La Culture et la Civilisation Britanniques Devant L'Opinion Française de la Paix D'Utrecht auxLettres Philosophiques (1713-1734) by Gabriel BonnoReview by: George R. HavensThe American Historical Review, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Apr., 1949), pp. 582-583Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1843025 .

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582 Reviews of Books

from the warped Whig-Liberal tradition, but at the same time Mr. Turner's fames II preserves the true significance to liberal democracy of the Glorious Revolution.

Yale University WILLIAM H. DUNHAM, JR.

LA CULTURE ET LA CIVILISATION BRITANNIQUES DEVANT L'OPINION FRAN9AISE DE LA PAIX D'UTRECHT AUX LETTRES PHILOSOPHIQUES (I7I3-I734). By Gabriel Bonno, Professor of French Literature, University of California. [Transactions of the American Philosophi- cal Society, New Series, Volume 38, Part I.] (Philadelphia: the Society. I948. Pp. I84. Cloth $3.50, paper $2.50.)

IN I930, Georges Ascoli published a two-volume work, La Grande-Bretagne devant l'opinion franfaise au XVIIe siecle. The year following, Professor Bonno brought out an extensive study entitled, La constitution britannique devant l'opi- nion franfaise de Montesquieu a Bonaparte. The present book, similar in ap- proach as in title, deals in thoroughgoing fashion with the approximately two decades which fall roughly between these previous works of Ascoli and of Mr. Bonno himself.

After the Peace of Utrecht in I7I3 which ended nearly a quarter century of war and comparative isolationism between England and France, there soon be- came manifest an upsurgence of French interest in the strange and almost un- known country across the Channel. Here, therefore, was a natural beginning for Mr. Bonno's study. The terminating point is the publication in France of Vol- taire's provocative Lettres philosophiques twenty-one years later in the middle of April, I734-

Voltaire, in the eyes of many people, as in his own, long passed for having practically discovered English thought and literature and then revealed them for the first time to his astonished countrymen. Gustave Lanson and other scholars have painted a truer picture in recent years. Now Mr. Bonno, after exploring the dusty periodicals, manuscripts, and books of the Old Regime, has given us de- tailed chapter and verse on just what was known, and not known, about England in France before Voltaire's fruitful exile. The author of the Philosophical, often called the English, Letters, did not so much add to the sum total of French acquaintance with England, observes Mr. Bonno (p. I67); rather he succeeded in spreading this knowledge much more widely among a public already prepared to devour eagerly his crisp, ironic, or amusing sentences in a work which an inept French government further advertised by ordering it officially and publicly burned.

For one who wishes a thorough picture of English character, customs, phi- losophy, religion, government, science, and literature, as seen by French eyes during these two decades of the early eighteenth century, this is the book to ful- fill his needs. We might quarrel with an occasional slight detail. The general reader, because of the book's very completeness, is likely to find the going at

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Robinson: The British Post Office 583

times heavy, but the total view is certainly sound. Mr. Bonno's work fills an im- portant gap and fills it well.

We can hardly avoid, however, a mild regret that the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia has preserved here the cumbersome double-column format of the famous Transactions. How much more convenient for the reader and for his library shelves the work would have been in normal book form! Who can doubt that Benjamin Franklin, that always forward-looking man who founded this great society back in I743, would have heartily approved s'uch a change today?

Ohio State University GEORGE R. HAVENS

THE BRITISH POST OFFICE: A HISTORY. By Hotward Robinson. (Prince- ton: Princeton University Press. I948. Pp. xvii, 467. $7.50.)

DEsPITE its great importance as a factor in modern economic and cultural de- velopment, the postal service has not received careful attention from historians. The writing of its history has been left largely to postal officials and amateurs. We still lack a comprehensive and scholarly history of the postal service of the United States. That void for Great Britain, however, is satisfactorily filled by the title under review.

Robinson's volume not only builds upon the earlier treatments by Joyce (His- tory of the British Post Office . . . to I836) and Hemmeon (History of the Brit- ish Post Office), published in I893 and i9i2 respectively, but goes behind them to reinforce, correct, or supplement with additional materials and surer work- manship the foundations they laid. The author's treatment of the great reforms and amazing expansion of the nineteenth century post office has a balance and perspective that could hardly be expected in the earlier works. In addition, the story is brought to the eve of the Second World War. Finally, the whole is the work of a mature and conscientious scholar, familiar through long study with the

social and political background of which his story is a part. The result is a richer volume, with illustrative material drawn from sources that would not have oc- curred to his predecessors.

Three criticisms seem in order. The first is with regard to proportion. The earlier chapters are, to this reviewer, too detailed and slow-moving. Shortening the first third of the volume could have sharpened both the reader's impressions and pleasure. The concluding chapters, on the other hand, cover important de- velopments too rapidly and leave the impression of haste in preparation. The time has come when meticulous tracing of beginnings is a professional indulgence that must be held in check if the historian is to have room to do justice to the re- cent past. Second, although the author has ranged far and wide for printed sources and levied upon them expertly, there has been no use of the unprinted archives of the department. The reviewer does not believe this is as serious as it sounds, but it must be mentioned. The "inside job," so to speak, is still to be done if any-

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