paigns, and not one of them was free from misspelt words, some letters containing a great many. This was not at that period a style peculiar to Claverhouse, but it is so marked in his letters that the want of it cannot be ignored. Yet in this letter the words and spelling are in a very correct style. It must therefore have been written or edited by someone else, and this may have been done after Dundee's death. The editor probably appended his own spelling of the Viscount's name; or if the Viscount did sign the letter, the spelling has been changed, and the probability of revision still remains.

If the above criticisms do not invalidate the letter they will suggest that there is much room for doubt. And when to this is added the strong testimony as to Dundee's death on the field of battle, there is very good ground indeed for believing that Dundee neither saw nor wrote the letter as it is known to us either in the MS. or the print. Surely, however, it were better to let the matter rest until we get that 'further light' which Mr. Barrington hopes for, and others, as well as he, seek for.

Register House, Edinburgh.

JOHN ANDERSON.

1 Historical MSS. Report, xv. App. viii. 264-294. No one, reading these, can fail to note the difference between them and the one in dispute. Even those printed by Professor Terry in his book and referred to by Mr. Barrington have the same peculiarity, which he has not, apparently, taken into account.

The Editor has received from Mr. Michael Barrington a second contribution (see S.H.R. v. 505) on this subject. In this he further maintains his position, to which he strongly adheres, that 'as there is no adequate motive for forgery, and as the letter is in the very spirit and manner of Dundee, and as the evidence of his death upon the battlefield is not convincing, the letter deserves a more respectful treatment than it has received since 1826, when Mr. Smythe, of Methven, first cast doubts upon its authenticity.' His opinion is not altered after reading the above papers by Professor Sanford Terry and the Rev. John Anderson, of which he has seen proofs.

The Editor regrets, however, that he has not space for further discussion of this subject.

Reviews of Books

THE LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER, Selected and Translated by Margaret A. Currie. Pp. xxxv, 482. Med. 8vo. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 1908. 12s. nett.

ALMOST an hundred years have passed since Coleridge said that he could scarcely conceive a more delightful volume than could be made from Luther's letters if translated in the simple, idiomatic, hearty mother-tongue of the original; yet no one has attempted the task until now. Translations of the carelessly edited Table Talk abound, but only Zimmerman's collection of Luther's Letters to Women, admirably translated by Mrs. Malcolm, have appeared in English; and they are long out of print and hard to get. We must therefore welcome Miss Currie's book of selections and translations from the very voluminous correspondence of the great Reformer.

Perhaps such a book was needed more now than at any previous time; for our generation always seeks to pass behind opinions to the personality responsible for them, and there never was a more exuberant personality than Luther's. Of course the man was naturally sociable and anything but reticent. No great man, and Luther was one of the greatest, has ever revealed himself so frankly. His sermons, his commentaries, his tractates abound in little biographical details. Michelet's Life of Luther is a mosaic compiled from the reformer's own statements about himself, and more than one English edition, ignoring the name of the author, has been published under the title of Luther's Autobiography. But his Table Talk and his Letters, spoken and written without a thought of publication, reveal the man as nothing else does. Miss Currie has therefore made a distinct and notable contribution to our knowledge of the great German reformer, and deserves our gratitude for so doing.

Her book does not pretend to give us the whole of Luther's correspondence. It does not include a fourth part of the letters which have descended to us. Nor does it give us any of the letters addressed to him. Her principle of selection has been a sound one upon the whole. She has chosen for publication those letters which are referred to in the two most important lives of Luther-those of Köstlin and of Kolde-and has therefore selected those portions of the voluminous correspondence which are of most biographical value according to the ideas of these two eminent German experts. Such a principle of

selection has its limitations: it is apt to exclude everything which concerns the wider historical interest which surrounds such a man as Luther and this is one of the chief faults of Miss Currie's selection. Two illustrations may be given. Among the benefits which Luther bestowed on his native land was the habit of writing books in the German language. It may almost be said that before Luther's time there was no such thing as a trade in German books printed in the mother-tongue; the eagerness to read what Luther wrote changed all that. We can assume somewhat surely that the first edition of any of Luther's books or tracts issued from the Wittenberg presses consisted of one thousand copies. If we had any means of knowing how long it took, as a rule, to exhaust this edition, we could have some idea of the extent of the circulation of his works. One or two of Luther's letters give us the information. As a rule the thousand copies were sold within two months. Miss Currie selects none of these letters. She gives us instead one addressed to the printers of Nürnberg which only tells us of the way in which Luther's writings were apt to be pirated, a thing too common to be of much interest.

Two very important letters which show the influence of Luther beyond Germany are not to be found in Miss Currie's selection. In one Luther tells that he has heard from Paris that his writings were known in that city as early as 1519. Another is his answer to Dr. Barnes, who had evidently been requested by Henry VIII. of England to solicit from Luther an approval of his suit for the nullity of his. marriage with Catharine of Aragon. It is on this letter that the late Lord Acton founds his ridiculous assertion that Luther valued the royal prerogative so highly that he made it include bigamy. It is a pity that this letter, one of the many proofs that where the Reformation of the sixteenth century was concerned Lord Acton's reputation for accuracy and for fairness is scarcely deserved, should not have been made accessible to English readers.

These are but instances of omissions, and important omissions, due to the principle of selection employed.

On the other hand, we must thank the authoress for selecting many letters which most writers have neglected and which are nevertheless of great importance. To give one instance the collection includes Luther's letter to his wife written while attending the Marburg Colloquy (No. 197). It contains the one fair description Luther ever gave of the Zwinglian doctrine of the Sacrament of the Supper, and has been generally overlooked by theological critics.

If we are to judge the book by the standards which the authoress evidently set before herself her work deserves great praise and small censure. Her text is that of De Wette; her letters are those selected for her by Köstlin and Kolde; her notes and explanations are taken from De Wette. These things premised she has done her work with. praiseworthy carefulness, and the result is a book which will certainly enable English readers to know Luther better than before. But we humbly submit that anyone who aimed at presenting Luther, through

his correspondence, to English readers ought to have overstepped these limitations. Every scholar recognises that De Wette's text is not always to be depended upon and frequently requires to be amended. In letter No. 410 Miss Currie translates: To the wealthy lady of Zulsdorf, Frau Doctoress Katharine. Luther, wandering in spirit in Zulsdorf!' The true text and translation is: To the rich lady of Zulsdorf, Frau Doctor Katharine Luther, dwelling in the body at Wittenberg, and wandering in the spirit to Zulsdorf; to be delivered into the hands of my darling; if absent to be opened and read by D. Pömerau, pastor.' The sentence is one of the many instances in which Luther chaffs' his wife at her delight that she, disinherited and repudiated by her kinsfolk, had been able to acquire by purchase part of the old family estate. Miss Currie, here and elsewhere, is rather blind to Luther's humour. Then De Wette's notes are by no means sufficient for English readers. It would have been easy to have described in four lines of small print the recipients of the letters, and such descriptions would have been of great value. Why did not Miss Currie tell her readers who Christorf Scheurl was? why letters had to be addressed to King Ferdinand about King Christian, etc., etc.? But after all the great defect in the book results from the patent fact that Miss Currie does not seem to know as thoroughly as an editor of Luther ought to, the history of the times in which the letters she translates were written. Witness the naïve assertion in the preface that: It is interesting to note that Luther's unalterable opinion of the Turk coincides with that of the Sultan's greatest foes in this twentieth century, etc.' Does the authoress not know that the fear of the Turk was the by no means baseless terror of the peoples of Europe in the sixteenth century, and that fifty years before Luther's letters were written the church bells were tolled in almost every parish to call together the people to pray pray against a Turkish invasion? Witness how Wolsey, Cardinal Archbishop of York, is concealed under the meaningless phrase 'Cardinal of Eborack'!

We trust that when a second edition of this book is called for, and may it be soon, the authoress will correct its many deficiencies and make it a presentation of Luther's correspondence to English readers worthy of the name. It ought not to be difficult to do this.

T. M. LINDSAY.

AN INDEX TO THE PAPERS RELATING TO SCOTLAND DESCRIBED OR CALENDARED IN THE HISTORICAL MSS. COMMISSION'S REPORTS. By Charles Sanford Terry, M.A., Burnett-Fletcher Professor of History in the University of Aberdeen. Pp. 62, Imp. 8vo. Glasgow James MacLehose & Sons. 1908. 3s. nett.

STUDENTS of Scottish history owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Terry for having compiled this little volume, which cannot fail to be of use. It is the more creditable to him inasmuch as its preparation must have been a labour of love, the circle of persons to whom it will appeal

being necessarily a very limited one. He has gone over the fifteen reports which the Commissioners have issued, dealing with some 120 collections of Scottish MSS., together with the volumes which have been published independently of reports, though under the control of the Commissioners, to the number of upwards of fifty, and has given a succinct though of course a very condensed epitome of the contents of each so far as these relate to Scottish affairs. He also puts within brackets the names of Club and other books bearing on the subject noted. This is not the least useful feature in the volume, and, as might be expected from a writer of the author's learning, the range is a wide one, extending from the publications of the Camden and Spalding Clubs and the family histories of Sir William Fraser, down to the grotesque Red and White Book of Menzies. The volume may be described as the Calendar of a Calendar, but it is something more than this, and the subject-index at the end will facilitate reference to the actual contents of the book in a very convenient way. The author gives a list of some original records of Religious Houses which are deposited in the Advocates' Library, but which have not been examined by the Commissioners. Most of these have been published at one time or another, and Professor Terry notes in most (though his information is not altogether complete) the medium through which they have been given to the public. Some are still untouched and it is to be hoped that a book like the Rentale S. Andreae will be published before long by the Scottish History Society or similar body.

cases

Some day too it may occur to a person of leisure with a taste for the drudgery of indexing, and with no ulterior object of gain, to prepare a detailed index, taken of course from the various indices to the volumes of the Commissioners, of the names of persons and places mentioned in the collection dealt with. But this would be ideal.

J. BALFOUR PAUL.

A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF INFANTRY. By E. M. Lloyd, Colonel late Royal Engineers. Pp. xi, 303. Med. 8vo. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1908. 6s. nett.

THIS is a most interesting and instructive work. It could not have been compiled without much research and earnest study. The author has succeeded within the limits of a reasonably sized volume in giving the reader an insight into the use of the foot soldier from the earliest times down to the present day. The work is necessarily technical in its character, but it is by no means dry, and is enlivened by historical touches and quotations from the sayings of great soldiers. And in so far as it is possible for an author to make himself intelligible to the ordinary reader when treating of a science which must be inexact, in as much as it has to do not with things only, but with the contests of beings with nerves and passions, both as individuals and as organised soldiers and as nations, he has succeeded well in giving instruction. It