact and energy. Its display of those qualities has been gratefully acknowledged by its own people, those of Germany and many of the French. At the outbreak of the war thirty thousand Germans were established in Paris. Summary expulsion was decreed against these, and the American minister and his subordinates had the sole charge of applying the meagre funds sent by their own sovereign for mitigating the suffering due to that order. Some thousands, unable to leave or preferring to run all risks, remained throughout the war. This unhappy remnant constantly looked to the American ministry for aid to subsist and to escape violence. Mr. Hoffman ventures to place the banishment of the Germans, for acuteness if not mass of suffering, by the side of the ejection of the Huguenots and the Moors. This exaggeration