be found in the sixteenth-century scheme to utilize the Wall of Hadrian for repression of the Scots.

Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archaeological Journal (April) describes an excursion to White Horse Hill, and deals with the equine figure cut on the hillside and with its tradition and relative ceremonies.

In the number for October, Mr. J. H. Round, in a pedigree paper, illustrates the use of alternative surnames, the family name and the manorial, in the eleventh century. Other articles deal chiefly with church subjects, one of them the offering by Henry III. of 'baudekins,' or brocades of gold, to Westminster, out of reverence for Edward the Confessor.

The Home Counties Magazine (June) has a good architectural paper, with drawings of the Chapel Royal of Dover Castle. It also illustrates and describes a fascinating restoration-that of St. Alban's shrine. Destroyed by authority in 1539, its materials were cast away as rubbish, but in 1847 over 2000 pieces of Purbeck marble, by chance unearthed, were very successfully put together again by the late Mr. Micklethwaite, architect to Westminster Abbey. Mr. Cornelius Nicholls gives an account of Touching for the King's Evil, with a plate of touch-pieces and a print of that pious monarch, Charles II., performing the miraculous ceremony.

The Poetry Review, issuing from the St. Catherine Press, Norfolk Street, Strand, W.C., price 6d. net, is a new monthly established to print, criticise, and promote the appreciation of high-class poetry.

In the Juridical Review for June Sir Philip Grierson edits the very interesting but doleful Memorandum of the progress of James Grierson of Dalgoner when it came to his knowledge that he was proclaimit rebell at the Crosse of Dumfries,' i.e. in consequence of the Pentland Rising. James Grierson's action, on his own showing, was so compromising that he could scarcely have expected to escape severe treatment as at least a suspect, but his sufferings were more than sufficient expiation. He hesitated and was lost, being indiscreet enough to accompany the insurgents by riding 'a piece with them' on their ill-fated expedition after the capture of Sir James Turner on 15th November, 1666. The document adds an intimate note to the known circumstances of the Pentland Rising. Mr. Lovat Fraser sketches the career of Henry Erskine (1746-1817), a great advocate and wit, to whom luck was adverse. In the July number Sheriff James Ferguson, K.C., writes, not very critically, on the Barony in Scotland; and Mr. J. Robertson Christie discusses the Doctorate of Laws in Scottish Universities.

In the number for October, a far from profound article by Mr. A. Betts deals with Roman marriages. Mr. J. A. Lovat Fraser sketches clearly and cleverly the impeachment and acquittal of Henry Dundas, Lord Melville, in 1806.

Old Lore Miscellany, Vol. V. Part III. (Viking Club, July, 1912), maintains its Norse and Orcadian interest. Notable items are charms and witchcraft episodes from John o' Groats and an important criticism of Dowden's Bishops of Scotland as regards the Orkney bishops.

The Saga Book of the Viking Club, Vol. VII., Part II., has an experimental and very unsatisfying derivation of Scaldingi [=Vikings] from Old Saxon *skalda, a vessel propelled by punting. Dr. A. Bugge describes Viking costume and furniture. Dr. H. Fett writes, with many photographic reproductions, on miniatures from fourteenth century Icelandic manuscripts. Mr. W. F. Kirby deals with William Herbert's poetic adaptations and translations from the Norse. Dr. A. W. Brøgger describes a hoard of Anglo-Saxon silver coins from the eleventh century from Ryfylke, Norway. He mentions that 30,000 English coins of date 9801050 were known as found in Scandinavia up to 1900. One of the Ryfylke or Foldøen coins bears the stamp LEOMÆR ON IÓÐ. It is interpreted as from the supposed Jedburgh mint.

The Viking Club's Extra Series, Vol. III., forms a handsome quarto of Essays on Questions connected with the Old English Poem of Beowulf by Knut Stjerna: translated by John R. Clark Hall. (Pp. xxxv, 271, with many illustrations and two maps. Coventry: published for the Viking Club by Curtis & Beamish, Ltd. Price 12s. 6d. net.) There are 128 illustrations of northern objects, such as helmets, swords, shields, spears, fragments of armour, sculptures, ornaments, coins, rings, horse trappings, etc., considered apposite to the illustration of the deceased scholar's archaeological commentary on the Anglo-Saxon poem. They are adduced in support of his very learned argument for a complete identity of the funeral customs in use by the Swedes at the burial of their king and those which the Geats followed in honour of Beowulf, and of his inference that the 'Odinshög' mound at Gamla Upsala was the monument of the victory of the Swedes over the Geats or Gauts circa A.D. 500-550, while the defeated Geats raised a second monument to their king in the shape of a poem, which has remained the finest memorial of their lost dominion.' The rites of the burial of Beowulf are exhaustively compared with the archaeological data from the grave mound at Gamla Upsala with results which give remarkable countenance to the young student's conclusions.

A less envious fate might have allowed his positions to be checked and fortified by studies continued through a course of ripening years and experiences. But Dr. Stjerna, born in 1874, paid for the brilliancy of his early archaeological distinctions by a premature death in 1909; and his essays, full though they are of interpretative ingenuity, suffer from the lack of a sustained process of revision at the author's own hand for a number of years. Yet in such cases as his the work is done by an eager spirit pressing on with unhalting vigour to the end of every avenue of enquiry. It is astonishing how much can be done in a very little time when a discoverer strikes a trail of promise. Stjerna undoubtedly attempted a daring archaeological flight in proposing to equate the 'Odinshög' with Beowulf's veritable grave, but it was not quite a fiasco. Dr. Clark Hall, known as a translator of Beowulf, has sympathetically translated the commentary, prefixing an introduction, in which a generous yet critical exposition of Stjerna's proposition proceeds upon an acceptance of his main contentions that the story bore on the downfall of the Geatic kingdom, that arms and armour of

the poem suit that period, that the Swedish Ongentheow was the 'Vendel Crow' of Swedish tradition, and above all, that there are fascinating parallels between the funeral in the poem and the facts from the grave in the 'Odinshög.' That the final identification goes beyond the hope of verification may well be the conclusion which cold-blooded criticism will have to draw, yet the annals of English literature may reserve a corner to mark the service to Beowulf rendered by Dr. Stjerna.

In the American Historical Review for July Mr. A. C. Coolidge discusses the European Re-conquest of North Africa, questioning whether France can demonstrate her dominion over the Arabic civilization. Mr. E. D. Adams reviews the negotiations of Lord Ashburton for the treaty of Washington in 1842. A journal of July-August, 1812, of very great interest, is edited, being that of William K. Beall, assistant quartermastergeneral under General Hull, in the enterprise on Canada. Beall, to his surprise, found himself a prisoner on board the schooner Thames on Lake Erie, and beguiled the captivity by a long diary of his experiences. Just before the detention of his ship, while sailing on Lake Erie, he opened the Lady of the Lake,' from which he transferred a quotation. Considerable apprehension existed over the attitude of the Indians to the American captives. Beall saw a good deal of them, among them the famous chief, 'the great Tecumseh.' Friction broke out over the conditions made by the British officers on the ground of the supposed danger from the Indians. Beall tells how he let them all see that he cared little for tomahawks, scalping knives, and frowning Indians,' declaring, with some touch of American rhetoric, that he would ask no favour from his captors. 'No,' says he, 'rather should my head stoop to the block or dance upon a bloody pole than stand uncovered and meekly ask them for a kindness.' He ekes out his daily tale of minor things with occasional verses on the young wife he had left behind him at home. Happily there was no occasion for the bloody pole. When the diary closes, General Brock, the British commander, has gone up by land with 400 men, principally militia, to operate against our army,' i.e. to drive the United States forces into Detroit and capture them-General Hull being subsequently court-martialled for his bungling, or worse, in the campaign. Beall's diary, written at the time and near the scene of operations, documents the movements of 1812 in a very direct and pregnant fashion.

In the same Review for October, students of ecclesiastical law in Scotland will turn with well-founded expectation of profit to a paper by Mr. W. E. Lunt. The Annat,' one of the strangest and most interesting survivals in Scotland from pre-Reformation church law, has its papal origins now very clearly worked out. Mr. Lunt has had the good fortune to discover in the register of Simon of Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury, the letter of Clement V., dated 1 February, 1306, ordaining the payment of papal annates. The operative part of the letter is quoted below:

'Clemens episcopus servus servorum Dei [to the collectors of ecclesiastical fruits, etc., "primi anni omnium beneficiorum ad presens in Anglie et Scotie regnis Hibernie et Wallie provinciis earumque civitatibus et diocesibus vacantium," etc.]... Quare nos... fructus redditus et proventus

P

primi anni omnium et singulorum beneficiorum ecclesiasticorum cum cura et sine cura, etiam personatum et dignitatum quarumlibet ecclesiarum monasteriorum prioratuum et aliorum locorum ecclesiasticorum tam secularium quam regularium exemptorum et non exemptorum, que in Anglie et Scotie regnis et Hybernie et Wallie provinciis sive partibus eorum civitatibus et diocesibus vacant ad presens, et que usque ad triennium vacare contigerit, [with some exceptions] non obstante quod fructus ... hujus primi anni ex privilegio sedis apostolice vel alias ... alicui vel aliquibus deberentur vel in usus forent aliquos convertendi pro ipsius ecclesie oneribus facilius celebrandis in ejus agendorum subsidium auctoritate apostolica per alias nostras certi tenoris litteras duximus deputandos . . . Quo circa... discretioni vestre per apostolica scripta mandamus quatinus prefatos fructus.. .. per vos et subcollectores ... deputandos, diligenter colligere et exigere... curetis.'

Apart from this vital letter altogether, Mr. Lunt's paper, with its heavy array of documentary references, shows the considerable development of the institution under Pope Clement, its originator, in opposition to the earlier view that Pope John XXII. was its organizer.

Other subjects in this number are the administration of American archives, legalized absolutism en route from Greece to Rome, and the position of nonconformity under the Clarendon Code (1661-1665), which so effectually nullified the promises of tolerance held out by the Declaration of Breda of 1660.

The lowa Journal for July continues the history of the Iowa Code. The number contains also in translation a Dutch schoolmaster's diary of his journey from Rotterdam to Pella, Iowa, in 1849. The sailing ship Franziska left Rotterdam, May 3, and reached New York, June 13. John Hospers, the diarist, had little to record; a rough passage, several funerals at sea, including that of his own little daughter, and some flat reflections. Other papers trace the adventurous story of emigration to Oregon in 1843, deal with the militia organization of Iowa during the civil war, 1862-64, and describe the assault upon Josiah B. Grinnell,' a Congressional episode of 1866 due to party fury over the slave question.

In the October number Mr. T. Teakle describes John Brown's historic raid in 1859 and the subsequent controversies over the refusal of the Governor of Iowa to surrender for trial in Virginia one of the raiders, Barclay Coppoc, who had luckily escaped capture, and the 'sour apple-tree of his leader's fate.

The Revue Historique (Juillet-Août) has an article concerning the beginnings of Protestant reform at Bordeaux, and of interest for the career of George Buchanan. It deals with an exceedingly interesting group of emancipated thinkers at the College of Guienne, among whom was Buchanan, as well as at Agen, where J. C. Scaliger exercised great intellectual influence. The relationships of the many scholars noticed make the career of Buchanan increasingly intelligible and significant as one of the forces of the great movement the group represents.

In the number for September-October M. Guyot traces the constitu

tional transitions in France from the Directory to the Consulate, with new detail regarding the actings of Napoleon. M. Matter begins a study of the origins of the Cavour family, the Bensi, whose ancestral domain was the town of Chiéri, near Turin. M. Alazard, examining the insurrection at Lyons in 1831, assigns it to economic causes, chief of which was the silk tariff. A sympathetic notice of Andrew Lang characterizes his intellect as more subtle than profound, more expansive than creative; and styles him a poet, scholar, humanist, mythologist, and journalist, a historian of vast reading and knowledge, an indefatigable worker, and a critic of great erudition, whose eagerness explains some inexactness of detail.

In the Nov.-Dec. number the conclusion of the Cavour article brings the subject down to Camille de Cavour himself, tracing his characteristics to the influences of his Benso ancestry. M. Renaudet begins a sketch of the earlier years of Erasmus, and M. Marx presents an inedited account of the death of William the Conqueror.

The October and January numbers of the Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique contain the concluding instalments of studies of the Juristic basis of the early persecutions and the early days of Christianity in Sweden, by MM. Callewaert and Bril. M. Paul de Puniet contributes to the latter number an article on the traditional value of the words of consecration.

The number for July discusses Tertullian, Unction and Confirmation, and Tithes of Ecclesiastical Property in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

In the Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen for April, Mr. Frank Miller has transcribed and edited two ballads, 'Lord Maxwell's Goodnight' and 'Fair Helen,' from the Glenriddell Ballad MS. written by Captain Robert Riddell, who died in 1794. The texts now exactly edited, as shewn alongside those in Scott's Border Minstrelsy, disclose many minor divergencies due to editorial license a century ago.

In Archivum Franciscanum Historicum have lately been appearing several interesting articles and documents relating to St. Clare and her Order, called forth by the seventh centenary of the foundation of the Poor Clares. In the issues of April and July last Father L. Oliger discusses, from a study of early sources, the origin of the rules of the Order. In that of October Father B. Bughetti, in continuation of previous articles, gives some negative results of his researches into the authorship of the Legenda versificata, and the same number contains a discussion, by Father Paschal Robinson, of the historical authenticity of the passage in the Fioretti (chapter xv.) which tells 'how Saint Clare ate with Saint Francis and the Brothers, his companions, in St. Mary of the Angels.' Father Robinson has come to the conclusion that this incident and its picturesque setting are not historical, on the ground of their not being mentioned in the contemporary biography of St. Clare, and for the further reason of there being no corroboration in any of the other sources. It seems to Father Robinson 'that, like so many other details in that golden book, they are purely fanciful.'