Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/438

 428 Revieivs of Books " the Swamp Robin who dehghts in Solitude, avoiding the Haunts of Mankind, and whose chearful and sprightly Note in the dreary Wilder- ness often enlivens the weary Traveller ". The journal is well indexed and seems to be printed, in general, with praiseworthy accuracy; but Smith, who doubtless knew his Horace, never wrote (p. 49) " Credat I^d^ens Apella non Ego ". The " short history of the pioneer settle- ments " which forms three-fourths of the editor's introduction serves well enough as a pretext for a score of good half-tone views, but is too slight to deserve more serious consideration. The foot-notes, though perhaps adequate for the popular reader, will be found to explain the point which the student already understands more frequently than that as to which he needs enlightenment; and they are uniformly destitute of page references to the numerous books which they mention. e. H. H. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, i/^o-i//2. Edited by John Pendleton Kennedy. (Richmond, 1906, pp. xxxv, 333.) Like its predecessor, reviewed in this journal last year (XI. 420), this volume appears in sumptuous form. The preceding volume covered the last years of this venerable assembly, beginning with the year 1773. The present, also divided by calendar years, covers three sessions. The first, an adjourned session of the assembly of 1769, began May 21 and ended June 28, 1770. The second, a session of the same assembly after pro- rogation, lasted from July 11 to July 20, 1771. Then came a dissolution, and a new assembly, which began a session on February 10 and con- tinued it till April 11, 1772. The editor's introduction, which makes no distinction between adjournment, prorogation, and dissolution, and is not free from misprints, gives February 12 as the date of beginning of this session, and states that it adjourned on April 11, whereas the text shows plainly that it was prorogued. In the plan of issue, the next volume will run backward into the interesting years immediately preceding 1770. The text of the present volume is, of course, like that of almost any legislative journal, impossible to summarize. It is handsomely printed, with almost no annotation. It would be a convenience if dates appeared in the running headlines of the pages. Since the lists of burgesses are not a part of the journals, and therefore are open to question (e. g., the journal itself shows, pp. 252, 289, that Henry Blagrave's membership for Lunenburg is not completely stated in the list) the sources from which the list is compiled should be stated. Mr. Kennedy's introduction is mainly occupied with the questions of boundary which arose in the House of Burgesses during these years, and especially with documents on the Indian boundary and the grant to the Ohio Company. A map illustrating these matters is prefixed. Volume II. of the Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal In- stitution of Great Britain (1906, pp. vi, 604), recently issued by the His- torical Manuscripts Commission, was prepared by the late Mr. B. F.