a bargain with the Earl of Lennox that they should divide his property between them if he was forfeited, and then proceeded to sit on the jury which found the aforesaid uncle guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death!

Of course there would be no difficulty in filling a whole number of the Historical Review with a detailed examination of these two stout and handsome tomes, but we think we have already said enough to show that there is no falling off from, and if anything an advance on, the high standard previously attained. VICARY GIBBS.

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH JOURNALISM TO THE FOUNDATION OF THE GAZETTE. By J. B. Williams. With illustrations. Pp. x, 293. 8vo. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1908. 10s. 6d. nett. LITERARY and political historians have alike had cause to revere the memory of George Thomason, a London bookseller of Civil War and Restoration times; for to his forethought and energy they are beyond measure indebted. His idea that a complete collection of the pamphlets that were pouring from the press at the outbreak of the Great Rebellion would be valuable for future ages was put into practical shape with great diligence, intelligence, and expense; and the result is a collection which has no equal of its kind in the world, for it contains a mass of fugitive and ephemeral literature, much of which would otherwise have perished.' This priceless collection was bought by George III. for what is very properly described as 'the absurd sum of £300,' and presented to the British Museum in 1762. The existence of this collection must have greatly simplified the researches which have resulted in the production of this volume, and have given Mr. Williams a signal advantage over workers in cognate fields like Mr. Couper, whose book on the Scottish Press was reviewed at pp. 204-5 of this volume of the Scottish Historical Review. Moreover, where the Thomason collection failed him Mr. Williams had equally accessible material in the Burney collection, covering the period before and after that embraced by the Thomason assemblage. But the accessibility of his material, while simplifying research, has not tempted him to shrink from laborious investigation: it has rather enabled him to reach at a first attempt an approach to that definitive treatment of his subject which is, as a rule, only reached by the slow labours of a succession of workers.

As in Scotland, so in England, the earliest periodicals dealt with matters outside the kingdom. The earliest English papers dealt with foreign affairs, while the first Scottish periodical, being a reprint of one of the early English periodicals, may also be said to deal with 'foreign' affairs. 'England was entirely without any printed periodical of domestic news until the end of the year 1641. . . When the periodicals of domestic news really come into being, they come with a rush-a veritable deluge—and as if to make up for the tardiness of their arrival, no other country in the world has anything at all comparable either in number, matter, or manner to the newsbooks which appeared during the years 1643 to 1649

inclusive.' With patient labour Mr. Williams has pieced together the story of the genesis and careers of those periodicals-the Corantos' and Mercuries' and 'Intelligencers'—with annotations drawn from the contents of the papers and from other sources, and has interwoven biographical notices of the individuals-often though not always political vicars of Bray-who furnished the news to an avid if limited public. Among them are shady characters like Henry Walker and Marchamont Nedham, more reputable characters like Henry Muddiman, the founder of the London Gazette, and even the great Milton himself, who, however, was an editor in the modern sense rather than a newsbook 'author.'

The law that brought forth the 'Areopagitica' pervades the volume, sometimes evaded or defied, but continuously hampering the action of the newsman. The licensing law had its strictest application under Cromwell-Mr. Williams is no admirer of the Protector-who preferred that people should know only what he chose to tell them; but even he could not altogether suppress the Royalist Mercuries; and Mr. Williams is able to reprint in an appendix the complete contents of Mercurius Elencticus, No. 1, which describes events at the murder of King Charles I. It has escaped notice owing to the fact that the date is 1648-49 and has been bound up among the periodicals of 1648." It settles the identity of the man who spat in the king's face, and the meaning of the word 'Remember.' A chapter of great interest deals with the history of advertising; and, indeed, every subject relating to newsbooks as they were conducted down till the terminus ad quem selected by Mr. Williams-the foundation of the Oxford, now the London, Gazette in 1665-is exhaustively treated. The illustrations, except for the frontispiece portrait of Charles II., are reproduced from early periodicals. W. STEWART.

THE GILDS AND COMPANIES OF LONDON. By George Unwin, Lecturer on Economic History in the University of Edinburgh. With Thirtyseven Illustrations. Pp. xvi, 397. Medium 8vo. London: Methuen & Co. 7s. 6d. nett.

THIS book aims at giving an outline of the continuous organic development of the gilds and companies of London, with special reference to their bearing on the constitutional history of the city and on the social and economic development of the nation at large. In an opening chapter the author alludes to the contrast between the gilds of China and other Eastern countries where, preserved and fostered in the interests of order, much of their original form is retained, and those of Western Europe where, as regards their old organisation, the gilds are lifeless because they have performed the most useful of their functions, and, moving in the path of progress, have helped to build up a social structure by which they have been superseded. Passing from preliminary observations to the special topic on hand, it is noted that a gild of knights, combining a social with a religious element, and a Frith gild for the suppression of theft, are vaguely heard of in the tenth century, and about two hundred years later informa

tion regarding the gilds becomes comparatively full and reliable. Associations of the Bakers, Fishmongers, and Weavers are found conducting their affairs and holding courts in the twelfth century. In 1155 the Bakers were paying into the Royal Exchequer £6 a year for their gild, a contribution which seems to have been the compounded value of tolls or market dues which the king was entitled to exact. A few years later fines, varying in amount from half a mark to forty-five marks, were imposed by the king on eighteen separate gilds, including goldsmiths, cloth workers, and butchers for having come into existence without licence, evidencing a widespread system of organisation among Londoners at that time. A municipal body had not yet been constituted, but the grant of Mayor and Commune came in 1191, hastened, it is believed, by the spread of civic opinion as indicated by the rise of so many voluntary associations.

As many as one hundred and eleven London crafts are counted in 1422, at which time the population of the city was about 50,000, but later on a number of the crafts disappeared or were amalgamated with others. The term 'craft' in the middle ages signified a trade or calling generally, and the typical member of a craft was a well-to-do shopkeeper, a tradesman. Though he had gone through an apprenticeship to the manual side of his craft, the full master of a craft was always a trader, and as trade and industry developed, the master rose in the social scale. The system of grouping several branches of a craft under one denomination did not prevail in London to the same extent as in Scottish towns, mainly perhaps on account of the wide difference in population. Edinburgh and Glasgow had only fourteen incorporated trades each, but to show how grouping existed, it may be mentioned that in Edinburgh the Hammermen craft embraced seven branches, six of which appear as separate crafts in the London list of 1422. Up till the fifteenth century livery had been worn by all members of the London companies, but some of those incorporated about that time contained members known as the yeomanry, and only the more prosperous of these were advanced into the livery. In 1430 the Grocers had 55 members in the livery, 17 in hoods, and 42 householders not in the livery. The practice of the livery companies possessing halls of their own did not become general till well on in the fifteenth century. Feasting is heard of at a much earlier date and that hospitable custom has been continuously upheld.

From the earliest times an influential part of the industrial population of London had been made up not only of foreigners' from English counties but likewise of alien strangers, and the influx was always on the increase. These new settlers were indispensable for the due development of manufactures and commerce, but all the citizens did not look upon them in that light, and much diplomacy was employed in allaying agitation and feuds, and in framing regulations for preserving the trading privileges of the gilds, and at the same time fostering the material interests of the community. Besides the craft-gilds there were, at least from the fourteenth century, a number of local or parish fraternities connected with the churches and having as their chief object the securing of religious observances. At the Reformation the endowments of chantries and obits, whether of the crafts