where it was found. In numerous cases the letters or other documents are followed by careful, scientific, explanatory notes. For example, on pages 373-375 is found an illuminating note respecting Bolívar's family. Unfortunately, the sources of the information which the editor incorporates in his notes are not always mentioned.

WILLIAM SPENCE ROBERTSON.

MINOR NOTICES

Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916. Volume I. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1919, pp. 507). Any one who wishes to see how much the American Historical Association has developed in the last twenty-five years would do well to compare this volume with the Annual Reports of the early nineties. Those volumes contained much excellent matter, but they were almost wholly composed of papers read at the meetings, for the society's activities were practically confined to those annual sessions. Now its activities are multifold, and never has there been a more impressive exhibition of them than in this volume. Nearly 300 of its 500 pages are occupied with their products-reports of the thirty-second annual meeting, held at Cincinnati, of the executive council, secretaries, treasurer, and various committees, of the thirteenth annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch, of the conference of historical societies, of the conference of hereditary patriotic societies, of the committee on a centre for higher historical and other studies in Washington, and of the conference which founded the Hispanic American Historical Review. The report of the Public Archives Commission carries with it an impressive statement of the condition of the public records of New Jersey, by a committee of New Jersey citizens, showing the appalling extent to which in that state (and similar investigations would show similar conditions in many another state) negligence and fires and pilferings and illegal detentions have deprived the commonwealth of historical materials which were once in its archives but now are not. In another interesting appendix to the same report, Professor Charles E. Chapman describes summarily the archives of Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, and Lima. The report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, consisting of the extant correspondence of R. M. T. Hunter, is reserved for the second volume of the report. The substantive historical papers derived from the meeting and here printed are eleven in number. Mr. Herbert Wing discusses the assessments of tribute in the Athenian Empire; Professor Paul van den Ven, of Louvain and Princeton, the question, When did the Byzantine Empire and Civilization come into Being; Professor K. Asakawa, the life of a monastic shō in medieval Japan; Professor Chalfant Robinson, "History and Pathology" (specifically the case of Louis XI.). Professor A. H. Lybyer gives a graphic and informing account of Constantinople as capital of the Ottoman Empire. Professors Wallace Notestein and Roland G. Usher set forth some of the chief unsolved

problems of the Stuart period and the methods by which they should be approached. Professor Guernsey Jones describes the beginnings of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, 1640-1661; Professor Edward T. Williams, then of the Department of State, those Chinese social institutions which could serve as foundations for republican government; Mr. Charles L. Chandler, the career of Admiral Charles Whiting Wooster in Chile. The presidential address of Professor Joseph Schafer of Oregon, as president of the Pacific Coast Branch, a lucid and thoughtful paper of great merit, and an account of the history of American historical periodicals, by Mr. A. H. Shearer, conclude the volume.

The Master of the Offices in the Later Roman and Byzantine Empires. By Arthur E. R. Boak. [University of Michigan Studies, Humanistic series, vol. XIV.] (New York, Macmillan Company, 1919, pp. x, 160, $1.00.) This monograph aims "to treat the entire history of the Mastership", tracing "the stages of its development and its decline, showing the connection between these changes and the general tendencies which affected the administration as a whole". In carrying out this plan, Dr. Boak enumerates the different classes of magistri, discusses the history of the mastership, the competence, titles, honors and privileges of the master of the offices. The work is well done. Appendix A consists of seventeen pages of references to the title of magister in inscriptions and literature. These are arranged in a classified list, which makes it easy to use them. Appendix B gives a list of the masters of the offices. Finally, there is an index which is evidently not intended to be complete.

For the convenience of scholars who will use this work, a few corrections may be noted. The statement (p. 88) that there were sixteen state arsenals in the Orient "of which four were in the diocese of the Orient" is incorrect. There were in all fifteen, of which five were in the diocese of the Orient (see Notitia Dignitatum; reference correctly given by Boak). Bury, History of the Eastern Roman Empire, is not included in the bibliography. If Dr. Boak had used this (it actually contains very little on the master of the offices), he would probably have changed his statement as to the date when the mastership became an honorary office, as Bury (p. 108) states that the Emperor Michael offered to confer the rank of magister on two brigand chiefs if they would submit. There are slips in proof-reading, e. g., dictionaire (p. 42), Rombaud (pp. 57, 160), Geschichte der Romischen Postwesens (p. 80), 92 for 97 (p. 99, note 4). The discussion on pages 90-91 is mainly a repetition of the discussion on pages 41-42; incidentally, in the repetition (p. 91, note 2) Dr. Boak gives the reference correctly as chapter 38, which (p. 42, note 2) he had given as chapter 37. The last paragraph on page 69 makes statements which are evidently contradictory. Finally, why is there no reference in the list of masters to the well-known chronicler, "Simeon, magister and logothete"?

D. C. MUNRO.

The History of Normandy and of England. By Sir Francis Palgrave, K. H. Edited by Sir R. H. Inglis Palgrave, F.R.S. Volumes I. and II. (Cambridge, University Press, 1919, pp. lvi, xxxvi, 560; xxxix, 588.) This is the first installment of a ten-volume edition of The Collected Works of Sir Francis Palgrave. First issued in 1851-1857, the Normandy and England was the first serious attempt to give the Norman period of English history its larger setting by placing Normandy on the same plane as Wessex and "adopting Rollo equally with Cerdic ". Certainly an entire volume on the Frankish empire of the ninth century, and another on the tenth, constitute a generous introduction to AngloNorman history. Unfortunately they give the impression that we know a great deal respecting a particularly obscure epoch. The author's wideranging and discursive mind lent itself easily to a form of historiography which padded out the chroniclers with comparisons and allusions to the whole course of human history. Palgrave made a serious attempt to cover the narrative sources of his subject, but without thoroughgoing or searching criticism. Thus he relies steadily on the rhetorical compilation of Dudo of Saint Quentin, to which he ascribes both originality and general accuracy", and, what is worse, he has a way of preferring the twelfth-century translations of Dudo as more picturesque. As a matter of fact, Dudo is not a contemporary authority; he shows no evidence of diligent inquiry"; and he preserves singularly little of popular tradition. Curiously, in spite of his great familiarity with the English public records, Palgrave makes no effort to utilize the documentary sources for Frankish history, and his critical acumen suffers painfully by comparison with the Annales and Jahrbücher upon which the student of to-day has come to rely. These defects go too deep to be remedied by a new edition, nor is the editor the one to remedy them. In spite of occasional citation of recent books, his notes are devoted chiefly to the translation of quotations from Latin and French and to the explanation of references and allusions with the aid of the Britannica and other obvious helps. If Palgrave's works are thought to deserve perpetuation as classics, which they are not, Bury's edition of the Decline and Fall would afford a better model of annotation. The freshest part of the volume is the prefatory memoir, with its numerous quotations from the letters of Sir Francis.

66

C. H. HASKINS.

The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey. Printed from the Original Manuscript in the British Museum. Edited by John Brownbill. Volume II., pt. III. [Remains Historical and Literary connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester, vol. LXXVIII., new series.] (Manchester, Chetham Society, 1919, pp. xxix, [295].) The contents of this volume are more varied in character than were the preceding installments of the Coucher Book. After the abbey rental with which it opens, come twenty-five pages of court rolls, some of the entries in which fur

nish interesting sidelights on rural conditions in the early sixteenth century. Tenants are presented for keeping unringed swine; for selling bark and trees outside the lordship; and for driving their neighbors' sheep from the common pasture. A dog characterized as a "shepeworyer" is to be hanged; a tenant is ordered to remove his " unreasonable" mare from the common pasture; the possession and use of cards and dice is forbidden; while at the chapel of Colton no one shall have new ales, "nutterakes ", "upsyttynges ", or pots of ale on Saturdays or Sundays without special license.

The letters and petitions include regulations made in a chapter of the order in 1407 and an inquest on the death of Abbot Lawrence. Three monks conspired to murder him. They mixed poison with his ablutions at mass and afterwards gave him poisoned food.

The nine grants headed Manumissions and Transfers of Bondmen include transfers only; but as the editor points out, these may be roundabout methods of manumission.

Evidence on the known right of the abbots of Furness to appoint a bishop to the Isle of Man is given in the Manx Documents (pp. 707715), without, however, throwing new light on that obscure problem. A group of Irish charters relates with one exception to possessions of the abbey in and near Drogheda, and contains little of moment. These are followed by eighty pages of notes and additions to volume I., to meet the chief complaint against the late Canon Atkinson's editing.

The index of persons and places has proved accurate where I have tested it. If anything it is too complete: e. g., Tunstal, Marmaduke, and Tunstal, Sir Marmaduke, are the same person.

ALFRED H. SWEET.

The Immunity of Private Property from Capture at Sea. By Harold Scott Quigley. [Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, no. 918. Economics and Political Science series, vol. IX., no. 2.] (Madison, the University, 1918, pp. 200, 25 cents.) Whether immunity of private prop erty from capture at sea is destined to be relegated to the limbo of lost causes or not, the problem of re-shaping the law of the sea cannot be satisfactorily solved without the aid of careful investigations into the history of the struggle to shield commerce in time of war. The movement for immunity has always been bound up with the question of neutral rights, and as Dr. Quigley points out, has too frequently been confused with it. Neither can be understood without a careful retracing of the history of the law of capture. This task he has performed with scholarly thoroughness. Perhaps the most useful part of his dissertation is his summary of the opinions of publicists of different countries on the theory of immunity. The chapter on the treatment of private property at sea during the war just ended comes down to the summer of 1915, and is a markedly detached and prejudiced examination of the methods for the control of commerce psed by the gerent govern

ments. He aligns himself with the school which believes the Declaration of Paris went too far ahead of the opinion of the times, and warns against any attempts at reform which fail to take account of the strength of the belief in the military importance of the destruction of enemy commerce.

LOUISE FARGO BROWN.

Characters from the Histories and Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century, with an Essay on the Character, and Historical Notes. By David Nichol Smith. (London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1918, pp. lii, 331, $2.70.) Mr. Smith has an excellent idea, which, though not new, has produced an interesting book. The selection of a large group of "characters" from seventeenth-century English writings, preceded by an entertaining and informing essay on this species of literary expression, and supplemented by full and illuminating notes, all these witness the industry and knowledge of the compiler and contribute to the pleasure of the reader. No one can read such a collection without renewed interest in this most human and intimate of English centuries. Like those editors who have of late culled for us the choicer flowers of Raleigh and Clarendon, Mr. Smith has laid us under a debt of gratitude for what he has done. It seems the more ungrateful, therefore, to find fault with a volume which cannot fail to provide so much pleasure and profit for any one into whose hands it may come; yet we cannot but regret one obvious limitation. There is somewhat too much of Clarendon, who is honored with nearly as many selections as all other writers together. We could well spare some of these, good as they are, for a wider selection. Ludlow's evaluation of Cromwell, more of North and Aubrey, some of Evelyn and Pepys, and, above all perhaps, some of Sir William Monson's penetrating sketches, would have added variety and spice. Marvell's lines on Charles II., to take one instance of many, would have lightened a page; and there lie buried in the Historical Manuscript Commission Reports many lesser examples of an admirable art which might have lent sparkle to the greater jewels set here, if only by contrast of greater informality. Yet when so much is good, it ill becomes us to criticize too closely. There is not anywhere else in English so good an essay on the "character" as this; and though one might insist somewhat more than its accomplished author on the distinction between externals and intellectual or spiritual qualities, and their elucidation as exemplified in Clarendon and Burnet, he has said much on an interesting theme and said it well.

W. C. A.

Le Cardinal Collier: Lettres et Prophéties de Marie-Thérèse; l'Embûche Autrichienne. Par J. Munier-Jolain. (Paris, Payot et Cie., 1918, pp. 238, 4.50 fr.) In this little volume M. Munier-Jolain endeavors to broaden the setting in which the life of Cardinal de Rohan has been