Mr. Coulton shows that such a supposition is utterly groundless. His narrative is alive; every page has its harvest of interest, and readers will be grateful to the Cambridge University Press for having made Mr. Coulton's work accessible. The illustrations which accompany the book are exceedingly interesting, but perhaps there are far too few of them.

The Life and Principate of the Emperor Hadrian, by Bernard W. Henderson (Methuen). Of the meagre material available for the study of Hadrian's baffling personality, Dr. Henderson has made remarkable use. His figure of the Emperor, if not likely to be accepted without demur, is at least solid-seeming and of human port. He has portrayed a ruler of many varied gifts, whose taste and talent for the arts did not weaken his practical statecraft and interest in military organisation, whose Wall still runs from coast to coast of Britain, whatever may have befallen his own sculptures in Rome. It is as soldier and administrator that he commands the admiration of the author. Dr. Henderson sees him as the strong man armed keeping his Empire, where another interpreter of the same scanty records might find nothing more than an obtuse adherence to traditionalism and the idea of centralisation of power. His Hadrian is sculptor, author, and musician, the patron of all the arts, but everywhere the perpetuator of tradition, devoted, as literature and architecture remain to testify, to the established forms. He felt these, perhaps, a heritage to be guarded as faithfully as the Empire itself, and, as with the Empire, his policy was to hold, not to acquire. Dr. Henderson's volume has a vitality and interest unusual in works on such a subject.

The events of the past ten years have put up a great barrier between us and the statesmen of that far-off period before the Great War. The younger generation know of them only by repute and even to the older they have become dwarfed through the greater events which have intervened. The Life of Sir William Harcourt, by A. G. Gardiner (Constable, 2 vols.) comes to remind us of the importance which this period once enjoyed, and must still enjoy in any comprehensive view of the history of this country. In the struggle for supremacy which is now going on before our eyes, it remains of the utmost importance to remember the figures which led the great constitutional parties along the road of progress and brought about thereby much of what is most characteristic and most to be admired in English politics. In addition, Harcourt's is an unusually interesting character-to read about if not to associate with-in an age when a drab uniformity was rapidly gaining ground. His was an open and jovial personality, very human in every sense of the word, childlike and affectionate yet irascible and impetuous. It is a remarkable contrast which is formed with his great leader. Gladstone's intense conviction and invariable seriousness accorded ill with the flippant and light-hearted manner of the man who became his principal lieutenant. Temperamentally, Harcourt inclined far more to Disraeli, glorying like him in the battle for its own sake and gifted with a levity which did not seem far removed from cynicism. His buoyant and impetuous record as politician is apt to make us forget that Harcourt had made his position in law and letters before he ever obtained Cabinet rank and even before he joined the House. It is enough to say that he succeeded

Maine as Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge; and to this may be added the reminder that his brilliant Budget of 1894 was the only triumph of a singularly unfortunate Ministry. He was, too, perhaps the last great Parliamentarian of the heroic age-an essential "House of Commons" man: and this is in itself no small praise. Yet in spite of all his great gifts he was never really popular or trusted in any of the many circles in which his versatility allowed him to move though his friendship with his son "Lulu" has already passed into a proverb. It goes without saying that Mr. Gardiner naturally looks upon his subject and writes about him in a manner which no stretch of the imagination can describe as impartial; and the book has perhaps in addition the fault of excessive length, a result of needlessly heavy quotation from the words of its subject. But like his own life, though frequently provocative, it is never dull: and even in its partisanship it serves to call up the recollections and the atmosphere of the strife of a bygone age.

Another work of biography largely dealing with the same period is the Life of the Right Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, by J. A. Spender (Hodder & Stoughton, 2 vols.). His was, however, a personality diametrically opposite to that of Harcourt. His character was anything but brilliant, and his rise to office slow and painstaking. He achieved the leadership of the Liberal Party at one of its darkest periods almost by default, at a time when Rosebery and Harcourt were still at the height of their powers; and it was united under him by something approaching a masterly inaction upon his part coupled with the strategical blunders of his opponents. Thus he arrived at last to enjoy the fruits of office in the teeth of men more brilliant by far than he. Yet in office he achieved that settlement which remains one of the highest and noblest monuments of British statesmanship at its wisest and its best, and which the experience of recent years has so amply justified. Mr. Spender, as private secretary to Campbell-Bannerman during the later and more important years of his career, has the best of all qualifications for writing his biography; and personal acquaintance serves to vivify the somewhat drab record which his earlier life must present to any but an enthusiast. The character of the subject appears very clearly in these pages-patient, orderly, unpretentious, and unambitious. His was a nature supremely honest and outspoken, with a carelessness of the consequences frequently perilous at the moment though sometimes since justified by experience. Already one instance from Mr. Spender's work has become almost historic-that, in the opinion of Louis Botha, three words of Campbell-Bannerman, methods of barbarism, "made for peace and union in South Africa." Yet this outspokenness, and in particular this instance of it, brought its author unbounded trouble and contumely in his life-time. Mr. Spender's book, like the last, is the monument to an age which is past. Yet CampbellBannerman's character contained so much that was upright and admirable, that it deserves in itself this monument.

Lord Shaftesbury, by J. L. Hammond and Barbara Hammond (Constable). Mr. and Mrs. Hammond have done well to centre their attention upon Lord Shaftesbury's work rather than on his personality.

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It is satisfactory to find the book planned so as to analyse his activities under their various headings, factories, ragged schools, mines, chimneysweeps, public health, and agricultural labour. His personal history is, nevertheless, adequately treated, from the days of his unhappy childhood under his unfeeling father, the tyrant of his Dorsetshire estate, the inflexible primitive Evangelicalism learnt from an old servant, and the dreadful school at Chiswick, to the self-dedication that followed the shock of the pauper's funeral at Harrow. The authors are by training peculiarly fitted to describe the conditions against which he waged unceasing war-the sufferings of women and children in the mills and mines, the incredible heartlessness of the authorities, local and national, the hideous cruelties of the chapter on "Climbing Boys" (not at an end before 1875, after years of evasion of the existing laws), and the horrors of the asylums. Their record of his Parliamentary period describes his return for a pocket borough, his elevation to the Ministry two years later; the stupid content of Brougham giving way to the relative enlightenment of Peel and Melbourne and the epoch of the Royal Commissions; the fourteen years of struggle for the Ten Hours Bill, the Mines Act of 1842, and the disappointments of the Board of Health. In the two final chapters, "Religion and Philanthropy" and "Shaftesbury's Place in the Century," the authors cannot conceal the gulf that lies between their period and Lord Shaftesbury's. As an opponent of Reform, and no exemplary landlord, as a man hardly capable of collaboration or compromise even with his most loyal helpers, and fiercely devoted to the gloomiest of creeds, he can hardly inspire perfect sympathy. Again, Mr. and Mrs. Hammond belong to the day of a battle in which he would have been among their most stalwart opponents, the age of a discontent for which, after the abuses he had known, he would have recognised little justification. But the foibles and limitations of such a man rather add to the wonder of what he accomplished; and a little more enthusiasm for what he did in his own day and his own manner achieve would not have marred this work. The volume is an excellent addition to the "Makers of the Nineteenth Century" series edited by Professor Basil Williams.

Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848, by George Macaulay Trevelyan (Longmans). Compared with Garibaldi, Daniele Manin is an unfamiliar figure to English readers, the hero of a period prior to the Risorgimento to which Mr. Trevelyan's three previous volumes were devoted. The narrative of the early teaching which fired Manin for the cause of Venice and of Italy, the constitutional agitation which cost him his liberty, and the rising which freed him from prison to proclaim anew the ancient Venetian Republic, is stirring and inspiring. However fully the enthusiasm and devotion of the people, and the ability of Manin's officers may be recognised, it is clearly established that the whole campaign depended upon the energy of this one ailing man, and was in least peril when his authority was most complete. Mr. Trevelyan does not conceal his mistakes. But the fact that the author has to tell the story of a defeat, that after a year of siege Venice fell to the enemy, was not the fault of Manin. Whatever a man could give, he gave; as Mr. Trevelyan states, "No man raised to power by revolution has left a

purer record." Mr. Trevelyan's history moves swiftly and dramatically in spite of its full equipment of detail and documentation. Fairness is one of its most notable qualities, admirably displayed in the treatment of Pio Nono and Radetsky, and the author has supplemented his text with numerous maps, illustrations of unusual interest, and a valuable bibliography. When it is remembered that no other book on the subject is to be found in English, and that the standard Italian work is fifty years old, the importance of Mr. Trevelyan's study becomes apparent.

The Chief Ministers of England, 920-1720, by the Hon. Clive Bigham, C.M.G., C.B.E. (Murray). The success of Colonel Bigham's work on the Prime Ministers of England for the last two hundred years, which appeared last year, has encouraged him to compile a volume dealing with their forerunners. Beginning with Saxon times and the rule of St. Dunstan, who survives rather in legend than in recorded history, he has traced the development of this great office, and the personal history of its holders, for eight hundred years, up to the beginning of Government by a Cabinet. The great Burghley and his son loom largest of all the twenty-seven statesmen with whom the author deals. There are gaps in the story where powerful rulers trusted to themselves alone, and where foolish rulers could keep no great man by them, and there are tragedies enough, as the names of De Montfort and Strafford bear witness. The volume ends with Harley, the Lord High Treasurer of Queen Anne, and the author's verdict is that, all things considered, "the vast majority of the Chief Ministers were worthy of their trust," and well able to bear comparison with the illustrious figures of any other country. Colonel Bigham writes throughout with vigour, judgment, and impartiality. He does not spare his subjects their blemishes; he brings out the qualities which won them their position; and he has done useful work in assembling this collection of political portraits.

All in a Lifetime, by Henry Morgenthau (William Heinemann). In this autobiography Henry Morgenthau draws a picture of a typical American product-of an immigrant who becomes Americanised and gains material success in the land of unlimited possibilities which offers prizes to men of energy, brains, and enterprise. Mr. Morgenthau acquires a fortune, goes into politics, becomes a friend of the late President Wilson, and is appointed, in 1913, United States Ambassador to Turkey. The personal narrative is most attractive and the quotations from private letters lend a charm to the volume. Every page of the book bears the impress of the writer's personality-whether he is describing his early struggles, or life in Constantinople, or his journey to the Holy Land, or his mission to Poland. He has a sense of humour and of the incongruities of life. He points out, for example, his own peculiar position in Constantinople. He was a European by birth, yet represented the greatest Republic of America; a Jew, he was Ambassador of the greatest Christian nation in the world. The book is alive with interest and deserves to take a foremost place among the autobiographies which have appeared of late.

Aspects of the Italian Renaissance, by Rachel A. Taylor (Grant Richards). This book is not a history of the Renaissance, but rather a

series of essays and reflections. Mrs. Taylor looks on the Renaissance with the eyes of a poetess; she strives to see the life of the time as the men and women of the age did. The artistic appeals to her immensely; one may say that she paints intensely impressionist pictures of the scholar, the artist, the courtier, the women, the papacy, and last but not least, the Florence of the Renaissance period. The book is distinctly personal, and an impression of the writer's method may be conveyed by saying that in her study of the Popes she avoids both the Catholic and Protestant views, and takes what may be termed the human view. Here is a specimen of her style. She is speaking of the Popes: "Consider these Popes therefore, each by each, for a moment-a strange human procession, crowned with the triple tiara, stiff like idols in their precious copes closed with marvellous morses, stricken with terrible diseases, racked with rapacities and unseemly desires, yet hungry for the beauty of the past, troubled with grandiose visions, fiercely energetic to create new splendours, unreasonably conscious of bearing some heavenly flame transmitted from the very breath of the Christ. Look at their heavy heads arrogantly stamped on their medals-heavy heads charged with animal Cæsarean will." To those who know nothing of the Italian Renaissance Mrs. Taylor's work can hardly be recommended as an introductory study. But those who are acquainted with the general trend of the history of the period will find the book stimulating.

Money, Credit and Commerce, by Alfred Marshall (Macmillan & Co. Ltd.). A new book from the pen of Dr. Marshall is an event, and the present volume is the third of a series of Economic Treatises which have long won for themselves the position of standard works on all aspects of economics. The latest of his volumes represents the result of a "study of the influences on the conditions of man's life and work, which are exerted by money, credit, and international trade." The questions which are treated in this book are thus distinctly topical-money and metallic currencies, the part played by credit in modern economic life, Stock Exchanges and investments, the relation between credit and unemployment, and the meaning of index numbers. As in all his works, Dr. Marshall is methodical and systematic, and above all lucid and readable. Dr. Marshall goes into the market place, for he desires to be understood by all men. While students will of necessity have to make themselves acquainted with Dr. Marshall's writings, the ordinary reader who desires to comprehend the economic trend of affairs around him will also turn to Dr. Marshall, and will find delight in the freshness of his treatment of one aspect of economic life which is of special interest to every citizen.

The Prospects of Industrial Civilisation, by Bertrand and Dora Russell (George Allen & Unwin). From time to time it is good to look on modern economic life and ask whither it is tending. Mr. Bertrand Russell and his wife have done this in a deeply thoughtful book which deserves notice by all serious readers, whether or no they agree with their conclusions. The fact is that there is much discontent in the world around us; the authors analyse its causes along wellknown socialistic lines, but in so original a fashion as to make them attractive. They recognise class war, they condemn private property,