Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/316

 308 SHORT NOTICES AprQ ducal palace at Venice is a reproduction of this statue. It is interesting to note that there are still remains of the Crutched Friars' monastery at Candia, while of the Greek religious houses the most famous is that of Arkadion, the scene of an act of heroism during the insurrection of 1866-9. Many decorations of private houses may be seen, used as gravestones in the Moslem cemetery at Candia. Special literary interest attaches to the illustration (p. 263) of the ruined Villa da Molin at Alikianou near Canea, the traditional scene of Zampelios's historical novel dealing with the insur- rection of 1570, Oi KprjTLKOL ydfioi, one of the few romances based upon the romantic events of Frankish Greece. This volume, like its predecessors, is profusely illustrated. W. M. Dr. P. J. Blok's Willem de Eerste Prins van Oranje, part i (Amsterdam : MeulenhofF, 1919), is a volume of the series of the Dutch Historical Library published under the direction of Professor Brugmans. It contains a number of illustrations from contemporary pictures and prints and is, like other volimies of this series, a very attractive-looking book. The author tells us in the preface that he had long cherished the wish to write the life of the founder of the Dutch state, and when death prevented Fruin from imdertaking the work he felt that he must himself do it. This volume is the first instalment, and carries the history down to 1572, when William, with his hopes of help from France destroyed by the St. Bartholomew massacre and his military operations against Alva a disappointing failure, withdrew to Holland. The narrative is delightfully lucid and — this perhaps it can hardly help being — absorbingly interesting. The notes or references are all relegated to twenty pages at the end of the volume, an arrangement which may be most convenient in a volume intended for general reading. It is very strictly a life of William — ^it contains little about the history of the country generally beyond what is necessary to elucidate his actions or views. There is one omission, which at least the foreign reader would be glad to see repaired, a map of the country as it was in William's day. If the second part of the book is as interesting as the first it will make a most admirable life of William of Orange. H. L. In De Road van State nevens Matthias, 1578-81 (The Hague : Nijhoff, 1917), originally a Leyden thesis, Dr. J. C. H. De Pater presents a study of the powers and the position of the council which the states-general appointed in 1577 to assist the new governor, the Archduke Matthias. Everything was anomalous in those years of chaos. The legitimate governor, Don John of Austria, had retired to the south, powerless and in disgrace. It was by the catholic and royalist party that Matthias, a cousin of Philip II, of whom it was hoped that he might prove acceptable to the king, had been called into the coimtry, but he had at once fallen imder the influence of the prince of Orange. The prince had also succeeded in getting several of the irreconcilable party appointed to the coimcil without which Matthias was not allowed to move a step. This council was called the council of state, like the old body to which, along with the governors, former sovereigns had delegated their powers. But it was frankly a revolu-