Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/927

 Mino7- Notices 9 1 7 Dr. Joyce's larger Social History of Ancient Ireland appeared in 1904 and was discussed in the ninth volume of this Review (p. 775). The book now in hand contains a briefer presentation of the same gen- eral material. By omitting nearly all references, and by closely restrict- ing quotations from documents and discussion of disputed points, the author has reduced the original work to a third, or less than a third, of its bulk. But the abridgment follows the plan of the longer treatise and covers the same ground. Scholars who wish to make a critical study of the material, or to test the validity of the sources of informa- tion, will naturally consult the complete edition. General readers or elementary students, on the other hand, will find in the single smaller volume a good description of early Irish civilization as it is portrayed in the native literature or as traces of it have been preserved in produc- tions of the ancient native arts. All phases of the life of the people, both public and private — government and laws, religion and education, the arts of war and peace — are included in the survey. The shorter work like the longer is freely illustrated with maps and drawings and excellent reproductions of many objects of artistic and archaeological interest. Certain criticisms which were made with reference to the larger work hold true in equal measure of the abridgment, though they are perhaps less fairly urged against a popular production. There is, from the nature of the case, no advance in the comparative study of the institutions treated; and the critical analysis of sources is still less ade- quate than it was before. This latter fault may fairly be deplored in a book addressed to the lay reader, where the clearest possible distinction should be drawn between legendary matter and trustworthy history. It would have been easy, without sacrificing much space, to make the reader better aware of the unequal authority of the different sources followed by the author. Exception might also be taken here and there to individual state- ments. The identification of Bel with the Phoenician Baal (p. 121) was questioned in the review of the earlier edition. The date of the Liber Hymnonim is certainly put too early on page 222. The total denial of human sacrifice in Ireland (p. 119) is rather too positive, though evidence for it is scanty. (Cf. Dr. Kuno Meyer in Eriu, II. 86.) But the multiplication of these objections is not worth while, and the errors (assuming them all to be such) do not greatly impair the value of the book as an account of early Irish life. If the description is a little idealized — and this idealization is somewhat more apparent in the sim- ple and dogmatic narrative of the shorter work — the exaggeration may have its value in counteracting in the popular mind the traditional, and far more erroneous, impression of the savagery of the " wild Irish ". The Lombard Communes: A History of the Republics of North Italy. By W. F. Butler, M.A., Professor of Modern Languages, Queen's Col- lege, Cork. (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906, pp. 495.) This