While there is much of the creative in the work to lend freshness and humor to the many scenes, still the book is a practical history of a most remarkable period which extended from 1833 to 1840. The work is unique in the originality of its grasp of conditions, the raciness of portraiture and in the description of the various transactions. Though at bottom veritable history, the work is throughout garbed in incomparable humor that may be read at any period with merriment. In the same semi-serious vein in which Irving wrote his Knickerbocker History of New York, but with a much richer tang of humor, Baldwin records the doings of those rosy days which were anon merged into gloom, and it is difficult to decide in which phase of the situation one finds more real fun. He enters into no discussion, renders no opinion of his own, never moralizes, but is content to hold himself steadfastly to a description of scene and character in a manner most diverting to the reader. A work like this was not devoid of a mission, and thousands laughed while they read the record of their own stupidity and folly. A more dignified work from the pen of Judge Baldwin was his "Party Leaders," which embraces the records, policies and conduct of such men as Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Randolph, Clay and others. The stamp of originality is as clear in this work as in the one already commented on, while the latter reveals the possession of a vast fund of information relative to the private lives of the distinguished characters named. More than that, it displays a power of nice discrimination of character. Sharpness of analysis and felicity of parallelism of character are wrought with the finishing touch of the verbal artist, in clean, elegant English and with a dignity free from stilt or stiffness. This, too, proved to be a popular work and was eagerly sought and read throughout the country. It bears the label of the self-made scholar, the finish of the author who works first hand, and is an embodiment of finished diction and of wide research. There was that in the presence, bearing, and intercourse of Judge Baldwin that impressed one with his superiority, yet he was free, often even to abandon, affable, and always companionable. He made ready friends of strangers, and compelled by his bearing the highest respect of his opponents. Living for many years in Sumter County, he yielded to the alluring reports which spread over the country in 1849 concerning the newly discovered Eldorado on the Pacific slope, and removed to California. Without trouble he fell into the rough and tumble conditions prevailing at that time in San Francisco, entered on a lucrative practice, and later was chosen by popular vote to a judgeship on the supreme bench of that state. He died in California in 1866. JOHNSON J. HOOPER