Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/619

 1920 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 611 conditions, was successful there, but proved quite inadequate for what was needed in the novel environment and dislocating circumstances of large manufacturing in industrial urban centres. There, in Mr. Fay's vivid and suggestive words, ' desperate and excited men who knew that they were miserable ' ' struck blindly at the thing which insulted their misery '. We do not remember to have met elsewhere this brilliant solution of what was unquestionably puzzling. But it satisfies. L. L. Price. Biographisch Woordenboek van Protestantsche Godgeleerden in Nederland. Onder Redactie van Dr. J. P. De Bie en Mr. J. Loosjes. Eerste Deel A-B, Tweede Deel C-E, Aflevering F. (The Hague : NijhofE, s.a.) This work was originally planned by Dr. H. G. Kleyn, who when he died in 1896 had done little more, we are told, than draw up an incomplete list of names. What is now published is the production, it appears, of MM. Visscher and van Langeraad. Individual lives are not signed, there being hardly any important notice in which both writers have not had some share. We are informed that, notwithstanding their divergent views in theology, a partnership was possible, since they were agreed on the principle laid down by Professor Acquoy that the historian ' zal streven naar volkomen objectiviteit en onpartijdigheid, d.i. het streven om zonder eigene sympathien of antipathien aan alle personen recht te doen wedervaren '. It is to the memory of Acquoy and Kleyn that the book is dedicated. No one who has searched in biographical dictionaries for obscure persons, in vain, will quarrel with a liberal view of what justifies admission. The letters A to F fill seventeen hundred pages. A includes 100 names in 275 pages. The biographical matter of an article is followed by a table of the subject's writings, and a list of authorities. Both these are on an ample scale. Thus the bibUography of Anthonius Driessen's works fills five pages, and over three, closely printed, are given to the authorities for Petrus Dathenus's life. Nor are these lists always mere enumerations. In the notice of Willem Broes (1766-1858), for example, there is a two-page analysis of his Engelsche Hervormde kerk, benevens haren invloed op onze Nederlandsche, 1825. To Gerbrand Bruining are ascribed some forty publications on such various subjects as algebra, the elements of English, mesmerism. Napoleon, synonyms, and first principles of theology, and the contents are given of the eighteen sections of his autobiography. The writers have plainly spared no labour in accumulating specific information. They record ten variations of Ijsbrand Balk's name and fourteen ways of spelling Feugueraeus. Their passion for detail may be illustrated by one typical example. In the notice of J. B. Bennet (1717-58), the author of a wonderful sermon on the life and death of Adam, we have neatly packed in sixteen lines the year and place of his birth, the day, month, and year of his registration as a student of theology, the day, month, year, and examiner's name when he was tested preparatorily by the Leyden Classis, the precise date of his first call, the day when he was ' bevestigd ', the preacher and text on that occasion, the text of his first sermon, the text of his farewell sermon when he accepted a call elsewhere, that of his first sermon to his new flock, Rr 2