In any case his narrative is generally wanting in historic perspective and suggestive background.

It adheres closely to the obvious surface of events with little attempt to place behind them the deeper sky of social evolution.

In many of his crowded chapters one cannot see the wood for the trees.

The story is not lifted up and made lucid by general points of view, but drags or hurries along in the hollow of events, over which the author never seems to raise himself into a position of commanding survey.

The thirty-sixth chapter is a marked instance of this defect.