commercial movement which advanced the colony and made easy the development of Crown control on the dissolution of the association. Her conclusion urges the imperative need for publication of many records of similar companies in order to disclose the economic history of the seventeenth century. Mr. G. L. Beer surveys the general colonial policy of Britain from 1760 until 1765, in which dominant considerations were the desire to encourage colonial production of goods imported by Britain, to play off the British West Indies against the French in the Antilles, and to levy a share of the costs of garrisons from the colonies on which they were stationed. Professor E. Channing, in an appreciation of William Penn, emphasizes the want of practical judgment which explained the failure of his fine theories and intentions when applied to the mechanism of actual government in Pennsylvania. Pedagogic reports of great interest register a conference on the teaching of history in the elementary schools, and another on its place in the college curriculum. The syllabus for school courses connecting European and American events from Roman times to the present day is a capital programme, while the views of contributors to a discussion on more advanced general teaching display healthy disagreements, both as regards sequence of subjects and method, as well as matter, of instruction. Nor is the interest of the medieval student left wholly ungratified. Prof. Dana C. Munro has found an attractive title to work upon in the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century,' which he seeks to establish by its development of political ideas, of literature, and even of science, especially instancing geography nourished by the crusades. John of Salisbury's argument for tyrannicide is connected with Suger's career as a statesman and the preaching of St. Bernard. Mr. H. O. Taylor has allowed himself only a little more scope in A Medieval Humanist,' viz. Bishop Hildebert of Lavardin (1095-1134), whose letters and verses reward a re-examination. His verse was worth quotation; there is still charm in such a couplet as this about the remains of statuary at Rome: But when the Bishop drops into the free leonine hexameters familiar to his age, his critic should hardly commit the solecism of saying that his pen was freed from the restraints of metre. In the issue for October last of the Annales de l'Est et du Nord, M. Petit-Dutaillis gives in nearly eighty pages of most valuable and curious text, the concluding instalment (see S.H.R. v. 381, 515; vi. 100) of the letters of remission granted by Philip the Good between 1438 and 1467. A strange record of crimes is presented by the documents. Much of it is drunken violence originating in the tavern, whether le Paon, le Baers, le Coquelet, le Tour a vaiches, les Trois Roys or la Fleur de lys, and the quarrels are sometimes rendered with a vigour extraordinary for such writs. Revenge and jealousy are frequent motives of disturbance in spite of the peace and satisfaction'-a security for good behaviour to which parties have previously had to subject themselves. Types closely similar to instances cited in previous notices constantly recur, for vengeance and turbulence are chronic. An example or two may be added. Jehan Lecdoul had complained of getting a beating from Jehan Caudun. Soon after Denis Caffet, brotherin-law of Jehan Lecdoul, came one night upon Jehan Caudun and in revenge attacked and stabbed him with a boar spear on the thigh, so that he died; wherefore Denis fled and went a-crusading into Turkey in 1464 and elsewhere, and afterwards on pilgrimage to Rome. his return to Lille in 1467 Denis, with six others, went to drink in the tavern of the Fleur de lys. His comrades left him there without paying the score, and as it was the custom of the said town that the last pays all,' he was sent to the town prison, where says the good Duke who pardoned him, he is doomed to end his days if our grace and mercy are not granted to him.' Occasionally advantage is taken of the privilege of sanctuary. A form of insult is to refuse to drink with one who proposes it, the refusal leading in the case of Cornille Gheeritssone to a mishap en chaude colle―of the which stroke the said Threrry about five or six days afterwards terminated his life by death.' Subsequently Cornille made peace and compact with Threrry's relatives, which the Duke confirmed by a remission. Some of the narratives suggest how surprisingly little variation the vocabulary of personal abuse shows in the Newgate Calendar of Europe from the fourteenth century to our own. M. Petit-Dutaillis, by the tribute he has drawn from the archives, justifies the conclusions of his introductory dissertation by a body of authentic evidence as remarkable for its actuality and vividness as for its social, historical and legal significance. How grimly the old order was dying, yet how steadily it was dying, has nowhere been better shown than by the series of these articles which we are almost reluctant to see completed. Queries and Replies WINE ON THE NIGHT OF A DEATH (S.H.R. vi. 141). Mr. J. G. A. Baird thinks it difficult to account for the purchase of '8 bottles of sack ye night ye said Anna died' (12th May, 1699). I venture to suggest that it was for the use of those who would wake,' or watch, the body during the three days and nights between the lady's death and her funeral. I asked my mother-an old lady of ninety-sixabout the custom of 'waking' the dead, as she remembers it in Banffshire in her early days. The origin of the custom, she informs me,-so, she says, she used to be told,-was lest rats, or cats, or other vermin,' should begin to gnaw the corpse! Houses, especially in the country, were very openthe doors did not close; and there were many wild creatures about, polecats and foxes, as well as rats. Obviously, if this reason for the practice existed in Scotland, it existed no less in Ireland, where the cabins of the poor were so wretched. So far back as my mother's memory extends—and she clearly remembers deaths among her kindred in 1820, and before that-the practice of 'waking' the dead had been given up among the better classes, whose houses were well finished; but there were some families even in the upper ranks who retained the old custom, simply because it was a custom. Among the poor, however, in their miserable cottages (the older sort of which, as she remembers them, had no structural partitions whatever), the need continued, and with the need the observance. Friends and neighbours sat with the dead by turns, both by day and night. Among the more pious, one of the little company would read aloud a chapter of the Bible; possibly the same thing might be done where there was less piety, for the purpose of scaring 'bogles.' Readers of Rob Roy will remember how Andrew Fairservice employed 'the namiest chapter in Nehemiah' as an exorcism; while readers of Redgauntlet will recall how 'naebody cared to wake' the dead Sir Robert, like any other corpse.' Dougal provided himself for the occasion with a tass of brandy; the genteel friends of the Edinburgh merchant's widow very naturally would have 'sack.' The Banffshire peasants of the first half of the nineteenth century took care to provide either beer, or a bottle of whisky, and bread. The custom was still necessary in the Old Town of Keith, and still in use there, when my mother left that county in 1845. JAMES COOPER. The University, Glasgow. 20th February, 1909. THE MAKING OF IRELAND AND ITS UNDOING (S.H.R. vi. 194). The questions opened in this book have been hitherto little studied. In fact, the whole history of the Celtic races comprised in the United Kingdom is in a very backward state, not only in Ireland but in Scotland. Ignorance has remained entrenched behind a theory of barbarism. When that theory is broken down we shall have a more true, a more varied, and a more interesting survey of the history of these islands than is now possible. In his review of my book Dr. Lawlor's object is to show that no serious attention need be given to my argument for a richer trade and a higher culture in Medieval Ireland than has been formerly supposed. I should regret if the idea prevailed that I have proved nothing, and that there need be no further curiosity; because I am particularly anxious to awaken curiosity, so that new workers, and many of them, may open fresh studies in the history of Ireland and Scotland. On this ground alone Í ask for some explanation in your pages. A few words first as to the authorities which Dr. Lawlor accuses me of leaving out. Much leniency is shown to those who maintain the orthodox legend of Irish barbarism. They may leave out what they choose.1 A sudden strictness, on the other hand, is discovered for those who dare to question the legend. I may venture a word on my own behalf. I was not writing a general history of Ireland, but merely gathering together some indications as to the trade, social life, and culture of medieval Irishmen-a study which has been too generally ignored by historians. Some selection of materials was inevitable. The Statutes are very important, and I quoted those of England and Ireland so far as they related to my subject. I did not quote them from Berry's Early Irish Statutes because that volume appeared after most of my book was in print. There is very little for me in the Pipe Rolls. The Calendar of Justiciary Rolls covers so far eight years, and for that time confirms my statements as to foreign trade. The Calendars of Patent and Close Rolls give certain licenses, mostly to Englishmen, for trade, and incidentally strengthen the argument for the export from Ireland of corn, peas, beans, and wool, and add some evidence for the trade with Scotland. references confirm my story, but they are not of much use to me. Fiants are quite useless for my purpose; grants of lands, fees, pardons, they contain scarcely anything on trade, and nothing on culture. The trade and culture of Ireland were not all organised by the English Government, and were indeed mainly independent of it. The most important references are not in the English records. I might rather have been blamed for not having used the Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, a fault which I have remedied for a future edition. The The We now proceed to the main body of criticisms. I have gone over a wide ground in attempting to gather up indications of trade, social life, 1 Has not Mr. Bagwell omitted in his many volumes of Irish history to give any reference to the records of the Bruges Staple or of the Hanse towns for Irish trade, or the evidences of Irish culture given by Stanihurst, in Irish manuscripts, or in the work of scholars such as Dr. Norman Moore or Mr. Whitley Stokes? and culture in the Middle Ages. Dr. Lawlor takes a small part of my account of Waterford, and examines half a dozen points. My special contention with regard to Irish towns is, that the colonists and the Irish got on well together in them, and through trade and marriage and common interests learned to live together happily and profitably for their country. It is interesting to find how singularly unwelcome this theory is. I am quite unable to understand the particular kind of jealousy felt by Englishmen in Ireland for the reputation of their ancestors or forerunners. No slur on their fair name seems to be as dark as the suggestion that they ever made friends with an Irishman, gave him equality of opportunity, or lived even for business purposes on good terms with him. At once the Englishman of Ireland is up in arms. That at least their worthy ancestors and models of behaviour never did! The stainless colonists were too loyal' for that. They lived on their own little local industries, a small thing indeed, but the laborious Englishman's own; what had he to say to the 'hinterland,' what need to make friends with any Irishman? It seems even now to hurt an Englishman less to tell of his plundering, hanging, selling into slavery, refusing religion or education to the Irish, than to suggest that he took them into his towns and did prosperous business with them on equal terms. Surely we may exclaim with Lynch, 'That time could not slacken or cool down the fiery ardour of this hatred, that English obstinacy should be eternal, is truly astonishing.' I Dr. Lawlor is not without this characteristic jealousy for his race. He cannot believe that Waterford drew from its 'hinterland' Irish manufactured goods. We need not fancy manufactured articles were sent out to pay for silks and furs and wines and spices. Foreign fineries' were bought in some ruder and more indolent a fashion. He blames me for not informing my readers of the document that tells how the extravagance of women in dress brought their city to poverty and idleness, with the 'obvious conclusion' that a trade must have been small indeed to be thus easily ruined. I can only answer that there is no such document. As there is positive evidence of a large trade (for medieval times) we are not left to fancy conjectures. We know the merchants bought cloth from all the Irish counties round them. have given proofs (pp. 145-152) that English traders during and after the wars of conquest, were backed by the English government in carrying away 'yarn unwrought,' for the benefit of English weavers and to the loss of the Irish. I have shown how Lord-Deputy Sidney attempted to save 'the manufacture of commodities within the country,' and how his efforts were foiled. Waterford, an active manufacturing centre, shared in the poverty and distress which this policy was bringing on Ireland. The Council sought to revive the home industries, first by forbidding export of wool, then by an order for the use of home fabrics. In this ordinance of 1599 nothing is said of extravagance; but only a complaint that citizens and their servants do wear in their attire no part or parcel of anything wrought within this city or realm'; and to the end 'the inhabitants of this city may be withdrawn from idleness and made to work and content themselves with the clothes wrought |