for 1885, deals on p. 25 with the dialect spoken in Fayûm; while on p. 42 it discusses the magical or gnostic papyri which have been found in such abundance among our new discoveries. As I said a good deal about this topic in my last record, I shall now omit any further notice of it. There has not been any elaborate report upon the Fayûm MSS. since my last record, but there have been numerous hints that we may expect even autograph letters of Mahomet himself out of that rich collection. It is time, however, to turn from foreign to home work. Here, doubtless, all will agree, the first place ought to be given to the productions of the series called the "Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," commonly called the Master of the Rolls' Series. Every year adds to the value of this vast collection, which places within the reach of all, those manuscripts and documents which hitherto have lain hid in offices of State, and which, if nominally accessible to the public, were practically shut out from the vast majority of students by the difficulties of transcription. Every real student knows, too, how vast the difference as to practical utility is in a work which one can bring home and examine at leisure at one's own fireside, as compared with a document which one must try to decipher within certain hours, surrounded by unaccustomed circumstances and distracted by manifold interruptions. We have been favoured with five volumes, one of them most important for the history of the early Norman kings, the others dealing with the Reformation period. The volume dealing with the eleventh and twelfth centuries is styled "Eadmeri Historia,"* and deals to a large extent with the life and labours of S. Anselm, one of the most famous and most able Archbishops of Canterbury. It treats of the disputes concerning investitures which embittered the whole social and religious life of Germany, France, and England, which led the Emperor Henry IV. to Canossa, and which produced the murder of Thomas à Becket. It throws much new light on the progress of this dispute in England, and S. Anselm's connection therewith. The preface of Mr. Rule is careful, learned, and interesting. On p. lxxvi. he notices quite a new point, and makes it probable that S. Anselm was, through his mother, descended from the kings of Transjuran Burgundy. The investigator of our early annals must henceforth resort to this work as one of primary authority. The other volumes which we have noticed are a continuation of Mr. Brewer's celebrated series of King Henry the Eighth's correspondence. Mr. Brewer was indeed the projector of the series. He laid the plan of the whole campaign, and sketched the lines on which this massive work should proceed. He contributed to the preceding volumes prefaces which were in fact great historical dissertations in themselves. I suppose if Mr. Brewer were given the choice of his successor out of the literary world, he would have selected his friend and associate, Mr. James Gairdner, to whom the lot has fallen, and of whose work the highest praise which can be given, or which he himself doubtless would desire, would be to say that he is carrying it on in the same manner in which Mr. Brewer fulfilled his own portion of the task. Mr. Gairdner took up Mr. Brewer's work at vol. v. of Henry VIII., "Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia." Edited by Martin Rule, M.A. London. 1884. + “Letters and Papers of Henry VIII." Vols. V.-VIII. Arranged by James Gairdner, Assistant Keeper of the Public Records. London. 1880-1885. : 1531-32. He has not attempted the vast prefaces which Mr. Brewer added to the volumes, but he gives us in each a brief yet comprehensive summary of the whole, giving us a bird's-eye view of each year's transactions, and enabling us to judge of the whole effect. Thus, if we take up the preface to volume v., and read it, we can at once see the dubious position in which Henry VIII., the Emperor, and the Pope stood to one another; we have the intrigues of Francis II. and Henry vigorously but briefly depicted; and then, in a few strokes, on pages xxx. and xxxi. of the preface we have the domestic history of the year set before us the foundation of Christ Church at Oxford, the formation of St. James's Park, the appearance of the plague, the building of Westminster Palace, and the martyrdom of Bilney. The revolution which these portly but useful volumes are working in historical science can only be estimated by contrasting them with work done before they had come into existence, and when authors had to depend upon the scanty sources then printed. Fortunately, we have a work at hand enabling us to estimate our progress in this respect. Bishop William Fitzgerald was the ablest of the whole Whatelyan school. In fact, he rose far and away beyond a school which esteemed itself very broad, but was n many respects very narrow; and of which the best description would probably be that of the prophet: "They compassed themselves about with sparks; they walked in the light of their own fire, and in the sparks that they had kindled." Few authors have for this reason fallen into more complete neglect than Archbishop Whately, within twenty years of his death; and yet his writings have a clear dry light about them, which, though not beneficial for permanent use, would still prove very healthful as a tonic for the present generation.— Dr. Fitzgerald lived in a healthier atmosphere than Archbishop Whately. He lived in the atmosphere of the mighty dead. Few bishops of any age could compare with him in his knowledge of the Fathers, a study which his friend and patron rather depised. We welcome these two volumes of his Lectures, delivered as Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Dublin; and yet we honestly say we would have preferred two volumes of his sermons. Sermons like his, full of wise, profound, pious, learned thought must be of permanent value. He had a mind like Butler's. His sermons would doubtless have been of the same type. Lectures delivered to a class at times, too, mere fragments, and never corrected by the author -have a tendency to become rapidly antiquated, and at any rate to show merely what the professor considered most interesting to his students and most likely to gain him an audience, not what he considered of most permanent value. These lectures are divided into courses. The first deals with the Apostolic Church, the second with the Early Church, the third with the Papacy, and the fourth with the English Reformation. This last course illustrates the point on which we have been insisting. Dr. Fitzgerald treats in the eighth lecture of the fourth course on the Royal Supremacy. How much richer and fuller would have been his treatment had he possessed Mr. Gairdner's exhaustive volume! Wherever new light has not appeared since the "Lectures on Ecclesiastical History." By William Fitzgerald, D.D., late Bishop of Killaloe and Clonfert. Edited by W. Fitzgerald, A.M., and John Quarry, D.D 2 vols. London: Murray. 1885. bishop lectured or wrote, his acumen and insight are very remarkable, as shown, for instance, in the first appendix, containing his remarks on the Epistle of St. Barnabas, which may be very usefully compared with the very latest discussions of the subject.-The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have of late years recovered their charm for this generation. Queen Anne's style and the rage for it is the expression of this fact in one direction. The various books, histories, and novels which deal with this period are its expression in a literary shape. Messrs. Abbey and Overton gave expression to this feeling in their interesting account of the Church of England in the eighteenth century. Mr. Overton has now come forward with another volume, dealing with the history of an earlier period, the reigns of the last Stuarts and William III.* It is interesting, full of references for the student of the times, while a copious list of authorities at the end gives it permanent value; and yet we are obliged to say that it is written in too much of a "biographical dictionary" style. The narrative does not glide smoothly and gently along, as in Burnet's history of his times, or in the author's other work to which we have referred. We feel as if he was trying to cram more into his pages than they would willingly include. We noticed just one or two omissions. Thus, the Diary of Dean Davies, published by the Camden Society, is as complete and minute a picture of clerical life in the east of England about 1690 as exists anywhere. A reference to it may well supplement the next volume. The history of the primitive Church has lately received a valuable addition, from the artistic direction, in the shape of a work the joint production of the late William Palmer, of Magdalen College, Oxford, and of Messrs. Brownlow and Northcote, the well-known authors of the English version of " Roma Sotteranea." They reproduce the drawings made by Mr. Palmer from the Catacombs, and help to make up the loss sustained by those who have not personally visited these interesting remains of the ages of persecution. In the appendices we have a copy of the celebrated blasphemous crucifix found scratched on the plaster in the Palace of the Cæsars, and some gnostic pictures from a heretical cemetery in Rome.The last two works which we have time to notice are very different. One deals with the history of the English, the other with that of the Universal Church. Mr. Joyce, in his "Acts of the Church, 15311885,"chivalrously champions the whole history of the Church of England, and undertakes to show that "the reformation of the Church of England was inaugurated, promoted, and completed by her own acts in her proper representative assemblies-i.e., the Convocations of Canterbury and York," a sufficiently brave undertaking, with that celebrated clause of the Twentieth Article, enacted by Queen Elizabeth's own hand, staring him in the face. It was scarcely necessary, even from a controversial point of view, to undertake such a thesis, as not even the Roman Catholic Church has escaped scot-free from lay violence or despotism in the past, as witness Charlemagne and the "Life in the English Church, 1660-1714." By J. H. Overton, M.A. London: Longmans. 1885. + An Introduction to Early Christian Symbolism." London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1885. "Acts of the Church, 1531-1885: the Church of England her own Reformer." By J. W. Joyce, M.A. London: Whitaker. 1886. Filioque clause. Mr. Joyce's book is useful, but he might have given us a longer account of the events which led to the suppression of the English and Irish Convocations. Mr. Joyce seems indeed unaware of the existence of the latter body at all, though it claimed and exercised precisely the same powers as the English, and played a very considerable part in the events which led to the suppression of these venerable synods, as Bishop Stearne's MSS. and pamphlets, and Archbishop King's ponderous MS. correspondence in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, abundantly testify.-The other work we notice is Dr. Schaff's "History of Medieval Christianity, A.D. 590-1073,"* which is a Church history of a much better class and style than those ordinarily produced. It deals with men and periods, rather than with the mere succession of ecclesiastical events. It tells of literature, science, and art, and thus engages the interest of the student, who too often regards Church History as " dry bran and sapless porridge." Dr. Schaff is indefatigable in his exertions in the direction of the Church. He now announces a series of translations of the best Greek and Latin Christian writers of the first nine centuries. He is bringing out the series in America, aided by a large and well-equipped band of patriotic scholars, European and American. GEORGE T. STOKES. II.-GENERAL LITERATURE. PROFESSOR DICEY'S "LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION" deserves a longer notice, had space permitted; but the Parliamentary honours which it has received have brought it to the attention of most students. It is at once a penetrating and-rare merit of a law-book-readable exposition of the British Constitution as developed up to this time, from a purely legal point of view-that is, of constitutional principle, not as observed by statesmen, but as enforced by courts of justice. Its special opportuneness, however, lies in its comparison of Parliamentary Sovereignty with Federalism, and its account of the relations of Parliament to subordinate Colonial Legislatures. The controversy of the day as to Home Rule involves the question of the relation of the Irish to the British Legislature. Besides the Governor's veto, thf Victorian Parliament (for instance) is subject to restrictions already imposed by Act of the British Parliament; and further, again, the right of legislating for Victoria has never been abandoned by the British Parliament. So far, therefore, as law can help us, we have abundant precedents for the establishment of statutory Parliaments; and if the colonial principle should be adopted with respect to Ireland, it should be well considered whether the supreme right of legislation should not be reserved. We strongly recommend this book to the great mass of Englishmen interested in the great question of the day. Perhaps it may not be out of place to suggest a cheap edition. BIOGRAPHY.-We have so often spoken in praise of the "Dictionary of National Biography" that we need not say more of the sixth volumet than that it bears up the now well-established character of * " History of the Christian Church." By P. Schaff, D.D. Edinburgh: Clark. 1885. "Dictionary of National Biography." Edited by Leslie Stephen. Vol. VI. Bottomley-Browell. London: Smith, Elder & Co. the book for careful investigation and judicious summary. Mr. W. Hunt's article on Brougham is a model of such work. A very disproportionate length is given to Nicholas Breton, great part of the article being taken up with a detailed catalogue of his writings, which is quite unnecessary, as most of them are contained in Grosart's collected edition of his works. The writer of the article on Sir D. Brewster confounds Professor Blackie and Professor Blaikie, and talks simple nonsense when he says the case against Brewster in 1844 was quashed because he had not "signed the formal deed of demission "-which is equivalent to saying that an attempt to deprive him of office was stopped because he had not already resigned the office. Mr. F. G. Fleay's "Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare, Player, Poet, and Playmaker "* gives the world for the first time a tolerably complete account of Shakespeare's theatrical work, what companies of actors he belonged to, at what theatres they acted, in what plays besides his own he was a performer, what authors this brought him into personal contact with, in what order his own works were produced, and what, if any, share other hands had in their production. The investigation has been conducted with great care and industry, and contributes materially to the accuracy and extent of our knowledge of Shakespeare's public career. It is illustrated by two admirable etchings. MISCELLANEOUS.-One of the best accounts of Russia we have seen is contained in M. L. Tikhomirov's recently published "La Russie Politique et Sociale."† The author is himself a Russian, and writes with all the advantages of personal familiarity with the country, and of access to the most recent and authoritative sources of knowledge. While sympathizing with the Liberal and even the Revolutionary party, he treats of all controverted subjects in a spirit of marked fairness, his ruling aim being throughout to give a lucid and complete idea of things as they are, and to exhibit the operation of the causes that have brought them about. We do not know a better or more instructive description of contemporary Russia, of her various nationalities, her social classes, and the different political and social problems which give rise to anxiety or occupy attention.Mr. H. W. Lucy publishes the second volume of his "Diary of Two Parliaments." The first treated of the Beaconsfield Parliament of 1874-80; this of the Gladstone Parliament of 1880-85. It is even more entertaining than its predecessor, because the Gladstone Parliament supplied better materials than most for graphic descriptions of those personal phases of parliamentary life which Mr. Lucy takes up, and for which, indeed, his work will have some historical value. The Bradlaugh and the Irish struggles pass again vividly before us, as they were photographed on the spot by the writer's happy and lively pen.Countess Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco's "Essays in the Study of FolkSong" are very interesting and thoughtful. The authoress has gathered her ample materials from wide reading in many languages, and from personal intercourse with the people of various countries. She has separate chapters on the folk-songs of Armenia, Venice, Sicily, Provence, Greece; on folk-lullabies and folk-dirges generally; and * London: John C. Nimmo. London: Cassell & Co. + Paris: E. Giraud et Cie. |