It adds to the color of Mr. Kingsley's pages, while detracting from his
authority, that he is always and inevitably a _partisan_. He must have
somebody to cry up and somebody to cry down. In "Sir Amyas Leigh," his
hatred of the Spanish and admiration of the English were like those of a
man who had suffered intolerable wrongs from the one and received
invaluable rescue from the other. The same element appears powerfully in
the volume above named. The Teuton stands for all that is best, and the
Roman for all that is worst in humanity. He makes no secret, indeed, of
his deliberate belief that the whole future of the human race depends
upon the Teutonic family. Deliberate, we say; but in truth Mr. Kingsley
is little capable of believing anything deliberately. He is always
precipitate. His opinions have the force which can be given them by warm
espousal, vivid expression, a certain desire to be fair, and a constant
appeal to the moral nature of man; but the impression of hasty and
heated partisanship goes with them always, and two words from a broad
and balanced judgment might overturn many a chapter of this red-hot
advocacy.
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