important wars of the last century were frontier wars. This is hardly a proper interpretation of wars of conquest, in which not the frontier but the territory within it is the object. But the enormous consequence of the frontier itself is admirably shewn by the historical sketch of the origins of frontiers, natural and artificial, their varieties, the systems of maintenance, the effect of improved modes of motion, and the changes in theory resulting from the altering conditions which make or unmake a scientific border line. Spartianus is cited for the palisades-like sleeper-fences in excelsis-introduced by Hadrian; and the limes between Rhine and Danube is placed in the evolution of the border rampart, as are our Roman Walls in Britain. All are regarded as designed for protection against the menacing barbarian, although it is hinted that they were rather more a line of trespass than a frontier-a view which remains doctrinaire despite the countenance it once received more ungrudgingly than it now does. The medieval Marks or Marches are very shortly noticed and our border Wardens, though not our Leges Marchiarum, are referred to with some haziness of geography but with an appreciation of the spirit which 'interwove a woof of chivalry and high romance with a warp of merciless rapine and savage deeds.' This of course is a very inadequate summary of a remarkable organisation which began as a military expedient and never lost that inherent character. No aspect of Lord Curzon's outline treatise more arrests attention than the discussion of the reciprocal influence of fortifications on frontiers and of frontiers on fortifications. There is magnetism in the eloquence of his perorative sentences with their picture of the march of empire as it sweeps wide curving over space and carries the Frontier further and further along. And there is more than eloquence in the appeal for the maintenance of the great qualities of knowledge and strength and sympathy and justice needed to guard so vast a boundary line as ours. Frontiers of Empire,' he reminds us in a fine phrase, 'continue to beckon.' We hope Lord Curzon may one day realize his hope and fill out this treatise with full historical and geographical circumstance and colour in a volume. The The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, by George Cavendish, has been edited in Macmillan's series of English Literature for Secondary Schools, by Miss Mary Tout, M.A. (pp. xv, 114, Macmillan, 1908, 1s.), with introduction, notes and glossary. The prefatorial sketch supplies the necessary notice of Cavendish (1500-1561), who was gentleman usher to the cardinal during the last three or four years of his life, from 1527 until 1530. The Life is marked by simplicity, eloquence and emotion. It has been described as the first separate biography in English, and possesses equal importance for its historical and its literary merits. The editor seems unaware of the Kelmscott edition of 1893, which contains what is believed to be the autograph and only authentic text. A comparison of the famous passage describing Wolsey's death discloses. deficiencies in the text Miss Tout has followed. The Gold Coinage of Asia before Alexander the Great. Under this title Professor Percy Gardner, in the Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. iii., has brought to focus the results of the most recent researches into the interesting questions connected with the early gold coinages of Asia,-Lydian, Greek, and Persian. His paper, which has been separately reprinted (pp. 32, with two collotype plates. Henry Froude. 2s. 6d. nett), contains some important new suggestions of his own, notably a proposed identification of the money of the great Ionic Revolt. It will be specially valuable to historians who have no expert knowledge of numismatics, for it sets out the main facts in a singularly lucid and intelligible fashion. The Clarendon Press issues a school edition of Scott's Legend of Montrose, pp. xi, 232, having prefixed a clan map illustrative of Montrose's campaigns of 1644-45. A preface and notes by Mr. G. S. Gordon, fellow of Magdalen, set in historical frame Scott's pictures of the subordinate figures Montrose and Argyle and of the dominant personage Captain Dalgetty, though it requires more than an effort to accept-albeit brevitatis causâ the sacrifice of Sir Walter's own explanations. A book on The Law of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks, containing an exhaustive exposition of that important subject, not only in Great Britain and its dependencies, but also in regard to foreign countries, has been issued by Messrs. Cruikshank & Fairweather, Glasgow. Stoneywood Churchyard Epitaphs (pp. 8, Aberdeen, Thomson & Duncan), by Mr. R. Murdoch-Lawrance, contains a complete transcript of the tombstone inscriptions now in the churchyard of the old Chapel of Stoneywood in Newhills Parish, Aberdeenshire. In the English Historical Review (July) Sir H. Howorth begins a close examination of the historical allusions to the Germans in early Latin writings, especially in the pages of Caesar, with whom the word German had no ethnological sense, but was a geographical expression for those who dwelt beyond the Rhine. The taxation of Pope Nicholas IV., the alleged interference with freedom of electors in Elizabeth's parliament of 1559, and the progress of inclosure in the seventeenth century, are other subjects dealt with. Very important is the textual paper of Professor Haskins on the Norman Consuetudines et Justicie of William the Conqueror, as appearing in a document of the year 1091. Its interest may be judged from the citation of part of the article on fortifications: 'Nulli licuit in Normannia fossatum facere in planam terram nisi tale quod de fundo potuisset terram jactare superius sine scabello et ibi non licuit facere palicium nisi in una regula et illud sine propugnaculis et alatoriis.' Mr. L. W. V. Harcourt explains the Baga de Secretis by reference to many varieties of official bags by the court of King's Bench, finding their prototype in the coroner's bag shown to be a solemnity as early as 30 Edward I. The Antiquary for September has a suggestive survey of prehistoric Norfolk, grouping and tentatively arranging the archaeological remains of that shire. Many odd notices are unearthed in a serial article on London Signs. Students of the French of Stratford' have a very singular passage set before them by Mr. A. T. Baker in the Modern Language Review for July. It is from an Anglo-Norman MS. poem on Edward the Confessor. Regarding his diction the writer says: Qu'en Latin est nominatif Ço frai romanz acusatif. Un faus franceis sai d'Angletere Mais vus ki ailurs apris l'avez Mr. Baker assigns the manuscript to the last third of the thirteenth century. Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset (June) reprints an oddity— the bill of James Medhurst, of Weymouth, regarding his Museum of Antiquities, illustrating the Celtic, Roman, and Saxon Eras in Britain. It also describes and figures a medal, presented by the Duke of Cumberland to Ralph Allen, of Bath, in recognition of his loyal service during the Jacobite rising. Allen raised a company of troops at his own charges when Prince Charlie was marching south. The Reliquary for July has illustrations of the church of Neufchâtel-enBray, Normandy, of several pre-Norman cross fragments from Kildwickin-Craven, Yorkshire, of representative pages from the Heures a l'usaige de Amiens printed about 1500, of certain Dene-holes of Kent and Essex, and of sundry relics-an alms box, a group of stone stoups, several font covers, and early chairs. The mystery of the dene-holes is not yet solved either as regards their date or purpose. Mr. A. J. Philip's article leans to the very unhopeful theory that these extraordinary shafts and caves in the chalk were underground granaries. Orkney and Shetland Old Lore for July prints abstracts of a number of Orkney and Shetland sasines, edited by the Rev. Henry Paton. Miss Jessie Saxby collects some Shetland phrases. Mr. A. W. Johnston assembles the evidences, chiefly negative, regarding the Romans in Orkney and Shetland. From the late George Petrie's notebook there is taken an account, written about 1836, of the New-Year Song sung in the island of Sanday with the music and text. The Genealogist (July) starts its twenty-fifth volume with its accustomed fulness of record in pedigrees and armorials. On a list of licenses to pass from England beyond sea appears the following of date 13th May, 1624: YOUNG, Andrew, 33; resident at Sterli... in Scotland to Middleb . . . about certen his . . .' The lacunae are not hard to supply: Sterling,' 'Middleburg,' 'affaires.' Middleburg in the Netherlands was for centuries a great centre of Scots trade. G The Rutland Magazine for July, among its pictures of monuments at Exton, includes the recumbent effigy of Anne, wife of Thomas, Lord Bruce of Kinloss. She died in 1627. In the Revue Historique (July-August) a stirring and spirited paper by E. Rodocanachi displays the rôle of the Castle of St. Angelo in the history of Rome and the Papacy from the thirteenth century down to 1420. At the close of the twelfth century the inaugural oath bound the Capitoline senators to defend the Holy See's possessions, especially the Castle of Cresentius.' Nicholas III. transformed both the castle and the Vatican, and restored the chapel of St. Michael on the summit of the castle. Completely dominating the Vatican, the castle was vital to the security of the popes, and loyalty in the castellan was the object of ceaseless anxiety. Equally it was the objective of every ambition, whether imperial, municipal, or domestic, which was hostile to the pope. Hence the variety of its fortunes, with episodes like the death of bishop Theobald de Bar in the attack by the emperor Henry VII. in 1312, the coronation of the emperor Louis at St. Peter's, in consequence of the capture of the castle by the Romans; its giving shelter to Rienzi in 1347, because the Orsini who kept it was the born enemy of the Colonnas; and the long battle that raged round it from 1370, when Gregory XI. shifted the see to Avignon, until 1379, when, at the commencement of the great schism, the Breton mercenaries, who had held it against Urban VI., were defeated, and the captured castle was dismantled. Not for long, however; before the century was out its reconstruction was in rapid progress, aided by the goods of an Englishman falling to the pope in default of legatees. In the alternations of fortune subsequently the steadfastness of Vituccio, master of the castle during the struggle between Gregory XII. and Alexander V., was a fine episode-not unlike the story of Geoffrey de Mandeville and the Tower of London during the Anarchy, except that Vituccio displayed a good faith, which bettered his antecedents. The crowning event, however, of the medieval history of St. Angelo was its marking the end of the great schism, when the new pope, Martin V., recognised by the whole Church and restored to the Vatican, took possession of the fortress, which had so often turned the scale of the destinies of the See. Another paper of high interest is by M. Henri Sée on the political ideas of Voltaire, whose standpoints it summarises very clearly, with frequent reference to the influences which moulded his opinions. His debt to Bayle is specially pointed out, and in his dominant tenet of tolerance the effect of English ideas is shown as a continuous force in his whole manner of thought. His concept of history, however imperfectly he realised it himself, was essentially scientific-to search out the radical vice and dominating virtue of any nation, to ascertain whether it was powerful or feeble on the sea, to note its growth and wealth and exports, as well as its arts and manufactures and their transmission to other lands, and finally, as the grand object, to observe the change in manners and in laws. Strong in his definitions of the rights of man, he was curiously hostile to Parliaments, believing more in a constitutional monarchy than in republican or democratic governments. An eager and practical opponent of serfage and seignorial rights, he yet showed little inclination for popular education. Throughout all he was no mere doctrinaire or creator of abstractions': his genius enlisted itself entirely in the service of practical causes, so that, in M. Sée's phrase, 'no writer exercised an influence more decisive on the movement of ideas from which the Revolution of '89 was to spring.' A brisk discussion has arisen over M. Bédier's thesis on Raoul de Cambrai (see S.H.R. v. 365), especially as regards the identification of 'Comte Ybert de Vermandois' and the verity of Bertolais, the alleged warrior-troubadour. M. Gabriel Monod writes a long criticism of M. Anatole France's Jeanne d'Arc, which has, he thinks, brought into her history a precision and probability which it never had before. At the same time, M. Monod, like Mr. Lang (S.H.R. v. 411), regards as quite unwarranted the conclusion that the Maid was primed by her clerical entourage, and considers that although the life is and will remain one of the finest books of our historical literature,' the brilliant author has yet failed to recognise the real grandeur of Jeanne-her superiority in intelligence as much as in heart. Contents of the Revue des Etudes Historiques (Jul.-Aug.) include notably interesting papers on Montesquieu, Beaumarchais, and Napoleon. One hardly expects now to get behind the Esprit des Lois or the Grandeur et Decadence, but the author's papers exist and are being brought to light. They reveal a Montesquieu a little different from our thought of him-more anxious after literary form on the one hand, and much more of a sentimentalist in his philosophy on the other. Beaumarchais, seen not as wit and man of letters, but as a secret agent of the French Government, utilising for the purposes of political information the opportunities of diplomatic missions to London in 1775-76, when the American question was at its height. Beaumarchais believed that the success of the revolution was assured; in 1775 he wrote advising that France should at all hazards keep out of the conflict: early in 1776, fatefully changing his views, he advised that France should make herself the undisclosed ally of the Americans, and give them secret support. The secours secrets of France took first shape in a million livres, put into the hands of Beaumarchais for the purpose, a month before the American declaration of independence. He had reported that it was the secret wish of King George to abandon America. The essay, which is by M. Villette des Prugnes, reflects a different standpoint from that of Sir George Trevelyan, who has described the extraordinary influence over French policy which Beaumarchais exercised. The Napoleon article tells the story of an attempt, or rather of two attempts, on Napoleon's life by a half-crazed Saxon student, La Sahla, who was caught and imprisoned in 1811, was sent home in 1814, but returned in 1815 to try again. His first attempt was to have been made by pistol shot; his second was by explosives, which, accidentally discharged, nearly killed himself, though he survived Waterloo to offer to Admiral Sidney Smith the secret of manufacturing fire-ships for use against the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. But the Admiral drily replied that he 'wanted nothing to do with a chemist of that sort.' |