A DIARY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 2 vols.GouverneurMorrisEd!fed by Beatrix Cary DavenportHoughton Mifflin ($9).
U. S. historians have edged past tall, sonorous-voiced, peg-legged Gouverneur Morris with only a furtive nod. Only biographer with nerve enough to write a friendly word of him was roughriding Teddy Roosevelt. And T. R.'s biography of Morris (1888) made little splash.
Never disparaged was Gouverneur Morris' earlier record. He was spokesman at 26 for Washington at the Continental Congress; brilliant assistant to the "financier of the Revolution," Robert Morris (no kin); leading framer and "stylist" of the Constitution; first...