Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/286

 278 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April lights up the record ; there is one such in the story of Rouland Bell in 1579, fined because he ' will not suffer his doge to be whipped out of churche in tyme of devine service but kepithe him uppe in his armes and gevithe frowarde words ' (p. 32) ; and there is a delightful extract from a song of a constable (of Albury, Surrey), in 1626, where the officer tells how his work helps to enlarge the mind. Thus : The Constable's warned to the Sessions then Unwilling some goes alas ! Yet there may he wit and experience lem If that he be not an asse (p. 105). Possibly the social life of the country parish is not as fully illustrated as it might be : there is very little to suggest, for instance, the standard of comfort or the standard of education ; the social status of the overseer is noted — he seems generally to have been a yeoman (p, 74) — but it would have been interesting to have evidence of the social status of the Anglican priest and particularly of his wife. There are glimpses of ' the pitiless severity of the age ' (p. 173) to beggars and to lunatics especially : happily one instance is known (at Yarm in 1608) of men who refused to whip vagrants (p. 101). The even-handed justice of local government, even in the Commonwealth period, is shown when in 1655 Lord Fairfax, rich and important though he was, was fined for being present at a stage play at Christmas (p. 70). Such details as these do not, however, obscure the puipose of the author, who has come to a clear conclusion as the result of her research. She believes that one reason for the peaceful nature of the revolution in 1688 was that the hard work of the local justices, as well as what she rightly describes as * the excessive duties ' of the lesser officials, absorbed most of the energies of ordinary men (p. 202). She calls attention to a like fact in the years of civil war after 1642, when, for the time, central control was relaxed ; she shows how, in the North Riding at any rate, ' the Courts (it is misprinted * Court ') of Quarter Sessions were held with little inter- mission and all the machinery for local government was kept going ' (pp. 215, 216). This exacting system of local government, impaid and arduous, which fell on each man in turn, is the source. Miss Trotter suggests, of the inherited * instinct for government and order which is characteristic of the British people ' (p. 117). Local government has produced some fine qualities in Englishmen, and consequently she regards centralization as a grave danger. To Miss Trotter's useful bibliography might well be added two books by the late Dr. J. C. Cox, on Parish Registers and Church- wardens^ Accounts : they would give fresh illustrations of the system described here, though they would not affect the author's conclusions. S. L. Ollard. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in other Libraries of Northern Italy. Vol. xxii. 1629-32. Edited by A. B. Hinds. (London : Stationery Office, 1919.) This volume covers the period from April 1629 to August 1632. Its contents relate principally to foreign affairs, but throw considerable light